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You gave Apple permission to track your whereabouts via your iPhone
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Cell Phones, Features, GPS, Videos
Did you know that Apple is tracking your every move with your iPhone and iPad? A blog post published today on O'Reilly Radar claims that devices running iOS 4 are gathering location and storing it in an unencrypted manner.
"What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device. It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands. Anybody with access to this file knows where you've been over the last year, since iOS 4 was released," wrote Pete Warden, founder of the Data Science Toolkit, and Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter.
The data is being stored to a file known as "consolidated.db," which includes latitude-longitude coordinates and a timestamp.
Of course, this shouldn't surprise anyone who read the entire 45-page EULA, as it clearly states the following clause when going into detail on the type of “non-personal information” that Apple can “collect, use, transfer, and disclose … for any purpose.”
We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
Click to continue reading You gave Apple permission to track your whereabouts via your iPhone
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Telenav GPS app hitting Verizon iPhone 4 at launch, free for 30 days
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Navigation, App Updates, Free Apps
TeleNav today announced that the TeleNav GPS application will be available in the Apple App Store as a free download for Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 users when the device is released on Thursday, February 10.
TeleNav allows user to access free maps and perform local searches. Advanced navigation features are also available, including spoken turn-by-turn directions and 3D moving maps. The advanced features will be free for 30 days after downloading the app. After that they will cost users $2.99 per month on a pay-as-you-go basis, or $21.99 per year. Regardless of whether users choose to pay for the advanced navigation features, the GPS map and local search capabilities will remain free.
Google Latitude now lets you check in to local spots
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, GPS, Software
In the crowded world of location apps like Foursquare and Facebook Places, Google Latitude aimed to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. Unlike the others which center around checking into places by tapping an icon, Latitude always tracked where you were in real-time, without any user interaction needed. Then it would share your whereabouts with your friends as you moved around. Thing is, people like checking in. So Google went ahead and added the ability to check in on Latitude, which will allow more flexibility for users of the app. A more interesting feature in Latitude is you can even choose to be automatically checked into locations, which sounds fairly ridiculous given how close many spots are to each other.
Bleeding Edge TV 372: Contour wearable HD cameras with GPS
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Gizmatic, Short Bytes, Cameras, CES, CES 2011, Features, Podcasts, Video Games, Videocasts, Videos
At CES, we were able to chat with Marc Barros, CEO of Contour. Countour makes a line of hands-free wearable video cameras. They records in full HD video, and can even track your GPS coordinates and elevation. This means you can see the path you took while recording. You can also connect the Contour camera to your phone using an app, showing you a live view of what the camera is seeing. The camera connects to the app over Bluetooth. They're available for $349 with GPS, or $279 without.
Big thank you to JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like.
Coke Zero releases first location based game, LiveCycle
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Games, New Apps, Free Apps
Who knew Coke Zero would be in the forefront of gaming innovation? Last week, Coca-Cola released "the first ever location-based videogame" called LiveCycle.
LiveCyle is based on Disney's TRON: Legacy film and the premise of the game is to move around the real world real to create a Light Wall and derezz your opponents, and avoid being derezzed by theirs. The Coke Zero websites offers a trailer of the game which makes it seem like a pretty fun idea, though there is a lack of actually gameplay. Real gaming innovation or interactive advertising? You decide! Play the game and let us know in the comments!
Live Cycle is available in the iTunes stores for the low, low price of $0.00. Download it here.
Google Latitude released for iPhone
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Social Networking, Free Apps
Google has been in the location game for years now, but services like Foursquare and Facebook Places have been producing buzz faster, in part based on their mobile apps. Google has had their service, Google Latitude, integrated in Android handsets for some time now, and they've finally released an iPhone app to compete with the other already established players. With 9 million active users, mostly because it's baked into their Google Maps product, they have a somewhat credible offering. So far, Latitude has been mostly a passive service that people use when looking for local search results, or browsing a map. This is a model that's much different than Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Place, which are all about checking in to a specific place rather than just showing a physical location.
The Latitude iPhone app keeps using that passive model, where the app shares your location automatically with your friends, even in the background, as long as you allowed them to view where you are. You can also browse the map and see where they are in real time. It can be argued that such a passive system is the wave of the future, as people tire of constantly checking into a location app, but it sure doesn't produce the same amount of hype for the service, so it remains to be seen which service people will decide to share their locations with.
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| Google Latitude
Tom Tom geeks out with Star Wars GPS voices
Posted by Finnian Durkan Categories: GPS, Mods / Hacks, Movies
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be guided to your destination via the dulcet-tones of James Earl Jones breathing through a ventilator? If so, then Tom Tom’s announcement of their release of Star Wars voices for their GPS nav systems should make your day, and if not, then you should probably stop reading this right now because you are dead inside. Beginning this month Tom Tom is making one new Star Wars voice available for purchase through August. Following the first available voice, Darth Vader, June will see the release of C-3P0, July will be Yoda, and finally Han Solo will wrap up what will be remembered as The Summer of GPS Nerdyness. For the sake of entertainment, someone should come up with an R2D2 mod, available in September. I would buy it just so that I could get in witty, one-sided conversations with my car during my long road-trips to comic conventions and film festivals by myself. God, I am so alone…
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 unboxing gallery
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cameras, Features, Galleries, GPS
We just got the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 digital camera in for review, and we must say, we are pretty stoked. We were big fans of last year’s DMC-ZS3, and the ZS7 improves upon that model with a 16x intelligent optical zoom, 12.1 megapixel images, much improved facial recognition, and GPS integration. We’re excited to put this one through the paces, especially with the built-in geotagging, and we will have that to you soon. In the meantime, we’ve put together a Lumix DMC-ZS7 unboxing gallery to show off the goods. Check it out!
Read More | Panasonic Lumix ZS7 unboxing gallery
Gallery: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 unboxing gallery
SXSW 2010: Location-based Marketing and Advertising: Targeting the Mobile Consumer
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cell Phones, Editorial, Features, GPS, Internet
Navteq and their parent company Nokia believe that LBS or Location Based Services are going to be a $7 billion dollar industry by 2013. This is due to an increase of mobile connected devices and their ability to receive targeted advertisements when they are near a specific location.
Navteq currently has 80 people globally in their sales force, working with mobile operators as well as smaller application developers to help sell the data that they collect about locations. They warehouse this information by deploying “data collection trucks” which have high definition cameras mounted on the rooftop and drive most all of the major cities roads . These cameras take photos and collect other data such as elevation as they drive through the streets. Company spokesman and presenter Shawn Gunn said future unknown applications will leverage this. To seed such innovation, Navteq has a location based challenge that they run annually and several augmented reality projects are frequently presented from that.
SXSW 2010: Playing with Place - Location-aware games
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Features, GPS, Video Games
Katheryn started off the session giving us geo location coordinates that only a machine would love. Her followup to this was the context matters; our location around a place and who is around that space with us. There is also excitement around discovery with geo. An example could be geocache games which created back in the old old black and white LCD “latitude and longitude” GPS units and have worked their way into the App stores of the iPhone and Android handsets.
Although location is in its infancy, Foursquare has opened their APIs and sites like gatsby.com are using location data + user preferences to send SMS messages to those who are in proximity with one another and could potentially benefit in meeting up in real life. While this leads to privacy issues, it is opt-in and could let “regular strangers” connect and communicate in ways that they might night work up the courage to in the physical world.
Click to continue reading SXSW 2010: Playing with Place - Location-aware games
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