Andrew Orr

I’ve seen a lot of these headlines. The latest one is from FastCompany: “If these insanely good athletes can give up meat, so can you.” Is that enough to fix climate change? Nope.

The whole point of Markkanen’s campaign with Neste, called #DontChoke, is to ask people to pledge to take simple actions to decrease their personal carbon footprint.

While I don’t doubt that giving up meat would be better, we also need to take a good, hard look at our rich overlords. Example: This study found that 10% of rich people are responsible for 50% of carbon emissions, whereas 50% of poor people are responsible for 10%. Nice symmetry.

Keepsafe is launching a phone number lookup service. Text “Hello” to (855) 228-4539 and it will send you a small report of public data associated with your phone number.

Keepsafe co-founder and CEO Zouhair Belkoura said that while marketers are able to access this information with relative ease, it’s difficult for consumers to check. “We said, ‘Why don’t we make it super easy?’” he said. “Here’s a number you can text that tells you what information is publicly available.”

I’m pleased to report that my phone number isn’t publicly associated with certain information in any way, like my name, home address, age, gender, carrier, and associated people. In my privacy score, they did figure out what carrier I use, as well as the zip code of my former home town. But again, no actual address. Although it sounds like Keepsafe uses your number for marketing, in the ultimate act of irony.

Vitaminwater is willing to pay US$100,000 to anyone who can give up their smartphone for an entire year. If you last six months you’ll get US$10,000.

The contest rules clarify that your cell phone is likely a smartphone if it can get on the internet and texting is a pleasant experience. It also clarifies that tablets also aren’t allowed and neither is using someone else’s smartphone. The rules don’t go into detail about how the year-long technology abstinence will be proven, but the company indicates that a lie detector test is involved.

As tempting as $100k sounds I wouldn’t be able to give up my iPhone for a year.

Last week DuckDuckGo published a study examining the amount of Google bias in products like Google Search. CEO Gabriel Weinberg then told Business Insider:

What [our study] does reveal, or at least suggests, is that Google’s collection and use of personal data, including location, which is then used to filter specific search results, is having an effect akin to the effects of a political bias. That is an important nuance often missed in these discussions.

First, there’s a big difference between what a study suggests, and what it reveals. Language is important. Second, like other studies, the first one is interesting, but more studies need to be done in the form of peer review. I’d be interested to see one from an independent party that doesn’t have Google as a competitor.

Scout FM is a podcast radio service for iOS, and yesterday it released a feature called Station Creator. It lets users create their own personalized FM stations.

Once you have created a station, Scout FM does all the work for you. The station will automatically pick up new episodes and then play them in the order of your fondness to the show based on your listening habits. You can add or remove shows at any time.

I think it’s a cool concept, and it works differently than traditional podcast apps where you do everything manually.

Stalkerware is a term given to apps that let someone spy on your smartphone activity. They’re also called “spouseware” because they tend to be used by abusers to spy on their partners.

Most of this software ends up on a device through one of two ways: A phishing attack (email or text links that contain viruses and trick you into clicking on them by pretending to be something/someone else), or physical access to the device.

The article is a good read with tips for people in abused relationships.

ISPs tell the FCC that poor people don’t deserve fast internet speeds. It wouldn’t be fair on these corporations otherwise.

In a letter [PDF] recording a meeting between the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) and the legal advisors to two FCC commissioners, the industry group “emphasized that the Commission’s goals would be better served by directing support to areas that lack any service at all and those that have access only below 10/1 Mbps.”

I’m continually amazed at the human capacity to be giant d*cks to each other. The amount of hatred leveled at poor people in this country is also a bit scary.

Redditor u/alanpegoli created a Shortcut that creates a playlist of your Top 100 songs in Apple Music. It’s a neat shortcut and a feature that Apple should build into Apple Music. Get the shortcut here: My Top Songs of the Year Playlist. My playlist has some great songs from artists like Kreator, Death Angel, Parkway Drive, Marilyn Manson, and a bunch more.

On stage at the Toronto Global Forum, Blackberry CEO John Chen says he values customer privacy.

Chen spoke about BlackBerry’s emphasis on privacy and security-focused software services, as it has moved away from competing with the likes of Google and Apple in the smartphone realm. The event took place the same morning that BlackBerry announced a new Security Credential Management System (SCMS) for cities and car companies, aimed at securing smart cities systems and autonomous vehicles.

You can’t steal customer data if you don’t have any customers. Also, there’s no such thing as privacy in a smart city, and it sounds like Blackberry is moving into that area.

A new form of Snapchat portrait mode could be coming soon. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong reverse engineered the app and found some details.

Portrait photos are in vogue, and Snapchat users will surely want to have this feature in the app as soon as possible. Wong posted a tweet that shows Snapchat‘s redesign camera UI to place these functions on the right-hand side.

As a small side note, what I find strange is TNW’s defense of Instagram, because apparently it had these features first. Instagram, the app from the company that punched a hole through OS app restrictions via literal spyware.