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EACH WEEK, WE highlight five apps that are worth downloading for your smartphone and tablet. There are a lot of apps released on a daily basis, but not all of them are worth paying attention to.
This week features an easier way to take selfies, a way to turn your phone into a tennis racket and a puzzle game all about surveillance.
Snapi
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Taking a selfie is hard. You’re trying to stretch your hand as far as possible, keep your arm steady and press the shutter button without dropping it. And God forbid you decide to use a selfie stick *shudder*.
- Snapi tries to take the hassle out of selfies by using gestures, not buttons, to take a photo.
- At first, it requires a bit of trial and error. You have to show your open hand first for it to be recognised. Once that’s done, you make a fist and it will count down before taking your selfie.
- It uses both front and rear camera so you can get better quality photos (provided you’re ok not seeing the screen), and for the most part, it recognises your gestures.
- It’s pretty obvious who this is aimed towards so you’ll know if this is for you or not.
VapourChat
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- Almost all messaging apps now have a self-destructing feature included. It’s practically an unwritten rule now.
- VapourChat takes this up a notch by allowing you to delete any message, or conversation from both phones at any time.
- If you want, you can turn on Vapour Mode and see them removed within a set timeframe.
- If a friend tries to take a screenshot, you can customise it so that your conversation is automatically deleted when this happens.
- For those who really want to make sure their messages stay private.
Perfect Music
For: Windows Phone
Cost: Free
- Chances are you rely more on the likes of Spotify and Deezer for music, but you can’t beat having your own tracks when you’re on the move (or when you lose reception).
- Perfect Music has a great interface for a music app and manages to get the right balance between style and functionality.
- It’s a pretty standard music app, but it has a number of small but useful features that come together nicely.
- A good feature is the inclusion of lyrics search for each song (people still do that, ok) but even if you don’t care about that, there’s enough there to warrant a look.
- If you don’t use music streaming services and want an alternative to your regular music player, this is for you.
Motion Tennis Cast
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Got a Chromecast handy? You probably know you can play games on it with your phone but the selection of games can be hit and miss.
- Now you can add Motion Tennis Cast to that list as it turns your phone into a virtual racket. You won’t be making massive swings so you don’t have to worry about it falling out of your hands (but if you have a grip, that works too).
- It’s able to tell what way you’re holding it and after a bit of practice, you’ll be able to perform lobs, spin shots and smashes.
- There were one or two moments of lag experienced (which is annoying when you’re returning a shot) but overall, it performs well and is rather fun.
- Just make sure you don’t make any wild swings when holding your phone and you’ll be fine.
TouchTone
For: iOS
Cost: €2.99
- A game based around NSA-style surveillance may not sound like like your idea of fun, but it’s what makes this game so memorable.
- TouchTone’s presentation will remind you of games like ’Papers, Please’, as it’s more about atmosphere than gameplay.
- The game itself has you bouncing lasers and getting them to their destination. The purpose is you’re actually a citizen who trying to hack into personal emails, messages and texts so you can spot and report suspicious behaviour.
- The plot does add weight to what you’re doing, elevating it from a simple puzzle game into something more complex and intriguing.
- A great puzzle game that deeper than you would expect from a mobile game.
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Maltese registered company ? I smell a rat, a corrupt rat.
Mr Dobbie himself, I wonder?
So someone in planning tipped off the buyer of the site knowing it’s true value. Now the governed (tax payer) will buy the site for millions. You’ve got to love it. Corruption is alive and well.
Government *
Just did a Google search for the Maltese company……sfa online about them. The rat just got smellier
Ha! A very big rat indeed. There is no rail network in Malta
Rails Investments Ltd, Registered address 5 Majestic Court, St Mary’s St, Mellieha, Malta, is same as Astra Consulting Malta, seems to be a specialist in company set ups. astraconsultingmalta.com
Doesn’t really give much info though. It says it’s a company to help you set up an off shore company…..or to set up in Malta. Big merry-go-round.
So many ‘M’s.
This is where irish planning is non existant . That land should be unavailable for development until a second decision is made to allow or not the new Dart plan . Govt should be told give the go ahead to the second plan within 12 months or loose .
Instead we allow donkeys In bord pleanala To potentially add millions to the cost of badly needed transport infrastructure.
They should have given Glen and Brendan a shout to occupy it on their behalf.
Incompetant shower of unionised wasters, more concerned with protecting their cosy pay, pension and benefits than with providing adequate transportation services.
Privatise the lot, nullify all contracts and offer new contracts on standardised terms with their colleagues in other European countries. They might be in for a shock.
Yawn Fred !!
@Fred Jensen: Privatisation? €€€€€€€€€€€ upwards.
Ah yes the mythical metro north/dart unground. Time to get the money out and start building the dam thing, also linking it to anything else other then luas north line doesn’t make sense.
Dart to Connolly won’t work as the station is already running over-capacity
@The Edge: Edge … Dart Underground and Metro North are two completely different projects .
@Michael: I think it’s fair to say that “The Edge” is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Details like facts and evidence are inconveniences for such people. People like him, They type faster than they think
Isn’t Éanna a girls name, I doubt you know anything about Irish Rail or the metro projects. I wayjer that you don’t even use the train. Your just like that idiot Patches O Houlin commenting on stuff you know nothing about
@Éanna McClean: People like you are elitist MF’ers that think they know everything and are happy to comment on people. I HATE grammar f*ckers that correct spellings and talk down to everyone as if they have some sort of higher IQ than everyone else. In most cases they don’t and is usually just an act
I bet thats exactly what this is the case with you
@The Edge: Have you ever considered that the problem might be with you?
*wager
“The site in question is where the Pearce Street underground station would be constructed,” he said.
He should learn how to spell…I thought spelling would be a core competency of a PR guy.
As to the proposal…anything that gets in the way of DU (not least CIE) should be terminated with prejudice.
He “said it” could be a journal error no?
@Dessie Deratta: No need. Specify the construction of an empty space for the ground and sub-floors of the building, which is to be designated for public infrastructure, as a condition of planning. Allow them to apply for 3 floors higher than usual and/or grant a small tax break by way of compensation. Win/Win with cost savings for everyone.
This is the sort of common sense stuff the countries like Germany get right effortlessly. It would be like moving mountains here no doubt.
“station’s” appeared earlier. The whole thing needs a re-write.
Did the journalist bother to check the zoning of the site? That’s all that matters. If it has a zoning that allows the office building, then the owner can get the planning permission. Whether the offices are subsequently built or not is irrelevant. Did the metro company make a submission when the city development plan was at draft stage, outlining the sites they were going to need? If not, tough, offices it shall be – and it will be difficult to put transport infrastructure there.
@John – it appears it does have zoning as they’ve already applied for planning permission.
@john considine if there was strategic planning in Dublin the this would had happened. There should be a transport strategy that looked at this. The rail company would have discussed their intentions with the planners. However, this is probably where it went wrong as they would have known the land’s value as a transport hub and advised a developer mate to buy the land so they could give planning and create up roar thus making a huge profit on the site without doing anything apart from filling a few more brown envelopes. When is this going to finish its just one example after another.
@Neal, not necessarily so. You can APPLY for whatever you like, wherever you like, but the zoning – which is decided by councillors collectively, not by salaried planners – will in 99.9% of cases determine the outcome. So, if land is zoned ‘open space’ like the Phoenix Park for example, you can apply for permission for a superpub on it, but you will be refused because of the zoning.
@John Considine: John this site has nothing to do with metro . ( Incidently there is no ” Metro company ” . Metro is a proposal from the NTA ). Irish had proposed this site as a subway station almost 10 years ago and had planning permission. The govt failed to go ahead with it on cost grounds . Now IE are developing a new plan. Pearse st station would a hub station which the Irish govt and DCC are both aware of but did nothing to close off the zoning to keep it for a transportat hub.. That’s the typical irish lack of planning that is so frustrating.
@ Michael Fehily, I used the term metro company generically, I don’t know which legal vehicle I.E. might use fir this project. What the government knows is not in play in the planning system, zoning is fully devolved to local councillors, acting collectively in the adoption of the county or city development plan. There is a procedure for granting a permission that contravened the plan, and a procedure for approving a variation in the plan, either of which could be used. The property rights of the affected landowner, in this case the Maltese developer, are protected by the Constitution and the Planning Acts, so they are entitled to be compensated. Planning authorities are averse to paying compensation, but the law allows for it.
The councillors are scared of making decisions supported by the planners (in the interest of their mates) in case they are individually sued – RE St Paul’s School pitches, Rahney. The head of planning even confirmed this would happen! Completely untrue as the council would be sued instead, the poor councillors were bullied into not rezoning which would adversely affect a developer who are backed by an international vulture fund. If it happened once I have no doubt it could happen again and again.
Boohoo wankballs!
So what if the company is registered in Malta. What difference does that make ? You “investigators ” have found out sfa about them . Do you think it would be easier to find out about them if they were based in Ireland ?? Pfft. Enjoy your googling goombas
Well if they were in Ireland you’d just tool around the CRO data for a while and you’d find out something I’d guess. Certainly be easier than the professional level of identity hiding in Malta.
Not comfortable with essential infrastructure building being constrained by a profit motive.
Here we go again ,,, JACKSON WAY , GREEN CORE , JOHNSON MOONEY & OBRIEN ,,,, the names just drip corruption & now we gave a new one popping it’s ugly heard up … CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE like The Luas & Dart are supposed to be on going projects in that they should never stop being added to or improved … we built a tunnel from the docks but it was too small from the start for the super trucks to use … where are the TBMs now ,,, buried ,,, why were they not used for the underground link ??? Oh wait that would gave needed some BIG DECISIONS & let’s face it that’s one thing our government won’t do
It should be CPO’d at agricultural-zoning prices.
Did they not recently lease a small section to an adjacent cafe/deli?
*nudge nudge, wink wink*
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