Innovative Apps You Should Have on Your Phone

Developing smartphone technology leads to changes in quality of life, as these are innovations we carry with us every day, literally at our fingertips. Here are some of these helpful apps that surely transcend sheer novelty.

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Word Lens
This awesome application translates any sign or text into a person’s preferred language via the phone’s camera. It’s now even integrated into Google Translate. More importantly, one doesn’t even need internet connection for it to work.
Assistant
This app is actually the most-acclaimed, speaking personal assistant for smartphones, and is included in the New York Times’ top android apps of the year. It utilizes language tech to launch apps, answer queries, get information, and access many web services.
Be My Eyes
An app that truly impacts people’s lives is this micro-volunteering app that links blind people with volunteer helpers from around the world via live video chat. Anyone with the app installed can either ask for help or offer it and become someone else’s vision.
Cardiograph
Cardiograph is your personal health assistant, using the phone camera and a sensor for measuring heart rate. It works just like actual in-hospital medical equipment. Record and track results, then save them for reference.
SoundHound
You hear a great song in the background but don’t know who the artist is? This app identifies the band or artist, the album, and the lyrics. Just turn it on and it should be able to “sniff” the info you need for more personal listening sessions later. You can even hum that song you’ve forgotten but keeps running in your head the whole day and the app will detect it.

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Hey there. I’m Taihwa Terry Ho, capital investor and technophile. I see promise in developing things people will use every day. Read more apps and new tech innovations here.

Vine: How Six-Second Videos Create Lasting Impact

Social media is a fickle beast in which no one can predict what would go viral from time to time. Though there’s no distinct measure to determine social media’s next big thing, the new generation of Vine auteurs is stretching six seconds to infinity as a way to make lasting impact and increase content virality amid the Internet’s unpredictable state.

Image source: money.cnn.com

Skeptics may view Vine as another bastion of mundanity, but the social media app has the backing of most advertisers and users who see the potential in pushing the boundaries of creativity in the presence of constraints. Six seconds may not seem long enough to lay everything out on the table, but for brands and marketers that’s all they need to create something that the attention-deficient audience would loop multiple times and interact with.

Brands like General Electric and GAP are quick to seize the potential of the social media app to build awareness and push the brand at the top of the marketing funnel. Some of the campaigns are essentially animated GIFs and epic compilations of elements that dominate every platform of the Internet. Videos of cats and dogs tend to be among the most shareable items while sensational ones remain flexible enough to take on any new service. This viral component coupled with effective hashtag, aggregators, and easy-to-digest well-written message help make the video highly shareable.

 Image source: unruly.co

Filmmaker Orson Welles captured the very essence of stop-motion videos when he said that “the enemy of art is the absence of limitation.” If anything, the six-second limit of the video-sharing service compounds users to add new depth to every content, condensing what seemed to be an outcome of long-term marketing planning into few seconds of viewing pleasure that creates a chain reaction that grows exponentially across the social media landscape.

Taihwa Terry Ho, here, a capital investor looking for tech startups and app developers which show promise for the future of mobile devices. Follow me on Twitter for more news and features on tech, apps, and social media.