Victoria Song

Senior Reviewer, Wearable Tech

Victoria SongJun 12, 2023

Strava’s heatmaps may not be as anonymous as you think.

Strava’s heatmaps can be handy if you’re scoping out new running, cycling, and hiking routes, as it helps visualize popular areas. However, researchers discovered they could reverse-engineer where a Strava user lives — even though heatmaps are created through anonymized, aggregated data.

You can read through the findings (PDF), but essentially, the more active the user, the easier it was for researchers to find their home addresses — especially in remote areas. If that creeps you out, go to Settings > Privacy Controls > Aggregated Data Usage to opt out.

Strava heatmap feature can be abused to find home addresses

[BleepingComputer]

What it’s like to wear the Dyson Zone around an NYC covered in wildfire smoke

Things didn’t go the way I thought they would, but then again, what sort of gadget would be equipped for something like this?

Victoria SongJun 8, 2023

The Dyson Zone said NYC’s air quality yesterday... was good?

Yesterday I took Dyson’s air-purifying headphones out for a stroll in the wildfire smoke apocalypse to see what they would tell me. You can see my initial reaction in the video below and... I certainly didn’t expect to see the live tracking tell me the air was fine!

The Zone only live tracks nitrogen dioxide and wildfire air is made up of much more, but I’m writing up a post that goes into all this in more depth, so stay tuned for that as well.

Oura Ring users can now share sleep scores with friends

Victoria SongJun 8, 2023

Apple’s Journal app needs to read the room

Victoria SongJun 8, 2023

Victoria SongJun 7, 2023

This wildfire did not care that I put on the mask.

Just did a short mini-testing session for the Dyson Zone now that New York City is an orange dystopian hellscape. I don’t recommend doing this, and I was only out there for about 10 minutes (with an N95 mask too). Ultimately, the air filtering feature worked, but the app consistently said the real-time air quality was good and battery drain was... not great Bob! Filmed some footage so keep an eye out for that on our social channels.