technology:mobile device

  • Apps of a Feather: breaking changes in Twitter API
    http://apps-of-a-feather.com

    “Third-party apps open a network connection to Twitter and receive a continuous stream of updates (hence the name). For push notifications, this connection is done on the developer’s server and used to generate messages that are sent to your devices. For timeline updates, the stream is opened directly on your mobile device or desktop computer.

    This streaming connection is being replaced by an Account Activity API. This new infrastructure is based on “webhooks” that Twitter uses to contact your server when there’s activity for an account. But there are problems for app developers…”

    #API_Twitter_client_Tweetbot_clevermarks

  • Five Key #mobile App Statistics App Developers Should Know
    https://hackernoon.com/five-key-mobile-app-statistics-app-developers-should-know-af6fe432578?so

    Sure there’s yearly reports on everything from app usage to revenue. We welcome these and they can provide developers with vital information about the app economy. But often it can be difficult to understand how these trends will affect your app.So we’ve tried to help. We’re going to look at five interesting stats based on data from the last year. Then we’re going to attempt to understand what these trends show, how it will affect monetization, engagement and other app metrics. We’ll also look at how developers can adopt their app strategy to suit these trends.Ultimate Guide To App Monetization - How To, Stats & InsightLast year app mobile device app downloads reached over 175 billionSource: App AnnieThis represents a 60% growth on 2015. Now that’s healthy, and there are a few reasons for (...)

    #mobile-app-stats #app-developer #mobile-app-statistics #app-statistics

  • The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every #iPhone Model In Existence
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/26/government-can-access-any-apple-iphone-cellebrite

    Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that’s become the U.S. government’s company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11. That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology.

    #surveillance #Israel #Etats-unis

  • CppCast Episode 137: Qt Mobile Development with Sarah Smith
    http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

    Episode 137 of CppCast the only podcast for C++ developers by C++ developers. In this episode Rob and Jason are joined by Sarah Smith to talk about her career in Mobile Development with C++ and Qt.

    CppCast Episode 137: Qt Mobile Development with Sarah Smith by Rob Irving and Jason Turner

    About the interviewee:

    Sarah Smith comes to mobile development & entrepreneurship with a background in Software Engineering for companies like Nokia & Google, and over a decade of mobile device experience. She builds on a love of game development since creating Dungeons & Dragons modules on her own web-server while studying for a BSc (Comp Sci) in the late 90’s. Realizing a goal to develop independent games & apps, Sarah opened Smithsoft in 2012. In January (...)

  • Qt Mobile Development with Sarah Smith
    http://cppcast.libsyn.com/qt-mobile-development-with-sarah-smith

    Rob and Jason are joined by Sarah Smith to talk about her career in Mobile Development with C++ and Qt. Sarah Smith comes to mobile development & entrepreneurship with a background in Software Engineering for companies like Nokia & Google, and over a decade of mobile device experience. She builds on a love of game development since creating Dungeons & Dragons modules on her own web-server while studying for a BSc (Comp Sci) in the late 90’s. Realizing a goal to develop independent games & apps, Sarah opened Smithsoft in 2012. In January 2016 development went to the next level with Sarah moving to The Coterie (Brisbane’s premier creative co-working space) to set up a studio as Smithsoft Games. The new studio’s first title Pandora’s Books was developed by Sarah and her team of (...)

    http://traffic.libsyn.com/cppcast/cppcast-137.mp3?dest-id=282890

  • Never accept an MDM policy on your personal phone
    https://blog.cdemi.io/never-accept-an-mdm-policy-on-your-personal-phone

    In this new age of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), employees can bring personally owned devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc...) to their workplace, and to use those devices to access privileged company information and applications. The intent of MDM is to optimize the functionality and security of these devices while minimizing cost and downtime. MDM stands for Mobile Device Management, and is a way to ensure employees stay productive and do not breach corporate policies. There are various MDM solutions available, but the most common ones right now are:

    Google Apps Mobile Managment VMware AirWatch IBM MaaS360 Microsoft Intune

    In essence, there is nothing wrong with MDM. In fact, I would say, it is a vital part of the infrastructure to keep an organization’s data secure. However, (...)

  • The Washington Post Is A Software Company Now
    https://www.fastcompany.com/40495770/the-washington-post-is-a-software-company-now

    The newspaper created a platform to tackle its own challenges. Then, with Amazon-like spirit, it realized there was a business in helping other publishers do the same.

    Since 2014, a new Post operation now called Arc Publishing has offered the publishing system the company originally used for WashingtonPost.com as a service. That allows other news organizations to use the Post’s tools for writers and editors. Arc also shoulders the responsibility of ensuring that readers get a snappy, reliable experience when they visit a site on a PC or mobile device. It’s like a high-end version of Squarespace or WordPress.com, tailored to solve the content problems of a particular industry.

    Among the publications that have moved to Arc are the Los Angeles Times, Canada’s Globe and Mail, the New Zealand Herald, and smaller outfits such as Alaska Dispatch News and Oregon’s Willamette Week. In aggregate, sites running on Arc reach 300 million readers; publishers pay based on bandwidth, which means that the more successful they are at attracting readers, the better it is for Arc Publishing. The typical bottom line ranges from $10,000 a month at the low end up to $150,000 a month for Arc’s biggest customers.

    The Washington Post doesn’t disclose Arc Publishing’s revenue or whether it’s currently profitable. (The Post itself turned a profit in 2016.) It does say, however, that Arc’s revenue doubled year-over-year and the goal is to double it again in 2018. According to Post CIO Shailesh Prakash, the company sees the platform as something that could eventually become a $100 million business.

    L’intérêt de mélanger développeurs et usagers

    Back at Post headquarters in Washington, D.C., “because the technologists and the reporters and editors are often sitting alongside each other, sometimes we can get away with a less formal process to identify needs,” explains Gilbert. “A technologist can see when a reporter or editor is having trouble with something, and so sometimes it doesn’t have to be ‘file a ticket,’ ‘file a complaint,’ ‘send an email to an anonymous location.’” For instance, when editorial staffers wondered if it was possible for the Post site to preview videos with a moving clip rather than a still photo, a video developer quickly built a tool to allow editors to create snippets. “We see a much higher click-through rate when people use these animated GIFs than when they used the static images from before,” Gilbert says.

    #Médias #CMS #Washington_Post

  • Samsung Is Bringing Desktop Linux To Its Smartphones
    http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/10/samsung-bringing-desktop-linux-smartphones

    Samsung is bringing desktop Linux to its smartphones. The ’Linux on Galaxy’ project will let users “run Linux-based distributions on mobile devices”. This post, Samsung Is Bringing Desktop Linux To Its Smartphones, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

  • Common sense: An examination of three Los Angeles community WiFi projects that privileged public funding over commons-based infrastructure management » The Journal of Peer Production
    http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-10-peer-production-and-work/varia/common-sense-an-examination-of-three-los-angeles-community-wifi-proj

    Several high-profile incidents involving entire communities cut off from broadband access—the result of natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy in the Northeastern United States in 2012, to totalitarian governments in Egypt and Tunisia shutting down infrastructure in 2011—have raised awareness of the vulnerabilities inherent in a centralized internet. Policymakers are increasingly interested in the potential of community mesh networks (Harvard University, 2012), which use a decentralized architecture. Still, government agencies rarely fund community WiFi initiatives in U.S. cities. Three grassroots mesh networks in Los Angeles are distinct, however, as both local and state agencies subsidized their efforts. By comparing a public goods framework with theory of the commons, this study examines how government support impacted L.A.-based community wireless projects.

    By examining public investments in peer-to-peer networking initiatives, this study aims to better understand how substantial cash infusions influenced network design and implementation. Stronger community ties, self-reliance and opportunities for democratic deliberation potentially emerge when neighbors share bandwidth. In this sense, WiFi signal sharing is more than a promising “last mile” technology able to reach every home for a fraction of the cost required to lay fiber, DSL and cable (Martin, 2005). In fact, grassroots mesh projects aim to create “a radically different public sphere” (Burnett, 1999) by situating themselves outside of commercial interests. Typically, one joins, as opposed to subscribes to, the services. As Lippman and Reed (2003, p. 1) observed, “Communications can become something you do rather than something you buy.” For this reason, the economic theories of both public goods and the commons provide an ideal analytical framework for examining three community WiFi project in Los Angeles.

    The value of this commons is derived from the fact that no one owns or controls it—not people, not corporations, not the government (Benkler 2001; Lessig, 2001). The peer-to-peer architecture comprising community wireless networks provides ideal conditions for fostering civic engagement and eliminating the need to rely on telecommunications companies for connectivity. Instead of information passing from “one to many,” it travels from “many to many.” The primary internet relies on centralized access points and internet service providers (ISPs) for connectivity. By contrast, in a peer-to-peer architecture, components are both independent and scalable. Wireless mesh network design includes at least one access point with a direct connection to the internet—via fiber, cable or satellite link—and nodes that hop from one device to the next

    As the network’s popularity mounted, however, so did its challenges. The increasing prevalence of smartphones meant more mobile devices accessing Little Tokyo Unplugged. This required the LTSC to deploy additional access points, leading to signal interference. Network users overwhelmed LTSC staff with complaints about everything from lost connections to computer viruses. “We ended up being IT support for the entire community,” the informant said.

    Money, yes. Meaningful participation, no.

    Despite its popularity, the center shut down the WiFi network in 2010. “The decision was made that we couldn’t sustain it,” the informant said. While the LTSC (2010) invested nearly $3 million in broadband-related initiatives, the center neglected to seek meaningful participation from the wider Little Tokyo community. The LTSC basically functioned according to a traditional ISP model. In a commons, it is imperative that a fair relationship exists between contributions made and benefits received (Commons Sommerschule, 2012). However, the LTSC neither expected nor asked network users to contribute to Little Tokyo Unplugged in exchange for free broadband access. As a result, individual network users did not feel they had a stake in ensuring the stability of the network.

    HSDNC board members believed free WiFi would facilitate more efficient communication with their constituents, coupled with “the main issue” of digital inclusion, according to an informant. “The reality is that poor, working class Latino members of our district have limited access to the internet. A lot of people have cell phones, but we see gaps,” this informant said. These comments exemplify how the pursuit of public funding began to usurp social-production principles associated with a networked commons. While closing the digital divide and informing the public about community issues are laudable goals, they are clearly institutional ones.

    Rather than design Open Mar Vista/Open Neighborhoods according to commons-based peer production principles, the network co-founders sought ways to align the project with public good goals articulated by local and federal agencies. For instance, an informant stressed that community WiFi would enable neighborhood councils to send email blasts and post information online. This argument is a direct response to the city’s push for neighborhood councils to reduce paper correspondence with constituents (City of Los Angeles, 2010). Similarly, the grant application Open Neighborhoods submitted to the federal Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program—which exclusively funded broadband infrastructure and computer adoption initiatives—focused on the potential for community WiFi networks to supply Los Angeles’ low-income neighborhoods with affordable internet (National Telecommunications & Information Administration, 2010). The proposal is void of references to concepts associated with the commons, even though this ideological space can transform broadband infrastructure from a conduit to the internet into a technology for empowering participants. It seems that, ultimately, the pursuit of public funding supplanted initial goals of creating a WiFi network that fostered inclusivity and collaboration.

    There’s little doubt that Manchester Community Technologies accepted a $453,000 state grant in exchange for a “mesh cloud” it never deployed. These findings suggest an inherent conflict exists between the quest to fulfill the state’s public good goals, and the commons-based community building necessary to sustain a grassroots WiFi network. One could argue that this reality should have prevented California officials from funding Manchester Community Technologies’ proposal in the first place. Specifically, a successful community WiFi initiative cannot be predicated on a state mandate to strengthen digital literacy skills and increase broadband adoption. Local businesses and residents typically share bandwidth as part of a broader effort to create an alternative communications infrastructure, beyond the reach of government—not dictated by government. Grassroots broadband initiatives run smoothly when participants are committed to the success of a common enterprise and share a common purpose. The approach taken by Manchester Community Technologies does not reflect these principles.

    #Communs #wifi #mesh_networks #relations_communs_public

  • Subtitle files can be abused for hijacking the device you are using to watch movies on

    A team of researchers at Check Point has discovered vulnerabilities in four of the most popular media player applications such as VLC, Kodi, Streamio and Popcorn Time, which can be exploited by hackers to hijack “any type of device via vulnerabilities; whether it is a PC, a smart TV, or a mobile device” with malicious codes inserted into the subtitle files.

    http://thehackernews.com/2017/05/movie-subtitles-malware.html

    The vulnerabilities reside in the way various media players process subtitle files and if exploited successfully, could put hundreds of millions of users at risk of getting hacked.

    As soon as the media player parses those malicious subtitle files before displaying the actual subtitles on your screen, the hackers are granted full control of your computer or Smart TV on which you ran those files.

    http://blog.checkpoint.com/2017/05/23/hacked-in-translation

    Our researchers were also able to show that by manipulating the website’s ranking algorithm, we could guarantee crafted malicious subtitles would be those automatically downloaded by the media player, allowing a hacker to take complete control over the entire subtitle supply chain, without resorting to a Man in the Middle attack or requiring user interaction

  • How to use Twitter Lite as a Desktop Twitter Client
    http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/04/how-to-use-twitter-lite-desktop-app

    Twitter Lite, the social networking service’s new web-based mobile app, works fantastically on the desktop. If you use Google Chrome on Linux, and you happen to be a big Twitter user, here’s a neat little tip. Twitter Lite is the social networking service’s alternative mobile app designed to low-data, low-end mobile devices. It’s a progressive web […] This post, How to use Twitter Lite as a Desktop Twitter Client, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

  • Life in the People’s Republic of WeChat - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-09/life-in-the-people-s-republic-of-wechat

    More than 760 million people use it regularly worldwide; it’s basically how people in China communicate now. It’s actually a lot of trouble not to use WeChat when you’re there, and socially weird, like refusing to wear shoes.

    In China, 90 percent of internet users connect online through a mobile device, and those people on average spend more than a third of their internet time in WeChat. It’s fundamentally a messaging app, but it also serves many of the functions of PayPal, Yelp, Facebook, Uber, Amazon, Expedia, Slack, Spotify, Tinder, and more. People use WeChat to pay rent, locate parking, invest, make a doctor’s appointment, find a one-night stand, donate to charity. The police in Shenzhen pay rewards through WeChat to people who rat out traffic violators—through WeChat.

    On the train, I notice a woman moving methodically down the car, stopping to talk to the other passengers. Is she begging? Testifying? Only when she stops before the woman next to me do I get it: She’s asking for QR scans, trying to get followers for a WeChat official account.

    #wechat #Tencent #messagerie

  • Doha News statement on the blocking of its website in Qatar
    https://medium.com/dohanews/doha-news-statement-on-the-blocking-of-its-website-in-qatar-9f3759a99282

    As many are aware, Doha News became inaccessible to most online users in Qatar as of yesterday, Nov. 30.

    Our URL — dohanews.co — was apparently blocked by both of Qatar’s internet service providers, Ooredoo and Vodafone, simultaneously.

    Since then, the majority of people in the country have been unable to access our website on their desktop computers and mobile devices.

    […]

    While we waited for their response, we temporarily diverted readers from dohanews.co to another domain name, doha.news.
    However, that URL also stopped working in short order.
    Deliberately blocked

    Given this development and the silence from the government and ISP providers, we can only conclude that our website has been deliberately targeted and blocked by Qatar authorities.

    We are incredibly disappointed with this decision, which appears to be an act of censorship.

    We believe strongly in the importance of a free press, and are saddened that Qatar, home of the Doha Center for Media Freedom and Al Jazeera, has decided to take this step.

  • Publicis Just Inked a Huge Data Deal With Mobile Powerhouse Tencent, Owner of WeChat | Adweek
    http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/publicis-just-inked-huge-data-deal-mobile-powerhouse-tencent-owner-wechat-17
    C’est la convergence des informations sur des millions d’hommes et de femmes entre les mains d’une entreprise de filtrage de communication individuelle avec le savoir de manipulation d’un publicitaire, le tout sous supervison par les états d’Eurasia et d’Estasia. Le cauchemar d’Orwell devient réalité.

    Conclusion :

    By comparison, big-data-based marketing appears to be more central to the Publicis deal.

    Per a press release from Tencent, “Through its connected strategy, Tencent will offer Publicis Groupe access to its vast and rich online behavioral data, benefiting clients through improved programmatic offerings, cross-screen planning capabilities and conversion performance.”

    L’alliance straégique

    Adweek reported earlier this week that Tencent was about ready to open up the data spigot with ad agencies. Today, the Chinese mobile-marketing powerhouse made a big move on that front, inking a global deal with Publicis Groupe.

    Tencent owns the hugely popular messaging app WeChat (760 million monthly users) and digital platform QQ (860 million users). Roughly 75 to 80 percent of Tencent platforms’ usage is via mobile devices.

    Désormais « la France » va avoir droit à sa part du gateau chinois.

    Publicis appears to become the first holding company to gain seemingly considerable access to that treasure trove of potential marketing intelligence, and its Publicis Media, Publicis Communications and Publicis. Sapient divisions will all be involved.

    At the same time, Friday was the second consecutive day that Tencent revealed an agreement with a holding company. The internet giant and WPP yesterday said they would create a China Social Marketing Lab, which “will leverage Tencent’s strengths in the local online space and WPP’s global marketing expertise.”

    Il est connu que la Chine a du mal à produire des cerveaux assez flexibles pour tirer le maximum de profit de ses ressources. Les cerveaux européens constituent alors une monnaie d’échange contre le droit d’accès au marché chinois pour Publicis.

    The Shenzhen, China-based company and Publicis will also collaborate on a startup incubation facility called Drugstore, which will focus on data, ad tech, virtual reality and augmented reality. Additionally, the two companies will co-create digital content designed to serve key clients. The two-party agreement was unveiled at Viva Technology Paris.

    C’est la fin de l’année scolaire et on espère récolter un maximum de matière grise jeune à la sortie des écoles.

    Viva Technology Paris
    http://www.vivatechnologyparis.com
    Les lemmings accourent.

    Vivez le meilleur de la tech mondiale / Plus de 250 innovations
    à découvrir en avant-première / Une journée d’animations / Ateliers d’Art Numérique / Ateliers Coding / Atelier Immersion dans une oeuvre de maître / Merci Alfred : « Les Rois du Storytelling » / Pitchs Startups avec Webhelp / Job-Dating / Rencontrez 5000 startups & grandes entreprises

    Envie de rejoindre une startup ou un grand groupe ? Découvrez les métiers de demain et boostez votre carrière avec les sessions de job-dating et mentoring de Talent Connect, le job board développé exclusivement par ManpowerGroup pour VivaTechnology Paris

    #économie #technologie #politique #startups

  • A very interesting paper (I said “interesting”, I didn’t say I agree!) on open networks where independant nodes with independently developed programs interoperate thanks to standards. The author claims closed and centralized systemes are better, because they allow faster evolution (he uses security and privacy as an example).

    https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving

    #Internet #privacy #federated_systems #centralized #decentralized

    • Like any federated protocol, extensions don’t mean much unless everyone applies them, and that’s an almost impossible task in a truly federated landscape. What we have instead is a complicated morass of XEPs that aren’t consistently applied anywhere. The implications of that are severe, because someone’s choice to use an XMPP client or server that doesn’t support video or some other arbitrary feature doesn’t only effect them, it effects everyone who tries to communicate with them. It creates a climate of uncertainty, never knowing whether things will work or not. In the consumer space, fractured client support is often worse than no client support at all, because consistency is incredibly important for creating a compelling user experience.

      #XMPP

    • “I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all” - Moxie’s conclusion makes me sad: his lack of utopia is disappointing.... But it is a lucid analysis of the contemporary landscape, though one may take into account his service provider bias considering his interest in Open Whisper Systems. The notification panel as federation locus - yuck... But it is the current reality and it works.

    • Troll put aside (« it’s undeniable that XMPP still largely resembles a synchronous protocol with limited support for rich media, which can’t realistically be deployed on mobile devices. If XMPP is so extensible, why haven’t those extensions quickly brought it up to speed with the modern world? » is pure ignorance or, worst, deliberate misleading), this is not a technical problem, but a pretty old political one.

      It’s not new that some people think or declare that a monarchy or dictatorship (with a « enlightened leader ») is more efficient than a system involving cooperation and discussion. History has proven it wrong many times.

      I really don’t understand why free software (talking about free software, not open source) community is even paying attention and sometime giving credit to this kind of text, this is in total oposition of what free software are made for.

    • @Goffi : I’m paying attention because acquisition of users is critical where network-effect is the main usage driver. Centralization has a huge advantage in contact discovery - currently big enough to make decentralized systems seem incapable in comparison. Everything else is moot if a new user can’t instantly fill his contacts list. Decentralized will still work best for closed groups or in privacy-critical environments, but the mass market is now centralized - I have recently decided that this battle is lost... But I’m still wondering about the holy grail of privacy-preserving contact discovery in decentralized systems - maybe some cryptographic wizardry will make that possible one day and change the whole game. Until them I’ll go where my girlfriends are.

      PS: I still run an ejabberd but the number of people I reach through it can now be counted on the fingers of one hand - on a good day. The girlfriends used to be there... That era is gone.

    • Also, this made me think about a short discussion I had with Dean Bubley a couple of weeks ago : https://twitter.com/liotier/status/727848142994018304 - he argues that the comparative benefit of freedom of service provider choice inherent to decentralized networks is made irrelevant when users can setup and populate a new centralized network in 30 seconds. Still proprietary, still a trust SPOF - but those are minor factors in mass market user choice.

    • @liotier : centralisation allows contact discovery *in the network*, you wont find my contact on Twitter for instance because I’m not there. In addition, the biggest network to date in term of user (before FB) is a decentralised one: email.

      Anyway the network effect is a bad usage driver, I wish that this notion doesn’t exist anymore in the future. Network effect exists because people are not able to talk to each other between networks. If interoperability exists, you can have a network with 10 or even 1 person, if you can talk to all the others there is no more notion of network effect. Again email is a good exemple, I’m the only one on my server and I’m not isolated because of network effect.

      @stephane : thank for the ping, I’ve already seen this text on XSF muc room. I’m really not fond of the certification thing by the way.

    • Network effect exists because people are not able to talk to each other between networks. If interoperability exists, you can have a network with 10 or even 1 person, if you can talk to all the others there is no more notion of network effect.

      Other example of this kind: the phone networks. There is a large number of companies, that manage different networks, but all interoperate. And in many countries, there are also regulatory norms that mandate “portability” to allow users to switch from one network to another without cost.

      Maybe part of the solution is regulatory, no technological.

    • > Maybe part of the solution is regulatory, no technological

      Hampering interoperability might be interpreted as abuse of dominance as defined by Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:12008E102)... But you’ll have a hard time building a convincing case when the “product market” (as defined by same article) arguably encompasses all equivalent services between which users switch easily (see Signal’s signup spike when Whatsapp became temporarily banned in Brazil). POTS was heavily regulated because no such market diversity existed, so the dominance and abuse thereof were obvious.

      Email is driven by standards-based interoperability because it grew up at a time where no one was seeing value in owning users... That era is past, even though we enjoy its legacy.

      Service/standard adoption are investment driven:
      – Investment in development
      – Investment in usage (yes, for a user, setting up a system and learning its use is an investment)

      Now, think about why the developer (in the business sense, not the technical one) and the user would invest ?

      For the user, it is all about innovation: given acceptable levels of service, the user will switch to where the exciting new functionality is (see Simon Wardley’s works for this line of argumentation). Decentralized loses because innovation requires consensus - working with standards body is a long tedious slog... So time to market will be unacceptable or at least it will be to late for any competitive advantage. So it follows that businesses will only standardize if they have no choice but delivering an interoperable solution because they don’t have a strong market position - otherwise, fuck standards: either the customers will eat whatever the dominant provider feeds them or the provider better deliver exciting functionality before anyone else if they want to keep growing.

      Even merely opening an API to third-party clients is a threat to that model: it freezes the service in its current form, thus slowing functional change... Businesses don’t want that - except when the customers put interoperability before other functionality, which seldom happens.

      As for some hope for the free world ? As I said - and as David Cridland explains, it lies in a revolution in contact discovery. Who knows if a cryptographic protocol could let users expose chosen bits to chosen interlocutors in a distributed way (did anyone say “blockchain” ?)... I have no idea and it is a hard problem - seen Moxie’s take on this (notably the mention of encrypted bloom filters): https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact-discovery - posted by @stephane a couple of years ago. David Cridland offers the less utopian idea of a centralized directory for the open world... It could surely work and it might even be sufficiently cheap to be fundable - but what a SPOF in every dimension !

  • Secret Memo Details U.S.’s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones - Bloomberg Business
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/secret-memo-details-u-s-s-broader-strategy-to-crack-phones

    Silicon Valley celebrated last fall when the White House revealed it would not seek legislation forcing technology makers to install “backdoors” in their software — secret listening posts where investigators could pierce the veil of secrecy on users’ encrypted data, from text messages to video chats. But while the companies may have thought that was the final word, in fact the government was working on a Plan B.

    In a secret meeting convened by the White House around Thanksgiving, senior national security officials ordered agencies across the U.S. government to find ways to counter encryption software and gain access to the most heavily protected user data on the most secure consumer devices, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone, the marquee product of one of America’s most valuable companies, according to two people familiar with the decision.

    The approach was formalized in a confidential National Security Council “decision memo,” tasking government agencies with developing encryption workarounds, estimating additional budgets and identifying laws that may need to be changed to counter what FBI Director James Comey calls the “going dark” problem: investigators being unable to access the contents of encrypted data stored on mobile devices or traveling across the Internet. Details of the memo reveal that, in private, the government was honing a sharper edge to its relationship with Silicon Valley alongside more public signs of rapprochement.

  • New York Public Transit to get WIFI and USB Charging Ports in 2016
    http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/new-york-public-transit-to-get-wifi-and-usb-charging-ports-in-2016

    “Wi-Fi hotspots and USB charging ports for mobile devices will be installed on 200 subway cars this year and 400 next year, while all new buses delivered starting later this year will have Wi-Fi hotspots. By 2018, some 1,500 buses will have Wi-Fi hotspots and USB charging ports, bringing a new level of connectivity and convenience to customers. A pilot program to install digital information screens on 200 buses will also launch this year, displaying information about upcoming stops and service alerts.”

    #veille

  • At C.D.C., a Debate Behind #Recommendations on Cellphone Risk
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/02/technology/at-cdc-a-debate-behind-recommendations-on-cellphone-risk.html

    When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidelines 18 months ago regarding the radiation risk from cellphones, it used unusually bold language on the topic for the American health agency: “We recommend caution in cellphone use.”

    The agency’s website previously had said that any risks “likely are comparable to other lifestyle choices we make every day.”

    Within weeks, though, the C.D.C. reversed course. It no longer recommended caution, and deleted a passage specifically addressing potential risks for children.

    Mainstream scientific consensus holds that there is little to no evidence that cellphone signals raise the risk of brain cancer or other health problems; rather, behaviors like texting while driving are seen as the real health concerns. Nevertheless, more than 500 pages of internal records obtained by The New York Times, along with interviews with former agency officials, reveal a debate and some disagreement among scientists and health agencies about what guidance to give as the use of mobile devices skyrockets.

    #téléphone_Portable #cellulaire #santé #enfants