JOIN USClose to the launch of an app that could change how society addresses racism, Daksha Malia shares her wish list of apps that promise to remedy many of our urban living issues.
With dozens of revolutionary apps making their way to the virtual marketplace every other day, the old saying ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ could soon be replaced with ‘Where there is a will, there is an app!’ There were recent reports about a soon-to-be launched app, Prejudice Tracker, which is designed to report, monitor and track racism incidents across the world. While that happens, here are some other revolutionary apps the techie genie could start work on.
Mood-At-Work Meter
There are already several apps in the market that tell us how exactly we are feeling on a certain day (as if we didn’t know that otherwise). But if anyone’s moods matter more than our own, it has to be the boss’, the client’s or the bunch of stakeholders at work.
We recommend, Mood-At-Work Meter, an app that would tell us exactly how grumpy a certain set of stakeholders are before we shoot that email or knock that door. Similar to Feel-O-Meter, an app that uses facial recognition software to identify the mood of passing-by citizens to arrive at the ‘city mood’, Mood-At-Work Meter could identify moods by monitoring facial expressions of the stakeholder we’d like to track. What could this cure? The wrong conversations at coffee machines, shooting that email when you should actually be saving it for later and many more…
Recipe Rescuer
There are apps that dole out enough exotic recipes to help us with that dinner party at the 11th hour and even more apps that tell us what food we’re craving for. Now, if only someone could combine these functionalities to assist us churn out daily meals that meet the family’s food cravings. The stuff that every family meal planner’s dreams are made off, the Recipe Rescuer would keep a track of each family member’s food preferences and register craving updates. It would then consider the closest possible recipes that could be dished out after considering the ingredients currently in stock. Yes, an app that can tell you are running low on gouda cheese after having baked the Four Cheese Pizza twice last week! And that’s only half the problem solved. It would then let you pick from two options – order Gouda cheese right away from an online grocery store, or if you are really low on time, suggest how to create the next most-craved dish based on ingredients’ availability. Dinner table drama? What’s that?
Appraisal Alert
By far, one of the most impactful things that happen at work, the annual appraisal is what makes all those long hours and short weekends seem worthwhile. In which case, isn’t it only fair that the appraisal stops being a Jack in the box, springing a shock upon us at the far end of the financial year? How empowering would it be to have an app that estimates our appraisal each quarter based on the company performance and individual’s milestones?
The still-in-imagination-phase app could act as an analyst, using industry and company updates to arrive at estimates about whether the graph is headed North and at what pace. Simultaneously, it can record entries by individuals about their latest work accomplishments and compare it with their KRAs (Key Result Areas) to arrive at a pattern. Focused on arriving at solutions rather than harping on the challenges, the Appraisal Alert can offer you tips on areas you should concentrate on to get that promotion once the gaps between your recent accomplishments and KRAs are mapped.
Just-Forget-It
If there is one type of app that almost every app-user has tried, atleast once, it has to be the reminder apps. From phone alarms and email alerts to sticky notes and memory apps, there can never be enough help when it comes to reminding us about mundane, dull tasks that beg to be done and dusted with.
For some reason, creatures of habit that we are, we just seem to want to live with annoying reminders and painful memories. For all those who believe in breaking free, here’s proposing Just-Forget-It. An app so powerful, it syncs all your reminder applications across phone, email, computers and tablet. On that day when you want to exist beyond all your meetings and appointments, simply select the date and time for which you would like to forget it all and hey, it ensures all your reminders are on mute! And then there’s more. Divided into work, social and personal sections, this app also lets you erase any information that could remind you of a painful past.
All you have to do is type the name of the person you wish to erase from your life. The app hunts down for emails, pictures and more, tagged under that name, across gadgets and deletes them all in a single click! Of course, it also ensures you are no longer ‘friends’ or ‘follower’ on social networking sites or receiving ‘status updates’; because frankly, dear, you wouldn’t give a damn.