Avast, an antivirus program with more than 435 million users worldwide, said it will stop collecting and selling the private web browsing histories of its users following a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag into the sale of that data. In addition, Avast said it will completely shut down Jumpshot, the subsidiary company it used to sell this data.

They were collecting and selling browsing history data? What the hell man.

I think my old gaming PC is still running Avast antivirus. I thought they could be trusted, but I guess this is another case of, “If the service is free, you are the product” kind of thing. This is not cool. I'm going to have to go through our PCs at home to see what kind of antivirus they are running.

Link: Avast Antivirus Is Shutting Down Its Data Collection Arm, Effective Immediately

Tags: #Technology #Privacy

The title of this video is kinda misleading. It almost sounds like the blame is being placed on millennials. It is not. It actually is a great video talking about smartphone addiction and how this is wreaking havoc on the younger generation. This was a really good watch. I even learned a thing or two about alcoholics.

There were so many good points that Simon discussed in this video. I'm kind of annoyed at myself at not having found this video sooner. If you have any interest in trying to get your attention back or have an interest in digital minimalism, you should definitely watch this video.

Some great quotes from the video:

Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke, when we drink, and when we gamble. In other words, It’s highly, highly addictive. Right? we have age restrictions on smoking, gambling and alcohol. And we have no age restrictions on social media and cell phones. ... You have an entire generation that has access to an addictive numbing chemical, called dopamine, through social media and cell phones as they’re going through the high stress of adolescence. ... So when significant stress starts to show up in their lives they’re not turning to a person, they’re turning to a device, they’re turning to social media, they’re turning to these things which offer temporary relief. We know, the science is clear, we know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of depression than people spend less time on Facebook. These things balanced. Alcohol is not bad, too much alcohol is bad. Gambling is fun, too much gambling is dangerous. There’s nothing wrong with social media and cell phones. It’s the imbalance.

At this point I'm almost tempted to quote everything that was said in the video. So here is a link to the video transcript instead.

#Technology #SmartphoneAddiction #SocialMedia

I think the site description says it all: “A curated list of awesome articles, websites and resources about mental health in the software industry.”

Just skimming through the titles, it seems to have a lot of very interesting articles concerning mental health.

#Technology #Bookmarks

The file has been replaced with the platform, the service, the ecosystem. This is not to say that I’m proposing we lead an uprising against services. You can’t halt progress by clogging the internet pipes. I say this to mourn the loss of the innocence we had before capitalism inevitably invaded the internet. When we create now, our creations are part of an enormous system. Our contributions a tiny speck in an elastic database cluster. Rather than buying and collecting music, videos, or other cultural artifacts, we are exposed to the power hose: all culture, raging over us, for $12.99 a month (or $15.99 for HD) as long as we keep up our payments like good economic entities. When we stop paying, we’re left with nothing. No files. The service is revoked.

Link: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

Oh my this is so true. I just realized that this is a bit like a leasing a car: you pay a certain amount of money every month to drive a car, but once you stop paying, you have nothing to show for all those lease payments you've made.

A somewhat related incident happened to me a month or two ago. My son is very much into Disney's Cars. So I thought I'd buy him Cars 3 on the Xbox One. I thought it would download the movie and store it locally on my Xbox One console. It turns out, you can only stream movie purchases... So basically, if our internet goes down or if we decide to stop paying for internet, we cannot watch a movie that I already paid for. This is my fault for not knowing, but I still think that is ridiculous! Lesson learned here, is to just buy movies in Blu-ray format instead.

#Technology

I got to thinking about all this the other week after hearing news that Yahoo Groups was shutting down, and wiping out two decades of content – sending online communities and archivists into a scramble to preserve their spaces and history before it all disappears. It’s a huge bummer, for sure; and also a reminder of a hidden price we pay for modern technology. Everything is amazing, but nothing is ours.

Link: Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours

Totally something we need to be wary of nowadays. This is one of the reasons to have your own website, so you that you own your content, or as Scott Hanselman would say, “own your words”.

This is a good read that looks at the state of modern technology and the evolving dynamic between ownership and access.

#Technology

Apple Maps

• Comes free with an iPhone.
• No ads, which means your data is not being sold to advertisers.
• Provides navigation overlay on top of other apps. This works when you have another app running, in addition to Apple Maps. When you switch to another app while you have Apple Maps navigating in the background, it will show an overlay on top of the current app informing you of the next turn you need to take.
• Has very good lane guidance. Meaning it tells you what lane you should be on. Can be really useful on those confusing highways that split into two or three other roads.
• Very good battery consumption.
• Can sometimes provide the wrong navigation instructions.
  • For example, when we tried using it to navigate to the place where my son gets his haircut, it lead us to an apartment's parking lot across from the destination. The problem was that there was a fence in between. So we couldn't just get off the car and walk. We had to drive back out to the road, go around the block before arriving at the destination. To be fair, Waze also did the same thing. Only Google Maps got it right actually.
    • Lesson learned here, if navigating to a new destination, I should double check the location on Google Maps or Bing Maps with satellite view turned on.
  • When we tried to navigate to the Dallas zoo, for some reason it could not figure out the correct entrance to the zoo. Waze did figure this out though.
• It is less intuitive to use than Waze. For example, asking the app to re-evaluate routes is easier to do with Waze.
• Has very basic reporting features which pales in comparison to what you can do/report with Waze.

Waze

• It is a fun navigation app.
  • You can select cool looking avatars to represent you on the map. I use the ninja avatar.
  • Occasionally it has funny custom navigation voices like Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster. That made for a pretty comical drive. My son actually enjoyed it.
  • There is a video game like progression for users, where users level up the more they use the app for navigation.
• Has detailed reporting features which is great. It allows you to report almost every possible thing that you might see on the road. The road hazards are particularly helpful. For example, when you are coming up on a blind curve, being alerted to a possible stalled vehicle up ahead or an item in the middle of the road can help avoid accidents.
  • The flip side to this is that encouraging people to report while they are driving, is also a source of distraction for drivers.
• The app is free to use, but it comes with ads (which is how they keep it free), so your privacy and data are very much compromised with this app. Not to mention, Waze is owned by Google.
• When you're stopped at an intersection, it will occasionally ask you if you’ve seen an advertisement for a particular brand. I hate this aspect of Waze. It's kind of like they are asking me to do some work for them, except I'm not getting paid if I do. I'm actually paying them for the use of the app with my navigation data.
• Has very good routing algorithms. I would say it's rerouting algorithm is much more adventurous than the one in Apple Maps. Apple Maps tries to stick with the main roads, roads that you are most likely already familiar with. Waze on the other hand is not shy about routing you through various back roads, which helps you get to know more roads along your commute.
• Has social media integration which other people might like, but I don’t really need.
• Had “drive” notifications (notifications to let people know the progress of your drive) which used to work, but aren't reliable on my phone anymore, which is part of the reason why I looked for an alternative.

After using Apple Maps for a few months, it is now my preferred navigation app for everyday driving, especially for my weekday commutes. Minimal battery consumption, no ads and less privacy concerns are its best traits.

I still do occasionally use Waze though. I feel like Waze is a superior navigation app when getting to know a city, as it can teach you about roads you might not even consider driving on. So, whenever I'm driving to an unfamiliar destination, or there is heavy traffic on the way (like driving to a concert), I prefer to use Waze. Once I'm comfortable driving to and from a specific destination, I switch back to using Apple Maps for future drives to that destination.

#Technology #NavigationApps

The suggestion there that you need an ethicist, it suggests at least to me that they're concerned about the addictiveness of the products. In fact, Tristan himself has written about that, and that's exactly what he says. He suggests that there should be, in the design world, a Hippocratic oath — just as in medicine doctors should “do no harm,” he believes the same should be true of designers of these kinds of platforms; that people who design tech, people who design social media platforms, should be forced to obey the same rules — do no harm.

Link: 'Irresistible' By Design: It's No Accident You Can't Stop Looking At The Screen

I like this idea, a lot. The problem is I don't think the tech industry will adopt it. Not unless the industry moves away from making money using an ad-based model.

You see with an ad-based model, you want your users using your apps/products/services for as long as possible. And you want them coming back as often as possible. Why? So you can serve them even more ads and rack up the profits.

If a tech company is in the business of making money this way, then it will be really hard for them to design their apps in such a way that stops the users from becoming addicted. They want the users addicted to their app, because that's how they make money. So you can see how implementing or following a “Hippocratic Oath” when designing their apps, can go against the company's objective of making money.

Now to be fair, the whole tech industry is not like that. There are some companies who are making an effort to try to keep their user's well being in mind. Here are some examples:

• In the game Guild Wars 1, you get a reminder to take a break if you've been playing for an hour. I don't remember if this feature is in Guild Wars 2. I don't recall seeing it in GW2.

• Sticking with Guild Wars, you also don't need to pay a monthly subscription to keep playing. This means I don't end up feeling like I'm wasting money every month if I don't play the game. I can come and go as I like. Actually that's how I've been with Guild Wars 2. I've already finished the game years ago. Arenanet, the makers of Guild Wars, releases new content every year, but I don't feel pressured to login and play every night, because I don't have to pay for a subscription just to play. Sleep is more important than MMOs.

• Netflix will ask the viewer if they are still watching after a few hours of non-stop streaming. I think they should just change this to tell the user to take a break instead. The irony here though is that they will also auto-play the next video, which encourages the viewer to binge-watch.

• Apple has added the Screen Time feature that can help users set limits for app usage and track how much time they are spending on their phones. (I believe Android phones have a similar thing, but I do not own one so I cannot confirm.) The irony here is that smartphones themselves are addicting for various reasons. Of course they won't stop selling phones, so I don't know how they will rectify that. They might not even be able to.

• Instagram has a feature that tells the user if they have caught up to all the new photos on their feed. And I believe it also has a Daily Reminder feature, but I cannot confirm right now as I don't have the app installed. I can only install it on weekends, that's my rule :(

Edit: I totally forgot to include write.as in this list. Matt and his team at write.as are doing a great job with this writing/publishing platform. They separated the act of writing a post from the distractions of a news feed. There are no ads, even on the free plan. There are no “like” buttons. Comments are coming, but in a different, hopefully less instrusive implementation. This is one very good example of a product that is looking after their customers/users.

So you see some companies are already trying to look after their users, but more work needs to be done. I believe technology is supposed to help people, not bring them harm. As someone who works in the tech industry, this is something that I will try to keep in mind whenever I end up designing new applications.

Tags: #Bookmarks #Technology