Hasta La Gadget!

You’ve seen the videos — thousands of starlings flocking in the sky to swirl and surge across wide, cloudless backdrops. The beauty of their coordinated motion is stunning. The phenomenon is expressively called murmuration.

There might be purpose to starling choreographies, but if so, it is movement without destination. The flock shapes and re-shapes itself continuously. Doing so makes preying on the flock difficult, but beyond that, the motivation of these group flights is ineffable. If ornithologists told us that starlings were imitating the group behavior endemic to tech-adoption culture, it would be easy to see the similarity. The science behind murmuration extends the analogy even further.

Filed under: Internet, Software

Comments

Did Google’s Larry Page get on the wrong side of Zuckerberg when he was less than complimentary about Facebook a couple of months ago? Maybe so, as the latest update to the social network’s app for Android appears to be ignoring the normal route of outing a new version through the Play store, using the app itself to push the update to users. We haven’t seen the prompt ourselves, but Liliputing has some screenshots of it (shown above) and is reporting the update auto-downloads and notifies you when its ready to be installed. The new version is said to allow profile picture changes within the app, make messaging easier and grant users the ability to flag spam and hide feed posts you don’t want to see. It also alters the app’s permissions, allowing it to update without your approval. However, The Verge spotted a thread on the social network’s Help Center which clarifies that’ll only happen when connected to WiFi. Maybe we’re out of favor with Facebook also, as we haven’t been offered the update on our phones just yet, but the comments on Liliputing seem to confirm its out there. Has Google already stepped in? Let us know how your app is reacting in the comments below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google, Facebook

Comments

Source: Liliputing, Facebook Help Center

We’ve all seen online banner ads with lengthy disclosures and other warnings that what we see isn’t necessarily what we’ll get. Think that the tight spaces of a smartphone screen or a 140-character tweet are exempt from the rules? Think again: the FTC just updated its guidelines to make clear that any “constrained” ads on mobile platforms or social networks still have to reveal their true purposes and show realistic figures. Marketers can’t use multiple posts, pop-ups or other tricks to tuck the disclaimers away, either. The warning won’t prevent your favorite celebrity from suddenly posting out of character about diet pills, but at least you’ll know the difference between a pure enthusiast and someone who has some skin in the game.

*: This is a news post, not an ad. While we’re at it, though, we’d really love it if you swung by Engadget Expand.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Via: LA Times

Source: FTC

After a complete refresh of its iOS app and full-on iPad support, Tumblr’s keeping the updates coming for the Apple set with version 3.3. The main tweak is with the camera, which the microblogging company’s taken from a fairly barebones affair to one in which you can adjust the flash, add a rule-of-thirds grid and access galleries by swiping up from below. Other features include the ability to create photosets straight from the app, double-tap posts to like and easily change your avatar or add URLs. The latter will seek out the title of an article when you type in the web address — always a bonus on a site where pop culture references flow like water.

Nicole Lee contributed to this post.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets

Comments

Source: iTunes

Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study following more than 5,000 Facebook users over six years, from 2005 and 2011, and found that changes in the social network’s privacy policies caused users to share more — not less — personal data. Lest you think this means that users suddenly trusted the site more, Carnegie Mellon says that Facebookers became more and more protective of their personal details as the social network grew in membership — and that the uptick in shared information is a result of increasingly granular privacy settings. If you recall, Facebook introduced new in-depth privacy controls in 2010, and the study found that the release of these new settings corresponded to users sharing more personal data, both within their network of friends and with strangers and third-party applications.

It’s been quite some time since the new privacy policy was introduced, but the university says the sample group didn’t reduce the amount of info shared with non-friends on the network, even as of 2011. The takeaway? Well, it’s safe to say that more privacy controls doesn’t equal more vigilance in protecting personal data, and it’s certainly not a stretch to call Facebook’s settings confusing. The researchers’ comparison of the struggle for privacy to the eternal plight of Sisyphus? That might be a touch more dramatic.

Filed under: Internet, Alt, Facebook

Comments

Via: Huffington Post

Source: Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality