7 Voice-Activated Apps That Are Waiting for You to Speak Up

Voice recognition software is not rocket science and new anymore, but if you place this feature on a smartphone, it comes to life. Imagine the frustration it would eliminate by having this feature on your phone -- scrambling for a microphone and repeating yourself again and again. Voice recognition is now becoming large and popular nowadays because of the enhanced speech recognition capabilities of today's smartphone platforms, such as Google's Android and Apple iOS.

The need of integrating voice recognition has arised due to the increasing prevalence of laws restricting the use of mobile phones, especially when driving. Although Bluetooth can be found useful for drivers to talk hands-free, but sometimes people want to access email and text messages, too.

Luckily, there's a pool of apps that can provide such access and more. Below is a simple roundup of some of today's best voice-activated apps that are just waiting for your commands.

PromptSmart

The PromptSmart app is the very first voice recognition-enabled telemprompter app for iOS devices. It aims to be the "smartest teleprompter for the easiest public speaking experience." With the use of VoiceTrack voice recognition technology, PromptSmart promises to follow along with a speaker's voice, highlighting the appropriate text in real-time along with a speaker's natural pace. For scripted presentations, users can import a script from Box, Dropbox, Gmail, Google Drive or OneDrive, or just create your own within the app. Presentations can be customized with different text and background colors, font types and sizes.

PromptSmart is available for download at $9.99 at iTunes. The app's cost will increase to $14.99 once its early promotional period expires.

RunGo

With RunGo, you don't have to look for a running companion because the app lets you easily map out your run and then gives you voice navigation along the way, while letting you listen to your favorite music and take calls. Other great features that users can enjoy from this app includes -- a library of running routes, advanced voice navigation, route creator for planning your own routes, can work offline once routes are downloaded, and it requires no login.

Android and iOS users can download the RunGo app for free.

Selfie Assistant

Don't you wish your front camera has the same good resolution like the one at the back of your phone? But that's not the case. This is where Selfie Assistant comes in handy. This app guides you to take better shots with your phone's rear camera by talking you through a photo and letting you know how many people will be included in the shot when you can't see the front screen of your phone.

The Selfie Assistant is free for iOS users, but Android users can get another app that offers the same functionality.

Domino's

Want to take your ordering habits to a different level? If you don't want to type in your pizza order, check out the Domino's app. "Dom," the app's helpful voice-ordering assistant, is available for a variety of personalized ordering needs -- which includes taking out an order for carryout or delivery, handling saved Easy Orders, suggesting additions to a meal, and finding coupons for the best deals.

The app can be downloaded for free and is compatible on both iOS and Android platforms.

SideChef

Isn't it frustrating when you try to follow a recipe online from your phone or tablet, but then it turns off when your prep steps are too long or becomes messy when you try to swipe on the screen and your hands are messy with all those ingredients you're holding? Don't worry because SideChef is the perfect solution for your cooking/baking needs. The app speaks each step and then waits for you to say "Next," "Back," or "Repeat" before it performs the next action.

SideChef is free for download for both iOS and Android users.

iTranslate

This free app for iOS, Android, and Windows is a fast and easy to use tool with numerous languages built in and accurate translations. With iTranslate, you can select between lots of different dialects, choose a male or female voice, and even control the speech rate. The app is optimized for fast text input. Get suggestions while you're typing, turn your phone to the side, and use both hands for typing with the bigger landscape keyboard, or use its popular swipe gestures for quick copying and pasting. iTranslate can be a great addition to your next vacation, making it fast for you to translate conversations in real time for over 90 languages.

Comcast Xfinity X1 Remote

This app completely changes the dynamic of the traditional remote control, creating a whole new experience between TV and customers' devices. With the swipe of a finger, the Xfinity X1 Remoteapp transforms your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch into personal entertainment assistants. Using motion and gesture controls, viewers can easily find what to watch on live TV and Xfinity on Demand. A simple shake of your device will pause programs on the TV. Filters and the device's keyboard find shows and movies faster than ever before. Plus, the app lets users interact on the TV with social media tools and apps, such as news, weather, sports, Facebook, Pandora, and Twitter.

The free app is compatible for both iOS and Android devices.

Ten Things You Need to Know About the New Moto 360 and Gear S2

The Moto 360 from Motorola and Gear S2 from Samsung are the freshest and latest smartwatches that were introduced during the IFA fair that took place in Berlin last September, 2015. If you're planning to get your hands on one of these latest wearable techs, it's good to find out a little bit more about each of them. So here are some facts you may want to know:

Do these smartwatches have different models?

Samsung and Motorola are providing more choices to its buyers. Motorola is offering four new variants of the Android Wear-based Moto 360: it has two case sizes, a Sport version with onboard GPS, and the other is for women. It also has onboard Wi-Fi. While Samsung's new line-up of smartwatches is Tizen-based and includes the Wi-Fi versions of the Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic, as well as the 3G version of the Gear S2.

Can you customize these watches?

Yes you can, but Motorola offers more customization options than Samsung via the Moto Maker tool. With the Moto 360, you have the liberty to choose among different sizes, cases, bezels, and bands. Samsung will offer the Gear S2 with either a dark gray case with a dark gray band or a silver case with a white band.

What are the different resolutions and screen sizes?

All three Samsung models have a 1.2-inch screen with 360 x 360 pixel resolution. The Moto 360, on the other hand, have either a 1.56-inch screen with a 330 x 330 pixel resolution, or a 1.37-inch screen and 360 x 325 pixel resolution.

What's inside?

Inside the Moto 360 smartwatches are 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor from Qualcomm. Samsung's watches have to make do with an unnamed dual-core 1GHz processor. However, Samsung's Tizen OS shows to give good performance despite of the processor setback. The storage and RAM are the same for all Motorola and Samsung models: 512MB and 4GB, respectively.

Do they have improved battery life?

According to documentations, Samsung promises battery life of up to three days while Motorola claims that the large Moto 360 has a battery life of up to two days. Those claims have yet to be proven.

What kind of sensor features do they have?

The Samsung and Motorola smartwatches both tout an Accelerometer, Ambient Light, and Gyro. However, the Gear S2's 3G variant also has GPS support. The Samsung watch also supports Barometer and HTM, whereas the Moto 360 support Vibrations/Haptic engine.

What's the good thing about the Moto 360 Sport?

The Moto 360 Sport watch is developed to enable users to run without the need of bringing their smartphone because of its integrated GPS and a music player. The smartwatch also has an LCD display, combining a traditional backlit transmissive screen with a front-lit reflective technology. It has the ability to switch between the two as lighting conditions change.

What are the low points of getting the 3G version of the Gear S2?

Constant connectivity is gold, but in this case, it comes with a price. The 3G version of the Gear S2 has a shorter battery life, and it's bigger and heavier than the Wi-Fi version. As for the price, there is a big possibility that the price is higher; though this can be a good investment for people who don't have a smartphone.

How much will these smartwatches cost?

For the Moto 360, base prices range from US$299 to $429. If you want to get the bigger version, it cost $50 as does choosing a metal band. The rose gold or gold version of the Moto 360 variant for women has an extra $30 cost, while a double leather wrap costs an additional $10. The Moto 360 Sport will also have the same cost of $299. However, Samsung hasn't released the final pricing for its watches yet.

When is the shipping date?

The new Moto 360 models will be shipped starting this month, except for the Sport model, and can now be pre-ordered in the US with more countries to be followed soon. Also, there's still no announcement from Samsung as to when their Gear S2 smartwatches will start shipping.

5 Apps That You Will Find Useful in Your Mac's Menu Bar

The Mac's menu bar is the place where you can quickly access different functions on your machine. From here you can easily connect to various WiFi networks, check how much battery power you have left, adjust the volume control, and determine your iChat, Sync, and VPN status as well. One great thing about the menu bar is that it can be accessed no matter what application you are currently using. It also does not interrupt your work and lets you accomplish your task.

So below is a collection of apps that will make your Mac's menu bar even more useful and interesting.

Loading

The Loading app allows you to see what apps are currently accessing your network connection. This app with a sun's ray-like icon sits on your menu bar, which shows you all the apps that are currently or have recently used your network connection. This will help you determine which apps are using your bandwidth and uninstall them accordingly.

This is a great tool to help you easily identify the apps that are wasting your connection. The Loading app can be downloaded from its official website for free.

Clip Menu

Clip Menu is an app for Mac that extends the default clipboard limit to eight items instead of one. It keeps the most current eight items in it, and then you can paste them where you need it. This may be considered as an enhanced version of clipboard that most of us would be delighted to see in the next version of OS X.

You can get the Clip Menu app for free from its official website.

Ejector

Do you find the usual process of ejecting on a removable disk drive (right-clicking on it then selecting eject) from your Mac somewhat tiring or inconvenient? Well, the Ejector app can solve that trouble for you. Whenever you want to eject a drive on your Mac, simply click on the Ejector icon on your menu bar, then select the drive you wish to eject, and it will be safely ejected from your Mac. The app also gives you the option to eject all drives off your machine, which is convenient especially if you have multiple drives connected to your Mac and you don't have the time to eject each one individually.

The Ejector app is available for free on the MacUpdate website.

Tomighty

This is an app that lets you set a timer straight from your menu bar so you can monitor of how long your break was or how long you have been working on your machine. To use it, simply click on the app icon on the menu bar, select the break type, and then the timer will start. The timer will keep on counting until the time you have specified is up.

Tomighty can be downloaded for free from its official website.

Bartender

Bartender for Mac lets you organize the menu bar icons so that they are in good shape and do not overlap. It allows you to rearrange the menu bar icons, place them according to your preference, hide icons that you don't want to see, and so on. As for the functionality, this app does not affect how the app works even if you have modified your menu bar.

Try the Bartender app free of charge for four weeks, and then you can upgrade it to the paid version.

Must-Have Apps for Techie Teachers

Aside from students, other people like custodians, nurse, security guards, and especially teachers also bring electronic devices to school. Because of the growing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend today, most people in the corporate world are utilizing their own gadgets to get their work done. For teachers, they don't actually need a pen, paper, or laptop in order to accomplish their daily tasks should they have the proper devices.

Some famous apps that fit this description includes Google Drive for document collaboration, Dropbox for file synchronization between devices, Keynote for creating presentations, and Evernote for storing almost everything that your students submit in its searchable online database. The list could go on, targeting teachers and school staff, with tasks ranging from grading and taking attendance to simplifying presentations or perfecting their use of the whiteboard.

If you're a faculty staff and would like to take your teaching methods to the next level, check out our list below for more apps that will guarantee to suit your needs.

Edmodo

Edmodo is a full content management system for educators that allows you to easily disseminate assignments and receive submissions. With the newest version of the app, teachers and students now have the ability to like posts in their stream and get a quick glance of who else liked a particular post. Users will find threaded discussions in this app enjoyable because of its Facebook-ish layout.

The app is free to download for iOS, Android, and Windows 8 users.

EduBlogs

EduBlogs is a blogging platform that is designed for teachers to get the word out to students. School educators and teachers alike can use this mobile app to create blogs, post updates, moderate comments, and upload multimedia. The app also has privacy control that provides options to make blogs private or public, teachers can also leave private comments on student writing, organize students in groups and lists, and monitor progress with detailed user reports.

EduBlogs is free for both iOS and Android users.

ShowMe

ShowMe is an app that lets you turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard. It allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them with your students online. Anyone can use it if they want to create presentations using images, drawings, text, and audio voice-over recordings. You can keep your presentations private or shared with limited groups only, if you prefer it that way. ShowMes are categorized by topic, so users can explore other people's ShowMes to find unique lesson resources. Teachers can pay $4.99 for a monthly groups subscription to share ShowMes with a class. The ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard is a collaborative tool for digital lesson-sharing that can work for parents, teachers, and students.

Teacher's Assistant Pro

Teacher's Assistant Pro is an app for iOS that tracks student behavior and achievements, including searchable demographic info on each student. It's easy to communicate later with parents or administrators about what's happening with each student or the entire class. You can send reports via email, text, or make a call directly from your iPhone -- it's an app that thousands of teachers around the world is already using.

Other tasks that you can do using this app -- filter your students by class, action, or just about anything you need, use random student lists and groups for class participation, send announcements to all or some of your students or classes using Email Blast, store parent names and student contact information including a photo, phone numbers, email addresses, and unlimited custom information such as student ID, and many others

You can get Teacher's Assistant Pro for $4.99 for Mac OS, $5.99 for iOS Pro version or Free; Android version is TBA.

Teacher Aide Pro 2

The Teacher Aide Pro 2 is an app for teachers and professors who would like to keep electronic records for classes, with just a touch away from their Android phone or tablet. Instead of being tied to a desktop device, teachers can now enter and access data anywhere in the room. All data is stored in the device locally, so there's no need to have Internet connection in order to access the data you need. However, you also have the option to back up your students' data in the cloud to provide extra security in case your Android device gets lost or damaged. Other features that Teacher Aide Pro 2 offers are Attendance Tracking, Gradebook (Categories and Weighting), Seating Chart, Random Student Caller with text to speech, Student group generator, Easy 1 tap communication with parents, students, and advisors, and Progress report feature.

You can get the Teacher Aide Pro 2 app for $19.99 (Android).

SlideShark

SlideShark is a free app for viewing and sharing PowerPoint presentations on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch the way they are meant to be seen -- with animations, fonts, colors, and graphics intact. It also has the ability to broadcast slides via the Web in real-time, which is useful especially when you have sick students at home, and play embedded videos from your PowerPoint presentation. Some of the key features provided by SlideShark include: File management with your own secure, cloud-based account, plus option to import from leading cloud storage providers, offline access to presentations (requires no Internet connection when presenting), iPhone remote control and laser pointer capabilities when projecting from your iPad, and more.

The free version of the app offers only 25MB of online storage, but if you're willing to pay $8 a month for the Pro version, you'll get 1 GB of online storage or more. You can download the SlideShark app for iOS here.

Messing up Your Computer Can Be the Best Thing to Happen to You

In summary, these are the hard lessons people learn because of the mistakes they made on their computers. It could be out of curiosity; it could be out of pure ignorance; it could be the desire to fix something in a hurry even if the user has no knowledge on how to fix the computer; and sometimes it’s just because of plain and simple stupidity. Whatever the reason, let’s hope these hard mistakes serve as a lesson when handling computers.

Not having an antivirus program

No matter how careful we all are with our computers, if you surf the net, chances are something will want to enter your machine and infect it with god-knows what it is. Always have an updated antivirus program. It’s no good if it’s not updated. You don’t even need an expensive one. In connection to this, even if you are running an antivirus program, don’t ever attempt clicking on links and e-mails that you don’t know about or try to click from the darkest corners of the net. These are where you pick up those nasty viruses.

Lifting a laptop by the screen

Doing this can be lumped into the category of ignorance or stupidity, or both. But logic tells us that the base of a laptop is heavier so always lift it from the base. Lifting by the screen will exert pressure on the hinges and will break the TFT-LCD or the CCFL lamp on the top portion of the LCD.

Not regularly cleaning your PC

Dust builds up inside of your PC’s case over time. This dust clogs up fans, reducing air flow, and increasing the temperature inside your PC. A large amount of dust build-up can result in problems with cooling, which could lead to system crashes as your CPU’s temperature increases. Take time to regularly clean out the dust, not only in your PC, but also from your laptop. Canned compressed air is useful for these cleaning tasks. While it’s understandable that we are all busy working, a damaged PC or laptop will render all your work useless.

Not using a surge protector

If you don’t have your computer plugged into a surge protector, you are putting your computer in great risk. Should there be a power surge or power outage, this can damage your equipment. A good surge protector will absorb the power surges and keep your equipment safe. It will also protect your PC against lightning strikes, but in connection with this, it’s always best to err on the safe side and turn off your laptop and PC during a lightning storm. Don’t ever think that just because your laptop is running on batteries it won’t be damaged by lightning. Ever heard of EMP? That’s what lightning can do if it strikes near enough.

Yanking cables out from a PC

Be sure you gently remove any cable that is attached to your computer. Some cables have screws that hold them in place. Some have plastic tabs. If you just yank the cable out, the cable can break or the computer port can be damaged.