AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the big buzzword of 2018 for smartphones. Not all phones have the dedicated neural processor found in the AI phones but there’s a workaround; these apps will give you a taste of AI on any smartphone.
Camera
Microsoft Pix (iOS)
This free camera app from Microsoft uses AI to analyze the scene and adjust the settings for best possible results. The AI identifies human faces in the scenario and then prioritizes the capture to keep those faces in focus. Sometimes, it captures a burst of photos and then saves the best image. It can also intelligently detect and scan business cards — you can immediately add information from the card to your contact list.
Picai – Smart AI Camera (Android) When you first start it, Picai asks a few questions to understand your photo preferences. After that, the camera app analyses the scene using AI and detects the type (poster, landscape, wall, wood, pattern and so on). It then suggests two filters which will be best suited to enhance the photo. You can then adjust the intensity of each filter effect and save the image on your device.
ADVERTISEMENT
StoryBoard (Android) StoryBoard is an app developed by Research at Google. The goal behind the app is to convert any video into a comic-style storyboard. Once you load a video in the app, the AI processes it, chooses the most relevant frames, adds stylish filters and turns it into a comic page. If you don’t like the automated result, you can pull down on the screen to see more options.
Voice Assistants
There are a number of personal voice assistant apps available on the Google Play Store and Apple App store. The majority of these rely heavily on the use of AI to understand and adapt to your usage patterns. The AI-based helpers can answer questions for you and even perform various other tasks (place a call, play songs, control connected devices etc). The four big assistant apps available today are Google Assistant, Siri, Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana.
Almost all Android smartphones now come with Google Assistant. In case your Android phone does not have it, or you are using an iPhone, you can install it from the App store. iPhones have their own personal voice assistant called Siri, and it is not available for Android. Amazon’s Alexa is available for both iOS and Android for free while Cortana is only available for Android or Microsoft devices. You can also use Cortana on a Windows 10 computer.
ADVERTISEMENT
Internet
Ask Lisa (iOS)
ADVERTISEMENT
This one is a photo assistant app for Instagram. Using AI, the app scans various photos on your phone and tells you which one is expected to get the most likes on Instagram. The app then suggests the relevant hashtags that you should use with the recommended photo for maximum reach. You can add 5 photos at time and the app will take a few minutes to analyze them before recommending the best one.
Recent News (iOS and Android) This app adds AI to your daily news feed. Once you feed in details on your preferred topics, it uses AI to deliver the most relevant news. It learns your reading habits as you use the app and recommends topics and news that will be of interest to you. The interface shows you a news summary of various articles and you can access the full article with a single tap.
Ulli Smart Web Browser (iOS) Ulli browser uses AI to predict what you want to view and read on the Internet according to past habits. The interface is designed for one hand use and it includes a builtin ad blocker. The AI identifies what you are viewing on the current web-page and shows you a card-style interface with recommendations on what you might want to read/view next.
Try These Too
Socratic Math & Homework Help (iOS and Android) Scan your Math problem using the app and it will detect the problem using AI and provide step-by-step solutions.
Seeing AI (iOS) Designed for the visually impaired, this app uses AI to recognize nearby people, objects or text and then narrates it out to help the user identify what’s around him/her.
Tetra (iOS) This app listens to your voice calls and using AI, recognises spoken words. It then creates transcripts and notes of the conversation.
Kyte (Android) Using AI, this free SMS manager identifies and segregates text messages unders heads like important, bookings, coupons, financial or spam.
6 Amazing Augmented Reality Experiences On iPad That Are Free
1/7
Even though augmented reality (AR) apps have been around for a long time, we’re still only beginning to scratch the surface of possibilities. New iPads are among the best way to experience AR thanks to the large screens, faster processors and Apple’s ARkit framework. Here are some genuinely astonishing AR apps that are available completely free.
Even though augmented reality (AR) apps have been around for a long time, we’re still only beginning to scratch the surface of possibilities. New iPads are among the best way to experience AR thanks ..
Read More
Using tape measures is so old school now that you have AR to help. It sounds almost unbelievable but you can actually measure (with a fair degree of accuracy) things like a person’s height, the diameter of a circular table, the length of a sofa and even the height of a building. AirMeasure gives you a point and shoot ruler — just tap to start and move the device along the plane you want to measure. But that’s not all, you can use it to create a floor plan, project a level line (to see whether your painting is hung straight), measure distance to a far away wall (like a laser distance measurement tool) and much more. Our favourite is the virtual furniture — you can place things like tables, chairs, beds, desks, shelves and so on into your room. Then walk around them to see how they look from different parts of the room.
(Image: http://armeasure.com)
Using tape measures is so old school now that you have AR to help. It sounds almost unbelievable but you can actually measure (with a fair degree of accuracy) things like a person’s height, the diame..
Read More
Holo is short for holograms — actual 3D animals and people you can place into your real surroundings. Some of the holos you can download for free include Spiderman, a zombie, tigers, celebrities and even Bollywood dancers. The developer is constantly adding more holos that you can download to your device. Holos are dynamic, which means they’re not static images but accurate, moving avatars. Once you scan a flat surface and place a holo, you can rotate it and scale it up or down in size to match real world sizes. Then you place yourself into the frame and snap a photo or capture a short video. In the right kind of lighting, it can look quite convincing too. Holo is also available for Android.
(Image: https://thisisholo.com)
Holo is short for holograms — actual 3D animals and people you can place into your real surroundings. Some of the holos you can download for free include Spiderman, a zombie, tigers, celebrities and ..
Read More
Learning is a lot more fun in AR and if a complex subject like math can be visually represented in your real world, it might make concepts a lot clearer. GeoGebra places math objects in your world so that you can explore them from different angles. You can place solid objects into your view while little exercises teach you about pyramids, prisms and cubes. More advanced users can look at the impossible Penrose triangle, 3D functions, spiral staircase and Sierpinski pyramid among others. You will have to physically move around the virtual objects to complete the tasks and take the required screenshots.
(Image: www.geogebra.org)
Learning is a lot more fun in AR and if a complex subject like math can be visually represented in your real world, it might make concepts a lot clearer. GeoGebra places math objects in your world so..
Read More
This app is a great example of how AR can help solve problems even in long distance. If you’re tech savvy, you’ve probably been asked for help with common tech issues over the phone. Problem is, over the phone, it’s really hard to explain to someone which button to tap, which menu item to click and which port to use. Vuforia’s Chalk opens up an AR guided private chat between you and the person you’re helping. They can activate their camera and you can doodle with virtual chalk right into their view — making circles, drawing arrows and illustrating as needed. But that’s not even the best part. Whatever you draw on sticks to the item you drew it on, so even if the camera moves around, the instruction stays true and correct.
(Image: https://chalk.vuforia.com)
This app is a great example of how AR can help solve problems even in long distance. If you’re tech savvy, you’ve probably been asked for help with common tech issues over the phone. Problem is, over..
Read More
Imagine seeing an entire, living landscape on your table. You can zoom in, look around and learn more about why free flowing rivers are so important. Through helpful little floating tips, you learn more about the journey of water, how it impacts the area through which it flows, the people it affects and how building dams can cause damage to delicate ecological systems. Place a dam and you can see (in accelerated time) how the river changes and how everything else is affected downstream. This app is the WWF’s concerted effort to educate about how human development can either be harmful or sustainable.
(Image: www.worldwildlife.org)
Imagine seeing an entire, living landscape on your table. You can zoom in, look around and learn more about why free flowing rivers are so important. Through helpful little floating tips, you learn m..
Read More
Graffiti in a public place can help beautify but it can also be an eyesore, with authorities stuck in a never-ending cycle of removing unwanted art.
What if that graffiti only existed in the virtual world and was only visible through an augmented reality app? That’s the idea behind World Brush.
You open up the app, hold it up and start drawing in virtual space. You should do this somewhere outdoors and your art will be geo-locked — this means it’s approximate GPS location is tagged and if another World Brush user comes along at a later date and holds up the app, he/she will be able to see and walk around what you drew. Another similar app without the GPS position (but more brush options) is 3DBrush — Augmented Reality.
(Image: https://itunes.apple.com)
Graffiti in a public place can help beautify but it can also be an eyesore, with authorities stuck in a never-ending cycle of removing unwanted art.
What if that graffiti only existed in the virtual..
