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Exodus Privacy will help you identify the trackers embedded in your favorite android apps

GeneralEdward Kiledjian
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Companies large and small are always looking for new and creative ways to violate your privacy.

One popular tool of the trade is to embed trackers and ask for more permissions than necessary to "steal" user data. The question is, how do you know what trackers are embedded in your installed Android apps? This is were The Exodus Privacy Report tool comes in.

Here is a sample report for the Adobe Acrobat app

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When you click on one of the trackers, it gives you interesting information

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Clearly they want to acquire as much information about you as possible to track your device. You can then decide if the app is worth giving up all this information or if you want to use another app that is less invasive.

Are iPhone users safe? The answer is no, but researchers don't have permission to analyze IOS apps. We know that many of the worst offending apps are on both platforms and use cross-platform Software Development Kits.

So what do you do? Remove any apps from your smartphone that you don't use regularly. Before installing any application, make sure you read and understand the permissions being requested by the app. If a game wants your location, access to your camera or other weird permission, pick something else.

Are there "good" apps?

Yes, there are. Protonmail is an example of an app that only has crash analytics trackers built-in. Another example of a "good" app is the DuckDuckGo Privacy browser; it contains zero trackers.

I was disappointed to see NordVPN with its six trackers. NordVPN is tracking user behaviour.

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You can access the database online here.

A fitness wristband that automatically tracks your food

HealthEdward Kiledjian
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The quantified self via wearable tech is the next frontier and everyone wants a piece of the action. Typically the trinity is the tracking of exercise, sleep and pule (for exertion estimates and stress). For nutrition (aka calorie count), you typically have to enter the information into the devices smartphone app which means you will forget or just give-up after the first week.

Now a new entrant promises to track your calorie intake automatically. YES AUTOMATICALLY, as in without you having to do anything. How is this black magic accomplished you ask? The company describes it like this

"Nutrition is monitored using different wavelengths of light to look into the blood stream and detect metabolites as they are released while and after you eat. This allows AIRO to measure caloric intake and even the quality of meals consumed, providing recommendations on ways to improve nutrition."

So the wristband is supposed to know the nutritional breakdown of what you ate (protein, fat, carb) and then monitors what it does to your body. The company admits it cant differentiate between simple and complex carbs (we all know they are different) but they are conducting additional experiments in the hope that they will be able to fine tune their detection algorithms.

I have been using an iPhone app called Stress Doctor (from Azumio) that uses the timing and intensity of my pulse to detect stress levels (low, medium, high) and it seems Airo does the same except automatically. If it detects elevated stress levels, it will vibrate to encourage you to relax and provides recommended breathing exercises in the app to guide you. 

It also combines all of the sensors to measure the intensity of your workouts (similar to what the Amiigo is supposed to do).  My constantly monitoring you vitals, the app is also supposed to recommend rest days if it feels you are over-exercising.

The Airo is supposed to use your physiological indicators to measure quantity and quality of sleep. It will vibrate to wake you up at the best possible time (since it knows your sleep cycle).

An interesting distinction with this product is that it not only turns your life into a measurement game but also provides a game plan in response to what it is detecting. You no longer have to play doctor.

You can pre-order AIRO today and it is expected to ship fall 2014 (but remember these types of devices are notoriously bad at meeting their shipping dates. Amiigo is almost 6 months late thus far). The device pre-order costs $US149 but will cost $199 in stores when it hits retails.

You can pre-order the device here.

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