tracking
Latest
Tencent's kids smartwatch is both cute and connected
While there are already a handful of connected wearables for kids in the market, here's one with a more complete set of features. Courtesy of Chinese tech giant Tencent, this QQ Watch comes with a 1.12-inch 128 x 128 OLED screen, IP65 ruggedness, an SOS call button and its very own 2G radio. More importantly, though, the tracking functionality uses GPS, WiFi and cellular triangulation simultaneously for higher accuracy. There's even a 0.3-megapixel camera on board, and since the watch can be hooked up to WeChat, lost kids can send photos to their parents as an extra clue for locating them. Battery life? It's good for up to five days, apparently, after which you can charge up the watch with its magnetic connector. There's no word on the pricing just yet, but a company rep said it'll be "very affordable," and it'll launch in China in October, followed by global rollout before end of the year.
Malaysia will use RFID stickers to track vehicles
If you're planning to drive in Malaysia in the next few years, don't expect to maintain a lot of privacy. The country plans to implement RFID-equipped road tax stickers that will help authorities track all vehicles, whether they're local or foreign. It'll start with a pilot program at a border checkpoint this October, but it should expand to cover the whole of Malaysia by 2018. And don't think of trying to take the sticker off -- it'll shatter and transmit a warning if you try to tamper with it.
Researchers inject oil into cells and create little lasers
The Massachusetts General Hospital research team that lit up human cells with the help of jellyfish genes a few years ago are back with a more advanced version of the technology. This new version forgoes the complicated external mirror setup in favor of injectable oil droplets impregnated with fluorescent dye. This is the same basic idea as what a team from St Andrews University recently created, except that the plastic bead that served as the their laser's resonating chamber is now an oil droplet. While the technology isn't ready for therapeutic applications just yet, it does hold a great deal of promise. The problem with conventional cellular markers and dye is that they have a broad emission spectrum which can make it difficult to spot the marked cells amidst the rest of the tissue. But with these miniature lasers, doctors will be able to mark and track individual cells no matter where they are in the body. The team recently published their findings in Nature Photonics.
Security researcher: Globalstar GPS at risk of hackers
As is the case with seemingly anything that connects to the internet these days, a security researcher has found that GPS devices which connect to the Globalstar satellite network are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle hacking. According to Synack Inc researcher Colby Moore, who is presenting his findings next week at BlackHat, transmissions within this system are not encrypted. This means they can be intercepted and altered between the sender and recipient -- not good when you're trying to find survivors after a natural disaster. What's more, Moore states that the flaw is a fault in the system's architecture and one that is nearly impossible to patch.
Connected cattle: how health trackers could change the beef industry
If you've ever road tripped across the United States, you've probably seen one: a feedlot, populated by hundreds (if not thousands) of cows. These animals are the lifeblood of the American beef industry, but caring for them is no small chores. Caretakers typically have to walk the fields and visually check the heard for obvious cues of sickness, heaststroke or fatigue. It's hard, tedious work, but there are a few companies out there trying to make it easier. How? By building fitness trackers for cows, of course.
Facebook figures if you listened to a video, you must like it
Facebook continues to refine what you see in your news feed. Today, the social network that your mom uses announced that it will track more information about your video watching habits to include whether or not you perform any actions like turn up the volume or make a video full screen. Facebook will use that information to place what it believes are more relevant auto-playing videos into your feed. Facebook recently announced that it would track how long users look at posts in addition to when someone clicks the Like or Share button to aggregate posts. Today's news is just an extension of that. The company says it will roll out this new way to weight posts in user feeds over the coming weeks and that Pages shouldn't expect "significant changes in distribution as a result of this update."
Belgium hauls Facebook to court over excessive tracking
Belgium's privacy watchdog has sued Facebook, following through on a threat it made last month. It claimed at the time that the social network "tramples on European and Belgian privacy laws," and demanded that it make changes to avoid legal action. Its main concern was not the tracking of logged-in Facebook users, but the privacy invasion of non-users on unrelated sites with Facebook "cookies" and other trackers. "These recommendations are chiefly aimed at protecting internet users who are not Facebook members," said the commission's president.
South Korea will track cellphones to keep an outbreak under control
South Korea is grappling with an outbreak of the frequently deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and it's taking some drastic technological steps to keep this bad situation from getting worse. The country plans to track the cellphones of people under a MERS quarantine to make sure that they don't leave home and infect others. It's an "unavoidable measure," the country's Deputy Prime Minister claims, and there's some evidence to support his warning. A man broke quarantine last month and flew to China, for example, preventing confirmation of his sickness until it was too late. Still, the loss of privacy likely won't sit well with the roughly 2,300 affected Koreans -- it's a technological reminder of the isolation they face until they're deemed healthy. [Image credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images]
Government scales back plans for license plate-tracking program
To say that there's been some concern about the Department of Homeland Security's on-again, off-again license plate-tracking initiative is something of an understatement. Despite fresh resistance from the ACLU, the agency is persisting with the project, but has revealed that it will walk back on some of its more far-reaching requirements. The original idea was to implement a nationwide system of license plate scanners that could track a suspect's movements, making it easier for the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency to follow and apprehend criminals. Now, however, the folks at Nextgov have uncovered a document, dated February 18th, that scales the scope of the setup to a minimum of 25 states.
Your free Android apps talk to thousands of ad sites
If you've used ad-sponsored Android apps, you've probably wondered where those ads are coming from, and whether or not there's anything to be worried about. According to French researchers, you have a reason to be cautious. They've found a way to automatically scan Android apps for connections to advertising and user tracking sites, and some of those programs are more than a little dodgy. A selection of 2,000 free Google Play apps connected to a whopping 250,000 sites spread over 2,000 domains. Most of them talk to only a handful of sites (Google's ad services dominate the top 10), but 10 percent connect to 500 or more -- one egregious offender links to over 2,000 sites. Only 30 percent of the apps talked to user tracking sites, but some of those were communicating with 800 or more addresses.
Facebook's web tracking could violate European privacy law
If Facebook thought it had a lot of privacy-related legal trouble on its plate, it hasn't seen anything yet. Researchers commissioned by Belgium's data protection agency have determined that Facebook's latest web tracking policy violates European Union privacy law. Reportedly, the social network uses cookies to track web visitors without permission, whether or not they log in or take advantage of the EU's proposed opt-out rules. Cookies are only supposed to be used when you're signed in, and only for things you've agreed to. The kicker? The opt-out system that Facebook uses appears to put another tracking cookie on your system if you're in the EU, so you never completely escape.
Google loses bid to block Safari privacy lawsuit in the UK
Back in February 2012, the Wall Street Journal revealed how Google was able to quietly bypass privacy settings in Safari and track the sites people were browsing. The company eventually paid a $22.5 million penalty to the FTC, and now a group of Brits is seeking similar compensation. Google has been trying to appeal a High Court decision that means their case can be heard in the UK, but today the bid was effectively thrown out.
Google Fiber starts testing targeted, trackable TV ads
For all of the other things it does, Google is still a company that makes a ton of money from advertising, and now it's turning that focus to TV. This week the company announced that it's testing a new kind of ad-tracking system for Google Fiber TV customers in Kansas City. Just like any other local cable company, they'll air during ad breaks reserved for local advertisers (that crappy ad for the car dealership around the corner that comes on during The Walking Dead). Where it's different is that advertisers will only pay for the number of ads actually shown, as monitored by the Fiber set-top boxes. Google can insert fresh ads in DVR'd programming too, and target viewers based on their viewing history. Users can opt-out of the viewing history tracking, but that's it.
Ad outlet tries using drones to track your phone's location
Irked that advertisers are already trying to pinpoint your phone's location? It might be even harder to escape their grasp if AdNear is successful. The ad intelligence group is experimenting with location-tracking drones that profile audiences in harder-to-reach areas (say, field concerts or pedestrian-only urban areas) by triangulating cellular and WiFi signals. In theory, this will help merchants find ways to attract you when you're walking by.
Verizon Wireless will let you dodge those sketchy 'supercookies'
Living a wholly private life on the internet is getting to be impossible, but months of thinkpieces and public outcry finally seem to have done a little good where one company is concerned. According to the New York Times, Verizon Wireless is giving its customers the option to fully opt out of the quiet, advertiser-friendly web tracking it's been conducting for the better part of two years. Alas, there's no word yet on just when that change will take effect, though it can't come soon enough for the privacy advocates and concerned consumers that've been raising hell since the existence of so-called "supercookies" came to light.
This pedal tracks both fitness and bike thieves
If bike thievery is an issue in your town, you can ride and rest easy with the Connected Cycle pedal. It has GPRS and GPS built-in to phone home your bike's location whenever it moves, so it can track your fitness, and send a push notification if someone suddenly jumps on your bike. The pedal is a little bulky for cyclists who pride themselves on lightweight bikes, but on the other hand, it never needs charging or a new battery. It charges from the energy of riding, and the team says a one-hour ride is enough to keep it powered for up to a couple of weeks. They've been working on the tech for two years, and plan to release it in a variety of colors with two years of service, for an as-yet unspecified price. In a demo on the show floor everything worked smoothly, with the app easily tracking activity or location. And hey, even if a thief does make off with your bike, you'll have the data to show you still rode a faster split than they did.
Twitter will track which apps you use on your phone
It's no secret that Twitter has been looking for ways to put more targeted ads in your social feed, but its latest approach may make you uncomfortable if you jealously protect your privacy. The service has revealed that its app will start tracking which apps you have installed on your device in order to improve the relevance of both ads and other content that slips into your tweet stream, such as favorites. Twitter is adamant that it's not collecting data from within apps, and will let you know when the monitoring kicks in. However, those safeguards are offset by the feature's opt-out nature -- the service will automatically scoop up that info unless you explicitly tell it otherwise.
Uber looking into violations of its 'God View' customer-tracking app
Uber has more explaining to do following a report that one of its employees tracked a Buzzfeed reporter's location without her permission. Earlier this month, reporter Johana Bhuiyan was greeted by Uber's New York general manager Josh Mohrer, who pointed at his phone and told her "There you are. I was tracking you." The same reporter said that Mohrer previously sent her logs of her Uber trips -- in both cases, without permission. That's a clear violation of Uber's privacy policy, which it posted yesterday following another firestorm over executive Emil Michael's statement that the company should investigate journalists.
ArcheAge jumps into Raptr's 10 most-played games in September
ArcheAge is seeing its debut month popularity reflected in Raptr's own tracking, as the digital service saw the MMO rise 25 spots as it transitioned from beta to launch. "Based on current trends, ArcheAge has a good chance of remaining in the top 10 in October," the company predicted. Other MMOs in Raptr's top 20 include World of Warcraft holding strong at #2 as well as Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, Warframe, and Star Wars: The Old Republic vying for spots #12 through #15.
Bluesmart wants to crowdfund the 'world's first' connected luggage
Losing your luggage is no fun, but while companies like Trakdot have been selling trackers for some time, a startup is taking to Indiegogo to create what it calls the "world's first smart, connected carry-on." Bluesmart is a small suitcase with a host of features that its makers believe frequent travelers can't live without. Priced at $235 (or as low as $195 for early adopters), it'll include proximity tracking to alert you if you walk away from your luggage, a TSA-approved lock that's controlled by your smartphone and a built-in battery to charge your gadgets. There's also a scale integrated into the handle that'll tell you how much your bag weighs just by lifting it off the ground, and a quick-access compartment for storing your laptop.
