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Help Is At Hand

Mala Bhargava Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[CLOSET If you want any more proof of apps taking charge of everyday life, take a look at Closet, which helps you make quicker and better decisions on what to wear, since wear something you must. It takes some homework to set up, but then makes life easier.What you do is take photographs of your apparel and accessories to build up your catalogue. If you have too many clothes, do it in batches. In time you should have all of it done. You add items using the iPhone's camera, or the iPad's if you like, though the app is really for the iPhone. You add the items to categories like tops or footwear — and you can edit and add categories. Once you have lots of items, the rest is self- explanatory. You create full outfits and mark them into the in-built calendar and mark favourites. Put in shoes and bags and jewellery.  Now, instead of rummaging around in your cupboard, look on your device — and you're done. Even better would be if your actual closet is neat so you can reach out for what you are going to  wear as easily as deciding what to wear. Closet, free for now, is being redesigned. Let's hope the update is even more helpful. VOXER Sitting around free in both the App Store and Google Play is an app called Voxer. Not new, not revolutionary. But at the same time, it is surprisingly feature-filled and enjoyable to use. Voxer is a Push To Talk app: it's a walker talkie, a chat client, answering machine, and reminder. Install it and let it connect with your phone book or Facebook contacts. Invite people to get the app or spot those who already have it. Once that's done, select a person and start "voxing" by tapping to initiate contact. Press and hold to leave an audio message. If your contact is around and feels up to answering, you get a reply and notification. If not now, maybe later. If you gather up several friends, you can have a group chat, sending whatever mix of text, photos and audio messages you like. You can also send yourself a message — a reminder, perhaps. If you feel up to a long talk, it's obviously easier to use the phone or any of the other VoIP apps, but Voxer is ideal for just leaving messages without being intrusive, or just making a quick remark. It's the voice equivalent of an SMS. What Voxer has going for it most of all is the speed and ease of use. One or two taps to talk. And the clarity of the audio! You can even have the messages play out aloud on their own. Also an ideal app for moms and wives to remind the men in their lives about all sorts of things. <table style="width: 450px;" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="8"> <tbody> <tr> <td><img src="/businessworld/system/files/images/May_12/closet_voxer_450x234_0.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 5px;" height="234" width="450"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Listening to these will invite your brain to fall into sync with the sound and the frequency</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> On the downside, there have been some hangs reported on Android phones. And the app does drain battery. You also have to make sure you're not talking at the same time as listening to incoming audio or they'll bump into each other. The Android and iOS apps are much the same and are free for now. No ads, either. But how these will make money in future, one doesn't know. BRAINWAVE Apps won't leave anything alone — not even your brainwaves. They actually seek to control them. To your advantage, hopefully. In over-simple terms, your brainwaves differ when you're relaxed compared to when you're concentrating on something and alert. The patterns that would be recorded when you are dreaming will be entirely different from those when you've just finished exercising. Now, what if we had sound patterns mimicking these brain activity patterns? The theory is that listening to these will invite your brain to fall into sync with the sound and the frequency.  If that happens, you will feel whatever state usually goes with the brainwave pattern — represented by the sound. The process is called brainwave entrainment. It isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Think of how you feel sleepy when the AC is humming away, or when you're on a train. If the sound were high-pitched and made up of a different wave pattern, you wouldn't be able to sleep. A number of apps have been built on this idea, both for Android and iOS. Developers Banzai Labs have a bunch of brainwave apps for iOS that claim to induce desired mental and physical states. One of the apps,  Brainwave, has 30 patterns to induce relaxation, an alert state of concentration and focus, a burst of pre-exercise energy, a state of stimulation like that you would get from drinking a shot of espresso, a state of deep dreaming sleep, and many others. All you need is your device and a good pair of earphones — plugging in one ear won't work — and perhaps a willingness to play along. Each programme has a minimum usage time, and many have different stages to take you through what it would actually be like in that state. Falling asleep and actively dreaming will, for instance have different sets of patterns. Now as to whether these apps work. Users claim they do. Whether they work by suggestibility or in fact by encouraging brain waves to fall in step with sound frequencies, is impossible to study outside of a lab. We asked two mental health specialists, one of whom laughed and said: why can't you just use music? And the other said well, yes, this was done by special machines so why not by an app? We urge you to get a little background on this app before you try it, and stay away from those that claim to help you lose weight by encouraging you to lose your appetite. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 14-05-2012)

Mala Bhargava

BW Reporters Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.