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New Foursquare badge for having your ‘baggage’ handled by TSA
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Location Services, Social Networks,
There's a new Foursquare badge, you know those fun little icons you can get for checking into various places and times on Foursquare? But this one focuses on the controversy surrounding TSA's highly public pat-down procedures. If you check-in at a TSA location in an Airport with the terms "TSA", "grope" or "don't touch my junk", you are rewarded this handy badge. The description reads "Looks like you’ve had your baggage handled. Happy Holidays and have a safe flight!" Gotta give it to 'em for being topical.
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Facebook introduces single sign-on for mobile
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Business Tools, News, Social Media,
This morning Facebook announced improvements to their iPhone and Android apps, as well as changes to how they handle their sign-on platform. First, the new Groups and Places features are now fully integrated into both apps, which also brings up the Android app to be on par with the iPhone one. This will allow you to take part of all those groups while on the go. Their mobile apps hadn't been updated in a while, so it's good to see the company commit themselves to the mobile space. As a side note, they did comment that Facebook had no plan to make a phone of their own, preferring to instead bring their platform to the devices that people use.
The second part of the announcement dealt with single sign-on. Mark Zuckerberg described the troubles and frustrations that entering usernames and passwords could be on a phone, and their approach to solving it. They are now providing developers with a way to integrate a single button that will log users to their services. Now, to log into any mobile site or service that supports this feature, all you'll have to do is click on the button "sign in with Facebook". No more username or password to remember. They showed the Groupon and Zynga apps which will support this feature soon, with many more on board.
Google introduces Place Search
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: News, Social Media,
Today Google introduced a new service on their official blog, the Place Search tab on their home page. Not so much a completely new service, more like a merging of several offerings, this tab shows search results in a way that is more intuitive and useful for when you're looking for specific places.
When you enter search terms, such as "pizza Chicago", Google will try to guess when you're looking for a specific place instead of a website. When that's the case, the results page will be more optimized towards local search. Not only will you see a list of web sites, but now a map will be prominently shown, as if you had done the search inside of Google Maps, and it will also include reviews, links to specific business listings, images, and so on.
While it's being introduced as a new feature, I see it more as an extension of their current search, Maps, Images and location data. Still, it should make search more intuitive, and now that the company is competing with Facebook Places, Foursquare, and other such social sites, they need to keep innovating to stay relevant.
Read More | Google Blog
How to disable Facebook Places
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Social Media,
So Facebook just launched Facebook Places, a feature that lets you check-in to local spots, and even lets others check you into those spots without your knowledge or approval by default. We figured some wouldn’t appreciate that, and would want to opt-out of some or all of the Facebook Places functionality, and we wanted to fill you in on just how to do it.
First, log in to Facebook and choose Privacy Settings from the Account menu at the top right. Click on Customize to get to where we need to go. The first area we want to check is called “Things I Share.” One of the categories is “Places I check in” - this is set to be visible to all your friends by default, and you can make that more or less restrictive in this area. Right below it is an option titled “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in” which is also on by default. This lets anyone know you are at a location if they are also there, or nearby.
The last option is the one that lets others check you in against your will, and it’s enabled by default. Scroll down to the “Things Others Share” area, and you’ll see a Enable/Disable toggle for “Friends can check me in to Places.” If you don’t want others associating you with a location, you can turn that off here.
There you have it! We’re sure Places is going to be huge for Facebook, and that a lot of people will be joining in on the fun, but we also know there are a bunch of you that would rather not be involved, so we wanted to let you know how to shut it off.
Facebook 3.2 for iPhone brings Places location check-in, background uploading
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Social Networking, App Updates, Free Apps,
We all knew it was coming, but Facebook has finally released their location check-in methodology with the release of their Facebook for iPhone 3.2 app. The new ‘Places’ feature let’s you check-in Foursquare/Gowalla-style into venues that are around you. You can also track the locations of your friends as well, to see what others in your social graph are up to. One seemingly annoying feature is that Places even allows you to check other people in with you, and that is on for every account by default. Of course, you can manually turn that feature off, but shouldn’t that be the default option?
Also new in 3.2 for phones running iOS 4 is background uploading of photo and video content, so you can start an upload and jump out of the app to something else while things continue. All iOS version also pick up new in-app privacy management features as well.
We’ve been trying to test out all the new hotness, but just about every area we go into on the new app results in some sort of error message. We’ll keep trying.
Read More | Facebook 3.2 for iPhone
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
Just where exactly is Detroit anyway?
Does anybody know where Detroit, Michigan is? Clearly sport doesn’t. Detroit has a franchise in each of the four major North American Sports, the Pistons (NBA), Lions (NFL), Red Wings (NHL), and Tigers (MLB), and all of them are in a different geographically-defined league or conference, based on the sport they play in. Detroit itself is a part of the Midwestern United States, as defined by the United States Census Bureau. However, in the world of sport, Detroit is the nexus of North America.
Click to continue reading Just where exactly is Detroit anyway?
Foursquare 1.3 Update Brings Push Notifications
Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Lifestyle, Social Networking, App Updates, Free Apps,
Foursquare has just released version 1.3 for their iPhone app, which now notifies you with a buzz when friends are nearby, via push notification. Foursquare allows you to check-in at different locations, and lets your friends know where you are (this also includes optional Twitter pinging.) What makes this app stand out is the badges system. This system awards you for your activity, whether is checking in to a new place or returning to it for the 100th time. Competitive souls can find subtle amusement by attempting to dethrone majors for locations – people that have been to a specific location many times. If you haven’t tried out Foursquare yet, I highly recommend it.
Read More | Foursquare
Retina-X Studios Mobile Spy
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Lifestyle, Above $10,
Now you can spy on your friends and loved ones with Retina-X Studios’ Mobile Spy for iPhone. After setting up the software, the application will record SMS and call activities and upload it to your private account. It also records GPS locations every thirty minutes as long as a signal is available. This is good news for worried parents, not so good for kids ditching school and trying to lie about it. A year’s subscription will cost you $99.97.
Read More | Mobile Spy
Fast Find Location Beacon
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: GPS, Misc. Tech, Transportation,
Travelers who tend towards the extreme may want to think about investing in the Fast Find, an emergency location beacon that connects to the 406 MHz Search and Rescue satellite system. When activated, the Personal Location Beacon sends a signal for help and will continue to transmit at 5W for the next 24 hours. The Fast Find is only 1.34 x 1.85 x 4.17-inches, weighs 5.3 oz., has a 5 year battery and is available in a standard 200 model or the 210, with GPS for faster locating.
Read More | Fast Find
