A news report by a Florida television station that claimed Facebook is evesdropping on our conversations, has been debunked.

The report from WFLA showed a communications expert demonstrating how the social network listens to conversations through our microphones without our knowledge, then sending advertisements based on what it heard.

Dr. Kelli Burns, an associate professor in the School of Mass Communications at the University of South Florida, took to her blog Monday to explain what happened in the news report and clarified she does not believe Facebook listens in the background.

We performed the same type of test shown in the news report by talking about a Florida vacation. We spoke of a vacation with our phone locked then again with Facebook open. We even tried it by asking Siri to find us rental property in Florida.

We checked Facebook 24 hours later but did not see any advertisements or posts related to a beach vacation.

The news report has surfaced on websites and news sites around the world, but it isn’t true.

Facebook responded to the story in its own blog re-iterating it doesn’t listen through the microphone unless the user asks it to identify a song or tv show playing, OR is recording video.

If this still bothers you, the microphone can be turned off by going to Setting>privacy>microphone and uncheck Facebook.

Android users go to settings>privacy and emergency>app permissions then edit which apps have access to your microphone.

 

Dr. Kelli Burns Blog

https://kellisburns.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/is-facebook-listening/

 Original Report from WFLA

Facebook’s Response

Kim Komando’s story

So, you took your phone to the lake or beach or swimming pool and accidentally dropped it in the water. Summer’s a bummer.

About 20% of all smartphone ‘deaths’ are attributed to water damage, with most accidents happening in July.

Should your phone succumbs to the depths of a pool, here are several steps you can use to try and resuscitate it:

Get it out of the water as fast as possible. Each second the phone is wet runs a greater risk at short circuiting it.

Turn it off. (ditto)

Take off the case. Your goal is to dry this phone out as quickly as you can.

Remove headphones or charging plugs

Shake it, blow air into the earphone and charging jacks. Get out as much water as possible this way

Let it air dry by placing it outside, unless it is extremely humid. Do not place it in full sun as it will get too hot.

If it fell in salty, dirty or something other than water, rinse it off under clean tap water. Be careful not to let water get inside any ports.

If you bury the phone in a bowl of rice to help soak up water, use instant rice rather than uncooked. Soaking a phone in rice hasn’t been proven to help.

Use couscous instead.

Instant oatmeal also soaks up water faster than rice. Again, do not let anything like oatmeal dust get inside the ports

Do not use instant oatmeal from envelope packages. Most of those are high in sugar or contain maple syrup flavoring.

Plug the phone into a wall outlet and let it sit for a few days before turning it on.

Be patient and resist the urge to turn it on. The longer you let it sit the better.

These steps won’t help in every incident. If a phone is kept underwater for very long it will never work again. Act quickly to save your phone’s life.

 

If you shop at Amazon.com you may be missing out on better deals by not shopping at other Amazon companies.

 

We ran down some of around 35 companies acquired and owned by the online retailer and found some of these websites offer better prices.

 

6pm.com sells men’s and women’s fashions by name brands. Beautybar.com specializes in beauty products and accessories. Eastdane.com is a high fashion specialty store for men. YoYo.com is an online toy store that offers many products for less than you find on Amazon. We shopped for and found a Star Wars action figure that is $7 cheaper than on Amazon.

 

Shopbop.com is a high fashion designer webstore for women. Amazon also owns Soap.com, Diapers.com, Fabric.com, Wag.com for pet products, Woot.com that offers a deep discount on a few products each day.

Casa.com is an online furniture store.

Createspace is for content creators. This site helps writers finish a book by pairing them with publishing experts. Users can also publish video and music content for distribution on Amazon. ACX can help authors turn their books into audiobooks.

Abebooks.com sells rare and autographed books.

DPreview is for digital photographers.

Tenmarks.com is for math teachers.

Comixology.com sells digital comic books.

 

You can also find home repair professionals to paint a house, clean gutters, do electrical work and even put up a basketball goal. These professionals are local service providers who offer free estimates.

 

Amazon has also purchased and now owns other popular online website companies such as IMDB.com, Twitch, Zappos.com and Audible.com

It’s one of the first things we learn, how to color. Now, 40-50 years later, grown-ups are buying crayons and coloring books again.

And one app is almost as good as the real thing.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pigment-only-true-adult-coloring/id1062006344?mt=8

The worst passwords in the world are for sale on the black market. Is one of them yours?  How to set an impossible-to-guess password that’s easy for you to remember.

Facebook’s new Live Video Map opens the world of live video streaming to all Facebook users. Easily see all of the videos being streamed live. What could go wrong?