The Mobile Minute: Free Android Apps for Journalists, Mapping Indoor Spaces, and Facebook's Lack of Privacy

Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Oct 19, 2010

Today's Mobile Minute brings you news about the continuous lack of Facebook privacy, the disagreement between IDC and Nokia on Nokia sales figures in India, a ranking of the top five free Android apps for journalists, a TNS study that found social media trumps e-mail as the most popular use for online mobile activity, and mapping indoor spaces with smartphone apps.

  • Users who access Facebook from the iPhone app could be at risk of unknowingly publishing their (and their contacts') private phone numbers on Facebook. The Guardian reports that, "The reason: Facebook's "Contact Sync" feature, which synchronises your friends' Facebook profile pictures with the contacts in your phone. [...] A more recent version of the app shows that it does download "your friends' profile photos and other info from Facebook" to add to your iPhone address book," and then imports the contacts on users' phones and uploads them to the Facebook Phonebook app. (via Textually)
  • The Wall Street Journal is covering yet another breach of Facebook security – an investigation found that users of many of the social network's most popular apps have had their data transmitted to third parties such as advertisers and Internet tracking companies. The investigation found that "three of the top 10 apps [...] have also been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies." 
  • The tech journalism blog 10,000 Words recently ranked the top five free Android apps for journalists. They were: Qik (for live video), Wordpress for Android (for blogging), Photoshop Express (for photo editing), Voice Task (for audio recording), and Evernote (for note taking). The article reviews each app and lists the apps' features. 
  • The New York Times reports on the rising number of app developers who design maps of indoor spaces like malls, stadiums, and airports and how these apps are developed.

[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]

Image courtesy Flickr user QiFei

 

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