The following article appeared in the New York Times. It wasn't on the Front Page! Why?
Apparently it's NOT as IMPORTANT as how many government workers are furloughed. Or, which politician is blaming another about the Congress for not doing their jobs. Or, Who's doing Who! Or, how many people are being killed in the world, or how many are starving.

Read it carefully to see what secrets YOU are SHARING. Sharing? Really? One of the Scumbags says “Tracking is a dirty word,“. The other Scumbag says, “We're observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices,“ Do you suppose THEY are willing participants, also?

Is this part of the "mark" (Rev. 13:16-17) Probably not, because what these Scumbags are doing is subtle. Then again, maybe it is a willing act by users. They use tricky words like, "cookies", "the cloud", "preferences", "user friendly", etc., to hide their dirty deeds.

Selling secrets of phone users to advertisers

By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
October 05, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO -- Once, only hairdressers and bartenders knew people's secrets.
Now, smartphones know everything -- where people go, what they search for, what they buy, what they do for fun and when they go to bed.

That is why advertisers, and tech companies like Google and Facebook, are finding new, sophisticated ways to track people on their phones and reach them with individualized, hypertargeted ads. And they are doing it without cookies, those tiny bits of code that follow users around the Internet, because cookies don't work on mobile devices.

Privacy advocates fear that consumers do not realize just how much of their private information is on their phones and how much is made vulnerable simply by downloading and using apps, searching the mobile Web or even just going about daily life with a phone in your pocket.

Drawbridge is one of several startups that has figured out how to follow people without cookies, and to determine that a cellphone, work computer, home computer and tablet belong to the same person, even if the devices are in no way connected. Before, logging onto a new device presented advertisers with a clean slate.

“We're observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices,“ said Eric Rosenblum, chief operating officer at Drawbridge. But don't call it tracking.

“Tracking is a dirty word,“ he said.

Drawbridge, founded by a former Google data scientist, says it has matched 1.5 billion devices this way, allowing it to deliver mobile ads based on websites the person has visited on a computer. If you research a Hawaiian vacation on your work desktop, you could see a Hawaii ad that night on your personal cellphone.

In the old days - just last year - digital advertisers relied mostly on cookies. But cookies do not attach to apps, which is why they do not work well on mobile phones and tablets.

For many advertisers, cookies are becoming irrelevant anyway because they want to reach people on their mobile devices.

This is why a service that connects multiple devices with one user is so compelling to marketers.

Drawbridge has partnerships with various online publishers and ad exchanges. These send partners a notification every time a user visits a website or mobile app, which is considered an opportunity to show an ad. Drawbridge watches the notifications for behavioral patterns and uses statistical modeling to determine the probability that several devices have the same owner and to assign that person an anonymous identifier.

Other companies, such as Flurry, get to know people by the apps they use.

Flurry embeds its software in 350,000 apps on 1.2 billion devices to help app developers track factors such as usage . Its software appears automatically when those apps are downloaded. It recently introduced an ad market place to send advertisers anonymized profiles of users the moment they open an app. The company has specific data about users that it does not yet use because of privacy concerns, said Rahul Bafna, senior
director of Flurry.

Wireless carriers know even more about us from our home ZIP codes. Verizon announced in December that its customers could authorize it to share that information with advertisers in exchange for coupons. AT&T announced this summer that it would start selling aggregated customer data to marketers, while offering a way to opt out.

Neither state nor federal law prohibits the collection or sharing of data by third parties. In California, app developers are required to post a privacy policy and to clearly state what personal information they collect and how they share it. Still, that leaves much mystery for ordinary mobile users.

 

its Scarry stuff, mobile phones broadcast an IP address so websites can gather who you are and your real address. this is cross linked to your known credit files so that these people know if you make enough money to ad target you..those who are lower income are targeted with fantastic money making opportunities and congratulations you have won ads! to protect yourself somewhat you can set a proxy on your device, but still be care full!

 

here is a little secret for you turn any dollar bill upside down look for the symbols like this<<>><><> that point to letters Satan > god it says! Satan the greater than symbol then the eye of Jehovah symbol.. the dollar bill quite literally spells Satan is greater than Jehovah! say it on you tube and had to try it. its for real.

 

in the electronics world a speaker can also be a microphone, any think that receives can transmit with a little mod my main concern is the cameras on your cell phone do you know who is looking at you as you use your phone? their is a virus that uses the camera and mic to steal vital info so beware.and watch that Facebook stuff its just not too smart to post all those pictures. as for identity thieves oh please steal my identity with all my bills and little income you are welcome to it!

 

How Video Games Are Getting Inside Your Head — And Wallet

by Steve Henn
October 29, 2013 2:54 AM


This week on All Tech, we're exploring kids and technology with posts and radio pieces about raising digital natives. Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments, by email or tweet.

Max Kelmon, 13, has his own little version of a man cave in Palo Alto, Calif. Behind the family kitchen in a converted garage, he has an Xbox, a big-screen TV, headphones and a microphone. There's an old couch covered in a sheet. And that couch where he parks himself, surrounded by boxes and Christmas lights, is one of Max's favorite places on the planet.

From that couch, he connects to friends all over the globe — and he spends hours, pretty much every day, honing his skills in Call of Duty.

The first commercially successfully video game, Pong, invaded Americans' living rooms 38 years ago. Since then, the industry has evolved from a simple bouncing ball in the Atari original to games with astounding graphics and sound, most of them connected to the Internet.

That means that kids like Max can play with people spread across the globe. It also means that gaming companies can analyze how gamers play — each and every decision they make.

So when kids sit down with a game, they are actually sitting across a screen from adults who are studying them — and, in some cases, trying to influence their behavior in powerful ways.

Researchers in game companies tweak games to get players to stay on longer, or to encourage them to spend money on digital goods. They study gamers' reactions. It's become a science.

And parents like Max's mom, Vanessa Kelmon, often feel outgunned.

"I hate it. I really do," she says. "He could play Xbox for 12 straight hours. [He has] friends in Mexico City and friends in England."

Vanessa says Max is addicted to video games. "When I took it away, he started to cry," she says. "My God, I am offering you to go play tennis or go play golf ... and I am making you shut this down, and you're crying about it."


Tracking Clicks And Purchases

In millions of families, video games are a source of intense love and intense hate because they can be so incredibly compelling. You might not believe that if you don't play them, but you can get lost in a great game. They make you feel good.

And it's no accident, says Ramin Shokrizade, the game economist for Wargaming America.

"The technology for this has gotten quite sophisticated," says Shokrizade, who began his career in neuroscience and behavioral economics. "At this point, every major gaming company worldwide either has in place a fully developed business intelligence unit, or they're in the process of building one."

Today's game design is dominated by research, he says. As we play games, game developers are tracking every click, running tests and analyzing data.

They are trying to find out: What can they tweak to make us play just a bit longer? What would make the game more fun? What can get us to spend some money inside a game and buy something?

So as millions of people play, designers introduce little changes and get answers to all of these questions in real time. And games evolve.

For example, most games today sell virtual goods right inside the game — like a new gun in Call of Duty or a cow in FarmVille. Shokrizade's job is to get people to buy them.

One of the tricks of the trade is something developers at Zynga — which created FarmVille — used to call "fun pain" or "the pinch." The idea is to make gamers uncomfortable, frustrate them, take away their powers, crush their forts — and then, at the last second, offer them a way out for a price.

John Davison, who works at video game company Red Robot Labs, says free-to-play smartphone games like Candy Crush Saga and Puzzle & Dragons have become brilliant at using these tests to figure out how to get people to spend money.

And the research is working. Davison says those games are making millions of dollars — every day.


Kids Who Cash In

When adults play games, they consent to share that personal information about how they play. But Shokrizade worries about the millions of kids who play. "If it's a child, how do you even get consent for something like that?" he says.

Many of the people spending cash are kids, including Davison's children. Game consoles sell gift cards at convenience stores that allow kids to make purchases on video games, even if they don't have a credit card.

Davison's kids started playing Clash of Clans this year. In the game, developed by Supercell, you get to run your own little Viking village and team up with friends. To protect your clan, you can spend money on forts and weapons.

It's free to download — but because of these virtual goods, it's one of the highest-grossing apps in Apple's store.

Davison's two boys loved it. "They were clearly getting a lot of enjoyment out of it," he says. "But it did get to the point where my wife and I were like, 'Do you really want to be spending everything on this?' "
And this is coming from a man who has devoted his life to video games.

"I was trying to sort of total up in my head how much the kids had spent on this game," he says. "But there was also a degree of admiration for the team at Supercell, that they had managed to get under my 10-year-old's skin to this degree."

Apple recently settled a class-action lawsuit about kids making in-app purchases like this without their parents' permission, and the European Union is considering new regulations on games.

Some regulations are taking place on a smaller scale. In Menlo Park, Calif., Michelle DeWolf banned her 10-year-old son, Austin Newman, from playing games during the school week.

Originally, she gave him 30 minutes a day, but that didn't work.

"He couldn't think about doing his homework. He couldn't think about walking the dog or helping in any other way, because he couldn't get his mind off the idea that he had 30 minutes coming," she says.

"Once he knew there was nothing, he didn't think about it during the week, and he almost — maybe I'm not objective — but he almost seemed relieved."

Source

 

their are several android apps that can take pictures by themself,Or upload all your sd pictures to google I know because one uploaded mine to google. good thing their wasent anything bad!