Google Glass Not Allowing Any Facial Recognition Software

Although it has yet to see a public release, plenty of early adopters and developers already have their hands on the greatly anticipated Google Glass. That means they’ve had a head start to create programs for the hardware. Some of which has raised concerns about privacy, among other things.

Google has recently announced that it will not allowed developers to create any facial recognition software for Glassware (Glass’ app store). This comes as a huge relief to those whose privacy is important, namely public figures and officials; and to the chagrin of software writers on the opposite end.

However, was this a smart move for Google?

Facial recognition software could be beneficial in high security areas like airports. The software would allow security to identify potential threats by simply looking at them. Those with red flags would be input into a universal database for all users to use.

On the other hand, allowing this type of software to be used would leave room for misuse. Hackers could use the information the programs gather for identity theft. These kinds of issues would then be on an even bigger scale with Google Glass.

It’s hard to say for now, but what do you think?

9:44 pm - June 14, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

App Feature: Grooveshark

For those of you who love listening to music on the go, Grooveshark is a must have. Simply go into your mobile browser, type in html5.grooveshark.com, hit the share icon, and add it to your home screen. It’s as easy as that! (If your phone is jailbroken, you can just as easily download their app through a third party)

“Grooveshark is the world’s largest on-demand and music discovery service. With over 15 million songs, Grooveshark is an ecosystem that brings together music fans, bands, music labels, and brands.” – Grooveshark ‘About Us’

Like Spotify, it lets you choose specific songs to play. And similar to Pandora, you could also listen to genre-based music stations. So it’s the best of both and it’s free! You can also queue songs and make a playlist of whatever you’d like. And it will still run in the background after switching to the home screen, so you can multitask and use other apps while the music plays. It’s great way to add more life into the music you already have! And it’s a good thing to have on those car rides with people who have different tastes in music. They can request any song, and you’ll be able to play it with a simple search.

Whether you like rock, R&B, country, or classical, Grooveshark is a must have on any music lover’s phone.

4:19 am - June 3, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

Crashlytics Android Mobile App

Twitter acquired Crashlytics when their own engineers were left scratching their heads when they could not figure out the bugs with their app.

Try Crashlytics >>

Twitter’s recently acquired Crashlytics just released their Android app. This is good news for any app developer. The program analyses and helps the app’s developer find any bugs. In software programming, that’s a big deal. Released on the iOS about a year ago, it’ll take on Android’s harder to tackle software. This is due to the recent Android boom and its complex programming.

“[It] us a complex problem to solve. It is nearly impossible for developers to fully test every edge-case and catch every bug before realease; it’s even harder to find the root cause,” Wayne Chang, Crashlytics founder, posted to the companies website. And they are definitely happy with the finished product: the most powerful and lightweight crash reporting program on the Android market.

Features include deobfuscation, crash reporting, logged exceptions, and IDE integration with various platforms, among other things. The best thing about it is that it’s all free for all to enjoy!

Twitter acquired Crashlytics when their own engineers were left scratching their heads when they could not figure out the bugs with their app. With their help it was then that it was discovered their bugs had to do with jailbroken phones.

Other companies that use Crashlytics include Kayak, Yelp, PayPal, OpenTable, Groupon, Domino’s, Walmart, and the list goes on and on.

3:13 am - June 2, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

ThingList

If you’re one of those people who like to take notes about things impulsively, then this is the app for you.

ThingList

Apple’s own note taking program is simple, too simple. The only thing you could really do is create notes and that’s it. Unhappy with it’s over simplicity, ThingList was created. With the app, you can separate your notes into different categories like bars, books, food, ideas, movies, music, etc. This makes finding certain notes easy. After choosing categories, a note screen pops up where you just simply jot down your note. Easy, right? There’s never been a better way to keep track of all your thoughts.

Something that would have been great to see on the app would be a feature that lets you create your own categories. If you feel like a note doesn’t quite fit into any of the premade subjects, it would be nice if there was a way to create a new one. It would also be great if there were a way to use this as a voice note app as well. In that case, it would be even better if it could take those voice notes and convert them into plain text.

6:12 pm - June 1, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

Jack Dorsey Brings High Quality Design With Square Stand

Jack Dorsey aims to make your business countertop look up to date to impress your customers with its beautifully clean design.

For most businesses or retailers, everyone uses some form of POS. In today’s world, these devices keep looking older and older, while the rest of the world’s technology is looking more and more advanced. So why do these POS devices still have to look so old?

Jack Dorsey brings high quality design to POS devices with the new Square Stand. Jack Dorsey aims to make your business countertop look up to date to impress your customers with its beautifully clean design. That is most of the philosophy behind the new Square Stand. The company aims to make it modeled after the simple and clean design of the mobile Square device. That’s not all that is behind the design though. The concept of the design is match form with function, and much of Square’s pitch involves the speed and utility of the new product’s design. “Good design uses form to illuminate function,” Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of Square says.

The Square Stand is starting off at $300 for the product.

Businesses can add in an iPad 2 or iPad 3 into the device and use the company’s Register software to control the back-end analytics and calculating of orders and items. There is a built-in swiping card reader that is located at the lower front end, facing the merchant. It can also swivel around to let the customer swipe their own card too.

Dorsey says that Hardware is a big part of who they are and who they want to be. They want to use the hardware to make user experiences better. It’s interesting to see how the use of devices such as the square stand will impact the use of mobile devices and apps in retailer spaces.

8:17 am - May 28, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

What Are Your Social Networks Saying About You?

The online-you may be different from the everyday-you, the you that your actual friends see.

Social networking is an increasingly prevalent form of communication between people of all ages and walks of life, sometimes even as a primary source. But what are your social networks saying about you?

The people we portray ourselves to be as on our social networks may be radically different from our day-to-day personalities.

We may not realize this, but the people we portray ourselves to be as on our social networks may be radically different from our day-to-day personalities. Take for example instagram, a place where people get to showcase their lives through pictures, is used to humble, or just blatantly, brag about their cars, latest expensive purchases, or the parties that you should be jealous of. It may not be on purpose, but it’s what is unknowingly gets shown. In between the parties and the shopping is what gets passed up on more often than not when providing content for your social networks. These normal, everyday moments can make you look more human and interesting rather than some reject from MTV’s Jersey Shore. It’s humbling and connects better with your audience.

This is not to say that posting pictures of yourself having fun or going out is bad. It’s interesting and fun to go through. This is simply just some cautionary advice. The online-you may be different from the everyday-you, the you that your actual friends see.

9:16 pm - May 27, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

Singapore’s Toilet Rating App

The “Yelp” for public restrooms.

Successful apps and businesses need to solve people’s needs and problems. Luckily for this mobile app based in Singapore, it fulfills both needs and problems of the consumers. The Restroom Association of Singapore recently launched an app that tracks the conditions of Singapore’s public restrooms. The mobile app is proving to be very popular as many residents want to know which public restrooms are the cleanliest for their standards.

The mobile app is basically a “Yelp” for public restrooms. Users can use the app to find the nearest clean bathroom, see ratings or reviews on the bathrooms, then they can personally review the restroom after they use it themselves.

The LOO (Lets Observe Ourselves) Connect app allows users to rate over 40,000 toilets in Singapore.

It is only available on the android market at the moment, with a July release date for an Apple version. It has already been downloaded more than 500 times from the Google Play Store. The app allows users to rate over 40,000 toilets in Singapore. Users can merit super clean restrooms or put to shame some of the worst toilets. The app also allows users to upload pictures of the dirty toilets too. Restrooms with 4 stars and more will be deemed as “user-friendly.” This has been part of a campaign in Singapore for better toilets since 1998. The group also asks for donations for restroom cleaning attendants. They also have competitions for the cleanliest toilets too. Lastly, the group produces posters for “How to have fun in the toilet.”

12:14 pm - May 20, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

How a Mobile App Can Help Your Personal Brand: Brand Loyalty

Join AppNRG on our new series: “How a Mobile App Can Help Your Personal Brand.” We are suggesting quick ways a Mobile App Can Help Your Personal Brand. Today’s fifth reason a mobile app can help your brand is because of Brand Loyalty.

In today’s world, Brand Loyalty is a very important concept. As a personal brand, you are basically a business. Most businesses get more business from their repeat customers than new customers. As a brand, that is another important concept that you should take with you too. As a personal brand, most of your business will be from repeat customers. If your personal brand is does an activity that doesn’t have customers, then most of your “targeted following” will come from your loyal followers. They will be the one to spread the word about your brand to others. But, if your brand does have customers, those customers need to be repeat customers to help your brand become sustainable. An app helps because it is all about you. The entire content in the app should be about you or related to your brand. The issuing of your brand’s content helps provide that brand loyalty between you and your followers. The hard part about having an app is that they actually have to download the app and want it in their phone. If your customer or follower does keep the app in their phone, then they are well on their way to becoming a loyal follower of your personal brand. Focus on your most important followers and make sure you’re creating the right relationship with them to get the brand loyalty that you need.

4:23 am - May 20, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

Mobile App-Controlled Robot Bartenders

Want to Mix a Drink on Your Phone?

MIT’s Makr Shakr can make you the drink you are looking for before you even arrive at the bar.

As we mentioned before… Mobile Apps are the future. They can do almost anything. Now they’re being taken to the next level of what apps can do. MIT’s Makr Shakr can make you the drink you are looking for before you even arrive at the bar. This is possible due to the mobile app that controls the robot bartender. MIT’s Senseable City Lab teamed up with Coca-Cola and Bacardi Rum to bring Makr Shakr to Google I/O, in San Francisco. The smartphone app allows users to customize the cocktail beverage of their choice. You can order it from the smartphone app itself, then go to the bar with your drink ready to be served to you.

The other option is crowd sourced drink recipes.

Imagine no longer having to ask the bartender what they recommend. Or imagine no longer having to ask your friend what the best drinks are. You can now use the app to also see what other bar attendees are ordering and suggesting for other patrons. This new app could change the way bars and people order drinks by being able to use this crowdsourced drink menu.

“The system explores the new dynamics of social creation and consumption — ‘design, make, and enjoy’ — allowing users to design their own cocktail creations, while digitally controlled machines transform these designs into reality,” Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, said in an e-mail.

The robot bartender even has three robotic arms that are used to make the drink, shake it using real life-like mimicking movements, and serves it for the user.

Oh… the power of mobile apps.

10:11 pm - May 18, 2013 Posted by Project CEEEJ 0 Comments

Mobile Apps Versus Mobile Websites

10:06 pm - May 18, 2013 Posted by Todd Mortenson 0 Comments

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