In short, the app integrates with your camera and gallery, to allow you to remove, pixelize or disguise faces of people in your photos, before you upload them to Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere. It also cleans out all the secret, hidden extra data that gets stored in your photos, like your GPS location, the make and model of the camera phone and sometimes even a unique serial number identifying your phone. While our original goal was to build an app that supported human rights activists in places like Iran and China, we really do think this app has broader relevance to everyday people (like YOU!) who want to have a bit more power of controlling what gets revealed, analyzed and indexed when they share their photos online.

Read the post on the Guardian Project blog, to get a more in-depth idea about what we’ve done, and where we are going with this project. This “v1″ release is just for still photos, but we are quickly moving on to support video, as well as additional obscura filters too!

ObscuraCam is pretty powerful, in that it can automatically detect multiple faces in a photo, and then allow you to selectively choose how to filter those faces. You can also filter out t-shirts, signs, sensitive documents on a desk or just about anything you don’t want a human or machine to be able to see.

You can even have some fun putting on a silly disguise, which may still allow a human to recognize the person in the photo, but would most likely stop Facebook or Google’s current recognition software from figuring out who you are.

So, please – try it out, have some fun, and post some pictures.

Just search for “Obscura” in the Android Market or install it directly from the web.

Unfortunately, the state of Tibetan on Android is still poor, but not hopeless. While Tom Meyer has provided a great starting point for rendering text properly, I still am not aware of any means for inputing Tibetan characters. With that in mind, I set out to investigate the ability to create a new Tibetan “Input Method” (as Google calls it) for Android, and quickly realized that one could just write a Language Pack add-on for the open-source AnySoftKeyboard project. This solution still requires you to root your phone and install the Dzongkha”རྫོང་ཁ font, but is still a step in the right direction!

You can find the open-source code for my new project, the Tibetan AnySoftKeyboard Language Pack on Github. If you would like to try it out, you must have a rooted device with the Dzongkha”རྫོང་ཁ font installed, then install the “AnySoftKeyboard” from the Android Market, then you can install the first test Add-on APK file, and the Tibetan option should come up in keyboard settings.

Below you can see a screenshot of the initial keyboard writing text into the OI Notepad app. It appears to be properly stacking characters as well, but I may be wrong. Also the current implementation does not yet support the SHIFT key or other modifiers. I would love to have some help setting up the rest of the QWERTY mappings in this XML file. Otherwise, any other comments, feedback, advice or pointers to other Android Tibetan keyboard work would be much appreciated!

Nathan Freitas will be on a panel at the 2nd annual Open Video Conference in New York this Friday and Saturday. He will be on the panel entitled “Cameras Everywhere” led by our partners at Witness, on Saturday at 3pm.

Summary: Cameras Everywhere: Human Rights and Web Video - (2:45 PM – 3:30 PM)

Description: Once upon a time, video cameras were rare. Now they are ubiquitous—as are the opportunities to share, use, and re-use video. What are the limits and possibilities of an ethics of openness when it comes to human rights footage?

Videos (particularly mobile and online video) make it possible to document and publicize human rights struggles – from monks marching for freedom in Rangoon and Lhasa, and the election protestors in Tehran, to individual voices speaking out against injustice on YouTube and other online spaces. But despite the growing circulation of images of human rights violations, of victims and survivors, there is limited discussion of crucial safety, consent and ethical concerns – particularly for people who are filmed.

Issues around consent, representation and re-victimization and retaliation have emerged even more clearly in an open and networked online environment, as have concerns about intentionality and authenticity. Video is being reworked, remixed and recirculated by many more people. New possibilities for action by a global citizenry have arisen, but these carry with them substantial challenges, opportunities and dangers.

Presenters:
Sam Gregory — WITNESS
Gabriella Coleman — NYU
Nathan Freitas — The Guardian Project
Steve Grove – News and Politics, YouTube

Following the panel, there will be an open workshop, to continue the discussion and brainstorm new approaches and tools to address the issues raised. This feedback will be gathered and fed into the OVC Hackday, held at NYU ITP on Sunday. Team Guardian will join in with whoever shows up at the hackday, take the ideas from the previous day, and build prototyped mobile video solutions in response to them.

You can get more information and register for the hackday here: http://www.openvideoconference.org/hacklabs/

OVC hack labs: Sunday, October 3

Join us at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program for an all-day open space gathering for innovators of all stripes. Meet and collaborate with conference attendees, HTML5 developers, transmedia storytelling experts, and more. Among the planned activities:

Make interactive HTML5 video using WebMadeMovies technology like popcorn.js
Map out a transmedia strategy for your content
Build a custom HTML5 player for your site
Create robust video sites using the free+open source Kaltura CE 2.0 self-hosted software stack
or just grab a room and hack on your project!

OVC hack labs are free and open to the public.

However, there is still much work to be done… read on!

1) Tor 0.2.2.5-alpha release contains all the necessary code for building the Tor binary exe using the Android C SDK. I utilized http://github.com/tmurakam/droid-wrapper toolchain wrapper scripts to make life easier. This will produce the output Tor exe that can run on Android w/o needing root.

Update: Thanks to Jake, you can now read the updated Orbot BUILD doc for the step by step build how to.

(thanks to ioerror for the pic)

At this point, we are pretty convinced that the performance and efficiency of the C binary is quite significantly better than the Java-based ports of Tor running within Dalvik… this translate to a better experience for the user, with no noticeable increase in battery drain or lag on the rest of the device while Tor is running in the background.

2) Orbot – this is the new Android app which bundles the Tor binary, handles its proper installation on the device and then provides a gui for starting/stopping, view the log and torrc, etc. It also provides a built-in HTTP Proxy and is licensed under the Tor license.

Just to be clear – we aren’t using the NDK or a shared library… we are actually extracting a binary and managing it via Runtime.getRuntime().exec() calls. This is 100% supported – who knew?! More info on how to do this here

The first code is up here… all is working, but def needs much polish:
https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/Orbot/

This post is in part a call for developers to contribute to the continued development of Orbot, so we can get it to a 1.0 state. The other big task is to modify the open-source, privacy focused Shadow browser, from the University of Cambridge DTG group, in order to make it work with our HTTP proxy. That would be a really great step forward, as right now, we have to ask users to set their global APN (read: https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/android/trunk/Orbot/INSTALL)

Thanks for everyone’s help and support to get here. I’d like to keep pushing on to a public release via the App Market very soon. Let me know if you’d like to contribute in any way – code, screen designs, icons, testing….

Domo arigato, Mr. Orbot-o!!

“Twitter against Tyrants: New Media in Authoritarian Regimes”
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 2:00 p.m.
1539 Longworth House Office Building

This briefing will consider the ways in which new media and Internet communication technologies affect the balance of power between human rights activists and authoritarian governments. Panelists will focus on new media’s role in protests and elections, the ways in which it empowers civil society activists, and the darker side: how dictators use new technology to control and repress their citizens.

The following panelists are scheduled to speak:

• Daniel Calingaert, Deputy Director of Programs, Freedom House
• Nathan Freitas, Adjunct Professor, New York University Interactive Telecom Program;
developer of groundbreaking technology for protests
• Evgeny Morozov, Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown University’s E.A. Walsh School of
Foreign Service; contributing editor, Foreign Policy
• Chris Spence, Chief Technology Officer, National Democratic Institute

Read more about the briefing… Hope to see you there!

The studio is located in the heart of Gowanus, Brooklyn, on 9th Street between Smith and 2nd Ave in an artist and music centric four story converted warehouse. This is just two blocks from the R (4th Ave/9th), G and F trains (Smith/9th). We are dog and bike friendly with 24 hour access possibilities. The space is also right next to Lowe’s Hardware with access to a large freight elevator.

Some other aspects of note: 32′x5′ worktable area with wifi, whiteboards, projector and natural lighting. A variety of tools, two sewing machines, and a fairly open floor plan to accommodate a variety of wacky needs.

Leave a comment here, send an email to nathanfreitas at gmail, or contact me via @nathanfreitas on twitter, if you are interested, want a tour, or more information!

Ryan Oakes, a talented professional magician and proprietor of Solid Oak Productions, spied me sitting in a coffee shop one day working on some code, and asked me if I knew how to build iPhone apps and if I liked magic. Always up for a new and interesting challenge, I said yes, and now, “ta-da!”, anyone can learn and perform a great trick using their iPhone…

Here’s a little more about Predicty:

Finally, a professional-looking magic trick specifically designed for the mobile phone! Designed by a professional magician to make YOU look like the star… not the phone. It doesn’t look like the phone does all the work, but it does! So easy to do, yet people will be totally amazed.

Perform it for friends! Perform it for your family! Perform it in a bar to break the ice with strangers!

Two versions included in app: “Think-a-Drink” and the family-friendly “Predict-a-Pet”

Download it now on the App Store!

My good friend and collaborator Rosa Ruey has a new work on display as part of the show Living & Dreaming at the Bronx Museum.

Rosa’s new work, “Chrono-Particle Processor”, is both visually mesmerizing and strangely functional. You see, it is actually a distributed time machine meant for the general good of all humanity to give back time we have lost… or something like that. Portions of the work/device were realized using intricate inked pieces of wood designed using open-source app Inkscape and then rendered out of wood using a laser provided by the always-awesome NYC Resistor. Since there is a spiritual link between Nikola Tesla and NYC Resistor, then the possibility that Rosa’s work is actually a space-time device of some sort may actually be true.

The show is up until September 13th. It is very easy to get to the Bronx Museum on the D train… it took MC and I about 45 minutes from Park Slope on a Sunday! Exit at 167st and walk down Grand Concourse about two blocks. The museum itself is a beautiful space, with additional exhibits on display including a general history of the Bronx through artifacts.

More of Rosa’s drawings and sketches can be seen below and on her website…

We all know how mobile phones and ubiquitous computing have changed communication and networking in our personal lives, but do you understand the affect they have had on political and social justice movements around the world? More importantly, do you know how this has been done, so that you can apply these techniques when your own moment to raise your voice comes? While Obama Vice-Presidential SMS announcement was a milestone for politics in the U.S., activists and organizations around the world have been using mobile phones for years to get their message out, organize their communities, safely communicate under authoritarian eyes and save lives in times of crisis.

Through studying historic, global uses of mobile technology and then teaching you how to use and apply these techniques, this course will give you the power 2B THE CHNG U WNT 2 C. The source will study and apply the use of SMS capture and broadcast systems (FrontlineSMS/RapidSMS), mobile crisis & event reporting tools (Ushahidi, VoteReport), Bluetooth broadcast systems, pirate Wifi mesh nodes, helmet-cam mobile phones and wearable UMPC/NetBook video broadcast systems. The course will also study about security and privacy of mobile phones and the possibility for open-source telephony. While the focus will be on the cutting edge, we’ll also review the historic importance of police scanners, HAM radio, walkie talkie radios and other “old school” tools that have played important roles in the civil rights movement, the environmental movement and more. Actual organizations, causes and activists will be invited to speak to the class (both in-person and via Skype from around the world) to offer their stories and observations. Opportunities to work on projects with these movements will be presented to students.

Some experience programming mobile devices (J2ME, iPhone, Android) will be useful, but not necessary. Experience in setting up at least one web server/application or blog system preferred. Having a cause you work or identify with or at least something you care about will be very important. Case studies to include:

• The use of SMS message forwarding and multimedia attachments to share the Philippines version of the Nixon tapes
• Streaming live video from Mt. Everest and the Great Wall of China (while hiding from the police)
• Secure, Anonymous, Private Mobile Phones via open-source Cryptophone software and Google Android
• Reporting in Crisis: Kenya, Congo and Gaza eyewitness acount tracking via SMS and Smartphones
• Election Protection: making sure your vote counts – activism for the common citizen
• Crowd Control: Organizing and directing mass mobilizations through Twitter and SMS
• Virtual Telephony: Asterisk, Google Voice, Skype and more, and why making phone numbers virtual and disposalable matters
• From Tsunami’s to Twitter: did you know the first micro-blogging via SMS that mattered happened in the aftermath of the 2005 tsunami?

It’s from the guy who made (and sold!) Dodgeball (a pre-Twitter mobile social service) along with another super-sharp mobile guy in NYC, and it’s launching at SXSW…. well, at least the iPhone app is.

Feeling left out, I decided there should at least be a basic offering for Android, and realized I could just wrap and tweak the mobile web service they offer at http://m.playfoursquare.com

Hence, FourDroid was (quickly) born, thanks to the always awesome PhoneGap Framework and the built-in WebKit browser on Android.

The benefit the “app” version has over just pointing your browser at the site:

• the app keeps its state/page separate from any web browsing you might do
• You can easily add the app icon to your home screen for quick access
• the browser font size is increased by default (the size for the mobile site is very small)
• a bottom button/tab bar provides quick links to often used screens
• it is just so much hotter to have an “app” than to try to explain how to type in a mobile URL

At some point, PhoneGap can also be used to tie in GPS location detection, photo upload, accelerometer and more, but for now, I’ll just settle for the benefits listed above.

The best part of this whole story is that I wrote the app this evening while I was waiting for other work (well paying work) to compile… so about two hours total interleaved into what I was actualy supposed to be doing. Yay, for PhoneGap on Android!

Search for “fourdroid” or “foursquare” in the Android Market today to try the app out for yourself