Similar to music identification apps that can listen and identify a song’s name, a new piece of mobile software called Ad Hawk lets you know who is really behind a particular political ad you see on television.
What’s more, it drills down into the leanings and financials of the group. The app requires about 30 seconds to identify an ad, so in most cases that’ll mean using your DVR to rewind — unless you’re really quick.
Once it has figured out the ad, it’ll tell you what group paid for it. You are then able to view details on the investors, including how much money they have, how much they’ve spent so far in this election, what percentage of their ads have been positive of negative, and which political party their ads support.
Available for free download, Ad Hawk is a product of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization. It will be updated on a daily basis as new ads hit the airwaves. It uses location services to help the foundation build a map of where certain ads are running across the country. However you can able to disable this feature if you’re worried about it intruding on your privacy or draining your battery life.
As residents in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., have three more weeks to petition for Google Fiber’s service to come to their neighborhood, many are stacking it up against Verizon FiOS network and its existing packages.
But because Verizon FiOS is not likely to enter the same markets as Google Fiber — and if they do overlap, it won’t be anytime soon — it’s hard to label the services as direct competitors.
Google announced in July that it would be bring ultra-high Internet speeds first to residents in the Kansas City area and will likely grow to more regions in the future (an effort that will certainly take time to build), while Verizon isn’t looking to enter new states anytime soon.
Google Fiber’s offering is not only priced more competitively than FiOS, it also features impressive specs. It boasts speeds up to 1,000 Mbps, 162 TV channels including Showtime, a DVR that records up to eight channels at once, 500 hours of HDTV and a free Nexus 7 tablet that serves as a remote.
Meanwhile, FiOS — which launched its bundled Internet, telephone and TV service via a fiber network in 2005 — features speeds up to 300 Mbps, 380 channels including ESPN, NFL RedZone and Showtime, a DVR that records two channels at once and features 60 hours of HD for $318 a month.
Google Fiber offers several option packages, including Internet for $70 a month, and Internet along with television for $120. In addition, it is offering a slower 5 Mbps package for a seven-year period at no monthly cost. (Note: A $300 installation fee is required.)
But Google Fiber isn’t readily available just yet and it’s taking some work from potential customers to bring it to their community. In fact, those who want the service in the Kansas City area have to rally and petition for it to come to their community, which Google is calling “fiberhoods.” Each fiberhood needs a high majority of their residents to pre-register to get the service, and those communities with a high pre-registration percentage will be among the first to get Google Fiber.
As for FiOS, if you are not one of the 12 states or Washington D.C. that currently runs over its fiber-optic communications network, you probably won’t ever get it, according to a Verizon spokesperson.
“Our FiOS network follows our traditional landline network, so we aren’t in every state or even some pockets of states where we have connectivity,” John Bonomo, director of media relations for Verizon, told Mashable. “I don’t anticipate building and growing that network into other states.”
This means that Verizon FiOS won’t be competing against Google Fiber in the Kansas City region because it doesn’t have plans to enter that market, Bonomo confirmed.
It’s also been widely reported that Verizon’s cable spectrum deal with Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Bright House networks would restrict the carrier from growing its FiOS network.
However, Bonomo said Verizon does have plans to grow more within the communities in which it already has services: “We are nearing our objective to have FiOS capabilities pass through 18 million households,” he said. “As we continue out, our focus is building further out into those communities where we already have TV franchises and don’t have full accessibility.”
To find out if FiOS is available in an area, consumers can type their home address into Verizon’s site. For those with accessibility, orders can be made over the phone or online. Verizon is currently marketing to those communities with mailers, hosting local events at places such as strip malls, hiring door-to-door sales staffers and sending emails to expand its user base.
Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan talks on the phone as a camera-equipped drone hovers outside a parliament in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Aug. 21, 2014.
Image: B.K. Bangash/Associated Press
The U.S. government uses them to bomb alleged terrorists in far-away places. Tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Facebook are all toying with the idea of incorporating them into their businesses, and now they’re a photographer’s secret weapon.
Drones are a big part of our lives, whether we see them or not. Drone Beat collects the best and most important stories every week.
If you want more on Drones, subscribe to the Center for the Study of the Drone’s Weekly Roundup, which features news, commentary, analysis and updates on drone technology.
Drone Beat’s coverage areas this week
Last update: August 22, 11:45 a.m. ET
Will India be the launchpad for Amazon’s drones?
The cities of Mumbai and Bagalore in India might become the test sites for Amazon’s much hyped drone delivery program, known as Prime Air, according to a report by India’s newspaper the Economic Times.
In the United States, drone regulations are thorny and not business friendly for now. In late June, the Federal Aviation Administration specifically called out delivery by flying robot as something that is not allowed. India, on the other hand, would be an ideal candidate for Amazon because the country has no rules regarding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
“Amazon will not be breaking any laws in India,” Bharat Malkani, an aviation expert and CEO of Mumbai-based Max Aerospace, told Quartz.
Amazon could be planning to start delivering packages via drone as early as October, taking advantage of the days ahead of the shopping-friendly festivity of Diwali.
More U.S. national parks ban drones
In June, the National Park Service issued a memorandum to ban drones from parks across the U.S. But that was just the first step, each park then needed to issue its own ban for it to be effective. Zion National Park in Utah and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona were the first ones to do so.
This week, more have joined in. The National Park Service’s office in Moab, Utah, officially banned drones in the Arches and Canyonlands national parks and in the Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments.
The National Park Service also banned drones from flying over the entire Appalachian Trail.
Yosemite National Park was the first to attempt to ban the flying robots, even before the rule was issued by the National Park Service.
It seems it’s just a matter of time before others join in. As a result, we might miss out on videos like these.
Rescuers use drones in aftermath of earthquake in China
First responders used drones to survey the areas hit by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake earlier this month in China’s Yunnan province.
After the quake, rescuers from the China Association for Disaster and Emergency Response Medicine got some help from a team of pilots at DJI, a large manufacturer of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles based in Hong Kong, as Motherboard reported.
“Aerial images captured by the team were used by workers in the epicenter area of Longtoushan, where most of the traditional buildings in the area collapsed,” the company told Motherboard. “The dense rubble and vegetation have made ground surveying extremely difficult, so using aerial images has helped identify where relief teams can focus on searching for survivors.”
Australian football team uses drones to film trainings
A team in the Australian Football League (AFL) has bought two small drones to film its training from above, according to local newspaper The Age.
The Hawthorn Football Club, also known as the Hawks, bought the drones in an attempt “to find an edge in technology to improve its on-field performance.”
There aren’t a lot of details on how the team plans to use its drones, but the newspaper said they’ll use them to analyze their strategies and plays from a better vantage point.
How will drone photography change society? A look into the past can help predict the future
In a fascinating, must-read article, author Clive Thompson opined that drones — with their high-resolution photo and video cameras — might change photography and society just as much as the first personal camera and the rise of the so-called “snapshot” in the late 19th century.
Drones “allow for entirely new forms of voyeurism: peering into windows, over fences or zooming above public crowds to pick out individuals,” but they are also “creating new aesthetics for picture-taking by everyday people — some of which are strikingly lovely and useful,” Thompson wrote in the Smithsonian article.
“For good and ill, photography is being born anew,” he said.
