Gadgetory

remember when it was exciting to hear this sound you've got a oh well these days you've got too much mail and a o L is back with a plan to help sort through the mess with an app called Alto here's the concept Alto pulls in your emails from multiple accounts it can be a o L Yahoo Gmail even your work exchange and it's gonna scan your emails for keywords to automatically filter them into categories that way you could just see emails with a photo or just see emails with a file attachment there are also filters for shopping travel finance and social media the dream of an empty inbox is dead so AOL sees the next solution for email as being able to organize it all without you needing to do anything the concept sounds great but an early demo I tried had some hiccups anything with the word ticket or reservation went into travel even a yoga class I reserved but it did not pick up on the hotel reservation email my husband forwarded me and for some reason some sort of crock-pot recipe spam was showing up and travel a CNET colleague noticed similar issues with his test anything with the word subscribe or shipment was going into his shopping filter including a news alert for a crime story but there's a second part to the app that also has some cool potential it's called dashboard it highlights important incoming alerts for things like flights hotels car rentals and package shipments into a deck of cards it's just like Google now except you don't need Gmail the apps creator said in an interview that this could also highlight coupons or sales that may be expiring soon if also sounds familiar that's because it should Al originally launched alto mail com three years ago as a way to manage multiple emails from a single website but with an invite-only launch and no mobile app it flopped and went nowhere this is a reboot that focuses more on highlighting those emails that may be important to you that is if it can be smart enough to fish out the right emails that's it for this tech news update I'm Bridget Carey you can stay on top the biggest stories intercom / update