The wildest mobile apps

There's more to mobile apps than ringtones, text messages and casual games, according to telecomasia.net via Tome Hume.

Wireless Asia has compiled some of the most interesting mobile apps they've come across in the last couple of years, showcasing some of the more imaginative mobile apps spotted ''in the wild'' (so to speak), and to provide a sneak peek at what various Ramp;D boffins think will define apps development in the future. Most have been covered in the blog over the years, but it's a truly wonderful roundup.

1. The Lie/Love detector

The ''Truthful Calls'' service uses a voice analysis system by Israeli company Nemesysco that functions as an emotion detector, assessing the level of honesty of the person you're calling.

2. Call yourself in the future

From Web services company CDyne, a Web-based app that allows you to call yourself in the future. Really!

3. Ghost detector

TV show tie-ins are becoming a frequent excuse for mobile apps. Mobile content development company Wiretown (started, appropriately, by two men with TV broadcasting backgrounds) have developed a paranormal detector for cellphones.

4. Car alarm

The ''Silent-I'' system not only sends an SMS to the car's own

5. Spy phones

An ordinary-looking mobile phone that actually doubles as an eavesdropping device

6. Halal verification service

An SMS-based service in Malaysia that allows Muslims to conform the halal status (which is to say ''permissible'' under Islamic law) of products.

7. Liquid wallpaper

Technically more of a user-interface feature than an app, but still innovative: the N702iS handset (developed by NEC, NTT DoCoMo and Japanese design company Nendo) comes with sensor-driven wallpaper that makes the screen look like a glass of liquid.

8. Send SMS messages and emoticons to your clothes

Uranium-Jeans has a line of ''interactive clothing'' that comes with embedded flexible micro screens that display images and scrolling text messages that can either be downloaded from Uranium's Web site or sent by SMS.

9. Camera dictionary

Camera Dictionary is a software app that allows users to scan English words using their camera phones and translate them to Japanese.

10. Mobile breathalyzer

Not sure if you or your driver has had one too many martinis? Use your mobile phone to check his or her alcohol level via a breath analyzer connected to the handset.

And a favortie future ap:

Ghost in the cell

Professor Kim Jong-hwan of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology wants to take the ''genie in a bottle'' concept and bring it to the mobile phone in the form of a software robot.

The ''robot'' would be something like a 3D avatar that would adjust itself to the characteristics of the cell phone owner.
10/27/2006 3:27:26 PM
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