The Technology Thread

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

LifeLock's Wallet App Will Nuke Your Data Due to Security Concerns

LifeLock announced in a blog post that the company's Wallet app for Android and iOS may not be fully compliant with PCI security standards. Because of this, LifeLock has pulled the app—and set it to automatically delete users' data the next time it's opened. Talk about a thorough cleaning.

On his blog, LifeLock CEO Todd Davis assured users that the company has found no evidence that user data was compromised. Still, the discovery that the app isn't as secure as it could be drove the company to delete all the app's user data from its servers, and take the unusual step of making the app self-destruct user data when it's opened on a smartphone. The problem is said not to affect subscribers of LifeLock's other services.

That's gotta be an inconvenience for LifeLock Wallet users, who've likely spent months getting all their credit card and banking info imported into the app. But if you were looking for a decisive answer to security concerns, it doesn't get much stronger than that. A TNW reader suggests putting your phone in Airplane mode if you need one last look at your data before it self-destructs, though given the problem it's probably a good idea to let the auto-nuke do its thing.

http://www.electronista.com/article...spects.of.app.that.may.not.be.up.to.standard/

Well at least they are doing something about it unlike some companies *cough* Target *cough*

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

AT&T Will Announce DirecTV Purchase Tomorrow

Rumors have been floating around all week that AT&T will purchase DirecTV for a reported $50 billion. Now, BuzzFeed quotes unnamed insiders who say the deal will be officially announced tomorrow, ahead of trading on Monday. The deal would give AT&T access to DirecTV's 20 million subscribers, the largest satellite customer base in the U.S., as well as the satellite provider's sizable cash assets.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/passantino/att-set-to-announce-directv-acquisition-sunday?bftw=biz

Still can't really think of many upsides of this for the consumer

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Military's Power-Generating Boot Isn't Quite Battlefield Ready

This week, Marines at the Experimental Forward Operating Base at Camp Pendleton, California, got to try out some prototypes of energy-generating equipment to keep combat electronics charged and ready. The verdict: back to the drawing board.

As Kit Up explains, the kinetic boot shown above was designed to turn each step into a tiny burst of energy that would go to charge battery operated equipment. But the Marines who tested the boot found it balky and uncomfortable. "I felt that was a bit ridiculous. I felt like there are other ways, like better ways, to make energy than having something in your boot that's going to make energy," an unnamed Marine told Kit Up.

Other prototypes included kinetic backpacks and portable solar panels. With military personnel carrying an ever-increasing number of electronic devices, keeping batteries charged is an increasingly serious challenge. In civilian life, a dead battery means a brief pause in your tweeting and Instagramming, but on the battlefield dead equipment can have very serious consequences.

http://kitup.military.com/2014/05/marines-design-energy-producing.html

I've been wondering how the military was planning on powering all the high tech stuff they have been showing off lately

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Apple and Google Agree to Stop Suing Each Other into Oblivion

According to breaking reports from the Wall Street Journal, consumer electronics titans Google and Apple have just agreed to drop pending lawsuits against one another and work together to reform patent law. Wonder Twin powers activate!

Earlier this afternoon, Apple and Google informed a federal appeals court that they had agreed to settle all patent litigation between themselves relating to smartphone technology—specifically the dozens of suits and countersuits over whether or not Android copied elements of iOS sparked by Google's 2010 Motorola acquisition.

"Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies," read a joint statement issued by the pair. "Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include a cross license."

While this effectively ends one of the industry's most vicious and high-profile patent spats in recent memory, the wording of the filing appears to only apply directly to Apple and Google themselves, not the hardware companies that use Android. Apple is therefore now free to focus all of its efforts on crushing Samsung in patent court.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304908304579566583336822024

Well this is def a surprise, I thought they were going to do this little dance of theirs for years to come

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

NASA wants to send these flying saucers to Mars

This is NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, "a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle" designed to land huge payloads on Mars. So there—suck on that Martians, because after all these decades of sci-fi invasions, we are going to be the ones seizing your planet with our very own flying saucers.

The new LDSD—designed and built by engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California—will be crucial for future human exploration on the Red Planet. This platform will allow us to deliver the supplies needed for long-term missions. To test it, however, we will need to take it first to the upper layers of Earth's stratosphere, where conditions are similar to Mars.

During the June experimental flight test, a balloon will carry the test vehicle from the Hawaii Navy facility to an altitude of about 120,000 feet. There, it will be dropped and its booster rocket will quickly kick in and carry it to 180,000 feet, accelerating to Mach 4. Once in the very rarified air high above the Pacific, the saucer will begin a series of automated tests of two breakthrough technologies.

The low-resolution images from the saucer are expected to show the vehicle dropping away from its high-altitude balloon mothership and then rocketing up to the very edge of the stratosphere. The test vehicle will then deploy an inflatable Kevlar tube around itself, called the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD). After the SIAD inflates, the test vehicle will deploy a mammoth parachute called the Supersonic Disk Sail Parachute.
NASA will test the on June 3, at the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility. Mark the day in your calendars, because this is going to be a great show to watch on the Internet.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/ldsd/

NASA always coming up with cool stuff

 

[Teelie]

AT&T Will Announce DirecTV Purchase Tomorrow



http://www.buzzfeed.com/passantino/att-set-to-announce-directv-acquisition-sunday?bftw=biz

Still can't really think of many upsides of this for the consumer

Buzzfeed? I'll have to take that with a huge lump of salt. I'm not sure that AT&T can even get that approved.

 

[KevanG]

NASA wants to send these flying saucers to Mars

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/ldsd/

NASA always coming up with cool stuff

So now WE have the flying saucers invading other planets?

 

[Teelie]

It's because M. Night Shyamalan is now in charge of NASA.

 

[KevanG]

That means all the awesome stuff will turn out to be lame crap for no good reason. Like the mysterious jelly donut rock on Mars.

 

[Teelie]

Exactly. That jelly rock was just something the rover moved. Shyamalan strikes again with an underwhelming twist.

 

[KevanG]

[YT]WWaLxFIVX1s[/YT]

 

[Superwoman Prime]

NEUROGAMES ARE READY TO TAKE FLIGHT — EXPECT A BREAKOUT YEAR AHEAD

“We’re very close.”

In just three words, Palmer Luckey of OculusVR fame, perfectly summarized not only where virtual reality stands, but perhaps the entire neurogaming industry. Luckey was on hand to present with other industry leaders for the 2nd edition of the NeuroGaming Conference, an annual event in San Francisco. Last year’s conference signaled the birth of an industry segment that should forever replace traditional gaming as we’ve known it. Sales of videogames for casual gamers are in decline, but a new and ultimately more meaningful form of gaming has already taken shape to replace them.

But what are neurogames exactly?

Zack Lynch, the conference organizer, describes them as “a collection of technologies that incorporate your full nervous system into gameplay.” Specifically, that could include wearable devices like EEG headsets and heart-rate monitors along with biofeedback platforms to do things like eye tracking and brain wave sensing. Add these inputs to platforms like virtual and augmented reality, and developers now have the opportunity to create fully immersive experiences that were never before possible.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

AT&T Is Buying DirecTV for $50 Billion

After nearly a month of will they or won't they, it's finally official. AT&T has entered into a "definitive agreement" to acquire DirecTV for a cool $50 billion. Meaning AT&T is about to hold the keys to roughly 26 million TV subscribers.

It might seem like an odd pairing, but the two companies already work together to provide each other's services where the one is out of reach. That means AT&T's U-verse triple threat could very soon be spreading. According to the release:

The transaction enables the combined company to offer consumers bundles that include video, high-speed broadband and mobile services using all of its sales channels — AT&T's 2,300 retail stores and thousands of authorized dealers and agents of both companies nationwide.
The deal is particularly notable in light of the recent Comcast-Time Warner deal. With all other cable players being effectively edged out, it won't be long before all US cable services exist as one giant monopolized, soul-sucking blob.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140518005046/en/ATT-Acquire-DIRECTV#.U3kg91hdUnV

Well it's official

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Researchers Make a Circuit So Flexible, It Can Wrap Around a Vein

If we really want to get the dream of implantable electronics off the ground, we'll need to figure out how to make circuit boards flexible enough to morph and move with our bodies. Thankfully, a team at The University of Texas at Dallas seems to have solved that, with thin film transistors that are flexible enough to wrap around a nerve or blood vessel.

The team laminated shape-memory polymers on top of thin film transistor circuits to create a chip that's rigid at room temperature, but becomes pliant and flexible at body temperatures. In testing, the film transistors could wrap around a diameter as small as 2.25 millimeters, and when implanted in rats the devices maintained conductivity while flexing with the surrounding tissue.

"Scientists and physicians have been trying to put electronics in the body for a while now, but one of the problems is that the stiffness of common electronics is not compatible with biological tissue," said graduate student Jonathan Reeder, the primary author on the research paper describing the findings. "You need the device to be stiff at room temperature so the surgeon can implant the device, but soft and flexible enough to wrap around 3-D objects so the body can behave exactly as it would without the device. By putting electronics on shape-changing and softening polymers, we can do just that."

If these materials prove reliable, and can be made to encompass more sensory capabilities while wrapping around even smaller structures, they could open up a whole new paradigm of in-body sensors to monitor health conditions like blood pressure heart rate, progression of diseases, or more.

Forget about your fitness-tracking wearable—someday, the sensors could be inside you.

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2014/5...idebar.html?WT.mc_id=NewsHomePageCenterColumn

Very interesting

 

[Teelie]

AT&T Is Buying DirecTV for $50 Billion

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140518005046/en/ATT-Acquire-DIRECTV#.U3kg91hdUnV

Well it's official

It'll still have to get FCC and possibly DOJ approval first to prevent anti-trust and anti-competitive issues.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Ya but it's not like the Comcast deal, they are basically 2 different companies. I doubt they will have an issue

 

[Teelie]

There should be. That they are in a position to consolidate so much like this is not healthy for consumers.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

I highly doubt they would have announced the deal without greasing all the right wheels. Last time they tried to merge with T-mobile and got shot down, then they had to pay T-mobile a truckload of cash. So I think they did their homework this time

 

[Teelie]

I doubt homework was done. They bribed the teacher instead.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Isn't that the same thing in business these days?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Chicago's Huge Vertical Farm Glows Under Countless LED Suns

Chicago, Illinois, isn't exactly a major player in national food production anymore, but that could soon change if companies like Green Sense Farms continue to sprout up. With the help of next-gen LED grow lights, the country's biggest indoor commercial vertical farm can produce masses of produce regardless of the weather outside.

Green Sense Farms recently unveiled a pair of huge climate-controlled grow rooms in its Chicago-area production warehouse. By combining towering racks of vertical hydroponic systems with Philips new "light recipe" LED grow lights, GSF is able to harvest its crops 26 times a year while using 85 percent less energy, 1/10th the amount of water, no pesticides or herbicides, and reducing the facility's CO2 output by two tons a month. It even produces an average of 46 pounds of oxygen every day.

"By growing our crops vertically, we are able to pack more plants per acre than we would have in a field farm, which results in more harvests per year," Robert Colangelo, founding farmer/president of Green Sense Farms said in a press statement. "We produce little waste, no agricultural runoff and minimal greenhouse gasses because the food is grown where it is consumed."

To reach these milestones, you need some very happy plants. But thanks to Philips's LED "light recipes," which effectively optimize the light's wavelength to whatever is growing beneath it, doing so isn't too difficult. What's more, since these are LEDs, the light fixtures can be placed much closer to the crops without fear of burning them—which reduces the vertical farm's footprint and ensures that every leaf gets uniformly blasted with illumination.

"Different plant types have different light needs and working with forward-thinking growers like GSF, Philips is building up a database of 'light recipes' for different plant varieties," said Udo van Slooten, Director of horticultural lighting at Philips, in a press statement. "GSF is using vertical hydroponic technology with Phillips LED growing lights, enabling them to do what no other grower can do: provide a consistent amount of high quality produce, year round."

With the UN predicting some 2.5 billion extra mouths to feed by 2050—not to mention the available arable land mass dwindling—vertical operations like these could well be the future of urban farming.

http://greensensefarms.com/

This could be adapted for numerous things as well, cool idea

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Facebook's Letting You Harass People About Their Relationship Status

Facebook relationship statuses completely revolutionized the art of "figuring out whether that person you want to bang is single." It made it as easy as a search. But some sneaky people leave that drop-down menu empty, or protect that info from non-friends. Fortunately, Facebook is testing a button that lets you harass them about it.

The button takes the form of a little box that says "Ask" right next to another user's Relationship Status bar in the About box on their homepage, so long as their Relationship Status is unset, or has privacy settings that keep you from seeing it. It seems like it's only in testing for now, but we've found that it's pretty widely available.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-relationship-button-2014-5

I'm sure all the females that hid their relationship status are going to love this idea

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Tower Of Power Gives You 40 USB Ports For Charging Everything

It started off as a more elegant (and faster) alternative to parallel and SCSI computer ports, but now that USB can even be used to charge everything from phones to cameras, there never seem to be enough of them. It's, admittedly, a first world problem, but one that's now thankfully solved with this plug-in tower that includes 40 powered USB ports.

If you're just charging smaller devices like your iPhone you can actually have 40 of them plugged in at one time. But if you need a heavier draw for something like an iPad, you can only have 16 of them concurrently charging. A minor inconvenience, though, for a $57 device that means you may never have to juggle chargers as they fight for just a couple of available USB ports.

http://www.amazon.com/Yubi-Power-Un...i+power+40+port&tag=gizmodoamzn-20&ascsubtag=[referrer|gizmodo.com[type|link[postId|1578397573[asin|B00HVMJM9U[authorId|5722090666816357259

Why anyone would need this many is beyond me but of course it is available

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

MIT Is Building an Affordable Hologram-at-Home System

[YT]amJsJ_rllcI[/YT]

Sure, watching Michael Jackson strut his stuff once more is cool, but currently holograms are the preserve of the rich and richer. Fortunately, though, a team at MIT is trying to build a glasses-free 3D projection system that should be affordable enough to use at home.

The system uses two liquid crystal modulators to project subtly different images—eight, in their current prototype—which means that you see a different perspective on the scene depending on your point of view. To widen the viewing angles, MIT has also built a special screen which uses lenticular lenses—a kind of matrix of magnifying lenses—to change the appearance of the images across the field of view. The whole thing is explained really quite well in this video.

All of which sounds pretty great—and it seems to work, too. While it's far from perfect, the current set-up works at 240Hz to provide 3D images with parallax running at 40Hz—plenty for a regular TV image, if you're not too fussy. And, who knows, it might mean that one day you get to have Uncle Ted over for Thanksgiving without having to smell him. Mercy.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/19/mit-glasses-free-3d-projector/?ncid=rss_truncated

From TV to video games and video chatting this could have so many awesome real world uses

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Smartphone Cameras Can Be Used as Quantum Random Number Generators

Random numbers fuel our digital lives, but they're notoriously difficult to generate properly. Now, scientists have shown that smartphone cameras can be used as quantum random number generators—and it could change the face of mobile security.

The problem, you see, is that true random numbers can't be generated by deterministic processes—like software on a computer—because the whole point of that kind of process is that it can, by definition, be repeated. Now, though, a team of physicists have been using a Nokia N9 smartphone, along with knowledge of the laws of quantum mechanics, to generate truly random numbers, reports the arXiv Blog.

The gold standard of random number generation is the quantum random number generator, which uses the phenomenon of quantum mechanics to produce strings of entirely random digits. But doing that cheaply and easily has been... a challenge.

But using mobile phone cameras—which have improved so much in recent years that they're now apparently capable of detecting the quantum variations in the number of photons they detect—means that's about to change. The arXiv Blog explains what researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland have done:

The quantum process that these guys exploit is the way light sources emit photons. Because each emission is a quantum process, the instant of emission cannot be predicted. So the number of photons that a light source emits in a unit of time will always vary by an amount that is entirely random.

It's straightforward to calculate the average number of electrons this process should produce, given the probabilistic nature of photon emission. But the actual number of electrons should differ by a number that is random. That produces a single random digit. And since a light-sensitive array consists of many pixels working in parallel, it is possible to generate a large quantity of random digits from each image.
They tested the theory out using a Nokia N9 smartphone, which features a pretty ordinary 8 megapixel rear-facing colour camera. Capable of generating numbers at a rate of 1 megabit per second, the phone-based system has turned out to be pretty good. "If everybody on earth used such a device constantly at 1Gbps, it would take 10^80 times the age of the universe for one to notice a deviation from a perfectly random bit string," claim the researchers.

That's impressive, and the results beat all the test that mathematicians have created to spot weaknesses in random numbers in the past. And the applications are pretty exciting: while it would provide true random number encryption of data like credit card numbers, a 1 Mbps generation rate could also means true random number encryption of emails and even phone calls could be possible, too. Just don't ask about battery life.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0435

Interesting, the life of a hacker is about to get harder