smartphone app

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Google Says Bye-Bye to Bard, Hello to Gemini

Company retires its chatbot, releases an AI-driven upgrade that doubles as a digital assistant

(Newser) - There's a new chatbot/digital assistant in town, and it comes all in one package. In a "Siri meets ChatGPT" move, Google has retired its Bard chatbot and launched in its place the Gemini smartphone app, an artificial intelligence-driven tool announced Thursday that's now available to English speakers...

'Vigilante' App Raises Eyebrows in NYC, LA

Controversial neighborhood-watch app pays users to livestream crime scenes, other emergencies

(Newser) - There's a new twist to local journalism in New York City and Los Angeles, and it's raising eyebrows. Citizen, which already has upward of 7 million users in dozens of US cities, promises safety alerts in real time, but recent job listings seen by the New York Post...

Devices, Bad for Teens? Now They Might Help

Patterns of smartphone use could indicate changes in mental health

(Newser) - Rising suicide rates and depression in US teens and young adults have prompted researchers to ask a provocative question: Could the same devices that some people blame for contributing to tech-age angst also be used to detect it? The idea has sparked a race to develop apps that warn of...

'Brain Training' App Shows Promise for OCD Sufferers

Subjects with strong contamination fears saw significant relief of symptoms after one week

(Newser) - There literally does appear to be an app for almost everything, and treating symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder just got its own entry. Treatment for OCD (a condition in which patients can't stop having obsessive thoughts and engaging in repetitive behaviors) has been notoriously hit or miss: UPI reports that...

Trump Is Said to Have a Single App on His Phone

Surprised to hear it's Twitter?

(Newser) - CNET thinks that President Trump should load his iPhone with apps to help out in a variety of situations: Candy Crush for "dull meetings," for instance. But Mike Allen notes for Axios that "top White House officials" have told him the commander in chief only has...

Big Surprise for Strangers Who Helped Stranded Wheelchair Racer

Woman they assisted during NYC Marathon was Paralympic gold medalist Zou Lihong

(Newser) - In a New York minute, a Paralympic athlete's distressing experience turned into an inspiring one thanks to a smartphone app and the kindness of strangers. The New York Times reports on the plight of Zou Lihong, a Chinese wheelchair racer who beat US favorite Tatyana McFadden to win gold...

How Escape From N. Korea Leads to Online Sex Work in China


How Escape From
N. Korea Leads
to Online Sex
Work in China
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 23, 2016 4:37 PM CDT

How Escape From N. Korea Leads to Online Sex Work in China

'WaPo' details lives of women fleeing from one bad situation to another as online sex 'video chatters'

(Newser) - "Why are our lives so different, just because of where we are born?" That's the question posed to the Washington Post by Suh, a 30-year-old North Korean woman now being held in a Bangkok detention center after being busted by local cops while trying to cross from Laos...

There's Now a Tinder of Sperm Donors

Gone are the days of flipping through binders of donor profiles

(Newser) - Sperm banks are keeping up with the times, and it's driving some people crazy. Back in the old days (say, the dark ages of the 1990s), those on the hunt for the perfect sperm donor had the time-sucking task of flipping through binders of prospective donors to weed out...

Will Women Actually Insert This Smart Device Up There?

A Bluetooth-connected tampon is due to hit the market in 2017

(Newser) - It seems there are connected, wearable devices for anything these days, even of the very up close and personal variety—think vibrators and Kegel exercisers. Now a startup called my.Flow is hoping to help women avoid the embarrassment and cost of over-saturated tampons by introducing a smart one whose...

Iraq Vet's Son Creates App to Stop Night Terrors

'My team and I won't sleep until the veterans can'

(Newser) - Tyler Skluzacek was in sixth grade when his father, Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Skluzacek, was deployed to Iraq for a year. When he came back, he struggled with night terrors—and now Tyler, a senior at Minnesota's Macalester College, is helping in a big way, KARE 11 reports. As...

Man Ruptures Tendon After Weeks of Candy Crush

 Man Ruptures 
 Tendon After 
 Weeks of 
 'Candy Crush' 
in case you missed it
Apr 18, 2015 10:21 AM CDT

Man Ruptures Tendon After Weeks of 'Candy Crush'

Too much smartphone use is to blame for range of repetitive stress injuries

(Newser) - Excessive smartphone use can, in rare cases, lead to repetitive stress injuries. There's even a phrase for what happens when a tendon in the thumb constricts from too much texting— "texting thumb." But one California man took it to a whole new level: The 29-year-old visited an...

App Tells You When Your Breath Stinks

The 'Mint' measures users' halitosis-inducing compounds

(Newser) - Sticking a sensor into your mouth to calculate your hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen disulfide, and methyl mercaptan levels may sound at first like something you'd see in a sci-fi movie or in NASA astronaut training, but it's actually designed for a more practical, everyday purpose: to measure how bad...

App Rewards People for Ignoring Their Smartphones

Singapore students win prize for 'Apple Tree,' which rewards human interaction

(Newser) - A way to reward people for having face-to-face interaction instead of staring into the void of their smartphone screens? There's an app for that. Or there will be soon, thanks to three 20-year-old Singapore students who won $30,000 in funding Tuesday at the Splash Awards to develop Apple...

Longtime Arch-Rivals Apple, IBM Join Forces

Landmark deal will create 100 IOS business apps

(Newser) - Former arch-rivals Apple and IBM have gone in different directions since they were fiercely competing for customers in the 1980s and they're now planning to share their strengths. The two tech giants have announced a partnership to work together on more than 100 business apps designed for Apple's...

Flappy Bird Creator 'Considering' a Resurrection

Creator Dong Nguyen offers in-depth interview

(Newser) - The creator of Flappy Bird shocked fans when he mysteriously yanked the game , and since then, Dong Nguyen has been difficult to pin down. But Rolling Stone managed to catch up with him in his hometown of Hanoi, where he agreed to an in-depth chat. Perhaps the most important question:...

Court: Calif. Drivers Can Use Phones to Check Maps

Law doesn't apply to smartphone apps

(Newser) - Using a smartphone to look a map while driving is allowed under the California law that bans motorists from talking or texting on a handheld phone, an appeals court has decided. The court sided with Steven Spriggs, who was fined $165 after a highway patrol officer spotted him looking at...

Flappy Bird Creator: Game Was Too Addictive

Rejects rumors of Nintendo warning

(Newser) - Why did the creator of Flappy Bird remove the hit game from download services? It was "an addictive product," he tells Forbes . "Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed," notes Dong Nguyen, 29. But "I think it has...

Stressed Developer Yanks Best-Selling App

'I can't take it anymore,' says Flappy Bird creator

(Newser) - It's game over for Flappy Bird. At midnight, the Vietnamese creator of the hugely popular mobile game made good on his threat to pull the game from app stores, saying the attention from its instant success had become too much and he couldn't take it anymore, reports Mashable...

Boxer Fights to Protect India's Women— With an App

Mary Kom wants women to feel safe on streets

(Newser) - In a country where sexual violence is widespread and vastly under-reported, Olympic boxer Mary Kom is working to make women feel safe on the streets again. She has launched a smartphone app and text service to give Indian women tips on how to fight off attackers, Wired reports. The five-time...

Dog Dating and Other Terrible App Ideas

They center on self-punishment, urine

(Newser) - Dating for dogs? An app to time pee breaks? Among the multitudes of clever mobile apps come plenty that are duds from the start. Developer Fueled shares some of the most ridiculous pitches it has received, via Business Insider :
  • Shock treatment: Linked to an electric bracelet, this app is all
...

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