Region 9, San Francisco. CALIFORNIA — Let’s say you go for your annual physical and your doctor recommends that you get a hearing and balance test. Or an electrocardiogram (EKG). Or a Hepatitis B screening. Does your Original Medicare cover these services? Now there’s a quick way to find out, using your smartphone or tablet. It’s Medicare’s new “What’s Covered” app and it’s free. You can use the app right there in the doctor’s office, hospital, or anywhere else you use your phone or tablet. The app displays general cost, coverage and eligibility details for medical items and services covered by Medicare Part A and Part B. You can search or browse to learn what’s covered and not covered; how and when to get covered benefits; and basic cost information. You can also get a list of Medicare-covered preventive health services, like flu shots and cancer and diabetes screenings. “What’s Covered” is available … [Read more...] about Free app shows what Medicare covers
Google apps help center
I asked Alexa and Google Assistant how to find my data. Here’s what they said
We asked two of the most popular smart home assistants — Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant — how to find the user data their devices collected about us. The Google Home device promptly directed us to the Google Home app and google.com/myactivity. But after multiple attempts, Amazon's Alexa was unable to answer the question, "How do I access my data?" It didn't seem like too much to ask of the voice-activated devices that are taking up residence in millions of American homes, but Alexa appeared to be caught by surprise.Amazon and Google's artificial intelligent virtual assistants are being built into smart speakers, phones, security systems, televisions and even cars. Over the past 18 months, Amazon and Google captured more than 50 percent of the smart home market share. At the CES 2019 consumer electronics show, Google announced users could soon find Google Assistant on nearly one billion devices worldwide, including Android phones. Meanwhile, Amazon has sold about 100 … [Read more...] about I asked Alexa and Google Assistant how to find my data. Here’s what they said
Life reduced to dots on a map: A look at the data Google collects
Look at the location data that Google has collected about you, and you’ll see yourself in a whole new way, writes NYT's John Herrman.In August 2018, the Associated Press published an investigation into how Google handles the data it collects, following a curious discovery by a graduate researcher at UC Berkeley. For years, the company has allowed users to control their ‘location history,’ a detailed record of where they’ve been, based on their activity in Google Maps.This, the researcher suggested — and The AP confirmed — did not work as advertised. “Some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking,” the reporters found. The revelation has since resulted in at least one lawsuit, and has renewed public criticism from lawmakers.We’re aware that Google is logging our whereabouts. Google Search, for example, helps us find things, and it uses our location to supply more relevant information (by … [Read more...] about Life reduced to dots on a map: A look at the data Google collects
Change your phone settings NOW so Google and Apple can’t track you
TECHNOLOGY companies have been pummelled by revelations about how poorly they protect their customers’ personal information, including an in-depth New York Times report detailing the ability of smartphone apps to track users’ locations. Some companies, most notably Apple, have begun promoting the fact that they sell products and services that safeguard consumer privacy. Smartphone users are never asked explicitly if they want to be tracked every moment of each day. But cellular companies, smartphone makers, app developers and social media companies all claim they have users’ permission to conduct near-constant personal surveillance. The underlying problem is that most people don’t understand how tracking really works. The technology companies haven’t helped teach their customers about it, either. In fact, they’ve intentionally obscured important details to build a multi-billion-dollar data economy … [Read more...] about Change your phone settings NOW so Google and Apple can’t track you
Addicted to your smartphone? How to keep track of your screen time
How much time are you spending glued to your phone each day? Google and Apple both have tools to help you manage your screen time on their devices. You can use these features to see how much time you're really spending on your mobile device and which applications you use most often. Apple's "Screen Time" feature on its iPhones can be found under "Settings." It breaks down in simple charts how long you spent on your phone that day or over the past week, and tells you which types of apps sucked up most of your time.Google has built a native "Digital Wellbeing" app into its Pixel phones which provides similar data. It also includes an option to set limitations on usage. For other Android devices, there are a number of apps in the the Google Play store that users can download to monitor their mobile device usage.It's hard to know how your usage stacks up against the average because Apple does not release any aggregate data that could show trends. However, here in our newsroom, we asked … [Read more...] about Addicted to your smartphone? How to keep track of your screen time