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The Telecom Digest for December 28, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 302 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Google Maps for iPhone Returns Better Than Ever (Monty Solomon)
SceneTap facial-detection company brings controversial nightclub app to Boston (Monty Solomon)
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones (Monty Solomon)
DRM be damned: How to protect your Amazon e-books from being deleted (Monty Solomon)

====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2012 23:15:52 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Google Maps for iPhone Returns Better Than Ever
Message-ID: <p0624089bcd017bbd5a55@[10.0.1.3]>

Google Maps for iPhone Returns Better Than Ever

Published on December 18, 2012
by Walt Mossberg

Google's rich, reliable Maps app is back on the iPhone, and that 
means iPhone users can stop relying on the flawed, fledgling Apple 
maps app that replaced it as a built-in feature in September.

Apple's version is still bolted into the phone, and the new, free 
Google app must be downloaded from Apple's app store. Google says the 
app was downloaded 10 million times in just its first two days of 
availability last week.

The reappearance of Google Maps on the iPhone closes a big advantage 
Google's own Android phones had gained when Apple's replacement 
turned out to lack some key features, such as labeling of buildings 
and businesses, street-view photos and public-transit routing. It 
also offered too much inaccurate location data.

However, the biggest news here is that the new iPhone version of 
Google Maps isn't just better than Apple Maps. For now, at least, 
Google Maps is better in most respects on the iPhone than it is on 
Android phones. It has been redesigned with a cleaner, simpler user 
interface that makes it easier to use. Google officials say they took 
the sudden need to build a new iPhone version as an opportunity to 
rethink the popular app from the ground up.

I've been testing the new Google Maps on iPhone for a week or so in 
the San Francisco and Washington metro areas, and I really like it. 
It isn't perfect, but I prefer it to any other iPhone Maps app I've 
used, and to Google Maps on Android. The latter will likely also gain 
the new design in time, but for now, it looks inelegant by comparison.

...

http://allthingsd.com/20121218/google-maps-for-iphone-returns-better-than-ever/




Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2012 23:36:14 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: SceneTap facial-detection company brings controversial nightclub  app to Boston
Message-ID: <p062408a1cd0180747545@[10.0.1.3]>

Privacy a worry as an app scans the bar scene

Firm says its technology doesn't identify people

By James H. Burnett III |  GLOBE STAFF     DECEMBER 26, 2012

It's New Year's Eve. You can't decide whether to hit the Allston pub 
or the Cambridge bar. But if your smartphone could tell you how 
crowded the two places were, the ratio of men to women inside, even 
the average age of the crowds, would that make the decision easier?

A company called SceneTap has launched a smartphone application at 
more than 30 bars, mostly in Boston and Cambridge, that it says can 
do all that right now.

But SceneTap could one day have the capability to do a lot more. 
That's making some people so nervous that when SceneTap launched last 
spring in San Francisco, it sparked outrage and forced the chief 
executive to issue a letter to quell the anger. At the heart of the 
issue is privacy, something Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others 
have learned can incite the masses when mishandled.

SceneTap gathers data by collecting images from what is called a 
facial detection reader inside the bars. It locks in on a silhouette 
from the neck up and measures 14 data points on the featureless face, 
determining within seconds whether the subject is male or female and 
the person's approximate age. It's not facial recognition, like the 
picture-taking technology used at airports. But because SceneTap's 
patent application includes language about facial recognition, some 
critics worry it's only a matter of time before the company tries to 
collect more detailed information.

...

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/12/26/scenetap-facial-detection-company-brings-controversial-nightclub-app-boston/VGcRCA1LSSQZ4aFq3Vq26H/story.html?s_campaign=8315




Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:18:55 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
Message-ID: <p0624080ccd019b38bb3e@[10.0.1.4]>

Editorial

Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
December 23, 2012

A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps" - 
precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users - is 
increasingly a matter of national concern, particularly for domestic 
abuse victims. No less threatening is the routine monitoring of 
children's locales and phone habits for commercial purposes while 
parents are kept in the dark. Stealth apps even stoop to 
cyber-leering through the now notorious app called Girls Around Me, 
which allows men to search out women, unbeknown to them, by 
cross-matching GPS technology with information and photo sites like 
Facebook.

With these abuses proliferating, the Senate Judiciary Committee this 
month took a big step to protect the privacy of all cellphone users 
and close legal loopholes that enable stalking apps. The committee 
approved a worthy measure sponsored by Senator Al Franken, Democrat 
of Minnesota, that for the first time would require cellphone 
companies to obtain a user's permission to collect location data and 
sell it or share it with third parties. It also would flatly outlaw 
creation of stalking apps, applying criminal and civil penalties.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/opinion/sneaking-after-cellphone-users.html




Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:18:55 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: DRM be damned: How to protect your Amazon e-books from being  deleted
Message-ID: <p06240811cd01c240e13e@[10.0.1.4]>

DRM be damned: How to protect your Amazon e-books from being deleted

Amazon recently erased all of one Kindle users' e-books. Ars shows 
how to stop it.

by Cyrus Farivar
Oct 25 2012
Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/drm-be-damned-how-to-protect-your-amazon-e-books-from-being-deleted/






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