Text with Jesus is a new instant messaging application powered by ChatGPT that allows users to chat with Jesus Christ and other biblical figures impersonated by the popular artificial intelligence program.

Created by Cat Loaf Software, an app-development company in Los Angeles, the new messaging program features a plethora of biblical characters, from Jesus to Judas and the rest of the apostles, and even First Testament protagonists like Ruth, Job, and Abraham’s nephew, Lot. And, if your dark side ever takes over, there is even an option to chat with Satan. The app was launched recently and has been getting mixed feedback online. Reactions have varied from amusement to accusations of blasphemy and heresy, which is really not that surprising considering the sensitive topic. For some people, religion is the most sacred thing in their lives, so they don’t take lightly anything they consider offensive.

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Chinese schoolchildren in Wuhan and other areas where school has been suspended because of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak have apparently been trying to have a homework app taken down from the App Store so they could enjoy their vacation.

The threat of Covid-19 is no joke, but for Chinese students the shutdown of schools in affected areas has been met with excitement as it basically meant an extra holiday period. Sure, they couldn’t hang out or even leave the house for weeks, but at least they didn’t have to attend classes and, most importantly, they din’t have any homework. At least that’s what they thought, because soon after schools closed, teachers started using an Alibaba-owned app to both hold classes online and issue homework to their students. But somehow the schoolchildren managed to coordinate a massive campaign to hopefully have the app taken down from the App Store so they could enjoy their time off.

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Tech giants Google and Apple have come under fire for hosting a controversial smartphone app that allows Saudi men to monitor how and where women travel and effectively prevent them from leaving the country without permission.

Developed by the government of Saudi Arabia, Absher has been around for a while, but it only started making waves in western media after an article in ThisIsInsider highlighted one of its most controversial features – allowing male “guardians” to track and restrict women’s movements via their smartphones. In Saudi Arabia, women are placed under the authority of a male guardian regardless of their age. Women must ask the permission of their guardians to get married, open bank accounts and travel to certain places, and thanks to Absher, tracking an restricting the travel options of women is easier than it’s ever been.

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From Whatsapp to WeChat or Skype,the world has plenty of choices when it comes to messaging apps that connect friends and strangers on the internet. The market is so crowded this days that for a new competitor to even get noticed, they’d have to come up with something completely new. Enter “Die With Me,” a fresh chat app that can only be used when your smartphone has 5% or less battery remaining.

Die With Me allows total strangers with low battery to log into an online chatroom and converse as they wait for their handhelds to shut off completely. Or, as the developers so poetically put it, to “die together in a chatroom on your way to offline peace.” Using Die With Me requires nothing more than choosing a username and allowing the app to read your battery status. The idea behind the strangely poignant app was to turn the frustrating experience of dealing with low phone battery into a positive one.

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Gun violence is a very serious issue on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, so much so that people have begun using a smartphone app similar to the popular “Waze”, only instead of heavy traffic, they’re trying to avoid gun fire.

Rio de Janeiro is facing a crisis of gun violence, as police raids and shootouts between drug gangs echo daily through the streets of Brazil’s second largest city. Civilians are continuously caught and killed in the crossfires, with harrowing stories, such as that of a pregnant woman being shot in the stomach, continually emerging from the beleaguered city. The hardest hit area is the Maré complex of poor favela neighborhoods, the residents of which fear even walking down the street, both at night and during the day.

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Kids, and teens in particular, are apparently really good at ignoring their parents’ messages, which is why one London Father created ReplyASAP – a messaging app that takes over the home screen and sounds an alarm that can’t be turned off until a message is answered.

45-year-old Nick Herbert, from London, UK, came up with the idea for ReplyASAP after realizing that simply giving his son a mobile phone didn’t make getting in touch with him easier. He wasn’t answering his messages as fast as Nick had expected, and often kept his phone on silent. It was driving the father crazy, so he set out to create a messaging app that would make reaching kids easier for parents. It took eight months and a considerable investment to complete the project, but Nick thinks ReplyASAP could really take off, as it has the potential to give parents some peace of mind.

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Let’s face it, you’ll probably never get to go on a date with your celebrity crush, but, with Dating AI, a new dating app that uses advanced facial recognition technology, you can now find celebrity doppelgangers and ask them out on a date.

The Dating.ai app works by analyzing a reference a photo you upload or select from a list of popular celebrities provided within the app, and then scanning through thousands of profile photos from popular dating services like Tinder, Bumper or Plenty of Fish to find people who look very similar. The idea of finding everyday people who look like your favorite celebrity is just a selling point, because, in reality, Dating.ai can be used to find all kinds of people, from people who look like your ex, to versions of yourself of the opposite sex (if you want to date yourself). The possibilities are virtually endless.

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If you’re the kind of person who goes goes online to buy all kinds of weird things in the early hours of the morning, after an alcohol-fueled night out, you may be interested in a new smartphone app that blocks your credit cards for 12 hours if it thinks you’re too drunk to shop.

DrnkPay is a smartphone app that stops users from making purchases while drunk, which is apparently something people end up regretting. It was developed by UK financial consultancy company iBe TSE, after research found that half of British alcohol drinkers admitted that they regret a purchase made when drunk. The survey that inspired Drnkpay also revealed a few bizarre examples of things bought while intoxicated, like flying lessons, a rowing club lifetime membership for someone who doesn’t row, 30 pairs of flip flops, and even a live chicken.

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In the era of “ain’t nobody got time for that”, when most online dating services are largely based on profile photos and conversation is kept as simple and monotonous as possible, the world’s first “slow dating” app is trying to get people to take things slow by first talking and getting to know each other.

Appetence is a dating app designed around the principle of ‘taking it slow’. Instead of swiping left and right based only on your matches’ looks, you have to earn the privilege of actually seeing what your match looks like through conversation. And we’re not talking just a few short messages, either. Two people need to exchange at least 100 messages, or “encounters”, before they can see each other’s profile pictures, and that’s if they really hit it off.

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In an effort to help people cope with the loss of their loved ones, a South Korean tech company is developing an app that lets them take photos and converse with digitally-rendered models of deceased friends and family.

Called “With Me”, the controversial app was developed by ELROIS, a Korean firm that specializes in creating realistic 3D avatars, and requires the featured person to sign up for an avatar while they are still alive. Currently, they have to visit a special booth where their bodies are scanned using special technology, but ELROIS hopes that smartphones will soon come with built-in 3D-scanning technology to streamline the process. The company then proceeds to create a “realistic” 3D avatar based on the scanned images, followed by reshaping and auto-rigging to make it animated.

Not only can users of the With Me app take selfies with these digital avatars of their loved ones, but thanks to artificial intelligence, they can also converse with them, or have them react to certain commands or information uploaded to the app. “When a user puts personal information in the app, the avatars remember the user from that time and recognize if there’s some changes in the of users as well,” an ELROIS spokesperson said. “For example, if there is a change in appearance or an emotional change and the avatar will mention something about it, such as ‘you look younger today, what is your secret?'”

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In a bid to convince drivers in Aichi Prefecture to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, a new Japanese smartphone app offers free coffee coupons to drivers who don’t check their phones for at least 100 km.

For the last 13 years, Aichi Prefecture has recorded the highest rate of traffic fatalities in Japan. Last year, there were 443,691 accidents that resulted in injuries or deaths, and 50,101 arrests involving the use of smartphones while driving. With handhelds becoming such a big part of people’s lives, there appears to be an increase in violations of this nature, and authorities have yet to come up with an effective plan to combat the problem.

Interestingly, a trio of Japanese company seem to think that an ingenious new app could incentivize drivers to restrain themselves from checking their phones at the wheel and reduce the number of traffic accidents. Toyota Motor Corporation, Komeda Co Ltd and KDDI Corporation have teamed up to create Driving Barista, an app that uses the phone’s gyro sensor to sense the tilt of the device, and the GPS to determine the distance driven. This allows it to calculate the number of kilometers a driver has traveled with the smartphone facing down.

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A Japanese tombstone company is using the augmented reality technology made popular by Pokemon Go to allow mourners to “catch” pre-recorded video messages from their deceased loved ones in cemeteries.

Named “Spot Message”, the new Pokemon Go-inspired app is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Katori, president of Ryoshin Sekizai, a tombstone company based in Katori, Japan’s Chiba prefecture. He claims that the new technology realizes his longtime dream of preserving realistic memories of the dearly departed for the living. “My uncle, who ran a paint store, died eight years ago after he fell from a tall structure at work,” 33-year-old Katori said. “His death was so sudden, and it shattered the lives of his family. I also respected him a lot, so I would often visit his grave, consulting with him in my mind whenever I had issues concerning my business. I wondered how comforting it would be if he could talk to me at his grave, with messages like ‘How are you doing?’ and ‘Hang in there.’ ”

His desire to hear his uncle’s words at his grave inspired the Japanese entrepreneur to use augmented reality to plant pre-recorded messages from the dead at their graves and other places dear to them, for their living friends and family to discover using their smartphones.

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Too Good to Go is a smartphone app that allows users to order leftover food that restaurants would otherwise throw away at discount prices. Originally launched in Denmark, the service has recently been introduced in the United Kingdom by a couple of young entrepreneurs, after returning from the Nordic country.

The main purpose of this newly launched service is to cut food waste. Millions of tonnes of food are thrown in the trash every year in the UK alone, with restaurants accounting for fairly large chunk, so eco-entrepreneurs Chris Wilson and Jamie Crummie came up with a more profitable alternative. “It costs restaurants on average 97p for every meal they throw away so we are saving them that expense and giving them extra,” Wilson said. “And we provide them with all packaging so they have recyclable and eco-friendly boxes.” As for Too Good to Go users, they get the chance to order fancy dishes at low prices ranging between £2 to £3.80 per meal.

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With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, lots of single people are probably dreading an onrush of uncomfortable questions from parents and other nosy relatives. Thankfully, there’s a new app called the ‘Invisible Boyfriend’ that could help them get through the awkward situation with ease.

The genius app, which recently went from private to public beta, allows users to pay for “believable social proof” that they’re actually in a relationship. The app generates everything that would exist in a real-life relationship, like photos, text messages, and even voicemails – all fake, but realistic.  “It really helps people tell a better story about a relationship they’re not in,” said Matthew Homann, who created the app along with Kyle Tabor. 

He revealed that he first purchased the domains ‘invisibleboyfriend’ and ‘invisiblegirlfriend’ nine years ago, just after a divorce. He didn’t do much with them for a long time, but at a 2013 Startup Weekend in St. Louis, he decided to pitch the idea. Matthew and his team won first place, after which there was no looking back. 

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