Happy 50th Birthday to the Internet ... Sort of

On October 29, 1969, at 10:30pm Pacific Time, the first two letters were transmitted over Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, ARPANET. And then it crashed. About an hour later, after some debugging, the first actual remote connection between two computers was established over what would someday evolve into the modern Internet. Rather than being directly connected, the computers were connected via Interface Message Processors (IMPs), which were the first network routers. This would allow additional systems to be added as nodes to the network at each site as it evolved and grew. This idea came from physicist Wesley Clark, who is also credited with designing the LINC, the world's first personal computer.

The first letters transmitted, sent from UCLA to Stanford by UCLA student programmer Charley Kline, were "l" and "o." On the second attempt, the full message text, login, went through from the Sigma 7 to the 940. So, the first three characters ever transmitted over the precursor to the Internet were L, O, and L. By the time I was first exposed to ARPANET, it had grown significantly, but it was still primarily a connection between researchers and military organizations. ARPANET was operated by the military until 1990, and until then, using the network for anything other than government-related business and research was illegal.



Credits:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/50-years-ago-today-the-internet-was-born-sort-of/

Amazon Unveils Solar and Wind Projects to Meet Paris Climate Accord

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled three new renewable energy projects in the US and UK, its first new set of green developments since CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled his ambitious Climate Pledge last month. In the US, Amazon will have solar farms in Warren County, North Carolina, and Price George County, Virginia, with the farms totaling 215 megawatts of power. A wind farm in Scotland will provide 50 MW. All three projects are expected to come online in 2021. Amazon has also launched a new sustainability site to allow the public to track its progress in reducing its carbon footprint.

These projects are a continuation of Amazon's years of work to build up wind and solar energy to power its operations and Amazon Web Services cloud-computing division. The announcement also comes just weeks after Bezos unveiled his company's Climate Pledge, with a commitment to make Amazon carbon neutral by 2040, so these new projects may be a sign the company will be ramping up these kinds of deals in the near future. To reach the carbon-neutral goal, Bezos last month announced a new $100 million reforestation plan and a new order for 100,000 electric delivery vans to move away from diesel vehicles. Amazon also pledged to power its global infrastructure with 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% by 2030 -- up from the 40% renewable energy it uses today.



Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-announces-three-more-renewable-energy-projects/

Google Achieves Quantum Computing Success

On Wednesday, Google published a scientific paper in the journal Nature detailing how its quantum computer vastly outpaced a conventional machine, an idea called quantum supremacy. Powered by a Google-designed quantum processor called Sycamore, it completed a task in 200 seconds that, by Google's estimate, would take 10,000 years on the world's fastest supercomputer. Google's success at achieving quantum supremacy sounds like a momentous victory. But really, it's just the first step in making this radical new type of computing useful.

On Wednesday, Google published a scientific paper in the journal Nature detailing how its quantum computer vastly outpaced a conventional machine, an idea called quantum supremacy. Powered by a Google-designed quantum processor called Sycamore, it completed a task in 200 seconds that, by Google's estimate, would take 10,000 years on the world's fastest supercomputer. Quantum computers work by embracing the strange nature of particles at the atomic scale. Where classical computers store data as bits that are either a one or a zero, the quantum computing equivalent, called a qubit, can store information that's part one and part zero. Next, a quantum computer gangs multiple qubits together, dramatically increasing the number of possible states they can record. Last, processing those qubits lets researchers explore countless possible solutions to a problem simultaneously instead of evaluating them one at a time. It's lousy for adding two and two, but potentially great for some problems classical computers just can't cope with.


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Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-quantum-supremacy-only-first-taste-of-computing-revolution/

Mite-killing Robot

ROCKUBOT is a pocket-sized robot that can help with this problem. The little thing rolls along surfaces and attacks bacteria, germs, and mites with UV-C light and ultrasonic wave technology. According to its Kickstarter page, ROCKUBOT can kill 99.99% bacteria, germs and mites in just seconds. In terms of hardware, the gizmo comes with 4 UV-C lights, ultrasonic wave technology and 24 AI sensors. There’s also a wireless charging and a 5200 mAh power bank for times when you are on the go.

The UV-C light is a chemically-free method of killing or disabling the growth of bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. It works in parallel with ultrasonic waves which combat mites and germs. The Ultrasonic waves emit a frequency above 20,000 Hz so are inaudible to humans and pets but repel insects. The multiple sensors along the thing allow it to navigate, avoid obstacles and falls. There’s an automatic and manual mode to choose from. The first works like a smart vacuum finding its way around a surface. The second is useful for disinfecting items such as TV remote controls, cell phones, keyboards, children’s toys and more.



Credits:
https://gadgetsandwearables.com/2019/09/24/rockubot/

Facebook Deletes 50 Accounts Tied to Russia

People linked to the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-backed troll group indicted by the United States for its alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, are laying the groundwork to do the same in 2020, new information released by Facebook on Monday suggests. Profiles originating in Russia had since the beginning of this year been building a network of accounts on Instagram designed to look like groups in swing states, the company said. Instagram is owned by Facebook. The accounts Facebook revealed Monday, 50 of which were on Instagram and one of which was on Facebook, were designed to look like they were advocating on a broad range of issues across American life.

Although the accounts posed as Americans from all sides of the political spectrum, many were united in their opposition to the candidacy of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to Graphika, a social media investigations company that Facebook asked to analyze the accounts. The Russian trolls who used social media to interfere in the 2016 election employed a similar tactic, going after Hillary Clinton from the right and also trying to spread a perception on the left that Clinton was not liberal enough and that liberals and African Americans especially shouldn't bother voting for her.

Click here for the video.

Credits:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/21/tech/russia-instagram-accounts-2020-election/index.html

Google Home 3rd Party Apps Listen For Passwords

The privacy threats posed by Amazon Alexa and Google Home are common knowledge. Workers for both companies routinely listen to audio of users—recordings of which can be kept forever—and the sounds the devices capture can be used in criminal trials. Now, there's a new concern: malicious apps developed by third parties and hosted by Amazon or Google. The threat isn't just theoretical. Whitehat hackers at Germany's Security Research Labs developed eight apps—four Alexa "skills" and four Google Home "actions"—that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or actions posed as simple apps for checking horoscopes, with the exception of one, which masqueraded as a random-number generator. Behind the scenes, these "smart spies," as the researchers call them, surreptitiously eavesdropped on users and phished for their passwords.

The malicious apps had different names and slightly different ways of working, but they all followed similar flows. A user would say a phrase such as: "Hey Alexa, ask My Lucky Horoscope to give me the horoscope for Taurus." The eavesdropping apps responded with the requested information while the phishing apps gave a fake error message. Then the apps gave the impression they were no longer running when they, in fact, silently waited for the next phase of the attack. As the following video shows, the eavesdropping apps gave the expected responses and then went silent. In one case, an app went silent because the task was completed, and, in another instance, an app went silent because the user gave the command "stop," which Alexa uses to terminate apps. But the apps quietly logged all conversations within earshot of the device and sent a copy to a developer-designated server.



Credits:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/alexa-and-google-home-abused-to-eavesdrop-and-phish-passwords/

LA Fire to Increase Drones

As it looks to modernize its operations, the Los Angeles Fire Department is turning to a number of new technologies including expanding its fleet of drones for a slew of new deployments. One of the largest fire departments in the U.S. next to New York and Chicago, the LAFD has a budget of roughly $691 million, employs over 3,500, and responded to 492,717 calls in 2018. The department already has a fleet of 11 drones to compliment its fleet of 258 fire engines, ambulances, and helicopters. However, Battalion Chief Richard Fields, the head of the department’s Unmanned Aerial Systems program would like to see that number increase significantly.

The technology demands of the fire department extend beyond the drone itself. There are a lot of technologies that allows us to make the drone more versatile… the most valuable tool isn’t the drone; it’s the sensor. So far, the most useful application has been using infrared technologies to balance what’s visible and combine it with the heat signatures the sensors pick up. Training to become a drone pilot for the LAFD is particularly intense, Fields says. The typical pilot will get up to eighty hours of training. For now, the entire LAFD fleet is composed of DJI drones, something which has given military and civilian officials pause in the past few years.


Credits:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/20/the-los-angeles-fire-department-wants-more-drones/

20 (!) New Moons around Saturn Discovered

Move over Jupiter; Saturn is the new moon king. A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard has found 20 new moons orbiting Saturn. This brings the ringed planet’s total number of moons to 82, surpassing Jupiter, which has 79. The discovery was announced Monday by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. Each of the newly discovered moons is about five kilometers, or three miles, in diameter. Seventeen of them orbit the planet backwards, or in a retrograde direction, meaning their movement is opposite of the planet’s rotation around its axis. The other three moons orbit in the prograde—the same direction as Saturn rotates.

The outer moons of Saturn appear to be grouped into three different clusters in terms of the inclinations of the angles at which they are orbiting around the planet. Two of the newly discovered prograde moons fit into a group of outer moons with inclinations of about 46 degrees called the Inuit group, as they are named after Inuit mythology. These moons may have once comprised a larger moon that was broken apart in the distant past. Likewise, the newly announced retrograde moons have similar inclinations to other previously known retrograde Saturnian moons, indicating that they are also likely fragments from a once-larger parent moon that was broken apart. These retrograde moons are in the Norse group, with names coming from Norse mythology. One of the newly discovered retrograde moons is the farthest known moon around Saturn.



Credits:
https://scitechdaily.com/20-new-moons-discovered-orbiting-saturn-you-can-help-name-them-video/

NASA Prepares for 1st All Women Spacewalk

The first spacewalk to be conducted entirely by women is scheduled for Oct. 21, NASA announced, nearly seven months after an all-female spacewalk was canceled because two properly fitted spacesuits were not readily available. Christina Koch and Anne McClain, the two astronauts who were scheduled to conduct the spacewalk in March, both needed a medium-size torso component, but only one was available. The spacewalk did take place — it just wasn’t all-female. Ms. Koch conducted the six-hour mission with fellow astronaut Nick Hague.

Ms. Koch will now set out with astronaut Jessica Meir this month on the first women-only venture outside of the International Space Station. They are set to install lithium-ion batteries to better serve the station’s power supply. It will be the fourth of 10 spacewalks scheduled for the next three months, which might set a record pace of complex spacewalks since the space station was completed in 2011, NASA said. “I think it’s important because of the historical nature of what we’re doing and in the past, women haven’t always been at the table,” Ms. Koch said on NASA TV. “And it’s wonderful to be contributing to the human spaceflight program at a time when all contributions are being accepted.”

Credits:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/science/NASA-female-spacewalk.html

Amazon Echo Frames

Amazon is entering into the eyewear business. At the company's annual event today, it announced its first-ever pair of smart glasses, called the Echo Frames. There's no AR here, so don't expect floating images; they're not anything like the North Focals. Instead, think of them as an Alexa-powered speaker that you put on your face. They're designed to look and feel like a regular pair of glasses. They really do look like a normal pair of frames.

To use them, all you have to say is "Alexa" followed by a command. So saying "Alexa, what's the weather" will trigger the glasses to tell you the weather. The audio comes out of two little speakers on either side of the glasses. Amazon says it has an "Open Ear" direct speaker technology where only the wearer can hear the audio but people around cannot. If you tap and hold the temple, that'll trigger the voice assistant in your phone, such as Google Assistant. You can also swipe either forwards or backwards on the temple to scroll through your notifications. Speaking of which, you can also set up a VIP List so that only your more important notifications come through the glasses.




Credits:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/25/echo-frames-hands-on/

Summoned Tesla Gets Pulled Over in Driverless Mode

In lots of ways, Tesla’s new Smart Summon feature is classic Tesla. Rolled out last week as part of an extensive software update—which also included updates for Automatic Lane Change; an in-car, 360-degree view while behind the wheel; a new game dashboard to use while waiting for the car to charge; and something called Caraoke—Smart Summon does what it sounds like. If you’re in a private parking lot or driveway and no more than 200 feet away from your car, you can pull out your phone, navigate through the Tesla app, and press COME TO ME. The car will, hopefully, come to you. Like many of Tesla’s products and features, Smart Summon is fun, cool, delayed by a few months.



Credits:
 https://electrek.co/2019/10/03/tesla-driverless-pulled-over-police-on-smart-summon/

Court Issues Mixed Ruling on Net Neutrality

A federal appeals court on Tuesday issued a mixed ruling on the Federal Communications Commission repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules. The court upheld the FCC's repeal of the rules, but struck down a key provision that blocked states from passing their own net neutrality protections. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals also remanded another piece of the order back to the FCC and told the agency to take into consideration other issues, like the effect that the repeal of protections will have on public safety. Net neutrality supporters sued the FCC in 2018, saying that the agency's repeal were "arbitrary" and "capricious," especially when it came to changing its mind on how to classify broadband.

Mozilla argued in its court filing that the FCC "fundamentally mischaracterizes how internet access works." It also argued that the FCC's order to repeal the net neutrality rules was illegal because it "completely renounces its enforcement ability" and "tries to delegate" its authority for regulating telecommunications services to the FTC. The FCC has defended itself against these claims, saying that its enhanced transparency rule (which requires internet providers to explain how they manage their networks), antitrust law and the FTC's regulations on anticompetitive behavior are sufficient in protecting the internet. The court upheld this rule in its decision.

Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-court-ruling-states-can-set-own-rules/