Cell Phone Image Gallery
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Don't let a stalker catch you off guard. Use the tips in this article to keep you and your smartphone safe. See more cell phone pictures.While helping research this article, the author's roommate spent an afternoon in that paranoid state one might have after seeing a horror movie alone late at night. The phone would vibrate, she'd jump in surprise, and then check to make sure it was someone she knew calling her before she answered. There's a lot of scary stories out there about smartphone stalking and people stealing your personal information.
Potential stalkers have two primary ways they can track you via your smartphone. One way is through social engineering, which requires little or no technical expertise. You could be voluntarily giving away personal information or access to your smartphone to someone you know or who gains your trust. If that person chooses, he or she can exploit that information to track where you are and what you're doing, even if you don't want to be tracked.
Another way stalkers can track you is to steal information from your smartphone. This is the more technical side of smartphone stalking. The stalker could gain access to your smartphone, install tracking software or malware, and use that to download your address book, log on to malicious Web sites or even track your location on a map. If your smartphone has a GPS, a stalker could pinpoint the phone's precise location any time it's on with GPS enabled. For more information about geolocating a mobile phone, check out our article on How GPS Phones Work.
The good news is that by taking a few precautions, you can keep potential stalkers at bay. This article reveals ways someone could track you using your smartphone, and it lists things you can do to avoid unwanted attention.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Smartphone Stalking... It is sooo 2010.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Gizmodo sums up Apple and the App Store
So Apple Bans Girls In Bikinis, But A Shirtless Gay Dude Washing A Car Is OK?
Apple has banned sexy apps. But apps from Playboy and Sports Illustrated remain. Why does Apple care what turns me on?
If you need another example of why the iTunes App Store's walled garden is flawed, Apple has been only too happy to oblige, capriciously and arbitrarily removing an unknown number of "sexy" apps without warning. All that's missing to complete the metaphor is a flaming sword.
Some of those apps were certainly garbage, but it seems most were simply slideshows of women in various states of undress.
Jenna Wortham, writing for The Times, quotes Apple's Phil Schiller: "It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see."
By Apple's own count, there are over 130,000 apps in the App Store. With a selection that varied, I'm sure there's something to offend everyone.
How about an app that discusses abortion and birth control law? Maybe an app that helps you hook up with gay guys? How about an app that teaches you how to evangelize the fundamentalist Christian religion?
Think about that last one for second and the furor that would erupt if Apple made a sweeping ban of religious apps from the App Store. I am not a Christian. I would be concerned if my child were discovering religion before I'd gotten a chance to talk to them about it. (Especially since that would mean I had given birth to a baby without a mother, completing%u2014if adventitiously%u2014my dream to be the Male Madonna.)
Yet I wouldn't blame Apple for letting the app be sold, just like I wouldn't complain that I found it morally offensive, its existence alone threatening and insulting. And to be clear, I've got absolutely no problem with the "Grindr" app pictured here being on the app store. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. It's simply a great example to highlight how subjective Apple's ban has been. That image is right there on its App Store page.
Look, we know censorship is wrong. We've been having this conversation as a society for a couple hundred years, and if you haven't learned by now that freedom of speech negates freedom from offense, there's nothing I can do to convince you except renew your subscription to Hustler.
The issue at hand is that Apple doesn't have to abide by the laws we've put in place in our society because the App Store is part of its business. Often I feel like that's a good thing%u2014or at least fair dinkum. They built it; they get to run it.
With a closed ecosystem comes a lot of responsibility. Apple has taken on the heavy mantle of arbiter, ostensibly to manage quality. I can forgive them for that, even if I don't like it. But the only reason to ban blue apps is taste. And if these apps were a matter of taste, why were they approved in the first place? What will the next set of apps be that Apple decides are inappropriate long after people have spent hundreds of hours creating and marketing them? Ban apps because they're poorly designed%u2014not because they're simply sexual.
Apple is making a moral judgement, declaring that nudity and titillation is something that should made hidden and shameful. It's disappointing that a company so publicly supportive of progressive sexual rights would react so orthodoxly.
Actually, it's worse than that. Apple is trying to take the easy way out, talking about degradation of women and the innocence of children, but allowing content from established brands%u2014brands that exhibit sexual material meant to arouse%u2014simply because they're well known and thus "safe". Apple is aping the sexual posturing of conservative American society, defining what expressions of sexuality are acceptable to even acknowledge.
Sure, there's still plenty of smut out there on the internet, readily accessible through the iPhone's Safari web browser. That's not the point.
Apple has made a declaration: that sex and sexuality are shameful, even for adults. But only sometimes. And only when people complain.
Unfortunately, they've accomplished the opposite. The only thing I'm ashamed of is Apple.
Send an email to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at joel@gizmodo.com.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Windows Phone 7 Series Hands - I think I'm in love.
Windows Phone 7 Series Hands-On Pics and Video
Windows Phone 7 snuck up on the world today, but having played with it, I'll tell you Microsoft is putting all its muscle behind this. No matter who you root for, to be anything short of impressed is stupid.
How does it feel? Nothing like an iPhone, for starters. The slippery, rotate-y screens may take a little getting used to, but they feel right. Microsoft deliberately wanted to get away from icons and this notion that all behaviors get the same size button on the home screen, and you definitely get more of a sense of priorities here: Entertainment, social networking, photo sharing—those matter, and oh yeah, here's a phone if you need a call, and here's a browser if you need that too.
It's hard to tell from looking at this stuff, but much of it is customizable, including almost everything on that home screen. Don't let the uniformity of design language fool you, there will be a lot you can do to differentiate from other people.
As you can see, the fluidity of the "panorama" navigation is here—when you enter a hub, you get those little teasers to the right, showing you want you'll get if you flip one screen over.
Though details are scarce in these early days, the device here is built "to spec," so probably running 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. I can tell you that everything ran smoothly. This is obviously too early to make any technical statements, but it really was impressive, and where there are a few hiccups, it's hard to say whether it was human error or a glitch, but we'll leave it be for now. This is just demo software.
On to the screenshots—click here if thumbs haven't loaded, or if you just hate gallery format:
As you can see from the screenshots above, most hubs are fleshed out, though we couldn't have a look at Marketplace. Some of the shots here are "in between" shots, that moment between tapping a start screen element and the whole hub springing in behind it. There is also one shot of the slide transition from sleep screen—which has a lot of great heads-up information—to the start screen.
There aren't a ton of answers yet, but what we do know you can find above or in Matt's piece: Windows Phone 7: Everything Is Different Now
Send an email to Wilson Rothman, the author of this post, at wilson@gizmodo.com.
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Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.Perhaps you mean: Once you play with it yourself, being anything short of impressed is stupid. Or are you calling a number of your readers stupid? (good call there Wilson)MS is huge. They have money, developers, and a well defined and appreciated brand. Why should one feel so impressed with this release almost 3 years after the iPhone has been released?
If this came out before the iPhone, I'd be impressed. If it came out within the first year, I'd consider it adequate.
While it looks to be ONE of the best mobile OSes out there, MS should have done better, sooner. Reply
I really like it, although I've been finding that with FaceBook push and contact integration there are a lot less button presses involved in catching up with people on my iphone these days. I like the general principle though: that information is stored in databases and then accessed by whatever program needs it. Its something I've had in my head for the next logical step for iPhone OS's for a little while now.I'd be quite happy with a version of this running on...say... a dual screened booklet in the near future. Please, please, can someone leak some more info on the Courier? Reply
Despite all that has been said, Microsoft just had another EpiphanyIf I wanted to know about the f***ing weather every f***ing time I look at my phone, I would have bought a f***ing pocket barometer instead. Reply
I think I am going to have see this in person. For some weird reason, I am not impressed. In fact, I found myself getting a little irritated at Microsoft because it doesn't seem that good?What am I missing here? Reply
Wait, did you just say that it would be stupid to be unimpressed? Well, I'm not impressed, and I'm decidedly not stupid.
The breathless tone in the several articles I have read today on Giz regarding this phone is disconcerting. I have watched the videos; I see lots of eye candy, and a device that won't be available to buy until this fall. In other words, a UI that only exists in the land of make-believe.
I'll reserve judgement until I can actually test usability. Until then, it's only cool "looking" and nothing more. ReplyLaraPandion I promoted this commentEdited by PhyrePhox at 02/15/10 3:18 PM
"No matter who you root for, to be anything short of impressed is stupid."I'm not really rooting for anyone - but I'm not impressed by the UI - therefore, by your proclamation, I am stupid. Thanks for the judgment. Reply
LaraPandion I promoted this comment
I know it's still way too early but does anyone have any speculation which carrier this phone will be on in the US? Reply
I'm curious, is there no accelerometer on this phone? Cuase that would seem an obvious feature even my cheap and nasty C903 has that! ReplyLaraPandion I promoted this comment
I like the look of it a lot. But I have a feeling when I'm in a hurry that stupid graphic back and forth from the home screen is going to get annoying. Lag via the UI visualization is still lag none the less. ReplyEdited by TonyWonder at 02/15/10 3:02 PM
It does look impressive, minus the few hiccups. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the interface quite yet. Not sure if those swipe tabs are the most intuitive way to sort through information, but I'll wait to pass judgment until I know more about the UI. It's a little reminiscent of the new Xbox live interface, where they assume that you want to swipe through more tabs to get information you used to be able to see on one page of the old dashboard. On a slightly more positive note, aesthetically, I think the design is pretty sexy. Reply
Are there really that many people that play video games, let alone want some kind of phone that can interact with said games?I just don't know what the benefits are, I'm honestly asking. Reply
FriarNurgle promoted this comment
If they can keep a tight control on the hardware specs, this will be a phone to reckon with. This may actually change my feelings about WinMo phones. By the time my iPhone contract expires, these may be mature enough to consider. ReplyDon Nguyen promoted this comment
This is definitely a game changer. Impressive no doubt about that. I am curious, like other commenters here, regarding the degree of customization. Probably there could be something for the font and the animation. This is a good direction for Windows Phone 7. ReplyDon Nguyen promoted this comment
I wonder if you'll be able to stream from your homegroup etc. And the through the Xlive marketplace such as music and video from Netflix etc. very impressive so far. Reply
| Its demo software but I like it!
