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Makers of Secret unveil super-simple notification-led app Ping

The notifications are designed to grow and adapt to the user as they interact with each other

Natasha Culzac
Monday 29 September 2014 12:55 BST
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The makers of Secret have unveiled their latest project - Ping
The makers of Secret have unveiled their latest project - Ping (Ping)

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The makers of the anonymous status app Secret have unveiled their new project: Ping – a hyper simple and scaled back notifications app, which alerts them to what it thinks is worth knowing about.

Secret Inc are behind Ping’s design and is the same firm that released controversial app ‘Secret- Speak Freely’ earlier this year, which allows users to post their thoughts, incognito, to friends and family.

Ping, however, is a new invention that works by offering a number of notification choices, such as “Trending on Twitter”, “Movies worth watching” or “Apps worth downloading”.

It is not entirely clear what information these notifications are based on, but there is no need to sign-up to the service, no username and no password.

The app went live on Friday and is free to download.

A blog post by the app’s Designer, Ben Lee, stated that Ping is “just content”, adding that it “was born out of a weekend hackathon where the goal was an exercise in simplicity.

“We were fascinated by the idea of an app that could tell you what you need to know, right when you need to know it. Why scavenge for content — it should come to you.”

Secret Inc’s CEO David Byttow told Re/code that the app “adapts to you, and evolves itself” as users interact with it, making it more personalised.

“The key with AI [artificial intelligence] is to start small and simple,” he said.

The developers also uploaded an explanatory YouTube video to mark the app’s release, showing how the dot is used to move its users through “portals”.

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