Spirit Story Box Is The Latest iPhone App For 'Ghosthunters'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Technology is often the enemy of superstition, but a new iPhone app aims to convince you otherwise.

Spirit Story Box, a 99-cent iPhone app launched recently by Roger Pingelton and Jill Beitz, of Greenwood, Ind., claims to detect and message nearby ghosts and spirits by tracking "certain environmental elements" around your iPhone and "examining values within the device that a spirit should theoretically be able to manipulate."

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The app supposedly measures these fluctuations over time and interprets a message based on the data. After a few minutes, the device uses a word generator to translate the energy of the nearby spirit into short words and phrases. The resulting message -- which could be anything from "fingers" or "secrets" to "strychnine" or "elephantiasis" -- scrolls across your iPhone screen. Think of it as a long-distance text message from the very-long dead.

You can also track your messages over time...

...and forward the spirit-generated words to your friends and family.

Spirit Story Box is intended for entertainment purposes only, the developers say.

“Bottom line is we wanted people to have fun with it,” Pingleton told the Indiana Star. He went on to say that he wanted to improve on the current paranormal app pickings, one of which (Ghost Radar for Android) actually helped inspire Spirit Story Box.

The Huffington Post's official test of the app, which was conducted with a healthy dose of skepticism, found messages flowing in after just a few minutes. "Cousin save, resourceful grandfather," read some. "Dining room, garters, shallow, around railroad," others said a few minutes later.

Uh-huh.

Well, in a pinch, Spirit Story Box could always be used to generate slam poetry, right?

Yet Another Analyst Thinks A Fingerprint Scanner Is Coming To The iPhone

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

If you're sick of punching in a passcode to keep your iPhone secure, one Apple analyst has some good news for you.

Topeka Capital's Brian White became the latest Apple rumormonger to talk up fingerprinting technology may be coming to the iPhone 5S, Business Insider reports. "Our research suggests that users will simply place their finger on the home key of the iPhone 5S and this will automatically unlock the device, nullifying the need to enter a four-character Apple ID Password," White says.

If this James Bond fantasy sounds familiar, it should. This rumor has been floating around for quite a while, since Apple bought security firm AuthenTec in July 2012. AuthenTec has done a good deal of research on fingerprinting technology, and Apple's purchase of the company stipulated that AuthenTec was no longer allowed to license out its technologies to other companies, leading many to believe that Apple is making it an exclusive feature of its products.

Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities predicted fingerprint hardware for the "iPhone 6" in January. At the time, HuffPost made the case for why Apple will add print scanning to its next devices.

Although he is often trying to anticipate Apple's next moves, Brian White doesn't have the best prediction history. As we noted last year, White has wrongly predicted Apple's stock price and the iPad Mini release date, among other things. He did, however, get the iPhone 5's release date right, so he's got that going for him.

If you're anxious for answers, don't worry. Everything may be clear soon enough. Apple's World Wide Developers Conference is starting in just a few days, and the company is expected to clear up a lot of rumors and make some important announcements. However, if it keeps the lid on any new iPhone or iPad this June, as expected, we'll likely have to wait until the fall.

Earlier on HuffPost: