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First, I want to note if you are only interested in news, skip this submission. This one is supposed to spawn a discussion about smartphones, some aspects of their dreaded ecosystems, and impact on society. Maybe the discussion could lead to some more specific submissions and discussions.
From a hardware perspective, modern smartphones are fully fledged computers, plus something. Only, this "plus something" (ability to send premium SMS/call premium numbers, often being always online) and the typical use as a personal assistant with GPS makes it makes it a valuable target and a bigger threat financially-wise and to privacy. Simultaneously, since it derived from simple mobile phones, average users perceive it more as a toy than a viable security threat.
Consequences are that either people accept being locked into a golden cage (e.g. iPhone, Google Play, Windows Phone) or take the risk of being victimized by malware (unlocked apps from dubious sources), or to have a very limited selection of applications (SailfishOS, MeeGo, ...).
Software wise, Cyanogenmod with Privacy Guard might be a step in the right direction, while hardware wise the Fairphone or Jolla might be good candidates (although they both lack e.g. dual SIM support, they both are fully accessible; no locked boot manager etc.)
So, what needs to change? Is there a chance to get a community governed app-store for smartphones, like we have for most Linux distributions? Would a simple plug-and-play home-cloud device help privacy significantly, or do we have to assume any data on a smartphone is already compromised? Would a platform-independent notification service be helpful (to make it easier for e.g. TextSecure to support multiple different platforms), and how could it be established and financed? How could producers be convinced to offer free (as in freedom) and up-to-date hardware for reasonable prices? How could we improve customers' risk awareness?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 27 2014, @09:32PM
Excellent post. Seems at least one person here can pull his or her ass off the blinken-lighty bullshit and make it out into the real world. What's most notable is your mention of people being so trapped in their own little bubble that they are dangerously oblivious to the dangers around them as well as the danger they pose to others.
And -- Grrr... -- those fucking assholes who play music on their phones, out loud, in public. They should be dragged into the town square at high-noon and savagely buggered up every orifice by well-hung African men.
Anyway, what you brought up raises a question -- Ignoring the case of needing a smartphone for work purposes, is it even healthy for people to use phones as personal computers, (meaning to browse the net, check Facebook etc.) given that most people likely already spend too much time on a desktop or laptop?
Finally, if you have an account, you should be posting things like that under your username. A post like that isn't something to be ashamed of.
Disclaimer: I recently got a contract-subsidized smartphone, and now I'm wondering why the hell I even got it, and would downgrade if backing out of phone contracts wasn't such a bitch in America. Yeah, I'm a filthy whore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @09:46PM
My SoylentNews username is number6
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 28 2014, @01:01AM
Does those music playing zombies require a radio connection to continue doing so? or is it cached enough that it's independent of the radio link?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 28 2014, @12:59AM
Why isn't this moderated 4 - Insightful ..?
The content still have strong standing regardless if the poster wrote as Anonymous Coward.
The approach is a sensible one. When one need to accomplish productive tasks one use computers that can do this effectively without fuss. The rest of the time one can let the brain rest and interact with real-life(tm). A phone with computer abilities on the move might still be useful but the usefulness isn't correlated with more time spent. Rather with quality time spent.
As for phonezombies walking around and causing dangerous traffic situations. Make them suffer. We call it LART (Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool). Where being ignorant hurts until you stop doing bad things. And the causer of bad things get the resource usage billed back in some form so that it won't pay.
(Score: 2) by Popeidol on Monday June 30 2014, @01:51AM
Probably because of the wanton destruction of property, with no attempt being made to explain (nor warn them, going by the anecdote).
Think about it from the pedestrians perspective: You're walking along reading something, and suddenly somebody knocks your $600 phone out of your hands and it smashes to the ground. They cycle off without slowing down.
do you:
a) Realise that it's your fault, resolve to be move attentive in future, and accept the loss of your phone
b) Miss the connection between 'not paying attention' and 'stranger purposefully breaking your phone', and decide you're the victim of a cyclist with anger issues?
People not paying attention is a problem, but destroying their nice things is not the answer. I sometimes get lost in thought while walking. What's the suitable punishment for that, and how is it better than letting me know I should be paying more attention?