To Warrant or Not to Warrant? ACLU, Police Clash Over Cellphone Location Data

To Warrant or Not to Warrant? ACLU, Police Clash Over Cellphone Location Data

17 May 2012

A bill requiring law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant to collect an individual’s geolocation data from cellphone carriers would be burdensome to criminal investigators and prevent them from gathering the evidence they need to make a case, according to law enforcement witnesses at a hearing on Thursday. Requiring agents to obtain such warrants is backward logic, since they often use geolocation data they’ve collected on an individual in order to then obtain a probable cause warrant for further collection of evidence, according to John Ramsey, national vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, who spoke to the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. “These are not witch hunts as some may allude to,†Ramsey said. “Information obtained with these court orders provides law enforcement with historical data, as well as possible location information, which becomes important when determining whether the need rises to the level of a court order or a warrant.†But Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, disputed this and said the warrant requirement would impose no great burden on investigators. “Under the GPS Act, obtaining warrants for geolocational information would be even less burdensome than obtaining them for telephone wiretaps, and the expectation of privacy implicated in placing calls on a public phone is no greater than the expectation that the state will not, absent a warrant, monitor a citizen’s every movement continuously for months on end,” she said. She noted that police in the County of Hawaii, as well as in Wichita, Kansas, and Lexington, Kentucky, already obtain warrants to track cellphones, and have shown no sign that they are burdened by the practice. “If these police departments can protect both public safety and privacy by meeting the warrant and probable cause requirements, then surely other agencies can as well,” she told lawmakers. In an attempt to close a hole left by a recent Supreme Court decision, Senate and congressional lawmakers have proposed a joint bill that would help protect the privacy of geolocation data by forcing law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant to collect it. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that persistent monitoring of someone’s location by placing a GPS tracker on their vehicle was unreasonable and amounted to a Fourth Amendment search, but the court fell short of asserting that such tracking amounted to the kind of search that should always require a warrant and probable cause. During oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia threw the ball into the court of lawmakers , suggesting they should do what the justices didn’t do and create protections that would guard against lazy or overzealous law enforcement agencies abusing the use of tracking data. “Don’t we have any legislatures out there that could stop this stuff?†Scalia asked. The bill, known as the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, is a response to that challenge, said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) during the hearing to discuss the bill. Chaffetz authored the House bill, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) authored a /www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/06/gps-bill-text.pdf="" “="">companion bill in the Senate (.pdf). The bill is an attempt to set a nationwide standard on not only GPS tracking, but on the collection of cellphone location data and any other geolocational data that could be introduced by future technologies. Current generations of cell-location technology have greatly improved the accuracy of tracking and can place a person on a specific floor of a building or even a specific room, University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Matt Blaze noted in a papers/blaze-gps-20120517.pdf"="">written statement submitted for the hearing (.pdf). This would allow an extensive profile to be drawn from a person’s location over an extended period of time. As Justice Sotomayor noted during the Supreme Court arguments, “trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on,” could all be revealed through such extensive tracking of an individual’s location. The bill would impose limitations on such tracking by requiring the same standard of proof on geolocation data that is imposed for conducting searches in homes and require law enforcement agents to obtain a probable cause warrant to collect the information, whether the data being sought was historical or real-time. It contains several exceptions for emergency circumstances in which law enforcement needs to obtain data urgently – such as cases involving the safety of a child, or any emergency case where someone is at risk of death or bodily harm, as well as cases involving the tracking of stolen property.

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Weekend search for missing Fox executive Gavin Smith is canceled

Weekend search for missing Fox executive Gavin Smith is canceled

17 May 2012

Without a specific area to comb for missing 20th Century Fox executive Gavin Smith, volunteers have called off a search they had hoped to conduct this weekend. Smith was last seen May 1. Since his disappearance, deputies and volunteers have combed the areas where he was last seen. Advertisements on local movie screens have asked for the public's help. But there have been few clues or leads in his disappearance. "After consultations between the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the Gavin Smith family, it has been decided that there will be NO search this weekend," family spokesman Howard Bragman said in a statement to the media. "There is not a specific area of defined interest to make this effort productive at this time." "The family wishes me to express their gratitude for keeping Gavin in the news," Bragman added. Sheriff's officials say they do not suspect foul play at this stage.  Sheriff's Lt. Wes Sutton said the agency has received a lot of tips, but detectives still don't have a firm sense of what happened. In recent interviews, Smith's family described some of the circumstances leading up to the night he vanished. Smith was staying with a friend near Ventura County's Oak Park neighborhood but drove away in his Mercedes between 9 and 10 p.m. without telling anyone, which the family said was unusual. Wearing a pair of purple athletic pants belonging to one of his sons, Smith left behind his cellphone charger, shaving kit and other items. "It doesn't sound like he was going anywhere," son Evan Smith told "Good Morning America." Smith's family said he hasn't been to his Calabasas office since he disappeared. They declined to elaborate on why he was staying with the friend instead of at the family home in West Hills, but Evan Smith tweeted last month that his father had left the family. "Thoughts and prayers out to my amazing Mom and bros plz," he wrote in an April 14 message. "My dad decided to leave the family last nite. Real family sticks together." The tweet has since been deleted, but Evan Smith told E! News his parents were not separated. "They were just going through normal stuff couples go through," he said. Evan Smith told The Times his family was "devastated" by his father's disappearance but was "staying strong." They've created a website, findgavinsmith.com , to help coordinate search efforts. Smith is 6 feet 6, weighs 210 pounds and has a goatee and gray hair streaked with blond. He was last seen in his black 2000 Mercedes 420-E with California license plate 6EKT044. Investigators are asking that anyone with information call (323) 890-5500. ALSO:  -- Richard Winton Photo: Gavin Smith  Credit: Gavin Smith family

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Smartphone Security Is Heading for 'Apocalypse'

Smartphone Security Is Heading for 'Apocalypse'

17 May 2012

The meteoric rise in the smartphone market is creating a dangerous vulnerability in smartphone security - one that may not be patched until the problem expands into what has been dubbed an "apocalypse." Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist at the Electronics Frontier Foundation, points to outdated encryption standards and the inherent vulnerabilities of the baseband processor found on modern smartphones as the makings for a security hole through which users can be exploited at large. The situation is similar to the PC boom of the late 1990s, Auerbach says. Just as PCs were designed to communicate freely with any and all network elements at the time, the baseband processors found on many of today's smartphones interact with any base station with which they come into contact. At the same time, "the cost of having portable base stations has decreased quite a bit," Auerbach says. This has already enabled some police-state government agencies to create false base stations to monitor cellphone communications, he added. "So you have just kind of a fake base station, and then you get a user's cellphone to interact with that instead of the real base station," Auerbach says. This idea is known as the "baseband apocalypse," and it is nothing new. At last year's Black Hat DC Conference, security researcher Ralf-Philipp Weinmann presented the vulnerability and warned that new open source tools for establishing mobile base stations will make smartphones easier to exploit than in the past, when the code for base stations was retained by the service providers that managed them. What's scarier, though, is that smartphone developers since have focused on features like user interface and screen resolution, as opposed to fixing a fundamental vulnerability that has been public knowledge for at least the past 16 months, Auerbach says. The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard for 3G cellphones still employs the A5/1 encryption algorithm, which Auerbach says is "incredibly broken" and "basically worthless." Indeed, the industry has been aware of an attack against A5/1 that can intercept voice and text communications since 2009. "So, in light of that, controlling the base station and the network elements really does give you access to users' communications," Auerbach says. Another similarity between the mobile industry of today and the PC security outlook at the turn of the century is that OEMs and mobile carriers have no incentive to secure this vulnerability during the product development life cycle, Auerbach says. The faster smartphones are developed and pushed out to market, the more money companies like Qualcomm and Apple stand to make. With the way the smartphone market has grown lately, they likely won't be slowing down any time soon - a recent IDC report showed 42.5% year-over-year growth in worldwide smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2012. Although he says he does not know the exact cost it would entail, Auerbach believes that "it would be significant to overhaul the encryption that's used." As long as OEMs and carriers aren't feeling any pressure to make such a significant change, they will continue pushing more smartphones through the assembly line as is. Herein lies the difference in security for smartphones and PCs. Just over a decade ago, then Microsoft CEO Bill Gates wrote a memo to the company's employees that set off the industry-changing Trustworthy Computing initiative. From 2000 to 2003, the number of Internet users across the globe nearly doubled, from 389 million to 759 million, and a large-enough security threat could affect roughly 12% of the world population. With numbers this staggering, Gates was compelled to ensure Microsoft "customers will always be able to rely on these systems to be available and to secure their information." Ten years and 1.5 billion new web users later, Trustworthy Computing seems to have made a difference. Microsoft has since come up with the Security Development Lifecycle, for example, to instill security and privacy considerations before new products come to market. Whether the mobile industry will receive a similar call to arms remains to be seen, but Auerbach, for one, is less than optimistic. Because the smartphone market is not showing any signs of becoming as monopolized as the PC market was in 2002, Auerbach says any federal legislation aimed at improving cybersecurity, such as CISPA or the SECURE IT Act, "should at least be thinking about incentivizing companies to care about security." So far, partially because lawmakers are unaware of these threats and partially because those tasked with educating them have their own agenda, solutions to that problem are "nowhere to be found," Auerbach says. "I think, unfortunately, members of Congress are not very educated about real security issues and real problems, and instead they are taking their cues from interested parties, for example the intelligence community, as to what needs to get passed," Auerbach says. "Unfortunately, the result is that the legislation is not focused on the relevant issues, such as mobile, and instead it tends to become blanket legislation." An increase in user education about the privacy and security issues with their smartphones could help the problem, as could improvements in sharing information about and patching newly discovered mobile software vulnerabilities, Auerbach says. However, OEMs and carriers are unlikely to respond until they have to, after a major security issue puts their customers directly at risk, he says. "Unfortunately, it might be the case where it will require some sort of big, newsworthy event where users' privacy is compromised in a big way," Auerbach says. "I hope that's not the case. I hope that we can kind of improve security without that, but unfortunately I think it's going to take a lot of press coverage to get mobile platform vendors and manufacturers to really start caring about this issue." Colin Neagle covers emerging technologies, privacy and enterprise mobility for Network World. Follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/ntwrkwrldneagle and keep up with the Microsoft, Cisco https://twitter.com/#!/ciscosubnet and Open Source community blogs. Colin's email address is cneagle@nww.com. For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld . Story copyright 2011 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mobile Phones for Visitors to Uganda

Mobile Phones for Visitors to Uganda

17 May 2012

Cell Phone Advice for Uganda Visitors Mobile Phone Tips for Uganda – Tourists and Visitors Visitors to Uganda always ask about cell phone usage in Uganda since they would like to stay in touch with home using their mobile phones.  Most visitors will simply use their phone from home and pay enormous roaming charges upon receiving their next bill once they arrive back home.  Plus if they make a call locally in Uganda they will charges that go through the roof. There is a simpler way – bring an unlocked mobile GSM phone that will work on the local Ugandan system that has 900 1800 megahertz frequency.  Those coming from North America are in luck if they have a quad cell phone.  If your phone will not work locally than you can do something simple go to a mobile provider like MTN and buy their cheapest phone like a Kabiriti for about 12USD, a sim card comes with it, buy some airtime for 40 cents on upward and you are back in touch with the world. A local sim card is one of the easiest things to obtain here in Uganda.  The benefits are multiple and it is easy.  You can buy a sim card at most any street corner and you will see signs such as Zain-now Airtel, MTN, Warid, UTL also called Mango and Orange.  MTN is the largest service provider for mobile cell phones in Uganda. Uganda Mobile Cell Phone Benefits: Sim Card  purchase is easy 1 to 2 USD. Sim Cards require no registration (this however will change soon in Uganda –identification must be produced) – just Uganda Shillings. No Yearly Contract No Monthly fees Call Waiting can be added Voice Mail can be added free with some providers such as MTN Add airtime by buying airtime at any store, street vendor, or even while stopped in traffic from vendors. You have a local Ugandan Mobile Number Free Incoming calls including from Overseas such as your home in Europe, Asia, North America, Australia Low cost Text messages – including international ones.  Cost varies between 5 cents and 10 cents A local phone call will run you around 8 cents a minute, an International one from 12 to 30 cents a minute.  People can however call you back from overseas and if they use a calling card it can run from overseas as low as 12 cents a minute. Money Transfers by mobile phone:  Some companies now offer in country money transfer which requires you signing up for the money transfer system with a company such as MTN or AirTel.  In the near future MTN will allow you to receive a money transfer via your mobile phone while in Uganda. If your phone has an Internet capability you can surf the Internet via your cell phone. Internet Access for your laptop via your Mobile Cell Phone in Uganda Money Transfer called Mobile Money including Money sent to you via your Mobile Phone using Western Union. There are some who simply need to connect 24/7 to the Internet and you can do just that in Uganda.  At MTN Mobile Internet Anywhere is ready available and in just a few minutes you will be on line.  Any MTN, Orange Service will add the capability to your sim card for one month subscription for a reasonable price.  It is not the fastest speed in the world but you can check your emails, surf the net and do anything else you need on line like checking into Facebook and Twitter or update your blog from Uganda.  You need a phone that is unlocked, works on 900/1800 Megahertz frequency and GPRS capacity, also if you have a  3G phone it will work.  Benefits of having a GPRS or 3-G phone connected to your laptop: You can use Skype to talk for free to family and friends back home.  A simple headset with microphone is all that is needed.  Usually the connection is strong enough to support it. Internet access 24/7 Low Cost for one month.  More expensive than using and Internet Cafe, but a lot more convenient. Access Email, Facebook, Twitter from Uganda Update your Blog or website via your laptop connection-I do it all the time Check your Bank account etc. More secure than an Internet Cafe. Internet Access for Visitors to Uganda A local Ugandan Sim Card will enhance your visit to Uganda in many ways and provide you with the convenience of staying in touch with home and allow them to call you here in Uganda at no cost to you…Enjoy your stay in the Pearl of Africa – Uganda…from Kampala…jon “If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.” John Hemingway, African Journeys Uganda Travel Links Written by: Jon Blanc From Kampala -Uganda

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Smartphone market consolidates around Apple and Samsung

Smartphone market consolidates around Apple and Samsung

16 May 2012

Today, Gartner put to end weeks of cellular handset debate. Apple apologists disputed Samsung's smartphone success over iPhone -- the presumption that the South Korean electronics giant benefits from greater shipments vs actual sales. Make no mistake: Samsung is the global leader overall and in the smartphone category, based on actual sales. Apologist arguments be damned. That said, Apple's position is solid. Together, Apple and Samsung combined smartphone sales market share approaches 50 percent. Contrary to speculation that Windows Phone might appear as a third dominant mobile OS, the market is set to largely split between two vendors. As I explained three weeks ago in post, " Google has lost control of Android ", Sasmung's rise isn't necessarily good for the broader ecosystem. Sales vs Shipments During first quarter, Samsung sold 38 million smartphones, compared to 33.1 million iPhones, decisively snatching back the top spot, according to Gartner. Meanwhile Samsung represented more than 40 percent of all Android smartphone sales, with no competitor topping 10 percent. Meanwhile, Samsung stole Nokia's crown, by becoming overall global handset sales leader. Gartner's data is the most revealing, because it represents sales to end users rather than shipments into the channel. Since Samsung first boasted about 3 million Galaxy S II sales during the first 55 days , Apple apologists have disputed the figure, and others that followed. Gartner leaves little room for error. Apple claimed 35.1 million sold, but that's really shipped, given Gartner put actual sales 2 million units lower. Samsung no longer discloses sales data, but IDC reports 42.2 million smartphone shipments during Q1. Assuming Gartner and IDC numbers reconcile, that's 4.2 million more Samsung smartphone shipped into the channel than sold, which is a reasonable number for keeping store shelves stocked. "Shipments are not sales, and therefore they present only a partial account of the success or failure of a product or an item", Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, says . He makes the distinction regarding Kindle Fire, which unit shipments plunged from 4.7 million to 700,000 between fourth and first quarters, according to IDC. Baker observes that Amazon filled the retail channel during Kindle Fire's launch quarter. Actual sales: 3.8 million then and 1.8 million during Q1. "If you add up those two sales figures you get a number almost exactly the same as IDC’s shipment number", Baker observes. "Looking at the numbers from that actual sales perspective the concept that Kindle Fire sales collapsed in Q1 becomes absurd". The point: Only actual sales figures are truly reliable. Market Turbulence Sales show Samsung rising above all other Android handset manufacturers as well as iPhone. All this before the hotly anticipated Galaxy S III ships in 13 days internationally. Strangely, in Apple, Samsung has a benefactor. US Customs has stopped importation of HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE -- two fearsome Androids -- clearing away two of the S3's biggest competitors available on these shores. Officials halted HTC shipments as they evaluate whether the handsets violate Apple patents. Samsung's rise to dominance comes during an uncertain period for smartphones, which stands to solidify its position against Android rivals and even iPhone. Overall handset sales declined 2 percent year over year to 419.1 million units -- that's down sequentially from 476.5 million handsets. "The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year", Annette Zimmermann, Gartner principal research analyst, says. "As we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable". However, smartphone sales continued their strong upward trajectory, rising 44.7 percent year over year to 144.4 million. Though, sales fell from 149 million units sequentially. The China Syndrome "Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region", Anshul Gupta, Gartner principal research analyst, says. "The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia, which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year". To its credit, Apple capitalized on the Chinese New Year. iPhone 4S went on sale in China 10 days before the January 23rd holiday, leading to a sales surge in the region. " It was an incredible quarter in China ", Apple CEO Tim Cook said during calendar first quarter earnings conference call last month. "Part of this was the pent-up demand for iPhone 4S". He emphasized: "Revenue was a record, at $7.9 billion in greater China, which is up over three times year over year and brings the first half revenue for greater China to $12.4 billion. That compares to a full year of last year of $13.3 billion". Stated differently, China accounted for 78 percent of Asia-Pacific region revenues during the quarter. Samsung also makes huge inroads to China, but didn't have something spanking new to sell for the new year celebration. That will come with Galaxy S III, which is expected to reach the Mainland long before Apple ships iPhone 5 (or whatever it's named). But Apple and Samsung aren't alone. "The continued roll-out of third generation 3G-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China", Zimmermann says. Two Market Leaders Looking ahead, Samsung and Apple look to sop up Nokia's remains -- and for Android to solidify an already strong position over every rival mobile operating system, including Apple's. Nokia market share slumped from 25.1 percent year over year to 19.8 percent in the broader handset market, or a 22.7 percent decline. Nokia is caught between a rock and a hard place -- declining feature phone sales and Windows Phone transition -- that puts it in worse position: The Apple and Samsung trash compactor. "Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level", Gupta says. "For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 percent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 percent for Nokia". They're 100 percent for Apple. Samsung global handset market share rose to 20.7 percent from 16.1 percent a year earlier, or 25.9 percent increase. However, Apple sales rose considerably more, up 96.2 percent, bringing market share to 7.9 percent from 3.9 percent a year earlier. While Samsung and Apple rank first and second, respectively, in smartphones, iPhone's maker moved into third place for all handsets. Should Nokia's decline continue, while Apple rises, something quite dramatic could occur within the year: Apple and Sumsung dividing up not just smartphone sales but the entire global handset market. Samsung's rise pulls Android along. The operating system had 56.1 percent smartphone sales share during Q1 -- that's up from 36.4 percent a year earlier. As aforementioned, Samsung accounts for 40 percent of all Android sales. By comparison, iOS share rose to 22.9 percent from 16.9 percent. However, iOS lost share sequentially -- on overall market shipments, which accentuates the decline more than it appears. iOS share fell nearly 1 point, while Android gained more than 5 points. However, Android share gains deceive, as commoditization increases. "Most players are finding it hard to break the mould", Gupta says. "At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets". The point is crucial as patent lawsuits, the most prominent lead by Apple, stifle innovation. Here on BetaNews, I've called Apple a patent bully and troll , accused it of litigating rather than innovating and called the lawsuits hypocritical . As patent-warfare stifles innovation and Android licensees struggle to stand apart from one another, "price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator", Gupta says. "This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share". That's good for Apple margins and market consolidation around the two leaders.

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Cellphone fines would rise under pending California bill

Cellphone fines would rise under pending California bill

16 May 2012

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) -- The fine for illegally using a cellphone while driving could go up $20 to $30 dollars under a new bill approved by the California state Senate. The money would go to driver education programs. The actual cost would climb to at least $199 for first offenders once court fees are collected. A first offense is currently $159. The fine for subsequent offenses would increase $50 to $60, but the real cost would be $371 for each additional offense because it would add a point on the driver's record, causing other fees. The bill would also fine bicyclists $20 for texting or talking on a handheld phone. Related Content The bill's author, Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) said surveys have shown the current law is popular with motorists and has reduced fatalities and accidents. Some lawmakers objected to the new measures, saying law enforcement officers should focus on looking for drivers who are distracted or driving erratically, rather than looking for handheld cellphones. The Associated Press contributed to this report. (Copyright ©2012 KABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) technology , car crash , california news Recently Published

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Study finds some drivers doubled cellphone use despite state law

Study finds some drivers doubled cellphone use despite state law

16 May 2012

Californians are increasingly talking or sending text messages on their cellphone while driving, a new study has found. A statewide survey showed 10.8% of drivers use mobile devices at any given daylight time, an increase from 7.3% a year ago, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. The largest increase was among 16 to 25 year olds, whose use doubled from 9% to 18%. “These results are disturbing, but not entirely unforeseen,†OTS Director Christopher J. Murphy said in a news release. “Now that smartphones are becoming the majority, people are using them more often and in many more ways. This might be helpful in a lot of places, but definitely not behind the wheel.†In April, law enforcement officials across the state made a concentrated effort to crack down on distracted driving and issued more than 57,000 tickets to motorists talking or texting on a cellphone. That is about 5,000 more than the number of tickets given out during a similar operation last year. Motorists ticketed for a first infraction are generally fined a minimum of $159. “It’s a frustrating problem," said Chris Cochran, a spokesman for OTS. "We were hoping that the first year of the campaign, which was 2011 basically, that we would hit the enforcement so hard and the public awareness so hard that it would stem the tide. “It’s a brand new problem but it’s growing very quickly,†Cochran said. ALSO: -- Ari Bloomekatz Photo: A woman uses her hand-held cellphone while driving on Kenmore Street in Los Angeles in 2006. Credit: Béatrice de Géa / Los Angeles Times

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What Is Cell Phone Radiation | Radiation Prevention

What Is Cell Phone Radiation | Radiation Prevention

16 May 2012

Click Here For Effective Radiation Protection Products Cellphone Radiation May Cause Cancer, Advisory Panel Says … A World Health Organization panel has concluded that cellphones are “possibly carcinogenic,’’ putting the popular devices in the same category as certain dry cleaning chemicals and pesticides, as a potential threat to human health. The finding, from the agency’s International … View Video Cell Phone Radiation – CellRisk.com Find cell phone radiation ratings and health and safety advice. See which phones are the safest and which phones are the most dangerous. … Read Article Low- Radiation Cell Phones : All The Rage? | TechNewsDaily.com Ever progressive, San Francisco voted today to become the first city in the nation where retailers must display the radiation levels emitted by cell phones . This value, which will be posted alongside each cell phone model’s features and prices, represents a potential new front in the extremely … Read Content Cell Phone Radiation Protection Lifewave Matrix Cell Phone … Cell Phone Radiation Protection – Cell Phones Radiation Shield – Cell Phone Radiation Danger – Lifewave Matrix Cell Phone Shield Review … Read Full Source Cell Phone Radiation – Compare Prices, Reviews And Buy At … Cell Phone Radiation – 1,459 results like WaveShield Protection System — 1 Piece, Gino Mobile Phone Cartoon Cat Anti Radiation Decal Sticker, Aulterra the EMF Neutralizer – Protection From Cell Phone & Computer, Gino Mobile Phone Smiling Pig Anti Radiation Decal Sticker, Cell Phone Radiation … View Video Cell phone Exposure Increases Brain cell Activity – CNN.com (CNN)– The radiation emitted after just 50 minutes on a mobile phone increases the activity in brain cells , according to a new government-funded study. The effects of that brain activity are not known, said the researchers, who called for more study. Phones that were turned off did … Access Full Source How Much radiation Does Your phone Emit? – CNN.com – Breaking … This searchable table contains all the cell phone models available from the major U.S. carriers as of December 2010 (newer models may not be listed). The numbers refer to the rate of radiofrequency energy your body absorbs from the phone . The lower the number, the lower the radiation exposure. Most … Read Article radiation cell phone | EBay EBay: radiation cell phone Where results contain multi-variation listings, the item counts on the page are inclusive of all matching variations that are available. … Read Article Cell phone radiation « Cell Phone Radiation – EMF Shields … Cell Phone Radiation – EMF Shields and ElectroMagnetic Field Protection – Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Dangerous Cellphone Radiation – … Read Article Cell Phone Radiation Facts | EHow.com Cell phone radiation is a hotly contested area of scientific discovery. Potential links to cancer, memory loss, vision loss and even environmental conditions have been … View Video Cell Phone Radiation – Compare Prices, Reviews And Buy At … Cell Phone Radiation – 1,459 results like WaveShield Protection System — 1 Piece, Gino Mobile Phone Cartoon Cat Anti Radiation Decal Sticker, Aulterra the EMF Neutralizer – Protection From Cell Phone & Computer, Gino Mobile Phone Smiling Pig Anti Radiation Decal Sticker, Cell Phone Radiation … Read Here Share this:

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Smartphone Bot Case Study: The Google Smartphone Bot On Holiday In Australia

Smartphone Bot Case Study: The Google Smartphone Bot On Holiday In Australia

16 May 2012

While Google’s new smartphone bot has been announced, it does not appear to be widely deployed yet; at least that is what I said during a recent presentation in Sydney, where I had the pleasure of meeting Alistair Lattimore (Al). Al does CRO, SEO and agency management for Mantra Group , which is the second largest accommodation provider in Australia with over 100 hotels, retreats and resorts throughout Australia and New Zealand. Al was at the talk in Sydney and let me know that the smartphone bot had visited some of the sites he is responsible for and told me about the initial results. Mantra.com.au is the site we discussed most; iPhones and Androids are now showing the mobile-optimized urls instead of desktop urls in some (not all) searches. While I am writing this case study up, Al gets most of the credit for his keen observations about the behavior of the bot and its impact on search results. As it may be useful to have a short case study out there, we’ll review the specific case of the smartphone bot, and how its indexing has played out in the Mantra mobile crawling, indexing and ranking. Keep in mind this is just one site, and other sites may have different experiences with the smartphone bot, but here is what Al and now I have observed thus far. Smartphone Bot Crawling As I alluded above, I have done lots of research to see which sites are being affected and which are not. Many of the large sites do not appear to be showing evidence of the smartphone bot yet. This includes sites like Facebook, Amazon and YouTube, which all still show ‘www’ desktop urls in searches from Androids and iPhones. Either the bot is crawling them and not indexing the mobile content, or perhaps I am not doing the right tests, to generate the mobile results (more on that later). One of the most interesting aspects of this case study is that Mantra.com.au was crawled by the smartphone bot in early December, according to Al, slightly before  the new bot was even announced (sneaky Google!). Al explained that their content has always been crawled quite regularly, and that they did not do anything special like submit a sitemap for the mobile subdomain or set up any special robots instructions, except to disallow content that did not belong in results at all. The Mantra site is using conditional 302’s to redirect mobile traffic from the desktop pages to their mobile counterparts. Note that 302’s are much less common in traditional SEO, but very common in mobile user-agent detection and redirection, but a 301 would be fine as well. The mobile optimized urls do not appear to be exact mirrors of each other, though they do match up in the final element of the file name; for instance, a vacation property in Sydney on Bond Street has the following two urls and meta data: Desktop Title Tag: Mantra 2 Bond Street | Sydney Hotels | New South Wales NSW Desktop Description Tag: The hotel is centrally located close to Sydney attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Pitt Street Mall, Darling Harbour and The Museum of Contemporary Art. Mobile Title Tag: Mantra 2 Bond Street Sydney NSW Mobile Description Tag: NONE Interestingly, the desktop title tag and description tags are still present in the mobile ranking, and so far, the only thing that has changed is the replacement of the desktop page url with the mobile page url as shown below. This is not exactly what Google had promised in the announcement and description of how the bot worked: Smartphone Bot Mixes Desktop & Mobile Page Info in the SERP The crawler is relying almost 100% on the 302 redirect without additional signals of affiliation between the desktop page and the corresponding home page. Mantra is linking back to the desktop site with a text link at the bottom of every page, which uses cookies to stick the user to the desktop site, but it is a page-to-homepage link. This is great, (and obviously good enough for Google) but it might not provide users or engines as much value as a page-to-page link could in the long term. Also, Mantra is not using canonical tags to help associate the mobile versions of the pages to their desktop counterparts. Al really did a great job maximizing the crawl efficiency on the mobile site by minimizing DUST (duplicate url, same text). Here is what he told me: “I’ve worked very closely with our in-house developers to minimize unnecessary redirects within the site & every iteration we’re dropping more & more where possible. We’re handling duplicate content using redirects and have currently handled URL casing (force lower case), protocol (can only view a URL in the intended protocol, but need to get that changed to a 301 as its currently a 302) and I’m waiting on another small update to strip trailing slashes via a 301 as well.†Al also mentioned that he has made sure that the developers were eliminating unnecessary redirects and keeping the mobile code clean and light. He wins the gold medal here because this will all really ensure that all of his mobile and desktop content will be crawled and indexed without slowing the bots down – which is exactly what has happened. Mantra Group is also using user agent detection to deliver a low-fi version of their mobile websites, allowing visitors using less capable smartphone devices to transact online instead of simply saying “your device isn’t supportedâ€. Smartphone Bot Indexing While this has not been stated outright, there has been no mention of a new smartphone index, and historical Google mobile rankings indicate that they think that it is perfectly acceptable to rank and serve desktop pages to smartphone searchers. This is also in-line with the recent history of Google updates, in which Google appears to be trying to speed up the delivery of their SERPs by not having to query multiple indexes, but instead tagging all entries in one index with specific ‘Universal’ ranking information – exactly what happened with the launch of Caffeine in June of 2010 . (Why the separate mobile WAP index still exists is up for debate, but will be covered in another blog post.) As far as we know, the new smartphone bot is just attaching alternate mobile attributes and meta data to pages that exist in the desktop index. In the case that smartphone-optimized pages exist without desktop counterparts, these pages are also getting added to the primary Google index, with mobile indicators, to hopefully prevent them from appearing in desktop search results (or at least, that is what has been implied by Google). Al explained that the mobile-optimized urls on Mantra.com.au were not showing up in ALL searches, and this he supposed was related to the nature of the redirects and the quality of the pages. In his own words: “What is interesting is that not all URLs that we have specific redirects for seem to show the optimized URL & I’m not quite sure what the driver for that is. I was thinking that maybe Google have a quality signal associated to whether or not they’ll optimize the URL or not. For example, we use the same breadcrumb markup throughout our site but not all sections of our site show breadcrumbs in the search results – which I assume is a quality/link signal not being strong enough for those particular sections of our sites & I was thinking maybe the same sort of thing exists for mobile optimized URLs†It could also be that not all of the pages have been crawled and indexed by the new smartphone bot, or some other less obvious problem that the smartphone bot found with the redirect, the content or the similarity of the two pages. Illustrations of the differences in indexing are included below. A Page Affected By The Smartphone Bot Where the desktop page used to be, the mobile page now ranks in its place. The link goes directly to the mobile property page without needing to be redirected. The listing shows the Desktop Title Tag and Description, but the mobile page url. The smartphone listing links directly to the mobile optimized page    A Page Not Affected By The Smartphone Bot The desktop page is requested from the search result, but the server redirects to the mobile home page because there is not mobile page that is a direct match to this desktop page. The listing that shows the desktop site is redirected to the mobile home page Smartphone Bot Ranking The most interesting thing about the activity and rankings of the smartphone bot crawl is that the results are not universal across the site, and appear to be keyword dependent. Generic iPhone and Android queries on the brand name or brand+product were still returning the desktop home page url. The category and top level pages did not yet have a corresponding mobile page, so it makes sense for them, but the homepage did  have a corresponding mobile page, so this was a bit odd. In Al’s words: “While we’re obviously redirecting our desktop home page to the mobile home page, none of our primary brand terms produce an optimised URL for the home page. ….At the moment, I have specific redirects in place for the ‘property’ content and all other URLs fall back to the mobile home page. As such, you’ll get mobile optimized URLs showing for queries that return hotel content such as [mantra 2 bond st], [mantra crown towers], [mantra circle on cavill] but not a generic query like [mantra sydney] or [mantra melbourne] – unless we have a hotel page that ranks for that term as well.†Also interesting is the changes in the mobile sitelinks, which are sometimes different between desktop and mobile queries. Apparently, the new smartphone crawler is choosing its own sitelinks, presumably based on their perceived relevance or optimization for mobile users, and including those instead of the sitelinks that are returned in a desktop search, as shown below: Mobile Sitelinks Desktop Sitelinks Site Links Differ from Mobile To Desktop What I thought was interesting was that some of the sitelinks returned in the mobile SERP with the desktop homepage listed were to pages that did not have a mobilized version, (for instance Mantra Resorts). This also occured when a mobile url was included with sitelinks, the sitelinks did not always go to pages that had been mobilized, shown below. Mobile Sitelinks When in portrait mode, there was only one sitelink, but two are displayed in landscape: One Site Link in Portrait but Two in Landscape, All to Non-Mobile Pages Desktop Sitelinks This time, the sitelinks are the same on mobile and desktop, except desktop has one more:  Three Site Links for Desktop This is totally baffling, because on one hand, it appears that the smartphone bot is changing which site links appear, but it is not doing it in a mobile-optimized way. Here is what Al had to say about that: “I see room for improvement from Google on this front for mobilising the breadcrumb URLs displayed in the SERPs as well. Currently the title links to the mobile URL but the breadcrumb URLs are the same as the desktop URLs, for which we don’t have mobile specific pages or redirects in place just yet. I’d be great in the future if the “Gold Coast” link in the screenshot also linked to a mobile optimized URL (when we release those URLs into the mobile sites). It is possible that could happen currently but because we don’t have those type of pages on the mobile site & therefore don’t have the redirects, the breadcrumb in the SERPs isn’t being optimized yet.†To me, this seems like a very bad user experience, because searchers expect to be delivered to a mobilized version of the Gold Coast page (reinforced by the title, description and bread crumb trail that are all pulled in from the desktop ranking), but instead are delivered to the mobile home page, where they will not be able to find the Gold Coast page, because it has yet to be mobilized. In this case, it would be better if Google had left the desktop page link, because at least that has the information that the searcher was looking for. Hopefully this is a glitch that will quickly be fixed! Conclusion So that is the data. It does seem like the smartphone bot is a bit quirky, and there are a lot of odd things that are going on. It is odd that the smartphone bot is affecting sites like Mantra.com.au before sites like Facebook and Twitter. Odd that it is not updating home page urls in mobile search results, and results more likely generated by long-tail searches than generics. It’s also odd that it is changing sitelinks but not to make them direct people to pages that are mobile friendly. Perhaps the new smartphone bot is on vacation somewhere in Australia, relaxing before full-on, logical deployment, but we will have to wait and find out. If you have interesting experiences, or similar experiences, please post them in the comments – we would love to hear them! Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

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SlingShot: Smartphone Video Stabilizer (Kickstarter Review)

SlingShot: Smartphone Video Stabilizer (Kickstarter Review)

15 May 2012

The crowdfunding website Kickstarter has become the launch point for a number of clever and useful smartphone accessories in the past two years. Now Portland-based photographer and design engineer Charles Waugh is using Kickstarter to raise funds for his own addition, the SlingShot smartphone video/photo stabilizer . It’s already at over 250% of its goal. I was sent a pre-production sample of the SlingShot to test. Here are my observations. Design When I first picked up the SlingShot, it was so light I was concerned about its durability. But after handling it and using it I found the accessory to be very solid; the injection-molded resin it’s made from is light but very tough, and I quickly lost all fear of damaging it. The U-shaped cradle has a standard-sized screw mount which enables you to mount your phone to any tripod. The handle has a ball joint, which makes angling the phone simple and easy, and a pair of fold-out legs that allows it to double as a small tripod. Though the cradle looks like it wouldn’t grip a phone very strongly, it held onto my iPhone with a death grip. I was able to turn the SlingShot upside down and shake it pretty hard without the phone even budging. Sliding the phone in and out of the cradle was easy and quick. (NOTE: While I used my iPhone, the cradle is designed to securely hold pretty much any smartphone.) For some extreme hands-on testing of the physicality of the SlingShot, I recommend watching this video review by ‘Blunty’ Burr . The legs of the pre-production sample were easily the weakest part: They’re flimsy and too close together, which combined with a heavy smartphone made the tripod top-heavy and easy to tip over. However, this was realized by the designers and they’re addressing it before final production – the final model with have Spring-Steel legs instead of the plastic ones, which should spring out to a wider spread for better stability. Several things about the Slingshot’s design made me think of another Kickstarter project, the Glif , which I backed when it ran in October/November 2010. The Glif is another tripod mount, but I never felt entirely comfortable with how the Glif gripped my phone; I was always paranoid that it would slip off. This isn’t true with the SlingShot. And while both accessories have screw mounts, only the SlingShot has the handle, tripod and ball joint, giving it significantly more functionality. (Though you can use the SlingShot’s handle on the Glif – I tried it, but felt more comfortable using the SlingShot cradle.) And the SlingShot is actually less expensive ($14, compared with $20 for the Glif). The one big advantage the Glif has over the SlingShot is portability; the Glif easily slips into your pocket, but you have to unscrew the SlingShot’s handle and it still takes up more room. But the SlingShot is still very compact, and the extra features make up for this minor inconvenience. Using the Slingshot The SlingShot is touted as a smartphone stabilizer, intended to give steadier, less jumpy video. This was its main selling point for me, so I decided to try it out. I took the SlingShot to my son’s first day of t-ball and shot some video and photos. In the above video, I walked down the first-base line following my son while he ran the bases; then I walked back as he ran from second base to third. What I noticed was that the video was very stable while I was still, but very shaky while I was walking. This made logical sense, but I decided to test it, so I shot some videos of me walking holding the iPhone by itself, and then the same walk with the phone in the SlingShot. What I found was that the SlingShot made almost no difference at all in stabilizing my video while walking. However, the difference was noticeable when I shot video while standing still: The only unsteadiness in this video was due to my own excitement from my son’s first t-ball hit, and my laughter as he got overly excited and forgot how to run the bases. Or drop the bat. Overall the video I shot while using the handle was noticeably steadier than holding the phone loosely. Still photos also came out sharper than I’m used to. The grip of the handle felt much more natural and comfortable than the way I normally have to hold the phone to take pictures. I was confident enough in it that I was able to hold the handle with just one hand, leaving my other hand free to make focus adjustments and snap the pictures. Sharp. Not very well-composed, but sharp. The handle was especially helpful in steadying my hand while holding the camera well above my head to shoot video. This proved very useful when I needed to stretch over the heads of other parents who were in my way. ;) One potential problem I noticed was that there seemed to be more wind sounds in the audio than normal. One of the cradle’s rubber grips sits directly over one of the microphones on the bottom of the iPhone, with just a slight gap that may cause air to flow directly over it. I can’t say for sure if this is true, but it’s possible. However, this was only a problem when outside in fairly strong wind. And when I used a Mini iPhone Microphone I got from ThinkGeek (did I mention that the cradle allows access to the iPhone’s ports?) the sound improved, so this wasn’t a serious issue. Conclusion Design: Lightweight, durable, secure. It has a smooth ball joint and holds a smartphone securely. The compact and lightweight design makes the SlingShot very portable. The only real physical issue is the tripod legs, which the designers are aware of and are addressing before final production. Ease of use: Excellent. The handle grip is very comfortable. Inserting and removing a phone is easy. The brass screw mount attached effortlessly to every tripod I tested it on. It isn’t perfect for those “OMG I have to get a picture of this!” moments – no tripod or stabilizer is – but it takes under 10 seconds to get it set up (yes, I timed it). Does it do what it’s supposed to? Yes, with caveats. Don’t expect much improvement to video while walking, but video while standing still, and still photos, look good. This isn’t a full-on stabilizer, but an amateur like me saw noticeable improvement and that’s valuable. Would I buy one? Yes! For $14 (shipping included), this accessory is definitely worth it. The quibbles I had with it were minor ones and were overshadowed by the obvious benefits.

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