Vitaminwater is willing to pay US$100,000 to anyone who can give up their smartphone for an entire year. If you last six months you’ll get US$10,000.

The contest rules clarify that your cell phone is likely a smartphone if it can get on the internet and texting is a pleasant experience. It also clarifies that tablets also aren’t allowed and neither is using someone else’s smartphone. The rules don’t go into detail about how the year-long technology abstinence will be proven, but the company indicates that a lie detector test is involved.

As tempting as $100k sounds I wouldn’t be able to give up my iPhone for a year.

Last week DuckDuckGo published a study examining the amount of Google bias in products like Google Search. CEO Gabriel Weinberg then told Business Insider:

What [our study] does reveal, or at least suggests, is that Google’s collection and use of personal data, including location, which is then used to filter specific search results, is having an effect akin to the effects of a political bias. That is an important nuance often missed in these discussions.

First, there’s a big difference between what a study suggests, and what it reveals. Language is important. Second, like other studies, the first one is interesting, but more studies need to be done in the form of peer review. I’d be interested to see one from an independent party that doesn’t have Google as a competitor.

Scout FM is a podcast radio service for iOS, and yesterday it released a feature called Station Creator. It lets users create their own personalized FM stations.

Once you have created a station, Scout FM does all the work for you. The station will automatically pick up new episodes and then play them in the order of your fondness to the show based on your listening habits. You can add or remove shows at any time.

I think it’s a cool concept, and it works differently than traditional podcast apps where you do everything manually.

Stalkerware is a term given to apps that let someone spy on your smartphone activity. They’re also called «spouseware» because they tend to be used by abusers to spy on their partners.

Most of this software ends up on a device through one of two ways: A phishing attack (email or text links that contain viruses and trick you into clicking on them by pretending to be something/someone else), or physical access to the device.

The article is a good read with tips for people in abused relationships.

ISPs tell the FCC that poor people don’t deserve fast internet speeds. It wouldn’t be fair on these corporations otherwise.

In a letter [PDF] recording a meeting between the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) and the legal advisors to two FCC commissioners, the industry group «emphasized that the Commission’s goals would be better served by directing support to areas that lack any service at all and those that have access only below 10/1 Mbps.»

I’m continually amazed at the human capacity to be giant d*cks to each other. The amount of hatred leveled at poor people in this country is also a bit scary.