Developers need to be aware of any legal or ethical issues when creating any healthcare apps for smartphones.
Shutterstock/thodonal
Developers working on apps to help monitor and improve our health could accidentally find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
Technology can be a powerful tool for learning.
Reuters/Sait Serkan Gurbuz
Here’s a guide to getting rid of “junk” apps and ensuring your kids develop healthy tech habits both in term time and during the school holidays
A smartphone can be useful to help monitor your behaviour.
Shutterstock/GooGag
How we use our smartphone can say a lot about our behaviour. But can such tech be trusted to track our mental health?
Some mental health apps claim to track your mood over time, while others claim to “cure” your mental ill health with hypnosis.
Adobe
While some respectable organisations have lists of recommended apps, very few of these apps are supported by experimental evidence.
Pokémon Go’s developers may have moved the goalposts too many times.
Wachiwit/Shutterstock.com
Since spawning a global craze, Pokémon Go has shed a third of its players, while downloads have dried up. What did the developers do wrong, and what can others learn about keeping gamers happy?
The right app can help a child with dyslexia.
Billion Photos/Shutterstock
Dyslexic? There’s an app for that.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks about the new iPhone 7 during the Apple launch event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California.
Monica Davey/AAP
The Apple business model is failing. Its ability to keep customers confined to the company’s ecosystem cannot be sustained because of the rise of apps and other online platforms.
Google employees may be getting a free lunch, but not its customers.
Erin Siegal/Reuters
Unlike their counterparts in Europe, U.S. antitrust regulators and courts have tended to view ‘free’ products as outside their purview for enforcement.
Does that smartphone app help you get a better night’s sleep?
Shutterstock/Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley
There are plenty of devices to help monitor your sleep, but are they any good?
Apple-developed lessons help students learn to code on the same device the code will be used on.
Apple
If you’re creating an app for an iPad, then why not create it on an iPad too. Is Apple’s Swift move to do this just another step towards the end of the personal computer?
See things differently with Pokemon.
Pawel Supernak/EPA
What if the most interesting thing the Pokémon Go phenomenon offered was where it leads you?
Technology can help cut your alcohol use.
Flickr/Mr TinDC
Smartphone apps can help people cut back on the amount of alcohol they drink. But is it nagging apps or gentle persuiasion that people prefer?
Online and offline activism are merging, as recognised by this protest against the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Twitter
Racial abuse and violence and the intertwining of ‘offline’ and ‘online’ worlds call for new methods for opposing racism in public.
Justin Lane/EPA
Pokémon’s new augmented reality app reveals the challenges we’ll face when robots and other autonomous technologies become commonplace.
Opening up mobile apps’ data to scholarly researchers.
Mobile phone and binary via shutterstock.com
Companies are excellent at offering apps and services in exchange for users’ data. This approach can also be a big boost to scholarly research.
A mobile phone is not a medical device – so don’t believe apps that say they are.
Jason Howie/Flickr
With an estimated 100,000 health and fitness apps available, it seems there is an app for everything – from tracking your bowel movements to practising your pimple-popping technique.
EPA/Armando Babani
Whatsapp has become the most popular way to share maps and information, because it’s encrypted.
Route mapping apps such as Strava are popular with cyclists, but you need to protect your privacy.
Shutterstock/antb
If you use one of the many apps to map your walking, jogging or cycling route then you could be giving away information that could be abused by others.
Apple’s App Store goes green – for one week only.
Apple
Why Earth Day needs to more than an opportunity for environmentalists to spread the word.
Easy tips on how to disconnect from social media and connect with the real world.
Shutterstock/Photographee.eu
Many of us are becoming addicted to social media, and it’s having a negative impact on our lives. Here are some tips to help you take back control.