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Some mobile games are listening to what children watch
Just in time for the new season of Black Mirror, another report of a company using smartphones to listen in on users has surfaced. The New York Times reported this week that a number of apps are using software produced by a startup called Alphonso and it uses a smartphone's microphone to listen for particular audio signals in TV shows, advertisements and movies. In many cases, Alphonso then has Shazam identify what those audio snippets are and all of the collected data can then be sold to advertisers who can use it to better target their ads.
Updated: Pulse News Reader for iOS now free
If you were intrigued by our former coverage of Pulse, a slick reimagining of how RSS feeds can work on the iPad and iPhone, but were put off by the modest asking price, here's a good way to start your week. As the New York Times reports, Alphonso Labs has secured $800k in venture capital funding and is moving to a different business model. It is now trying to "attract more users, and with them, paid partnerships with publishers and advertisers." This sounds like we'll end up with in-app ads in the long run, but for the moment, none are present. It's also likely that it'll be doing more deals with content producers to spotlight their feeds in the "featured" section of the app, which is a less intrusive way for them to generate revenue. If you've never used Pulse, it's more like Flipboard than traditional RSS readers, like Reeder. It arranges feed content into attractive, image-heavy scrolling areas that try to create the feel of a glossy personalized magazine. This is both a strength and a weakness -- it works better with some types of feeds than others -- but overall it provides a pleasant way to catch up with the news over your breakfast. Update: following numerous commenters expressing concerns that, having paid for a previous version of Pulse, they would now be subjected to ads, we contacted Alphonso Labs for a statement. Click through to see what it said.
Pulse News Reader for iPad 2.0: More sources, better organization
Alphonso Labs reported today that their Pulse News Reader for iPad (currently US $1.99) has been updated to version 2.0. The new version of the app addresses one of the major complaints about the original by allowing up to 60 news feeds to be added, with up to 12 feeds on each of five pages. Organization of sources is much easier in the new version. Each one of the five pages has a tab that can be renamed, so users can define each page by type -- for example, "Apple," "Food," "News," and more. The feeds are listed under each tab and can be dragged around to be placed in the order you would like to see them. It's also easier to find sources; when you go to add a source, there are tabs for "featured" and "categories," both featuring sources that look good in Pulse. Alphonso Labs calls this the "Pulse Bazaar." The app seems snappier than the previous version also, both at startup and while loading or refreshing pages. I'm not sure if it's new, but it's possible to add both your Facebook and Twitter feeds to Pulse, with any post with a photo or link in it showing up in your Pulse list. There's also support for Bump, so you can share feeds with friends who have both Bump and Pulse installed. Sounds like a great update -- if you've had issues with the app previously, it's worth giving it another look.
Pulse News Reader now in convenient smaller size for iPhone, iPod touch
The Pulse News Reader for iPad (US$3.99) gained some notoriety last month when the stylish app was released, then promptly yanked from the App Store by Apple at the behest of The New York Times. The Times did not want their RSS feed featured in Pulse; changes were made and the app has been back in the App Store since about June 8th. Now comes word from developer Alphonso Labs that a new version of the app -- Pulse News Mini ($2.99) -- is now available for iPhone and iPod touch. It's iOS 4.0 tested, and from a quick look at the app, it does an amazing job of putting the functionality of Pulse into a smaller form factor. As you can see from the video above, Pulse News Mini looks quite similar to the iPad app. Of course, the individual pieces of the Pulse "mosaic" are smaller, but the way that users interact with Pulse is identical. Up to 20 news feeds may be added, with the ability to search by keywords to find those feeds. A tap on a story expands it to fill the screen. The rest of the stories in the feed are listed below, but can be hidden with a touch. I was pleased to see that Alphonso Labs took one of my suggestions to heart. As a writer, I like to see who is writing posts for various blogs. The initial versions of Pulse did not have this feature, but Pulse News Mini shows the author byline in the feed. In the currently shipping version of Pulse, 1.0.1, photos associated with posts did not appear to load properly. I'd love to see some way to sync the feeds on the iPad and iPhone versions to avoid re-entry of feeds between devices. If the developer responds as quickly to this request as they did to the my previous suggestion, we should see that feature implemented quickly.
iPad Pulse Reader app goes from keynote hero to App Store zero thanks to NYT (update -- it's back!)
Pulse News Reader -- a news aggregating app for the iPad -- got itself the ultimate stamp of approval yesterday by being featured in Steve Jobs' keynote speech. A few hours later, however, Apple had removed the application from its App Store, following a complaint by the New York Times that it was infringing on its rights. Although Pulse collates publicly available RSS feeds, the fact it costs $4 a pop is being interpreted as a "commercial use" of those feeds, and therefore a violation of the New York Times and Boston Globe's Terms of Use. Its makers have said they'll be getting in touch with Apple and stripping out the offending content, but it's certainly a head scratcher of a decision by the news company. We wonder if this signals the start of a crusade against all paid RSS readers or if Pulse has something peculiarly intolerable about it. Visit the source link to read the complaint in full. Update: From what we're reading, it sounds like what the NYT is really complaining about is that its feeds are preloaded into Pulse, and that Pulse is using NYT content and images in its promotional materials, not that Pulse is a paid app. Seems like those are easy fixes -- we'll see what happens. Update 2: And it's back! As we guessed, it looks like all Pulse had to do was resubmit without preloading the NYT's RSS feed and take some new screenshots of different sites, so that's just peachy. Still, it's insanely troublesome that Apple's first response is to just pull apps without verifying any claims or allowing devs to respond -- your store is still broken, Steve, no matter what percentage of apps you're approving.
