Do you remember the good old days of IRC and later on ICQ? I can still remember my 8 digit ICQ number, although I am quite sure that a fair number of you veterans out there do have an ICQ number that has far less digits, which is a badge of honor even until now. You could more or less see who was online among your list of friends, although there was the option to go invisible. Google has quietly rolled out a new app known as “Who’s Down”, where it will let you check out just who you would like to hang out with. How so?

For starters, when you turn on a switch that mentions you’re available and would like to do something specific (it is up to you, actually, so whether it is you carving out time to hang out at the mall or to grab a bite), then your desired status will appear with a question to invite anyone who has the same mind among your friends to join you. This status will last for three hours, and makes it easier to coordinate your desired plans with your mates.

I guess the Who’s Down app’s goal is to provide a platform where a group of friends can check out what you would like to do at a glance, as opposed to messaging one another on a group chat channel or the like. Your ego will also be protected in some way, since there is no way you can get turned down – because technically speaking, you didn’t ask anyone to join you directly. Who’s Down is available for the Android and iOS platforms.

It looks like we live in the age of speed, where delays are frowned upon on. In fact, it seems that Google too, wants to deliver near instantaneous translating with their Google Translate app on mobile devices by minimizing the amount of delay, making it feel as though it works in real-time. Word on the street has it that Google is preparing to roll out a brand new service which will be able to translate words in real-time, pretty much in the same manner as a current market solution known as Word Lens is able to do.

The update to the Android ‘Translate’ app will also be able to automatically recognize when someone is speaking another language, before going about with its translation magic to turn it into text that you can understand. The mechanics behind this app remain to be understood, but changes are one will need to have it configured to translate popular spoken languages into written text in a language of your choice, allowing it to be ever ready to see action. Anyone interested?

If you happen to be an Android user, then chances are pretty high that you would want to see the Amazon Appstore being part of your beloved Android-powered device, right? Having options are always good – after all, to be able to enjoy a second marketplace when browsing for apps is always a boon, regardless of the ecosystem that you are in. Of course, in the past, to arrive at the Amazon Appstore and to perform an installation could prove to be too much trouble than it is worth, but thankfully, the folks over at Amazon has managed to turn their Appstore into part of its regular Android app.

The moment you have the Amazon app installed from the Google Play Store, you can open it up and select “Shop by Departments”. Within that particular section, you will find the whole Amazon Appstore under the title “Apps and Games”. This store had a soft launch on September 9th earlier this year, but it was performed under the radar. Amazon claims that their Android app carries an inventory of hundreds of millions of items which can be purchased via 1-click, and that includes over 200,000 movies and TV shows, 30 million something tunes, a couple of million Kindle books, and up to 5GB of photo back-up space via Amazon Cloud Drive, now how about that for generosity? [Press Release]