Mobily Attempts to Intercept Saudi Arabian Terrorists
June 21, 2013
The article on the thoughtcrime blog titled A Saudi Arabia Telecom’s Surveillance Pitch reads more than anything like a plea to the humanity of hackers. The author (Moxie Marlinspike) relates his communications with a Mobily agent. He learned from the agent of the telecom operating in Saudi Arabia that they were attempting to gain interception technology for mobile application data. Mobile Twitter, Viber, Line and WhatsApp were several focuses. The article relates,
“What’s depressing is that I could have easily helped them intercept basically all of the traffic they were interested in (except for Twitter – I helped write that TLS code, and I think we did it well). They later told me they’d already gotten a WhatsApp interception prototype working, and were surprised by how easy it was. The bar for most of these apps is pretty low.”
Eventually when Marlinspike refused to help the company, they accused him of terrorism (or at least terrorism by negligence). They claimed that terrorist groups were using these apps to communicate, and that they only intended to monitor them due to the inherent threat. Obviously it is naïve to believe that any government or company will have the moral compass to restrain themselves, as has been proven in the past. The article goes on to ask his fellow hackers to rethink their priorities. It may be an interesting way to collect information, but where will it end?
Chelsea Kerwin, June 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Contrasting Scenarios in Google Glass Forecast
June 18, 2013
A report from services firm IHS conjures up a number best served with a grain of salt. Electronic engineering site EE Times reports, “Spurred by Google Glass, IHS Forecasts Nearly 10 Million Smart Glasses to Ship from 2012 to 2016.” The forecast looks past the public-availability launch, expected next year, and predicts the device’s trajectory after that.
Quite simply, it all depends on third-party apps. A number of developers have already paid $1,500 for the privilege of early ownership, and early tinkering. Perhaps developers will quickly create a wealth of exciting augmented-reality apps, driving a surge in popularity for the device. Perhaps these apps will change the way we interact with the world forever, and our Glasses will eventually become as essential as our smartphones are now. The rosiest numbers in the report spring from that direction.
There are other possibilities, however. Writer Julien Happich shares the predictions’ duller side:
“Under a more pessimistic scenario, IHS forecasts that only about 1 million smart glasses will be shipped through 2016. According to this outlook, applications for smart glasses will be limited to some of those already displayed by Google in its Glass marketing. These include scenarios where smart glasses become more of a wearable camera device than a true augmented reality system. In this case, smart glasses will be mainly used for recording sports and other non-casual events, like jumping out of a plane, as demonstrated at the Google I/O developer conference in 2012.”
At over $200 million in 2012, the wearable-camera market is nothing to sneeze at, but it is far from the multi-billion-dollar arena Google is after here. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. The future of Glass is in the apps; we’ll just have to wait and see what developers come up with.
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Apple and Microsoft: Pals Again?
June 11, 2013
I noted “Exciting New Chapter in Bing’s Collaboration with Apple”. Call me old fashioned, but I was fascinated to see the on-again, off-again relationship between Apple and Microsoft click “on”. The key point for me in the write up was this passage:
Starting this fall with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri’s new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.
Mobile search is replacing desktop search as the go-to way for some folks to locate information. The challenge in my opinion boils down to the Apple-Microsoft magnetism versus the pulling power of Google.
Neither Apple nor Microsoft has had the business model to generate Google-scale money from search. My view is that Apple and Microsoft may be facing a quite difficult challenge.
Both companies have the resources to take search to a different place. Can these two firms deliver. The Bing index strikes me as less deep than Google’s. I no longer have current data about the number of urls indexed by Bing, but when I run queries, I find more hits in Google. Volume does not equal relevance, however. Google has a point of possible vulnerability. However, Apple has not delivered high impact search in some of its services. I find the iTunes’ search system sluggish and difficult to use. Trimming a result set to include only audiobooks is not particularly intuitive for one of my colleagues.
Where there are tie ups, there is hope.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Boxfish Launches Android App
June 11, 2013
Boxfish wants to keep the public in-tune with what is trending on TV and they have just the technology to do that. Their technology was already available for Apple iOS and according to the TechCrunch article “Video Discovery Startup Boxfish Launches Android App, Opens Up API For Third-Party Developers” they recently released an Android version of their application. They have taken it a step further and have opened up their application to developers.
“To recap: Boxfish works by scanning network satellite signals for captions and figuring out which words or topics or phrases are being talked about across a wide number of TV programs. It started with a real-time TV search engine, letting its users say where and when certain topics are being mentioned. But it’s expanded to enable users to see which topics are most popular.”
The Android technology continues to grow in the tablet and smartphone world so this addition means that Boxfish will be an option for more phones, tablets and users. Also notable is a new feature was added to the Android version. Users will now have the ability to use Google’ voice recognition technology and be able to actually talk to the app and search for content without ever typing a word. Boxfish is looking at the big picture and isn’t just settling for apps they are also reaching out to third parties. They have opened their real-time TV API up to some of their partners and allowed them to use the technology in their own apps. The data is also being offered to university media schools so that they can have a more in-depth understanding of topics that are talked about on 24-hour news networks. Boxfish definitely seems to be giving video search a new and refreshing makeover.
April Holmes, June 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SRCH2 Poised to Take Industry by Storm
June 11, 2013
We came across a recent press release that posed an interesting question. At this point, can any vendor in the enterprise realm produce a search solution disruptive to Google? SRCH2 might be an outfit to keep an eye on, according to the information we learned from an interview with Dr. Chen Li in the Arnold Information Technology Search Wizards Speak series.
SRCH2’s niche in the landscape of search options is geared towards corporate sites and apps. Their plan is to build “Google style” solutions.
The press release offers a summary of what Chen said in the interview in regards to the problem that SRCH2 wants to solve:
“‘SRCH2 offers clear differentiation when you also consider complexity and time to market. When you add in-memory performance to this, SRCH2 offers a killer combination for these use cases.’ A key innovation in the SRCH2 method concerns the speed with which content can be processed and then accessed to generate a response to a user’s or subsystem’s query. Speed, particularly in mobile applications, is essential. Latency can drag down response time. SRCH2, like Google, knows that speed is often more important than some other considerations.”
Apparently, SRCH2’s clients are using their technology in a number of different contexts and for a variety of devices. If there is even a major global handset manufacturer porting it to the kernel across millions of handsets, what other uses will be found? Only time will tell.
Megan Feil, June 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Facebook Losing Ground with Teens
June 3, 2013
Oh, oh. Is Facebook falling down? The wildly successful creation of the young Zuckerberg is beginning to show its age, and teenagers are now refusing to be seen with it. The Motley Fool informs us, “Facebook No Longer Home to Teens.” Writer Mark Holder argues that recent media attention on Facebook’s mobile Home app and its Graph search misses an important part of the picture—the site’s shrinking audience among young people. The article reveals:
“The bigger issue not generally addressed is that all the new revenue monetization issues won’t matter if Facebook follows the path of all other social networks. Eventually users tire of the service and move onto the next hot social network. The new set of teens aren’t as interested in following the footsteps of the teens from 5 years ago akin to a nightclub typically having a limited length of popularity.”
The write-up goes on to present a chart of “estimated reach” statistics from Facebook itself, and notes:
“The chart shows that the 18-24 year old group lost the largest amount of users in the last 3 months at over 2 million. The second largest group was the 25-34 year olds at nearly 2 million users. Ironically the only group to gain was the 65+ year old group that likely diminishes the younger groups desire to stay on the site. It’s one thing to deal with a nosy parent, but showing your wild party pics to your grandparents is a whole different issue.”
I suppose. Whatever the reason, Holder takes investors to task for ignoring reality in favor of Facebook’s shiny-new innovations. Perhaps, though, the social leader can find a way to turn the trend around, or to minimize its impact. Stranger things have happened.
Cynthia Murrell, June 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Programming for Android Fragmentation
June 3, 2013
Google’s open approach to its mobile OS has long vexed those who prefer consistency. Mixpanel addresses Google Android fragmentation in its “Data Snapshot: The Big, Fragmented World of Android.” The article analyzes but two of the several differences between Android devices. It explains:
“The fragmented world of Android means [developers] have to work harder to reach consumers on that platform. The combination of different versions of the OS, screen sizes, screen densities, and resolutions presents developers with a matrix of variables and they have to decide what they want to support, knowing that wide support has a direct trade off in increased development time.
“This Data Snapshot takes a quick look at Android fragmentation by two of these variables: Device Model and Screen Resolution. The consumer activity by version of the Android OS chart on Mixpanel Trends gives insight into fragmentation at OS version level.”
Though Samsung dominates the Android device field (producing eight of the top ten), model fragmentation is still a big issue; analysts found the vast majority of activity is spread across the devices below the top ten. As for screen resolution, a hefty 63 percent of Android activity takes place in the top three resolutions (480×800, 720×1280, and 320×480, in that order.) However, it should be noted that a total of 11 resolutions are represented.
These are just a couple examples of the differences developers must contend with across Android devices. Google supplies some guidelines on dealing with these deviations here and here.
Cynthia Murrell, June 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Richard Hickman Can Restore Deleted Snapchat Pictures For a Price
May 30, 2013
The article Some Jerk Has Figured Out a Way to Recover Your “Deleted” Snapchat Photos, on BetaBeat reports that a once safe space has now been made dangerous by a Utah security firm. By altering the extension on the deleted pictures (which are in reality just being stored, but cloaked with the affixed “.NOMEDIA” extension) Richard Hickman found the deleted pictures on an Android phone. Hickman said,
“Then it’s most likely put into unallocated space, where here it’s actually allocated,” Hickman said. “It’s not that it’s deleted — it just isn’t mapped anymore. It says okay, that spot where that picture was stored is now available to be overwritten. That’s what would happen with a regular camera.” He wants to further ruin your life–he’s working on a way to trace the sender’s information and developing the same recovery capability for iPhones.”
Adding to the bad news for Snapchat users, Hickman has begun to offer his ability to people for a small fee ($300-$500). As if your digital footprint isn’t hard enough to erase, now “erased” data might not be really gone. While this may be of immediate concern to some people (Snapchat “sexters”), it should make us all think of the possibilities. Maybe online data never truly goes away.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 30, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
It Is About Time We Start Data Mining Mobile Phones
May 28, 2013
One of the main areas that companies are failing to collect data on is mobile phones. Interestingly enough, Technology Review has this article to offer the informed reader: “Released: A Trove Of Cell Of Cell Phone Data-Mining Research.” Cell phone data offers a plethora of opportunity, one that is only starting to be used to its full potential. It is not just the more developed countries that can use the data, but developing countries as well could benefit. It has been noted that cell phones could be used to redesign transportation networks and even create some eye-opening situations in epidemiology.
There is a global wide endeavor to understand cell phone data ramifications:
“Ahead of a conference on the topic that starts Wednesday at MIT, a mother lode of research has been made public about how to use this data. For the past year, researchers around the world responded to a challenge dubbed Data for Development, in which the telecom giant Orange released 2.5 billion records from five million cell-phone users in Ivory Coast. A compendium of this work is the D4D book, holding all 850 pages of the submissions. The larger conference, called NetMob (now in its third year), also features papers based on cell phone data from other regions, described in this book of abstracts.”
Before you get too excited, take note that privacy concerns are an important issue. No one has found a reasonable way to disassociate users with their cell phone data. It will only be a matter of time before that happens, until then we can abound in the possibilities.
Whitney Grace, May 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Analytics Company to Disrupt Digital and Mobile Metrics Emphasis
May 27, 2013
From Business Insider comes news of a potentially disruptive startup: “Mixpanel, A Startup That Wants To Kill Pageviews And Other ‘BS Metrics’ Now Measures 12 Billion Actions Per Month.” Mixpanel Co-founder Suhail Doshi pushes for digital and mobile companies to highlight monthly user engagement numbers instead of page views.
Mixpanel is an analytics company founded in 2009. It helps both paying and non-paying customers track engagement through actions on their sites. For example, “liking” content on Facebook is an action.
According to the article:
“Doshi admits it’s harder for content-producers to shift to his way of thinking. But changing an industry standard like pageview reporting is a slow process, and Doshi thinks his company is making good headway. ’We’re this living, breathing case that we do see pageviews are dying,’ says Doshi, who was inspired to track meaningful analytics by mentor and former colleague, Max Levchin. Pageviews are already dying on mobile devices, says Doshi, because users rarely click through to see more pages on tiny screens.”
Mixapanel’s growth implies they are doing something right. However, regarding Google Analytics, Mixpanel is making some bold assertions.
Megan Feil, May 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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