This App Tells You Which Friends Stress You Out, Make You Happy

The wearable tech products and a new breed of apps are making things much easier and simpler for the common people with varies innovations and advancements in its own sphere. A new app is making waves with its unique and decisive features and it proclaims to help in users determining which friends to keep and which one to avoid. The app is named pplkpr which translated into People Keeper and it aims to quantify the relationships based on the collections of data dealing with user’s social interactions.

This app has been developed by two developers namely Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonal in order to help the individuals to deal with the relationship issues and making vital decisions.

How This App Works

Pplkr works perfectly with any Bluetooth 4.0 enabled tracker and it also takes GPS and heart monitoring services under its shadow like those of Polar H7 chest band and the Zephyr HxM. Later it syncs up with the app and keeps recording the emotional feeling felt and absorbed by the user while interacting with friend and family members.

Whenever a call is received by the user pplkr or People Keeper simply syncs with the heart rate monitor and tracks the subtle changes in the emotional state of the said user. It notices the user when it detects a heightened motion and asks them whether they wish to know their feeling straightforward.

Benefits Of Using People Keeper

Developers has laid down various uses of this quirky yet beneficial app. This app can reveal which friends should be avoided by the user during the times of stress. It can also set to block or unfriend those people who make the user anxious or bored in certain cases. It will also message those who make them happy or keep them calm. And for those people who don’t have a heart rate monitor this app can let them add manual emotional readings.

App Usage In Real Scenarios

Wondering if it really has any real life usage or not. It does have real potential as the advertiser or people could use to generate and collect data which can be analysed to know how things impact users online as well as offline. However its bit difficult to get accurate data essentially based on social patterns and algorithms in real world scenarios.

Higher Level Of Decision Making Skills

This app collects various kinds of data and interprets it and sheds much needed light on the negative aspects of the user’s life. The makers of this app are euphoric about this pushing technology which is expected to more personal with time and it will help users in making vital healthy decisions.

McDonald had asserted that most of the decisions it makes is relatively the ones which user’s find troublesome while taking calls in real life. And when an app makes such decisions it just gives bountiful relief and even helps in soothing and relaxing the mind. However team is working on improving its dynamics through use of more complex and elegant algorithm which would facilitate making ‘better’ decisions even relating to day-to-day situations.

Amazon to Take On Google and Microsoft by Offering Corporate Email

A Wall Street Journal has reported that Amazon will be launching a corporate email and digital calendar service to cater the corporate clients. Amazon has forayed into different business like film and television industry after setting up the world’ largest e-commerce stores. Now Amazon has set its eyes on the corporate email service with its tentatively titled ‘WorkMail’ that is powered by Amazon’s loud based computing unit called Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon’s ambition is pretty clear i.e. to go beyond the traditional cloud-computing back-end services to move in the prominent sphere of services line of business with its WorkMail. With new WorkMail Amazon is expected to give direct competition to the reigning champions of corporate mail service i.e. Microsoft and Google.

WorkMail Brings Highly Secure Business Mail Solutions

The Amazon’s WorkMail is even compatible with the existing email client software like Outlook and Exchange which are offered by Microsoft to provide email service to big corporate institutions.

WorkMail boasts of featuring a highly secure email service wherein encryption is employed for enhanced protection. WorkMail send the mails in an encrypted manner which gets decrypted by the company controlled key at the other end of service when it is received by designated person. Furthermore the emails are also stored on remote Amazon servers which are located in different geographical areas. Amazon had taken the pain of introducing these security measures to make its new email-service much more appealing globally mainly to the European customers post-NSA-revelations.

Amazon Introduces Competitive Pricing

Amazon has introduced its email-service WorkMail at a price of $4 per month which direct competition to its competitors Google which offers corporate mail at $5 per month and Microsoft also offers $5 per month for its Office 365 business mail. But Amazon though have its own downside wherein it is not offering any additional features to its customers like the access to the different kinds of office document production software suite like Google and Microsoft.

It should also be noted that most of high-profile start-ups in the Silicon Valley relies on the Amazon Web Services for its cloud computing needs due to ease of use and reputable security provided by the Amazon. These two aspects would be key in promoting the WorkMail among new and existing base of customers.

WorkMail would be made available at $4 plan which gives a 50GB inbox limit and by just $2 per month more users will add a 200GB WorkDocs file storage. Amazon is proving a preview for the use who are eager to sign up for an early look.

WorkMail Soon To be Launched

Amazon Web Services is branching out the business with a focus on providing solutions to the end-users. Therefore it has developed WorkMail that features a web-based client for access without any need of installing special software. Amazon is all set to launch it WorkMail in the second quarter of 2015 which a special deal for the customers. This deal simply promises to offers a seamless integration of its recently launched WorkDocs with the WorkMail.

Google and Uber May Become Rivals

After the problems faced due to drivers in Delhi Uber has begun plans on researching self driven cars which would not require any drivers. In fact any company that had to go through what Uber went through a couple of months ago would logically do this.

However, the real problem is that Google has already launched driver less cars long ago in 2010. It is postulated that such cars have already been given to its staff and might come up with an idea of enlarging the service as a business venture soon.

Logger Heads

Google in 2013 has invested around $250m in Uber, owing to its worldwide operation in more than 200 cities, however the Delhi controversy of drivers has brought a small decline in its operation. Uber at present announced its plans in self driving cars teaming up with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, which is actually expected to fund the Uber Advanced Technologies Center, according to its post in a blog.

Google with experience in the field also seems to have considerations on rolling out its own car- hailing service, if reports in Bloomberg are to be believed. An Unnamed source claiming to be close to Uber’s Board of Directors seems to hint about screenshots of app-based car rental service, which is already on roads for its staff.

Google’s Denial

However when Google has been asked for a response on this by BBC, they got a reply “think you'll find Uber and Lyft work quite well. We use them all the time."

This somehow sounds indistinct and does not give any clear cut idea whether Google would want to begin a new driver less cab service. Of course, Since the ground work is already over and Google has gained enough experience to run the show on its own its mulling over such an idea cannot be ruled out altogether.
However, speculations are still on stake because Google holds a fair share in Uber and going into business on its own might turn ruinous to Google too. Thus it is expected that Google would surely be testing the water before taking the plunge.

Uber’s Research Partner

Carnegie Mellon University which has partnered with Uber to assist in the research and technology aspect of this new venture has not left any stones unturned. They have proposed to develop newer technologies that would give proper safety while travelling and to look at maps also.

The University has enough learned and experienced faculty and staff who would surely be enthusiastic to assist such an endeavor. Research in the areas of mapping, safety while on the road and autonomy technology are planned to be conducted with combined effort of the University and National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC). Uber is very positive with the new project and is planning to take it ahead all the way.

Scientists Create 'Genetic Firewall' For New Forms of Life

Scientists to Create `Genetic Firewalls’

According to Harvard and Yale researchers, synthetic amino acids would someday enable scientists in creating `genetic firewalls’ which could prevent GMO crops or animals from escaping in the wild thus causing environmental damage. Recently scientists have come up with genetically engineered bacteria whose survival was based on lab-formulated amino acid and by `locking in’ this synthetic nutritional need, they consider that the bacteria would die quickly if they tend to escape from their carefully controlled environment to enter into the world.

A year later after creating organisms which used genetic code that was different from other living things, this team of scientists achieved another `synthetic biology’ milestone in creating bacteria which cannot survive without a specific manmade chemical and overcome a major hurdle to wider use of genetically modified organisms – GMOs. A report states what one scientist calls a `genetic firewall’ to obtain biocontainment which is a means of insuring that GMOs cannot survive outside a lab or other confined environment. Though two of the lab accomplished the bacteria, there seems to be no fundamental barrier in applying the technique to animals and plants.

Microbes Engineered from Mundane to Exotic

Biologist George Church of Harvard Medical School leading one of the studies, reported that `he thinks that they are moving in that direction’ and if the technique is successful, it could be utilised in microbes engineered for users from mundane to exotic like producing yogurt and cheese, in synthesizing industrial chemicals as well as biofuels, cleaning of toxic waste together with manufacturing of drugs.

For those applications, microbes have already been used and in some cases they contain genes from unrelated organism thereby making them genetically engineered or genetically modified, to overcome oil spills or produce insulin. Widespread usage of such GMOs constrained by concerns could escape into the wide resulting in much damage.

Church’s team in the year 2013 had reported that they had gone ahead of genetic engineering in order to create genomically recoded organisms where recoding means a bit of DNA codes for amino acid – a building block of proteins, which is different from a similar DNA code for every other living thing. Biologists, have revised the genetic spelling book. The altered bacteria which Church along with his team dubbed genomically recoded organisms or GROs is described in a pair of studies in the journal `Nature’

E. Coli Bacteria

The new studies team comprising of Church and a former colleague, Farren Isaacs, developed strains of E. coli bacteria which contained both DNA for manmade amino acid and the need for synthetic amino acids for survival. Since amino acids does not exist in nature, Isaacs presently at Yale University, was of the opinion that the resulting firewall means any GMO escaped from a lab manufacturing facility of agricultural field would not survive.

His team made 49 genetic changes to E. coli in order to make them dependent on the synthetic amino acid and as per his calculations, the odds of a microbe undoing the changes are astronomically high. Church states that by pairing genomic recoding with the firewall, biologist can create escape proof microbes wherein by incorporating novel amino acids could develop new form of drugs as well as polymers.

Microsoft Finally Has an Outlook App That Doesn't Suck

A large number of Outlook users had long waited for a designated email app for Android and iOS platform. Microsoft had released cross platform email app for its widely popular email service Outlook which runs flawlessly on Android and iOS. This new app is gaining popularity and appreciation for its higher functionality which sets it apart from other email clients by bring in the multitasking. This app even provides support for non-Microsoft accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo who can cherish using this innovative app for accessing their different accounts.

The Features of New Outlook App

For starters this app isn’t an original Microsoft product rather it is brushed up app overtaken from mobile developer Accompli. This simply translates that this app doesn’t support all the features of Outlook for Windows. This app includes a built-in calendar and other features which makes the finding attachments and contact easier without going through the inbox. This new app is drawing huge praises from all corners due to intuitive design, interactive user interface and higher functionality than other counterparts.

Outlook users had long relied on third party apps as well as web apps to access their Outlook accounts. Microsoft had even launched some mobile version of Outlook in past to address the user’s problems with its Outlook web app but it was available only a limited number of iPhone and Android smartphones which was not an ideal solution.

This new app easily syncs the calendar data from multiple accounts such as from Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud etc. This new app even omits some of the extra properties like the color-coded categories and the ability to make distinction between an appointment and a meeting. An analyst had even praised this app by saying that Microsoft had finally freed the Outlook email from the confines of the office PC.

Microsoft Welcomes Suggestions From Users With Preview

This new Outloook app is also set to bring the touch optimized feel of Outlook App which is designed for Windows 10. Just like the other Microsoft’s previous Android app releases, the first version of Outlook will have a ‘preview’ label which helps in collecting feedbacks from users with different types of devices. Currently Microsoft had removed the preview label from the Android tablet versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps and now these apps are free for use on Android platform.

Microsoft Generates Cross Platform App

Microsoft just looks like stretching its core windows product to all the prospective customers by launching cross-platform apps one after another. Microsoft saw a great success with its Skype app and later on Office apps for both iOS and Android platform. The latest release of the Outlook app for cross platform performance will help in bringing additional revenue to Microsoft which earlier only concentrated on building Windows app which had limited reach. At the moment Microsoft’s broader goal is to help its customers become more productive regardless of their location and device with different cross platform apps.