Mobile Apps News from Nicole Hennig
Mobile Apps News
September 4, 2018
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the 62nd issue of Mobile Apps News! I hope you'll enjoy this newsletter and spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about.
This issue includes news of:
apps for hiking and for identifying plants and animals
a browser extension for identifying photos that have been doctored
the October session of my Online Privacy & Security course via Library Juice Academy
a half-price coupon for the self-study version of my Online Privacy & Security course
a new series of webinars I'm offering on specific Emerging Technologies & what they mean for libraries
several tips, including how to use 1Password as a digital will
a new section of articles about virtual and augmented reality
accessibility, voice-computing, thought-provoking articles, interesting stats, and articles about future tech trends
Enjoy!
App News
Featured apps
iNaturalist (Android and iOS)
Snap a photo to identify plants and animals and help crowdsource data for scientists. By California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.
When In Nature, Google Lens Does What The Human Brain Can’t (Android and iOS)
Google Lens works best for camera identification of products (like book covers or DVDs) and famous landmarks and only sometimes works for plants or animals. If you’re on an iPhone, use it inside of the Google Photos app, see: How to Use Google Lens on Your iPhone.
App lists
Take the Trail Less Traveled: Help us celebrate America’s national parks.
If you browse the Today page of the iPhone App Store you can find lists like this one, which helped me find some good apps about National Parks. My favorites are REI Co-op National Parks Guide and Chimani - National Park Guides.
The 25 Best Productivity Apps in 2018: Web, desktop, and mobile apps to get more done on any device
A comprehensive and useful list of best apps for notes, documents, media, to-do lists, time-tracking, and more.
8 Great iPad Audio Recording Apps for Teachers and Students
Good list — my favorite is Just Press Record for its simplicity and syncing capabilities.
App updates
Adobe to Launch Photoshop for iPad in Strategy Shift
Coming in 2019. “The new versions of the apps will allow users to run full versions of the programs on Apple’s iPad and continue edits on different devices. “
Dark Sky is one of the most popular weather apps, and it just got a major overhaul
I love Dark Sky and its new look. Now that I live in Tucson instead of Vermont I rarely need to check the weather (it's so sunny all the time!) But we’re in monsoon season in July through early Sept, so it helps to predict the occasional downpours. The handy “time machine” lets you see weather on dates in the past or likely weather on dates in the future. Another useful weather app is Hello Weather (it has a simple, cute interface and can use data from Dark Sky). See Hello Weather is my favorite weather app on iPhone and iPad.
Web tools
How Long to Read
Look up a book and see how long it might take to read (using the average reading speed of 300 WPM).
This Browser Extension Is Like An Antivirus For Fake Photos
This plugin for Chrome, Firefox, or Opera helps identify photos that have been doctored. “When a user hovers over a photo, SurfSafe scans the entire database of fingerprints to see if it’s ever encountered that image before in its raw or doctored form. If it has, it instantly surfaces the other images on the right side of the screen, prioritizing the earliest instance of the image, as it’s most likely to be the original. Users then have the ability to flag the image as either propaganda, Photoshopped, or misleading, which helps inform the SurfSafe model going forward.”
Gadgets
Wyze Cam Pan Helps You Watch Your House for $30
I’m tempted to get this to see what our cat does when we’re not home!
A review of Monitor-IO, a little gadget that wants to talk about your Internet
Monitor-IO is a $100 gadget that tells you whether your Internet is working well, poorly, or not at all. Do you need a gadget for that? (read to find out)
Just for Fun
How to Send an Animoji Sticker in Messages on iPhone
It's True: Men's Pockets Really Are Deeper Than Women's
I’ve often been frustrated with the small pockets on women’s pants — it's so hard to fit a mobile phone in your pocket!
Giphy Is Launching A Film Festival For The Age Of Very, Very Short Attention Spans
It had to happen.
A Cross-Country Road Trip, Courtesy of Google Street View
Fun story about a virtual road trip: He traveled 3,700 miles across the US, entirely in Google Street View. He clicked from West Quoddy Head, Maine, all the way to Ozette, Washington.
My Offerings
Online Privacy & Security: Best Practices for Librarians. October 1 - 26
If you missed this course when I offered it via ALA back in March, don’t worry, I’m offering it again in October, this time via Library Juice Academy (which means you can get credit: 1.5 CEUs or 15 PDHs).
With the knowledge from this course, you will:
know how to use several technologies that protect your privacy and security
create a security and privacy action plan for your own data
have enough information to offer a workshop on this topic for your library users
receive a bibliography of information for learning more about these topics.
Here’s what one student said:
“This is the best ecourse I have ever taken. The content was current, the assignments were relevant, the instructor was accessible.”— Linda Azen Martin, Santiago Canyon College, Seal Beach, CA
Online Privacy and Security
(please share this post, thanks!)
Self-Study Online Course, Udemy.com
If you would rather learn about privacy and security on your own time, try the self-study version that I offer on Udemy. Start and finish anytime, no deadlines.
Get this course for HALF-PRICE with this discount link:
https://www.udemy.com/privacy-security-action-plan/?couponCode=HALF-PRICE
($45 instead of $89)
Emerging Technologies: Implications for Libraries, A Webinar Series
I’ve got a new series of webinars available. They are about emerging technologies and their implications for libraries. Schedule them for your regional library association or local library staff.
Contact me for pricing if you would like to schedule live webinars for your group.
Let me know if you would prefer pre-recorded presentations that you can download. If I get enough requests, I’ll make downloads of recordings available for sale at a discount.
Tips
How to Make Sure You're Getting the Internet Speeds You're Paying For
How to Share Web Articles without Ads on iPhone or iPad Using Reader View
How to Load Desktop Web Sites and Pages Without Content Blockers in iOS
How to Change the Playback Speed for Audible Audiobooks on iPhone
Accessibility
Google Glass helps kids with autism read facial expressions
I like to see stories of new uses for technologies that didn’t do well at first, like Google Glass. “They built a smartphone app that uses machine learning to recognize eight core facial expressions: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, fear, neutral and contempt.” Gets good reviews from families of children with autism.
Researchers Develop Reprogrammable Braille in Hopes of Making Books More Accessible for Blind Readers
“If the researchers can work out the kinks, this platform could transform Braille books’ accessibility, cutting their length down to a much more manageable size.”
How to Add Accessibility Features to iPhone & iPad Control Center
Customize your control center to add shortcuts to accessibility features.
Google is mulling a new market for Nest smart home products: seniors
Nest makes smart thermostats and home security systems. “One idea involves using its motion sensors to help people get to the bathroom in the middle of the night by automatically turning on lights, or notifying those who move around a lot in excessive heat that they might be at risk for dehydration.”
Voice Computing
Lenovo Smart Display: A worthy rival to the Echo Show
If you like Google Home, you might want to try this voice-controlled device with a display. “Not only does it sport a stylish design along with a stunning display and superb speakers, it's also a great showcase for all of the extra functionality and features that Google brings to the table.”
Saint Louis University is placing 2,300 Echo Dots in student living spaces
They will put Echo Dots in every student residence hall room or student apartment on campus. And they will come with a unique skill that will allow students to ask over 100 university-specific questions like “What time does the library close tonight?”
Bose Brings Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant Integration to the QC35 IIs
These highly-rated over-the-ear wireless headphones now support both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Socializing Siri: Add Relationships, Teach Pronunciations, and More
Train Siri to know who your relatives and friends are and how to pronounce names, so you can use it more effectively.
AR/VR
Nabi's Pocket VR Viewer Is The Ultimate On The Go Accessory
This is so much more convenient than Google Cardboard! I bought this little viewer on Amazon for less than $20 and I love it! Now I’m watching lots of VR movies on YouTube and also using apps like Within (iOS and Android) that curate lists of interesting VR movies.
'Once You See the Images, You Understand.' Japanese Students Recreated Hiroshima Bombing in Virtual Reality
“Over two years, a group of Japanese high school students has been painstakingly producing a five-minute virtual reality experience that recreates the sights and sounds of Hiroshima before, during and after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city.”
After almost a decade and billions in outside investment, Magic Leap's first product is finally on sale for $2,295. Here's what it's like.
These VR glasses are getting a lot of press coverage — the Magic Leap One Creator's Edition. It’s not being sold to consumers yet, but to developers who they hope will build more apps and games for it. Read this for an overview of what the future holds for these kinds of devices.
Everything You Need to Know to Get Started With AR/VR in the Classroom
An overview with some good ideas.
Thought-Provoking
Blockchain Could Be the Savior of Free Speech
“Because a blockchain record is kept universally, it is immutable, meaning it cannot be altered by any one malicious third party, regardless of their offline power or influence”
Here are the Girl Scouts’ new badges for skills in science and technology
Lots of fun badges in categories like environmental stewardship, space science, robotics, "think like a programmer," and more.
Smartphones Are Doing to Websites What Amazon Did to the Mall
This is about social media sites as shopping destinations. “Of people who use social media, one in three makes a purchase every month through a platform such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or Snapchat. At companies like Belmiraz, which mostly sell to young buyers, the numbers are far higher.”
Are we losing the art of telephone conversation?
Yes. With some interesting statistics.
Using Artificial Intelligence To Fix Wikipedia's Gender Problem
A software tool called Quicksilver “uses machine-learning algorithms to scour news articles and scientific citations to find notable scientists missing from Wikipedia, and then write fully sourced draft entries for them.” “The summaries it generates are intended to provide a starting point for Wikipedia editors, who can clean up errors and check the sources.” Only 18 percent of Wikipedia's biographies are of women, so people are working with Quicksilver to speed up the process of adding entries for notable women scientists.
Data's day of reckoning
“In many fields, ethics is an essential part of professional education. This isn’t true in computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, or any related field. “Ethics and security must be at the heart of the curriculum, not only as electives, or even isolated requirements.”
See also: Ethical OS Toolkit and Why Universities Need ‘Public Interest Technology’ Courses.
Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics, updated for the drone age
Ideas for making drones helpful and utopian, not dystopian.
Fighting fake news is a losing battle, but there are other ways to win the war
Technological progress is on the side of fake news, so what can be done? A three-part series, see also parts 2 and 3.
Why Westerners Fear Robots And The Japanese Do Not
I love reading about cultural differences. “Not only do we Japanese have no fear of our new robot overlords, we’re kind of looking forward to them.” “Followers of Shinto … do not believe that humans are particularly “special.” Instead, there are spirits in everything, rather like the Force in Star Wars. Nature doesn’t belong to us, we belong to Nature, and spirits live in everything, including rocks, tools, homes, and even empty spaces.”
Why Business Leaders Need to Read More Science Fiction
“By presenting plausible alternative realities, science fiction stories empower us to confront not just what we think but also how we think and why we think it.”
Perennials: Breaking Free Of Age Stereotypes
“The old stereotype of mature individuals being out of touch with technology is fast being eradicated. An increasing number of these individuals are taking a keen interest in keeping up to date with technology and exploiting the opportunities which they present.”
Can This Children’s Book Help Make The Internet A Better Place?
“With Hello Ruby, Linda Liukas is trying to inspire a new generation of young women armed with the technological knowledge to build awesome new tools.”
AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not
This was all over the news recently. It turns out you have to disable “Web and App Activity” in addition to turning off Location History if you don’t want Google to track your location. See also: Google clarifies location-tracking policy.
READING
Just Read the Book Already: Digital culture doesn’t have to make you a shallow reader. But you have to do something about it.
I thought this was a more balanced review than the one found in the Guardian called Skim reading is the new normal. (A review of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World).
Listening Isn't Reading, But Audiobooks Still Resonate
All about the difference between reading a book and listening to one.
How My Smartphone Revived The Purity Of Reading
Using offline reading apps like Pocket and Flipboard to read long-form articles.
New York Public Library Brings Literary Classics to Instagram
An innovative idea! “The library is taking advantage of the popularity and wide reach of Instagram by uploading literary classics in their entirety into the app’s Stories feature.”
CHINA AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
A Generation Grows Up in China Without Google, Facebook or Twitter
Ever since I read this fascinating article, I’ve become interested in learning more about what’s going on in China with new technologies. Here are two of the most interesting articles I’ve read recently.
Letter from Shenzhen
Wow, so much innovation, even in rural areas. The U.S. is very much behind.
When China Rules the Web
A dark forecast of what might happen when China takes the lead in developing the future of the Internet. It will be less global and less open.
Interesting Statistics
More Students Rely On Mobile Devices to Complete Online Classes
“Nearly 67 percent of students now use mobile devices to complete their online coursework, according to a study conducted by Learning House and Aslanian Market Research.” Highlights the need for more robust networks on campus.
What People Ask Their Smart Speakers
Learn what types of questions people ask their smart speakers. The most frequently asked questions are about music, the news, and how-to instructions.
Google Home Beats Amazon Echo for Second Straight Quarter in Smart Speaker Shipments, Echo Sales Fall
As predicted, Google Home is outpacing sales of Amazon Echo devices.
AR VR for Business Adoption Goes Through Mobile
Makes the case (with some interesting statistics about VR adoption) that business should begin with mobile VR and AR apps that work with inexpensive VR glasses instead of expensive headsets.
The Future
Cheap material could radically improve battery charging speed, say scientists
“Discovery could accelerate adoption of electric cars and solar energy, as well as helping to recharge your smartphone in minutes.”
The future is ear: Why “hearables” are finally tech’s next big thing
“The explosive growth of their AI voice assistants has Google, Apple, and Amazon racing to put your entire smartphone in an earpiece.”
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Learn about democratized AI, digitalized ecosystems, do-it-yourself biohacking, and more.
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