Friday, August 08, 2014

Experts Say This Dodge Supercar Is Almost Unhackable

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/dodge-viper-almost-unhackable-2014-8

Dodge-Viper

Chrysler got some bad news and some good news this week, as far as cybersecurity in cars is concerned.

First the bad: A research report concluded that the 2014 Jeep Cherokee is among the "most hackable" vehicles in the market.

Now the good: The 2014 Dodge Viper is among the least hackable.

You've probably seen a Cherokee or two on the highways and byways of your daily life. But chances are you haven't spotted all that many Vipers. The 640hp all-American supercar is Chrysler's answer to not just General Motors' Corvette, but to European brands such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.

According to Reuters, the authors of the study — Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek — "cautioned that since they had not actually attempted to hack the cars, the ones designated 'most hackable' might actually be quite secure," and that they "released their assessments of 'hackability' to create what they say they believe is the first general benchmarks that consumers could use to compare the cybersecurity of vehicles."

So let's say you want Chrysler's least hackable car. A 2014 Viper will set you back $102,000.

 

SEE ALSO: The New Dodge Viper Is Built To Be A Beast On The Track

SEE ALSO: High-Speed Video Shows How The Viper Gets Made In Detroit

Join the conversation about this story »








Read More...

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Roving Robots Can Look Through Buildings Using Nothing But Wi-Fi

Source: http://gizmodo.com/roving-robots-can-see-inside-buildings-using-nothing-bu-1617778653

Roving Robots Can Look Through Buildings Using Nothing But Wi-Fi

Previously, we've seen researchers use everyday Wi-Fi signals like radar , able to detect shapes through a door or wall. Well, here's the logical next step toward the robot overthrow: Putting that tech on top of wheeled robots. You can run (okay, walk), but hiding behind a brick wall is futile.

Read more...

Read More...

Sony joins Samsung and LG with its first curved 4K TVs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/07/sony-s90-4k-curved-ultrahdtv/

Sony's just announced its first large, curved 4K HDTVs, but is doing things a bit differently from its competitors. The new 65- and 75-inch S90 models have less curve than Samsung or LG's offerings, because Sony says that gives better viewing angles and a more immersive experience. Otherwise, they're packed with the kind of tech you'd expect: an UltraHD Triluminos display with "X-tended dynamic range" for better blacks, active 3D, advanced 4K-to-HD upscaling and angled speakers and subwoofers with 4.2 surround sound. Sony's also baked in social viewing, live football mode for instant tweeting and photo sharing. There's still no pricing, but Samsung's curved 65-inch 4K model is $5,000, and its 78-inch model is $8,000 -- despite Sony's smaller curve, we'd expect at least that.

Update: Just for reference, in China, Sony is offering the 65-inch version for 32,999 yuan or about $5,360, and the 75-inch version for 49,999 yuan or about $8,110. Fret not, chances are these will be cheaper when they land in the US.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: Pocket Lint

Source: Sony

Read More...

IBM's new supercomputing chip mimics the human brain with very little power

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/07/ibm-synapse-supercomputing-chip-mimics-human-brain/

A lot has changed in the three years since IBM first unveiled a prototype of its human brain-inspired SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) chip. That single-core prototype has now been significantly scaled up, leading to a new, production-ready SyNAPSE chip that blows past its predecessor with 1 million neurons, 256 million synapses and 4,096 neurosynaptic cores, all the while only requiring 70mW of power. Though the numbers are impressive, it's what they translate to that holds even greater prominence: the ability for devices to process various sensory data in parallel just like the human brain, by merging memory and computing.

Traditionally, faster processing has always meant greater power consumption, but IBM's new SyNAPSE chip flips that paradigm on its head. To give you some perspective of just how low-powered this supercomputing chip is, IBM's Chief Scientist Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha says it requires power equivalent to that of a battery from a hearing aid. It's an achievement that's merited IBM the cover of the journal Science; it also has the potential to drastically alter conventional approaches to computing. In fact, the new SyNAPSE chip is so disruptive to the current computing landscape that IBM's created a new programming language to go along with it and an educational outreach program called SyNAPSE University. It's no wonder why the project received $53 million in funding from DARPA.

IBM's Chief Scientist Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha says [the new SyNAPSE chip] requires power equivalent to that of a battery from a hearing aid.

IBM hasn't publicly announced any partnerships to leverage its new SyNAPSE chip yet, though discussions are surely taking place. Currently, the company's been able to build a programmable, working board with 16 of these chips working in concert -- that represents 16 million neurons capable of processing instructions that, Modha says, would traditionally be carried out by "racks and racks of conventional computers." Again, this is all done at an extremely low-powered state, which means the chips produce way less heat. It's not hard to imagine some of the immediate benefits this could bring to consumers: for instance, laptops that don't burn your lap; or even mobile phones that run for days and can process extreme amounts of environmental data.

But Modha sums up the magnitude of IBM's new SyNAPSE chip best with this simple analogy: "You can carry our board in your backpack. You can't carry four racks of conventional computers in your backpack."

[Image credit: IBM]

Comments

Read More...

Tour college campuses from the couch with Google Maps Street View

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/07/street-view-campus-tours/

The time for choosing a college to attend this fall may have long passed, but you can get a jump start on next year with Google Maps. Street View added 36 more campus tours in the US and Canada, including a look at Georgetown University's Healy Lawn that's pictured above. University of Miami and University of Regina are also included in the tally, allowing you to familiarize yourself with prospective surroundings ahead of that formal campus visit. Or if you just really fancy an academic summer vacation.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Source: Google Maps

Read More...

CHART OF THE DAY: Netflix Is Finally Becoming HBO, Like It Said It Would (NFLX)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-netflix-is-finally-becoming-hbo-like-it-said-it-would-2014-8

Last January, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said the company’s “goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” Well, mission accomplished. According to the latest data provided by the company, which was charted for us by Statista, Netflix has finally passed HBO in subscriber revenue ($1.146 billion vs. $1.141 billion).

Netflix says it has 48 million total paid subscribers, with the vast majority of those customers — 35.1 million, to be exact — in the U.S. HBO actually has more paid subscribers than Netflix with 127 million worldwide, but that figure also includes various channels owned by the company, including HBO 2, HBO Family, and Cinemax.

20140807 BI_HBO_Netflix

SEE ALSO: CHART OF THE DAY: The Worst Company Data Breaches Ever

Join the conversation about this story »








Read More...

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

The FBI uses malware to combat online anonymity

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/05/the-fbi-uses-malware-to-combat-online-anonymity/

CE53N2 Hacker using laptop. Lots of digits on the computer screen.  Stealing; Thief; Identity; Laptop; Hacker; Computer; Securit

Online anonymity is a beautiful, terrible thing, so naturally governments and law enforcement types are eager to see what happens behind the web's closed doors. Naturally, that includes the folks at the FBI: According to Wired, the FBI has been using "network investigative techniques" -- like highly specific, purpose-built malware -- to help peel back popular anonymizing service Tor's layers of obscurity to catch criminals.

The bureau's efforts began in earnest with an involved child pornography investigation dubbed Operation Torpedo back in 2012. They eventually lucked out by gaining access to a CP site called Pedoboard, arresting the operator, taking over the servers, and delivering malware to visitors who thought they were protected by Tor.

There's no denying that some good has come from the bureau's use of malware, as Wired's Kevin Poulsen points out that more than 12 child porn aficionados are headed to trial as a result. The flip side of that coin is that the FBI's success with Operation Torpedo led to another effort to bypass the anonymity that Tor provides... and possibly exposed some innocent people's information to the FBI's eager eyes. With a little Javascript, understanding of Firefox and Tor security issues and a "tiny" Windows program, users of some Tor-hidden services like Tormail (hosted by an outfit called Freedom Hosting, which itself was being investigated for "tolerating" child porn) essentially had their IP addresses unmasked.

Comments

Source: Wired

Read More...

This is why Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion: because its throughput of shared photographs i

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-is-why-facebook-bought-whatsapp-for-16-billion-b-1616224487

This is why Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion : because its throughput of shared photographs is astronomical, and rising at an insane rate. (See also, the purchase of Instagram and the crazy offer for Snapchat .) [KPCB]

Read more...

Read More...

13 European Dream Homes You Can Actually Rent

Source: http://gizmodo.com/13-european-dream-homes-you-can-actually-rent-1615953050

13 European Dream Homes You Can Actually Rent

It's no secret that Europe is full of magical places. However, you're probably never going to stay in Windsor Castle or sleep in Rapunzel's tower. You might, however, enjoy a similar brush with a fairy tale thanks to this architecture-loving travel agency in Germany.

Read more...

Read More...

Visual microphone can pick up speech from a bag of potato chips

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/04/visual-microphone/

MIT's visual microphone snoops on a bag of potato chips

You may want to be careful about the conversations you hold in the future; if you're near a window, someone might be listening in. A team of researchers from Adobe, Microsoft and MIT have developed a visual microphone algorithm that picks up audio by looking for microscopic vibrations in video footage. The technique exploits the rolling shutter effect in digital cameras (where the sensor reads pixels one row at a time) to detect sound-related movements that might otherwise be invisible; the only gear you need is a camera that can record at high frame rates. It's good enough to capture singing from a bag of potato chips, and musical tones from a potted plant.

Don't worry about optical eavesdropping just yet. The experiment only got accurate reproduction with specialized cameras that shoot at up to 6,000 frames per second; an off-the-shelf device with 60fps recording can identify people's voices, but it's hard to make out words. Provided the technology reaches fruition, it would most likely be used by investigators that want to hear what suspects say when they're not on the phone. It would be useful for more than surveillance, too, as team member Abe Davis believes the visual mic could identify a material's properties without making contact. It's definitely clever tech -- let's just hope that it's used more for science than snooping.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Source: MIT (1), (2)

Read More...

Xiaomi, not Samsung, makes China's smartphone of choice

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/04/xiaomi-outships-samsung-in-china/

Xiaomi Mi3

Xiaomi has been a significant contender in the phone world for a while, but it's now safe to say that the Chinese device maker has joined the big leagues. Canalys estimates that Xiaomi shipped more smartphones than Samsung in China during the second quarter of the year, making it the top vendor in its home country. Simply put, Xiaomi is a champ at making cheap yet desirable handsets -- its budget Redmi series has done a lot to boost sales, and even range-topping devices like the Mi3 (and now Mi4) are much more affordable than alternatives from the likes of Apple and Samsung.

The surge might have even been enough to make Xiaomi one of the biggest phone builders on the global stage. While IDC's data still doesn't include Xiaomi in the top five, Strategy Analytics believes that the company jumped into fourth place ahead of LG. Whichever study is on the mark, the data makes it easier to understand why Samsung's profit took such a big hit in the spring -- the Korean firm is up against at least one Chinese rival that's firing on all cylinders.

Smartphone market share in China during Q2

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: Wall Street Journal

Source: Canalys

Read More...

Monday, August 04, 2014

Researcher Can Hack Airplanes Through In-Flight Entertainment Systems

Source: http://gizmodo.com/researcher-hacks-airplanes-through-in-flight-entertainm-1615780083

Researcher Can Hack Airplanes Through In-Flight Entertainment Systems

If you're about to get on an airplane, you might want to wait until you land before you read this post. Because cyber security whiz Ruben Santamarta says he has devised a method that can give hackers access to a passenger jet's satellite communications equipment through the passenger Wi-Fi and in-flight entertainment systems*.

Read more...

Read More...

DJI's latest pro-level drone will make you want to upgrade your Phantom

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/04/djis-s900/

DJI's Phantom 2 Vision+ is a great introduction to aerial video -- we know from personal experience -- but it won't be long before you're jonesing for more power. If you really want to dominate the skies (or, y'know, use a bigger camera etc.) then DJI's new Spreading Wings S900 Hexacopter is more like it. In DJI's family of pro-level drones, the S900 flies neatly between the S1000 and S800 with a max load weight of 5kg and 18 minutes of fly time to cram with epic sweeps -- just don't do them here. It works with DJI's own Zenmuse Z15, GH3, GH4, and BMPCC gimbles, so particularly good news for Lumix GH3/GH4 and Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera owners. If you set on hanging with the pros, then expect to pay out like them, too. The Spreading Wings S900 will thin your money clip to! the tun e of $3,800, but that's small change for a big fish like you, right? However, if moths are the only thing flying around your wallet, then enjoy vicariously via the video after the break.

Filed under:

Comments

Source: DJI

Read More...

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Spray-painted solar cells promise cheap power on seemingly any surface

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/03/spray-painted-solar-cells/

University of Sheffield's spray-on solar cells

Scientists have dreamed of painting solar cells to generate energy on just about any surface, but efficiency has been a problem; researchers were happy to get one percent just a couple of years ago. At last, though, it looks like viable paint-on power is close at hand. A team at the University of Sheffield has developed spray-on cells that should be both cheap and capable. The trick is to coat an object in perovskite, a calcium titanium oxide mineral -- it's inexpensive like organic solar cells, but absorbs light nearly as well as silicon.

In the lab, the technology isn't quite ready for prime time. A spray-based cell gets about 11 percent efficiency versus 19 percent at perovskite's ideal performance. However, it's still early days. Scientists believe that their approach could scale up to the same manufacturing techniques used for spray painting vehicles. If that happens, it's conceivable that your future car (and virtually any other device) could harvest the sun's rays without the steep costs and awkward product designs that are frequently involved when you use old-fashioned solar panels.

Filed under:

Comments

Via: ExtremeTech

Source: University of Sheffield, Royal Society of Chemistry

Read More...

Mankind Is Getting Ready To Turn Over Most Decisions To Robots

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/decision-making-robots-could-rule-humans-2014-7

ukraine wooden robot

If robots become more cognitively capable than humans, then what happens to ... everything?

"In such a future —perhaps a mere fifty years from now — the planet will be completely filled with cognitive and intelligent systems, which will intervene in all aspects of biological life, and humans will be influenced every moment by the decisions these machines make automatically," Alexandre Pupo writes in a World Future Review report titled Cognitively Everywhere: The Omnipresence of Intelligent Machines and the Possible Social Impact.

In the future, machines with brain-like capabilities will be able to know everything about everything using tools already in place, such as the internet, and then will be able to reason and put that knowledge to use like people.

Pupo lists a few of the ways that this will have a drastic impact on human civilization.

Instant Answers

When robots become able to reason and think like humans, we will only need to ask one a simple question without overly thinking about how to properly word to get the answer we are looking for, such as with search engines today. Machines will also operate in conjunction with each other to ensure they can produce the knowledge needed to get the answer a person is looking for.

Pupo uses the example of searching for a travel route through MapQuest. In the future, machines will be able to give you an entire plan for the event or meeting you're going to, rather than just giving the best possible route there. These machines will consider who else is going and what their preferences are, past experiences, and what to do after the event or meeting. In a sense, machines will be offering us advice.

The Google Now service already does some of the basics Pupo outlined in his paper. Google's somewhat futuristic time managem! ent serv ice helps to find the best routes based on traffic, weather, and method of transportation while also providing a user with information based on their personal interests. The service is marketed as something that "learns how to help manage your day, letting you focus on what matters," according to the site.

Where Pupo's report gets even more surreal is when he claims robots will act as "digital bodyguards" for humans and be able to advise them on things they should and should not do based on the information they are able to collect.

How Our Interactions Will Change

So when robots become smart enough to give us advice about things such as our next trip to Rockaway Beach with some friends, people will start to rely on them for all sorts of interactions with others.

Pupo claims that the robots will make these interactions more peaceful, as they could quickly gather information about anyone, adding that it would be nearly impossible to hide criminal intent or ulterior motives from a machine.

Cultural barriers won't be important, and the machines will be able to process information in any language, making communication between someone speaking German and someone speaking English a non-issue.

This will cause "human interaction will be governed more by human desires than by knowledge of other cultures and languages," he writes.

Essentially, different customs and traditions that divide groups of people will no longer be relevant.

Is this good or bad?

With robots being able to reason about a much larger amount of information than any human could ever be able to dream about processing, people will look to the machines for answers and advice about everything.

And if people are trying to get advice from the machines about everything, he range of possibilities for an interaction will drastically shrink, as machines will be giving you the best possible answer for any dilemma. With this rel! iance co mes a single answer solution for every problem, which will lead to society being guided by the machines, Pupo writes.

Questions such as "What should I say at this meeting?" or "How should I approach this girl at the bar?" will be answered by machines within a matter of seconds.

He goes on to write about how, at this future point, most interactions will be mediated by the robots.

"The possibility of getting to know a new person, explore a new place, or learn something simply because you want to may be drastically reduced because machine reasoning will direct people along calculated paths after having concluded that a given opportunity is not the best choice for a particular person," he writes.

But would people really just be okay with giving up all of this control to the machines, even if they have good answers? One would think many people would have enough foresight to possibly prevent this massive societal change. As a matter of fact, io9 lists "Human Adviser" and "Descision Maker" as the first two future jobs robots will never be able to take.

Kathleen Richardson, a robot anthropologist, put it best when discussing the subject of humans looking for robots to perform the most human of tasks, such as taking care of the elderly, with researchers at Cambridge University.

"Unfortunately, these roles are not best suited to machines, but to other people," she said. "So the question is: why would we prefer a machine to do them for us?"

Kathleen Richardson
Unfortunately these roles are not best suited to machines, but to other people. So the question is: why would we prefer a machine do them for us? - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/we-ask-the-experts-will-robots-take-over-the-world#sthash.qifB9pFc.dpuf
Unfortunately th! ese role s are not best suited to machines, but to other people. So the question is: why would we prefer a machine do them for us? - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/we-ask-the-experts-will-robots-take-over-the-world#sthash.qifB9pFc.dpuf
Unfortunately these roles are not best suited to machines, but to other people. So the question is: why would we prefer a machine do them for us? - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/we-ask-the-experts-will-robots-take-over-the-world#sthash.qifB9pFc.dpuf

Don't forget about revolution

While not everyone agrees with Pupo's ideas, they are important to consider, since they could lead to a very dangerous place. Machines could start to think of humans as just another species roaming the earth, and, when thinking about how to best preserve the planet, they could even humans are bad for Earth's long-term stability and could even seek to eliminate us.

Think of it as a leaky faucet, he writes. If someone has a leaky faucet, they fix it, "without regard for the millions of microorganisms that depends on the trickling water to survive."

SEE ALSO: Robots Will Take Care Of Old People In The Future

Join the conversation about this story »








Read More...