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Less rant, more story.
Tl;Dr: Disney uses "Magic Bands" to track every action of every person within their parks.
So I took my family to Disney World this past summer and we got these "nifty" little things called Magic Bands. These things are little wrist devices that basically handle everything for you in the parks. It unlocks your resort room, it gets you into the parks, you pay for meals and souvenirs with it by connecting a credit card and/or your meal plan. It makes things real simple as it's like putting on your watch each day.
At first I kinda enjoyed how easy it made everything on the trip, but then as we were exiting a ride the couple in front of us noticed the digital signs had their names on them, I looked around and noticed mine too, a sign that said "have a good day $myName." It suddenly clicked. These "Magic Bands" are people trackers. Suddenly everything about the park that I had been enjoying, was part of the system they had in place using these bands as human cattle tags. The ride wait time estimations were perfect, not because of a good algorithm and estimations, but because they had actual real data telling them when a person entered the line and got off the ride.
Using a BLE scanner app I was able to see that they have hundreds of APs throughout the parks tracking every single band on every single person withing their compound. I started to think about all of the data they're collecting and the thought of it was overwhelming. The amount of assumptions they can make about people based on their actions within their parks and what that data would be worth to additional advertisers. By the end of the trip I was cynically pointing out everything to my family about the cattle tags and how much I hated wearing it and yet it was required in order to do anything.20 -
An Apple Watch on a girl's wrist.
A smartwatch is a computerized wristwatch with functionality that goes beyond timekeeping. While early models can perform basic tasks, such as calculations, translations, and game-playing, 2010s smartwatches are effectively wearable computers.
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Got another one of my boring questions for us all to hopefully discuss a little.
With all the talk about the Librem 5 starting to ramp up more and with my little delve into UBports, was curious as to what other devs would be interested in/want/need from a mobile Linux operating system.
For me it's simple but mostly creature comforts.
1. Consistency and convergence, give me the ability to run a full desktop environment along side the mobile DE but make it consistent between the two (Looking at you Microsoft with your continuum)
2. Doesn't loose the customisability of Linux, let me install any Linux application I want and customise the theme and icons (Something I have a gripe with UBports)
3. Have accompanying operating system with an echo system, so have a wearable OS, a desktop OS and mobile OS, having that tie between the 3 is amazing as a heavy android and chromeOS user.
Would love to bring some of these things to reality but don't have any knowledge of how to do it, personally would love to see elementary OS have a crack at this (Wont happen but got to deam!)2 -
Why is there no hoodies available for our avatar?
My hoodies are my main torso wearable. I want to be able to show everyone on DevRant of course!7 -
It is with great sorrow I am announcing that an Apple Watch can catch fire while on your wrist. I bashed Fitbit very hard for this when they were giving people burn scars for life. Collecting and selling data is one thing, but mutilating bodies because of negligence and wanting to save a buck on manufacturing is a whole another thing. It seems like Apple is not much different.
I am struggling with body dysmorphia, and I told you out loud that if a Fitbit device gave me a burn scar for life, I would've probably committed suicide. I still stand by these words. My body integrity is a big deal to me. Having a scar due to my own negligence, like mishandling a knife, is one thing, but the concept itself that some fucking hustle culture startup can mutilate my body is another thing. It scares me.
I am considering to abandon any kind of wearable electronics altogether. The cost of failure is just too high. I'm probably going to get a mechanical Timex or a Seiko.
19 -
I picked up native android development again.
Its the first time i am going to build a wearable version as well.
Any tips?7 -
You don't belong to this generation if, you have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz"
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