Google’s Daydream strategy is getting the right kind of attention

Google is focused on a moving target in ways no other company seems prepared for right now.

VR and AR got prime-time Keynote energy at Google I/O, as well as a separate keynote the next day with heaps of extra details.

And as cool as it is to see a new UI coming to Daydream or the “VPS” system in Tango being used in Lowe’s stores later this year, the big news from I/O was neither of these things. It’s the reaction from VR developers already embedded in the ecosystem that should be paid attention to right now, because their excitement is very good news for the future of these platforms.

Nobody likes to admit it, but the largest group of active VR users is by far the most boring. Mobile-based VR outsells the Oculus and HTC by orders of magnitude, because they’re cheap or free and only require your phone to work. The barrier to entry is as low as it gets, but the experiences available in this format are incredibly limited. It is occasionally difficult to call frantically dodging weapons fire while hunting targets with a bow in an HTC Vive the same thing as sitting on your couch turning a small plastic wand to steer a car. Both experiences are flawed, and the reality is most people are going to quickly move to the middle once it exists.

So how do you get the people tirelessly working for every set of eyeballs they can find on Desktop VR platforms to pay attention to the things you’re announcing? Microsoft thought the answer was to fold VR and AR into a single thing, the so-called Mixed Reality container that is supposed to be the branding for all of these experiences. That hasn’t gone over well, and in fact has added confusion to the conversation right now. Google’s approach was a little more direct, showing off a new fully standalone Daydream experience while addressing all of the biggest criticisms surrounding the existing Daydream experience.

Daydream is becoming more functional, more social, and available on more phones.

Unpacking everything Google is going in this space is not a quick or casual thing. Tango is finally in a form that people might actually want to use. Daydream is going to be much more than just a Gear VR competitor, and you’re going to be able to watch YouTube with other Daydream users. It’ll be easy to cast what you see to the nearby TV, and not in the same lame screen mirroring way you can already do right now. Daydream is becoming more functional, more social, and available on more phones. The big thing that comes next will let you move around just like you can on those Desktop VR headsets. Even better, you won’t need a PC or any cables to do any of this. Each of these things are important. Together, they’re a road map to a very exciting experience next year.

It’s also important to remember what we saw at I/O is just the beginning. Google will change and improve things between now and the late Fall launch window, and a big part of those changes will likely be the amazing company it just acquired. Owlchemy Labs got a lot of attention recently for the incredible job done on Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, but long before we were rescuing Rick from the thing that totally wasn’t his fault this company was doing amazing things. This team has done incredible work with body detection and that other kind of Mixed Reality, both of which will no doubt be used to help power this new wave of updates to Daydream and Tango.

Google’s buildup to this event and the detailed explanations, a full day of sessions and open dev time to help explain how all of this will work, made a lot of developers very happy. Right now, that’s exactly what Google needs for Daydream to succeed. It’s not enough for the phone-based VR experience we currently know as Daydream to have feature parity, or even a slight feature advantage, over the Gear VR. The best experiences need to come to Daydream, and while Google has already accomplished some of that over the last year it’s this big leap forward that will help really push things forward.

Want the best Galaxy icons on your S8? Try these icon packs!

The icons on the Galaxy S8 are unique… and really mismatched.

The squircle icons with the incomplete wireframe logos are very interesting, and there is a very real appeal to that look… but it doesn’t cover all of the apps that come on the Samsung Galaxy S8 — it doesn’t even cover all the Samsung apps on the Galaxy S8 — and it covers none of the apps that come from Google Play or Samsung Apps. That’s a bummer, but never fear!

Icon packs are here, and just as icon pack developers have put out “tribute” packs for every previous Samsung flagship, they have taken the new Samsung icon style to its logical extension. These are the ones that do it best.

We’ll begin with the hand-down winner among the S8 icon packs, which is aptly named S_Eight. This pack by Tha PHLASH applies the wire outline to each of the icons in the pack before shoving them all into squircles. Most of these icons are excellent — there are a few misses with the outlines chosen for busy icons, but for the most part the outlines fit the style well and are easy to recognize. The pack isn’t huge, but the icon mask for unthemed icons zooms the icons in slightly, helping avoid some of the unsightly borders on other packs in this article.

This pack extends the wire outline to hundreds of icons, rather than just the Samsung apps, system apps and maybe some Google apps, as our runner ups do. S_Eight is the most expensive of the S8 tribute packs on Google Play at the moment, but you pay for quality, and Phlash delivers that in spades.

S_Eight ($1.99)

There are a few other S8 tribute packs on the market, and here’s how they shake out:

• Aspire UX S8 ($0.99) applies the wire outline to most Samsung apps and some Google apps while giving third-party icons a more traditional look. Unthemed icons are inside white squircles, and even some Google apps like Play Movies and Google Home are unthemed.
• Delux UX S8 ($1.49) gives you the wireframe to Samsung apps, some popular Google apps, and some system apps, and the rest of the pack consists of traditional squircle icons, which are also used for the Google Play suite. As before, unthemed icons are in a white squircle mask. The icons here are a bit more consistent than Aspire, but it’s still essentially to icon themes mish-mashed into one pack.
• Elegance UI (Free, $1.49) themes the most Google apps out of the lot, and does so consistently. The pack can get a little generic if you have multiple email apps or calendar apps, and there are fewer third-party apps themed at the moment, but the pack will hopefully expand in coming months.

You’ve got plenty of choices to get some consistency while keeping the Samsung style. It’s important to note that as these are all Google Play icon packs, none of them will work in the TouchWiz launcher, but if you’ve already turned to your favorite third-party launcher anyway, these packs can help bring a bit of Samsung style back to your setup.

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The best announcements from Google I/O 2017

There was a lot of cool stuff in Mountain View this week, but what was the coolest?

Another Google I/O is in the can, and everyone has something to say about what they saw, including the Android Central staff!

Here’s what we saw that impressed and wowed us at this year’s dev conference.

Russell Holly

How about that new Unified Messaging app, huh? Oh right, we still don’t have one for Android.

Alright, saltiness over. Honestly, I’m a fan of the huge improvements to Google Assistant. Google is getting serious with Home, making it integrate more deeply into damn near everything. I’m eager to see what’s going to happen with displaying on the Chromecast and comparing that experience to the Echo Show. Google integration matters a lot to me, but Amazon is still a dominant force in this itty bitty corner of the world right now.

Naturally, the VR things excite me, tool. Daydream’s UI overhaul is going to be amazing, and being able to Cast and share without any hurdles is a big deal. A lot of this is catching up to the Gear VR, but it’s going to be a big deal for those who jumped on Daydream early. It’s also a great reason to be excited about the next Google Pixel, but we’ll save that hype for another time.

Alex Dobie

The most impressive thing for me, and the feature I think will go the furthest in the next couple of years is Google Lens. The potential of Lens is huge — and although, like Google Assistant itself, it’s likely to be a slow burn — I’m excited. The difference between Google Lens and the disappointing Bixby Vision feature is Google has practically infinite troves of data to fall back upon to make Google Lens as accurate and useful as it wants.

If it’s handled right, Google Lens could be one of the first mainstream AR applications, in much the same way Pokemon Go provided a really compelling use for the tech in 2016. What’s more, Google has the potential to roll this stuff out all the way back to Android 6.0 through Assistant updates. Of course it’s also an enviable differentiating feature, so it’s entirely possible it could be exclusive to the Pixel 2 phones at first.

Daniel Bader

This year’s Google I/O was rather muted; no big announcements, no new products. Rather, it was a consolidation of many ideas into one cohesive message: “We do these many different things, but they’re all underpinned by AI and machine learning. Oh, and here’s a neural net for your neural net.”

That idea is no better exemplified than with Google Lens, the evolution of Goggles and Google Now on Tap and Image Search and a bunch of other things into a single, cohesive “world camera”. Google Lens solves the problem of context, since in its simplest form it allows you to point your phone’s camera at anything — a flower, a barcode, a person — and get real-world results from Google’s Knowledge Graph. To be honest, the whole thing is a bit intimidating just thinking about how many disparate parts have gone into creating Lens, but combined with Assistant, which is itself becoming incredibly powerful and more difficult to separate from the rest of Google’s products, it morphs into the backbone of Google’s future.

Why am I so bullish on Lens? Because I agree with Snapchat, Facebook and every other company that’s betting on the camera: people are increasingly documenting, communicating and learning through their phone’s camera, and Lens turns Google Search into that familiar and intuitive medium — the viewfinder — that we’re using more and more every day.

Jerry Hildenbrand

This was one of the best Google I/Os we’ve seen in a long time. Rather than waste time on product announcements or shill hardware for someone else, Google got down and dirty at what they do best: make cool stuff everyone wants to use.

And we got to see why Google’s AI platform is the coolest of the cool. Assistant, Google Lens, Tango, VR and AR features, security features, and a slew of other stuff is only here becasue of Google AI. It will get better because of Google AI, and we will use it to keep making it better.

I’ve been talking for a year about how AI was going to be Google’s thing and their future, and it was awesome to see them start to capitalize on it. This ride’s going to be bumpy and rough, but it’s also going to be really fun. Hang on tight.

Ara Wagoner

WHERE THE $%*(&@#% IS MY DARK THEME?!?! Sorry, had to get that out of my system.

Google Assistant’s new features and the goal of feature parity between Assistant on Google Home and on your phones is great… but there’s still a big area where Google Assistant on the phones is horribly behind Google Home: media controls. I want to be able to say “OK Google, rewind” to my phone while I’m listening in the office and more importantly while I’m in the car. I don’t text in the car, I use hands-free to make calls, but I still have to hit the buttons on my phone to control my music in the car because the BT controls in my 2003 Honda Odyssey aren’t consistent. Google Assistant can already do this on Google Home while I’m in the shower, so what’s stopping them from bringing it to Android Auto in the car, or Google Assistant on my phone?

Google Lens is cool, and I’m all for Google Photos improvements, but if we’re not going to announce a long-overdue Google Play Music overhaul, then the most important overhaul to me is the overhaul on Android TV. My NVIDIA Shield TV is used wayyy more than my Google Home, and when on-board Assistant controls and the overhauled home screen for Android O for TV arrive, I’m going to be a very happy TV nerd. It’s gonna be a long summer waiting for this new UI, but here’s hoping the Assistant upgrades mean I’ll be looking at the old UI less and getting to content more quickly.

On the topic of the NVIDIA Shield TV and Google Assistant… where’s that NVIDIA Spot?

Marc Lagace

Mere days before the Google I/O keynote, I was sharing with some friends about how long it’s taking Google Home to come to Canada. I mentioned that as time has passed, and due to some struggles I’ve experienced using Google Assistant on the Pixel, I wasn’t as hot for Google’s smart speaker as I was a year previous when it was first announced.

Now that I know that Google Home is for sure coming to Canada, and will eventually include free voice calling to any mobile or landline in Canada or the U.S., I’m back aboard the hype train. I share a home with two roommates, so the voice recognition feature that determine who’s calling so you can simply say “call mom” and just knows which mom to call is super enticing.

The theme of the keynote was Google’s advancements in AI and machine learning, and to that end, I was also really impressed by Google Lens. I’ve played around a bit with the limited functionality that Samsung’s Bixby Vision offers on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and it’s pretty cool — when it works. I’m much more confident in Google’s ability to better implement the technology, and can’t wait to test out all the different use cases for Google Lens in the future.

Andrew Martonik

The biggest thing from Google I/O wasn’t a single product or feature announcement, but it was the clear reliance on Google Assistant as the smarts behind everything it does going forward. Google Assistant received new features across a handful of different devices, but the biggest common thread was interoperability and consistency was between them.

Within the next couple of months, Google Assistant will operate the same on both Google Home and phones — now including the iPhone — and also be able to quickly share information between the two. Assistant will also be able to send information from a Home to a phone, or a Home to a Chromecast.

Google Assistant really only makes sense if you can rely on it, and Google I/O 2017 marked that experience as a big point of emphasis going forward.

Florence Ion

Photos Books were definitely the standout feature at Google I/O, and I’m not just saying this to kid around. This tangible thing that Google Photos now offers is another step in the company’s reach for the mainstream. Sure, Android is the dominant mobile operating system around the world, but with Photo Books it can take that reach offline by sitting pretty on a bookshelf. Every time you pick up that book to look through it or show to a family member, you’ll be reminded of Google’s photo-storing service, and that that’s where a majority of your memories live. And that’s how integrated Google wants to be in our off-the-internet lives.

Your pick

What say you? Of all the things Google showed us and we know are coming, what was your fav? Shout out in the comments!

Video: Google I/O 2017 impressions from the AC editors

It’s been a busy couple of days in Mountain View, with big announcements from Google around Android, VR, AR, AI and other acronyms. Google I/O is a platform for developers, enthusiasts and journalist to learn about what’s next from the company, and this year’s event continued many of the trends that Google kicked off in 2016: virtual reality, with the unveiling of Daydream 2.0 and standalone headsets from HTC and Lenovo.

Google Assistant became more capable with new regional launches for Google Home, and visual computing chops in Google Lens. And Android O became more fleshed out, with new features like notification dots and Android Go for emerging markets.

As we wrap up here at Shoreline Amphitheater, the AC editors took some time to sum up their thoughts on this year’s show. So join Alex, Flo and Jerry as they machinegun through some of the top I/O 2017 happenings in a little over 15 minutes!

• Android Central on YouTube
• Everything you need to know about Google I/O announcements!

There’s nothing fab about a phablet TV remote

What are the odds of buying a Vizio SmartCast TV but not owning a smartphone? I ask, because the last thing I need is a publicly available tablet in my living room.

Once upon a time the idea of a television relying on Google’s Chromecast for content and shipping with a 6-inch Android remote might have excited me. Because for the most part television manufacturers have tried too hard to be UX designers an ended up making TVs that send me running for a set-top box as quickly as possible.

But Chromecast and Android? I love those things.

So when Vizio said “Hey, we want to send you this TV — the M50-D1 …” my ears perked up. (For the record: This is a loaner they sent for review, review it I did, and now I’ll have to figure out what to do with it.)

But things have changed a little bit between the time the set arrived, and the time you’re watching this video and reading these words. First and foremost is that this is a 2016 model, and the 2017 sets revert to something a little more traditional.

Let’s rap.

Truth be told, I rather enjoy the idea of a dumb display. I’ve never really been a fan of built-in apps. Do they work well? Will they ever be updated? It’s a crapshoot, really. I’ll rely on set-top boxes, mostly. The NVIDIA Shield TV with Android TV is great, Apple TV is excellent, and Roku is my recommended box for anyone not locked to either of those those ecosystems. (And I just recently fell in love with HDHomerun for a TV tuner.)

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But there’s still something rather odd about relying so much on Chromecast. Or maybe it’s just that this thing’s trying to make me believe I have to rely on Chromecast. Because really it’s making me rely on having some sort of set-top box. Because for as great as Chromecast is as a streaming protocol, it’s not great if you’re the type who likes to lean back, remote in hand, and go all stick-and-throttles on your viewing experience.

That’s where the 6-inch tablet comes in, of course. On one hand it’s superfluous. There’s something like a 99 percent chance you either run Android or iOS in your house, and both of those handle Casting things just fine, and so you don’t really need another device. But you can’t just sell a TV without apps and assume the user will figure things out. And, so, Android remote.

But tablets and phones suck as in-hand remotes. You have to look down at them. You can’t navigate by feel.

And you know what? Vizio must have come to that conclusion, too. Because it’s gone back to more full-featured remote controls in its 2017 line and has ditched the Android tablet altogether. The other thing is that the newer sets have apps built in. (And this older model apparently will see them return in a software update.)

So. We now have a decent mid-range display. (By the way, the LED panel itself is about what I’d expect for something in the $800 range. It’s good, but not great, and the picture falls off a little bit as the viewing angle increases.) It’s overcomplicated by a lack of build-in apps and the inclusion of a full Android remote. (Also by the way: If you don’t want to have your full Google account laying around the living room for anyone to pick up, be sure to lock down this tablet, or don’t bother signing in in the first place.) And we have Vizio going back to something more traditional.

Can’t say I blame ’em.

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More Android phones are using encryption and lock screen security than ever before

An increasing number of people are making the right decisions.

We like to harp on security here from time to time, but it’s for good reason. Many often have a false sense of just how secure their private data is on their devices — that is, if they’re thinking about it at all. Your average smartphone user just wants to access the apps and people they care about, and not worry about security.

That’s why it was extremely encouraging to hear some of the security metrics announced at Google I/O 2017. For devices running Android Nougat, roughly 80% of users are running them fully encrypted. At the same time, about 70% of Nougat devices are using a secure lock screen of some form.

That 80% encryption number isn’t amazingly surprising when you remember that Nougat has full-device encryption turned on by default, but that number also includes devices that were upgraded from Marshmallow, which didn’t have default encryption. Devices running on Marshmallow have a device encryption rate of just 25%, though, so this is a massive improvement. And the best part about Google’s insistence on default encryption is that eventually older devices will be replaced by those running Nougat or later out of the box, meaning this encryption rate could get very close to 100%.

The default settings are immensely important.

Full-device encryption is particularly effective when paired with a secure lock screen, and Google’s metrics showing 70% adoption in this regard definitely needs some work. It’s a small increase from the roughly 60% secure lock screen rate of Marshmallow phones but a decent jump from the sub-50% rate of devices running Lollipop. The most interesting aspect of these numbers to my eyes is that having a fingerprint sensor on the device doesn’t signal a very large increase in adoption — perhaps just a five percentage point jump. On one hand it’s great to see people using secured lock screens even when they don’t have something as convenient as a fingerprint sensor, but then again I’d expect the simplicity of that sensor to help adoption more than these numbers show.

The trend is heading in the right direction in both of these metrics, and that’s a great sign despite the fact that secure lock screens show a slower growth rate. The closer we get both of these numbers to 100%, the better.

Enjoy an adfree Pocket-lint with Multipass

You may have seen the yellow Multipass button on our website. 

Pocket-lint has teamed up with Multipass to give you a way to access your favourite websites around the web without adverts, but still with the knowledge that you are supporting the great journalism they offer.

Billed as a Netflix or Spotify for content, using Multipass will allow you to view Pocket-lint completely ad free without the worry of having to install complicated ad blockers or the awkwardness that you aren’t supporting your favourite sites who invest thousands to bring you stories, features, and reviews day in day out.

What is Multipass?

Multipass is a multisite subscription to be the premium on a bundle of websites. With a single membership you will be able to surf Multipass sites without adverts, like Pocket-lint, and access exclusive content on others! Instead of buying a pass for each website, which can be complicated and costly, you get a single pass that works on every website … a Multipass!

How does it work?

Click on the button, create a multipass.net account, and try it for free for a month. You don’t need to install anything on your computer and every partner website lets you surf ad free. Simply click on the button “Premium with Multipass” to be automatically connected on your PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet.

Who are the partners? 

You can use your Multipass on every partner website without limits. Right now, there are over a dozen English websites covering a range of topics like news, sport, and of course tech and more than 50 French websites available too. Every week, Multipass is adding new partners. Multipass is a great way to discover new and quality content.

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Normally, Multipass is £9.90 per month, but you can get the early adopter (Pocket-lint) price of £3.90 a month for a limited time. What’s even better, is you keep that price for the lifetime of your subscription.

You can find out more and sign up for Multipass at https://www.multipass.net/en

Tech companies are trying to crush mom-and-pop repair shops

If you’ve ever wondered why nobody other than Apple is officially licensed to fix your iPhone, it’s because the device titan has locked out everyone else from accessing manuals or spare parts. This pushes small electronics shops to buy used or counterfeit parts of dubious quality. But back in January, five states introduced “right to repair” bills that would force Apple and other device manufacturers to give the public access to proper instructions and components. Surprising no one, tech titans have been lobbying to kill those bills in at least two of those states.

According to a report by New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the companies that lobbied against the state’s bill include: Apple, Verizon, Toyota, Lexmark, Caterpillar, Asurion, and Medtronic, as well as the Consumer Technology Association (which represents electronics manufacturers). But Apple has been active in Nebraska, too. State senator Lydia Brasch, who introduced her Adopt The Fair Repair Act, told Buzzfeed News that she’d had a meeting with a representative from the tech giant who warned her that passing the legislation turn Nebraska into a “Mecca for bad actors” and flood it with hackers.

It’s not just Apple keeping you from getting the parts to fix your iPhone, though Brasch does point out that there’s only one Apple store in all of Nebraska to go to for device repairs. Her bill to let folks repair their own tech is focused on agricultural machines, not consumer electronics.

“The primary impetus,” Brasch told Popular Mechanics back in February, “is that we are an agricultural state. One out of every four jobs is connected to agriculture. When you are work in farming, you are tied to weather restrictions—planting, harvesting, all have to take place when the weather is holding. When we have an equipment breakdown, sometimes there’s a waiting period to get repairs down. At the same time, you’re chasing daylight, and you’re helpless during that period of time to diagnose, to maintain, or to repair your own equipment as you had in the past. Farmers are falling behind waiting in the queue for someone to work on their equipment.”

What would likely happen, aside from making it much easier and cheaper for consumers to to get their own devices fixed, is a major loss of revenue from tech companies that currently have a repair monopoly. Apple has justified this dominance by claiming it ensures high quality of parts and services — which, in a perverse way, is true: locking out repair shops forces them to rely on potentially inferior substitute components and build their own reputation against Apple’s titanic brand.

Via: Motherboard

Source: NY State Joint Commission On Public Ethics (report)

‘Destiny 2’ tackles the original’s biggest problem: storytelling

The first time I played the original Destiny, I felt frustrated and annoyed. It was a fun online, co-op team shooter but the game’s narrative was insultingly shallow — a poorly written space opera where a vague “darkness” was out to destroy a mysterious entity called the Traveler that somehow thrust humanity into a golden age, but also might be dead. It took a year for Bungie to patch in interesting characters and emotional hooks with The Taken King expansion, but by then, I had moved on. Destiny 2, however, has my attention. Not only does it look like a good starting point for new players, but it has the one thing every epic story needs: a great villain.

It’s possible I’m jumping the gun here. Technically, we don’t know a lot about Dominus Ghaul, the antagonist of Destiny 2’s campaign, but what Bungie has shown hints at a more complex villain than the franchise has had before. He’s not a vague, undefined evil, or a meanacing warlord out for revenge, but a character who feels his people have been deeply wronged by the Traveler, the entity that bestows the game’s players with their powers. In Ghaul’s mind, the Traveler made a mistake when it chose to bless humanity alone. His race, the Cabal, should have prospered, too.

“The phrase I’ve used in the office is that Ghaul is the hero of his own story,” Destiny 2 Director Luke Smith told Engadget. Smith describes Ghaul as a character with a sense of purpose, someone who feels he’s doing the right thing for his people. It’s an idea that authors like George R. R. Martin have long championed: nobody thinks of themselves as the villain in their own story — and writing characters from this perspective gives them a sense realism and depth. It makes them relatable. “There’s a little bit of that dissonance there,” Smith said. “In some ways you’re excited to put your reticle over his head and shoot him, but in other ways, you’re like, ‘Man, from his perspective he’s not totally wrong.’”

This character-driven approach builds on what Bungie learned from the original Destiny’s expansions. Smith specifically cites, The Taken King, which heavily used Nathan Fillion’s performance as Cayde-6 to guide players through the expansion’s story. Voiceovers, cutscenes and character cameos are all used to draw the player into the narrative. “We’re spending a lot of time just trying to make sure that we’re telling a story and that we have characters that people want to meet and want to work with,” Smith said. “This is part of our general commitment to narrative in Destiny 2. Telling a story that you can follow.”

It’s something the original game failed to do, but Bungie is looking at the sequel almost as blank slate. Destiny is now less the beginning of the franchise than it is a prologue. “It’s issue zero,” Smith said — a nod to comics terminology. “We established the universe and its rules, and established some characters, but now with Destiny 2 we’re going to set things in motion.”

It may be a bit disheartening for players of the original game to learn they were only playing the backstory, but it puts the sequel in a much better position to attract a new audience. It’s the kind of soft reboot that lets Bungie reintroduce the universe without relying on the assumption that Destiny 2 players know the original game’s lore back to front. It’s an opportunity to tell the game’s story right — without relying on vague cliches of good and evil.

Smith wouldn’t give any hints to how Destiny 2 would introduce the complex idea of The Traveller and its powers to a new audience, but promises that new players wouldn’t feel left in the dark. As someone who felt abandoned by the original game’s narrative, I hope it’s a promise he can keep. With the right execution, Destiny 2 just might be able to do something the original game never could: make me care about the world of Destiny.

Federal agents used a Stingray to track an immigrant’s phone

Investigators from Immigration and Custom Enforcement as well as the FBI have been using controversial cell-spoofing devices to secretly track down undocumented immigrants, court records show. According to a report the Detroit News, which obtained an unsealed federal search warrant affidavit, FBI and ICE agents in Michigan used a Stingray device to ensnare a restaurant worker from El Salvador in March. The devices, which were originally intended for counter-terrorism use, have come under fire because there are currently no clear rules governing when law enforcement is allowed to deploy them. Even in cases where authorities have a clear target in mind, they run the risk of exposing personal information of other innocent people in range.

Until 2015, Federal investigators were free to deploy the devices without a search warrant. At that point the Justice Department laid out a policy requiring investigators get approval to use the devices first. Local law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, are not bound by the same policy. A bill currently working its way through the House called the Cell Location Privacy Act would require all law enforcement get a probable cause warrant before using one of these devices to track suspects.

While investigators in the Michigan case obtained a warrant before deploying the Stingray — and their suspect had been twice deported in past — digital rights advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are concerned that the case hints at a pernicious new use for the devices in the wake of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and suspended travel ban.

“As far as we know, this is a novel use of that technology,” the EFF’s director of grassroots advocacy Shahid Buttar told the Detroit News. “Once you start giving agencies fancy toys, and somebody is making money off of it, they are going to use them for more things, and ultimately oppress your rights.”

Via: Brad Heath on Twitter

Source: Detroit News