KOCHI: Making friendships with unknown people across the globe via mobile phones is easy nowadays. Now, you can speak with them to jointly solve a puzzle - one that can be cracked only by collaborative efforts - and be among the avant-garde. It is simple.
It is ‘Howdy!,’ a web-and app-based voice application that encourages people across the globe to talk with each other and boosts peer-to-peer learning. And it is the brainchild of Nethram India Innovation Center, a startup company in Wayanad.
According to Paul Mathews, founder of the company, a person can tap on his phone from anywhere in the world and connect with a random stranger. They can then speak with each other to jointly solve a puzzle. “Howdy! games are based on general knowledge, science, and maths and fills the void left by web-based, one to many courses. It is built as a platform for building massively scalable web and app-based voice applications. The platform can be re-used to build large voice applications similar to google talk,” he adds.
Howdy! is capable of entertainment. It can be a tool for improving and exchanging knowledge, making friends, having fun, uniting the world, and improving your communication skills, general awareness, and knowledge base. Howdy! brings back the excitement of long distance communication. There was a time when talking to someone in another country was a novelty. Long distance telephone calls were expensive, but the excitement of talking to someone on the other side of the globe was thrilling. “What’s the weather like there?” “What are you eating for lunch?” Just simple questions about our shared daily routines help us remind us that we are all one human family.
The app is easy to use and once installed, the user connects to the Howdy! server. All you need is to hit the ‘Talk’ button and they’re connected to a random person and have three minutes to make a connection and say whatever they would like. By hitting the ‘Talk ‘n’ Solve’ button, they are connected to a random person and the pair has five minutes to solve the puzzle which can only be done with verbal cooperation and communication. When the call or game is over, the users have the option of leaving a personal voice message for the rest of the Howdy! users. By pressing the ‘Fetch’ button, one message will be retrieved - like an electronic note in a bottle. Security features for Howdy! include the option to block a person and to report abuse.
Howdy! is available for Android on Google Play Store and can be downloaded from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nethram.howdy Howdy! is also available through web browser on http://howdytheapp.com/
NASSCOM has selected Nethram India Innovation Center, the mastermind behind Howdy!, to join Innotrek 2015 at Silicon Valley. Nethram received the recognition because of its Android application, Howdy!