Sea of outrage after 'migrant-spotting app' turned out to be bogus The developers behind a much-hyped, headline-grabbing humanitarian smartphone app are in damage control mode after their software was found to be junk. The iSea app for iOS was billed as a way for users to help rescue refugees adrift at sea by combing over satellite imagery of oceans on their smartphones and flagging any shots …
Well, as Tay pointed out, you have to know things about stuff to instantly recognize how ludicrous the very premise of this app is. And to be able to prove it, you *really* need skills beyond that of basic journalism -- or at least be smart enough to ask someone who does have the skills.
We're in a world where people are *shocked* to discover that yes, a jet airliner can disappear without there being satellite videos that will show exactly where it was for every second of its journey. And people want to feel good about being able to help from their armchairs (slacktivism). If wearing pink cures breast cancer, can't we solve the refugee disaster by swiping right? Don't we *deserve* the opportunity to know that downloading an app will fix everything??
Well, someone else downloading an app, really. I'd download it myself, but it looks kind of boring.
There are crowd-sourcing sites like zooniverse.org which really do help with problems that computers still aren't very good at such as image recognition (mapping solar flares, deforestation, ocean floor analysis). They can simply rely on lots of amateurs pre-ranking images for expert analysis, which helps in putting those needles you're looking for into a much smaller haystack.
Yes, there are plenty of ludicrous premises - real time refugee monitoring of the high seas isn't a clever one. But there are plenty of actually useful applications for this sort of technology.
You're all talking about the app, you all know the name of the developer, and... well... before being blacklisted forever, Grey Goo was nominated for several awards.
As long as you believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity, this whole experience has been awesome for everybody involved.
Well, they won an advertising award, that's something right?
(Amusingly, pretty much every search for the app is bringing up results saying it's a scam now)
...deserves to be had.
It always had to be a con, because there was no money in it. Now, had the developers thought a bit harder they could have taken the "market-maker" model of Uber, or Airbnb, and come up with Fugee, a new platform to link those with the wish to travel unsafely (plus the means to pay) to people smugglers.
Lucrative, flexible, and socially useful. What more could any developer want? And there's plenty of opportunity for value added extras like paying your people smuggler to put all your real identity documents in a weighted bag destined for Davy Jones' locker (5 USD), or for a badly photocopied guide to bluffing your way through the EU asylum systems (10 USD), higher rates for the less unseaworthy vessels (basic plus 500 USD per head). Or even for your people smuggler to send a postcard to your next of kin if the worst happens (10 USD).
So I suppose, what this news story shows is not the problem with gullible users, but in fact, that the problem with most developers: No sense of commerce or meeting people's needs.
No need to be all cynical and snippy. There have been pretty useful dev-led solutions in things like refugee re-unification and disaster relief. A lot of open source stuff is not primarily about money though it may have self-promotion as an incentive.
If you insist on dismissing all open source as junk, which is your prerogative, that primarily leaves you with one consumer operating system these days that is not open source based in any form ;-) Hint: it is not universally loved by its users.
Not sure how well this app would have worked out in practice, but there was nothing wrong per se with wanting to help. Something similar was attempted with Steve Fossett, IIRC.
What was wrong was a) the team misrepresenting (rather pointlessly) the current state of the app, instead of stating it was a prototype. And b) whatever the team's error of judgment, all sorts of journalists in prestigious publications not doing their job correctly.
~ Blame for the media should be first on your hit-list imho... No one asked a single difficult question before helping to hype this???
~ Its not like iAppDroid crapware / Malware hasn't been fairly pervasive in recent months...
~ Yet no one in Medialand is asking very necessary questions... ~ Fuck the media! They hang users out to dry, then just walk away!
~ Yet no one in Medialand is asking very necessary questions... ~ Fuck the media! They hang users out to dry, then just walk away!
Why should they? Once upon a time, journalists/reporters did ask tough questions. But then the advertisers started waving the money sword at the media. So... happy news, happy articles, and no tough, embarrassing questions.
Ad agency: "we're thinking of building an app that would help people rescue refugees"
MOAS: "that sounds like a good idea"
Press release follows. Easy.
I see you're a yank, if you were in the UK you would see this sort of selective quoting and misrepresentation being currently played out on electoral posters all over Britain whenever the facts are deemed inconvenient.
I see you're a yank, if you were in the UK you would see this sort of selective quoting and misrepresentation being currently played out on electoral posters all over Britain whenever the facts are deemed inconvenient.
I hate to say it, but we in the States are seeing the same level of bullcrap. Otherwise the two front runners for President wouldn't be the frontrunners.
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