What’s on the smartphone agenda for August?

Artifact

Artifact is a news application launched by Instagram’s co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It’s an AI-driven news feed that puts users in control.
Users can select their preferred categories while setting up the app and Artifact will search for the most informative free stories from the best publishers, weed out clickbait and use AI to concisely summarise articles to help save time.
Artifact includes features such as Reader Mode that lets users become immersed in a clutter free and elegant reading experience. Combat clickbait by marking specific articles as clickbait and help other users steer clear of misleading content. Leave comments on a story in the app and view comments made by others. Artifact sends timely push notifications that keep users ahead of the curve about stories shaping the world.
Moreover, the app has a growing community that has built a respectful place for subscribers to talk and debate.

smallTalk: Languages for Baby

smallTalk is a wonderfully presented language-learning app, that’s aimed at mothers and their babies or toddlers as a guided way to bond and develop the child’s brainpower for language in their early formative years.
The application boasts seven different languages – English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish.
The app highlights the many neurological benefits associated with early foreign language exposure, and hence, it has developed a science-based, proven language learning system that is easy for parents to implement and babies to enjoy. The products are designed to elicit an action from the baby to trigger learning (scientists refer to it as a contingent process).
The made-for-baby content has been developed by using actual recordings of mothers singing and reading to their babies in their native languages.