In Shoe Navigation for the Blind

A Honda-backed startup called Ashirase is stepping into the global marketplace with a new navigation assistance product intended to help people with low vision. Its debut device will feature flexible vibrating bases that wrap around each foot and are inserted into each shoe, and a small pack that resembles an AirPods case that can be detached for charging. Once fitted, the vibrating components are aligned along the sensitive nerves on the foot and can send coded walking instructions to the user.

In its present form, this device is intended to help those with low vision navigate a route that comes from a smartphone app. The idea is that it can help eliminate distractions by freeing up the attention that is normally needed to either listen to voice directions or recheck their phones. That way, visually impaired users can concentrate on the safety of the environments in which they are walking, explains Waturo Chino, representative director and CEO of Ashirase. People can use their hearing to listen to traffic sounds and signals, like warning beeps at crossings or sidewalks, and use their hands to carry walking canes or other belongings. It’s not meant to warn against upcoming real-time obstacles, but provide simple, general navigation directions.

Click here for the link

 
Credits:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/in-shoe-vibrating-device-easy-navigation-visually-impaired/
https://twitter.com/PCMag/status/1498456231572226050?t=DlW9Aa5paaYgQVea1CGrMQ&s=19

US Government Warns of Russian Cyber Attacks

U.S. intelligence analysts have determined that Moscow would consider a cyberattack against the U.S. as the Ukraine crisis grows. As a scholar of Russian cyber operations, I know the Kremlin has the capacity to damage critical U.S. infrastructure systems. Federal officials have been bracing for this. In January 2022 the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert that outlined the Russian cyberattack threat, with technical details of sophisticated Russian-led hacking from recent years. That included a complicated digital break-in that targeted the U.S. energy industry and gained access to the control rooms of U.S. electric utilities. According to Homeland Security officials, the hackers “could have thrown switches” and knocked out power to the public – but did not.

In mid-February 2022, federal cybersecurity experts met with executives from big U.S. banks to discuss defenses against Russian hacking attempts. In Ukraine, the Russian offensive began Feb. 23, 2022, with cyberattacks aimed at overloading and shutting down bank and government websites. In addition there were reports of software capable of corrupting data having been secretly installed on hundreds of computers owned by large Ukrainian organizations in the financial, defense and information technology services industries. That malicious software spilled outside Ukraine – it was found on computers in Lithuania and Latvia – which is reminiscent of the NotPetya attack. In 2017, a piece of malware that initially seemed to be ransomware was unleashed on Ukraine and spread widely, causing more than $10 billion in collateral damage to major international companies. The NotPetya attack was ultimately attributed to a Russian military unit.



Credits:
https://theconversation.com/how-much-damage-could-a-russian-cyberattack-do-in-the-us-177904

Curiosity Captures Drifting Clouds

 

 Clouds can be seen drifting across the Martian sky in an 8-frame movie made using images from a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover. Shadows from these clouds can be seen drifting across the terrain. These images were taken on Dec. 12, 2021, the 3,325th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. A second 8-frame movie, taken using the same navigation camera, is included here as Figure A. These images show the clouds as they were seen drifting directly above Curiosity. Scientists can calculate how fast the clouds are moving – and how high they are in the sky – by comparing the two perspectives. These clouds are very high, nearly 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the surface. It’s extremely cold at that height, which suggests these clouds are composed of carbon dioxide ice as opposed to water ice clouds, which are typically found at lower altitude.

Martian clouds are very faint in the atmosphere, so special imaging techniques are needed to see them. Multiple images are taken to be able to get a clear, static background. That allows anything else moving within the image (like clouds or shadows) to become visible after subtracting this static background from each individual image.



Credits:

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26557/curiosity-captures-drifting-clouds-on-dec-12-2021/?site=msl

Researchers Develop Glasses to Allow Some Blind People to See

At least 2.2 billion people around the world suffer from some form of impaired vision, ranging from a mild level to total blindness, according to the World Health Organisation. The WHO says the financial impact of this, in terms of loss of productivity, is more than $25 billion per year for the global economy. The Phoenix 99, is a possible solution to this problem. The technology was tested recently in sheep and was said to have been well tolerated by the animals. As a result, an application has now been made to start testing in human patients. The Phoenix 99 is wirelessly linked to a small camera attached to a pair of glasses, it works by stimulating a user's retina. The retina is the layer of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye that convert light into electrical messages, sent to the brain via the optic nerve, and processed into what we see. The Phoenix 99 device is able to bypass faulty retina cells, and 'trigger' those that are still able to work.

Experts believe bionic eyes like the Phoenix 99 could become commonplace in a matter of years. According to one 2021 market research report surfaced by the BBC, the industry could be worth over $400 million by 2028. There are several other companies working on similar bionic eye systems, including Second Sight and the Monash Vision Group, also based out of Australia. Another France-based company called Pixium Vision is also testing its retina implant-based system in humans. Here's how the bionic eye works:

• A patient is implanted with the Phoenix 99. A stimulator is positioned on the eye and a communication module implanted behind the ear. 
• A very small camera attached to glasses captures the visual scene in front of the wearer. The images are processed into a set of stimulation instructions.
• The instructions are sent wirelessly through the skin to the communication module of the prosthesis. 
• The implant decodes the wireless signal and transfers the instructions to the stimulation module, which delivers electrical impulses to the neurons of the retina.
• The electrical impulses, delivered in patterns matching the images recorded by the camera, trigger neurons which forward the messages to the brain, where the signals are interpreted as a vision of the scene.

Credits:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60316224

Robotic Fish Swimming to the Beat of Human Heart Cells

To uncover the secrets of the human heart, we need to be clever. And building a school of robotic fish powered by human heart cells is just one way of doing that. A school of robotic fish created with this technique by a team of researchers at Harvard University and Emory University has come "alive": They can swim by recreating the contractions of a pumping heart. The heart cells in their body contract and stretch, causing their tails to move autonomously. This shows how lab-grown heart tissue can be designed to maintain a rhythmic beat indefinitely, taking science one step closer to building an artificial heart and offering a unique platform to investigate cardiac illness like arrhythmia.

The idea behind the fish is geniusly simple: These zebrafish-based biohybrids are made of paper, plastic, gelatin, and two strips of living heart muscle cells. One strip runs along the robot's left side, while the other runs along the right. When the muscle cells on one side contract, the tail moves in that direction. This propels the fish through the water. The opposite side's muscle cell strip similarly stretches as a result of the action. This stretching then sends a signal to the cells, causing them to contract, which keeps the swimming motion going.



Credits: https://interestingengineering.com/fish-swimming-heart-cells

Happy World Radio Day

Every year, World Radio Day is celebrated on February 13 with an aim to underline the importance of radio. In this era of a technologically advanced world with easy access to the internet and other mediums of communication, the peculiar role of radio simply cannot be ignored. There are a lot of people still who not only trust radio but also rely on it for the consumption of news and for entertainment purposes. To date, radio has managed to be a prominent platform to reach the masses, particularly in developing countries. The member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) first proclaimed this day back in 2011. However, it was later adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as an International Day. Since then, February 13 has been observed as World Radio Day.

To help celebrate "World Radio Day", NASA produced a video of how they use radio waves to communicate with distant spacecraft. Click here for the video.

Credits: 

https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1492891320100089859

DARPA Test Flies a Black Hawk Helicopter Autonomously

The United States military just inched one step closer to bringing autonomous helicopters to the battlefield. Like most strange feats of advanced military technology, this one comes from The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known simply as “DARPA.” On Tuesday, DARPA said a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter outfitted with its experimental Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) system safely completed a test flight without anyone in the chopper. The 30-minute test flight occurred over the weekend above a U.S. Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

DARPA’s interest in autonomous vehicles broadly dates back decades. In 2004, 2005, and 2007, the agency held its series of “Grand Challenges,” which awarded millions in prize money to competitors who could design vehicles able to autonomously navigate over long distances. AV technology has since undergone transformational change compared to 2004 when not a single vehicle was able to complete DARPA’s 142-mile desert course. DARPA isn’t just interested in helicopters either. A report released last month in The New Yorker detailed advancements the agency has made in adding autonomous functions to fighter jets as part of its Air Combat Evolution program. In some simulated events, automated fighter jets systems have already outperformed human pilots in dogfights. If all goes according to plan, DARPA says it aims to showcase four AI-powered jets engaged in a live dogfight over Lake Ontario by 2024.



Credits:
https://gizmodo.com/darpa-successfully-tests-an-unmanned-autonomous-blackha-1848502521?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=dlvrit&utm_content=gizmodo

Google says Default 2FA Cut Account Breaches in Half

Google's decision to enable two-factor authentication by default appears to have borne fruit. The search firm has revealed that account breaches dropped by 50 percent among those users where 2FA (two-step verification in Google-speak) was auto-enabled. The plunge was proof the extra factor is "effective" in safeguarding your data, Google said, although it didn't disclose the exact number of compromised accounts. The company didn't say how rapidly it expected 2FA to spread, but promised to continue the rollout through 2022. More than 150 million people have been auto-enrolled so far, including more than 2 million YouTube creators.

The company also promised more security upgrades to help mark Safer Internet Day. As of March, Google will let you opt-in to an account-level safe browsing option that keeps you from visiting known harmful sites. Google is also expanding Assistant's privacy-minded Guest Mode to nine new languages in the months ahead, and has promised to ramp up safeguards for politicians ahead of the US midterm elections. The reduced volume of account breaches isn't a shock — requiring more effort to crack an account is bound to deter some would-be intruders. It hasn't always been easy to show the tangible impact of 2FA on security, though, and the sheer scale of Google's user base gives it a representative sample others can't easily match.

Credits:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-says-2fa-default-cut-account-breaches-193745716.html

MIT Creates New Material -- As Light as Plastic, As Strong as Steel

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new material that combines the strength of steel and the lightness of plastic. Doctor Michael Strano, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT and the lead author of this study, said the new material is even harder to break than bulletproof glass. “If you look at it chemically, it’s close to kevlar,” he explained. “We make bulletproof vests out of it — if you’re a mountain climber it’s very strong cables.” In addition to its strength, Strano said the material can create tight seals. “If you put your sandwich in a plastic bag you’re trying to keep oxygen out. Believe it or not, eventually, oxygen does get through that plastic bag,” he explained. “This material, as best we can tell, you can make a much much thinner sheet than that plastic bag and there’s no gas that can get through it.”

Researchers say this new material could be used to make everything from lightweight coatings for cars and phones to important infrastructure such as bridges. “There’s excitement because that may open up a whole new class of materials that are strong in new kinds of ways,” said Strano. Polymers, which include all plastics, consist of chains of building blocks called monomers. These chains grow by adding new molecules onto their ends. Once formed, polymers can be shaped into three-dimensional objects, such as water bottles, using injection molding. Polymer scientists have long hypothesized that if polymers could be induced to grow into a two-dimensional sheet, they should form extremely strong, lightweight materials. However, many decades of work in this field led to the conclusion that it was impossible to create such sheets. One reason for this was that if just one monomer rotates up or down, out of the plane of the growing sheet, the material will begin expanding in three dimensions and the sheet-like structure will be lost.

Click here for the video

Credits:
https://news.mit.edu/2022/polymer-lightweight-material-2d-0202

ISS to Crash to Earth in 2030

NASA says it plans to retire the International Space Station in 2031 by crashing it into an uninhabited stretch of the Pacific Ocean. Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters, said in a press release that the private sector will be taking the lead on the development of future space station projects and that NASA will help ensure a smooth transition. "The private sector is technically and financially capable of developing and operating commercial low-Earth orbit destinations, with NASA's assistance," he said. "We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and operations experience with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable, and cost-effective destinations in space." NASA's aim is to use the commercial ventures to purchase goods and services that the federal space program needs, instead of doing it all on their own. It expects several NASA crewmembers at a time to work aboard commercial space stations by the early 2030s, conducting scientific and medical research in microgravity.

NASA recently published a transition report detailing plans for the final years of the space station, which is expected to be funded for operation through 2030. "While the ISS will not last forever, NASA expects to be able to operate it safely through 2030," the report says. When the program has reached the end of its lifespan, NASA intends to "de-orbit" the ISS over an uninhabited part of the South Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo. Mission control will use a series maneuvers to lower the altitude of of the station's orbit and line it up for its descent, before it finally comes down at Point Nemo in January 2031. Thee Russian Progress spacecraft will be required to pull it out of orbit. The station, which launched in 1998, has hosted astronauts from 19 countries in their scientific ventures. The ISS has orbited 227 nautical miles above Earth during its more than two decades in space.

Click here for the video

Credits:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iss-retired-nasa-pacific-ocean-crash/

US Hacker Shuts Down North Korea's Internet -- Maybe

Digital connectivity in North Korea recently took a hit as the country was seen suffering from repeated outages of its few websites. The experts have been trying to figure out the reason behind this for the past two weeks. While fingers were being pointed at state-sponsored attacks on the isolated country following its recent missile testing, it turns out, it was an individual hacker sitting at his home in the US who took down North Korea's internet connectivity single-handedly.

The story is that of pure revenge, against a previous cyber-attack from North Korea that our protagonist here was the victim of. At the time, a hacking campaign by North Korea had targeted Western security researchers in an attempt to steal their hacking tools and find chinks in their cybersecurity protocols. Among the many targeted, one American took this attack personally and wanted to get back at North Korea's attempts.

Identified as P4x in a recent report by Wired, the American hacker waited for a year to see if the US government responded to North Korea's strike. Seeing that there was no retaliation, P4x decided to revert to the attacks by himself. "If they don’t see we have teeth, it’s just going to keep coming,” the hacker told Wired. To get back at North Korea's hacker group, P4x then launched “denial-of-service” attacks on the servers and routers of North Korea's networks. He had found numerous "known but unpatched vulnerabilities" in the systems that allowed him to launch these attacks. Since then, P4x has managed to automate these attacks on the country's networks. Now he just periodically checks the functioning of his programs meant to disrupt the internet of North Korea, right at his home.

Credits: 

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/north-korea-cyber-attacks-a-hacker-he-shuts-down-their-whole-internet-1908311-2022-02-03

What does Google Know about You

Google may be collecting far more personal data and information than you might realize. Every search you perform and every YouTube video you watch, Google is keeping tabs on you. Google Maps even logs everywhere you go, the route you use to get there and how long you stay, no matter if you have an iPhone or an Android. It can be eye-opening and possibly a little unsettling looking into everything Google knows about you. Google's tracking has caught the attention of attorneys general from Indiana, Texas, Washington state and Washington, DC. They allege the search giant makes it "nearly impossible" for people to stop their location from being tracked and accuse the company of deceiving users and invading their privacy. As a result, the attorneys general are suing Google over its use of location data.

Adssettings

Myactivity.google.com

Location

Credits:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/20/what-does-google-know-about-me.html