Your iPhone is Tracking You…So is Your Android
Everyone pretty much lost it once it was discovered that their beloved iPhones were tracking their every move. Never mind the fact that locating a device through triangulation is a well-known technique. In reality, there isn’t much to fear about this iPhone tracking thing. It boils down to your phone storing your location in a file. It doesn’t matter if you have Location Services enabled or not. There is no way to turn it off and the file is not encrypted. Also, the file will be stored on your computer when you backup your device through iTunes. Now, if someone will go through the trouble of gaining access to your iPhone or your computer in order to get your location history, you probably have more serious things to worry about. Oh, and us Androids get our location info stored as well, just less of it and it’s more difficult to access.
DuckDuckGo Joins Wolfram|Alpha. Should Google Care?
Dr. Stephen Wolfram’s super intelligent “computational knowledge engine” Wolfram|Alpha has joined forces with MIT grad Gabriel Weinberg’s DuckDuckGo search engine. DuckDuckGo uses online crowd-sourcing to augment traditional search engine results, hopefully increasing relevance and cutting out clutter. Wolfram|Alpha is a massive data base, curated by approximately 1,000 human experts and can answer questions like “what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated in an instant.”
Why should Google beware? Because Wolfram|Alpha, “the computational knowledge engine,” which launched in May 2009, is considered to be the biggest Internet revolution since the invention of search. In fact, many consider its goal to be the ”Holy Grail of the Internet,” a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.
via The Next Web
Nokia Challenges Google Maps with Ovi Maps for Web
You thought Google Maps was the only game in town. They’ve got cars mapping the world and can display maps in 3D in the latest updates for your newest car (see hire providers here). You were wrong, though. Nokia has just launched an incredibly realistic three-dimensional map app for the web. Partnering with C3, the leading provider of 3D mapping solutions, Nokia is offering photo-realistic models of the world.
HBO GO Coming to a Mobile Device Near You
The HBO Go online streaming service lets subscribers catch up on HBO’s “award-winning and ass-kicking TV content.” According to Engadget, the service is about to hit smartphones and tablets early next month (5-2-11 according to the video). This includes Android, iPhone, and iPad. The video also promises “instant and unlimited access” to “every episode of every season” of your favorite shows with a sprinkling of hit movies.
T-Mobile Launches Voice Calling on Facebook: Bobsled
Google, Skype, and others might want to look out. T-Mobile has announced a set of products called Bobsled which initially allows for voice communications via Facebook, but will later be expanded. Right now, it’s flash-based, but T-Mobile plans to expand the Bobsled brand to mobile devices.
Here’s how the new product works: After downloading and installing Bobsled for Facebook on a Windows or Mac PC, the software adds a phone icon next each friend in your Facebook Chat window. Tap the phone icon, and a free voice call is initiated, even if the call recipient hasn’t installed the Bobsled application yet. Aside from one-touch calling, the service also supports voice mails in case the personal you’re calling isn’t available or doesn’t pick up. I ran a quick, early test with Mike Wolf, one of my GigaOM colleagues, and the sound quality wasn’t bad. More importantly, I didn’t have to worry about what phone number to dial.
via GigaOMTech