How—And Why—Apple, Google, And Facebook Follow You Around In Real Life
Many apps wouldn’t work without location data. But few realize just how often that location tracking is happening—even when it’s not necessary, even when their apps aren’t being used, and, increasingly, even when a user isn’t even carrying their phone. Tracking you across the map isn’t always about improving user experience, of course, but rather about better understanding who you are and what kind of advertising to show you.
It’s hard to dispute the value of a good sale, but location tracking raises all sorts of privacy concerns.
Should app makers know where we live, where our children go to school, where we go to get away from it all? And if so, how much should they tell us about it?
Those complicated questions help explain why the biggest tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Verizon, filed a pro-privacy amicus brief in last month’s Supreme Court case Carpenter v. United States, in which they argued that police should have a warrant before accessing cell phone location data. After all, if we thought the police could easily access our data, we might start asking more questions about what our phones know about us, and become less comfortable with using these companies’ products.
But location tracking is quietly, sometimes surreptitiously, baked into the web’s modern data collection regime. According to a recent study by French research organization Exodus Privacy and Yale University’s Privacy Lab, more than three in four Android apps contain at least one third-party “tracker,” which uses various techniques to glean personal information, including location and in-app behavior, to better target users for advertisements and services.
Even so-called anonymized location data—without our real-life name attached to it—can help paint a detailed portrait of a user and their habits, or even crack open their entire identity.
Here’s how three of the largest companies are gathering your location, and what, if anything, you can do about it.
APPLE: “A BETTER USER EXPERIENCE” AND TARGETED ADS
Like Facebook and Google, it only makes your data available to them by putting you in an “anonymized” targeting group.
All of this location data is owned by Apple. At the very bottom of another page, Apple clarifies that by enabling Location Services for your devices, “you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple, its partners, and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services.”
GOOGLE: AN ARSENAL OF TOOLS TRACKS YOU ONLINE AND OFFLINE
Like Facebook and others, Google is working to insert itself even further into our daily transactions, and location data is critical to that. Google’s fleet of apps—Gmail, Chrome, Gchat, and of course Maps—collect location data with user permission; other apps in the Android ecosystem also gather location data, sometimes without permission (see above). Like many other data companies, Google also follows users across the internet with web cookies that track IP addresses, which, as the Guardian reported last year, allows the service to make pretty informed guesses on user locations and habits.
The tech giant also uses what is known as “implicit location information,” which is when Google interprets a search for a specific location...
In May, Google announced a new program aimed at tracking users’ offline locations and behavior too, using data gathered from third-parties. (The company says it has access to about 70% of U.S. credit and debit card transactions through partnerships with data companies.)
Google collected the physical addresses of nearby cell towers with which Android users’ phones were communicating for everyday text, call and app usage.
FACEBOOK CAN ALSO TELL WHERE YOU SHOP OFFLINE
As with other smartphone apps, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram also attempt to capture your location across devices and throughout the course of the day, from your early-morning reading habits, to a Spotify playlist during your commute, to your social media browsing at night.
HOW WHATSAPP AND INSTAGRAM FEED FACEBOOK’S LOCATION DATABASE
Some apps are less obvious about their location tracking. Take WhatsApp, the popular Facebook-owned messaging app that lets users communicate with encryption via Wi-Fi instead of on their cellular data plans.
In November 2016, after protests and pressure from privacy regulators in Europe over Facebook’s decision to combine WhatsApp data with Facebook data, the social media platform temporarily paused its data sharing program for European users. In May, the European Commission fined Facebook $122 million for misleading WhatsApp users about its data sharing with Facebook.
On Tuesday, a probe into Facebook by the German competition authority—the first anti-trust investigation the company has faced in Europe—said in a preliminary report that the social network was using its dominance to illegally track users across the internet and reinforce its might in online advertising.
Keep in mind: as the research into third-party apps has shown, just because an app says it isn’t recording our location doesn’t always mean that it isn’t.
See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/40477441/facebook-google-apple-know-where-you-are
How augmented and virtual reality will reshape the food industry
Streamlining Employee Training
Creating Wonder in the Customer Experience
Augmented and virtual reality play naturally into this shift. Both are vehicles to activate all senses and immerse the consumer within a specific branded experience. VR experiences in particular have seen growing traction for use during food & beverage events. A great example is the “Boursin Sensorium”, a CGI-based VR experience that paired motion (through moving chairs), scents and tasting samples of Boursin cheese. Patron tequila used 360 video to showcase the behind-the-scenes making process at its event booths and Innis & Gunn beer used coordinated VR footage to complement the taste of its beer. Restaurants and bars are also taking notice: Baptise & Bottle in Chicago unveiled a VR tour to pair with physical scotch; SubliMotion in Ibiza lets diners go skydiving in Samsung Gear VR; Space Needle has launched a sky-high VR bar.
Adding Interactivity to Products
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/25/how-augmented-and-virtual-reality-will-reshape-the-food-industry/?ncid=tcdaily&utm_medium=TCnewsletter
PARAMOUNT AND BIGSCREEN TO OFFER FREE VR SCREENINGS OF TOP GUN
Virtual reality cinema company Bigscreen has partnered with Paramount Home Media Distribution to virtually screen showings of Top Gun for 24 hours, commencing at 6pm EST on December 29th.
The Bigscreen experience aims to bring the movie theatre experience to home audiences, allowing them to interact in a virtual lobby and watch videos on a virtual movie screen, complete with immersive sound and lighting.
“Bigscreen’s virtual reality platform offers a new way for fans to experience films in their homes,” said Bob Buchi, President Worldwide Home Media Distribution, Paramount Pictures.
Those hoping to watch Top Gun on the 29th must reside in the US, and have a compatible VR headset, Windows 10, and Bigscreen’s (free) application. The application works with the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, all SteamVR-compatible headsets, and all Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
Myntra is using data mining and artificial intelligence to help designers come up with patterns and styles that can boost sales for apparel makers
New Delhi: Online fashion retailer Myntra is using futuristic technologies like data mining and artificial intelligence (AI) to help designers come up with patterns and styles that can boost sales for apparel makers.
“The software uses data like designs and styles that are popular, cuts that customers prefer... it, then, comes up with designs on its own using AI that have been used by the two in-house brands,” Myntra chief products officer Ambarish Kenghe told PTI.
[AR] “It uses the camera of the phone, figures out what you are wearing and then provides a rating. It is for the fashion-conscious audience who would want to wear the latest trends and be seen as fashionable,” Kenghe said.
Flipkart—which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Amazon for leadership in the Indian e-commerce market—had acquired Myntra in 2014 to strengthen its play in the fashion category. Myntra, in turn, acquired smaller rival Jabong last year to consolidate its position in the Indian market.
See the full story here: http://www.livemint.com/Industry/FrC1h57aPsfEa4t3us45RL/Myntra-bets-on-artificial-intelligence-augmented-reality-to.html
Ocean Park Hong Kong first ever Virtual Reality Rollercoaster [by Samsung]
Mine Train presented by Samsung Gear VR offers guests a brand new stunning VR experience that synchronises virtual movement to real motion. After putting on special VR headsets with attached Samsung GALAXY smartphones on the Mine Train, guests will begin their ultra-realistic journey in the Amazon rainforest. Equipped with a 101-degree field of view, Gear VR allows guests to enjoy the 360-degree video in first person view. Guests can come face to face with amazing animals living in the rich biodiversityof the Amazon rainforest, while experiencing the sensations of the highest speed at 71 KPH.
See the full story here: https://technology.mb.com.ph/2017/12/25/ocean-park-hong-kong-first-ever-virtual-reality-rollercoaster/
Futuristic virtual reality arcade coming to Del Amo mall in Torrance
LA-based virtual reality video game creator Survios will bring an arcade to Del Amo mall in Torrance to showcase its products. The Planning Commission approved the arcade last week. Attempting to contact company for comment.
Los Angeles-based virtual reality video game developer Survios will open its first-ever arcade at Torrance’s Del Amo Fashion Center next year, officials said.
The 2,020-square-foot space on the ground floor of the mall’s outdoor lifestyle wing will include a dozen gaming stations designed to provide an “immersive, interactive experience.”
The Planning Commission unanimously approved the arcade last week.
It’s unclear exactly when the Survios Virtual Reality Arcade arcade will open; a company spokeswoman observed that this will be the the young company’s first such arcade.
But a mall spokesman said the arcade will complement the 42,336-square-foot Dave & Buster’s scheduled to open in the south end of the mall next year near Sears.
See the full story here: https://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/12/24/futuristic-virtual-reality-arcade-coming-to-del-amo-mall-in-torrance/
Sound is the next frontier for virtual reality
It's not just about frame-rate and resolution. Music is playing an increasingly important role in virtual reality and augmented reality development.
A company called Tribe VR, which makes products (experiences, in the VR nomenclature) teaching people real-world skills in VR & AR environments, just launched a DJ school for Oculus Rift.
To create its DJ school, Tribe teamed up with DJ Kryoman and Pyramind, a San Francisco-based music school. Lessons include beat matching basics, mixing techniques, and DJ masterclasses. Techniques are taught by virtual DJ mentors.
Today, film composers like Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer add nuanced compositions to big budget gaming experiences.
VR is building on the sonic evolution of gaming.
For those who just want to learn to spin some vinyl at their next party, Tribe VR's Oculus experience is $4.99 and can be downloaded here.
See the full story here: http://www.zdnet.com/article/sound-is-the-next-frontier-for-virtual-reality/
Startup MEL Science uses virtual reality to get your kids excited about learning chemistry
Based in London, MEL Science started out making and shipping chemistry kits to subscribers for about $50 per month. Each kit contains several experiments and all the supplies a family needs to conduct them at home.
- MEL Science raised $2.2 million in venture funding to bring virtual reality chemistry lessons to schools in the U.S.
- Eighty-two percent of science teachers surveyed in the U.S. believe virtual reality content can help their students master their subjects.
See the full story here: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/mel-science-mixing-chemistry-sets-with-virtual-reality.html