An App Called Moves Logs Every Step You Take

Created by a startup called ProtoGeo, Moves is free and currently available only for the iPhone (the company plans to release an Android version but hasn’t said when). The app’s precision and power consumption need work, but I’m convinced its simplicity represents the future of self-tracking.

via Review: An App Called Moves Logs Every Step You Take—No Extra Effort or Hardware Required | MIT Technology Review.

Start-Up Tawkon Rides Radiation Scare To Build Phone Coverage Maps

It also gives other data. According to the findings, Latin Americans tended to answer their calls significantly quicker than the rest of the world. In Panama, the average time the phone is left ringing before an answer is 6.42 seconds, while in Libya it’s almost double that – 11.16 seconds.

via Start-Up Tawkon Rides Radiation Scare To Build Phone Coverage Maps.

Data is the new currency.

Free SIP/VoIP client for Android

For Google™ Voice users, Sipdroid can now create a new, free PBXes account that is automatically linked to an existing Google™ Voice account. The new feature requires Android 2.0, or above, and Google’s app connected to your Voice account.

via sipdroid – Free SIP/VoIP client for Android – Google Project Hosting.

Just found this site and sipdroid looks like an interesting VOIP solution for a tablet wifi.  Will download to see how it works.

Line, The Messaging App That Took Japan By Storm, Crosses 100M Users And Enters The U.S.

Line gives you free voice calls (like Skype or Facebook’s new overhauled app). Then there’s basic messaging, but Line is a bit goofier with sillier emojis and stickers. There are teddy bears juggling eggplants, bunnies with flames of anger in their eyes, and a shy balding man surrounded by little sparkles and flowers. (Yes.)

via Line, The Messaging App That Took Japan By Storm, Crosses 100M Users And Enters The U.S. | TechCrunch.

Japanese trends do sometime take off here in the US.  100M is quite a large set of users.  Facebook has about 1000M users.

Facebook Messenger app change allows free calls via WiFi

Using software, rather than hardware, the latest update of Facebook’s Messenger app now lets U.S. users place voice calls over WiFi. The rollout follows reports of Facebook testing voice call features in Canada earlier this month.

via Facebook Messenger app change allows free calls via WiFi – The Washington Post.

You might want to be careful about this after reading this article on slashdot:

Facebook Lets You Harvest Account Phone Numbers

Instabridge’s Android app uses Facebook Connect to let you share Wi-Fi with friends.

Instabridge’s free Android app lets you automatically share Wi-Fi networks with your Facebook friends. Available in a handful of European countries, the app works by taking advantage of the Facebook Connect authentication tool, which lets users to log on to websites with Facebook credentials.

via Instabridge’s Android app uses Facebook Connect to let you share Wi-Fi with friends. | MIT Technology Review.

To share a Wi-Fi network through Instabridge for the first time, you must type in your network’s password, which is encrypted and stored on Instabridge’s servers.

It’s A Facebook And Google World On Apple’s App Store, Poke Hits #1 A Day After Its Release

Note that Snapchat is holding the No. 9 spot, and is clearly slipping in popularity, and Google is sitting pretty at both No. 2 (Maps) and No. 5 (YouTube). Even Pinger’s free texting and calling app is right up there at No. 6.

via It’s A Facebook And Google World On Apple’s App Store, Poke Hits #1 A Day After Its Release | TechCrunch.

FTC’s Second Kids’ App Report Finds Little Progress in Addressing Privacy Concerns Surrounding Mobile Applications for Children

Staff examined hundreds of apps for children and looked at disclosures and links on each app’s promotion page in the app store, on the app developer’s website, and within the app. According to the report, “most apps failed to provide any information about the data collected through the app, let alone the type of data collected, the purpose of the collection, and who would obtain access to the data. Even more troubling, the results showed that many of the apps shared certain information with third parties – such as device ID, geolocation, or phone number – without disclosing that fact to parents. Further, a number of apps contained interactive features – such as advertising, the ability to make in-app purchases, and links to social media – without disclosing these features to parents prior to download.”

via FTC’s Second Kids’ App Report Finds Little Progress in Addressing Privacy Concerns Surrounding Mobile Applications for Children.

WhatsApp threatens legal action against API developers

However, the popular texting alternative WhatsApp still has a major security problem. Attackers can compromise other users’ accounts with relative ease, and send and receive messages from another user’s account. In this respect nothing has changed – heise Security was able to successfully repeat its test this morning (Tuesday).

via WhatsApp threatens legal action against API developers – The H Security: News and Features.

WhatsApp Inc. has, however, been in touch with the developers behind the GitHub project WhatsAPI, an open source implementation of the WhatsApp protocol written in PHP and Python. The company has threatened to take legal action against the developers if they do not take the project offline. heise Security has been told by one of the developers that they have decided to acquiesce to this request and to cease working on the API.