As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
(VIDEO) Programmatic Video is Center Stage at Yahoo NewFront with Brightroll Integration
At last night’s Yahoo NewFront event at Lincoln Center, interest in programmatic video advertising and the opportunity to buy highly targeted audiences, was widely talked about by Yahoo executives and several of media agency executives.
For Yahoo, programmatic video is now a key part of the company’s monetization offering with its BrightRoll unit, which it acquired late last year.
At the event, we spoke with BrightRoll founder and CEO Tod Sacerdoti about the new programmatic offering with Yahoo and the evolving state of digital video in the advertising marketplace.
This interview was part of our coverage of the Yahoo NewFront event sponsored by Yahoo. For more videos from event, please visit this page.
You can find this post on Beet.TV.
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(VIDEO) Adobe Tempts Pros With Cloud And 'Voodoo': Roberts
Some of the new graphics software technologies coming out of Adobe sound like they will add to the palette of creative professionals in the video and imaging sector.
Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, Adobe product management senior director Bill Roberts says the recently-announced “Project Candy” allows users to capture a color set using their smartphone camera for use in desktop video editing.
“Quite often, you want to capture the mood of a moment,” Roberts says. “If you’re at the beach at sunset, and you’ve got this glorious orange sky… that would be a great way to warm up a video interview.
With new Project Candy, I’m able to capture the colour and light, select the elements of the light that I want to exchange and save it. That look is immediately available to me when I jump in to Premier, After Effects of Premier Clip. The cloud should be something that’s seamless that makes your life better.
Additionally, Adobe Premier Pro CC introduces a new transition, Morph Cut, which lets editors blend moves between jump cuts, effectively eliminating the disparity between separate scenes.
We interviewed Roberts at the NAB Show. Beet.TV’s coverage of the show was sponsored by Akamai. Please find more coverage from Las Vegas here.
You can find this post on Beet.TV.
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Base Jumpers Free Fall Off Dubai's Tallest Residential Tower In Beautiful Video
These folks get so terrifyingly high, they might need an intervention.
Adrenaline-hungry base jumpers spent two weeks flying off of Dubai’s tallest residential building, Princess Tower, and video of the stunt is both dizzying and gorgeous.
About 600 base jumpers had the option of jumping off a platform hanging out from the 99th floor of the tower, or performing a Dream Jump. It’s a style of base jumping in which those daring enough fly outward on a zip line before free falling downward. The Dream Jump website says it allows for maximum airtime and acrobatics.
Video of the event — organized by Skydive Dubai – shows dream and base jumpers pushing one another off the platform and spinning in midair as they fly past apartment windows.
The National reports that Princess Tower residents got a kick out of the display.
“It is an exciting spectacle to wake up in the morning and see people free fall past your balcony,” resident Saud Al Anazi said.
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4 Super Easy Ways to Keep Cyber Criminals Out of Your Life
2014 was the year of the breach. AOL, eBay, UPS and J.P. Morgan were just a few of the companies that fell victim to cyber criminals. It became a manner of fact for the media to decry the outrage over yet another breach. While these giants were fighting cyber crimes, many of my family, friends, and acquaintances began asking me questions. They wanted to know how they could protect themselves without spending a fortune.
Use these tips to begin protecting yourself from cyber criminals.
1. Awareness.
Would you walk down a dark street in the worst neighborhood at night alone? What about your sons, daughters, friends or loved ones. Do you encourage them to walk unaware down unfamiliar streets? The answer is most likely no because it puts them at risk to fall victim to criminals. Why would we knowingly expose ourselves and our loved ones to harm if we could prevent it.
Today we can no longer protect ourselves (keep the bad people out) by locking our doors at night and avoiding bad neighborhoods. The very devices that we love so much can allow miscreants behind closed doors. Do you have a camera on your computer? Using a well know and relatively easy exploit someone could access that camera and watch you 24 hours a day seven days a week. (Don’t believe me. Click this link and read on).
During my training we routinely used a similar exploit to take pictures of our classmates (unbeknownst to them) when we got bored. The technology that has added so much value to our lives is routinely used by criminals to violate our inner sanctum.
2. Pay Attention To Detail.
Do you ever go to Starbucks and use the free Wifi to knock out some homework or pay a bill at the last minute? Did you ever notice you don’t need a password to connect. I understand that is what makes it so comfortable and convenient, but now everyone (potentially) has access to your device as well. Yes, that means someone could steal those crazy pics from the party off your computer. Or they could take that document sitting on your desktop. You know the one I am talking about. It has the usernames and passwords to your online accounts.
As of 2012, 61 percent of U.S households had WiFi. When you installed the WiFi router in your home, did you change the default username and password? Did you even turn on the security settings? Simply changing these settings will make it significantly harder for the bad guys to get in.
Regardless of the type of device never use the default security settings!
3. Trust But Always Verify.
At least once a week I get an email from a prince who wants to give me money. The faster I send them all of my personal banking information the faster I can get the money. Perhaps the Prince does not like you but you get an email from your bank. It seems their database blew up, and they need your account number, debit card number, and pin. These examples are a form of social engineering called phishing.
The bad guys send out a whole bunch of emails and hope they can hook one person. According to the 2015 Verizon DBIR, 23 percent of recipients open phishing emails and 11 percent click the links. To make matters worse, 50 percent of recipients open the email and click the phishing links within the first hour.
We use caller identification to screen our calls. Similarly filter your emails and do not open random email from people you don’t know. Also, if you get emails from vendors such as FedEx, Amazon, or the United States Postal Service take a quick timeout. Ask yourself if you have sent a package or made a purchase on Amazon recently. If not then delete the email. If you’re unsure instead of opening the email and clicking the links call the vendor. (Here are some tips that will help you spot a phishing email.)
4. Remember Social Media Is Not Always Your Friend.
MySpace and Facebook reengineered the way we connect with friends, family and acquaintances. It made it more convenient, but at the same time created a barrier. Now we don’t have to give someone our phone number or address to be able to keep in touch. We can connect on Facebook and interact when and if we want to. What about all the people we friend on Facebook that are not our friends but are friends of friends. Great isn’t it. It is great because it allows us to interact on our terms and at our leisure.
That barrier does not exist though. By perusing the “routine” information, we supply to Facebook. I could locate you and pay you a visit unexpectedly. Now let’s talk about all the pictures you post to Facebook and other social media sites. Digital photographs contain the information called EXIF data. This information could allow me to track your location. (Facebook and Twitter strip this information out of uploaded photos so you don’t have to worry).
Don’t think this could happen you? That is what the countries leading cyber security strategists thought as well when they befriended Robin Sage. The point is be careful and just don’t friend anyone. Just like you would not allow just anyone into your home.
Technology is part of our lives. Now criminals no longer have to break in to steal our valuables, violate our privacy or harm our loved ones. They can and do terrorize us remotely from under the cover of darkness afforded them by the Internet of Things.
Protecting yourself does not have to cost a lot of money or time if you follow these simple steps.
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The Space Apps Challenge: A Cosmic Hackathon
By Joni Blecher
Joni Blecher is a freelance writer who has spent her career covering tech and a myriad of lifestyle topics. When she’s not writing, you can find her exploring the food scene in Portland, Oregon.
What do you get when developers, engineers and space geeks from around the world come together one weekend for a hackathon? Over 900 projects aimed at solving the myriad issues surrounding planetary and space exploration. The International Space Apps Challenge, sponsored by NASA, was held in 135 cities around the globe earlier this month. The event brought together nearly 13,000 scientists, designers, educators, developers, entrepreneurs and students who used publicly available data to create solutions for global challenges.
The participants were tasked with coming up with solutions to 35 challenges across four categories: Outer Space, Earth, Humans and Robotics. The challenges included such topics as finding ways to show the value of asteroids as an exploration destination; mapping of drinking water resources; the benefits and feasibility of allowing astronauts to print their own food; and designing a drone for moving items around a manned spacecraft or station.
The challenges were announced a month in advance, so people could start thinking up ideas for the competition. Additionally, NASA provided data and tools that could be used in the projects. This year, the Space Apps Challenge kicked off at the Global Mainstage in New York with a Data Bootcamp focusing on “Women in Data” and featuring NASA Astronaut Cady Coleman and NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan, among other notable speakers.
Teams from Kathmandu to Kosovo also competed for local prizes awarded at the culmination of the hackathon. Here are a few of the winning projects and the challenges they were looking to solve.
OUTER SPACE
The 10 challenges in this category included things as varied as creating an asteroid mission, to finding ways to send messages to astronauts in space, to developing a camera that could orbit in deep space.
Challenge: Visualize the Asteroid Skies
Project: Asteroid Movement Simulation
This team used the data saved in NASA databases to create a visualization tool that allows users to track how each asteroid moves in the solar system. Check out the demo here.
Challenge: Print Your Own Space Food
Project: 3D Food Printer in Space
This team developed a concept for creating food with a 3D printer. Cartridges would contain vitamins, proteins, minerals, color and sweeteners. The printer would include software with a pre-programmed menu that provides astronauts with daily meals consisting of 2,600 calories.
EARTH
This theme featured nine challenges covering topics affecting our planet. Some of the topics in this category included clean water, food issues, open-source air traffic tracking, and observing volcanoes and icebergs from space.
Challenge: Clean Water Mapping
Project: Whered the Water Go
An Android app that can be used to access, update and modify data that tracks sources of fresh water on the planet.
Challenge: Volcanoes, Icebergs, and Cats from Space
Project: NatEv Explorer
A Web-based app featuring a 3D globe with the most interesting/dangerous events in a user’s location. The goal is to inspire users to explore additional data from the NASA Earth Observatory system and register new discoveries.
HUMANS
In this category, the 11 challenges focused on space and the human experience. For example, some of the options included a game that explores lava tubes on Mars, wearables, and what can be learned from metabolic observations of space explorers.
Challenge: Survivor: Mars Lava Tubes
Project: Lavamatic
An educational game that uses crowd-sourced data to explore lava tubes on Mars.
Challenge: Space Wearables: Designing for Today’s Launch & Research Stars
Project: AirOS
An augmented reality platform that uses gestures and voice to monitor a user’s vital signs and situation, and increases the user’s senses through external sensors.
ROBOTICS
This category only had five challenges, but they all included ways in which robotics can help in space. It had everything from building and programming your own robot, to using sensors to monitor for danger, to creating drones for space.
Challenge: Spacecraft Thermal Power Consumption
Project: RoboKitty
Managing a robot through a mobile app that uses heat sensors to evaluate power consumption and lost energy in the environment. (No video is available for this project)
Challenge: Robotic Observatory
Project: ScopeNet
A low-cost solution designed for hobbyist astronomers that provides the ability to automate and share telescopes online.
At the culmination of the hackathon, venues chose up to three projects (two global nominees and one people’s choice award) for consideration in the global judging process. You can get involved in the award process by taking to social media and voting for your favorite People’s Choice award. Check out the complete list of nominees at Space Apps Challenge Awards to learn more about each project and view the code. Next month, five finalists will be selected to move into the round of judging by NASA executives. Global winners will be eligible to attend a NASA launch event, and NASA will even provide transportation to and from the launch site.
Visit XPRIZE at xprize.org, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and get our Newsletter to stay informed.
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Park Ranger Uses Stun Gun On Man Flying Drone Over Lava Lake In Hawaii
HONOLULU (AP) – A man who had been flying a drone over a lake of lava at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was hit with a Taser by a park ranger, then arrested in front of several hundred people.
Travis Ray Sanders brought his family to the park on Saturday evening to record the lava with his drone and didn’t realize the man yelling at him to bring it down was a ranger, he told Hawaii News Now. Flying an unmanned aircraft at a national park is prohibited.
“He sounded very angry, confrontational – like he wanted to fight – and I didn’t really want to stick around for it so I just told him, ‘I don’t have ID and I’m leaving,” Sanders told the Honolulu news station.
The ranger asked Sanders three times to bring the drone down, and Sanders eventually brought it down, park spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane told The Associated Press Tuesday.
“The ranger identified himself and approached the individual, who refused to identify himself,” Ferracane sai d.
Because Sanders fled and was near the edge of the caldera rim – where there’s a 500-foot drop – the ranger deployed a Taser, she said.
Crowds have been flocking to an overlook area at the park to watch a steadily rising lava lake at the summit of Kilauea volcano.
Another visitor to the park, Randy Horne, was setting up his camera and tripod at the overlook when he heard a commotion. He heard someone yell stop and when he turned around, he saw the ranger pull out a stun gun. He saw the weapon’s “sparkly, glowing blue” wires attached to a man on the ground.
“I really didn’t see there was any severe threat going on,” Horne, of Honokaa, Hawaii, told the AP. “In my opinion, I thought it was a severe overreaction.”
Horne watched as Sanders was handcuffed, checked by paramedics and then put into a police car.
Sanders, 35, of Pahoa, Hawaii, was arrested and cited with interfering with agency functions and operating an aircraft on undesignated la nd. He was taken to a Hawaii County police cellblock where he spent the night and was released in the morning on $500 bond, Ferracane said. He has a July 22 court date.
“He was described as being very unpredictable, belligerent,” Ferracane said of Sanders. “The ranger felt he needed to be stopped for the safety of himself and others.”
—
Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa .
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Keeping the Lights On, Part 1
An energy revolution clearly is underway in the United States and it could not come at a better time. It is taking place just as we need to make major investments in energy infrastructure. The question is, will we invest hundreds of billions of dollars to support the fossil energy economy of the 20th century, the clean energy economy of the 21st century, or some of both?
Bad decisions will result either in billions of wasted dollars or substantial carbon emissions for decades to come. Or both.
The complexity of infrastructure issues on the cusp between the carbon and carbon-constrained economies is described in the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) published last week by the U.S. Department of Energy. Created in a collaboration between more than 20 federal agencies, it is the first in a series of QERs the Obama Administration has put in motion with the objective of making sure the nation’s energy is affordable, clean and secure.
The inaugural QER focuses on the condition and future of an energy system that includes 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines, 640,000 miles of electric transmission lines, 140,000 miles of railways and hundreds of ports that move fuels from one place to another.
The result is a 300-page wake-up call with three principal messages, each reinforced by other recent analyses. First, our energy infrastructure is in poor shape. The basic design of the electric power system hasn’t changed since the time of Thomas Edison. Oil and gas infrastructure are showing their age, too. The Center for Biological Diversity reported last November that during the previous 16 months, there were 372 oil and gas pipeline leaks and other incidents, resulting in 20 deaths, 117 injuries and more than $256 million in damages. Since 1986, significant pipeline incidents involving death, injury and environmental damage averaged more than 300 each year.
Second, the infrastructure is vulnerable to a new generation of threats ranging from cyber-attack to extreme weather events. Extreme weather is increasing because of climate change; it already is the No. 1 cause of power outages, largely responsible for the fact that electric service is interrupted in the United States more than in any other developed country. The U.S. electric grid goes down more today than it did in 1984, costing American businesses as much as $150 billion a year, according to federal data cited by the International Business Times.
Third, energy infrastructure must change to accommodate a new world in which we will depend much less on big central power plants and fossil fuels, not because of short supplies but because of the need to cut carbon pollution. The energy economy is moving toward power plants on customer rooftops, community-scale electric systems known as micro-grids, neighborhood-sized solar systems known as solar gardens, wind power, electric vehicles, and advanced batteries to store energy from intermittent resources such as sunlight and wind. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has concluded that cost-effective technologies are ready today that can provide 80 percent or more of the nation’s electricity by mid-century.
The investment in the new energy economy already is underway. The Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions reports that clean energy investment rose 12 percent last year to nearly $20 billion, led by private rather than public capital. “Renewable energy is fast becoming a mainstream energy sources as opposed to an alternative one,” Deloitte reports.
Driven mostly by its need to reduce air pollution, China led the world in renewable energy investments last year at nearly $90 billion. Experts on China’s energy use reported earlier this month that it can obtain the majority of its energy from renewable resources by mid-century, an accomplishment that would singlehandedly drive renewable energy markets around the world.
Back in the U.S., another study by NREL, published this week, concludes that with the right regulatory policies and government incentives, solar gardens could be a major source of electricity within five years for multi-family housing, commercial buildings and people who can’t afford their own solar systems or don’t have the right conditions for rooftop panels.
So, back to the question that opened this post: How will we direct the hundreds of billions of dollars we should invest in America’s energy infrastructure? Will utility regulations, many of them lagging far behind technical advances, help or hinder the transition to clean energy? What level of risk will investors accept in building new oil and gas pipelines while scientists warn that to meet the international goal for greenhouse gas reductions, 60-80 percent of the world’s proved reserves of fossil fuels must remain unused? How many thousands of miles of new transmission and distribution lines will we need at a time that decentralized power production is rapidly gaining popularity? What investments will make the nation most secure from modern threats?
One suggestion that should be taken seriously involves going back to the future. The ease with which OPEC has interrupted America’s oil and gas boom should demonstrate once and for all that fossil fuels, domestic or foreign, do not give us either energy independence or stability. If our objectives are to manage climate risks, guarantee energy supply and price stability, achieve energy independence, get rid of a variety of air pollutants, and minimize the environmental damages associated with fossil fuel production, our investment strategy should start with the best and most reliable power plant we have ever known.
It’s the one that delivers pollution-free energy all over the world in only eight minutes from 93 million miles away. We have a 7 billion year supply, give or take a millennium. It provides not only electricity, but also many secondary forms of “new” solar energy that can power everything from automobiles to industry. Harvesting that energy has always been a good investment. That’s true today more than ever.
Part 2 will discuss five phrases that sum up the challenge of choosing the right infrastructure investments today.
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Knowing Your Sweetheart's Phone Number Is So 20th Century
Here’s proof that smartphones are making us dumb.
Elite Daily asked couples to recite their partner’s phone numbers, and they couldn’t. Maybe all the texting, contact lists and autodial aren’t such advancements, after all.
Or maybe getting to know your sweetheart’s digits is the 21st century definition of true love.
Says one: “We haven’t hit that stage in our relationship.”
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Twitter Stock Plunges After Earnings Publish Early
Twitter stock tanked more than 18 percent by market close on Tuesday after the microblogging site’s disappointing earnings hit the Web ahead of schedule.
The first-quarter results, which were initially published by market data firm Selerity, reported revenue of $436 million, below the $458 million analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected. It was not immediately clear how the information got into Selerity’s hands in the first place.
Selerity, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Huffington Post, was blamed in 2011 for leaking Microsoft’s earnings data. In a tweet, the company denied that it leaked Twitter’s data.
Today’s $TWTR earnings release was sourced from Twitter’s Investor Relations website https://t.co/QD6138euja. No leak. No hack.
— Selerity (@Selerity) April 28, 2015
Todd Schoenberger, managing partner of investment firm LandColt Capital, commented on the possibility of a leak, telling Reuters: “[I]t raises a lot of security and privacy questions. If it [Twitter] can’t keep its results safe, can it protect its users?”
Trading of Twitter stock was temporarily halted on Tuesday after Selerity announced the results. Twitter released its official results after the stock market closed later in the afternoon.
“Revenue growth fell slightly short of our expectations due to lower-than-expected contribution from some of our newer direct response products,” Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, said in a statement about the official stats.
Q1’15 revenue: $436M; adj. EBITDA: $104M; non-GAAP net income: $47M. Key info: https://t.co/o3ZZ7Ny5sY #TWTRearnings pic.twitter.com/zPmGPmKgg6
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) April 28, 2015
Twitter said it was investigating the early release of its earnings.
We asked @nyse to halt trading once we discovered our Q1 earnings numbers had leaked, and published our results as soon as possible. (1/2)
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) April 28, 2015
We are investigating the source of the leak. (2/2)
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) April 28, 2015
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
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The Most-Watched Netflix Show May Surprise You
While Netflix may never release their ratings, we finally have an idea of what original shows their subscribers are watching.
Thanks to data acquired by San Diego-based firm Luth Research, Variety reveals some current viewership results that may surprise you. According to their analysis, “Daredevil” was watched by more subscribers on its first day of release than “House of Cards” Season 3, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Marco Polo” and “Bloodline” were on their release days.
Luth Reasearch analyzed a sample of 2,500 Netflix customers’ viewing habits and found that 10.7 percent of subscribers watched at least one episode of the Marvel series within its first 11 days on Netflix. When it comes to month-long data, 7.3 percent of the sample watched “Kimmy Schmidt” during the month since its premiere compared to 6.5 percent, who watched the third season of “House of Cards” 30 days after it debuted. Check out Variety’s graphic charting the viewership here.
It’s important to note, however, that Luth Research’s data doesn’t include any Netflix accounts streaming from TVs via an internet connection or gaming console. The company’s viewing behavior tool only tracked subscribers watching from a computer, tablet or smartphone.
This isn’t the first time a third-party company has provided information about what Netflix shows people are watching, though. Last year after “House of Cards” premiered its second season, Internet traffic management company Procera Networks released data claiming that viewership had increased since the series premiere the previous year. But we’re still likely not going to get official numbers from Netflix any time soon.
The streaming service has long held the stance of keeping their ratings private. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said last year that ratings are “an irrelevant measure of success for us.” The company has also said that they don’t release figures since they don’t rely on advertising like other television networks. But further insight is on the way. Nielsen plans to use a new technology to measure Netflix and Amazon Prime viewing, the latter of which also keeps figures private, later this year.
Netflix was not immediately available for comment.
For the full ratings report, head to Variety.
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The Funniest Autocorrect Fails April 2015 Had To Offer (NSFW)
Another month, another round of cringeworthy texting mishaps.
Damn You Autocorrect collects the funniest autocorrect FAILS all month to find the most outrageous submissions, and we’ve got April’s top 13 contenders right here.
This month’s collection has the usual, accidentally sexual slip-ups, including a few involving moms that we’d rather not think about for too long. One person made it seem like they intended to commit murder (and then uploaded it to the Internet — smart!) and another person turned the President of the United States into America’s favorite fast food restaurant. Let’s all be a little more careful next month, shall we?
Warning, some NSFW language below.
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Forums: boot iMac from external HD
Today in the MacNN Forums, Mac Elite “rotuts” is asking fellow forum goers if it is possible to boot their iMac from an external hard drive. Clinically Insane member of the forums “subego” has invited fellow members to post screenshots of their iPhone home screens.
Artie Lange Opens Up About Getting In Trouble On Twitter
“Thank God I stopped doing coke before Twitter.”
Comedian Artie Lange has been doing comedy for nearly 30 years and spent almost a decade sitting alongside Howard Stern on a radio show where pretty much anything goes, but it’s his 140-character jokes that get him trouble.
Lange sat down for an AOL Build interview on Monday to discuss his cameo in the dark new comedy, “Laugh Killer Laugh,” written and directed by his friend (and former “Jerky Boy”) Kamal Ahmed. In addition to explaining the difference between playing a comedian in a movie vs. being one in real life (spoiler alert: it’s always better when the audience is paid to laugh), Lange opened up about his Twitter activity before and after he came under fire for tweeting some shockingly offensive jokes about a female ESPN anchor.
Lange’s not the only one saying inappropriate things on Twitter. Warning, the above clip includes some strong language.
You can watch Lange’s full interview below to hear him talk about his “addiction” to doing stand-up, the craziest fan interactions he’s had after shows, and why the slogan “Hugs not drugs” wasn’t very effective on him as a child.
“I don’t want to lie to the kids: hugs are not better than drugs,” he says. “I’ll put it this way, I never drove to Harlem at 4:00 in the morning to get somebody to hug me.”
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How to Protect Your Privacy When Dating Online
“Can’t I date online more privately?” my client Michelle* asked. She’s an executive working in a male-dominated industry and is wary of bumping into people from her boardroom. It happened once on The League, an exclusive, invite-only dating app. Awkward.
As an online dating coach, I get asked about digital dating privacy often. My client Allie* is the editor of a magazine for a small community, and last week her Match.com date said a few things throughout the evening that raised red flags for her. The details he referenced weren’t in her profile, so it was clear he had Googled her before meeting up. “I was glad I hadn’t given him my number yet,” she said. But after their date, he sent her a thank you … to her work email address. He seems harmless, potentially oblivious to how unsafe this could make a gal feel, but needless to say, she’s making some changes to her online dating approach now.
The truth? We’re living in a hyper-connected world where the above scenarios could happen to anyone. So frankly, you should be concerned with privacy! The more information that exists about you on the web, the more measures you need to take to keep yourself sane and safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of with online dating — you can still meet fabulous matches in a safe way! — but you need to be intelligent about the information you post and the actions you take. Use my privacy checklist to keep your digital dating domain a little more intimate:
• Know What They Know: You might be surprised what appears in a search engine even without your last name. So once you write your profile, sit down and create a list of the top five terms that someone has access to about you — the words right there in your profile. One which we find commonly pulls up someone’s identity is: your first name + your job description + your alma mater.
When you get a hit that is, in fact, you, stay calm. Staying under the search radar is often as simple as deleting a few words from your profile. For example, with my client Allie, it was her job that set off the Google search. Even when she simplified the way she described her career, it still resulted in her identity. So she nixed it from her profile entirely, opting only to select an industry drop-down from the dating site instead.
You might get a lot of hits if your name is unique, so in extreme cases, you may want to consider signing your messages with a different name. I don’t mean lie, but instead protect yourself by using only your first initial (“B”), a different spelling of your name (“Bettie” instead of “Betty”), or a nickname (“Bette” instead of “Bettina”). It’s unlikely a man would fault you for being savvy and safe.
• Go Incognito: For clients concerned with seeing coworkers on a dating app or site, I usually suggest they rethink this worry of theirs. If the other person is a member too, what do you have to be embarrassed about? But for clients like Jennifer who find the concern insurmountable, there are new, special features that allow you to pick and choose who sees your profile.
Match.com’s “Private Mode” makes your profile invisible to everyone you’re not communicating with — so, essentially, you pick and choose each person that’s able to see you. When someone you message views your profile, it looks just the same as any other — no special call out that you’re keeping things under the radar. OkCupid’s newly-launched “Incognito” feature works the same way. Other sites and apps use Facebook Connect to automatically remove people already in your circle from your view. The idea is that if you already know them, you have other ways to flirt with them — or maybe it hasn’t happened for good reason! This feature is most common on sites where the community is more curated experience, like the dating site Sparkology, and the app The League.
• Create a Digital Bodyguard: Once you’ve made plans to get offline with someone, you need to exchange phone numbers so you can communicate if he is running late or there are other logistics that don’t go according to plan. Or perhaps, most guys want to chat with you before you even plan your date. But a lot of women tell me they just aren’t comfortable giving someone their digits until after they’ve met since… well… they’re still a stranger. Catch 22.
Google Voice is the best solution -= you can create a new, free phone number that still rings on your cell. Using the app, you can send and receive texts, accept and listen to voicemails, and even block numbers from your matches who get a little unruly. Some dating sites also have their own calling systems, which are available for a fee.
And if you’re using a dating app, check your Facebook settings! Since apps pull in your Facebook data, that often extends to your phone number if it’s listed in your information section.
Remember that safety should extend into the real world, too. You’ve heard all the dating safety tips a million times =- meet in a public place, never let someone you’re unsure of into your home and let someone know where you’re going. But to take it up a notch, get some pretty jewelry with a tech touch. My favorite new wearable is Cuff. Among other features, a discreet button on your necklace or bracelet will notify an emergency contact of yours that something isn’t right, and send them your location via GPS. I hope you’ll never have to hit that button, but knowing it’s there should give you peace of mind and keep you focused on flirting.
* Names have been changed for confidentiality purposes.
Laurie Davis is the CEO & Founder of eFlirt, a personal branding service that helps singles navigate the online dating world and create lasting relationships. She’s also the author of the best-selling book, Love @ First Click: The Ultimate Guide to Online Dating. Recently, Laurie wed her tweetheart, who she eFlirted with in 140 characters on Twitter.
– This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Whither Social Media?
Oh, for the good old days, when a very popular person might count their number of good friends on their fingers and toes.
Today, if someone does not have a 1,000 friends and followers, they must be exuding either the worst body odors that the Internet can carry or they are virtual hermits.
It is neither popular, nor a good idea, to rain on the parade of social media because there must be a horse in there somewhere.
But, may be it is a good idea to stand back, scratch our heads and ask if perhaps too much of a good thing might just turn out to be a bad thing.
I am not suggesting that we should, or even could, turn back the clock on social media, but rather what we might do is figure out how people can manage their, and all of societies’ digital lives, better.
Recently, I was killing a bit of time waiting for a ride and had a conversation with a young baby sitter about what bothered her most in her daily life–besides the price of gas, for instance. She immediately said, “Social media- it soaks up far too much of my time because it promises so much and delivers so little.” That said, do the good aspects of social media come close to outweighing the bad, and where are we heading?
Clearly, to me, she was an unusually perceptive young woman who put her finger squarely on one of today’s most important and growing problems.
Have you ever wondered what the state of the world was when the giant dinosaurs ruled and dominated the Earth? They were big partly so they could cover a lot territory, providing them with vast quantities of natures’ harvests which they needed to simply survive. But for the vast changes to their habitats caused by a giant asteroid’s collision with Earth, they might still be in charge and we would not have to worry about social media.
Instead, we may now have something like that galactic collision occurring in full sight, which may be overwhelming the human race with an overload of information as deadly in due course as the atomic atmospheric dust that wiped out the dinosaurs.
That overload is confusing, distracting and destroying the very sinews of the social fabric of society, which are essential to its proper functioning. It is undermining mutual respect among many people all over the world.
Ironically, one might have thought that the diffusion of so much information would have tended to bring more people together in harmony. To date, a lot of the evidence suggests that we are headed in the opposite direction.
Hopefully, it is not too late to address these concerns and set up some counter trends to ward off falling too far in that deep hole.
What is needed? Until now, most ‘news’ to people has been pretty well filtered by ‘responsible’ editors and journalists. Now, the most unbelievable dumb and wrong-headed stuff gets going in social media and spreads across the Internet and before anyone knows it, it becomes ‘a real thing’ which triggers a significant portion of the world into pursuit of phantoms, basically to everyone’s disadvantage.
Perhaps we need a new section of the New York Times, called Social Media Accountability, whose slogan and objective could be, “Social media ‘news’ NOT fit to print must be exposed-to daylight.”
– This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
How Do Blind Computer Programmers Code?
How does a visually impaired computer programmer do programming?: originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Answer by Lucas Radaelli, Google Programmer
I am totally blind and I work for Google, writing changes to the ranking algorithm. As part of my experience, and I believe from many other blind programmers, the way that we program is not that different from our sighted colleagues. [Most of the time], I use a text editor (which is Emacs and an extension called Emacspeak, which makes Emacs talk), and a browser to look at some internal pages of Google with documentation and stuff.
The main difference here is that we either hear what is on the screen, or read with the help of a braille display. I cannot comment on using a braille display because I have never had one in my life (too expensive), but I can give some idea on how it is to program by just hearing.
The biggest challenge of programming just by ear is that you need to memorize a lot of stuff.
You move line by line, hearing the entire line. You can move word by word and hear them, or character by character. The point is, you see, at a given time, just a small fraction of what is on the screen. You can’t start programming and look up in the function definition what the name of the variable being passed is. You memorize it. If you want to check the function definition, again, I would set a marker, look for the definition, read it, and come back. As you can notice, this may take a few precious seconds, so improving your memory skills is a good thing here.
I like to program with Emacspeak because it gives me a lot of cool things when programming in c++. For example, in this program there is the notion of voice styles, and it will read variables, functions and different element of the language with a voice with a different pitch. This makes things easier to identify what is what. Consider this as the audio highlighting of code.
As a last comment, a curiosity:
Blind programmers do not use indentation. We normally finish the code and indent it later, as it brings no advantage for us.
Then you might ask:
What about python?
I like python a lot, and even the indentation part does not make me think differently. I create some techniques, like, jump a line at the end of each indentation block, so I can know very fast when the block has ended.
When reading code from others, I can set an option in my screen reader to tell the indentation level, but I find this a little bit annoying, because for each line that you read, it will say the number of spaces present on that line.
More questions on Quora:
Computer Programming: What’s the hardest bug you’ve debugged?
Computer Programming: How do you identify a good programmer?
Machine Learning: What’s the easiest way to learn machine learning?
– This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
3M App Teaches Operating Room Patient Preparation
This is an excellent app for learning or teaching about antiseptic options and techniques in the operating room.
The post 3M App Teaches Operating Room Patient Preparation appeared first on iMedicalApps.
Sweden grants Julian Assange appeal
Sweden’s supreme court grants Wikileaks founder Julian Assange the right to appeal against an arrest warrant issued over an alleged sexual assault.
Facebook for Android Update Brings Offline Likes Feature
The Facebook for Android app has been updated today, bringing with it several new features including the ability to Like posts, photos and Pages even when you are offline. The update, version 32.0.0.23.15 for those keeping score at home, is available now in the Google Play store and of course is free. There are several new features in this release so it is certainly one to go get. Facebook for Android – Free – Download Now The big feature in this update to Facebook for Android is the ability to Like things while you are offline. This is great for
The post Facebook for Android Update Brings Offline Likes Feature appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
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