Slack for iOS and Android: A Better Way to Collaborate With Coworkers

Slack for iOS and Android: A Better Way to Collaborate With Coworkers If you’re like most people, you work email account is an absolute disaster—most likely some unholy combination of short messages with friends, formal interactions with coworkers and higher ups, client emails, and various other outside communications. Slack wants to remove all the office conversation and collaboration into its own, easily searchable world. So while not quite an "email revolution," Slack does want to make you office chatter that much easier.

What does it do?

Slack aims to simplify three main things: messaging, file sharing, and the ever-present universal search feature. The app carries all the alerts and notifications you’re used to, as well as the convenience of syncing all your devices anytime you make a change. The main difference is how you interact with your coworkers within slack. You can share, serve, star, and comment on pretty much anything that makes its way through your inbox (images, PDF files, lines of text, Google documents, etc. And all this gets totally indexed, so you can find pretty much everything you could possibly want to look through in one place—a true universal search, if you will.

Why do we like it?

We’ve all gotten so used to having everything mashed into one place. And the great thing about Slack is that it doesn’t entirely change that concept, but it does make it immensely easier to sort through all the clutter. By creating a constant stream of conversation with coworkers, we get the huge dumping pot of text, email, images, data, etc. that we’ve grown to depend on, for better or for worse, but now we can actually find things in that dumping ground. New messages get highlighted, so when you’re like through a stream of conversation, you’ll know exactly where you should be looking. Plus, unlike some other contemporary email clients, Slack comes with a desktop version, so once you get in a routine, you can keep it—no matter if you’re on the go, at home, or in the office.

Currently, that app is only available to a select number of beta-testing groups, but interested parties can sign up online starting today for their chance to test out a new way of communicating at work.

Slack, Download this app for: iOS, Android; Free for basic version

The Best: True universal search

The Worst: Would like some way to incorporate email

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Digg’s mobile-optimized Reader and iOS app both get updates today, with an Android app promised shor

Digg’s mobile-optimized Reader and iOS app both get updates today, with an Android app promised shortly. And whichever device you use, you’ll now have the option of only showing unread folders and feeds. [Digg]

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A NASA Scientist Made an App Dedicated to More Secure Boobs

A NASA Scientist Made an App Dedicated to More Secure Boobs

Bras are pretty much some of the oldest pieces of tech around—the undergarment can even trace its roots all the way back to the freelovin’ days of ancient Greece. So as something most women wear nearly every day, it’s amazing how many studies have come out claiming that ladies everywhere our wearing their bras all wrong. ThirdLove, a new app headed up by a NASA scientist-led engineering team, hopes to change all that with nothing more than an iPhone and a few snapshots.

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YC-Backed SoundFocus Launches With An App For ’20/20 Hearing’, With Mysterious Hardware On The Way

Photo Aug 14, 9 27 06 AM

Alex Selig grew up with hearing loss, using hearing aids for most of his life. After studying engineering at Stanford University, he teamed up with Varun Srinivasan, a CMU computer science to build SoundFocus. Right now, SoundFocus is simply an app that tests your hearing capacity and tunes your music accordingly. But there are bigger dreams in the pipeline.

“This really started because, in doing some research, I found out that 600 million people in the world have hearing loss, yet only one in five people who need a hearing aid actually own one,” said Selig. “But getting a hearing aid isn’t like when you have bad vision and can stop into a drug store and pick up a pair of reader glasses. It’s much more difficult.”

That said, SoundFocus’ main goal is to one day sell a piece of hardware (they’re keeping mum on what exactly that will look like) that can be sold at general retail stores that automatically works to help correct your hearing.

For now, however, SoundFocus is working on building awareness of hearing loss through use of the app. After a one-minute test to determine the volume you can hear, and at which frequencies, SoundFocus then tunes your music accordingly to give you the clearest, most enjoyable audio experience you can enjoy.

The SoundFocus app lets you pull in music from your iTunes library on your phone, as well as your Spotify collection, as long as you have the premium mobile account on Spotify.






Though Selig and Srinivasan aren’t opening up about the hardware they’re working on, which should make an appearance sometime “in the next few months,” they did give a vague description.

“We’re working on something that will tune the audio coming out of your PC, tablet, or smartphone,” said Selig. “Eventually, we want to be able to tune anything you’re listening to today, but we’re starting out with things that come out of audio jacks.”

According to the founders, the business model revolves around the forthcoming hardware, as the app and usage of the app are free.

From the description, it sounds a lot like the SoundFocus guys are building a special set of headphones, but that could eventually morph into a cordless, wearable device like traditional hearing aids.

For now, however, the team is highly focused on the launch of the app. If you’re interested to find out whether or not you’re one of the 600 million people globally suffering from hearing loss, head on over and check out the SoundFocus app in the Apple App Store.

Spiri Is A Programmable Quadcopter That Lets Developers Focus On Building Airborne Apps

spiri

If you’re hankering to hurry up a Half Life-style future of eye-in-the-sky scanners keeping tabs on the comings and goings of human meat-bags you’re going to need a decent quadcopter to carry your dystopic dreams.  Enter Spiri, a programmable quadcopter that’s been designed as a platform for airborne app creation. It’s also autonomous, meaning you don’t have to have mad piloting skills yourself just to test whether your neighbour spy app works. And even if your neighbour gets annoyed and throws a rock at it, Spiri can take a few knocks (thanks to reinforced carbon fiber ribbon protecting its body/blades).

The Linux-based quadcopter comes stuffed with sensors, cameras, wi-fi — i.e. the sorts of things you might want to power your apps — plus cloud support and development tools. One advantage of using Spiri vs a less developer-friendly quadcopter is that devs don’t have to worry about controlling and correcting its flight (which is powered by a separate processor) — that side is taken care of, say its creators. So you can concentrate on honing your computer vision algorithms to peek into Mr Trilby’s garden shed.

Spiri’s Canada-based creators are hoping to build a community of developers around the device, so have an API and are developing an app platform for distributing apps:

Our API and library of flight primitives and other basic commands allow developers to work on top of the main chip, which runs Ubuntu Linux with ROS (Robot Operating System). This is an open source platform supported by an active community of hobbyists, engineers and scientists. We are designing a simple script-calling environment for end use, as well as a native programming environment for app development. The Spiri Applications Platform, also under development, will give developers a way to get their apps out to the wider Spiri user base.

The quadcoptor’s main processor, which will run your apps, is a 1Ghz dual-core ARM Cortex A-9, giving this gizmo roughly as much power as a mid-range Android smartphone. Airborne apps that might make sense for Spiri could include urban mapping or building maintenance use-cases, say it’s creators. But really thinking up the cool software stuff is where you guys come in.

Spiri’s makers are seeking to raise $125,000 via Kickstarter campaign to get this gizmo off the ground. One Spiri quadcopter can be yours if you pledge $520 — or there’s a dev preview kit option, which lets developers get Spiri plus an early look at the development environment, for $575. They’re aiming to ship to backers next April.

Windows Phone YouTube app re-launched following Google appeasement

In the middle of May, Microsoft received a nastygram from Google demanding that it pull its YouTube for Windows Phone app within one week due to certain issues with the app, namely the lack of advertisements and ability to download certain videos. Late that month, an agreement was struck betwixt the two companies, and today […]

After beefing with Google over YouTube ads, Microsoft just re-released an official YouTube app for W

After beefing with Google over YouTube ads, Microsoft just re-released an official YouTube app for Windows Phone. Get it here. [Windows Phone]

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YouTube App For Windows Phone Makes Its Way Back To The Store

YouTube App For Windows Phone Makes Its Way Back To The Store

Earlier this year, much to the dismay of Windows Phone users, the YouTube app was pulled from the store following a cease and desist letter from Google. It was later revealed that Google and Microsoft were working together to release a new app and the good news for Windows Phone users is that it looks like the app will be making its way back into the Windows Phone Store later today. This was confirmed by Microsoft where a spokesperson told The Verge, “We’ve released an updated YouTube app for Windows Phone that provides the great experience our consumers expect while addressing the concerns Google expressed in May, including the addition of ads.”

The app has been somewhat modified from its earlier incarnation and will no longer feature the download functionality, which we’re sure was a feature Google wasn’t too pleased about. The app also includes new features, such as video upload support, the ability to stream live video channels, voice search, voice activation, and more. If you’re a Windows Phone user who has been waiting for the app, hit up the Windows Phone Store for the free download.

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  • YouTube App For Windows Phone Makes Its Way Back To The Store original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Facebook reportedly working on celebrities-only mobile app

    Facebook is reportedly working on a new app that will only be offered to the celebrities among us, according to sources who spoke with the folks over at AllThingsD. This app is tailored to the social needs of celebrities, simplifying the process of dealing with fans while giving an added incentive to use the social […]

    MedSnap ID for iOS: Identify Pills & Potential Interactions In 1 Photo

    MedSnap ID for iOS: Identify Pills & Potential Interactions In 1 Photo

    For some people, taking up to 12 different medications a day has become the unfortunate norm. And when you add another one into that already complicated heap, it isn’t always easy to identify the potentially harmful interactions in your own personal prescription cocktail. MedSnap hopes to simplify that problem by both identifying your pills and their potential interactions all through one, simple snapped photograph.

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