New Path Limits Photo-Sharing to Tight Circle

A new social networking startup, Path, is aiming the opposite direction -- at least with its core functionality.

The new San Francisco-based photo-sharing service, which launched as an iPhone app on Sunday, limits users to no more than 50 friends -- barely a third of the 130 friends the average Facebook user has. Path's organizers intend to make the service platform agnostic over the long term, the company said.

The reason: Despite the core premise of social networking -- to share experiences-- Path's founders say people don't feel comfortable sharing the most personal moments with hundreds or even thousands of people, on a fraction of whom are truly close friends.

But on Path, because one's personal network is limited to his or her 50 closest friends and family, the user can presumably feel free to post more personal moments, according to the company.

The Service

Path is headed by former Facebook employee Dave Morin, and in many ways appears to be that service's antithesis.

It doesn't do anything but share photos, at the moment at least. There are no pokes or check-ins, no wall posts for everyone to read. There's just the simple ability for one person to take a photo on a camera phone, tag it as a person, place or thing, and to share that photo with a group of friends.

Only people with whom the photo has been shared can see it, but a geo-location database of anonymized subject tags -- Path uses the example of "dancing with" -- are visible to anyone.

It allows users to see photos shared by friends on a map, and promises other visualizations later.

Unlike some other hot photo-sharing iPhone apps of the moment, such as Instagram, Path doesn't offer filters or modifications to photos.

Path's growth plans are a little grainy. The company is taking username registrations on its website for non-iPhone users and has advertised on Twitter for an Android developer, but it's unclear if or when the company intends to offer different forms of sharing going forward.

The 50-User Limit

The limit was devised based on research by Oxford University Professor Robin Dunbar into social relationships. Dunbar's research, Path said, suggested that 150 is the human limit for social relationships at any one time, with around 50 as the outer boundary of close personal relations.

But Lon S. Safko, a social media expert, said he doesn't think

However, social networking users may not cotton to such a service just because it purports to limit oversharing, according to Lon S. Safko, a social media consultant.

"Exclusivity isn't worth the time any more," he said. "You can already control your groups in Twitter and on Facebook. There's no added value."

That it's limited to photos is another strike, he said.

Many people actually like having large social networking groups, giving many people the 15 minutes of fame they crave. "People are voyeurs at heart," he said. "The more people they add, the more lives they can look at."

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Facebookers' Feeds Crawling With Malware, Security Firm Finds

Links to malware-infested sites and other threats lurk in many Facebook users' news feeds, according to research from security vendor BitDefender.

Among approximately 14,000 Facebook users who installed BitDefender's Safego security and privacy app, about one in five has malware in his or her news feed.

More than 60 percent of the attacks detected by Safego are malicious apps that promise various benefits but install malware when they're downloaded, BitDefender spokesperson Dan Wire told TechNewsWorld.

Sixteen percent of attacks use worms that spread using specially crafted messages that are likely to attract attention.

However, Wire warned against using those statistics to reflect on Facebook as a whole. "We stipulated that we were talking about 20 percent of the Safego users, not [20 percent] of all Facebook users," he pointed out.

"The tools and systems we've built, combined with concerted campaigns to arm users with the information to make smarter and safer decisions online, have limited the number of Facebook users impacted by security issues to less than 1 percent, and that's since the founding of the site more than six years ago," Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens told TechNewsWorld.
Breaking Down the Safego Stats



To date, about 14,000 people have installed the beta version of Safego, a privacy and security app for Facebook that BitDefender launched about a month ago.

Safego has scanned more than 20 million objects on those users' pages since then, and it's found that 20 percent of the users have malware in their news feeds. That means "everything that the user sees -- his wall and what his friends post to their walls," BitDefender's Wire explained

Just over 21 percent of the malware lets users perform actions normally prohibited by Facebook. Just over 15 percent sucks in victims by offering bonuses for various games hosted by Facebook. For example, they offer free coins on "Farmville" and "Mafia Wars." More than 11 percent provide features Facebook doesn't offer. For example, they let you change your background or include a "dislike" button.

Various other forms of attack were also used, but less frequently.
What Safego Does

Safego checks users' privacy levels and identifies personal information that's visible to strangers. It also scans the user's wall, inbox and comments for malicious links and compromised shared content such as videos and photos.

The app also protects users' friends -- users can warn their friends about infected links in those friends' Facebook accounts.

However, Safego doesn't block anything; it only warns users of malware.
Going Beyond Facebook

Despite having its own IT security team, Facebook has repeatedly been hit by malware and spam. Only last week, it was hit by a new attack in which a fake email told users their Facebook password had been changed and asked them to install an attached app. When they did so, a Trojan was downloaded instead.

Further, WebSense statistics showed that between June 22 and July 12, 40 percent of all Facebook status updates contain links and 10 percent of those links were either malware or spam.

"We analyzed half a million posts that were collected by Defensio," Websense spokesperson Patricia Hogan told TechNewsWorld. Defensio is a Facebook security app from Websense.

However, Facebook contends it's ahead of the game. "The systems we've built have helped us stay one step ahead of our attackers so that, as we've more than doubled in size over the last year, the actual effect of the attacks on Facebook hasn't changed," company spokesperson Wolens said.

Then can Safego spot malware when Facebook's own security can't?

"We use our cloud scanning technology in which there's a synergy of all our products -- our antispam, antiphishing and antimalware technology," BitDefender spokesperson Wire explained. "We also look at applications that don't necessarily have a malicious payload like stealing money but spread like a worm instead."

Facebook has begun urging users to make its website their homepage, and that could increase the threat to PC users.

"If you make Facebook your homepage after you've been a user for some time, probably nothing dramatic will happen; Facebook will probably just get more users," BitDefender's Wire said. "But if Facebook's site comes as the browser default on a new computer and the user is not aware of security and privacy issues, that would make the problem worse."

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Mobile innovation helps dementia and Alzheimer’s patients

The modern day lifestyle and stress has increased the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients all over the world. As more and more elderly get affected by these memory loss related diseases, they become a growing concern for their caretakers. Whether their caretakers are their children or individuals from various NGOs or senior care centers, keeping track of such patients is always a task.

Some of the most prominent issues with taking care of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia are keeping track of their medication and location. Especially, as a slip in either of these could lead to fatal results. The Vyzin Empowered Security And Guidance (VESAG) watch offers a practical solution to both. The VESAG watch is not only a wireless health monitor that keeps a track of the patient’s key health parameters, but also offers the ability to set customized medication reminders and has a GPS tracker.

The watch helps monitor the blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, pulse, temperature, etc. of the patient and also sends alerts when these parameters reach alarmingly high levels. The medicine reminders give such patients a sense of independence and confidence, as they do not have to be constantly reminded about taking their medication. It also assists caretakers in providing effective health care. The in-built GPS tracker is especially useful when such patients wander away. Their whereabouts can easily be tracked by placing a simple call to the 24/7 support team of VESAG.

In addition to alerting emergency response teams when the patients are distressed, the VESAG team also informs the caretakers of the situation. Since the watch stores vital health related information such as the blood group of the patient, surgery history, allergies, etc., it becomes easier for medical teams to act in case of an emergency. The VESAG watch, thus, not only helps monitor such patients, but gives them a sense of security.

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