Boeing CEO commits to the Mars program

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is aiming to start a Martian colony within the next decade, but another rival CEO says his company will actually be the one to put humans on the Red Planet first. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg recently answered questions at the "Whats Next" tech conference in Chicago, and when asked about the future of his company, he focused on breakthroughs in space travel. "I’m convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket," said Muilenburg

Boeing has been in the space business for decades, as it has been one of NASA’s primary contractors since the space agency’s inception. The company built the first stage of the Saturn V rocket — which took astronauts to the Moon — and it has since contributed to the Space Shuttle program and crafted many elements of the International Space Station. Currently, Boeing is designing and developing the Space Launch System, the massive rocket that NASA wants to use to send people to Mars. So when Muilenburg says the first people will get to the planet with a Boeing rocket, he’s most likely referring to the SLS.



Credits:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/13178056/boeing-ceo-mars-colony-rocket-spacex-elon-musk

Amazon Echo and Google's Alexa ALWAYS listening

https://youtu.be/ue9M9Tc2C_4

Credits:
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/alexa-and-google-record-your-voice/?mbid=social_twitter

Uber tracks you 5 min after the ride

After Uber introduced a controversial app update that tracks users’ locations even when they’re not using the app, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading privacy group, has asked the company roll it back. In the updated version of its app, Uber offers users two options: you can either allow Uber to always track your location (though the company says it will only track users for five minutes after a ride ends), or you can turn off the app’s tracking entirely. That means you’d have to manually enter your pickup location when requesting rides.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked Uber to return to an option that allows users to only share their location while using the app – not afterward, Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director and general counsel at EFF, told BuzzFeed News. An Uber spokeswoman told BuzzFeed News that by offering the option of manually entering pick-up locations, the company is giving users a choice to be tracked or not. But Opsahl says this “takes away a lot of the usability.” Part of Uber’s appeal is how easy it is to open the app and let GPS pinpoint your location for a driver.


Credits:
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/12/05/new-uber-feature/

Technology to stop poachers in Africa

WILDLIFE POACHERS WHO stalk endangered animals in East and South Africa have long operated under the cover of night. But lately not even a moonless sky is safe cover for stalking impalas, elephants, and rhinos. Now, the power of increasingly inexpensive infrared cameras, artificial intelligence, and drones are being used to stop illegal poaching. Rangers are rounding up veteran poachers in the middle of the night, says Colby Loucks, World Wildlife Fund’s senior director of wildlife crime technology, who ask, dumbfounded, “How are you finding me?'”

This spring, the World Wildlife Fund began deploying thermal sensing infrared technology from the imaging company FLIR to combat poaching in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Conservancy park—and at another secret location that’s home to rhinos, one of the most imperiled creatures on Earth. The technology, which detects a narrow sliver of the electro-magnetic spectrum of reflected or emitted heat, could become a critical tool in the fight to protect endangered species. Anything living appears as a white or grey blob on a screen or in a viewfinder, no light needed.

Credits:

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/watch-wildlife-rangers-use-thermal-imaging-nab-poachers/

Older Android accounts hacked

Check out @CNET's Tweet: https://twitter.com/CNET/status/804468004692094981?s=09

SF Muni Hacked by Ransomeware

A ransomware criminal's self-reproducing malicious software spread through a critical network used by the San Francisco light rail system, AKA the Muni, and shut it down; the anonymous criminal -- cryptom27@yandex.com -- says they won't give it back until they get paid. Muni says they're working to resolve the situation. In the meantime, Muni is not able to collect fares from riders, and is allowing all to ride for free.

The user cryptom27@yandex.com has been linked to other attacks. In a statement in broken, seemingly machine-translated English, cryptom27@yandex.com wrote, "we don't attention to interview and propagate news ! our software working completely automatically and we don't have targeted attack to anywhere ! SFMTA network was Very Open and 2000 Server/PC infected by software ! so we are waiting for contact any responsible person in SFMTA but i think they don't want deal ! so we close this email tomorrow!"

Thanksgiving on the International Space Station

Astronauts at the International Space Station are planning to spend Thanksgiving in quite a traditional fashion: There will be a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, good company, and football. In a video taped in orbit, Space Station Commander Shane Kimbrough explains how the crewmates will celebrate the holiday. "It's going to be little bit different for us up here in space, but I'm going to try to make it as much like home as we can," he says.

Joining him at dinner will be fellow U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, a French astronaut and three cosmonauts from Russia. "We're obviously going to be talking about what Thanksgiving means to us, what we're thankful for, and sharing the tradition with our French and Russian colleagues," Kimbrough adds. Mission Control has also agreed to transmit some live football games "to complete the experience of Thanksgiving," he adds.

Credits:

SpaceX to Provide Internet Access everywhere.

SpaceX has detailed ambitious plans to bring fast Internet access to the entire world with a new satellite system that offers greater speeds and lower latency than existing satellite networks. The private spacecraft company founded by CEO Elon Musk filed an application Tuesday for satellite space station authorizations with the US Federal Communications Commission. SpaceX recently said that its satellite service’s commercial availability date has not yet been determined, but the application’s technical description mentioned 2019 as a possible time for launching satellites into orbit.

SpaceX wants to launch 4,425 satellites into low-Earth orbits, with altitudes ranging from 715 miles to 823 miles. By contrast, the existing HughesNet satellite network has an altitude of 22,000 miles. SpaceX’s plan for low orbits would greatly reduce latency. As we’ve previously written, current satellite Internet systems suffer from high latency, meaning that data packets must travel great distances between Earth and satellites, resulting in noticeable delays for Internet users.



Credits:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/spacex-plans-worldwide-satellite-internet-with-low-latency-gigabit-speed/

Teen Makes Motorized Skateboard with a Raspberry Pi

A teenager has built an electric skateboard using a computer that cost just a few pounds. Matthew Timmons-Brown, 17, from Cambridge, designed it using a Raspberry Pi Zero. The credit-card sized computer was initially given away with a magazine, and now sells for £4. The modified skateboard, which can reach speeds of up to 18mph, is operated with a games console controller. Matthew said he had no plans to sell his creation to the general public. The sixth-form student's next ambition is to create a Mars Rover.

Credits:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-37989413

Yesterday's Supermoon

This month's full moon came the closest to Earth that it has been since 1948. Skywatchers and astrophotographers flocked to see the big, bright moon in all of its glory Monday night. The full supermoon peaked this morning at 8:52 a.m. EST (1352 GMT), but it will still look "super" for about a day after its maximum. So if you haven't seen it yet, there's still some time to go check it out.

Photographer BG Boyd captured the supermoon at its largest while rising Monday morning (Nov. 14) over Tucson, Arizona. This month's full moon came the closest to Earth that it has been since 1948. Skywatchers and astrophotographers flocked to see the big, bright moon in all of its glory. The difference in size between the supermoon and other full moons can be difficult to see — it only appears about 14 percent larger than usual.

So what’s a “Supermoon”? It’s not a real astronomical term—it was actually coined by an astrologer, but in the popular vernacular it’s when there’s a full Moon within a few hours of the Moon being closest to Earth. The Moon orbits the Earth on an elliptical path, so sometimes it’s closer to us than other times. Monday, the Moon reached its closest point to Earth (called perigee) at approximately 6:20 AM Eastern U.S. time. At this point, the center of the Moon was just a hair under 356,508 kilometers from the center of the Earth.



Credits:
http://www.space.com/34721-skywatchers-supermoon-photos-november-2016.html

Canadas Immigration Servers Crash

Everyone's probably heard at least one person say they're moving to Canada based on whoever wins the elections. Apparently, some of them weren't kidding. When the presidential campaign results confirmed a tighter race than most expected, an influx of people decided to look up Canada's immigration site, causing the website to momentarily crash. The website came back around 11:05 p.m. ET.

One business is capitalizing on those serious about making the move north. The Farmer's Daughter Country Market, located on an island at the eastern end of Nova Scotia in Canada, is offering 2 acres of free land and a job for people who relocate. Canada has been keeping close tabs on the United States' presidential election with a social media campaign, "Tell America It's Great" trending on Twitter a few weeks ago and "#MeanwhileInCanada" trending on election night.

Credits:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/canadian-immigration-website-crashes-on-election-night.html

Big Mouth Billy, the Talking Fish ... Hacked

One of the worst products ever is the talking "Big Mouth Billy" bass. It's a robotic talking bass ... that is hackable. Brian Kane is a developer and artist who specializes in humorous projects. For his latest work, he’s modded up the venerable novelty item and instead of hearing Alexa’s calming voice coming from an innocuous glowing hockey puck, you get to look at a reanimated piece of plastic taxidermy mouth the weather report.

Kane hasn’t given a tutorial on how he approached the Bass/Assistant horror hybrid but Amazon does have an API available that allows users to embed the tech in third party devices. The Big Mouth Billy Bass is a classic of novelty shops and Wal-Marts, designed to sing "Take Me To The River" or "Don’t Worry Be Happy" when its motion sensor is activated. There’s no built-in microphone, so presumably Billy is running off some off-camera offboard microphone. The Big Mouth Billy Bass is a classic of novelty shops and Wal-Marts, designed to sing "Take Me To The River" or "Don’t Worry Be Happy" when its motion sensor is activated. There’s no built-in microphone, so presumably Billy is running off some off-camera offboard microphone.



Credits:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/4/13525172/amazon-alexa-big-mouth-billy-bass-hack-api

Fitness Trackers Can Be a Security Risk

They may look like a normal watch but are capable to do much more than just showing the time: So called fitness trackers are collecting data on their users' lifestyle and health status on a large scale helping them with training or losing weight. However researchers are now investigating fraud opportunities with fitness trackers and detected serious security flaws. Data collected by fitness trackers have been used as evidence in court trials in the US, as reported by Forbes Magazine. Police and attorneys have started to recognize wearable devices as the human body's "black box," according to the NY Daily News. Some health insurance companies recently started to offer discounts if the insured persons provide personal data from their fitness trackers. This could attract scammers who manipulate the tracked data to fraudulently gain financial benefits or even influence a court trial, according to researchers. This makes it all the more important that transmission, processing and storing of the sensitive personal data meet high security standards.

Although all cloud-based tracking systems use an encrypted protocol like HTTPS to transfer data, the researchers were able to falsify data in all cases. Out of all fitness trackers examined, only devices from four manufacturers took some minor measures to protect data integrity, i.e. to ensure that data remain intact and unaltered. "These hurdles cannot stop a motivated attacker. Scammers can manipulate the data even with very little IT knowledge," according to a study from a European study. None of the trackers employ End-to-End encryption or other effective tamper protection measures when synchronizing data. these manufacturers store the collected fitness data in plain-text, i.e. un-encrypted and readable by everyone, on the smartphone which introduces a potential risk of unauthorized data leakage should the smartphone be stolen or infected with malware.

Tech is Great, but E-waste is a Real Problem

As electronics have become increasingly ubiquitous, the never-ending upgrade churn fills an ever-larger e-graveyard. If that’s where the story ends, we’re in real trouble. The several years of use a typical device sees effectively become a short conveyor belt between mines around the world and the local landfill. The only sensible and sustainable thing to do is to recycle the materials in our devices—ideally right into the next generation of tech.

In the last few years, some computer manufactureshas started to move beyond just collecting e-waste for recyclers and is trying to “close the loop” by using some of the recycled material in its products—namely the plastic. These companies require purchasers to pay for a disposal fee when they buy the product. Because a limited number of types of plastic get used for electronics, e-waste is a better resource to work with than your household recycling bin would be. Most of the plastic that comes in is suitable to be used in new products. But it’s not quite that simple—paints, labels, “soft-touch” coatings, and additives like flame retardants can render plastic difficult or even impossible to work with.

Credits: 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/where-do-laptops-go-when-they-die/

NASA Pumpkin Carving Contest

Shut it down, NASA wins. They made your pumpkin carving game look like child’s play. You should just give up right now. Put the knife away, set that pumpkin aside and use your time in a more productive manner—like looking at these beautiful pumpkins. While the annual event is called a competition, no one is officially crowned the champion. The only judge is the viewing public. We’ve collected our favorites in no particular order below. If you guys want to vote in the comments I’ll tally them up tomorrow and update the post with a winner.



Credits:
http://gizmodo.com/nasa-absolutely-killed-the-halloween-pumpkin-carving-co-1788384623

Google Reinvents the Whiteboard

Google's new Jamboard is a massive touch display and accompanying cloud service that's supposed to help business users brainstorm together. Jamboard works like a digital whiteboard, letting users sketch out ideas, attach digital sticky notes, plus bring in content from the web into a single, constantly updating workspace. People can use Jamboard to collaborate both on the 55-inch mega-display of the same name, or using accompanying tablet and smartphone apps for iOS and Android.

The hardware is slickly designed, and Google's functionality feels like it could be a major enhancement over analog brainstorming. But Google is asking companies to make a big commitment to Jamboard. The company isn't revealing final pricing for the appliance yet, but expects its hardware to cost less than $6,000 at release. That means a rollout of multiple Jamboards in an organization will likely cost tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. Jamboard also supports technology that will turn handwriting drawn on the screen into text, and convert drawn shapes into digital ones. It's a way to dress up the work that people are doing on the device.



Credits:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3134878/enterprise-applications/google-is-trying-to-reinvent-the-whiteboard.html

How to Protect Yourself with the Internet of Things

Technology experts warned for years that the millions of Internet-connected "smart" devices we use every day are weak, easily hijacked and could be turned against us. The massive siege on Dyn, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors and routes Internet traffic, shows those ominous predictions are now a reality. Who orchestrated the attack is still unknown. But how they did it — by enslaving ordinary household electronic devices such as DVRs, routers and digital closed-circuit cameras —is established.

The attackers created a digital army of co-opted robot networks, a "botnet," that spewed millions of nonsense messages at Dyn's servers. Like a firehose, they could direct it at will, knocking out the servers, turning down the flow and then hitting it full blast once again. As long as companies have been gleefully making and selling Internet-connected devices (the so-called Internet of Things or IoT), computer security experts have warned the security included with them was far too weak, or sometimes even nonexistent.


Credits:

Distributed Denial of Service Attack on Friday

Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or broken on Friday morning. This happened as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the servers of Dyn, a major DNS host. In order to understand how one DDoS attack could take out so many websites, you have to understand how Domain Name Servers (DNS) work. Basically, they act as the Internet’s phone book and facilitate your request to go to a certain webpage and make sure you are taken to the right place. If the DNS provider that handles requests for Twitter is down, well, good luck getting to Twitter. Some websites are coming back for some users, but it doesn’t look like the problem is fully resolved.

Customers suffering from disruption included Twitter, SoundCloud, Spotify, Netflix, Reddit, Pagerduty, Shopify, Disqus, Freshbooks, Vox Media, PayPal, Etsy, Github, Heroku, Time, PlayStation, the Intercom app and more. While Dyn said that the issue has been resolved, users of the affected services were still reporting problems with connectivity at time of writing. Amazon Web Services was also impacted by the Dyn’s temporary collapse, and said: “Between 4:31 AM and 6:10 AM PDT, we experienced errors resolving the DNS hostnames used to access some AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.





Credits:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/21/major-websites-across-east-coast-knocked-out-in-apparent-ddos-attack.html

Bill Belichick Can't take Microsoft Tablets Anymore

Bill Belichick is throwing in the towel in his ongoing fight with the use of tablets on the sideline. Responding to a question in a conference call Tuesday about headset issues the Patriots had during last week’s win over the Bengals, Belichick said he “can’t take it anymore” with the tablets, adding there isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the devices.

The decision comes after Belichick was caught on camera slamming down a sideline tablet following a Bills touchdown during their Oct. 2 matchup. He also railed for several minutes about ongoing issues with NFL technology, including the communication system between coaches in the press box and those on the field, as well as the coach-to-quarterback play calling system, which Belichick said “fail on a regular basis.” NFL teams were supposed to have more improved Microsoft Surface 4 tablets to use for still images and strategizing in games this season. Tablet use for in-game video playback was approved by the NFL for use in preseason games with the idea that teams could experiment with them and provide feedback for improvement.

Security risks with Pokemon Go

The extraordinary success of Pokémon Go has been surprising, even in the rapidly changing paradigm of the mobile application space. The game, which allows users to hunt down and capture virtual monsters, uses Augmented Reality (AR) technology to display the creatures in real world locations such as parks, homes, and offices.

Pokémon Go has already broken five Guinness World Records, including most revenue grossed by a mobile game in its first month: $206.5 million. There’s no denying that the game has set a new benchmark that the next generation of games will aim to surpass. However, businesses looking to model their strategy after the success of Pokémon Go need to also be aware of what the game’s developer Niantic missed – especially when it comes to security.

There were privacy concerns around the game’s initial launch due to over-requesting of permissions for a user’s Google account. The application asked for access to full account privileges, although Niantic maintains that the game never used any of the extended permissions. There were also reports of users downloading and installing fake pre-release versions of the software, which were found to contain malware.

Since addressing the initial issues, the ongoing battle between the developer and groups of hackers has focused on accessing and unlocking upcoming aspects of the game code. The current attacks have been relatively benign, with groups simply wishing to discover spoilers in the information coded into the game and its resources and graphics. Helper apps and websites also emerged to assist players in tracking down creatures using server data surreptitiously– frequently overwhelming the backend in the process.



Credits:
https://appdevelopermagazine.com/4509/2016/10/13/What-the-mobile-AR-phenomenon-has-taught-us-about-security

Package your GoPro in a Nerf Football

The AER is a Kickstarter project that looks to take the same concussion-avoiding principles of the classic foam Nerf football and apply it to your GoPro instead. AERVIDEO claims that the AER, which consists of a Nerf-inspired foam casing and fins, makes it possible to safely throw your GoPro up in the air to take drone-esque aerial shots at a fraction of the price of a decent drone. It’s an idea that brings to mind Jonas Pfeil’s Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera, which similarly took a bunch of cameras and fit them into a foam ball for interesting aerial shots.

The problem is that while drones are powered flying devices that allow you to control where your camera is going and what you're shooting, the AER is quite literally flinging a GoPro in the sky on a wing and a prayer and hoping you get something good out of the same arcing throw. However, the price is certainly cheaper than most drones, selling for $55 on Kickstarter (on the other hand, a Nerf Vortex football costs $12.99). The company hopes to start shipping the AER in January, with the usual reminder that this is a crowdfunding campaign for a company that hasn’t shipped anything before, so use your best judgement when backing.



Credits:
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/11/13241470/aer-kickstarter-gopro-nerf-vortex-football

Yahoo Searches Users Email for FBI

Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified U.S. government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events. Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified. According to two of the former employees, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's decision to obey the directive roiled some senior executives and led to the June 2015 departure of Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, who now holds the top security job at Facebook Inc .



Credits:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/yahoo-reportedly-scanned-emails-for-nsa-fbi/

Quadriplegic Now A Licenced Driver in Semi Autonomous Car

Sam Schmidt is no ordinary race car driver after suffering a devastating accident in training that rendered him a quadriplegic back in 2000. Now he's also the first American to have been handed a driving license that permits him to use an autonomous vehicle on public highways. The state of Nevada has announced that Schmidt is able to drive a modified Corvette Stingray Z06 that is controlled just with the motion of his head, breath and voice commands. There's a little stretching of the definition of autonomous, here, since Schmidt is directly in control of the car himself. The vehicle, however, does much of the heavy lifting for him, and so qualifies under Nevada state law as self-driving. For instance, Schmidt controls the gear shift through voice commands, that the car then handles automatically, while a sip-and-puff device enables him to control acceleration and braking. The vehicle's customization was handled by Arrow Electronics as part of its semi-autonomous motorcar project

The granting of the license is a huge step forward in enabling disabled people to regain their independence, since Schmidt can now travel ostensibly where he wants. Nevada will also use it to burnish its credentials as a tech-friendly city, since it now houses plenty of bleeding-edge tech startups including Hyperloop One and Faraday Future -- not to mention that it's also the home of Tesla's Gigafactory. It's also a big deal for the world of semi-autonomous vehicles, since legislators may look more favorably upon cars with humans behind the wheel. After all, most of the alarmism that currently surrounds autopilot systems is that a computer can't make the sort of snap judgments a person can.

Link to the video.

Credits:
http://www.forbes.com/video/5141787625001/

Hackers are Attacking Voting Systems

Concerns are growing over the possibility of a rigged presidential election. Experts believe a cyberattack this year could be a reality, especially following last month's hack of Democratic National Committee emails. Roughly 70 percent of states in the U.S. use some form of electronic voting. Hackers told CBS News that problems with electronic voting machines have been around for years. The machines and the software are old and antiquated. But now with millions heading to the polls in three months, security experts are sounding the alarm.

CBS News learned that only 60 percent of states routinely conduct audits post-election by checking paper trails. But not all states even have paper records, like in some parts of swing states Virginia and Pennsylvania, which experts say could be devastating. The Election Assistance Commission told CBS News that it ensures all voting systems are vigorously tested against security standards and that systems certified by the EAC are not connected to the Internet.



Credits:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rigged-presidential-elections-hackers-demonstrate-voting-threat-old-machines/

We're landing on a comet

The Rosetta spacecraft has spent three years peering at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from orbit—but this week, its watch will end. Tomorrow, Rosetta begins a controlled descent to its final resting place on the edge of an enormous pit, where it’ll remain frozen until the space rock itself is destroyed, or until the universe expands into oblivion.

It’s an emotional time for the Rosetta mission team, but also an exciting one. The final hours of Rosetta’s life are expected to yield some of the juiciest scientific data of the entire mission—the sharpest images yet of a comet’s surface, our very first whiffs of the gas directly above it, and much more. Best of all, the entire world is going to be able to follow along, with key moments of the descent, including images, streamed online in real time. Credits: 

http://gizmodo.com/everything-you-need-to-know-to-watch-rosetta-crash-into-1787179215?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

http://www.wesh.com/video/buzz60/historic-rosetta-spacecraft-crashes-into-comet/41895410

Snap Chat Glasses

Like to view the world through Snapchat-colored glasses? You'll soon be able to do that for real. The millennial-friendly messaging service plus social network plus video hub is set to release "Spectacles," its own smart glasses. The specs shoot first-person video clips, or Snaps, that you can transfer directly to the Snapchat app.

The company, which has also renamed itself Snap Inc. to reflect its expansion into consumer hardware, touted the new product Saturday by way of a fashion-friendly website called, appropriately enough, Spectacles.com. It also posted a statement on the new site Snap.com. Both sites say the specs will arrive "soon." In an article published late Friday by The Wall Street Journal, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel said the glasses would be available in the fall. The move is the latest in the continuous effort by tech companies to see into the future and stake out new territory as they jostle for customers and try to keep each other at bay.



Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/news/snapchat-spectacles-glasses-camera-snap-inc-evan-spiegel/

500 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked

Yahoo said on Thursday that information from at least 500 million of its user accounts was stolen in 2014 by what it believed was a state-sponsored actor, a theft that appeared to the biggest cyber breach ever. Cyber crooks may have stolen names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and encrypted passwords, the company said. Unprotected passwords, payment card data and bank account information did not appear to have been compromised, Yahoo said, signaling that some of the most valuable user data was not taken. Even in an era of massive data breaches, this one was spectacular and raises worrisome questions about the continued vulnerability of America's digital networks to increasingly sophisticated adversaries.

It was not immediately clearly when Yahoo learned of the hack and why it took two years to come to light. The size of the attack on Yahoo was unprecedented compared to other corporate breaches such as at eBay in 2014 which involved personal data of 145 million users. The Yahoo breach, which follows a rising number of other large-scale data breaches, could make it a watershed event that prompts the government and businesses alike to put more effort into bolstering defenses, said Dan Kaminsky, a well-known Internet security expert.



Credits:

Facebook to Cure ALL Disease

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged more than $3bn (£2.3bn) toward a plan to "cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime". The couple pledged the money as the next big investment by their philanthropic company, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is also focused on education, poverty, and equality.

peaking through tears at a San Francisco event to announce the initiative, Ms Chan said she hoped to spare parents the pain she had seen while delivering difficult news as a pediatrician. As part of the investment, the couple is funding a $600 million research center in San Francisco called the Biohub that is a partnership with UC San Francisco, Stanford University and UC Berkeley. Neurobiologist Cori Bargmann is signing on as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's president of science.

Last December, the couple made the stunning announcement they plan to give away most of their fortune through a new initiative to "advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation." The Facebook founder and his physician wife pledged to give away 99% of their Facebook shares in their lifetime.



Credits:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/zuckerberg-i-want-to-cure-all-diseases-this-century.html

New Power -- Fuel Cells Off Grid

The first Redox Cube design is a 25 kW, natural gas fueled, stationary power system. With a size of roughly 35 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) and a weight under 1,000 lbs (450 kg), the Cube can be installed outdoors or indoors. The system takes advantage of our proprietary lower temperature, higher power cells and stacks, as well as an innovative fuel processor. The Cube is designed with mass production in mind, using a modular approach whereby key components can be tailored and packaged to deliver desired power levels.

Redox technology provides the breakthroughs needed to cost-effectively convert natural gas or propane into electricity with high efficiency and low emissions. The Cube is ideal for distributed generation and presents new opportunities for alternative energy sources in commercial, industrial, residential, and even demanding datacenter applications. With the addition of a heat recovery module, combined heat and power (CHP) operation can boost the Cube’s total electrical and thermal efficiency in excess of 80% percent.

http://www.forbes.com/video/5083551384001/?sr_source=lift_facebook&nowelcome&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=kpmgrewrite#/

Credits:
http://www.redoxenergy.com/products

Apple's Watch 2.0

If you had to pick the new Apple Watch Series 2 out of a lineup of existing Apple Watches, you'd be hard pressed to do so. It looks nearly identical to the first model that launched just 18 months ago. Even after tinkering around with the latest iteration, it's a challenge to identify what's actually new. But there's more to the Apple Watch's first major hardware upgrade than meets the eye. To start, the display is two times brighter, so you'll be able to read it better outside. It's also 50% faster than the previous version and it's finally waterproof.

But the smartwatch category in general hasn't taken off the way it once seemed destined to. Impressively, however, Apple has somehow managed to become the second most popular watchmaker in the world, even though Apple Watch sales were down 55% this year. That's second only to Rolex. While there's a solid collection of bells and whistles added to the latest Apple Watch, are the updates worth trading in your existing one? Certainly not. It does, however, give non-Apple Watch users more incentive than ever to buy one.



Credits:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/17/technology/apple-watch-series-2-review/

Google Helps Crack Down on Illegal Fishing

Illegal and unreported fishing is a multibillion-dollar business around the globe, and one that has proven notoriously difficult to combat. In part, that's because it involves a constant stream of renegade fishermen being pursued by countries that have only limited resources to carry out a perpetual cat-and-mouse game on the high seas. But a new satellite-based surveillance system powered by Google, which will be publicly unveiled Thursday at a global oceans conference at the State Department, aims to help alter that equation. Global Fishing Watch, as it is called, is designed to act as an eye in the sky, constantly scouring the globe in search of those illegally plundering the oceans. The organizations that partnered to develop it, which include the marine-advocacy group Oceana and West Virginia-based nonprofit SkyTruth, say the free platform will help governments, journalists and everyday citizens monitor roughly 35,000 commercial fishing vessels nearly in real time.

The technology uses public broadcast data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which uses satellite and land-based receivers to track the movement of ships over time. Not all fishing vessels willingly broadcast their location, of course - particularly those intent on breaking the law - and vessels can switch off their trackers, potentially hindering the usefulness of the new technology. The United States and other countries already require vessels of a certain size to use the locator system, partly as a safety measure to avoid collisions at sea, and more countries are beginning to follow suit. Global Fishing Watch allows users to access that information to track specific vessels over time, going back to 2012. Savitz said she believes the tool will have an array of uses. Governments could use it to monitor and enforce fishing restrictions in their waters. Journalists and the public can use it to search for suspicious fishing activity, such as vessel that suddenly seems to disappear or one that rarely comes to port, and to make sure officials are safeguarding marine protected areas. Insurance companies can track the vessels they insure.



Credits:
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/ct-google-illegal-fishing-20160916-story.html

Headphones to Stimulate the Brain for Athletes

As much as brute physical force helps athletes gain better stamina and strength, involving the brain in the workout can ultimately yield better development and performance. Synchronizing the brain’s motor cortex during training enables the body to build optimized neuronal circuity for athletic movement, thereby facilitating a state of hyperlearning for the body.

Halo Neuroscience has decided to implement this “neuropriming” phenomenon into their very first product, the Halo Sport headset. This headset kit aims to provide athletes the opportunity to elevate their skills, strength, endurance, and even explosiveness using technology that stimulates the brain’s motor cortex. This headset improves neuromuscular output for athletes, allowing them to efficiently learn how they should move their bodies in more coordinated and precise ways. This idea being implemented into every day workouts can essentially improve people’s technical abilities within their respective sports.



Credits:
http://www.sporttechie.com/2016/08/01/gadgets/gear/halo-sport-headset-aims-to-synchronize-the-brain-and-body-of-olympics-athletes/

Tesla Makes Major Upgrade to its Self Driving Software

The autopilot software built into Tesla’s electric cars already offers a glimpse of the future, with what feels like autonomous driving on the freeway. Today the company announced a suite of upgrades to the system, to be pushed over-the-air to existing cars over the next couple of weeks. Chief among the improvements in Autopilot Version 8.0 is increased reliance on the radar system in the company’s Model S and Model X. The sensors have been in Teslas since October 2014, and the new software will download and run on existing hardware—although Musk says it was quite a job to get it to fit.

Tesla says that the new software shifts that burden to the radar, unlocking six times as many information points per object with every reflected pulse. Ten times a second the radar will ping outward, and then assemble those reflections into a 3D image as the car moves. Radar is a bit of a blunt tool when it comes to imaging, but Tesla has improved the signal processing to make it work, the company says. The repetition is helpful too; it’ll increase the car’s confidence that a reflected pulse is a real object. Obviously not seeing an actual object would be a big deal—the car might hit it. But false positives are almost as bad. An autonomous car is useless if it continually slams on the brakes for no reason.


Credits:
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/teslas-self-driving-software-gets-major-update/

Hi Tec Navigator boots

Quaking in your boots is about to take on a whole new spin, with Bluetooth-enabled walking gear that vibrates your feet to let you know which way to turn.

Built by Dutch sportswear maker Hi-Tec, the boldly named Navigator boots connect to an app on your phone, where you can enter your walking destination.  Whenever you need to turn right, your right shoe will give a short vibration. The same will happen in your left shoe when you need to turn left. There are also vibration sequences to indicate when you have taken a wrong turn, and when you have arrived at your destination.

The tech in the waterproof boots comes courtesy of Lechal, whose gadgetry was originally designed to help visually impaired people find their way around more easily.
The Navigator boots will cost $300.

Credits:
http://www.hi-tec.co.uk/blogpages/Blog-NavigatorLaunch.html

No Pluto, But Now a Ninth Planet

More clues about where to search for a possible ninth planet lurking in the fringes of our solar system are emerging from the Kuiper belt, the icy debris field beyond Neptune. And new calculations suggest that the putative planet might be brighter — and a bit easier to find — than once thought. Planetary scientists Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, both at Caltech, announced this evidence recently. Now they’ve used it to refine Planet Nine’s properties and narrow in on where it might be hiding.

Planet Nine’s average distance from the sun is most likely between 500 and 600 times as far as Earth’s, Brown and Batygin report. Its orbit is highly stretched and tipped by about 30 degrees relative to the rest of the solar system, taking it well above and below the orbits of the eight known worlds. And right now, it’s probably near its farthest point from the sun — possibly as far as 250 billion kilometers away — in a large patch of sky around the constellation Orion.



Credits
http://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/planet-nine/?utm_medium=mobileapp&utm_term=&utm_camnpaign=sciencetoday&utm_content=2016.01.29_planet-nine_video&utm_source=android

MIT Student Creates High Tech Temporary Tattoos

MIT, in partnership with Microsoft, created a new touch interface, DuoSkin, that allows temporary tattoos to interact with smartphones or computers, display output based on body temperature changes and even transmit data using NFC. Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, PhD student at MIT, says the tattoos are not only trendy, but cheap enough “change and edit your appearance whenever you want.” In Taiwan, Kao notes, there’s a “huge culture” of intermingled cosmetics and street fashion. The DuoSkin team wanted to achieve the same thing by keeping the technology affordable, attractive and on trend.

Aesthetics aside, the tattoos are highly functional. Each DuoSkin tattoo is available in one of three separate classes:

1. An input class that turns your skin into a trackpad. 
2. An output class that can change color based on skin temperature. 
3. A communication device that lets you pull data from the tattoo.

Each class uses a gold leaf to create a durable and aesthetically pleasing temporary tattoo. From there, researchers create a circuit using graphics software before cutting out and placing the design like a normal temporary tattoo.



Credits

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/12/mit-created-a-temporary-tattoo-that-can-control-your-connected-devices/#gref

Scientists Investigate Strange Signal From Space

A signal detected by a Russian telescope is giving hope to NorCal astronomers searching for extraterrestrial life that ET could be phoning home. Reports of the signal, which was received on May 15th, 2015 by the telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic of Russia, were first reported on Centauri Dreams, which reports on space-related news. This report was not released to the public until last weekend when a reporter discovered the report in a blog post in an astronomy journal.

The signal was coming from the constellation Hercules and scientists in Mountain View at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have pointed their telescopes in that direction. Their giant antennae are situated about 300 miles northeast of San Francisco. The SETI team is investigating whether that mysterious and powerful signal from a star system could be intentional. While the researchers in Russia claim they came across it last year, Bay Area scientists didn’t start talking about it this weekend when it became public in a blog. The blip could also very just well be interference from Earth. But either way, we will know in the not so far future.



Credits:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/29/e-t-phoning-home-seti-institute-scientists-point-telescopes-toward-possible-signal-from-space/

Switzerland Begins Using Robots to Deliver Mail

Swiss Post, the national postal service in Switzerland, will test robots next month in three cities to deliver food and medicine. The robots, which are small, six-wheeled pods, travel slowly on sidewalks. They're designed to avoid obstacles, including pedestrians, animals and cars. The robots, which come from Starship Technologies, are already being tested in Britain and Germany. They will also be tested in Washington, D.C. this fall. But don't expect deliverymen across Switzerland to disappear anytime soon. "We don't believe in substituting the human being part," said Claudia Pletscher, the head of development programs and innovation at Swiss Post. Pletscher added that the ground robots will be delivering dummy packages for now -- not your prescriptions just yet.

Swiss Post is curious to see how pedestrians and customers react to the robots traveling on sidewalks and making deliveries. After a few months of testing, Swiss Post will decide if it wants to use the robots regularly. Swiss Post will initially test five of the robots. They won't travel farther than three or four miles on trips.



Credits
http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/24/technology/switzerland-swiss-post-ground-robot/index.html

iPhone Hack Prompts Apple to issue an Emergency Update

The spyware firm, the NSO Group, tied to an iPhone hack that prompted an emergency patch this week by Apple keeps a very low profile. But NSO has strong ties here as well as in Israel, where it's staffed by specialists from Israel's military cyber division. One of the owners of NSO is a company based in San Francisco. NSO keeps a very low profile; it doesn't have a web page. But it describes itself as "a leader in the field of Cyber warfare," according to an apparent company brochure posted online by Privacy International. The tech company's focus on cyber warfare reflects the growing boom in cybersecurity firms that operate in a nebulous area: creating software and processes that break into encrypted devices for government entities.

The company uses "a powerful and unique monitoring tool, called Pegasus, which allows remote and stealth monitoring and full data extraction from remote target devices via untraceable commands," says the brochure. While these hacks can be legal under the laws of the country buying the product, they raise severe privacy worries from consumer groups. They also highlight concerns that increasingly rigorous encryption from Apple and other consumer tech companies is vulnerable to attacks funded by deep-pocked entities.

Credits: 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/08/26/shadowy-israeli-firm-behind-apple-hack-tool/89408936/

FBI to Release 14,900 of Clinton's E-mails

The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned. Justice Department lawyers said last week that the State Department would review and turn over Clinton’s work-related emails to a conservative legal group.


“State has not yet had the opportunity to complete a review of the documents to determine whether they are agency records or if they are duplicative of documents State has already produced through the Freedom of Information Act,” Toner said. “We cannot comment further as this matter is in ongoing litigation.” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said, “As we have always said, Hillary Clinton provided the State Department with all the work-related emails she had in her possession in 2014. We are not sure what additional materials the Justice Department may have located, but if the State Department determines any of them to be work-related, then obviously we support those documents being released publicly as well.”

Credits:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/

What Facebook Knows and How it Knows It11

Facebook knows more about your personal life than you probably realize. As part of the company’s increasingly aggressive advertising operation, Facebook goes to great lengths to track you across the web. The company compiles a list of personal details about every user that includes major life events and general interests. For years, details have been murky about how exactly the social network targets ads—but the company has finally given us a glimpse into how the secret sauce is made.

There are plenty of obvious characteristics that Facebook knows about its users, such as whether they’re getting married, just returned from vacation, or are about to have a baby. Most of that personal data is collected when people voluntarily post to Facebook or update their profiles. But then there’s creepier stuff that definitely isn’t submitted voluntarily, such as the number of credit lines you have, whether you’re an investor, what you invest in, whether you carry a balance on your credit card, whether you use coupons, and whether you’re likely to move.



If you’re curious about all the data points Facebook is using to target ads to you, here’s the full list:

1. Location
2. Age
3. Generation
4. Gender
5. Language
6. Education level
7. Field of study
8. School
9. Ethnic affinity
10. Income and net worth
11. Home ownership and type
12. Home value
13. Property size
14. Square footage of home
15. Year home was built
16. Household composition
17. Users who have an anniversary within 30 days
18. Users who are away from family or hometown
19. Users who are friends with someone who has an anniversary, is newly married or engaged, recently moved, or has an upcoming birthday
20. Users in long-distance relationships
21. Users in new relationships
22. Users who have new jobs
23. Users who are newly engaged
24. Users who are newly married
25. Users who have recently moved
26. Users who have birthdays soon
27. Parents
28. Expectant parents
29. Mothers, divided by “type” (soccer, trendy, etc.)
30. Users who are likely to engage in politics
31. Conservatives and liberals
32. Relationship status
33. Employer
34. Industry
35. Job title
36. Office type
37. Interests
38. Users who own motorcycles
39. Users who plan to buy a car (and what kind/brand of car, and how soon)
40. Users who bought auto parts or accessories recently
41. Users who are likely to need auto parts or services
42. Style and brand of car you drive
43. Year car was bought
44. Age of car
45. How much money user is likely to spend on next car
46. Where user is likely to buy next car
47. How many employees your company has
48. Users who own small businesses
49. Users who work in management or are executives
50. Users who have donated to charity (divided by type)
51. Operating system
52. Users who play canvas games
53. Users who own a gaming console
54. Users who have created a Facebook event
55. Users who have used Facebook Payments
56. Users who have spent more than average on Facebook Payments
57. Users who administer a Facebook page
58. Users who have recently uploaded photos to Facebook
59. Internet browser
60. Email service
61. Early/late adopters of technology
62. Expats (divided by what country they are from originally)
63. Users who belong to a credit union, national bank or regional bank
64. Users who investor (divided by investment type)
65. Number of credit lines
66. Users who are active credit card users
67. Credit card type
68. Users who have a debit card
69. Users who carry a balance on their credit card
70. Users who listen to the radio
71. Preference in TV shows
72. Users who use a mobile device (divided by what brand they use)
73. Internet connection type
74. Users who recently acquired a smartphone or tablet
75. Users who access the Internet through a smartphone or tablet
76. Users who use coupons
77. Types of clothing user’s household buys
78. Time of year user’s household shops most
79. Users who are “heavy” buyers of beer, wine or spirits
80. Users who buy groceries (and what kinds)
81. Users who buy beauty products
82. Users who buy allergy medications, cough/cold medications, pain relief products, and over-the-counter meds
83. Users who spend money on household products
84. Users who spend money on products for kids or pets, and what kinds of pets
85. Users whose household makes more purchases than is average
86. Users who tend to shop online (or off)
87. Types of restaurants user eats at
88. Kinds of stores user shops at
89. Users who are “receptive” to offers from companies offering online auto insurance, higher education or mortgages, and prepaid debit cards/satellite TV
90. Length of time user has lived in house
91. Users who are likely to move soon
92. Users who are interested in the Olympics, fall football, cricket or Ramadan
93. Users who travel frequently, for work or pleasure
94. Users who commute to work
95. Types of vacations user tends to go on
96. Users who recently returned from a trip
97. Users who recently used a travel app
98. Users who participate in a timeshare

Credits: 
http://cw33.com/2016/07/20/find-out-what-facebook-knows-about-you/

What Facebook Knows and How it Knows It

Facebook knows more about your personal life than you probably realize. As part of the company’s increasingly aggressive advertising operation, Facebook goes to great lengths to track you across the web. The company compiles a list of personal details about every user that includes major life events and general interests. For years, details have been murky about how exactly the social network targets ads—but the company has finally given us a glimpse into how the secret sauce is made.

There are plenty of obvious characteristics that Facebook knows about its users, such as whether they’re getting married, just returned from vacation, or are about to have a baby. Most of that personal data is collected when people voluntarily post to Facebook or update their profiles. But then there’s creepier stuff that definitely isn’t submitted voluntarily, such as the number of credit lines you have, whether you’re an investor, what you invest in, whether you carry a balance on your credit card, whether you use coupons, and whether you’re likely to move.



If you’re curious about all the data points Facebook is using to target ads to you, here’s the full list:

1. Location
2. Age
3. Generation
4. Gender
5. Language
6. Education level
7. Field of study
8. School
9. Ethnic affinity
10. Income and net worth
11. Home ownership and type
12. Home value
13. Property size
14. Square footage of home
15. Year home was built
16. Household composition
17. Users who have an anniversary within 30 days
18. Users who are away from family or hometown
19. Users who are friends with someone who has an anniversary, is newly married or engaged, recently moved, or has an upcoming birthday
20. Users in long-distance relationships
21. Users in new relationships
22. Users who have new jobs
23. Users who are newly engaged
24. Users who are newly married
25. Users who have recently moved
26. Users who have birthdays soon
27. Parents
28. Expectant parents
29. Mothers, divided by “type” (soccer, trendy, etc.)
30. Users who are likely to engage in politics
31. Conservatives and liberals
32. Relationship status
33. Employer
34. Industry
35. Job title
36. Office type
37. Interests
38. Users who own motorcycles
39. Users who plan to buy a car (and what kind/brand of car, and how soon)
40. Users who bought auto parts or accessories recently
41. Users who are likely to need auto parts or services
42. Style and brand of car you drive
43. Year car was bought
44. Age of car
45. How much money user is likely to spend on next car
46. Where user is likely to buy next car
47. How many employees your company has
48. Users who own small businesses
49. Users who work in management or are executives
50. Users who have donated to charity (divided by type)
51. Operating system
52. Users who play canvas games
53. Users who own a gaming console
54. Users who have created a Facebook event
55. Users who have used Facebook Payments
56. Users who have spent more than average on Facebook Payments
57. Users who administer a Facebook page
58. Users who have recently uploaded photos to Facebook
59. Internet browser
60. Email service
61. Early/late adopters of technology
62. Expats (divided by what country they are from originally)
63. Users who belong to a credit union, national bank or regional bank
64. Users who investor (divided by investment type)
65. Number of credit lines
66. Users who are active credit card users
67. Credit card type
68. Users who have a debit card
69. Users who carry a balance on their credit card
70. Users who listen to the radio
71. Preference in TV shows
72. Users who use a mobile device (divided by what brand they use)
73. Internet connection type
74. Users who recently acquired a smartphone or tablet
75. Users who access the Internet through a smartphone or tablet
76. Users who use coupons
77. Types of clothing user’s household buys
78. Time of year user’s household shops most
79. Users who are “heavy” buyers of beer, wine or spirits
80. Users who buy groceries (and what kinds)
81. Users who buy beauty products
82. Users who buy allergy medications, cough/cold medications, pain relief products, and over-the-counter meds
83. Users who spend money on household products
84. Users who spend money on products for kids or pets, and what kinds of pets
85. Users whose household makes more purchases than is average
86. Users who tend to shop online (or off)
87. Types of restaurants user eats at
88. Kinds of stores user shops at
89. Users who are “receptive” to offers from companies offering online auto insurance, higher education or mortgages, and prepaid debit cards/satellite TV
90. Length of time user has lived in house
91. Users who are likely to move soon
92. Users who are interested in the Olympics, fall football, cricket or Ramadan
93. Users who travel frequently, for work or pleasure
94. Users who commute to work
95. Types of vacations user tends to go on
96. Users who recently returned from a trip
97. Users who recently used a travel app
98. Users who participate in a timeshare

Credits: 
http://cw33.com/2016/07/20/find-out-what-facebook-knows-about-you/

Why Self Driving Cars are Good

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/videos/top-5-infuriating-things-that-self-driving-cars-can-fix/

Is This Something -- Smart Bulbs

The BeOn light bulb features a yellow module that pops right into the center of the bulb; that module includes a battery backup that'll let the lights shine without power, a microphone that listens for your doorbell or burglar alarm, and a Bluetooth radio that lets you sync things up with your smartphone. BeOn's bulbs learn your usage patterns, too. Tell the system you're away for the evening, and the bulbs will automatically "replay" your typical lighting changes to make it look like you're home -- no programming needed.

The problem is that, unlike a lot of those more traditional alternatives, BeOn's bulbs are really expensive -- $75 each, or $200 for a three-bulb starter kit (that comes out to roughly £50/AU$105 per bulb, or about £130/AU$285 for the kit. BeOn Bulbs aren't available outside of the US yet, but the company hopes to expand internationally in 2016). Your automation options are also surprisingly limited -- you can integrate them with your doorbell or your alarm system, but you can't program a timed schedule of your own, or integrate them with a larger smart home platform. I like these bulbs a lot, but unless that battery-powered, module-centric approach is what's most important to you, I'm not sure that they're worth the high cost of buying in.

Credits:
http://www.cnet.com/products/beon-starter-pack/

Squirrel Steals GoPro

http://digg.com/video/squirrel-takes-gopro

New Worm Robot Uses Wave Motion to Move

SAW (single actuator wave-like robot) is the first robot that produces a pure wave-like motion with a single motor. The robot was developed for medical, industrial and search and rescue purposes. The design is simple, 3D printed and the passive wheels are for steering only. In the movie we show that the robot can crawl over different surfaces, climb and swim. It reached a maximum speed of 57 cm/s which is 5 times faster than any other similar robot. The robot's design is simply and highly reliable very little maintenance was needed.

The robot's motion is similar to the "do the worm" dance. The robot was developed at the Bioinspired and medical Robotics lab at BGU by David Zarrouk, Moshe Mann, Nir Dgani, Ilanit Waxman, Tal Yehuda, Nissan Jerbi and Amotz Hess. This work is based on research published at Bioinspiration & Biomimetics 2016.



Credits:
http://gizmodo.com/this-crawling-climbing-worm-bot-is-a-never-ending-nigh-1784306984?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Apollo 11 Command Module / Lunar Lander Code Released

When programmers at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory set out to develop the flight software for the Apollo 11 space program in the mid-1960s, the necessary technology did not exist. They had to invent it. They came up with a new way to store computer programs, called “rope memory,” and created a special version of the assembly programming language. Assembly itself is obscure to many of today’s programmers—it’s very difficult to read, intended to be easily understood by computers, not humans. For the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), MIT programmers wrote thousands of lines of that esoteric code.

Command Module Geometry.
The whole source code.  

Margaret Hamilton was a computer scientist and systems engineer at MIT. She was Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. Hamilton's team was responsible for implementing the Apollo on-board guidance software required to navigate and land on the Moon, and its multiple variations used on numerous missions (including the subsequent Skylab). She worked to gain hands-on experience during a time when computer science courses were uncommon and software engineering courses did not exist.

Within the code there are many funny references. The main engine ignition routine, for example is called "Burn_Baby_Burn_Master_Ignition". Another routine is called, "PINBALL_GAME_
BUTTONS_AND_LIGHTS.s" which controls the dashboard lights in the command module. In another file called, "LUNAR_LANDING_GUIDANCE_EQUATIONS.s", there is code that appears to instruct an astronaut to “crank the silly thing around.”

Credits: 

http://qz.com/726338/the-code-that-took-america-to-the-moon-was-just-published-to-github-and-its-like-a-1960s-time-capsule/

We're Going to the Moon!

Space exploration fans, we’ve got some exciting news. A US company has just become the first private entity to be given permission to land on the Moon, something they hope to achieve next year. The company is called Moon Express, and they’re planning to send a small unmanned lander called MX-1E to the Moon in late 2017. They already have a launch contract to do this with a company called Rocket Lab, but getting approval for the landing was a major hurdle.

Moon Express is attempting to land on the Moon as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a race between 16 private companies to land an unmanned rover on the Moon and have it travel across the surface. Only one of the other teams, Israeli-based SpaceIL, also has a launch contract at the moment. The remaining 14 teams have until December 31 this year to come up with a launch contract to be eligible to take part. Moon Express hopes to do this by “hopping” across the surface, although further details are few and far between at the moment. This is the same method favored by SpaceIL, who are also hoping to launch next year, on a SpaceX rocket.



Credits:
http://www.iflscience.com/space/private-company-given-permission-land-on-moon-first-time/

Computer Science

The one’s and zero’s are all around us. Computer science and code have completely changed the world and how we interact with it. Just for a quick rundown, source code is at the core of how computers operate. Code is essentially a set of human written instructions that govern how computers of all types operate.

In fact, one could make a pretty strong case that the dawn on computing truly began in 1703 when Gottfried Leibniz formalized the binary code system. It was at this time that Leibniz, who is considered the first computer scientist, laid the groundwork for the field of computer science and digital security.

Info graphic

Credits:
http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/m/l/2016/07/evolution_of_computer_science_IG.jpg

http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/how-computer-science-has-revolutionized-tech/

Use 2-Step Authentication

Most people just use dumb passwords (see above). Other people try to come up with clever, short passwords that they can easily remember. They replace certain letters with numbers or use mixed case letters (e.g. using “P455w0rd” instead of the more common “password”). Unfortunately, most password breaking algorithms have already incorporated schemes to look for this. Maybe they’ll use information like their birthdays or addresses. That may be a little better, but not much. The key is to use longer passwords because they will be inherently more difficult to break. Think of using passphrases like this: “Lorenzo is my first name” (Lornz0izMi1stNm). Or better yet, don’t include any easily verifiable information: “The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book” (DaLrdOdRngzIzMiFavBuk).

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2FA or 2-Step Verification) is a method of confirming a user's claimed identity by utilizing a combination of two different components. These components may be something that the user knows, something that the user possesses or something that is inseparable from the user. A good example from everyday life is the withdrawing of money from a cash machine. Only the correct combination of a bank card (something that the user possesses) and a PIN (personal identification number, something that the user knows) allows the transaction to be carried out. 2FA is ineffective against modern threats, like ATM skimming, phishing, and malware etc. Two-factor authentication is a type of multi-factor authentication.
Worst Passwords in 2015

1. 123456 2. password 3. 12345678 4. qwerty 5. 12345 6. 123456789 7. football 8. 1234 9. 1234567 10. baseball 11. welcome 12. 1234567890

13. abc123 14. 111111 15. 1qaz2wsx 16. dragon 17. master 18. monkey 19. letmein 20. login 21. princess 22. qwertyuiop 23. solo 24. passw0rd 25. starwars

Brain Controlled Drone Racing

Drone races are nothing new. But the sport has now taken on a life of its own with highly elaborate events and a partnership with ESPN. Similarly, brain-computer interface (BCI) technology isn’t totally new. And while the technology is still young, advances are being made in labs across the country, and some paralyzed patients have already been able to use the technology to control prosthetic limbs. But utilizing this BCI technology to connect your brain to a drone? That is definitely new.

Last week, University of Florida did this for the first time by using BCI software to control a group of DJI Phantom drones. And while the drones didn’t exactly zoom by, 16 pilots used their brainwaves to fly drones down a 10-yard indoor course. So how exactly does this tech work? Pilots don electroencephalogram headsets that are calibrated to each wearer’s brain. For example, neuron activity will be recorded when the wearer is told to think about pushing something forward. This activity is then bound to the forward stick on the drone’s controller, so future similar neuron activity will move the drone forward. Essentially, it’s the same thing as when you bind new keyboard commands when playing a video game for the first time, just using brain waves instead of keyboard keys.



Credits:
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/university-of-florida-held-the-worlds-first-brain-controlled-drone-race/