Latest Posts from Switched

What About Privacy?
MoSoSos can be as revealing or discrete as you choose, but, by default, most of them report nothing. If your phone has GPS, any of the apps will find your location from a list created by users, or will allow you to register a new spot in the system (for example, your apartment). In most cases, you have to manually "check in" by pressing a button to broadcast your location. Loopt does have the ability to run in the background, constantly tracking your location and sending updates to friends, although you can choose to disable that feature. Once Apple launches iPhone OS 4.0 this summer, and thus enables apps to run in the background (already possible on Android phones), it will be easier for MoSoSo apps to constantly track users.

If you pick the right settings, you can be a member of a MoSoSo network for months yet remain invisible by never checking in, or you can update friends every time you walk down the street. Likewise, you can decide who gets updates. Even if you link a MoSoSo to Facebook or Twitter, you'll be asked at each check-in whether or not you want to push that update to other networks. And you can decide whether updates go to everyone on the MoSoSo network (even people you don't know), or just to your friends.

But there is one big loophole; MoSoSos, especially Foursquare, took some heat recently from a now-defunct site called "Please Rob Me," which drew attention to how easy it is to see when someone isn't home by perusing his or her profile. That happens specifically with MoSoSo accounts linked to Twitter, where, by default, someone doesn't have to be an approved "friend" to follow updates. Mix that with location data, and the whole world can know when you're away.

Please Rob Me, developed by a company called Forthehack, displayed these results under the cheeky headline "Recent Empty Homes: New Opportunities." Despite the name, however, Forthehack wasn't doing any hacking. It was simply running a search for Foursquare on Twitter using the term "4sq -@foursquare."

If this gives you the willies, disable the link from your MoSoSo to Twitter. Then, for good measure, never tweet anything about where you are, and be sure to disable Twitter's own ability to track your location.

How Big Is This Thing?
Although Foursquare is its poster child, mobile social media is much bigger than that. MoSoSo, itself, is becoming bigger than all of its social networking predecessors. Location is becoming an integral part of online interaction.

Twitter can be set to automatically broadcast your location from a GPS-equipped device, and Web browsers – even on laptop or desktop computers – can estimate your location based on the IP address assigned by the Internet service provider. Google now leverages that technology with cell phone GPS data, providing local results when you run a search.

Dozens of programs or Web services now tap location data to deliver better information -- and better-targeted advertising. And, remarkably, in most cases, the feature is more helpful than annoying or creepy.

What's it good for?
Like most new technologies, MoSoSo seems silly and unnecessary... until you and a bunch of your friends start using it. If you already status update or tweet your social life, many MoSoSo apps make it easier by both pushing updates to other networks and tagging the location. Of course, you can also see if friends are nearby, and maybe have some serendipitous meet-ups.

But it's often more interesting when the people you know are not nearby. Here's a true-life example. A pal reports on the app Foursquare: "...Ordering a Blackberry Cosmo. They're really good here. (@ Happy Ending)." Translated: If you love blackberries (the fruit), and find yourself near the bar Happy Ending in Manhattan's Lower East Side, stop in for a cosmo. By tying location to user's notes, Foursquare lets users be in-the-know without being in the neighborhood. Such serendipity isn't limited to dedicated MoSoSo apps, either. Older review services are also implementing the ability to check-in at a location, and broadcast the news to your friends. Yelp, for example, now lets you "friend" users, and follow feeds of their activities as well as reviews of restaurants and other local businesses.

MoSoSo users don't have to be friends with one another to provide helpful advice, either. Because the services know your location, they can help you find comments or reviews that anyone has posted in your vicinity. For example, food shopping in much of New York City is generally limited to overpriced, so-so grocery stores. But recently a guy on Foursquare named "Aaron M" wrote, "...on weekends there is a small farmers [sic] market near the Food Emporium selling some good stuff."

MoSoSo is also becoming a great way to find freebies and discounts, and some businesses are using the tech to lure customers with rewards. At last count, nearly 1,000 local businesses around the world – from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Chonburi, Thailand – are offering Foursquare users special discounts, such as a free appetizer to anyone who checks in at The Drawing Room restaurant in Chicago or endless free drinks for the "Mayor" (the most-frequent visitor) of the Lush Bar in Beijing.

Other businesses are trying to steal customers from their neighbors. For example, when a coffee fan checks into a café, an alert from a bar nearby might pop up flaunting happy hour specials. It's a sneaky but effective trick.

How does it work?
Unlike with Twitter, there is no single MoSoSo company to choose. Still, Foursquare seems to be the leader these days.

In a way, Foursquare is the oldest MoSoSo. Its co-founder, Dennis Crowley, came upon a similar idea back in 2000, when he and Alex Rainert started a service (largely for dating hookups) called Dodgeball. Users would text the name of their location to Dodgeball, which looked up the address and sent a text to any friends they'd listed on the Dodgeball Web site. The dark ages before GPS and high-speed Internet connections on cellphones required that users set up the service on a PC, and then use SMS to access it. Google bought Dodgeball in 2005, let it languish, and finally shut it down in 2009. That same year, Crowley and partners founded Foursquare, and plugged in all the benefits of modern mobile tech.

Foursquare works best on a smartphone with GPS. The company currently makes apps for the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Palm devices, while other phones with Internet access can visit a basic Web site. The app situation is similar for Foursquare's main competitors -- Brightkite, Gowalla, Loopt and Whrrl -- all of which can be found on the iPhone. Brightkite, Gowalla and Loopt also provide Android and BlackBerry apps, while Brightkite and Gowalla offer Palm programs. Brightkite also has a Nokia app. But the winner for compatibility is Loopt, which claims support for about 100 non-smartphones, ranging form the LG Voyager to Motorola's RAZR (although downloading and installing is an arduous, counter-intuitive process).

None of these MoSoSos make you start a new social network from scratch. Instead, they let you find friends already on the services, or invite friends to join them by mining from some combination of your phone's address book, Facebook friends list, Twitter followers or Gmail contacts. (The particular combination depends on the app.) You can also link the MoSoSo apps to other networks – typically Facebook and Twitter – so that posts automatically go to all of them.

The social media fast lane is heating up with real-time location updates. Apps now tap into your cell phone's GPS to track where you and your friends are, and, more importantly, what's happening nearby. Now that the world can finally say "tweet" with a straight face, there's a new term to learn: MoSoSo, or mobile social software. Read on to find out what it is, how it works and how to setup your privacy settings.

Canon's elegantly executed Digital Rebel T2i is one of those rare gadgets that inspire admiration and affection in a way usually reserved for humans. The T2i is a big upgrade from its predecessor, the Rebel T1i, which lost out to Nikon's D5000 when Switched recommended a beginner SLR (single-lens reflex) last summer. The new T2i incorporates a sensor nearly identical to Canon's popular 7D (a favorite camera around the Switched and Engadget offices), which means you're going to get rich colors, accurate exposure, good low-light performance and stunning video.

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A reader writes: These Android smartphones look pretty hot. It seems they can do everything the iPhone does, but they come in more flavors, from more companies. So what's the best one to get?

Dear Reader: The Android operating system may be the first serious competitor to the iPhone platform -- with a slick interface and tons of cool applications. Unlike Apple's tightly policed Apps Store, Google's Android Market lets you download any program written by any developer.

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Question: I see more and more people carrying digital SLRs these days. And when I look at the great photos, I understand why. I'd like to upgrade from my point-and-shoot, but the choices are overwhelming. What's a good beginner SLR that can also grow with me if I want to get more serious?

Advice: Our current favorite among beginner models is the Nikon D5000. It's not the cheapest -- even from Nikon -- but it has great room to grow. The D5000 is very similar to the company's pricier D90 camera and comes with one significant upgrade: An articulating, 2.7-inch LCD screen allows you to frame the photo while holding the camera above your head, down at your waist, or even facing towards you for a self-portrait. That gives it a leg up on Canon's Digital Rebel line of entry-level SLRs.

The LCD is especially handy when using the D5000's video-capture feature, since you don't have to hold the camera right up to your nose while shooting. The 720p HD movies it takes don't match the crisp images you can get with a dedicated high-def camcorder, but they make a fun supplement to the excellent 12-megapixel still photos.

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"After Midnight...We're gonna give an exhibition," promised Eric Clapton in his famous goodtime-party song. But if you bring your digital camera, you probably won't get any good pictures of shows that take place in backstage lairs, smokey clubs, or other dark, dusky hep-cat hangouts.

Until now, promises Sony, thanks to its new WX1 and TX1 Cyber-shot models with a new, 10.2-megapixel sensor that's billed to be twice as sensitive to light. The tech, called "back-illuminated CMOS" basically takes a bunch of wires that used to partially obscure the pixels and moves them to the back of the sensor. Sounds like a no-brainer, but Sony spent years figuring out how to do it.

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From tracking the Jonas Brothers to organizing the Iranian democracy movement, Facebook is the most powerful network -- at the moment -- for linking people up around town or around the world. Love it or hate it, you really can't avoid it.

Which is what makes the site's various bugs, glitches, and buried features so painful. They are intimidating and off-putting to newbies, and continuing irritants even to obsessive fans. We polled both types, using our network on -- what else? -- Facebook, to find out what irks our "Friends" the most. We also trolled the Web for top complaints. Then we sat down with Facebook to see if they had a fix -- or at least an explanation -- for each gripe.

At least the social network is aware of its foibles. "A lot of things are not as intuitive as we'd hope," our contact at Facebook, Kathleen, told us. "But there's actually a lot of functionality there that a lot of people just don't find." In most cases, they were able to show us some workaround, or they said that a fix was in the works. Only in a few cases were the ills incurable. Read on for our list of common Facebook pains -- as told to us by users -- and the best pain relievers.

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Don't get us wrong. If you make the trek out to E3, the mecca of video game conventions, you're already a hardcore gamer. But, no matter how seriously you take your 'Halo 3,' there's still a class of gamer that takes it all to a whole other level: the role-playing gamers. We asked these über-players about their favorite titles, strategy, beefing up before combat, and the insatiable desire to kill! kill! kill!

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At the risk of sounding like a crabby old man, let's just say that you kids -- with your little white iPod headphones and cheapie home theater systems -- have no idea what you're missing. And as for MP3s, oh, don't even get us started mister (or missie).

Okay, you can find top-notch audio gear with some amazing new capabilities these days. Yet even over forty years ago, audio engineers had already figured out how to make premium sound -- albeit with tubes instead of chips -- that is as impressive today as it was then. High-end audio maker McIntosh revived one of those classic systems with a limited re-issue of its C22 Tube Preamplifier and MC75 Power Amplifier. Yes, you needed three pieces of gear to do what a little receiver does now, and that's just for stereo. They are bundled together into what the company calls its 60th Anniversary System -- though that's the anniversary of the company, not the gear.

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