<p><strong><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/Toost-App.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 119px; float: right; margin: 3px;">It Comes Recommended</strong><br>There are now groups on Facebook, such as Gurgaon Moms, in which members help each other find all sorts of stuff, including local businesses. Now a new app, Toost, takes a similar approach. Download it free on an Android device and when you open it, it reads your contact list and flags unknown callers. Then it picks up whatever numbers it thinks are businesses or services — your electrician, a doctor, plumber, etc. — and presents them to you to recommend or ignore. If you recommend them or give a rating, others in your contact list using the app can benefit from this. If everyone keeps this up, you soon have a network of people reviewing and recommending local businesses —and that can be most useful. Toost also flags spam numbers and gives you caller ID.<br><br><strong><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/imgur-app.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 120px; margin: 3px; float: right;">A Viral Passtime</strong><br>Imgur, an app on both iOS and Android, aims to be a sort of Instagram of viral images. You can post and browse through an endless stream of pictures, GIFs and memes whiling away time and having yourself a laugh.<br><br>It’s a fuss-free sign-in and nothing much to do after that but swipe through the stream. While Instagram focuses on photos of things as one wants them to be, Imgur is irreverent, in-your-face humour — at least according to a young majority online.<br><br>And that’s a reason why anyone who wants to market to this generation should have a look. Virality is a strange beast that no one has been able to quite pin down, but flipping through images will give you an overall picture of what this mobile-first generation has on its mind.<br><br><strong><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/News-in-Shorts_11.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 113px; float: right; margin: 3px;">Making Short Of News</strong><br>A snazzy little app called News in Shorts makes short work of news while at the same time looking nice and visual to prevent you from getting bored. You have one half of the screen taken up by a photograph. The bottom half has the short headline and a para summarising the news it relates to. If you want to know more, just swipe to get the original and full article from the originating source. If you’re done with an item, flick from bottom to top and you get to the next item. This is really great for news “snacking” when you’re busy, or otherwise want to be aware of the top stories. You can select from among several subject categories. The app also has a card-based widget. Sharing from News in Shorts however, leads back to the app, which is downright annoying.<br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 13-07-2015)</p>
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.