Which of the following is NOT a Halloween-related app?
Connecting state and local government leaders
a. A Facebook app for identifying sex offenders. b. A Halloween voice transformer. c. A game with friendly, clown-faced zombies. d. An app that identifies the presence of ghosts and other paranormal activity. e. An app that recognizes costumes, so you don’t have to guess who someone is supposed to be.
There are loads of Halloween apps for face painting, haunted house hunting and smashing pumpkins. So, which one of these is not real:
a. A Facebook app for identifying sex offenders.
b. A Halloween voice transformer.
c. A game with friendly, clown-faced zombies.
d. An app that identifies the presence of ghosts and other paranormal activity.
e. An app that recognizes costumes, so you don’t have to guess who someone is supposed to be.
Scroll down for the answer.
Answer:
Let's run down the candidates to see which are real and which is fake:
a. REAL. The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) has just released its Sex Offender Locator Application, which makes the state’s sex offender registry available thorough the New York State Public Safety Facebook page. The app highlights Level 2 (medium risk) and Level 3 (high risk) offenders. It was released just in time for Halloween, so parents of trick-or-treaters can find out if any houses in their neighborhood should be avoided.
b. REAL. The Halloween Voice Transformer is an iPhone app that transforms your voice into an alien, witch, grim reaper, monster, robot or ghost, for scaring or amusing your friends.
c. REAL. Zombie Circus is a 60-level game for Windows Phones in which you try to prevent clown-faced zombies (yes, clown-faced zombies) from getting into the Big Top by flicking them into the air with your finger.
d. REAL. Entity Sensor is an Android app that, with a straight face, says it can help detect ghosts and other supernatural phenomena by using your phone's electromagnetic field detector “like the EMF Detectors seen on the paranormal TV shows." As Halloween apps go (and it's not free), this might be more trick than treat.
e. FAKE. As far as we could find out, at least, we made this one up. We doubt mobile apps have gotten to the point of taking an image of a person in a costume and searching that against a database of possible Halloween costumes to come up with an answer. But if your phone starts detecting paranormal entities, we might have to rethink this one.