5 of the Brooklyn Tech Scene’s Best New Apps
Tinybop’s Robot Factory
Tinybop makes smartphone games that expand kids’ brains instead of rotting them. With colorful interactive animations by local artists, Tinybop’s “Explorer’s Library” offers fun lessons amd with their latest app, Robot Factory, kids mix and match 100 robot parts—including exoskeletons, telescopic arms, spider legs—to experiment with engineering.
For the frugal boozehound, Happy Any Hour lets you schedule your own happy hour, finding discounts at 140+ participating bars in Williamsburg, Bushwick, Fort Greene, the Lower East Side, and the East Village. The free app gamifies bar-hopping: Once at your chosen location, a countdown starts. You get 60 minutes to drink and save.
Bushwick-based web developer Trond Werner Hansen envisions his free iOS app, Kite, as the “Instagram for news.” This socially-curated news-reading service lets users share articles with friends without the interference of a corporation’s algorithms and without sifting through sponsored content.
From DUMBO Startup Lab comes Sync.cr (prounounced “sinker”), an app for sending bitcoin, a type of digital currency, via social media accounts. Linking your social network accounts to your bitcoin wallet lets you make instant payments to users anywhere in the world, without the hassle, fees, or delays of traditional methods.
If you’re too busy (or too lazy) to make it to the laundromat, FlyCleaners will send an on-demand “FlyGuy” to pick up your clothes at your place, wash them according to your specifications, and deliver them, folded, within 24 hours. The service is priced by the pound and available throughout Brooklyn.