Happy Valentine's Day! Today's installation of Tuesday Tech features items that keep you close to what you love — friends and family, your favorite music, even that special someone.
1. Lovestagram
This simple-yet-adorable site is a sweet way to send your Valentine a personalized message thanks to your Instagram feed. Created by Kaitlin Trigger, girlfriend of Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, the site creates cute messages based on photos that you and your sweetie have in common — photos he's commented on, photos she's liked, photos that reference both of you. Just type in your username to get started, then your Valentine's. Lovestagram creates a slideshow of your photos, all displayed under a Valentine-themed border. How sweet!
2. Chick-a-Dee
We wouldn't necessarily feature a traditional smoke detector as part of a weekly tech roundup, but the Chick-a-dee is an exception. It marries smart design and important functionality (that is: keeping you and your loved ones safe.) Originally the winner of a design competition in the Netherlands, it's just been approved for sale in the US. The smoke detector first emits a bird call similar to the familiar chick-a-dee call, then switches to a more standard and jarring sound that alerts you of smoke in the home. Which means: accidentally setting off your smoke detector while cooking up a batch of cookies is a lot less stressful.
3. TheMonstro.com
There's an endless number of ways to discover new music, but we love this latest idea for its simplicity and usefulness. Monstro uses your Twitter feed to see which music people in your network are sharing. Unsurprisingly, my personalized feed is filled today with Grammy-winning Adele, several albums of Whitney Houston, and the latest Katy Perry. Clicking on or searching for a song displays users who have shared it along with other songs they've shared. Voila: music discovery.
4. Hopper
Hopper is a smart web-based app with a brand-new mobile version that makes it easy to copy and paste content — links, text, photos — between the web and your mobile phone. It eliminates the need to email yourself information (the most common way of sharing between devices so far), and makes it easy to access what you want wherever you want it. The best part: Hopper is free, and available on the iPhone — an Android version is coming soon.
Do you have anything to add? Have you seen an awesome piece of technology or a new can't-live-without app? Let us know below or find us on Twitter.