There goes productivity everywhere.
It’s “near-100% HTML5″ because it relies on Flash for audio for some reason.
(h/t Daring Fireball)
From ThreatPost:
That free service comes at a price, Veracode found. Researchers who took apart the application and studied its code found libraries for five different ad networks embedded in the Pandora application. Those libraries collected and trasmitted a variety of different data from the Android phone and its owner. The data included both the owner’s GPS location and tidbits the owners gender, birthday and postal code information. There was evidence that the app attempted to provide continuous location monitoring – which would tell advertisers not just where the user accessed the application from, but also allow them to track that user’s movement over time.
I tend to overreact when it comes to privacy concerns, but I think this represents a legitimate concern for everyone in the era of free mobile apps. While the developer might not give up personal data maliciously or even knowingly, advertisers who offer up software packages to developers for ad placement might be slightly more nefarious. App developers should be cautious as to what info their apps are divulging, and consumers should realize that “free” doesn’t always mean “free”. You might be giving up a lot more personal info than you think.
Damien Thompson on Pope Benedict XVI’s historic visit to Westminster Abbey:
Even Catholics who would never be so crude as to say “the Abbey belongs to us, not to you” sensed that history was being re-balanced in some way. They realised that the Pope had as much right to sit in that sanctuary as the Archbishop of Canterbury who, to be fair, showed the Holy Father a degree of respect that implied that he, at least, recognises the spiritual primacy of the See of Peter even if he rejects some of its teachings.
Gizmodo on William Hope’s use of double exposure to create fake ghost images:
The results were spooky. Even knowing that they are fake, I look at them and feel the chills today. Imagine how it was back then. Even very smart people, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, bought into it. When Hope was exposed as a scam artist by the Society for Psychical Research, the writer defended him.
Cool, but indeed, very spooky.
What do you do when vampires turn out to be demonic monsters and not overly-serious teens? Call in a secret priestly order trained in destroying those pesky little blood suckers, of course. That’s the central story the upcoming movie “Priest.”
You put all of this in a post-apocalyptic world controlled by the stereotypical fun-hating Church, add a rogue priest, and you have have all the makings for Hollywood gold! Oh, and there is good news for those of you seeking women’s ordination, too. Turns out that a massive demonic outbreak changes the Vatican’s mind on that matter.
(Via Creative Minority Report)
