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KNUST students create mobile app to retrieve contacts
Students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have created a phone app that enables users to access their contacts even when their phone has been destroyed or is out of battery.
Firebook, which is downloadable from iTunes and Google play stores, helps mobile users to access all contacts on the go, across platforms and at any time.
Created by three final-year computer engineering students, the app has been described as the best utility application from Ghana.
The idea for the app came about when one of the students could not access his contacts after his iPhone fell and went dead.
After unsuccessfully trying to sign into his Cloud-on account with his friend’s mobile phone, and being denied access, Adnan Abdul-Aziz wondered why a gadget he had acquired for $500 to be able to always keep in touch was causing him such stress.
Together with his friend, Timothy Ayernor, Abdul-Aziz used what they had learnt to invent a software to solve the challenge of restrictive access to contacts on mobile phones when gadgets were destroyed or not working because batteries were out. Klogo Gibson Selasi, another mate and colleague, joined the two.
The three have since registered Firebook at the Registrar General’s Department as Firebook Company Limited.
Accessing contacts
Firebook can be used to access all contacts on one’s mobile telephone when the telephone is off, by signing onto the application with another person’s mobile telephone.
After accessing contacts, the user can sign out and his or her contacts are secure and do not get saved on the telephone used to access the contacts.
“It’s like your wallet, you can take money out and put it in at will,” Selasi said. It can also be used on a web application to access contacts and send text messages.
Currently, the application is free to download and users downloading are sending feedback to the innovators, who say they are using the information to make it even better.
“Another feature of Firebook is its ability to allow the transfer of contacts across applications. For instance, from an iPhone, to a Windows application and to any Android system,” Ayernor said.
Source: Ghana Vibes
