JOIN USIf despite getting registered with Do Not Disturb (DND), pesky calls and spam and marketing SMSs haunt you, a new mobile application is here to your rescue.
A 33-year-old software developer Chandan Gupta, along with his team, has created Phone Warrior, an app that blocks unwanted SMSs and phone calls.
Available on Android, Blackberry and Nokia phones, the app works on the principle of crowd sourcing and machine learning for a list of numbers, classed as spam. It also enables the user to identify an unknown caller and its related spam information, letting him or her to either answer or ignore an unknown incoming call. Besides, it prevents potential spam calls and messages from ringing or vibrating the phone.
Chandan, who is based in south Delhi, informs Metrolife, “I have been working for some eight years as a developer and did a few projects also but there was no work satisfaction. For a long time, I wanted to do something in mobile apps. Despite regulations and restrictions, I would get about 20 spam messages everyday. That’s how I zeroed in on this idea. With the help of few friends, this came in to being in January last year.”
Phone Warrior scans phone calls and SMSs. When a new number calls or messages, it gets active and asks if this sender or caller is someone you want to receive calls or messages from.
Anjali Sharma, who is assisting Chandan on further enhancing this app, says on an average Indian loses more than five minutes daily to mobile spam and inspite of best intentions, regulatory initiatives have been only partially successful.
“This app receives auto updates of spam callers and spam SMSs, filtering on the basis of what you mark spam/not spam. In case of spam SMS, it lands in a separate folder and your inbox is clear. It periodically updates spam rules based on what the users mark as spam,” she says. The call filter the functions of Drop Spam Calls – that automatically disconnect calls from numbers in the block list and Verify Unknown Caller.
Chandan and his team gave a demonstration of their app in from of The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) authorities when there was a conference on SMS spam. “TRAI itself is struggling to stop this menace. But the solution lies in providing the tool right in the hands of the users,” says Chandan.
So far, there has been more than 0.25 million downloads of this app across the globe. It was amongst top five business applications in ‘mbillionth 2012’ and won South Asia’s largest mobile innovation awards.