Posts Tagged ‘mobile apps’
Google Plans Facial Recognition App That Can Pull Up Personal Data When It Sees A Face (Updated)
For its part, Google is trying to get in front of the privacy argument that is undoubtedly coming (Google is getting pretty good at this by now) by assuring users that they will have to opt into such a service by checking a box. And the search giant is working on added layers of security and privacy to ensure that only those who want to be photographically found will be.
The idea is that Google’s massive search resources could be used to trawl social networks, online photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa, and the like to associate an individual’s face with his or her online presence. This, of course, could also include contact info like email addresses and phone numbers. It would at the very least identify a person by name, with which any reasonably tech-savvy person could track down contact information anyhow.
The technology, a Google engineer says, already exists and has for some time (though we really already knew that, since Google is not the first to come up with such an app). But the company is sensitive to privacy issues--if not out of genuine concern for its users then for avoiding public backlash--and wants to make sure that when it launches, it launches the right way. As such, Google has not said when it will release the product, or even so much as offered a rough production timeline. But don’t worry about being left out of the loop; when the app does launch, the stranger sitting across the coffee shop will surely email you to to let you know.
Update: A Google rep. dropped us a call to let us know that the news story upon which this blog post is based is "extremely speculative," and that the company has no such application in the pipeline, nor does it have plans to introduce such a facial recognition app to its development pipeline. According to Google, the engineer--director of engineering Hartmut Neven--was speaking to CNN's reporter about hypothetical uses for some of Google's technology, not about existing applications or applications under development.
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New Mobile App Builds Realistic 3-D Models From Cell Phone Camera Snapshots
Microsoft researchers used PhotoSynth technology to build the app, but it goes beyond that photo-stitching program and also calculates the depth of an object. The model determines the camera’s location in space and determines the depth. You don’t have to worry about capturing perfectly overlapping panoramas — the software can smooth it all out, as Microsoft researcher Johannes Kopf .
The software preserves straight lines and eliminates holes and weird triangular gaps, a common problem in 3-D stitching.
To make a model, you would walk around an object, snapping overlapping pictures from different angles. Upload them to a server for processing, and the app downloads a 3-D model that you can grab and spin on your phone’s touchscreen. It recreates your view as you walked around, allowing you to see the object from every angle. Technology Review explains in .
This could be useful for selling items online, among a myriad other uses. The app uses much less bandwidth than a 3-D video would, because it only needs a few images.
The project was developed at Microsoft's Interactive Visual Media group.
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Boston’s ‘Street Bump’ App Tries To Automatically Map Potholes With Accelerometers and GPS
The free app, which runs on the Android operating system for now, is still in alpha testing and isn’t quite ready for public consumption. But the idea is that it will allow citizens to help the city create work orders for problem areas on city roadways without requiring a phone call or email to city engineers. “It’s a new kind of volunteerism,’’ Nigel Jacob, one half of Boston’s Urban Mechanics office, told the Boston Globe. “It’s not volunteering your sweat equity. It’s volunteering the devices that are in your pocket to help the city.’’
But the city of Boston and its partners (the city is receiving help from experts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Santa Fe Complex, a technology think tank in New Mexico) aren’t the first to try to make this kind of roadway-assessing app, and the challenges are many. has looked into it, as has , with varying degrees of success.
The challenge: teaching a phone to tell the difference between a pothole and a speed bump or elevated crosswalk, or—perhaps even more challenging—a railway crossing or sewer grate. That’s pretty tough to do, and an app that issues false positives could degrade the city’s ability to respond to potholes by sending workers to repair nonexistent problems, costing time and money.
But the city of Boston seems well aware of the challenges. will soon be distributed to thousands of testers and a $25,000 prize will be offered to programmers who can devise the best ways to correct the app’s shortcomings. If users can help the city smooth out a few bumps in the road, the city could soon have a citywide network of pothole sensors patrolling the pavement around the clock.
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Loopt unveils new check in features with launch of version 4.0
, an early leader in location-based services, today announced it has launched the next version of its application with several new features, including automatic check-ins, text messages, social recommendations, and rewards from businesses.
If you use any location apps, you may have experienced something called “check-in fatigue” — which just means you get tired of having to take out your phone and check in at every place you visit. The automatic check-in feature will now allow Loopt users to create small groups of friends or family who will have constant access to your location, without the need to work your way through an app’s interface.
The ping feature, which allows users to request another user’s location through the application, now allows the request to be sent via text message.
Loopt is also looking to use the large amount of user data it receives to more efficiently recommend locations and activities to users. For example, the app could tell you of a nearby cafe that is frequently visited by friends and might be a location you’d like to visit. Its provides an additional amount of user information that may help with these types of recommendations based on the user’s network and activities.
Loopt previously launched Loopt Star, a separate application for its business-rewards program. Users were able to launch the application and see local businesses offering specials in their area, which they could redeem for checking in to the specific location. told me that the app was originally launched to test users’ response to the program, and because of its success has rolled it up into the main Loopt app. Loopt Star will no longer be available as a standalone app.
With today’s updates, Loopt appears to be making a hard push to make the main Loopt application more robust and competitive with popular check-in apps Foursquare and Gowalla, who are already providing similar features. Gowalla just releases its own that most notably lets users integrate with Facebook Places and Foursquare.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, founded in 2006, currently has four location-based applications with more than 4 million users. Loopt has secured $17 million in funding and has around 40 employees.
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No more syncing: Didiom streams music to your iPhone from anywhere
With the , syncing music files to your phone may become a thing of the past. That’s why we’re choosing Didiom as the first innovative app for .
Didiom lets you stream music to your iPhone or iPod Touch (or BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 6 phone) from your Windows PC over Wi-Fi and 3G. It’s available in two flavors: A that lets you stream up to five songs, and that offers higher-quality audio and unlimited streams for $9.99 a year.
Setting up Didiom is simple: First , then create a Didiom account, and finally choose the music folders you’d like to sync with the service. Didiom gives you access to songs, podcasts, audiobooks and playlists — though it won’t support files encrypted with DRM from iTunes and audiobook company Audible. (Apple now sells unencrypted MP3 files on iTunes, but older files may have DRM.)
The Pro version lets you stream audio at up to 128 Kbps quality — which is noticeably worse than CD quality. Still, the quality drop is a decent trade-off for the convenience of accessing your music from practically anywhere.
In my testing over AT&T’s 3G network in New York, Didiom managed to quickly find my music library, and it was able to play back files within a few seconds of accessing them. The app itself is well-designed and stable. Didiom takes advantage of the iPhone 4’s multitasking capabilities, allowing you to listen to songs without staying in the app, although it doesn’t integrate with the iPhone’s native playback controls.
Didiom, short for “digital distribution of music”, started out as a graduate project for founder Ran Assaf. In an email interview, Assaf mentioned that his original plan in 2004 was to let users stream music from a large licensed catalog. Eventually, the company pivoted its focus to placeshifting, or the ability to access your files from anywhere.
Driving the service is a peer-to-peer (P2P) placeshifting technology that Didiom has been developing since 2004, which makes streaming files from computers to phones easier. With Didiom, your music never hits any intermediary servers — instead, it’s encrypted and piped directly from your PC to your phone. That’s a far less problematic approach than other pioneers of streaming, like MP3.com, an online-music pioneer which copied files from users’ libraries and stored them on its own servers. That last step — copying them to servers — raises potential copyright issues. And that’s what Didiom smartly avoids.
When asked if music labels took issue with the service, Assaf said, “We demonstrated the technology to the labels. They did not raise any concerns. It was important for them to know that Didiom is not a music locker service, and that we do not duplicate or upload music from the computers of our users to our servers.”
Assaf counts other services like , , and Simplify Media (which ) as Didiom competitors. He says that Didiom stands out “in terms of speed, navigation, streaming quality, user experience, DRM support, compatible devices and availability on app stores.” He added that Didiom’s streaming technology is more stable, and less prone to error due to Internet outages, as well.
Didiom certainly performed better in my testing than ZumoCast and Orb. When it comes to music, I also prefer Didiom to , an innovative streaming service we’ve covered in the past.
Didiom, founded in 2005, is based in New York City. The company has received some funding from angel investors but is primarily bootstrapped.
Developers: Want to get your app featured like Didiom? Then !
The Intel AppUp developer program is sponsoring VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight. However, VentureBeat’s editorial staff selects apps for the program according to its customary editorial standards, without input from Intel.
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Social media tracker Tynt gives developers content in real-time data streams
Social media tracker startup has launched a new application program interface (API) that allows developers to access their content through real-time data streams, as the rush to put more information in the hands of smartphone users heats up.
Tynt works with online publishers and websites about the sharing activity of their users.
The new API is the first initiative of , as the company debuts new data tracking tools through its feature and makes them available to developers and users.
San Francisco-based Tynt also unveiled its new feature, where visitors can see top stories, popular search terms and images of in the sections of celebrity, how-to, New York, sports, technology and travel.
It simultaneously announced its new Geo-location service, which shows the specific areas, images, search terms and stories that people in New York are most closely following.
CEO and co-founder Derek Ball (pictured) told VentureBeat that Tynt’s new approach to interactive services is trying to find a way to harness the overall creativity flourishing in a lightning-fast developer environment.
“Our internal researchers are finding fascinating patterns in the aggregate data and we have so many ideas for what amazing applications could be built,” said Bell. “We simply can’t create them all, so it will be very interesting to see what kind of applications others choose to build on our data. I am confident that the best apps will result in positive traffic flow for our publisher partners and great insights for the end users of those applications. I think one of the most interesting possible areas is mobile.”
Tynt currently offers two APIs, a , where developers see a real-time stream of content related to six popular categories, and a Keyword Search, where developers engage real-time information streams based on keyword searches to figure out how users are interacting with a website’s content.
Bell said he believed that targeting mobile apps will almost certainly be the next target for both developers and companies catering to businesses trying to quantify how their websites are engaging users.
“I think one of the most interesting possible areas is mobile. and he indicated that apps would be where people would go for their data,” said Bell. “If you are building the ultimate app for any passion you might have, imagine being able to tap into a human curated set of the best content around that passion.”
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Developers: Get ready for your closeup in VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight
Are you an app developer with a creation that’s ready for the klieg lights? VentureBeat has partnered with Intel to provide a new showcase for your mobile app: VentureBeat’s .
Why did we create this program? Fundamentally, we want to help connect our readers with the latest innovations in the mobile and app worlds, and boost the efforts of entrepreneurs and inventors who are coming up with great new ideas. There’s been an explosion of creativity in mobile apps in the past few years — but that very fecundity has posed new challenges to developers.
Here’s how it works: If you have a new app, . VentureBeat’s editors will pick three apps to profile over the coming months, and they’ll be highlighted on VentureBeat’s homepage. (Note: To qualify as new — at least to our audience — the app must not have previously been written about in VentureBeat. If this program isn’t a fit, you can still keep us in the loop with your news — we’re glad to hear from you.) Apps written for any major smartphone platform are welcome.
Why did we team up with Intel to create this program? At VentureBeat, we’ve long tracked innovation in the mobile industry, before there was an App Store, iPads, or Android tablets. When we noticed that coaxing users to download an app was a growing challenge, we started covering and created the to discuss the technical and marketing challenges and the business opportunities in getting your hot app noticed. And Intel, our sponsor for the Spotlight, is increasingly interested in helping mobile-app developers solve the challenge of discovery, too.
There are all kinds of tips and tricks that help you get your app out there. But one thing we consistently heard from developers is that it sure doesn’t hurt to get recognition from a publication like VentureBeat to get influential users’ attention. Flattery aside, we get the message!
And we hope you do, too: !
The Intel AppUp Developer Program is sponsoring VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight. However, VentureBeat’s editorial staff selects apps for the program according to its customary editorial standards, without input from Intel.