Quality with OpenSignal

Interested in citizen science you can do on your phone? Check out these cool projects on SciStarter that let you contribute valuable data to research via cell phone apps!

I was on a call with Teresa Murphy-Skorzova, Community Growth Manager for OpenSignal, an app that uses crowd-sourcing to aggregate cell phone signals and WiFi strength data throughout the world. Teresa began to explain how OpenSignal maps signal strength and how this process contrasts the way cell phone networks map it. “We aren’t following a pre-determined route like they are; we measure the amount of time a user has coverage, not the …” The connection becomes fuzzy. “Can you repeat that?” I ask.

Teresa wonders if my latency connection (a metric used to measure mobile data connection quality) is poor. She explains that while cell phone networks like Verizon and AT&T measure the percent of the population that usually has coverage, OpenSignal is “measuring the experience of the user,” mapping signals from the devices themselves in real time. Individuals record their connection as they go about their day. The app recognizes that people and their cell phone devices are, well… mobile.

In reception to Teresa’s curiosity about my connection, I opened the app and pressed the start button, trying a “Speedtest”. A number begins to fluctuate on my screen. Download speed: 14.9 mbps. A new number begins to fluctuate, testing upload speed. 5.3 mbps. I felt like I had just played slots, already anticipating my next results. I tried again, and saw that my download speed was up to 17.5 mbps. I wondered what my speeds were at the coffee shops I frequent. What about in the woods where I took a hike last weekend, or in the subway tunnel where my texts rarely send?
I had added two data points to a growing 48 billion signal readings, joining more than 1.6 million active users who have mapped signals in all but two countries. One of these users is Thomas Lautenschlager, a Swiss office manager, data nerd, and a crowdsourcing enthusiast. Thomas finds the app particularly useful when he’s traveling, preemptively checking which streets will have the best signal and using the compass feature to move toward the nearest cell phone tower. “I had some friends who changed their operator after comparing coverage,” Thomas says. He helped translate OpenSignal’s website and app into German, making it accessible for those in his area.

While individuals learn where to find their own best signals, they contribute to a much larger voice about network quality, Teresa explained. “When a user discovers an area that hasn’t been measured or when they discover an area with poor signal, they’re eager to contribute.” While users are interested in their personal signals, OpenSignal is interesting in tracking the aggregated signal of all devices of a particular location and network. Individual device data is therefore kept anonymous.

Some surprising research projects have used OpenSignal’s data to discover implications about health, the economy, and weather. In one of these projects a team at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (RNMI) collaborated with OpenSignal to expand the rain radar program. Rainfall gradually weakens reception between cell phone towers creating a space-time map of rainfall, or rain radar map, with cellular link data. RNMI looked at OpenSignal data from unlikely rain radar locations. Some areas were remote or impoverished while others had fairly arid climates. They can now determine whether rain radar is feasible on a larger scale.

Now that you know what the 4G signal is in my home- try the app for yourself with iPhone or Android. Is your coverage better than mine? Better than your friend who pays twice as much as you for speedy WiFi? There’s only one way to find out.

Liberty Reserve Barclays aiding money-laundering probe

One of the accounts belonging to seized digital money service Liberty Reserve was held by UK bank Barclays in Spain.

Liberty Reserve also had 17 bank accounts in Cyprus, papers filed by the US Department of Justice show.

The BBC understands that the bank is not accused of any wrongdoing by the authorities.

US authorities have accused Liberty Reserve of laundering more than $6bn (£4bn) in criminal cash.

"Barclays can confirm it is co-operating with the investigation, following the notification it received from the authorities," a spokesman for the bank said on Sunday.

The Barclays account was in the name of Liberty Reserve founder Arthur Budovsky, the court documents said. Mr Budovsky opened the Spanish personal account in 2009, the BBC has learned.

The DOJ has called Liberty Reserve the "largest international money-laundering prosecution in history", alleging that seven people involved in running the operation set up the digital cash service as a "criminal business venture" designed specifically to "help criminals conduct illegal transactions and launder the proceeds of their crimes".

'Transform'
Barclays' current chief executive, Antony Jenkins, has pledged to clean up the bank's image under his "Transform" programme.

Last June the bank was fined £290m by British and US regulators for attempted manipulation of Libor and Euribor interbank rates between 2005 and 2009.

The scandal led to the resignations of three Barclays senior board members, including the chief executive Bob Diamond. He was replaced by Mr Jenkins, who had been head of retail and business banking.

The tiny island of Cyprus was bailed out earlier this year, securing a loan package worth 10bn euros (£8.4bn; $13bn) from its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund.

In return, it must raise 13bn euros, largely through banking reform.

The tough conditions were imposed on the island due to the size of its bloated banking sector. Many eurozone members believed that Cyprus had become a haven for tax evasion and money laundering.

In total, the DOJ said that 45 bank accounts used by Liberty Reserve have been seized and action has been taken to take over the assets of 35 other sites that fed funds to Liberty Reserve for laundering.

Windows 8 vies with Vista, but Windows 7 gains

Oops, Windows 7 gains in May, though Windows 8 makes headway against Vista.

Pop open the champagne. Windows 8 may be on the verge of claiming installation share victory over Vista.
The latest figures from Net Applications show Windows 8 with a 4.27 percent share of PCs installed worldwide in May (up from 3.84 percent in April) versus 4.51 percent for Vista.
Vista, one of Microsoft's least popular OSes, was introduced in November of 2006.
Then again, maybe we're breaking out the champagne too soon. Windows 7 still leads by a long shot at 44.85 percent and it actually made gains in May, up from 44.72 percent in April.
And Vista was up in Steam's rankings to 7.25 percent in May from 7.06 percent in April.
Windows XP installations were down in May to 37.74 percent from 38.31 percent in April.

New advice from Google is useful if you're new to passwords, but lacks the spine to make much difference.

Google admonished its users to be more careful with passwords in a blog post on Thursday, but two security experts say that tech giant should spend more time pressuring developers and companies to do more to help their customers.

Google's tips encompass password basics: use a different password for each important service; make your password hard to guess; keep your password somewhere safe; and set a recovery option.
"For the general consumer, I think it's a fantastic start," said Alex Salazar, CEO of Stormpath, an authentication service for developers. But, he said, "everything they said here isn't news to people who understand security."
Mary Landesman, a Cisco senior security researcher with expertise in passwords, agreed. "I applaud them for trying to spread awareness. I think it was a little simplistic," she added. "One of the biggest issues that users face isn't necessarily how strong their password is, but the number of sites that are getting compromised."
On the end user side, Landesman said that Google could've advised people to choose passwords with spaces whenever possible, as explained in a famous XKCD webcomic. The problem there, she and Salazar agreed, is that not enough sites let you do that.
"Here at Cisco we came across a group of passwords in the recent WordPress brute force attempts, and a large number of them you could call reasonable and very strong," she said. "But if you're re-using that password, it doesn't matter how strong it is."
Salazar explained the problem further by explaining that when you use the same password on a well-known, highly-secure site as a smaller site with weaker security, all it takes to get your password to password to the more important site is to hack the smaller one.
"I think that consumers should be more aware about the applications they're putting their data into," he said. "This is the strongest reason why you should be using different passwords for different systems."
But they both had tough words for Google, too. In addition to educating individuals about how to choose better passwords and how to better protect them, Landesman said that Google ought to pressure developers and companies to improve their own security practices.
"I think I would've liked to have seen a call for action to the industry to do more to make it possible for users to be safe," she said.
Salazar outlined three steps that Google didn't take that it could still choose to do. First, he said, Google could pressure companies to implement systems that force people to choose passwords that are easy to remember but hard to break.
"The companies and the websites that are specifying the passwords have to enable users to do the right thing," said Landesman. "You want your password to be 12 to 14 characters, but not all sites allow that."
From the company perspective, the problem there is the engineering cost: getting existing companies to change their source code, run quality assurance tests, and deploy the code.
The second suggestion Salazar had was that Google could be a much stronger advocate for two-factor authentication, which it offers as an option for its Google accounts. "I think it would've been very valuable for them to promote their 2FA on this post," he said. "You're not seeing as wide adoption for it as there could be."
A third action that Google could take would be to publish guidelines for developers, Salazar said. Google should be "talking about why it's important to not put your own customers at risk," he said.
"We hear a lot of users are stupid and it's their fault, but users aren't stupid and it's not their fault," Landesman said. "[Password security] is tilted against the user."

Woz: Apple's tax practices are stinky

At a conference in Northern Ireland, the Apple co-founder says that public criticism of Apple's Irish financial arrangements is 
"extremely warranted."

Steve Wozniak thinks like Mitt Romney.
Well, a little. It's not that he quite believes corporations are people too. It's more that he thinks corporations should be taxed like people too.
Corporations like Apple, for example.
At a conference in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Woz told Sky News on Thursday: "Criticism of Apple's tax policies is extremely warranted, in my mind, but my explanation is rather long and difficult."
It's a pity he wasn't asked to testify before the Senate last week. Its members seemed to have all day to listen to Tim Cook.
Still, as the Telegraph reports, Woz insisted that, quite simply, corporations should be taxed on what they earn, just like real human beings.
Woz spoke of lawyers he knows who work in California, but pretend to live in Nevada to minimize their tax exposure (and, perhaps, to maximize their time with Mila, the Vegas lap dancer).
He explained that he feared corporations -- Apple included, by implication -- simply have no scruples: "For a corporation, there's no such thing as personal ethics. It's like you will do anything, any scheme you can, to maximize your profits."
Woz passionately believes that Apple's original ethos and intention was to help the little people succeed against the bigger people.

Yet time has woven a difficult tapestry. Apple has become one of the bigger people.
If corporations were taxed like ordinary people, he said, that would mean they would "pay taxes on all of their revenues or people only pay it on a tiny amount called profit and until we rectify that, the whole problem is just with us forever."
You cannot help but admire his simple logic. If ordinary working people deducted their essential life expenses (cars, Louboutins, medical marijuana) before paying tax, they would have more disposable income.
"Why do businessmen get to write off lunches and cars? If normal people did they would have more savings," he said.
But then life would be fair and it's not supposed to be. If it was, what would we have to complain about?
Woz often seems to speak with a willful idealism, yet what makes his version often different is that his idealism makes a wholesome amount of sense.
Perhaps President Obama might co-opt Apple's co-founder into his policy-making fold. I have a feeling Woz would be rather popular. Among ordinary people, that is.
Wouldn't you like to see Woz grill a bank chairman? I would.

How Xbox One opens the door for the next Apple TV

The new TV-gadget landscape is just getting started. The Xbox One is just the beginning...and Apple is far from out of the game.

Imagine this.

It's 2014. Apple has gathered everyone together for a special event. As Tim Cook presents, he says, "Today we're introducing three revolutionary new products. The first one is a cable box. The second one is a revolutionary streaming-media device. The third is a new way to play games on your TV. So, three things: a cable box, a streaming box, and a game console. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we're calling it iTV."

The next Apple TV, that long-fabled product, doesn't exist yet. But it could. And it should. And it's not too late, not by a long shot. In fact, the future-of-TV transformation has yet to be settled, or even determined. It's a mess right now. The door is open. Apple can seize the moment.

If you think the Xbox One jams up Apple's plans, think again. The Xbox One is Apple's best friend. Apple needs the emerging TV landscape to be tackled, and whatever mistakes are made, Apple can improve upon them, and show everyone why that strategy was mistaken. This is the Apple Way. The iPhone was built on old smartphones, the iPad on failed tablets. The landscape now is littered with half-good, half-bad solutions: TiVo, Wii U and TVii, Google TV, Roku, Xbox 360, PS3, even the current Apple TV. None of them truly replaces your cable box. None of them is the true, absolute future of TV.

Yet.

Here's how Apple could do it. If Microsoft's smart, the Xbox One will follow this path, too.

More content: Open up the App Store 

One of the iPhone's big keys to success was -- and is -- its massive App Store, with more than 800,000 apps and counting. Compare that with the Apple TV, which currently boasts just 18. (And that's being generous -- I'm counting "Settings" and "Computer Home Sharing.") The current Apple TV lacks any sort of an App Store, by design.

Of course, few people remember that the iPhone had just around 16 apps for its entire first year, before iPhone OS 2.0 ushered in third-party apps in 2008. Like the iPhone, Apple TV's current handful of native apps -- including Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and Podcasts -- show the box's potential. But at some point, Apple TV needs more apps.

Opening the floodgates at long last to great applications -- games, video-streaming apps, even more quasi-competing services like Amazon Instant Video -- will make the Apple TV's ecosystem feel as essential as the iOS App Store. It's time.

Partner with cable and satellite providers to develop 'cable box apps'

On-demand programming from the likes of Netflix and iTunes is great, but live TV -- "linear channels" and live news and sports -- is still the essence of what most people envision when they think of television.

The Xbox One and Google TV address the live TV challenge with an HDMI pass-through design that sucks in content from an existing cable box or DVR. A box piggybacking on another box.

There's an easier way: appify the cable service. Stream all the channels. Offer DVR-style features, like rewind and fast-forward. But make recordings "cloud-based" on-demand offerings instead of a local hard drive.

Apple should make the cable companies partners, not enemies. Create a Comcast app, a Time Warner app, a Cox app, a DirecTV app, a Dish app. The more, the better. Duplicate the live channel offerings, but keep the user within the Apple ecosystem.

Many cable and satellite companies already have apps that do this on the iPad and iPhone. Making the leap to the Apple TV wouldn't be hard.

If the Apple TV works, everyone wins: people stay on cable and want faster broadband. If Apple can work with providers to make superior apps, the Apple TV could make cable a more exciting place to be.

If cable providers drag their feet, then Apple can go over their heads to the content providers themselves. Indeed, the company is already said to be bringing the CW network and HBO Go to the current Apple TV box.

Keep the Apple design influence

Nothing listed above is totally new or original; the Roku and Xbox 360 already offer live TV services from Comcast, Fios, Time Warner, HBO, Epix, and others.

But the Apple TV's content needs to look better than those apps.

Apple's first apps made for the iPhone did a marvelous job taking data from places like Google and Yahoo and knitting it into fantastic-looking software. The first iOS Maps app presaged where Google Maps eventually evolved. Similarly, taking an active hand with cable and video apps on an Apple TV could help lay the landscape for the look of TV apps going forward, and help Apple TV app developers get an idea of where to shoot for.

The result would be a consistent look and feel across all of the video apps -- something sorely lacking on, say, the Roku.

Make a great, easy interface

The future of TV needs to mix both live and on-demand programming in a seamless fashion. But that creates a huge amount of data that the current EPG (electronic programming guide) is ill-equipped to handle.

An Apple TV would be a third interface, neither PC nor touch-screen device. Its needs are specific: you have to design simple navigation, or come up with a way to experience content that makes sense. Cable boxes are rat's nests of confusing menus, and a new world of "cable apps" like HBO Go and products from Xfinity, Time Warner, and Fios, while sometimes useful, funnel users into tiny, controlled worlds. There should be one central interface, and all apps and services should branch from that. Apple did this successfully with the first iPhone and the Apple TV, even if the Apple TV's features are narrow.

While they're at it, the Apple UI wizards need to create a universal search function that works across all of the relevant apps, too.

Develop the killer remote to go with it (but still work with Siri and iOS gadgets)

Waving your hands in front of a TV or yelling at it isn't a pure solution. Neither is looking for a phone or tablet to use with it, or fumbling with a video game controller. I usually default to a remote, which in the case of the Xbox 360 is an aging IR device, and with the PlayStation 3 is a Bluetooth-connected remote that always accidentally turns on.

The Apple TV's flat remote needs an overhaul. If Apple could develop a perfectly designed remote with touch or other elements -- such as game-friendly buttons -- it would help sell the future Apple TV more than anything else. The Wii remote was so innovative, it sold the Wii. Apple's remote needs to be a similarly revolutionary piece of hardware, making the "third interface" of the Apple TV even more seamless to navigate. Of course, having Siri and iOS device support is necessary, too, especially for families and universal access.

If the new remote doubles as a game controller without actually seeming like one (much like the Wii remote achieved), it'll solve the question of how to unlock gaming on the Apple TV -- clearly a territory that Apple could dominate in short order if it follows the casual-games strategy on iOS. The Roku 3 remote gets close, in theory.

Be the one box

I love some of the current streaming-video products, but mostly as single- or dual-use devices. I need to swap between them: I use my 360 for Netflix, or an Apple TV for iTunes purchases, or a DVR for all the rest of the recorded stuff. And that doesn't even count the regular live TV, which the Xbox One doesn't clearly even seem to handle without, essentially, an HDMI-in passthrough.

To be the ultimate box, you don't need to do everything, you just need to do all the things people want to do most in a way that takes over the roles of multiple gadgets. Of course, some features may not carry over; disc support, for one, seems like the first thing Apple would cast aside on a future Apple TV. I'd be sad about that, but the Roku doesn't have a Blu-ray/DVD drive, either.

Convergence was the iPhone's strategy. That should be the Apple TV strategy. And Microsoft seems to be catching on to the same dream by calling its new console the Xbox One. Whether the Xbox One really is an all-in-one product remains to be seen; for Apple, it's the best hope for cementing a place in a living room that's suddenly in a state of tech flux. The Xbox One's starting the "one box" conversation once again, and Apple should be thankful for the conversation starter.

4 Effective Local Mobile Marketing Strategies

Local mobile marketing is a growing concept in the marketing world today. There is a fundamental change in the way people communicate and use the internet.

People go out with items like car keys, house keys, wallet and mobile phones. Communication by mobile phones is now the order of the day. Recent statistics show that people now communicate more and more through SMS than by conventional phone calls.
People no longer stay by their computers to surf the web. Tablets and smart phones now provide a platform for users to surf the web on the go.
The recent advances in mobile technology and the increased use of mobile devices have brought about the concept of local mobile marketing. Local Mobile Marketing is the usage of mobile technology to promote products and services of companies. Firms now take advantage of this type of technology to establish a strong mobile presence and get more customers to buy their products.
There are some steps to take to achieve local mobile marketing success. These steps are listed below.
Make a Mobile Version of your Website
The majority of people browse with their smart-phones and tablets. This means that firms need to have a mobile version of their website so that customers can easily patronize their goods and services.
It is very frustrating to browse a desktop website on a mobile device. For this reason, it is important for firms to create a version of their website for easy navigation by customers.