Free Republic

Want to make $200 a day in New York City? Rush to the scene of a murder, a three-alarm fire or a traffic accident — then pull out your phone and start filming. That’s the pitch from Citizen, a controversial neighborhood watch app that’s quietly hiring New Yorkers to livestream crime scenes and other public emergencies in an apparent effort to encourage more ordinary citizens to do the same, The Post has learned. Citizen has raised $133 million from high-profile backers like Peter Thiel, as well as the Silicon Valley venture firms Sequoia Capital and Greycroft, by promising real-time safety...

A group led by a Rutgers University professor just created an Android smartphone app that notifies users when their location data is being tracked and transmitted by another app. Assistant professor Janne Lindqvist’s new app displays a banner across Android screens saying, “Your location is accessed by [app name],” when said app is transmitting location data, taking advantage of technology already present on the Android operating system that few users were aware even existed. “People were really surprised that some apps were accessing their location, or how often some apps were accessing their location,” Lindqvist told MIT Technology Review of...