One of the best Android apps since launch is ShopSavvy, a great barcode scanning program which we loved since the days of seeing the first GoCart videos!

The latest version of ShopSavvy is 3.5, and brings with it a wealth of great new features to take the pain out of the shopping and comparison experience (just like Omio does with mobiles)!

Still using the camera to scan the background, they have added over 750,000 items (bringing their total to over 20 million products),  1000 retailers and faster laod times to make ShopSavvy even more useful.

Stock notifications, integration with Google Product Search and the ability to even visit retailers beyond ShopSavvy through the app makes this a must-have download.

Get ShopSavvy from here!

The latest T-Mobile G1 apps are making headway in terms of nefarious activity, as the latest offerings are an interesting spin on scanning apps like ShopSavvy.

The premise remains the same in that you use the G1’s camera to scan barcodes of CDs, DVDs and the like, and the result is that instead of receiving a comparison of prices, you get a handy torrent link to download it for free!

ScanTorrent is the latest of these, giving users a scary amount of details as soon as a product is scanned, and then sends off the torrent data straight to your home computer. By the time you get back from a hard day of scanning, a PC full of pirate material!

ScanTorrent’s features include:

• Search by scanning barcode
• Search by entering title
• Google Base product lookup
• isoHunt torrent search
• Ability to omit results originating from certain torrent sites.
• Multiple “Client Sites” or uTorrent WebUI configurations.
• Download history
• Search history

Watch it in action!

Wow. Not available in Android Market just yet, but apps like these show how the power of open-source can come back and bite you in the butt.

When the G1 becomes synonymous with portable piracy, maybe Google will not be so disparaging about the App Store’s ‘walled garden’ policies….

By simply scanning the bar code of any product using the T-Mobile G1’s built-in camera, ShopSavvy search for the best prices online and nearby shops in physical space, using the internal GPS gubbins. It also has a bevy of Amazon-style product reviews to give consumers all the ammo they need to make the right purchase.

ShopSavvy rightly won Google’s bajillion dollar Android Developer Challenge and is currently available in Google’s Marketplace.

The only shortcoming was that the UK and Europe did not have a localised version, allowing shoppers to save by checking shops on this side of the pond… Well all that is about to change, as developers Big In Japan have released at the G1’s European launch event in Hamburg stating that ShopSavvy is coming over here on February 2nd!

“We are delighted to participate in today’s launch event in Hamburg and to spread the word about ShopSavvy in Germany and across Europe,” said Alexander Muse, co-founder of Big in Japan. “Even as of today, the ShopSavvy application has been used in 38 countries. We are confident that the European market will respond well to a ShopSavvy application that has been customized for European consumers.”

That we will… Just make sure you remove Woolworths from your list of retailers by the time it gets here. And Empire Direct. And Zavvi. And Land of Leather.

Wow, this credit crunch is biting.

UPDATE: Alexander Muse, co-founder of Big In Japan brought to my attention that an EU localised version of ShopSavvy launched as early as January 15th, so download it already! Oh man, am so chuffed that he even noticed G1 News existed!