Once in a while I like to do a quick roundup of some of the cool sites and apps that I come across, and today’s list is one that centers around our senses – specifically some eye candy and auditory apps.

Bumptop

First up in the list is Bumptop. We got a sneak preview of Bumptop 2 years ago at a Ted conference, but it’s finally been released, and it’s as cool as expected. This 3D interactive desktop manager has to be seen to be appreciated. Here’s a video I found of it.

Babbel

Let’s switch over to the sense of hearing for a moment. If you’ve always wanted to learn a foreign language, the web makes it so easy these days. I’m sure there are lots of places to learn this, but I’ve recently been using babbel.com to learn Spanish. The exercises are fun and intuitive. You can learn on your own or practice with other people around the world. It uses images and real voices, and it keeps track of your progress. There’s lots of reasons babbel.com makes it easier to learn a language, but you almost need to try it to understand. Here’s a little screenshot of my dashboard.

Speed Dial

Switching back to the visual again, there’s Firefox’s Speed Dial addon. This addon mimics Opera’s speed dial functionality. It’s configurable, and you can have separate tabbed speed dials allowing you to visually organize your favorite sites. Here’s a screenshot of one of my tabbed Speed Dials.

CoolIris

And finally, to end this sensory journey on a visual bang, is CoolIris. This is eye candy that allows you to quickly browse photos and media in a very cool way. By quickly (and infinitely) scrolling through a wall of photos or videos, you can easily pick out what you need. Works for media on your computer, or on websites like MySpace, Facebook, Hulu, Youtube, Picasa, Flickr, Google Images, and lots more. Again, only a visual look at it does it justice, so here’s a video I found that shows it better.

Technology is starting to get fun again as the bling catches up to the imagination. Have fun with these cool apps.