businessinfomag.uk
magazine
14
Improve your mental health
Thrive, a software company that develops
mobile apps to empower people to
manage their mental health independently,
has exceeded its fundraising target of
£500,000 with the help of investment
bank ClearlySo.
Led by psychiatrist Dr Andres Fonseca
and videogame expert Richard Flower,
Thrive uses gamification and augmented
reality to deliver proven methods for
managing mental health. Thrive says
that by doing things digitally, it is able to
provide support at a fraction of the cost
of traditional, private therapy and reduce
users’ worry about stigma or judgement,
resulting in improved completion rates.
Thrive currently has three apps
for download: Arachnophobia Free;
Agoraphobia Free; and Feel Stress Free, for
depression and anxiety. The latter is also
available on license to businesses looking
to improve their employees’ wellbeing.
Free parking scheme pilot
Sunderland is trialling a new parking app
designed to generate custom for local
businesses. ParkingPerx, developed by
ProxiSmart, lets users earn rewards from
participating retailers, which they can then
use to pay car parking charges.
Key features include one-touch
parking; the ability to pay for extra
parking without having to return to
one’s car; and the use of Smart Beacon
technology to send messages to users
when they park and shop.
ProxiSmart boss Chris Reed said:
“Each retailer decides on what their
offer or discount is going to be, so the
benefits will vary from shop to shop. The
shopper simply presents their phone at
the till to claim their reward, just like
existing contactless payments systems.
The solution then awards the user their
ParkingPerx, which they can use as a credit
to pay for their parking fees.”
Drone safety
In an attempt to reduce the number of
near misses between drones and aircraft,
air traffic control provider NATS has
launched a new drone safety app that
Paul Bulpitt, head of
accounting at Xero and
co-founder of theWow
Company, lists his top five
iOS and Android apps for the
self-employed.
1
HMRC (Free)
The official app from HMRC can
help you get to grips with your
tax. Use it to quickly and easily
work out your tax, break down
your income and see how much
you can claim back as a self-
employed person.
2
Xero (from £10 a month)
If numbers aren’t your forte, fear
not. Cloud accounting solutions
like Xero simplify your numbers,
enabling you to send and
receive invoices, track expenses
and upload receipts – all via a
beautiful interface. And because
it operates on the cloud, you can
check your numbers anywhere,
anytime.
3
Evernote (Free)
An idea can come to you at any
time. Evernote allows you quickly
to save pictures, business cards,
web links and notes and keep
them all in one place.
4
HelloSign (from free to £32
a month)
This app is a little unusual, but
for people who are always on
the move, it is great. HelloSign
enables you to sign and fill
out forms, contracts and other
documents electronically, before
saving and emailing them back
to the recipient. Perfect for those
times when you’re nowhere near
a printer and scanner.
5
Harvest (from £10 a month)
Harvest streamlines the entire
billing process, from tracking
your time to getting paid. From
the web or your smartphone,
simple and quick time-entry
means you have the data you
need to bill accurately and
budget wisely.
Five apps for the self-employed
provides drone pilots with an interactive
map of airspace used by commercial
air traffic that they should avoid. Drone
Assist also contains a ‘Fly Now’ feature
that shares the user’s drone flight location
with other app users and the wider drone
community. Drone Assist is available for
free on Android and iOS.
Team messaging
Flock, one of the world’s fastest growing
team communication and collaboration
apps, has launched in the UK. The app
enables users to create multiple teams
and communicate and collaborate using
its file sharing, video conferencing and
screen sharing capabilities. Flock is
supported across all platforms, including
Desktop (Windows and Mac),Web and
Mobile (iOS and Android). It is currently
free for unlimited users and usage, with
upgrade plans starting at $3 per user
per month.
Notetaking for Mac
Zoho’s notetaking app, Notebook, is now
available for Mac.With smartphone and
tablet apps, a browser extension and now
a desktop version, users can save text,
checklists, audio, photos and sketches for
free and ad-free, across devices. Notebook
encourages users to make the app their
own by creating their own notebook cover
or choosing from one of more than 25
hand-drawn designs. Individual notes can
be grouped and colour-coded.
Watch
what you eat
TheWatch Yourself concept has been
selected as winner of the Electrolux Ideas
Lab, a global competition to discover new
ways to inspire healthy, sustainable eating.
The wrist-worn gadget scans food on the
supermarket shelf and projects recipes
onto the palm of your hand. Its creator,
product design student Hannes Lung from
Estonia, wins a
€
10,000 cash prize and
a week in Stockholm to network with
leaders from Electrolux and creatives from
Scandinavia’s most successful start-ups.
Wearables boost performance
Wearable technology could significantly
reduce stress and boost performance in
the workplace, a 30-day study by LinkedIn,
Spire and Stanford University suggests.
Results show that LinkedIn employees who
wore a Spire tracker, a small device for
tracking breathing patterns, experienced
significantly less stress and negative moods
and were more productive and focused
than non-Spire users. Compared to the
control group, Spire users
experienced 27% fewer
anxious days and 35%
more energetic days;
they were 37% calmer;
and had 25% more
focus-related breathing
patterns.
App Update
APP UPDATE
2
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New apps for business and leisure
ParkingPerx
Drone Assist
Flock
Paul Bulpitt
