Facebook will help you find the nearest Wi-Fi
Facebook recently launched a new feature called “Find Wi-Fi” to help users discover the closest free or public internet. This feature was launched last year in a few countries and they found it helped users who were traveling as well as those in locations where cellular data is limited. This feature can be found on the sidebar under “Find Wi-Fi” and your location services must be activated for it to work.
Plans for changing ticket lines are in progress
Ticketmaster, the event ticketing company, has teamed up with Lisnr in order to reduce ticket lines and ticker fraud. Lisnr is a data-over-audio company that uses “smart tones” to transfer information among devices. They’re coming together to turn tickets into smart tones to check attendees into a venue as they walk in. The idea is that each virtual ticket will be linked to a unique sound making it faster and easier to check than scanning individual bar codes—eliminating the lines. This technology is still in development stages, but it will be interesting to see what the future of ticketing will be.
Michelin unveils the future for tires
Michelin just introduced VISION, a concept tire that is airless, connected, rechargeable, customizable and organic. This may seem like a lot of things for one tire to be, but Michelin believes it will be future for tires. The new concept is a 3D printed tire made of natural and biodegradable materials. The tread can even be reprinted and replaced, which means the tire itself will never need replacing.
Implementing facial recognition at Airports
JetBlue recently experimented with the facial recognition technology for boarding flights to help with convenience, but also national security. This was the first use of facial recognition in the flight boarding process and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is looking at implement the technology in all transactions where showing an ID is necessary. This new use for facial recognition with traveling has caused many people to question if this is a privacy violation as well as the accuracy of the technology.
Guest Blogger: Ann McGrail
Ann is a PR Intern at TDS Telecom and a Journalism and Communication Arts student at UW-Madison.
