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Android: Can an app improve social skills?

Android app is designed for socially awkward people. The AwkTalk app, winner of a competition, lets students with Android-based machines meet and rate each other's social skills. 

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Mindy Schauer/The Orange County Register/AP/File
Bicyclists cruise around the Great Park in Irvine, Calif., earlier this month. Students at the University of California, Irvine, have created a new Android app to help young people improve thier social skills.
  • By Ian Hamilton The Orange County Register/MCT

Undergraduate students at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science at University of California, Irvine, have built an Android app to help students through social awkwardness.

The app is called AwkTalk developed by students for AppJam, a competition to build the best mobile app in one week. The theme for the competition was self improvement and the team "Socially Awkward Anteaters" won the $1,000 first prize in the competition with the app.

"We were all aware that many of our colleagues in the fields of computer science and engineering (ourselves included) lack excellent socials skills," the overview of the project says.

The app helps students find a place to meet face to face where they'll participate in a timed discussion and then rate the other person's social skills. Find more information about the app on the team's website: http://appjam.roboteater.com/team10.php.

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