Posted by on under joey hess, locati, physical path, wrg, path info, eula, shenanigans, phe, no doubt, case in point, waitress, waiter, spyware, sql, palm, bas | 
Last week, Joey Hess revealed that the Palm Pre running on WebOS uploads very specific information about your location and application usage to Palm on a daily basis. Although it’s allowed by the EULA that you must accept to use the Palm Pre, it still seems a little…creepy, especially if used for the wrong reasons. The only “bright” side to this story is that it was for the Palm Pre, not for the iPhone. Apple has been in the news a lot lately for its AppStore shenanigans, but at least they don’t go so far as to track your location. Right?
Well, sort of. Although we have yet to find an application by Apple that tracks your location, there are certainly a number of “free” applications in the official AppStore that are designed to do just that. Case in point: there’s this rather cute/gimicky app that lets you determine the tip for your waiter or waitress by tilting your phone as you pass it around the restaurant table. But if you dig a little deeper (like bushing did) you’ll find it uses a library by Pinch Media that is specifically designed to track your geographical location through time, then upload that data to Pinch Media. (Oh and it also show you an ad, as an extra bonus).
Being an approved app, it must first ask you for permission to use your location. If you tap “Don’t Allow”, it will ask you again in about a minute, the next time its ad changes. So you either stop using this app (because it pesters you so much about the location question), or you finally submit and tap “OK”. From that point on, your location and path info (your actual physical path through your area each time you launch the app) belongs to Pinch Media, Inc. We think that’s a Pinch too much.
Update: A commenter named fusen pointed out this post by 0th3lo. who details Pinch Media’s SQL info (it includes your gender and birthday, when possible) and goes so far as to say “no doubt, ANY pinchmedia iPhone application is spyware”. Maybe it’s time to pressure Apple to boot Pinch Media apps from the AppStore?
Update: Pinch Media have blogged about the data collected by their analytics library here.
Update: Jailbroken users are now at a distinct advantage when it comes to data tracking. saurik has worked with Pinch Media and some other data trackers to develop an “opt-out” feature for data collection! It’s called PrivaCy and is now available via Cydia!
Tagi: joey hess, locati, physical path, wrg, path info, eula, shenanigans, phe, no doubt, case in point, waitress, waiter, spyware, sql, palm, bas
Posted by on under sony ps3, epodes, netflix, xbox 360, televi, peter smith, parlance, case in point, mth, dashboard, blogger, sy, xbox, partnership, sony, microsoft, game |
itwbennett writes "'Microsoft has always seemed rather enthusiastic when it comes to throwing around the word 'exclusive,' and here is another case in point,' says blogger Peter Smith. Netflix and Sony have announced that Netflix streaming is coming to the Sony PlayStation 3 as early as next month. Back in August, when Microsoft was rolling out its new dashboard update, one of the features it was talking up was Netflix streaming, says Smith, and it said, 'This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience...' Apparently, in Microsoft parlance, 'exclusive partnership' means 'we launched it first' and not 'we inked a deal with Netflix preventing this feature from appearing on the competition's hardware.' All this is good news for PS3 owners who can now sign up to be notified of Netflix availability for their system."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: sony ps3, epodes, netflix, xbox 360, televi, peter smith, parlance, case in point, mth, dashboard, blogger, sy, xbox, partnership, sony, microsoft, game
Posted by on under aterm, clearwire, spare battery, 10mbps, acti, wireless networking, early november, wimax, local health, case in point, health center, thermostat, 802 11b, yen, ly, nec, router, sprint, modem, nbsp |
Not every company has the design chops to make it in modern consumer electronics. Case in point: NEC's Aterm WM3300R. While it looks like a thermostat you'd wall-mount at the local health center, it packs enough technological appeal to make up for that clinical dowdiness. See, it's a pocketable WiMAX router with integrated 802.11b/g WiFi -- think
MiFi only with the relatively blazing speeds of 40Mbps (downstream) / 10Mbps (upstream) WiMAX instead of EV-DO or HSPA and a battery capable of about 2.5 hours of shared usage. The WM3300R can also be USB-attached to a PC as a WiMAX modem. Drop another ¥5,000 (about $54) and you've got a spare battery to keep the mobile action going. Expect it to be released in early November in Japan for an estimated ¥25,000 or right around $272. You seeing this Sprint, Clearwire?
[Via
Akihabara News]
Filed under: Wireless, Networking
NEC's Aterm WM3300R is like a souped-up WiMAX version of the MiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read |
Permalink |
Email this |
Comments
Tagi: aterm, clearwire, spare battery, 10mbps, acti, wireless networking, early november, wimax, local health, case in point, health center, thermostat, 802 11b, yen, ly, nec, router, sprint, modem, nbsp
Posted by on under thrift store, case in point, works of art, dreamer, creativity |
As a thrift store fanatic and DIY dreamer, I love ideas that are inexpensive but sleek beyond measure. Case in point: these colorful and display-worthy bottles from Canadian House and Home. The process for creating the works of art is simple – so simple I would go out on a limb to say [...]
Tagi: thrift store, case in point, works of art, dreamer, creativity
Posted by on under right in the heart, hundreds of years, case in point, dwellings, dwelling, dublin, horses, animals |
There’s a tradition in the UK to renovate mews houses, which are rows of old stable houses converted into modern dwellings. Though they housed horses and other animals hundreds of years ago, today the mews are actually very desirable homes.
Case in point: these ultra sustainable mews right in the heart of [...]
Tagi: right in the heart, hundreds of years, case in point, dwellings, dwelling, dublin, horses, animals
