Various groups from across the political spectrum — Republicans to Democrats, to those choosing to remain nonpartisan – have developed a range of apps for those involved in the election process, from voters to polling center volunteers.  With smartphone apps becoming increasingly more prevalent in all aspects of daily life, it is only natural that their role will continue to grow in future elections, according to Rob Tannen, director of design and strategy at the Intuitive Company, which recently developed Intuitive Voting, a prototype app geared to “improve the election process.”

“You think the presence of apps in the political process would have happened more aggressively by now than it has,” Tannen told FoxNews.com. “Going forward, I think there is the infrastructure in place for more people to get the right information at the right time.”

While still in its conceptual phase, Intuitive Voting is the kind of app that Tannen said he hoped would help improve the voting process in future election years. Designed as two separate apps – one used by polling center volunteers and the other for actual voters — Intuitive Voting’s features include clear, concise information on volunteer protocol, a tool to help people register to vote, and detailed information on candidate platforms. The app was recently the winning design in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s 2014 voting Design Competition. 

Tannen said the team’s vision for the app is for it to be a nonpartisan tool that provides objective information to voters and volunteers. While not yet a reality, he said that tools like Intuitive Voting are necessary in helping voters make sense of the barrage of information they get on a daily basis from campaigns and interest groups.

There are currently several apps in existence that attempt to help voters determine who they should vote for this election season. For example, Votr, developed by media company Vocativ, is an election app that takes a few cues from popular dating app Tinder. Votr gives users the opportunity to assess each of the 161 candidates vying for the 36 open U.S. Senate seats in Tuesday's elections. Users answer several emoji-animated personal questions – some are issue-based, like whether or not one supports gay marriage, to the more trivial, like whether a user is a dog or cat person – and then presents candidates who users can vote yes or no for. If the candidate’s answers match those of the user’s, then he or she will most likely get a decided “yes.”

For example, when Emily Marie Sanchez, 2014 Texas-based Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, pops up on the app, her positions like “pro-choice,” “supports stricter gun laws,” and “supports marijuana law reform” appear under her profile picture in addition to a few quick facts. After looking at her overview, the app’s user has the option to swipe yes or no.

While the Intuitive Voting and Votr apps were developed by nonpartisan organizations, various interest groups from both the right and the left have been applying app technology to try to make an impact during today’s elections. True the Vote, a Texas-based conservative group, has an app called VoteStand for both iOS and Android phones that is designed to allow users to “report cases of potential election irregularity and fraud.” According to True the Vote’s website, the geo-location-based app’s users are encouraged to report incidents like “absentee voting fraud,” “machine tampering,” or “voter intimidation” by taking photos or writing posts that will be submitted to True the Vote. The conservative nonprofit will post users' submissions that have been vetted and potentially contact local polling officials about alleged incidents of voting fraud.

The current version of the app was released last week, and Logan Churchwell, True the Vote’s communications director, told FoxNews.com that it currently has around 10,000 users. Churchwell said that, so far, the app has been downloaded the most in Texas, California, and Florida, and does not collect information such as a user’s party affiliation. Of course, given the fact that all of VoteStand’s content is crowd sourced, it is important that users avoid breaking any voting laws. The group lists on its website guidelines and suggestions for the app’s users. For instance, users have to be clear that they are not violating the state rules for shooting video and taking photographs inside polling locations, as well as potentially intimidating any fellow voters. Criminal penalties could result from violating voting laws.

With such increased interest in inserting apps into the election process, one natural question immediately comes up – will online voting ever become a reality in an increasingly digitized world?

Tannen said it is a possibility that will take a while to become a reality.

“You have real app designs for financial services and the banking industry, and obviously people are very safely and easily processing confidential transactions online and on phones,” he explained. “Obviously that could be applied to voting down the line. All of the technology is there, the infrastructure is there, but the question comes down to money, and organizations like local governments that are responsible for voting machines. It involves local money. To bring the voting process online, it is probably going to be driven by the private sector down the line.”

The device partly blocks a person's peripheral vision, which is weaker in humans at distinguishing colors and shapes than a person's central vision, but it is better in detecting motion. So during activities such as driving or even walking in the street, unobstructed peripheral vision is essential for spotting things out of the corner of one's eyes.

"Interest in wearable head-mounted display systems for general consumers is increasing," and several models are being produced, the researchers wrote in their study. But exactly how these devices may affect people's vision is largely unknown, they said.

In a new study, Dr. Tsontcho Ianchulev, of the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues examined how much a person's peripheral visual field is obstructed by wearing Google Glass, which has a prism and a larger frame than most conventional eyeglasses. Three people participated in the study and wore Google Glass for an hour, long enough to get used to them.

The participants wore the device in three slightly different ways, so that the prism would sit either right in front of the eye's pupil (the dark area in the middle of the iris), or near the pupil, or a little above the level of the eye. The display feature of the eyewear which can show a user information such as the weather, or phone calls they've received was turned off during the experiment to avoid distractions.

The participants also wore normal eyeglass frames of similar shape, without the prism, as a control condition for the study.

To determine if Google Glass was obstructing their vision, the participants underwent standard tests of their central and peripheral vision. The results revealed that the Glass caused blind spots and obstructed participants' vision in the upper-right quadrant of the visual field. [9 Odd Ways YourTechDevices May Injure You]

But the participants didn't experience blind spots when they wore the regular frames, according to the study published Nov. 4 in the Journal of American Medical Association.

The study only involved three people, so to get a larger sample, the researchers also looked online for photographs of people wearing Google Glass, and analyzed 132 such images. They found that in about 40 percent of cases, the prism was placed above the pupil, but in 60 percent of the cases the prism was near to or covered the pupil.

The results suggest that many people wear the device in a position that's likely to cause blind spots and interfere with their daily activities, the researchers said.

Android Wear is great for offering a personalized experience in a smart watch – download only the apps you want to use, making every watch essentially different from the next. Sonos control could add value to devices in the Android camp, which will need as much ammunition as they can get once Apple’s highly-desired Watch hits the market early next year. By the way, it looks like a Sonos lock screen widget for iOS devices might also be in the works. This would, of course, work with the iPhone and iPad, though it wouldn’t be surprising if Apple Watch controls were on the radar eventually as well.

Related: Google Hints at iOS support for Android Wear

As for Android Wear smartwatch Sonos control, it’ll make for a convenient way to manage music playback without having to grab your smartphone or tablet – a quick tap on the wrist can quickly bypass a song, or replay that favorite tune. And it’ll add another level to the smartwatch to make it even smarter.

Starting Wednesday, guests will be able to use their smartphones as room keys at tenStarwood hotels (HOT) around the world. The technology will be available in all 150 Aloft, Element, and W Hotels by early next year.

"My mobile device now is like my remote control for life," Starwood Hotels and Resorts CEO Frits van Paasschen told CNNMoney. "There's no reason why that shouldn't be your portal to get to your room, ask for what you want, or anything else."

Guests can check in using the Starwood app. They receive their room number and Bluetooth key. That means they can bypass the front desk and head straight to their room.

Related: Harry Potter hotel website crashes

To open the hotel door, it's as simple as holding the phone up to the door lock and waiting for a click.

Van Paasschen says mobile keys are a safer option for guests.

"If you lose your mobile device, you notice right away. If you have to use your passcode to get into your phone, even if someone finds your phone they can't get into your room," van Paasschen said.

Starwood, the parent company of Sheraton, Westin, and St. Regis hotels, is not the only chain trying to make key cards obsolete. Hilton (HLT) is working on a similar technology.

And most major hotel chains are funneling money into improving their apps and mobile services. They're betting on mobile options like check-in and check-out to win over millennials. Apps may also provide a better way to sell room service, upgrades, and other offerings.

Starwood says mobile keys and check-in are just an initial step in its mobile plans.

"We're increasingly going to upgrade the functionality of the app so you can do things like tell us where you are and what you want," van Paasschen said. "We can start to send you offers targeted to exactly what you want." 

The weapon can zap targets within a radius of 1.2 miles. Its designers at the China Academy of Engineering Physics, a government defense agency, believe the machine can spot a drone and shoot it down just five seconds later.

The government didn't show off any photos. But the Star Wars-like cannon is meant to be placed on the ground -- or mounted on a vehicle.

As described by Xinhua, the laser is designed to destroy the kinds of miniature drones now widely available on the market for consumers.

Why those? Small, unmanned drones are cheap, quiet and easy to launch. They're the perfect weapon for terrorists and spies.

Related: Meet QuiQui, the drug-delivering drone

In a statement to Xinhua, the Chinese defense agency said the laser cannon will provide security during major events in populated areas. It's meant to shoot down drones that fly up to 112 mph anywhere below 1,600 feet.

Lots of drones fit that description, from the Parrot series of quadricopters to the traditional, plane-like H-King Darkwing.

During a recent test, the laser shot down more than 30 drones, hitting every single target, according to Xinhua. The Chinese government's hope is that the system will replace the need for police or military personnel to shoot down threatening drones.

The report quoted an executive at the Chinese firm leading the project, Yi Jinsong at China Jiuyuan Hi-Tech Equipment Corp.: "Intercepting such drones is usually the work of snipers and helicopters, but their success rate is not as high and mistakes with accuracy can result in unwanted damage."

The defense agency also told Xinhua it's developing a larger, more powerful version of its laser with greater range.

That would ready the Chinese military for future combat, which will increasingly rely on unmanned vehicles.

For instance, the United States already relies heavily on unmanned military drones that fire rockets at people in Yemen, Pakistan and the Islamic State. And the U.S. Navy has plans in place for swarms of drone boats.

As for lasers, the U.S. military is working on similar projects. This summer, it was set tomount a laser prototype on the USS Ponce warship.