Salon.com > mobile devices

Angry Birds, tracking device?

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000

A group of researchers at Carnegie-Mellon had a simple question. When we play a game of Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja on our smartphone, or identify a song's name with Shazam on our tablet, what kind of information do we think we are revealing about ourselves to the outside world? What, in other words, are our privacy expectations?

Almost every app gathers some kind of information -- a unique identification number that belongs only to a specific mobile device, or location data revealing where exactly the app is being used. But connecting that data to the ostensible function of the app can be murky. The CMU researchers created an experiment in which they presented users of the most popular Android apps with the precise information those apps gathered, and then asked for reactions. Were they surprised? Bothered? Complacent?

The answers, says Jason Hong, an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon, had a lot to do with our perception of the app's purpose. For example, participants in the experiment weren't alarmed in the least to learn that Google Maps is a heavy user of location data. Of course it is! The whole point of Google Maps is to help you get from where you are to someplace else. Location data is essential to the task.

Smart forks for stupid people

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:58:00 +0000

Judging by the ennui flooding my Twitter feed from journalists covering the Consumer Electronics Show this week, nothing could be more dreary than getting your employer to send you to Las Vegas to hobnob at industry parties and be bludgeoned with the latest irrelevant developments in TV technology.

And then there's the smart fork.

Yes, the smart fork, decribed by its creator, HAPILabs, as "a connected fork that helps you eat at the right time and right pace," is the talk of CES.

More words have been spent mocking the product than actually describing what it does, but as far as I can tell, the HAPIfork vibrates gently when it decides that you are eating too quickly. Data on the speed at which you are gorging yourself can also, of course, be uploaded to the Web, where, presumably, you can compare your ridiculous eating habits with those of your peers.

Zynga slashes games and jobs in effort to regroup

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:42:00 +0000

Zynga dealt a blow to time wasters and procrastinators when it ended several of its games yesterday as part of a wider retrenchment, TechCrunch reported.

The social gaming company skyrocketed into the collective brainspace with addictive fare like the simulation "FarmVille" and "Words with Friends." But the public markets haven't been kind to the company. Its ongoing restructuring effort involves cutting more than 100 jobs, closing offices and eliminating more than a dozen of its titles.

TechCrunch wrote that, "Investors feared it had become bloated, free virality on Facebook had been curtailed, competitors were proliferating, and the shift of Facebook users to mobile from Zynga’s stronghold on the desktop canvas would break the company."Zynga went public in December 2011 at $10 per share. On Monday morning it was trading at $2.37. It has not traded above $4 since July.

Games shut down this month include "PetVille," "Mafia Wars 2," "FishVille," "Vampire Wars," and "Treasure Isle."

TechCrunch:

The price of airline iPad freedom

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Look, I get it. I understand why the twittering masses are so excited to learn that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sent a letter last week to the FAA encouraging the agency to get its act together and allow airline passengers to play with their mobile devices during takeoff and landing. I have long wondered, along with everyone else, why we haven't seen any meaningful scientific evidence that the use of such devices interferes with the operation of an aircraft. Miles away from the airport, I still feel the pain for those parents of toddlers (and everyone sitting within earshot) who are denied the right to distract their spawn with the fabulous interactivity of the latest iPad. And I always die a little death every single time I have to stop checking for the latest Facebook status updates just so my Boeing 727 can get launched off the ground. Let Alec Baldwin play as much "Words With Friends" as he wants! We're talking about freedom here!