Family Tech Blog

Tag: ios

  • Soon, All Tech Will Know Your Face…Get Used to It!

    Soon, All Tech Will Know Your Face…Get Used to It!

    Facial recognition is one of the hot-button topics of 2017. iPhone is featuring it now, several social media platforms have been using it for a while to help you tag your friends in photos. In fact, Facebook has just announced how they’re using facial recognition to help the blind learn more about photos on their timeline. Artificial intelligence in our social media timeline tells us what images and posts we want to see first, it identifies who is in our photos, it even decides what ads we will be most likely to click on. Social media isn’t the end of facial recognition AI, though. As I prepare to head to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (thank you, by the way, your readership of this blog made that possible) I see more and more smart-home and gaming tech using facial recognition for their main functionality.

    Security

    The application of facial recognition in security tech should be pretty obvious. Amazon has a camera that you mount outside your door that will only allow approved delivery people into your home to drop off your packages. Smart security tech will use motion sensors and facial recognition to identify who enters a room and determine if they belong or not. If you aren’t approved, an alert goes to the homeowner and they can decide to alert the authorities or not based on seeing the picture that the security device took of you.

    Smart Home Tech

    Smart home technology isn’t early market anymore, it’s actually becoming more of a mainstay in the American household. People are calling out to Alexa, Google, and even Cortana more an more every day. The latest technology will be featuring the ability to recognize you and adjust the “settings” of your home accordingly. Think lights dimmed, music on to your playlists, coffee part started, and your tv turned on to your favorite channel. Most of the latest smart home tools are putting cameras on their devices and making facial recognition standard in their algorithms. That means that more and more “affordable” or “budget” devices will be scanning your face. When you pay less for similar tech, what you usually save money on is the privacy and security side of things. You have to be careful to understand the security settings and privacy policies of any “smart” device you purchase.

    What Parents Should Know

    Every single new tech development has the challenge of balancing convenience and progressiveness with security and privacy. Having your lights come on because a device saw your face walk into a room sounds like a really convenient thing. Being alerted by Facebook when someone uploads a picture of you is a great idea. It can help you keep photos you don’t like of yourself off of the internet or just help you make sure you are tagged in the photo you’re in. If all of these new technologies can ensure that your identity is secure then it’s a great way to use the latest developments to add convenience to your life. 

    My advice with the newest releases is always to wait a while. Let the lawsuits and hackers do what they will before you own one of the devices and your personal data is in jeopardy. Once it’s been out for a while then maybe integrate it into your life, but only if you know how to set it up and secure it properly.

  • This Week So Far: Social Media News

    This Week So Far: Social Media News

    Youtube want’s 10,000 people making sure their videos are safe.

    YouTube has been blasted recently for allowing inappropriate videos onto their kids app and allowing abusive comments on videos featuring children. They responded by shutting down some abusive channels and working harder to fix their algorithms that identify videos as safe for kids. Their latest change is going to increase the manpower involved in curating kid-safe content.

    YouTube claims that they are aiming at 10,000 new employees whose job it will be to strengthen their algorithms, enforce reviewing policies, watch and remove flagged videos, and respond to concerned users about content. This increase in manpower should be a step towards a safer YouTube but is it too late?

    Several companies have already pulled their advertising from YouTube stating that the platform needs to fix their content policies. YouTube responded fast once their bottom line was affected. This is good for parents since more people responding to problems should keep some of the worst video content off of YouTube.

    You can save your Instagram Stories posts.

    Instagram Stories is in the news again and this time they’re making it permanent. Until now your Story videos and photos lasted 24 hours and then disappeared. Instagram’s latest update now gives you the option to turn on archiving for Stories. Once turned on the archiving feature will save your Story videos and photos alongside the ones you’ve archived from your main Instagram posts.

    Archiving Stories can be a good tool for parents to use to keep their eyes on what their kids have been uploading to Instagram. Have your kid turn on this feature. If you are logged into their account on your phone you can turn the feature on yourself and see what they have shared even if you don’t check every day.

    What Parents Should Know

    With the release of the Facebook Messenger Kids app, YouTube trying to make videos safer, and Instagram making videos and photos more permanent, we are seeing some movement towards a safer social media experience. Still, the dangers exist and we have to be vigilant as parents to know was happening and what our kids are doing on social media. Hopefully, these updates keep you in the loop and help you make quality decisions for your family.

  • Families Receive Threatening Messages after Iowa School Network Hacked

    Families Receive Threatening Messages after Iowa School Network Hacked

    A school district in Iowa canceled a day of classes after a network breach allowed hackers to send hateful messages to families from the public school. The messages contained personal details about students and threatened to do harm to them and their families. Apparently, the threats weren’t credible except to stir up fear and make a show of their ability to access the information. There is a theory that this could be an attempt to threaten people as to warn the FBI to stop investigating them.

    The group is called “thedarkoverlord” and they’ve been responsible for recent info leaks and hacks of organizations like Netflix and Larson Studios. They have been under investigation for these hacks and could have performed this recent “attack” as a warning. They even tweeted out links to the contact information of the students from the school district, stating that predators can now use that information to plan their targets.

    With the student directory from JCSD we released, any child predator can now easily acquire new targets and even plan based on grade level.

    — thedarkoverlord (@tdo_hackers) October 5, 2017

    What Parents Should Know

    Network security is becoming a more and more serious issue. We live in a world where all of your personal information is available in multiple locations online. If you, as a digital citizen, aren’t thinking about important tools like passwords and usernames your information can end up in dangerous hands. The best advice I can give you is to ask your school district if they have someone responsible for the security of their network and if so if they can keep something like what happened in Iowa from happening at your school. Then make sure you follow some simple network security rules yourself. Use different passwords for different sites. Use passwords or passphrases that, while easy for you to remember, aren’t easy to guess, and don’t ever use default passwords on websites, routers, modems, or computers. 

  • You Should Ditch Your Windows Phone, Microsoft Is!

    You Should Ditch Your Windows Phone, Microsoft Is!

    Yesterday marks Window’s Phone’s “end of support” classification with Microsoft which means they will not be updating the phones anymore, not even for security.  While Windows 10 Mobile is still available there aren’t many phones that are compatible with this OS. What does this mean? It means that if you have a Windows phone, it’s time to switch to Android or iPhone. Security is one of the most important reasons to allow your operating system to update, if those updates aren’t available then all of the personal data you put on your phone is at risk. This is a real problem and not only for Windows phone users.

    There is a new operating system coming for Apple and Android towards the end of the year and you shouldn’t use a phone that will not be included in these major updates. Yes, the new features and designs of these operating systems are cool but they aren’t the only reasons you should tap ok when the update notification pops up. These updates protect your personal data from theft, hacking, phishing, and spamming. Updates to your OS are often responses to new security threats that developers have become aware of so while the notification every few months to instal version 1.2.4.3.2 can be obnoxious it’s too important to ignore.

    Here’s a list of some of the devices that WILL BE recieving the new Android OS called Android O:

    • Pixel
    • Pixel XL
    • Nexus 5X
    • Nexus 6P
    • Pixel C
    • Nexus Player
    • Galaxy S8 and S8+
    • HTC U11 (Maybe older devices but it’s still unclear.)
    • Z-Droid
    • Z Play
    • Moto Z
    • Z Play Droid
    • Z Force Droid ( Verizon exclusive in the USA)
    • Z2 (2017)
    • G4
    • G5 Plus
    • Moto G5
    • G4 Plus
    • G4 Play (Not Confirmed)
    • OnePlus3
    • OnePlus3T
    • OnePlus5 (Rumored)

    Rollout dates for Android O differ for every device and there are some devices who’s companies have yet to confirm an Android O rollout at all.

    As for your Apple Device, here’s the list of the phones and tablets that will receive the new iOS 11 update when it’s fully available:

    iPhone

    • iPhone 5s
    • iPhone SE
    • iPhone 6
    • iPhone 6 Plus
    • iPhone 6s
    • iPhone 6s Plus
    • iPhone 7
    • iPhone 7 Plus

    iPad

    • iPad mini 2
    • iPad mini 3
    • iPad mini 4
    • iPad (5th generation)
    • iPad Air
    • iPad Air 2
    • 9.7-inch iPad Pro
    • 12.5-inch iPad Pro
    • 12.9-inch iPad Pro (1st generation)
    • 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2nd generation)

    iPod touch

    • iPod touch (6th generation)

    If your device isn’t going to be updated this fall or early next year it may be time to consider upgrading. While some of the older phones will still get OS updates from time to time it won’t be long before they go the way os Windows Mobile and become more of a risk to use. Yes, I know it can be annoying to get used to a new phone and a new user interface and system but the safety and security is too important to ignore. Just take the leap or, if all else fails, faxing can be a pretty safe way to communicate. I kid because I care.

  • Can Your Kids Now Hide Photos from You Right in Instagram?

    Can Your Kids Now Hide Photos from You Right in Instagram?

    Kids hide images on their phones in several ways and for many reasons. Some just don’t want all of their embarrassing goofy pictures with their friends to be shared. Sometimes there’s a more sinister reason. Something involving sexting or cyberbullying. Kids can use different kinds of apps to lock away photos. There are some that look like calculators or phone utilities apps and still some that don’t hide what they do. Now, Instagram is allowing posts to be saved within the app without being made public. It’s called Archive.

    Instagram’s new archive feature allows users to remove posts from their feed without deleting them. It allows you to put the photos in an archive to be looked at in the future and even reposted. If you do repost it falls back in its original chronological order so it kind of just magically reappears where it was originally. A little arrow clock icon in the upper right corner of your profile page in the Instagram app will give you access to your archived posts. You can fill the archives by tapping on the “…” in the upper right of a post. Then just tap “Archive.”

    Why would you want to archive photos? Well, some may decide later that their post wasn’t something they’d want everyone to see. Maybe the pictures from the party you attended last month wouldn’t look good to that employer you just applied for a job with. No problem, just archive those things and you can still see them without them being public. Maybe you broke up with that guy or girl and don’t want everyone to see you together all over your Instagram page. Well, just archive them and they become a private photo stash for you to weep over on your own. Your kids will even use the feature to hide posts that didn’t get as many likes as they want.

    What Parents Should Know

    I recommend you understand the Archive feature on Instagram and learn how to find it on your kids’ profile. If you often take your kids’ phone and look at their social media behavior this is a way for them to share a photo for a brief time and then save it to an archive, knowing you’ll be looking at their feed later. If you don’t know how to access the Archived photos it’s possible you can miss some of what they’ve been posting. “Finstagram” or Spam accounts are popular with teens because it’s a way to have a more private collection of photos that they don’t share with many people. I recommend you find out if your kid has a spam account and follow it. I now, recommend you check to see what photos they’ve archived as well.

  • PODCAST: What’s the Deal With Let’s Play Videos?

    PODCAST: What’s the Deal With Let’s Play Videos?

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    Apple and Android are each getting a new OS, teaching healthy tech habits, and the eSports debate.

    FAMILY TECH WEEKLY EPISODE 8

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  • Tumblr App Installs “Adult Content On Switch”

    Tumblr App Installs “Adult Content On Switch”

    Tumblr has lost some traction over recent years. It’s not so much a social media platform as a blog host and not really even that. It’s more used for GIF (animated images) posting than anything nowadays. Apple has always had a pretty strict standard on adult content in the apps in their app store. They require developers to have adult content disabled by default. This usually means that image searches on your browser should be without any blatant pornography unless your search is specifically for that. Tumblr has updated their iOS app with a workaround for this rule. There is now a switch that will allow users to turn adult content back on in Tumblr. It’s actually a “safesearch switch” and it’s set to on by default, thus following the rules set up by Apple. All it takes, however, is for someone to go to the settings page of the app and turn the safesearch option off. This will unleash the cacophony of adult content that is available on Tumblr (many say that pornographic images and gifs have become it’s main purpose) on the user.

    What Parents Should Know

    The Tumblr app is basically a browser in which anyone with an account can see any of the user generated blog content posted on the site. As mentioned above, the app has become inundated with adult content and is not safe for anyone you’d like to keep from those sort of images or videos. The safe search switch isn’t located in the restrictions settings on your iPhone. It is just in the settings for the app. This means safesearch changes can be made without a password. This app is an easy way for your child who has been looking at inappropriate images or videos to access more of that. Now that the safesearch can be turned off, you’ll want to add this app to the uninstall list.

    Our children can be greatly harmed by pornography. Studies are showing it’s addictive nature and the ability it has to alter a person’s sexuality and preferences, creating what they call an “arousal template.” This causes kids to be attracted only what they’ve seen online and can create serious problems for them in the future. They also say that kids who view pornography are six times more likely to force others into sexual behavior. Many in our culture view online adult content as only entertainment but it’s being proven that it’s detrimental to the mental health of our kids. If there is anything you can do to protect your children from adult online content, you must take steps to do so. Uninstalling Tumblr just became one of those steps.

  • The Hooked App is as Addictive as it Sounds

    The Hooked App is as Addictive as it Sounds

    We all want our kids to read more so an app that claims to have had users reading for over 500,000 hours sounds like a godsend. It is, in fact, a great idea and a pretty original way to get it’s users to read. The Hooked app isn’t new, having launched in 2014, but it’s rating number 6 in the iOS app store today. It’s popularity is growing fast.

    Hooked is an app that tells stories in the form of text messaging conversations. The story topics include comedy, horror, fantasy, and sci fi. Each story has a title page photo, many of which feature a pretty girl or couple in a romantic or suggestive pose. When you’ve made your choice the story unfolds one text message at a time, usually in the form of a conversation between a couple of people. You can tap the screen to reveal the next message and you may find yourself in a tapping frenzy to reach the next plot twist. Then, however, you’ll suddenly be halted by the Hooked Owl asking you to pay for more “Hoots.” A “Hoot” is a click/tap and you only have a certain amount of them every hour. Once you’ve used them up you’ll be prompted to buy more or sign up for a weekly or monthly subscription to get unlimited “Hoots.” If you’re like me and not ready to invest fiscally in finding out the next line of the story you can just wait until the next hour begins.

    The Hooked app cashes in on the obvious popularity of texting by using it as a storytelling venue. This makes it very appealing to the younger aged adults and teenagers. The target audience for the Hooked app is ages 13-24 but I wouldn’t just look over the app if I saw it on my teen’s phone.

    What Parents Should Know

    The Hooked app consists of some very mature themed stories but is targeting younger teens.  The stories are delivered in a way that your teens and tweens will definitely find appealing. I found myself anxious to find read the next message as the story progressed. Obviously the story really started to climax right before I ran out of “Hoots” so I would have to wait a while to continue reading. While this did get me to close the app for a while, the $7.99 per month for unlimited “Hoots” is a low price tag for being able to sit all day long and click through these stories.

    My issue isn’t really with the way the stories are delivered, it’s actually a creative way to tell these tales. The “one post at a time” method lends itself to a lot of suspense and a pretty entertaining read. The problem I have is the addictive nature of this app, if you can tap an unlimited number of times and go from story to story you’d very easily find yourself reading through a hundred of these stories in just a few days. Also, these stories can be pretty mature, dramatic, and suspenseful. The categories feature love and thriller options and the stories get quite intense at times. The texting storytelling method also makes them a bit more eerie. Users can also write stories which makes for a completely new potential problem there. Any time you’re dealing with User Generated Content it’s hard to be sure what your kids may read.

    My advice is to know your child and their maturity level well before you let them use Hooked. I wouldn’t go by the 9+ rating it has in the app store, I would assume your child should be a bit older. Keep in mind that many of these stories are written by users of the app. Since the content can’t be guaranteed to be safe for any age group, you should help your teen or tween by involving yourself in their decision to use Hooked. If they do read on the app, I recommend asking them what the stories are about and what they like about them. Keep yourself in the loop and informed as much as possible.

  • PODCAST: Date Night Monkey Business

    PODCAST: Date Night Monkey Business

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    Amazon is changing the parental controls game, Instagram has 200 mil users, and MONKEY is a hotbed for predators.

    FAMILY TECH WEEKLY EPISODE 3

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    Music by incompetech.com

  • PODCAST: Why is the Instagram Search Bar Recommending Porn

    PODCAST: Why is the Instagram Search Bar Recommending Porn

    The Wishbone App could be an bad idea for your tween daughter. Apple is making some changes in the app store. Amazon Prime Video now has parental controls. What can you learn from search bar auto-fill terms?

     

    Podcast: Play in new window

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    Video Version

    – Social Media Links

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    – Newsletter Signup

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    Music by Kevin MacLeod at http://Incompetech.com