With regard to the cheerleaders saying there are no problems whatsoever with this feature:
1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
2. Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) place different priorities on security relative to other factors.
3. Many of the naysayers are raising issues that do not single out Android, however fair it may be to do so. There are some issues that remain the same beyond the specific platform. For example: this kind of app creates social pressure for people to be tracked by their family and show trust that they may not sincerely feel.
4. If you think they can "just" turn the feature off or "just" remove the trusted contacts when they feel uncomfortable, you are not thinking this through. These "trusted" contacts may be authority figures in the family and may be able to examine any settings done by the actual users.
5. If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information. Your kids do not deserve to be the targets of this kind of commercial activity. So even if you think the feature is good, it is tainted by the interests of the provider. But whether the feature is good or bad, Android is a bad way for children to get the feature.
> Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
Huh? Can you please, concretely, elaborate on how this app makes it easy for other "rogue apps" to access your personal data? Or how is this any significantly different from iCloud Find my Friends feature - especially since iCloud has very interesting exceptions for privacy data collection in EULA.
Or if I say it differently - if you actually read EULAs and what both companies collect, there is no privacy difference between Apple in Google when it comes to cloud services.
The raised concerns about tracking are VERY valid - but they are valid (as you said) for both platforms and calling iOS as "more secure" in this respect is extremely misleading and gives false sense of security. After all, iOS ships the feature BY DEFAULT, thus creating all the pressures you mentioned. Android doesn't.
>1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
An alternative take on this is that Google has more of a vested interest in securing what data they do collect and making sure it does not leak to any other party. They've generally been ahead of the curve in terms of privacy on the web, such as keeping rogue CA's in check (remember the CNNIC fiasco?), pushing for HTTPS everywhere, or making 2-factor authentication more usable.
Unless said rogue apps are written by Google, how do they help Google's business model?
> If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information.
Pest or cholera. At least it allows you to tinker with it, as opposed to iOS.
> With regard to the cheerleaders saying there are no problems whatsoever with this feature
I'm not criticizing your post, just noting that all of your points are about Location Services and not the Trusted Contacts App.
Trusted Contacts just hooks into Location Services to allow the user to explicitly share already captured information with 3rd parties.
Location Services is used by tons of other apps and if you dumb it down or turn it off those apps will stop working or beg you to turn on the most granular of it's settings.
Here are some of the ways that Location Services is used:
- Google Wallet will see you're at XYZ Retail store and pop up a notification with your rewards card barcode on it.
- Google Maps will see you're at the trendy new restaurant and ask you to snap a couple photos and review the place.
- Google Now or Maps (not entirely sure which) will tell you if your commute home is going to suck or not and alert you to accidents on the road ahead.
- Google Rewards will ask you randomly/creepily "have you been to ABC and if so when?" and give you a pittance for your data.
- If someone has access to your Google Account, they can easily activate the find my phone feature and see exactly where you are without your knowledge.
Regardless of whether or not you have any of these Apps installed, if Location Services is on then it is silently tracking your location. You can see everything it tracks on your timeline (https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)
3 & 4 seem significant, though perhaps an inevitable problem with any location/rescue tool that bundles into cell phones. After all, even without this a parent could easily call and say "take a picture of where you are and send it to me" or "go on Facebook and share your location". Information sharing almost always risks invasiveness if someone has the power to go "share now or face consequences".
That said, the last known location feature seems like a special concern. Right now "my phone is off" is a cure for location requests from an authority, even if it carries the possibility of later action. This change creates a system where last location is available regardless, and a clearly-intentional settings change is required to alter that.
I don't know how much of this to lay on Google, since "don't build tools authority figures can misuse" would have prevented fire. But I do think there's a common failure to consider use cases like minors with authoritative parents, when it's very possible to build tools that are at least less easily misused in that situation.
1. Yes people will always raise concerns but if this saves lives and makes people safer then we should embrace it and be happy about it.
2. Yes and Android is more open in general than Apple
3. If I Richart Ruddie am leaving Baltimore City to head back to Baltimore County/Owings Mills and I want my parents to know that I am safe then I would be glad to have a seamless feature like this no? Social pressure = safety?
4. There definitely needs to be a level of control to turn the features on and off.
5. Interesting thoughts on the monetization aspect but its more about safety here you would rather have your child monetized and save their life then to not monetize or at least I hope so.
> Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not
Apple 100% is profiting off you and your family members just not off of sharing data which has pluses and minuses. They have milked out that Apple Tax to build the world's richest company.
Money dictates these positions. Currently Apple has a market share of about 12% and has 103% of the profit share. This means every other phone companies combined loss money as a whole and Apple out performed them.
Apple's Achilles heel is with AI and has to do with their position with data. What a pain it was for my rebellious daughter (She buys Apple products and laughs in my face) to go from one phone to the next and it has to relearn her because things don't transfer. Apple Maps doesn't know where she use to go on her old phone etc..
Tim Cook and company will have to start collecting and sharing data between devices and spaces. This will be done to save SIRI and what I get with Google Now. You might think I am sipping the kool-aid but I believe that our data will serve us more tin the future and this present Apple stance will have to change.
I am guessing that the nay sayers to this app probably don't have young children. I have two sons (16 and 13) who are always out and about socialising with friends, or at sporting / musical activities. My older son gigs with his band late at nights, and let me tell you - as parents, my wife and I do not rest easy until we either pick him up or he gets dropped home.
Any app that lets us check on our kids' whereabouts quickly and effectively without taking them out of the zone (Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??) is a blessing IMO.
An app like this would be restricted just between my wife and I, and our two boys. No more than that. No more is needed. We are an 'absolute trust' group and quite frankly, the idea that any of us would want to hide our locations from each other is simply not even a thing.
Do your teens (you're hardly a 'young child' at 16) share your enthusiasm for sharing location at all time with their parents? I know I was not at that age. Learning to be autonomous is part of growing up. Setting up a one-click call for help with location is one thing, wanting to know the whereabouts of your 16 years old son at all times is something else entirely, that has little to do with his actual safety.
With regard to the naysayers, most of this functionality is built into iOS and has been for years. Few of the fears that people have expressed about Google Trusted Contacts have come true with the iOS incarnation of it. Depending on your situation, it can be a very useful feature - especially if you have kids.
I used to be a son out skateboarding with a parent subsidized cellphone that was, on many occations, not answered. I can now understand the worry I cause my parents 'you were gone for 12 hours skateboarding and didn't think to check yr phone once! You have a phone for one reason and that's so we can reach you.'
Parents will worry when they don't know where their kids are - and it's normal to worry. Despite (inspite?) of our paranoid tendencies, IMO parents have a right to know where their kids are.
> my wife and I do not rest easy until we either pick him up or he gets dropped home.
That fears are completely normal. Been able to track your kids not so much. Please, think twice before using a technology that you don't know which long term psychological effects can have on your children.
> Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??)
When I was a child I could lie to my parents on where I was. I didn't dit it, but I have a choice. That's part of growing up. You will steal away that responsibility from them. Maybe it is not a problem, but you don't know.
It is extremely tempting to use this technologies, maybe kids right activists should lobby for laws that forbid them.
I'm not surprised that such a feature is being bashed by HN. I love it, though.
I'm a little wary of Google implementing this feature, but alas, all i really care about is that my wife and i can see each other. Especially since she takes the bus quite frequently. Likewise she often has no idea where i am in my commute, and i don't like to text her while driving.
I understand peoples concerns, but i think they need to take a step back for a second and look at the UX. The UX/Value prop is clearly there - some of us want to see where others are (assuming it's consensual of course), and that is a very valuable feature. So with that said, what needs to be done to settle the HN concerns i wonder?
The feature is useful, and highly desired for some of us. I'd love for my wife to be able to find me 24/7. Beyond that, i have no qualms about what needs to be done to quell HN concerns - just find a way to get me my feature.
Used as intended this sounds like a great idea. However used by an abusive significant other or parent (even just an overbearing parent) it seems pretty scary. To mitigate the potential harm I would hope for two things
1. Make it hard/impossible to be forever telling your location to someone (it's unclear if that's what the feel unsafe mode does in the first place, or if it just broadcasts it once)
2. Make it easy to 'enter an alternate location' to tell the inquirer
I can't believe the amount of effort invested in this more cumbersome, much more specific use case solution rather than just bringing back Latitude -- a fully functional product (and exactly the same under the hood) that existed 6 years ago.
I trust my trusted contacts -- let me share my location all the time. (No, some backwater tab in the G+ app does not count.)
I use the G+ version. Its useful for my partner or I to check each others location e.g. your cooking dinner and want to decide to wait or eat. You quickly check the app and you can see if they are at the office etc.
When I've discussed, generally people steer towards the creepy side of being tracked and dont like it. Maybe this version finds a middle ground as it's selling it as 'keeping you safe' while giving Google the right to track your location to sell better targeted ads. Really, the latter is what this is all about.
Coincidentally (or not), Facebook presented this as an upcoming Messenger feature today [1]
> If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to you automatically.
I am afraid most people are missing the target audience of this feature.
This is for people who live in unsafe areas and have trusted family member than they do want to watch over.
This is an app that should have been released in India immediately after Nirbhaya incident. For a Company thats supposed to move fast, Google definitely blew timing of launching such a feature.
> Invite a trusted friend to virtually walk you home if you feel unsafe
As a parent, I find this tremendously useful. This is specially important for people in certain countries where walking/driving home at night is realistically dangerous.
> I'm seeing in the comments that the level of trust in companies is higher than the trust in your government.
Maybe that's occasionally deserved.
I'm probably more paranoid about surveillance than you are. I wrote positively about this app anyway.
The average commenter here is, more than likely, like me, not really in the target demographic for this app. I'm male, reasonably strong, and capable of defending myself. I don't worry when I leave the house.
Sometimes my female friend, who is passionate about bicycling, tells me about her experiences on the nearby bike trail. Where, every day, she passes by dozens of loitering homeless individuals. Where, some time ago, a woman was dragged off her bike and had her face shattered. Where multiple women have been kidnapped. She expresses fear, but loves her sport enough to overcome it.
She rides on a multi-thousand dollar custom-made road bike that's surely appealing for someone desperate enough.
Who am I to tell her that her fears are overwrought? My physical safety isn't at stake.
For people like her, I think this app is worth consideration. For people like me, I never wanted it.
On your second point, this is a very interesting distinction between American and European views of privacy that I've noticed a lot here on HN. I'm curious about the source of European skepticism, but from my own perspective, America has always had a skepticism of government powerfully built into our Constitution, and you can freely choose to associate or disassociate with a business at your leisure; not so with a government. I would really enjoy hearing the other perspective.
Companies are more directly accountable through $$$. Government is only accountable indirectly through elections; and you can win those with 51% of the vote [0]; the other 49% could completely disagree.
[0] With the Electoral College, you don't even need a majority of the popular vote.
I tend to feel that this is more for parents who don't trust their kids, rather than those who do. Many parents will say, "My kids won't have a problem with this because we have trust in our family."
The truth is, if you trusted your kids, you wouldn't need the ability to obtain their exact location without having to ask for it. Parents who trust their kids will already know where their kids are supposed to be, or will just ask them.
On the other hand, I see no problem with the feature that allows you to request location and will automatically send location after a long non-response.
Of course, most kids (beyond a certain age) are going to occasionally go places their parents aren't comfortable with. This is a normal part of growing up and it shouldn't be impossible IMO. Even in particularly bad or dangerous cases, I would feel this calls for a normal punishment (maybe?). No TV, chores, etc. Not constant location tracking.
It's always amazing to me how often Google takes something they... already had... renames it, and then announces it as a brand new thing. I used to use this six years ago, it was called Google Latitude.
User experience matters, and this works very differently from how Google Latitude worked. Digital products are not about revealing the truth stored in database records. They're elaborate fictions we tell each other about meaningless database records.
And now, Google injects itself directly within and throughout the level of trust some people only place in their parents or spouses.
It used to be that certain truths were only know between two people, but now for many, it will be those two people, and Google.
Even if it were any other company, the totality of awareness a single organization has, from childhood on up should give us some pause.
Microphones, accelerometers, cameras, GPS, and now annotated depth of relationship, instead of presumed depth inferred from ancillary metrics.
At this point it's getting a little strange.
With software and services these days, there's almost nothing people won't consume. It's as if people will eat everything in a package labeled as food, even if most of the contents are inedible.
More and more, it feels like people know they're eating fish hooks, but maybe they'll pass the foreign objects they've swallowed, before any fisherman tries to tug the line and set the hook.
But even if you or I don't buy in, when everybody else does, the outliers still get hooked and still lands in the boat, just by implicit association and proximity.
The stakes are raised ever higher with each beat of this game. It's like the quote from Apocalypse Now:
Ah, man... The bullshit piled up so
fast in Viet Nam, you needed wings
to stay above it.
I very often wish for something similar, for instance when my mother is running a bit late in a park. I don't want to mess with her jogging or walk. But I'd like to be sure she's still fine.
Thing is, except for the current generation, smartphones are often silenced and forgotten in some pocket. So unless it's an invasive constant-on tracker .. it wouldn't work in my case.
Should I think that it is coincidence that Uber wants 24/7 location data, FB wants it, and Now Google officially wants it..
Now, people like me who prefer to 'own' their digital lives, and not become part of this surveilled garden would be labeled as 'tinhat'.
[+] [-] natch|9 years ago|reply
1. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.
2. Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) place different priorities on security relative to other factors.
3. Many of the naysayers are raising issues that do not single out Android, however fair it may be to do so. There are some issues that remain the same beyond the specific platform. For example: this kind of app creates social pressure for people to be tracked by their family and show trust that they may not sincerely feel.
4. If you think they can "just" turn the feature off or "just" remove the trusted contacts when they feel uncomfortable, you are not thinking this through. These "trusted" contacts may be authority figures in the family and may be able to examine any settings done by the actual users.
5. If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information. Your kids do not deserve to be the targets of this kind of commercial activity. So even if you think the feature is good, it is tainted by the interests of the provider. But whether the feature is good or bad, Android is a bad way for children to get the feature.
[+] [-] izacus|9 years ago|reply
Huh? Can you please, concretely, elaborate on how this app makes it easy for other "rogue apps" to access your personal data? Or how is this any significantly different from iCloud Find my Friends feature - especially since iCloud has very interesting exceptions for privacy data collection in EULA.
Or if I say it differently - if you actually read EULAs and what both companies collect, there is no privacy difference between Apple in Google when it comes to cloud services.
The raised concerns about tracking are VERY valid - but they are valid (as you said) for both platforms and calling iOS as "more secure" in this respect is extremely misleading and gives false sense of security. After all, iOS ships the feature BY DEFAULT, thus creating all the pressures you mentioned. Android doesn't.
[+] [-] curt15|9 years ago|reply
An alternative take on this is that Google has more of a vested interest in securing what data they do collect and making sure it does not leak to any other party. They've generally been ahead of the curve in terms of privacy on the web, such as keeping rogue CA's in check (remember the CNNIC fiasco?), pushing for HTTPS everywhere, or making 2-factor authentication more usable.
Unless said rogue apps are written by Google, how do they help Google's business model?
[+] [-] Nullabillity|9 years ago|reply
Pest or cholera. At least it allows you to tinker with it, as opposed to iOS.
[+] [-] cptskippy|9 years ago|reply
I'm not criticizing your post, just noting that all of your points are about Location Services and not the Trusted Contacts App.
Trusted Contacts just hooks into Location Services to allow the user to explicitly share already captured information with 3rd parties.
Location Services is used by tons of other apps and if you dumb it down or turn it off those apps will stop working or beg you to turn on the most granular of it's settings.
Here are some of the ways that Location Services is used:
- Google Wallet will see you're at XYZ Retail store and pop up a notification with your rewards card barcode on it.
- Google Maps will see you're at the trendy new restaurant and ask you to snap a couple photos and review the place.
- Google Now or Maps (not entirely sure which) will tell you if your commute home is going to suck or not and alert you to accidents on the road ahead.
- Google Rewards will ask you randomly/creepily "have you been to ABC and if so when?" and give you a pittance for your data.
- If someone has access to your Google Account, they can easily activate the find my phone feature and see exactly where you are without your knowledge.
Regardless of whether or not you have any of these Apps installed, if Location Services is on then it is silently tracking your location. You can see everything it tracks on your timeline (https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)
[+] [-] Bartweiss|9 years ago|reply
That said, the last known location feature seems like a special concern. Right now "my phone is off" is a cure for location requests from an authority, even if it carries the possibility of later action. This change creates a system where last location is available regardless, and a clearly-intentional settings change is required to alter that.
I don't know how much of this to lay on Google, since "don't build tools authority figures can misuse" would have prevented fire. But I do think there's a common failure to consider use cases like minors with authoritative parents, when it's very possible to build tools that are at least less easily misused in that situation.
[+] [-] richartruddie|9 years ago|reply
1. Yes people will always raise concerns but if this saves lives and makes people safer then we should embrace it and be happy about it. 2. Yes and Android is more open in general than Apple 3. If I Richart Ruddie am leaving Baltimore City to head back to Baltimore County/Owings Mills and I want my parents to know that I am safe then I would be glad to have a seamless feature like this no? Social pressure = safety? 4. There definitely needs to be a level of control to turn the features on and off. 5. Interesting thoughts on the monetization aspect but its more about safety here you would rather have your child monetized and save their life then to not monetize or at least I hope so.
[+] [-] baldfat|9 years ago|reply
Apple 100% is profiting off you and your family members just not off of sharing data which has pluses and minuses. They have milked out that Apple Tax to build the world's richest company.
Money dictates these positions. Currently Apple has a market share of about 12% and has 103% of the profit share. This means every other phone companies combined loss money as a whole and Apple out performed them.
http://bgr.com/2016/11/04/iphone-profits-apple-samsung-share...
Apple's Achilles heel is with AI and has to do with their position with data. What a pain it was for my rebellious daughter (She buys Apple products and laughs in my face) to go from one phone to the next and it has to relearn her because things don't transfer. Apple Maps doesn't know where she use to go on her old phone etc..
Tim Cook and company will have to start collecting and sharing data between devices and spaces. This will be done to save SIRI and what I get with Google Now. You might think I am sipping the kool-aid but I believe that our data will serve us more tin the future and this present Apple stance will have to change.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3131586/apple-ios/apple...
[+] [-] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
Any app that lets us check on our kids' whereabouts quickly and effectively without taking them out of the zone (Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??) is a blessing IMO.
An app like this would be restricted just between my wife and I, and our two boys. No more than that. No more is needed. We are an 'absolute trust' group and quite frankly, the idea that any of us would want to hide our locations from each other is simply not even a thing.
[+] [-] erispoe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeowMeng|9 years ago|reply
Parents will worry when they don't know where their kids are - and it's normal to worry. Despite (inspite?) of our paranoid tendencies, IMO parents have a right to know where their kids are.
[+] [-] rmc|9 years ago|reply
There are plenty of gay kids who need to hide their location from their homophobic parents.
Some parents are intensely homo/transphobic, and do not have their children's best interests at heart. It's not always about "trust".
[+] [-] kartan|9 years ago|reply
That fears are completely normal. Been able to track your kids not so much. Please, think twice before using a technology that you don't know which long term psychological effects can have on your children.
> Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??)
When I was a child I could lie to my parents on where I was. I didn't dit it, but I have a choice. That's part of growing up. You will steal away that responsibility from them. Maybe it is not a problem, but you don't know.
It is extremely tempting to use this technologies, maybe kids right activists should lobby for laws that forbid them.
[+] [-] tdkl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notheguyouthink|9 years ago|reply
I'm a little wary of Google implementing this feature, but alas, all i really care about is that my wife and i can see each other. Especially since she takes the bus quite frequently. Likewise she often has no idea where i am in my commute, and i don't like to text her while driving.
I understand peoples concerns, but i think they need to take a step back for a second and look at the UX. The UX/Value prop is clearly there - some of us want to see where others are (assuming it's consensual of course), and that is a very valuable feature. So with that said, what needs to be done to settle the HN concerns i wonder?
The feature is useful, and highly desired for some of us. I'd love for my wife to be able to find me 24/7. Beyond that, i have no qualms about what needs to be done to quell HN concerns - just find a way to get me my feature.
[+] [-] conradfr|9 years ago|reply
Of course you worry, you're a parent. But is it your kids' burden so they have to be tracked 24/7?
[+] [-] natch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gpm|9 years ago|reply
1. Make it hard/impossible to be forever telling your location to someone (it's unclear if that's what the feel unsafe mode does in the first place, or if it just broadcasts it once)
2. Make it easy to 'enter an alternate location' to tell the inquirer
[+] [-] tempestn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarmig|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pilsetnieks|9 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/12/goog...
[+] [-] mrgriscom|9 years ago|reply
I trust my trusted contacts -- let me share my location all the time. (No, some backwater tab in the G+ app does not count.)
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|9 years ago|reply
When I've discussed, generally people steer towards the creepy side of being tracked and dont like it. Maybe this version finds a middle ground as it's selling it as 'keeping you safe' while giving Google the right to track your location to sell better targeted ads. Really, the latter is what this is all about.
[+] [-] jaimex2|9 years ago|reply
Least the G+ feature can be set as a widget.
[+] [-] hakanito|9 years ago|reply
> If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to you automatically.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-reviewed-cool...
[+] [-] kumarm|9 years ago|reply
This is for people who live in unsafe areas and have trusted family member than they do want to watch over.
This is an app that should have been released in India immediately after Nirbhaya incident. For a Company thats supposed to move fast, Google definitely blew timing of launching such a feature.
[+] [-] robteix|9 years ago|reply
As a parent, I find this tremendously useful. This is specially important for people in certain countries where walking/driving home at night is realistically dangerous.
[+] [-] tatotato|9 years ago|reply
I'm seeing in the comments that the level of trust in companies is higher than the trust in your government.
Both very sad things.
[+] [-] twr|9 years ago|reply
Maybe that's occasionally deserved.
I'm probably more paranoid about surveillance than you are. I wrote positively about this app anyway.
The average commenter here is, more than likely, like me, not really in the target demographic for this app. I'm male, reasonably strong, and capable of defending myself. I don't worry when I leave the house.
Sometimes my female friend, who is passionate about bicycling, tells me about her experiences on the nearby bike trail. Where, every day, she passes by dozens of loitering homeless individuals. Where, some time ago, a woman was dragged off her bike and had her face shattered. Where multiple women have been kidnapped. She expresses fear, but loves her sport enough to overcome it.
She rides on a multi-thousand dollar custom-made road bike that's surely appealing for someone desperate enough.
Who am I to tell her that her fears are overwrought? My physical safety isn't at stake.
For people like her, I think this app is worth consideration. For people like me, I never wanted it.
[+] [-] mikecb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] witty_username|9 years ago|reply
[0] With the Electoral College, you don't even need a majority of the popular vote.
[+] [-] potatosoup|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keypress|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickben|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krick|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emilburzo|9 years ago|reply
Install the app, start beacon, send anonymous and platform independent link, done.
Optionally customize location technology (gps/network/passive) and beacon interval (from the default GPS/1 second).
No registration, no contacts, nothing else.
You choose when you're sharing your location and with whom.
Partially inspired by the old Google Latitude.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....
[+] [-] whyagaindavid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComodoHacker|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CoryG89|9 years ago|reply
The truth is, if you trusted your kids, you wouldn't need the ability to obtain their exact location without having to ask for it. Parents who trust their kids will already know where their kids are supposed to be, or will just ask them.
On the other hand, I see no problem with the feature that allows you to request location and will automatically send location after a long non-response.
Of course, most kids (beyond a certain age) are going to occasionally go places their parents aren't comfortable with. This is a normal part of growing up and it shouldn't be impossible IMO. Even in particularly bad or dangerous cases, I would feel this calls for a normal punishment (maybe?). No TV, chores, etc. Not constant location tracking.
[+] [-] nexxer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] natrius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waltkurtz|9 years ago|reply
It used to be that certain truths were only know between two people, but now for many, it will be those two people, and Google.
Even if it were any other company, the totality of awareness a single organization has, from childhood on up should give us some pause.
Microphones, accelerometers, cameras, GPS, and now annotated depth of relationship, instead of presumed depth inferred from ancillary metrics.
At this point it's getting a little strange.
With software and services these days, there's almost nothing people won't consume. It's as if people will eat everything in a package labeled as food, even if most of the contents are inedible.
More and more, it feels like people know they're eating fish hooks, but maybe they'll pass the foreign objects they've swallowed, before any fisherman tries to tug the line and set the hook.
But even if you or I don't buy in, when everybody else does, the outliers still get hooked and still lands in the boat, just by implicit association and proximity.
The stakes are raised ever higher with each beat of this game. It's like the quote from Apocalypse Now:
[+] [-] achikin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|9 years ago|reply
I very often wish for something similar, for instance when my mother is running a bit late in a park. I don't want to mess with her jogging or walk. But I'd like to be sure she's still fine.
Thing is, except for the current generation, smartphones are often silenced and forgotten in some pocket. So unless it's an invasive constant-on tracker .. it wouldn't work in my case.
[+] [-] exhilaration|9 years ago|reply
I've got an android phone but my wife has an iPhone, does that mean this is useless for us?
Edit, it's in the works:
If you're an iOS user, click here to get notified when the iOS app is available
[+] [-] aiiane|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reacharavindh|9 years ago|reply
Thanks but no thanks.