The Hotel App

Imagine catching a red-eye flight to your destination. Accompanying you on this trip is your spouse & your kids – a 5-year-old one and a toddler. You have flown from Dallas to San Francisco on the eve of a long weekend. While your flight is making the descent, you make a mental check of all things you need to do as soon as you land. And you pray that all things work out seamlessly – getting the luggage, renting car and reaching hotel safe and sound.

What if the hotel you were heading to, did all the heavy lifting of all your activities, informed you at regular intervals and delighted you in an unexpected way? All things you need, bundled in a secure hotel app. The hotel app not just helps you with hotel comforts but understands you as a person.

The hotel app is your digital concierge – ready to answer any questions you probably felt odd to ask the front desk – e.g. where I can get the power extension for my extra electronic devices? The hotel app recommends places to eat, shop & entertain. It keeps your paper receipts archived in the app. The app is the digital incarnation of the ever-reliant Alfred, who not just is a butler to Bruce Wayne but knows Bruce thoroughly as a person.

This digital app, Alfred precisely does that – it understands your needs as a traveler, anticipates your needs, nudges you to make better choices and makes your hotel stay enjoyable.

The futuristic hotel awaits you.

Posted by

taralk

Posted on

May 28, 2015

Posted under

Apple, consumer app, Mobile Apps, sports

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The Marathon Drive

“The miles is the goal” says Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) in the movie “Up In The Air”. He is talking about the frequent flier miles he aggregates on living life out of a suitcase, as he travels across the states in air. When I say “the miles is the goal”, I am on the ground and I refer it to the miles I accumulate for my monthly runs :).

I owe it to my elder brother Yogesh, who inspired me to take up running as a sport. I was never a runner, per se. The two sports that I played in my school days were tennis and soccer. And it does involve running, lots of it. These sports took up a back seat when the academics came into forefront, reducing the once passionate sports to once-in-a-blue-moon events.

I took up running after I bid goodbye to the Midwest weather and landed up in a cheerful spring in Texas. Running was completely new to me. I started off by walking, and then to brisk jog – discovering that my shoes, my sheen and heels were not in the right shape to get me running. The greatest challenge for the first two weeks was to run a distance of 0.25 miles (0.4 kilometer).

Last year, I went on a month-long trip to Pune (India), my home town. One day, on an early morning run, I was stopped by a very old man. I had seen him run the previous day. He asked me if I was training for the international marathon (held in Pune every December). I said I was not. He said “You should try. I am hoping to better to my record for 10K race. My age is 73”.

Last month, I ran the half marathon distance (13.1 miles = 21 kilometers) in 2 hours 1 minutes 33 seconds. Series of long and short runs helped me to achieve this milestone.

Every month, my target is complete 100 miles. Depending upon the time I have, my travel and weather outside, I plan runs and reach the goal. I am often asked by my family members when will I be able to complete a marathon. I don’t know. It took me a year to complete the half marathon distance. Perhaps, soon.

Two books have helped me understand different aspects of running. The book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall is a non-technical, non step-by-step guide and yet an informative read about human origins of running to the latest ultra-marathon species called Tarahumara Indians. “Running with the mind of meditation” by Sakyong Mipham offers another compelling view of running practiced in conjunction with meditation.

Nike+ app is a good way to record your running activities. Its fairly accurate, comes on Android and iOS devices. I would love to connect with fellow runners. If you are using Nike+ app, can add me to your friends list.

Based on the app usage, I have created a concept for a running app. I am sure it will undergo iterations, I am presenting the first draft.

Running App Concept – Page1

Running App Concept – Page2

Posted by

taralk

Posted on

March 3, 2015

Posted under

consumer app, Mobile Apps

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3 Comments

The Conference Calls

How does your average work day look like – are you engaged in office calls / conference calls? Twice, thrice to the max? As your responsibilities increase, you daytime is divided mostly in the calls. You don’t keep a count of the calls, you just join them.

The app that I am presenting is in the works, it will be launched soon. The app will help the user to join calls over voice and Wi-Fi calling.

This app takes away the pains of joining the conference calls – once it is installed on your mobile it scans the inboxes, collates the calendar invites and keeps a sequence of conference calls ready to join. It prompts you before the call, dials in 10 digit toll free / call numbers, pin codes automatically (dials intelligently the country codes as per your phone number). It gives you an advance information about upcoming calls.

If you want to patch in someone, it gives you a dialer / recent calls / favorites list to call and allows you to merge the calls. Its coming on iPhone, Android and Apple Watch.