Apps and Software

"Men everywhere can now rejoice as their wives and girlfriends finally have a way to track their time of the month." I received this pitch email for the MyPeriod Tracker app this week. "How many ruthless fights have been started due to lack of empathy from the husband because he had no idea what type of mood he was coming home to?"

It's 2015 and this kind of utterly embarrassing marketing still exists. Keep reading — it gets worse

The subject line contained the phrase "PMS & Men," which hinted at the email's contents. The app was created by none other than five (five) men who "were tired of the drama, discourse and sometimes absurd fights." The app would help "relinquish the fear and confusion of men, and allow women to be more tuned into their own cycle and symptoms." ...

Women can refill their birth control prescriptions with a few smartphone swipes, thanks to a deal between Walgreens and Glow

Glow, a data science company that focuses on women's reproductive health, has integrated Walgreens' Prescription Refill API into its eponymous app. The app uses algorithms to track women's periods and predicts when the next "window of fertility" opens. With the new feature, women will be notified when that time comes with the following message:

Though such specificity may make some women uncomfortable, Glow and Walgreens are pitching the feature as an added convenience and a method of reducing the chance for missed doses. ...

Data breaches are everywhere. Be it Target, Home Depot or JPMorgan Chase, millions of consumers have lost personal data to hackers.

Personal data can be anything from an email address or phone number to something like your birthday or home street — things hackers want to get their hands on. IBM has developed a cloud-based cryptogram that it's calling the Identity Mixer, and it makes it so that the services we use never even have access to our most sensitive personal information.

In other words, with the Identity Mixer, the use of a cryptographic algorithm confirms for an institution that you are who you say you are without having to actually give up your personal information ...