Microsoft sued after collecting WP7 location data without permission

Microsoft sued after collecting WP7 location data without permission | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/Video |  Jobs Contact About Home > CellPhones > Microsoft sued after collecting WP7 location data without permission Microsoft sued after collecting WP7 location data without permission Edwin Kee 09/01/2011 20:46 PDT

Apple was on the receiving end of some heavy handed flak for their location-based tracking services, and Microsoft might be walking in their shoes right now after a recent class action lawsuit that was filed in a Seattle district court claims that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system also collects users’ location data, and to make matters more intringuiing – this happens despite users being given the chance to opt out.

Why would Microsoft bother to offer users a “choice” which is then ignored? That is certainly a strange move for the software giant to make, and where does the offending code lie? Well, it currently resides in Windows Phone 7's camera application, and this was discovered by Samy Kamkar who determined that location and identifier data were being transmitted regardless of your earlier choice – heck, even beginning before you had a chance to make your decision on-screen.

According to the lawsuit, Microsoft’s actions might be part of a plan to develop a location-aware marketing system which would result in ad generation depending on where you are at the moment. Since Apple was successfully sued for this infringement, it does not seem as though Microsoft’s chances will be any brighter.

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Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' won't be a movie after all

Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' won't be a movie after all - latimes.com p.content-nav { margin:-15px 0px 0px 0px; }#commentsArchive { display: none; visibility: hidden; }#archiveShow, #fbShow { cursor:pointer; } body {background-color:#ffffff !important;}ul#root li.navLink a {padding-top:17px; padding-right:4px; padding-bottom:16px; padding-left: 5px;} Subscribe/Manage Account Place Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals Classifieds Custom Publishing Books HOME LOCAL L.A. Now Politics Crime Education O.C. Westside Neighborhoods Environment Obituaries Findlocal U.S. Politics Now Top of the Ticket Science & Environment Obituaries Religion WORLD Afghanistan & Pakistan Africa Asia Europe Iran Iraq Latin America Mexico Under Siege Middle East Business Money & Co. Technology Personal Finance Small Business Company Town Jobs Real Estate Cars SPORTS Lakers Clippers Dodgers Angels NFL Ducks/Kings USC UCLA Soccer High Schools Scores/Stats ENTERTAINMENT Movies Television Music Celebrity Arts & Culture Company Town Calendar The Envelope Findlocal Health Booster Shots Fitness & Nutrition Medicine Behavior Healthcare Reform Hospitals Living Home Food Image Books Parenting Findlocal Magazine Reader Photos Summer Guide Travel California Hawaii Mexico Las Vegas Europe Asia Australia Travel & Deal Blog Opinion Editorials Op-Ed Letters Opinion L.A. Deals Save: Deals Go: Travel Eat: Food Wear: Apparel Live: Everyday Needs Play: Electronics Drive More Mobile Site Subscribe / Manage Account Print Ads Place an Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals More Classifieds Weekly Ad#inTheNews {min-height:20px;} Advanced Search Advanced Search X include all of these words: include any of these words: include this exact phrase: exclude: Select a date range this week past 30 days past 3 months past year Create a custom date range From: To: Jacket CopyBooks, authors and all things bookish« Previous |Jacket Copy Home| Next»

Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower' won't be a movie after allJuly 20, 2011 |  1:16pm

What will it take to get Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series adapted for screen? Apparently, a pile of gold statuettes, a boffo box office track record and the fans who've bought 30 million copies of the books that make up the series won't be enough.

This week, Universal pulled the plug on an A-list production that was planned to have an innovative release: three feature films and two limited-run TV series. In January, Comcast took over the studio, and the ownership change may have led to a new frugality that didn't mesh with "The Dark Tower," a sprawling sci-fi/western/horror/fantasy epic.

The now-canceled "The Dark Tower" had seriously heavy hitters on its side. Javier Bardem (one Oscar, one SAG Award) was set to star. The project had been cooked up by screenwriter Akiva Goldman (one Oscar, one Golden Globe) and Ron Howard (two Oscars, two DGA Awards), who was slated to direct.

"We worked on it for a year before we even met with [Stephen King]," Howard told Hero Complex in December 2010. "It was all about putting something together that was good enough and getting such an understanding of the material that Stephen King would say, 'Yes, that's the way into this story."

For his part, King was enthusiastic. In a statement, he said, "I've been waiting for the right team to bring the characters and stories in these books to film and TV viewers around the world. Ron, Akiva, Brian [Grazer] along with Universal and NBC have a deep interest and passion for 'The Dark Tower' series and I know that will translate into an intriguing series of films and TV shows that respect the origins and the characters in 'The Dark Tower' that fans have come to love."

King's "The Dark Tower" series began in 1982 with "The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger" and includes six other novels, totaling 3,795 pages. In addition to the 30 million copies the books have sold, Marvel Comics has released a number of related graphic novels, and there is an online game and a published concordance about the Dark Tower world.

King has announced that the eighth book in the series, "The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole" is on its way. Will the cancellation of the screen adaptations of the series mean any changes in the planned 2012 publication date?

And is there really no one in Hollywood who can keep the screen version of "The Dark Tower" alive?

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Stephen King follows Stone, Delillo into JFK myth

At Hero Complex: Ron Howard and "The Dark Tower"

Is Stephen King standing up for print?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Stephen King in 2003. Credit: Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times

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Congressional Tweet-mageddon After Weiner Scandal

Were all the politicians in Congress taken up in some sort of rapture to a Twitter-free zone?

Nope, just the effect of the unfortunate nether-region photo tweet by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, which has apparently caused others on Capitol Hill to stop posting as much to the microblogging service.

We all know how much pols love to raid the social media space these days, to garner more attention and, presumably, votes.

But, according to stats compiled by tweetcongress.org in the lovely chart below, titled “The ‘Weinergate’ Effect on Congressional Tweet Frequency,” tweets are down 27 percent by Republicans and 29 percent by Democrats.

Enjoy the number-crunching (click on the image to make it even larger):

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It's a So-Lo-Mo World, After All

Let it be said: For a digital information junkie such as myself, traveling abroad without any cellular or consistent Internet connection on my spanking new white Apple iPhone is agonizing.

To explain: I switched from AT&T to Verizon recently, in order to actually be able to make voice calls with regularity in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, Verizon does not go international. And, although I am carrying another local feature phone for calls, I am without the rich multimedia mobile experience that I usually get day to day at home.

Worse still, an “unlocked” iPhone only went on sale in the U.S. — which would allow me to use a SIM card bought in Europe –Tuesday, after I left.

Poor little me, I suppose, and there is certainly no need to cry any big, fat digital tears on my behalf.

Still, without the constant certainty of a Wi-Fi connection as I move around, it’s disconcerting for someone whose life has been jacked into the matrix 24-7-365 for far too long to be without consistent digital interconnections.

More to the point — as I watch endless legions of Europeans, who seem even more entranced by and stranded on their individual smartphone islands than in the U.S., obsessively checking out their devices every second — the concept of being completely out of touch with the pulse of the world while in the world is an odd one.

Or, at least the Twitter-fied world, in which I get short bursts of all kinds of information all the time. It takes the lack to understand what it means to be always checking in.

This is a big dose of the obvious, of course, but it was brought home to me in a can’t-miss piece in The Daily, published yesterday by the iPad news service and available here.

Titled “Speed Journalism,” it’s a succinct but important discussion on the push and pull between the ephemera of information we are increasingly getting from real-time Internet sources such as Twitter and the need for longer and more reflective pieces.

Wrote Trevor Butterworth: “The question is whether technology is diminishing our appetite or capacity for this kind of storytelling.”

This is not a new revelation, of course, but it bears repeating and considering again and again as we increasingly use these myriad social-local-mobile — so-lo-mo — devices.

And, as this so-lo-mo way of the encountering the world grows, it creates deep expectations of ever more detailed and immediate information about the world around you that is mostly immediately consumable and highly useful.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, I cannot tell yet, except to say that the last time I was here in Copenhagen, I was just 18 years old and I mostly wandered around in circles with an outdated guide book and without a clue.

As it turns out, without my super-duper-smart mobile phone being super-duper smart, very little seems to have changed.

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