Tag: technology

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Putting a stop to mobile addiction

Can’t help pressing the mobile screen button every few seconds? Here are apps that will track your mobile use and help reduce phone dependency

 

In May, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) opened a first-of-its-kind clinic in the country—a centre to treat teenagers’ obsession with social networking, instant chatting apps, texting and mobile games. In other words, addiction to mobile phones.

Though there have not been any formal studies on how addicted we are to the little black device in our hands, most of us show symptoms of what some psychologists cautiously call mobile-phone overuse—checking the phone every few minutes, fidgeting with it in public spaces and parties, and becoming impatient or worried if we’ve left it at home. Don’t believe it? These apps will help you understand how addicted you are to your phone.

My Mobile Day

Süleyman Kuzula, a 26-year-old Turkish engineer based in Germany, created My Mobile Day because he felt that people, especially children, were on the way to becoming “mobile phone zombies”. “My app can help people organize their mobile phone and control their own behaviour of mobile use,” says Kuzula.

BreakFree

Created by Mumbai- based app development company Mobifolio in January, BreakFree is the brainchild of Mrigaen Kapadia and his wife Nupur Kapadia. They realized that both of them, as well as their family and friends, were hooked to their smartphones. “We thought it would be nice to have something on the phone which could monitor how addicted you are to your phone and show the facts to you, and so BreakFree was born,” says Kapadia. BreakFree scores you on addiction, letting you track the time you spend on the phone and compete with friends and family to reduce phone dependency.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/DsW0zuTzCeCSmaY9ypENCN/Putting-a-stop-to-mobile-addiction.html?utm_source=copy

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Shield your Android

Is your ‘droid’ device protected against increasingly devious virus attacks? If not, here are some life-savers

 

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Of all the new threats against mobile operating systems in the second half of 2013, 97% were targeted against Android, according to the “Threat Report” released by security research firm F Secure Labs in March. It doesn’t end there. According to the report, India tops the list in reporting Android malware.

Given that 93% of Indian mobile Internet users are on Android, according to research firm International Data Corp., that’s not surprising. “Android is the most popular and widely used operating system worldwide, with over a million new devices being activated every day,” says Ritesh Chopra, country manager (India) at software security firm Symantec Corp. “When it (Android) gave smartphone users more freedom to install software from outside their official marketplace, it also opened the doors to malware authors, who have spent years honing their techniques,” he adds.

In a February report, Symantec stated that on an average, 272 new malware variants and five new malware families targeting Android were discovered every month in 2013. “These threats can steal your personal and financial information, track you, send premium-rate SMS messages, and display intrusive adware,” says Chopra.

Android has been designed with multilayered security to anticipate and tackle malware attacks on it as well as attacks on third-party apps in its official marketplace. But what Google didn’t anticipate was the illegitimate marketplaces on the Internet.

“Today, it’s Android’s compromised versions of legitimate apps that have become a problem,” says Sriram Raghavan, security and forensics consultant, Secure Cyber Space, a firm that helps businesses secure their Web presence. These versions are available on unregulated third-party Android marketplaces, or free versions of paid apps that can be downloaded from anywhere and installed. They work exactly like the paid app but with a slight difference; they have an innocuous additional code inserted in them, a malware. Raghavan believes security apps might offer at best limited protection.

Once the malware is inside your system, it can do anything, from getting access to voicemail, call logs, notifications, user passwords for apps, or even sending SMSes. “You can update your software but some malwares are smart and update with the operating system,” says New Delhi-based cyber security expert Dominic K. The best protection against malware is to disable apps downloaded from unknown or unauthenticated sources.

“Trust only the Google play app store or the device manufacturer’s online store,” says Raghavan. Also, never connect to open or unknown Wi-Fi networks and remember to install an authenticated remote wipe or lock app in the unlikely event that the device is stolen or lost. Plus, always lock your screen when the device is inactive. And of course, choose one of the apps we list here to better protect your device.

McAfee Antivirus and Security

Other than scanning the apps you install and checking your phone constantly for malware, the 4.0 version of McAfee updated in March, can wipe off your data and restore it from a backup if the phone is stolen.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/3iY6fBN4guORlkzJ6LETnI/Shield-your-Android.html?utm_source=copy

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7 silly things we do with smartphones

Among them, using abbreviations to send text messages, shooting videos incorrectly, and letting apps eat into battery life

Ever run around like a headless chicken in search of a socket, to plug in your dying smartphone? Or been told off for talking too loudly on the phone in a public place? The first brands you as someone who can’t stay away from those shiny little touch screens, even momentarily. The second is a dead giveaway that you are a recent digital immigrant. Here are seven ways to avoid being seen as a smartphone addict and being exposed as a smartphone newbie.

phonemain--621x414Keeping all the notifications on, always

There was a time when a ping meant only SMS. Now pings and push notifications can mean anything from a friend liking something on your social network, or an app pushing in weather information to you, an email, a new music update or a WhatsApp ping. That’s a lot of notifications, and checking and replying to them means that you actually are more glued to your phone’s screen than to life. Scientists at the University of Bonn in Germany recently developed an app to track the usage of smartphones among students. They found that on an average the students activated the phone more than 80 times a day, every 12 minutes. About 15% of this time was spent on WhatsApp, while Facebook took 9% and games 13%.

DO: Find out how addicted you are to your smartphone with Menthal (Menthal.org, free on Google play), an app developed by the University of Bonn scientists to measure cellphone use. The app runs in the background and records every time you unlock your phone, start an app, or receive a call—and tells you how much of your time is consumed by your phone. Oh, and switch off, or at least silence, all those annoying notifications.

Taking videos in the portrait mode

Unless you plan to play the video only on your phone or mean to share it on the app Vine (the only place where it might be acceptable), or share it with a person who has a head attached perpendicularly to her body, may we suggest you keep your phone in a landscape position every time you take a video? That is the long way instead of the tall way in phones. Most smartphones still don’t have the post-edit ability to rotate a video like a photograph. And most video browsers don’t come with the ability to play the video in its portrait mode. The ones which do, show thick black bars on both sides of a video, which can get slightly irritating. There’s an additional reason that all videos are wide rather than tall. We as humans are meant to see the world left to right rather than top to bottom.

DO: Want to correct something you have already shot in the portrait position? Download Video Swivel (iTunes, free) or the VLC media player on the desktop (Videolan.org, free) and straighten it up before you share.

Thinking it is clean

Touching your phone just before you eat might not be such a great idea. ‘Which?’, a technology daily magazine based in the UK, did a study in September and found that smartphones had a whopping 140 ‘Staphylococcus aureaus’, a bacteria that causes severe stomach pain, while the toilet seats they tested had less than 20 of the creatures. And did we add that tablets had a whopping 600 of them? DO: Unplug your devices, switch them off and wipe them clean with a damp, lint-free cloth.

Read the complete article at: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/nGKC2MkBes05NuhEwSj97L/7-silly-things-we-do-with-smartphones.html?utm_source=copy

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Manage the cloud

Finding it difficult to remember if your presentation was uploaded on Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive? Here are apps to consolidate your free cloud storage

Our lives are scattered in the cloud, distributed across online storage accounts. A few gigabytes on Dropbox, a few more on Microsoft’s OneDrive and a few gigs on Google Drive and Apple’s iCloud. One can manage three, two, or even four, but with new services offering 50 GB free for data storing online (see “More than 10 GB”), it is becoming difficult to remember what is stored where, and almost impossible to use what you’ve uploaded. Which is where you can opt for one of these consolidation services. These let you search, view, edit and transfer data from one cloud service to another seamlessly, through a Web or mobile app. Time to live in the cloud!

Mover

Want to move your files from one storage space to another? That’s where Mover comes in. The app lets you copy, merge and transfer files between each cloud storage service you use, easily. The transfer from one cloud to another is especially pain-free and fast, working in the background and sending you an email once it’s done. So if you’ve heard the bad news that the free storage service you have been using forever is shutting down, like Ubuntu One, use Mover to shift the data stored there to a new cloud storage service. Mover.io. Available on desktop. Personal plans from $15, or around Rs.900, a month allow five scheduled moves. Free for one move.

CloudGOO

Jared Preston, co-owner of cloudGOO, decided to work on an aggregating cloud service after he found that he and his friends and colleagues in Seattle, US, were struggling to consolidate and aggregate their storage space online. CloudGOO launched its Android version in March, following it up with an iOS version launch in April. The app supports Google Drive, SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, SugarSync and iCloud (on iPhone) and the service offers just a basic view-only platform, something Preston hopes to change with updates. But there are some cool features that make the app worthwhile, including the fact that you can ask cloudGOO to automatically upload your pictures, videos and documents from your device to the cloud. It’s smart enough to see which of your cloud storage platforms has the space and upload the content there.

Otixo

Launched in January 2012, Otixo is an old horse still going strong. Aimed at small businesses and collaboration on the cloud without boundaries, the app offers strong features for personal use, including collating all your files in the cloud, transferring files from one cloud to another with a simple drag-and-drop, and creating projects called “Spaces” to collaborate, share files and folders across any cloud. Headquartered in Boulder, US, the service supports a whopping 29 platforms in its ecosystem, including online storage services, social networks like Facebook and document-management platforms like Alfresco.
First published in livemint.com. Read the complete article here.

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Apps that mean business

Travelling for work? Download these apps to keep you on track

Are you the incessant air-mile collector like George Clooney in the 2009 Hollywood film Up In The Air? The kind of business traveller who’s more at home at airports across the world rather than back at home? If yes, these apps might help you reduce your stress and get some more work done on the go.

Hipchat

Want to chat and video chat on the go with your team? Head to HipChat, a group chat platform for teams. Other than allowing voice and video chats in groups, it also lets you screen-share, share files through a simple drag-and-drop interface and share code and ideas with your teams. You can have a one-to-one with a co-worker from the team at any point. If there’s a meeting on HipChat that you weren’t able to attend, you can see the chat history and continue conversations right where you left them. All communication through HipChat is encrypted so it’s safe for meetings. The best part? It runs on almost every platform.

Hipchat.com; free on iTunes, Google Play, Linux, Windows, Mac and the Web. In-app (or additional) purchase of the video-calling service costs $2 (or around Rs.120) a month

Mynd

Mynd is a smart calendar which manages your time efficiently. Updated in July, the app syncs your existing calendars and then uses its adaptive machine learning to help you like a virtual assistant, getting smarter with every choice you make. The aim is to save you time, manage your goals, prepare you for meetings and get you from point A to B. You can dial-in to conference calls with one click; the calendar also coordinates a group’s meeting by proposing multiple meeting times. Every morning it will warn you of how long it will take you to reach work. It also syncs with your LinkedIn account and automatically discovers and displays information about the people you’re going to meet.

Mynd.me; free on iPhone

WorldMate

Want someone to make an itinerary for you? Head to WorldMate. All you have to do is forward your flight and hotel confirmation emails to [email protected] and the app converts it into an itinerary. Once your itinerary is made, the app will send flight alerts and if it perceives you’re going to miss it, WorldMate sends details of alternative flights to the same destination. You can share the itinerary, add more to the schedule and get a map view of your travels. Updated in July, the app also recommends hotels based on your past trips and personal preferences. The best feature is its LinkedIn integration, which alerts you if any of your colleagues are nearby for an impromptu meeting or dinner.

Worldmate.com; free on Google Play, iTunes and Windows Phone

DocuSign

Meant for managers who don’t want to keep decisions pending while they’re travelling, DocuSign lets you sign documents electronically and send them in just minutes to your team. Built on digital transaction management technology, which is a category of secure cloud-based software to digitally manage business transactions, DocuSign electronic signatures are valid and legally binding across the world…

 

First published in Livemint.com. For complete article, click below
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Twitter toes the line

The redesign of the microblogging site reflects the changing user profile of social networks—but the look is very similar to that of its competitors
In February, for the first time in Twitter’s history, chief executive officer Dick Costolo acknowledged that Twitter needed to reach a larger and more varied audience. “By bringing the content of Twitter forward and pushing the scaffolding of the language of Twitter to the background, we can increase high-quality interactions and make it more likely that new or casual users will find the service as indispensable as our existing core users do,” Costolo announced at a meeting with investors.
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The aim, he explained, was to create more visually engaging content. This was reflected in the announcement on changes in a user’s profile page on Twitter’s official blog (Blog.twitter.com) a week ago. The new profile allows for a huge, rectangular cover photo, a profile picture, with the capability to pin a tweet to the top, checking the favourite tweets of a user, or showing the most retweeted tweet in a bigger, easier-to-read font. The visual design changes also give the user the power to upload multiple pictures in a single tweet, making it all the more obvious that Twitter believes going visual is the way to survive the social networking game. The design of the Twitter profile page, however, now looks eerily similar to the Facebook and Google+ profiles.

Going mainstream

According to a November report by Business Insider Intelligence, a research service from business news website Business Insider, Facebook is the dominant social networking platform with 1.23 billion users worldwide, with YouTube following closely at one billion users. Twitter has a mere 241 million users worldwide, not even close to the two “mass” social networks.

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Looking to pay through your mobile?

Try these apps Turn your smartphone into a wallet. Here are some apps you can try

Pay for petrol, buy lunch, shop for groceries—without taking out your wallet. All you need to do is tap or click on your smartphone. In a country where many users are going online through mobile, digital wallets could well be the next big thing.

Also called electronic wallets or e-wallets, this technology allows you to make financial transactions with a smartphone. This could include paying for stuff when you’re at a shop with just a tap of your phone, transferring money to a friend, or paying for movie tickets, cabs, home bills, travel, without taking out your credit or debit card, or cash.

Start-ups and companies are hopping on to the bandwagon with options ranging from Near-Field Communication (NFC), Bluetooth and even money transfer to a phone number without details of the other person’s bank account.

Internationally too, companies like Apple, Google and Amazon have gotten into the space with their own e-wallets, exploring this nascent technology. In India, however, regulations and policies make the process of implementation a little different. To protect consumers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandates that each online transaction in the country go through two-factor authentication. Step 1 is the CVV number and step 2, a one-time-password (OTP). This process, which is not required in other countries, has proved to be a slight hiccup for companies like Uber, a US-based ride-sharing service, in accepting cash-free payments from customers. In August, the RBI rapped Uber when it started routing its payments through international gateways to automatically bill its Indian consumers and avoid the cumbersome two-step authentication.

Uber was not alone. Other e-merchants had been doing it too. The RBI issued a circular later that month, making it mandatory for all companies to settle payments within the country with two-factor authentication by October. “If someone has violated the rules, they should be pulled up,” says Saurabh Tripathi, partner and director at Boston Consulting Group, a strategy and general management consulting firm. He believes, however, that the current mobile payment regulations can be eased a bit. “For example, RBI could change it to a single-factor authentication for small payments of, say, up to Rs.1,000,” he says. This will give a push to the new technology and make mobile payments more common.

Some Indian start-ups are trying to figure out ways to work with the guidelines. “The extra step of second authentication adds friction, making the dropout rate higher,” says Nitin Gupta, chief executive officer (CEO) of PayU India, an online payment processor company. To deal with it, Gupta acquired Eashmart, a mobile-based payment app, in October to add a single nifty feature to his app: “When you start a transaction, we request the bank to send you a One-Time Password, which our app automatically reads and shows you. All you do is say yes.”

Looking to pay through your mobile? Then try out some of these apps in the market right now.

KayPay

Launched in October, KayPay is a simple way to transfer money to any of your Facebook friends. To begin, you have to log into KayPay’s site with your Facebook ID, allow it to use your Facebook profile information, and then add your bank details. Once that’s done, simply select the Facebook friend you want to send money to, put in the amount and the OTP sent to your phone. Your friend gets a notification about the money in her Facebook account and can log in within 48 hours into KayPay’s site to retrieve it. If she doesn’t, the money comes back to your account. Your bank account details stay with Kotak Mahindra Bank, the creators of the app, but it is not necessary to have an account with Kotak to use this app. Charges undisclosed. Currently works with 27 banks. www.kaypay.com

MobiKwik wallet

MobiKwik is a prepaid wallet. Once you fill it up, you can use it to recharge your phone, pay your bills, transfer money and buy from e-merchants. Money can be transferred into the MobiKwik wallet through cards, cash and netbanking, and it supports payment to major e-merchants like BookMyShow, Dominos, redBus, etc. “MobiKwik now processes about 200,000 transactions a day,” says Bipin Preet Singh, founder and CEO, MobiKwik. “Forty per cent of them come from movie and bus ticket bookings, purchases on e-commerce sites and bill payments, and 60% via phone recharges.” Now it is working on adding an e-KYC process so that users can increase the maximum wallet limit from Rs.10,000 to Rs.50,000. Free on Web, Android, Windows, iOS and BlackBerry. www.mobikwik.com

HotRemit

Launched in October, HotRemit allows you to transfer money to another HotRemit account, or to a Facebook, mobile or BBM contact, without the other person’s bank account details. Other than transferring money, you can also use the app to pay e-merchants. Currently, the app makers are working on launching their Android and iOS apps and convincing merchants to adopt NFC payments, where you just tap your phone to make the payment. …

First published in livemint.com . Read the complete article here:
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Articles written in March

An app for a hobby

Write more, sing a better song, take a spectacular photograph or sketch something quickly. Take your hobby to the next level with these aids

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VSCO Cam 3.0

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Started by a group of people who love taking pictures, VSCO Cam comes with delightful features and its tools give you manual control over the picture. “I love their presets and find the feature of turning on the flashlight and taking a picture, instead of one-blink flash, really, really useful,” says Naina Redhu, a visual storyteller and photographer based in New Delhi.

The tools provide precision, including fine-tuning, exposure, temperature, contrast, fade and vignette. Once you have tinkered with the image, the app shows you the original and the final.

For quickies, it also has preset packs. Once done, you can share it easily on multiple social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In February, the VSCO Cam app released a new version, fully integrating itself to the VSCO Grid, a free photo publishing platform that has become the ‘it’ place for photographers.

VSCO Cam 3.0, free on Google play and iTunes; in-app purchases, or additional features, Rs.55 onwards.

 

645 Pro Mk II

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Released in June, 645 Pro’s new version is a perfect app to convert your iPhone into a manual camera. The features include real-time ISO, shutter-speed readings, focus, exposure control, real-time GPS data and a choice of histograms. The interface can be customized and you can configure the Shutter Release button to behave the way you want it to. This new version allows you to give an old-style, film-look output and save completely unprocessed image data at the highest quality possible. “With 645 I can shoot TIFF or RAW files from my iPhone which are raw and have higher resolution than a JPEG,” says Aneesh Bhasin, a photographer based in Mumbai. “I have managed to shoot a major professional assignment (for a book) with just my iPhone and this app.”

The app also comes with wow features like Film Modes, inspired by classic film stock from the 1960s, which can be edited, personalized and saved unprocessed to process later on your desktop.

645 Pro Mk II, Rs.220 on iTunes.

Read the complete article here.

 

 

Snooze away

World Sleep Day went by on Friday and if you still haven’t figured out the best way to nod your way to dreamland, here are some apps and gadgets that can help

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Facebook and Twitter got you addicted to notifications; smartphones have been termed sleep killers; and then there is the addiction to late-night TV. According to a 2012 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, light from the smartphone’s LED screen is responsible for convincing your brain that it’s daytime, turning you into a sleepless zombie. The same gadget, however, can sing you a lullaby, be a sleep doctor, even remind you when you need to nod off. We have compiled a list of apps and gadgets that can help you catch some Zzzs.

Sleep Genius

Having trouble sleeping? Sleep Genius uses neurosensory algorithms that were first used to zonk out astronauts in space who couldn’t sleep because they were weightless and couldn’t lie down. The app produces vibrations that simulate a rocking motion like a cradle for your brain. The “noise” it creates has a calming effect and slows heart rate and breathing, creating a lull perfect for deep sleep. It also makes sure that your alarm wakes you up with gentle soothing sounds rather than a sudden blast of noise. Plus, if you want to sneak in a nap, it lets you take an average 30-minute one (you can also set your own time).

www.sleepgenius.com

Sleep Genius, free on iTunes

SleepRate

Developed by scientists who have 20 years’ experience in dealing with insomniacs, this app analyses why you can’t sleep. While you sleep, it uses data from a heart-rate monitor, along with your iPhone’s microphone, to monitor the quality of your sleep and analyse what may be disturbing you at night (barking dogs, snoring partners, it reveals all). During the day, it shoots questionnaires at you, including asking for information about your lifestyle, napping and stress habits. Finally, after five nights, using algorithms developed at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, US, the app sifts through the data and sends a personalized report on how to improve dozing time.

Read the complete article here.

 

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The story of us

There’s nothing more romantic than remembering the things you did together as a couple, be it something as simple as holding hands or jumping off a plane to skydive. This Valentine’s Day, we suggest you put together your memories in a beautiful personal story for your partner. Here are the apps that can help you in the process.

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Glossi

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Announce your love through an online glossy. Create a magazine of your relationship with Glossi, a free digital platform which lets you drag and drop images, videos, PDFs, audio and animations into layouts inspired by fashion magazines, catalogues and even travelogues. Then add in links, headlines and write a poem or two and you are ready to gift a personal magazine to your partner. This online format can be shared on all major social networks, embedded on blogs and websites and viewed on tablets and mobiles.

Glossi.com, free.

Timehop

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How about a time capsule of your relationship? Especially apt for relationships which have seen a few years, you can walk down the memory lane together by seeing the photos and updates from last year’s or last to last year’s Valentine’s Day that you spent together. The app takes your content from Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Dropbox, Flickr and iPhoto. Then it syncs your images together on a Mac. Once you’ve got everything set up, Timehop will show you all social activity on a particular day. It also automatically shows you good times from your past—the app will pick up a post or a photograph which was popular with your friends and feed it into your phone’s app.

Timehop.com, free on iTunes.

Heyday

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Forgot to make an extra effort before Valentine’s Day? Plan the day with your partner and then using Heyday automatically record all your moments together. Launched in December, Heyday will stitch your moments with each other by keeping track of the places you go to and the things you see. It also automatically picks up the photos you took with your phone in all these places and creates collages with them putting it all together in a timeline. You can customize the collage with layouts and filters and then surprise your partner by mailing it to her/him.

Hey.co, free on iTunes.

Memloom

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Tell your partner how special she is by creating a personal story for her using Memloom. Launched in January, Memloom is a storytelling tool where you can upload the various moments in your relationship, including pictures, audios and videos. Now using one of the layouts offered, stitch them together in a magazine-like format. Add audio narration to give it a personal touch.

Memloom.com, $2.95-9.95 (around Rs.190-620) a month—free for up to five stories— available on the iPad and Web.

 

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Supercharge for office

More and more people are using their cellphones as computers, and if you’re carrying a “computer” in your pocket, why not put it to work? A phone isn’t always a good replacement for a computer—good luck filling in giant Excel sheets on a 4-inch screen—but there are some ways in which phones can really simplify your work life, or just take a little of the stress away. We look at new apps that can bust work stress.

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RescueTime

If you’ve ever had a day where you go in with 10 items on your agenda and end with all 10 untouched, then you need to look at this free app. RescueTime helps you track how you’re using your phone, and can be used to identify the major distractions that keep you from getting work done. RescueTime is a popular app on Google play, with over 700,000 downloads, and its iOS version is expected to launch in February. The app is simple—all you have to do is install it and it will run in the background. You go about your daily usage without having to check the app, and whenever you want to analyse your phone usage, just open RescueTime and you can see an efficiency score that helps you easily track your progress in cutting down on distractions. RescueTime will tell you which apps you’ve been using, how much time you spend on each, and will also track phone calls, so you know exactly how you’ve been spending your time—it even lists your top distractions. There’s also a handy stopwatch to use in meetings or during exercise.

RescueTime is free with some paid features at $9 (around Rs.550) a month, on Android and browser. The iOS app will launch in February.

Talygen Business Intelligence

Location awareness and being online all the time make phones a great way for employees on the road to check in with their office. Talygen is a paid app that helps employees manage all the paperwork without any paper, so they can focus on the important parts of their job. This tool is useful for small business owners who want to keep track of on-the-road employees or time spent in a client’s office. You can track billable time, work on customer relationship management, expense accounting, manage leave and many other administrative issues.

The app, launched last month, makes it really easy for your employee to check in on the go so that you, as the manager, save time tracking. Everything is organized on the cloud and the data can be accessed through the app. The data can also generate an advanced report which can then be exported into a PDF or an Excel file.

Talygen, $20 a month onwards, on iTunes, Google play, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

Agent

Is your smartphone’s battery always dying on you? Install this personal Agent, a smartphone app which does little things to make your phone, well, smarter. The app runs in the background and saves the battery by automatically dimming the screen when your battery signals low, automatically silences your phone during meetings, remembers where you parked your car and puts your phone to auto-respond when you’re driving. It also allows only urgent calls or messages when you’re sleeping. The app is triggered by Bluetooth and it can also read your SMSes aloud or send automatic responses, or reply to a select list of contacts only. It was launched in November, and the makers are adding more features. “In 2014, the app will be able to call you a cab right before your next meeting,” says Kulveer Taggar, CEO and co-founder, “or pay for your coffee before you get to work.”

Agent, free on Google play.

Limitless

 

Limitless is meant for anyone who wants to manage their time on devices better. The productivity tool, which works on Google Chrome, gives an update on how much time of the day was spent productively and how much of it on Facebook and Twitter. “We are a behavioural science company that helps users get work done,” says Anup Gosavi, co-founder, Limitless. “If the person has the desire to become more efficient in how they use their devices, Limitless can be the right productivity companion.” The tool categorizes the various websites you visited on your Chrome browser and differentiates with tags like work, social and other learning. At the end of the day, it shows you the percentage you spent in each of those sections. It also has nudges, albeit gentle, to get you back to work. Launched in December, the tool is still in its early stages, releasing updates and building up Limitless for Safari, Firefox and mobiles.

Complete article on www.livemint.com