TAP Research: Latest News — Arabian Post

The quest to find signs of ancient life on Mars

Abdullah Raja — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 08:20:16 +0000

Mars may now be considered a barren, icy desert but did Earth’s nearest neighbour once harbour life?

The article The quest to find signs of ancient life on Mars appeared first on Arabian Post.

Another large-scale cyberattack underway: experts

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 18 May 2017 08:10:25 +0000

Adylkuzz is believed to have infected more computers than WannaCry, using the same vulnerabilities

Another large-scale, stealthy cyberattack is underway on a scale that could dwarf last week’s assault on computers worldwide, a global cybersecurity firm told AFP on Wednesday.

The new attack targets the same vulnerabilities the WannaCry ransomware worm exploited but, rather than freeze files, uses the hundreds of thousands of computers believed to have been infected to mine virtual currency.

Following the detection of the WannaCry attack on Friday, “researchers at Proofpoint discovered a new attack linked to WannaCry called Adylkuzz,” said Nicolas Godier, a researcher at the computer security firm.

“It uses the hacking tools recently disclosed by the NSA and which have since been fixed by Microsoft in a more stealthy manner and for a different purpose,” he said.

Instead of completely disabling an infected computer by encrypting data and seeking a ransom payment, Adylkuzz uses the machines it infects to “mine” in a background task a virtual currency, Monero, and transfer the money created to the authors of the virus.

Virtual currencies such as Monero and Bitcoin use the computers of volunteers for recording transactions. They are said to “mine” for the currency and are occasionally rewarded with a piece of it.

Proofpoint said in a blog that symptoms of the attack include loss of access to shared Windows resources and degradation of PC and server performance, effects which some users may not notice immediately.

“As it is silent and doesn’t trouble the user, the Adylkuzz attack is much more profitable for the cyber criminals. It transforms the infected users into unwitting financial supporters of their attackers,” said Godier.

Proofpoint said it has detected infected machines that have transferred several thousand dollars worth of Monero to the creators of the virus.

The firm believes Adylkuzz has been on the loose since at least May 2, and perhaps even since April 24, but due to its stealthy nature was not immediately detected.

“We don’t know how big it is” but “it’s much bigger than WannaCry”, Proofpoint’s vice president for email products, Robert Holmes, told AFP.

A US official on Tuesday put the number of computers infected by WannaCry at over 300,000.

“We have seen that before—malwares mining cryptocurrency—but not this scale,” said Holmes.

The WannaCry attack has sparked havoc in computer systems worldwide.

Britain’s National Health Service, US package delivery giant FedEx, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica and Germany’s Deutsche Bahn rail network were among those hit.

Explore further:
Worldwide ransomware cyberattacks: What we know

Source link

The article Another large-scale cyberattack underway: experts appeared first on Arabian Post.

In battle of digital assistants, Google heads to Apple turf

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 18 May 2017 03:08:00 +0000

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the 2017 Google I/O Conference, where he stressed the importance of artificial intelligence

Google announced Wednesday it was bringing its digital assistant to Apple iPhones as part of its effort to win the battle with tech rivals on artificial intelligence.

At its annual developers conference at an outdoor concert-venue near its main campus in Mountain View, California, Google unveiled its vision for computing centered around artificial intelligence.

“We are now witnessing a new shift in computing: the move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said during an opening presentation.

“It is forcing us to reimagine our products for a world that allows a more natural, seamless way of interacting with technology.”

Those interactions, for Google, include using artificial intelligence to let people engage computers conversationally, have software anticipate needs, and let smartphone cameras “recognize” what they see.

“In an AI-first world, we are rethinking all of our products and applying machine learning to solve problems,” Pichai said.

Google Assistant, the center of its AI efforts, is in a fierce battle with rivals such as Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and Apple’s Siri to be the top choice for use in smartphones as well as connected homes, cars and a range of other devices.

Artificial intelligence is being woven into Google’s free Gmail service, used by more than a billion people, for features such as suggesting responses to messages.

For example, opening an email containing an invitation to dinner might trigger a prompt to reply “I’m in.”

Smartphones get eyes

Google machine vision capabilities are being used to enable services such as recognizing who is in pictures and what they are doing as well as translate languages in signs viewed through smartphone cameras, demonstrations showed.

Advanced “Lens” features are being added first to the Google Photo application, which is available free.

Aiming a smartphone camera at a flower will prompt it to be identified; while aiming it at a complex password and hotspot name on a router will let it automatically log into the wireless connection, demonstrations showed.

Google also unveiled a second-generation computer chip it designed specifically to improve cloud computing capabilities in data centers.

“We want Google Cloud to be the best cloud for machine learning,” Pichai said.

He described the internet giant’s core search service and its Google Assistant as the company’s most important AI products.

Google Assistant, introduced last year, is now on more than 100 million devices, according to the team’s vice president of engineering Scott Huffman.

“We are really starting to crack the hard computer challenge of conversationality,” Huffman said.

“Soon, with Google Lens, your assistant will be able to have a conversation about what you see.”

Google used the conference to announce a software kit that will let developers build Assistant capabilities into robots, applications, and other computerized creations.

Google also announced enhancements to its Home personal assistant, adding abilities such as hands free telephone calls and acting as speakers for wireless audio.

Android gets lean

Developers cheered when talk turned to Google-backed mobile operating system Android.

Google announced that more than two billion devices powered by Android software are used monthly in a freshly passed milestone.

The coming version of Android, referred to simply as “O” for the time being, will also have boosted artificial intelligence features along with enhanced security, executives showed.

Google is also crafting a lighter version of Android, referred to as “Go,” designed for maximum performance on low-cost, entry-level smartphones in developing countries where internet bandwidth is lean or expensive.

Google said that while it is happy with the momentum of its Daydream virtual reality platform based on using smartphone as screens in headsets, it is working with partners on stand-alone virtual reality gear.

Partners in the endeavor include Vive-maker HTC and Lenovo, according to Google virtual reality team vice president Clay Bavor.

Explore further:
Google poised to roll out arsenal of services, gadgets

Source link

The article In battle of digital assistants, Google heads to Apple turf appeared first on Arabian Post.

Some of Google’s new features seem … familiar

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 17 May 2017 22:06:46 +0000

Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address of the Google I/O conference, Wednesday, May 17, 2017, in Mountain View, Calif. Google provided the latest peek at the digital services and gadgets that it has assembled in the high-tech tussle to become an even more influential force in people’s lives. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Google announced a lot of new bells and whistles Wednesday—several of which, it turns out, are already offered by rivals such as Amazon, Apple and Facebook.

These days, it’s not unusual to find tech giants and their plucky startup rivals copying each other’s tools and features—sometimes improving on them and sometimes just playing catch-up.

___

ECHOING THE ECHO

Google added features to its internet-connected Home speaker—such as hands-free calling. That echoes Amazon’s Echo speaker, which was released earlier and so has had more time to acquire a wider range of abilities.

The new abilities announced Wednesday will also enable the Home speaker to control and interact with a variety of Whirlpool and Jenn-Air appliances later this year. For instance, you can ask the digital assistant within Home to turn on the dishwasher or set the temperature on the oven. This is already available on the Echo and other devices that use its Alexa assistant.

___

YOUR SEEING EYE

Google’s new Lens tool is the stuff of science fiction. It lets people point their camera at things to find out more information about them. So if you see a flower, you can point your camera at it to find out its name. (The same, sadly, cannot be said for strangers you meet in a bar yet, unless he or she is a celebrity you didn’t’ recognize.)

Samsung is trying some of that with its new Bixby Vision feature on the Galaxy S8 phones. Pinterest has a similar tool too. Also called Lens, it lets people point their cameras at real-world items and find out where to buy them, or find similar things online. Take a selfie, and you’ll get similar hairstyle and makeup ideas (even if you aren’t wearing any makeup).

___

SLIMMING DOWN

Though not a competitor, Google’s slimmed-down phone operating system aimed at cheap Android phones is reminiscent of Facebook’s own “skinny” version, called Facebook Lite. Both are aimed at getting more people to use the company’s services, even if they live in developing countries and use cheap, older phones.

___

MEETING SIRI ON HER TURF

Google’s digital assistant is hoping to outsmart Siri on Apple’s iPhone. Google is releasing its voice-controlled assistant on a free app designed for iPhone’s operating system—basically competing with Apple’s assistant on her own turf.

The move extends the potential reach of Google’s assistant, which debuted last fall on the company’s Pixel phone and an internet-connected speaker called Home. Siri has come as a built-in service on iPhones since 2011; Google’s assistant will require an app download.

Both assistants can be summoned with a press of a button to answer questions, manage schedules and handle other routine tasks. Google believes its assistant can get people what they want more quickly because it draws upon the knowledge that the company has accumulated while running the world’s most popular search engine.

Siri, though, might have something to say about that.

___

PHOTO SHARING

Google says new tools will encourage sharing of photos that you might have meant to share, but maybe forgot.

Google Photos will be able to suggest which photos to share and whom to share them with—for example, if the person is in the photo. The company envisions a world in which amazing photos are no longer left on people’s phones because other pressing things in life got in the way.

Facebook has been trying to address this issue as well with its Moments app, which lets people share photos with friends and family privately, without posting them to a wider audience.

Explore further:
Google Home’s assistant can now recognize different voices

Source link

The article Some of Google’s new features seem … familiar appeared first on Arabian Post.

GE Appliances to get Google voice control option

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 17 May 2017 17:06:05 +0000

GE Appliances announced a deal with Google Wednesday enabling the US tech giant’s voice control home hub to be used for cooking, cleaning and other functions.

The deal enables GE’s “Geneva” to communicate with the Google Assistant, so users can say: “Ok Google, ask Geneva Home to set the oven timer for 10 minutes.”

The announcement comes nearly a year after GE Appliances unveiled a similar tie-up with Amazon’s Alexa-powered speakers.

It also comes as Google was expected to unveil more partnerships and initiatives in artificial intelligence at its developers conference in California.

“Everyone’s busy these days and our consumers are looking for simpler and more convenient ways to control their home, especially when busy in the kitchen or working around the house,” said Liz VerSchure, vice president at GE Appliances, a unit of the Chinese electronics group Haier.

“Integrating our full suite of connected appliances with the Google Assistant makes it easier for owners to control their appliances and get on with their day.”

Consumers will be able to use voice commands to preheat their own meals, or check if laundry or dishes are cleaned with connected GE appliances, the companies said.

Google and its parent company Alphabet have been seeking to diversify beyond internet search to new kinds of services, many focused on artificial intelligence which powers its Google Home hub and other devices.

Explore further:
Amazon’s Alexa upgraded as ‘style assistant’

Source link

The article GE Appliances to get Google voice control option appeared first on Arabian Post.

Dubai firm dreams of harvesting icebergs for water

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:01:45 +0000

This Jan. 14, 2015 satellite image provided by NASA shows the shattered remains of a colossal iceberg known as B-15 on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. A Dubai firm’s dream of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to the Arabian Peninsula could face some titanic obstacles. Where many see the crumbling polar ice caps as a distressing illustration of global warming, the company sees it as a source of profit, and a way of offsetting the effects of climate change in the increasingly sweltering Gulf. But the plan faces a daunting array of legal, financial and logistical hurdles—and environmentalists are less than thrilled. (NASA via AP)

A Dubai firm’s dream of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to the Arabian Peninsula could face some titanic obstacles.

Where many see the crumbling polar ice caps as a distressing sign of global warming, the National Advisor Bureau Limited sees it as a source of profit, and a way of offsetting the effects of climate change in the increasingly sweltering Gulf.

The firm has drawn up plans to harvest icebergs in the southern Indian Ocean and tow them 9,200 kilometers (5,700 miles) away to the Gulf, where they could be melted down for freshwater and marketed as a tourist attraction.

“The icebergs are just floating in the Indian Ocean. They are up for grabs to whoever can take them,” managing director Abdullah al-Shehi told The Associated Press in his Dubai office. He hopes to begin harvesting them by 2019.

It is perhaps no surprise that the idea would originate in Dubai, which is already famous for its indoor ski slope, artificial islands and the world’s tallest building. But the plan to harvest icebergs faces a wide array of legal, financial and logistical hurdles—and environmentalists are less than thrilled.

The firm would send ships down to Heard Island, an Australian nature reserve in the southern Indian Ocean, where they would steer between massive icebergs the size of cities in search of truck-sized chunks known as growlers. Workers would then secure them to the boats with nets and embark on a yearlong cruise to the United Arab Emirates.

This June 1, 2016 satellite image provided by NASA shows an iceberg floating off the coast of Antarctica beneath heavy cloud coverage. The U.S. National Ice Centre estimates thousands of such icebergs surround Antarctica. A Dubai firm’s dream of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to the Arabian Peninsula could face some titanic obstacles. Where many see the crumbling polar ice caps as a distressing illustration of global warming, the company sees it as a source of profit, and a way of offsetting the effects of climate change in the increasingly sweltering Gulf. But the plan faces a daunting array of legal, financial and logistical hurdles—and environmentalists are less than thrilled. (NASA via AP)

The company believes that, as most of the icebergs’ mass is underwater, they would not melt significantly during the voyage. Al-Shehi said each iceberg would hold around 20 billion gallons of fresh water that could be harvested without costly desalinization, which currently provides nearly all of the Gulf region’s water.

Masdar, a government-backed clean energy firm in the United Arab Emirates, is exploring new technologies to meet the country’s water needs. The United Arab Emirates’ Energy Ministry issued a statement this week denying “reports” that an iceberg was in the process of being imported, without specifying the reports to which it referred.

Al-Shehi said his project is a private initiative and that he would seek government approval once his firm completes its feasibility study. He declined to share the company’s cost estimates, and said it has not carried out an environmental impact study.

Robert Brears, the founder of the climate think tank Mitidaption, has studied the feasibility of Antarctic ice harvesting and estimates the project would require an initial outlay of at least $500 million.

The challenges begin at Heard Island, where Australia strictly limits access in order to preserve the area’s rich ecosystem of migratory birds, seals, penguins and fish, which could be disrupted by large ships. Antarctica itself is subject to global treaties that mandate environmental regulations and ban mining and military activities.

In this handout photo illustration from the National Advisor Bureau Limited an iceberg floats off the coast of Fujairah, UAE. A Dubai firm’s dream of towing icebergs from the Antarctic to the Arabian Peninsula could face some titanic obstacles. Where many see the crumbling polar ice caps as a distressing illustration of global warming, the company sees it as a source of profit, and a way of offsetting the effects of climate change in the increasingly sweltering Gulf. But the plan faces a daunting array of legal, financial and logistical hurdles—and environmentalists are less than thrilled. (National Advisor Bureau Limited via AP)

Even if the firm secures the necessary approvals from multiple governments, the wrangling itself could prove daunting.

“There are thousands and thousands of icebergs drifting around and they can move without warning,” said Christopher Readinger, who heads the Antarctic team at the U.S. National Ice Center. “Storms down there can be really brutal, and there’s really not anyone that can help.”

The interagency group uses satellites and floating sensors to track large icebergs in order to warn fishing and science vessels. One of the icebergs it tracked last month was twice the size of Manhattan.

Antarctica holds 60 percent of the world’s freshwater, frozen in an ice shelf that sheds nearly 1.2 trillion tons of icebergs a year , according to NASA. The ice loss is accelerating as global temperatures warm.

In the Arctic, Canadian “iceberg cowboys” use rifles to blast off chunks of icebergs that are later sold to wineries, breweries and vodka distilleries. A Norwegian company sells 750ml bottles of melted iceberg for $100 each.

But iceberg wranglers off Antarctica would find a leaner herd. “It’s the driest ice in the world,” Brears said. “You could melt a lot of this ice and get very little water from it.”

Environmentalists meanwhile point to simpler measures that could be taken to address climate change in the Middle East, like drip-irrigation, fixing leaks and water conservation.

“This region is the heartland of the global oil industry, it will be at the forefront of experiencing these massive, insane heat waves, and there’s only one way to avoid this—reducing emissions and keeping all fossil fuels in the ground,” said Hoda Baraka, spokeswoman for the climate advocacy group 350.org.

Green investment groups are unlikely to finance the iceberg project, said Charlotte Streck, director of the consultancy firm Climate Focus. She says the project is “an exceptionally futile and expensive way” to solve the Gulf’s water woes __ and “seems to run counter to all ideas of climate change adaptation.”

Al-Shehi is undeterred, and insists the project will have no impact on Antarctica or any other natural environment. The whole process, he said, “will be a drop in the ocean.”

Explore further:
Unusually large swarm of icebergs drifts into shipping lanes

Source link

The article Dubai firm dreams of harvesting icebergs for water appeared first on Arabian Post.

3-D-printed, soft, four legged robot can walk on sand and stone

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 16 May 2017 20:58:29 +0000

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed the first soft robot that is capable of walking on rough surfaces, such as sand and pebbles. The 3-D-printed, four-legged robot can climb over obstacles and walk on different terrains. Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed the first soft robot that is capable of walking on rough surfaces, such as sand and pebbles. The 3D-printed, four-legged robot can climb over obstacles and walk on different terrains.

Researchers led by Michael Tolley, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California San Diego, will present the robot at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation from May 29 to June 3 in Singapore. The robot could be used to capture sensor readings in dangerous environments or for search and rescue.

Bringing together soft and rigid materials will help create a new generation of fast, agile robots that are more adaptable than their predecessors and can safely work side by side with humans, said Tolley. The idea of blending soft and hard materials into the robot’s body came from nature, he added. “In nature, complexity has a very low cost,” Tolley said. “Using new manufacturing techniques like 3D printing, we’re trying to translate this to robotics.”

3-D printing soft and rigid robots rather than relying on molds to manufacture them is much cheaper and faster, Tolley pointed out. So far, soft robots have only been able to shuffle or crawl on the ground without being able to lift their legs. This robot is actually able to walk.

Researchers successfully tested the tethered robot on large rocks, inclined surfaces and sand (see video). The robot also was able to transition from walking to crawling into an increasingly confined space, much like a cat wiggling into a crawl space.

Dylan Drotman, a Ph.D. student at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, led the effort to design the legs and the robot’s control systems. He also developed models to predict how the robot would move, which he then compared to how the robot actually behaved in a real-life environment.

The breakthrough was possible thanks to a high-end printer that allowed researchers to print soft and rigid materials together within the same components. This made it possible for researchers to design more complex shapes for the robot’s legs. The legs are made up of three parallel, connected sealed inflatable chambers, or actuators, 3-D-printed from a rubber-like material. The chambers are hollow on the inside, so they can be inflated. On the outside, the chambers are bellowed, which allows engineers to better control the legs’ movements. For example, when one chamber is inflated and the other two aren’t, the leg bends. The legs are laid out in the shape of an X and connected to a rigid body. Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego

How it’s made

The legs are made up of three parallel, connected sealed inflatable chambers, or actuators, 3D-printed from a rubber-like material. The chambers are hollow on the inside, so they can be inflated. On the outside, the chambers are bellowed, which allows engineers to better control the legs’ movements. For example, when one chamber is inflated and the other two aren’t, the leg bends. The legs are laid out in the shape of an X and connected to a rigid body.

The robot’s gait depends on the order of the timing, the amount of pressure and the order in which the pistons in its four legs are inflated. The robot’s walking behavior in real life also closely matched the researcher’s predictions. This will allow engineers to make better educated decisions when designing soft robots.

The current quadruped robot prototype is tethered to an open source board and an air pump. Researchers are now working on miniaturizing both the board and the pump so that the robot can walk independently. The challenge here is to find the right design for the board and the right components, such as power sources and batteries, Tolley said.

The video will load shortly

Explore further:
3-D-printed robot is hard at heart, soft on the outside (w/ Video)

More information:
Drotman D., Jadhav S., Karimi M., deZonia P., Tolley M. T., (2017) “3D Printed Soft Actuators for a Legged Robot Capable of Navigating Unstructured Terrain”, Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Singapore, May 2017.

Source link

The article 3-D-printed, soft, four legged robot can walk on sand and stone appeared first on Arabian Post.

Surfer worked from bedroom to beat cyberattack

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 16 May 2017 10:56:19 +0000

British IT expert Marcus Hutchins who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack, during an interview in Ilfracombe, England, Monday, May 15, 2017. Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world, including the British National Health computer network, telling The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

As a vast “ransomware” attack raced from computer to computer, infecting tens of thousands around the world, a young tech expert worked from his bedroom in England to bring the rampage to a halt.

But Marcus Hutchins doesn’t consider himself a hero.

The 22-year-old credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.”

In his first face-to-face interview, Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, said late Monday that hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries.

“I’m definitely not a hero,” he said. “I’m just someone doing my bit to stop botnets.”

In the first hours after the virus struck Friday, the computer whiz and surfing enthusiast in a small seaside town in southwest England discovered a so-called “kill switch” that slowed the unprecedented outbreak. He then spent the next three days fighting the worm that crippled Britain’s hospital network as well as factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses around the world.

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows by encrypting users’ computer files and displaying a message demanding a ransom of $300 to $600 to release them; failure to pay would leave the data mangled and likely beyond repair.

British IT expert Marcus Hutchins who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack, speaks during an interview in Ilfracombe, England, Monday, May 15, 2017. Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world, including the British National Health computer network, telling The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Hutchins said he stumbled across the solution when he was analyzing a sample of the malicious code and noticed it was linked to an unregistered web address. He promptly registered the domain, something he regularly does to discover ways to track or stop cyber threats, and found that stopped the worm from spreading.

Kryptos Logic chief executive Salim Neino said Hutchins’ quick work allowed him to slow the virus on Friday afternoon European time, before it could fully affect the United States.

“Marcus, with the program he runs at Kryptos Logic, not only saved the United States but also prevented further damage to the rest of the world,” Neino said in an interview from Venice, Italy. “Within a few moments, we were able to validate that there was indeed a kill switch. It was a very exciting moment.”

Neino said the worm was “poorly designed”—patched together and a “sum of different parts” with an unsophisticated payment system.

Kryptos Logic is one of hundreds of companies working to combat online threats for companies, government agencies and individuals around the world. Hutchins himself is part of a global community that constantly watches for attacks and works to thwart them, often sharing information on Twitter.

British IT expert Marcus Hutchins who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack, sits in front of his workstation during an interview in Ilfracombe, England, Monday, May 15, 2017. Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world, including the British National Health computer network, telling The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

It’s not uncommon for members to use aliases, to protect from retaliatory attacks and ensure privacy, and Hutchins has long tweeted under the handle MalwareTech, which features a profile photo of a pouty-faced cat wearing enormous sunglasses.

But he realizes his newfound fame will mean an end to the anonymity.

“I don’t think I’m ever going back to the MalwareTech that everyone knew,” said the curly-haired young man, shrugging and flashing a winning smile.

After all, now he’s a celebrity. He’s been in touch with the FBI, as well as British national cyber security officials.

His new life is likely to be a big adjustment. Hutchins lives with his family in the seaside resort town of Ilfracombe, where he works out of his bedroom on a sophisticated computer setup with three enormous screens. He predicted his celebrity would be short-lived.

“I felt like I should agree to one interview,” he said. But even that made the fame-averse Hutchins so nervous that he initially misspelled his last name, leaving out the letter “n” when checking sound levels for the camera.

Many will be following his next moves. CyberSecurity Ventures, which tracks the industry, estimates global spending on cybersecurity will jump to $120 billion this year from just $3.5 billion in 2004. It forecasts expenditures will grow between 12 percent and 15 percent annually for the next five years.

“While all other technology sectors are driven by reducing inefficiencies and increasing productivity, cybersecurity spending is driven by cybercrime,” the firm said in a February report. “The unprecedented cybercriminal activity we are witnessing is generating so much cyber spending, it’s become nearly impossible for analysts to keep track.”

After more analysis, Hutchins, an avid surfer, plans to take a vacation—traveling to Las Vegas and California on the company dime.

One guess on what he’ll be doing:

Yes, surfing. On waves this time.

British IT expert Marcus Hutchins who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack, sits at his workstation during an interview in Ilfracombe, England, Monday, May 15, 2017. Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world, including the British National Health computer network, telling The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to do.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Explore further:
An alert researcher, cooperation helped stem cyberattack

Source link

The article Surfer worked from bedroom to beat cyberattack appeared first on Arabian Post.

Diesel vehicles produce 50 percent more nitrogen oxide than originally thought

The Arabian Post Network — Mon, 15 May 2017 19:52:46 +0000

Credit: Steffen Thoma/Public Domain

The research, led by the International Council on Clean Transportation and Environmental Health Analytics, LLC., in collaboration with scientists at the University of York’s Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI); University of Colorado; and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, examined 11 major vehicle markets representing more than 80% of new diesel vehicle sales in 2015.’

Of these markets, they found vehicles emitted 13.2 million tons of nitrogen oxide under real-world driving conditions, which is 4.6 million tons more than the 8.6 million tons expected from vehicles’ performance under official laboratory tests.

Chris Malley, from the SEI, University of York, said: “This study shows that excess diesel nitrogen oxide emissions effect crop yields and a variety of human health issues. We estimate that implementing Next Generation standards could reduce crop production loss by 1-2% for Chinese wheat, Chinese maize, and Brazilian soy, and result in an additional four million tonnes of crop production globally.”

Nitrogen oxide is a key contributor to outdoor air pollution. Long-term exposure to these pollutants is linked to a range of adverse health outcomes, including disability and reduced life expectancy due to stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer.

Josh Miller, researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), said: “Heavy-duty vehicles, such as commercial trucks and buses, were by far the largest contributor worldwide, accounting for 76% of the total excess gas emissions.

“Five of the 11 markets that we looked at, Brazil, China, the EU, India, and the US, produced 90% of that.

“For light-duty vehicles, such as passenger cars, trucks, and vans, the European Union produced nearly 70% of the excess diesel nitrogen oxide emissions.”

The study estimates that excess diesel vehicle NOx emissions in 2015 were also linked to approximately 38,000 premature deaths worldwide – mostly in the European Union, China, and India.

Susan Anenberg, co-Founder of Environmental Health Analytics, LLC, said: “The consequences of excess diesel NOx emissions for public health are striking. In Europe, the ozone mortality burden each year would be 10% lower if diesel vehicle nitrogen oxide emissions were in line with certification limits.”

At a global level, the study estimates that the impact of all real-world diesel nitrogen oxide emissions will grow to 183,600 early deaths in 2040, unless something is done to reduce it. In some countries, implementing the most stringent standards – already in place elsewhere – could substantially improve the situation, according to the researchers.

Explore further:
Nearly 30 mn diesel cars on EU roads over emissions limit: study

More information:
Impact of excess diesel emissions on premature mortality, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature22086

Source link

The article Diesel vehicles produce 50 percent more nitrogen oxide than originally thought appeared first on Arabian Post.

Cyberattack havoc could grow as work week begins

The Arabian Post Network — Sun, 14 May 2017 18:46:01 +0000

In this May 12, 2017 photo, a display panel with an error can be seen at the main railway station in Chemnitz, Germany. Germany’s national railway says that it was among the organizations affected by the global cyberattack but there was no impact on train services. Deutsche Bahn said early Saturday that departure and arrival display screens at its stations were hit Friday night by the attack. (P. Goezelt/dpa via AP)

An unprecedented “ransomware” cyberattack that has already hit tens of thousands of victims in 150 countries could wreak even more havoc Monday as people return to their desks and power up their computers at the start of the work week.

Officials and experts on Sunday urged organizations and companies to update their operating systems immediately to ensure they aren’t vulnerable to a second, more powerful version of the malicious software. The cyberattack paralyzed computers that run Britain’s hospital network, Germany’s national railway and scores of other companies and government agencies worldwide.

The attack, already believed to be the biggest online extortion scheme ever recorded, is an “escalating threat” after hitting 200,000 victims across the world since Friday, according to the head of Europol, Europe’s policing agency.

“The numbers are still going up,” he said. “We’ve seen that the slowdown of the infection rate over Friday night, after a temporary fix around it, has now been overcome by a second variation the criminals have released.”

His concerns were echoed by James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama. In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Clapper said the worry was “this ransomware attack will be even larger” as people return to their desks after the weekend.

People walk past a Megafon mobile phones shop in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 13, 2017. A top Russian mobile operator said Friday it had come under cyberattacks that appeared similar to those that have crippled some U.K. hospitals. Pyotr Lidov, a spokesman for Megafon, said Friday’s attacks froze computers in company’s offices across Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

The 200,000 victims included more than 100,000 organizations, Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth told The Associated Press. He said it was too early to say who was behind the onslaught and what their motivation was, aside from the obvious demand for money. So far, he said, not many people have paid the ransom demanded by the malware.

The attack held users hostage by freezing their computers, encrypting their data and demanding money through online bitcoin payment—$300 at first, rising to $600 before it destroys files hours later.

The effects were felt across the globe, with Britain’s National Health Service, Russia’s Interior Ministry and companies including Spain’s Telefonica, FedEx Corp. in the U.S. and French carmaker Renault all reporting disruptions.

Chinese media reported Sunday that students at several universities were hit, blocking access to their thesis papers and dissertation presentations.

An exterior view shows the main entrance of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, in London, one of the hospitals whose computer systems were affected by a cyberattack, Friday, May 12, 2017. A large cyberattack crippled computer systems at hospitals across England on Friday, with appointments canceled, phone lines down and patients turned away. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Had it not been for a young British cybersecurity researcher’s accidental discovery of a so-called “kill switch,” the malicious software likely would have spread much farther and faster.

The 22-year-old researcher known as “MalwareTech,” who wanted to remain anonymous, said he spotted a hidden web address in the “WannaCry” code and made it official by registering its domain name. That move, which cost just $10.69, redirected the attacks to the server of Kryptos Logic, the security company where he works. The server operates as a “sinkhole” to collect information about malware—and in Friday’s case kept the malware from escaping.

While that quick thinking may have slowed the outbreak, MalwareTech said he was now looking into a possible second wave of attacks.

“It’s quite an easy change to make, to bypass the way we stopped it,” he told the AP.

A security guard stands outside the Telefonica headquarters in Madrid, Spain, Friday, May 12, 2017. The Spanish government said several companies including Telefonica had been targeted in ransomware cyberattack that affected the Windows operating system of employees’ computers. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Darien Huss, a 28-year-old research engineer who helped MalwareTech, agreed the threat was far from over.

“We could potentially see copycats mimic the delivery or exploit method they used,” he said.

Both joined security officials in urging organizations to protect themselves by installing security fixes right away, running antivirus software and backing up data elsewhere.

“Just patch their systems as soon as possible,” MalwareTech said. “It won’t be too late as long as they’re not infected. It should just be a case of making sure installing updates is enabled, installing the updates, and reboot.”

A screenshot of the warning screen from a purported ransomware attack, as captured by a computer user in Taiwan, is seen on laptop in Beijing, Saturday, May 13, 2017. Dozens of countries were hit with a huge cyberextortion attack Friday that locked up computers and held users’ files for ransom at a multitude of hospitals, companies and government agencies. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The ransomware appeared to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. The NSA tools were stolen by hackers and dumped on the internet.

Experts say this vulnerability has been understood among experts for months, yet too many groups failed to take it seriously. Microsoft had “patched,” or fixed it, in updates of recent versions of Windows since March, but many users did not apply the software fix.

Worse, the malware was able to create so much chaos because it was designed to self-replicate like a virus, spreading quickly once inside university, business and government networks.

Microsoft was quick to change its policy, announcing free security patches to fix this vulnerability in the older Windows systems still used by millions of individuals and smaller businesses. Before Friday’s attack, Microsoft had made fixes for older systems, such as 2001’s Windows XP, available only to those who paid extra for extended technical support.

People outside a Megafon mobile phone shop in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, May 13, 2017. A top Russian mobile operator said Friday it had come under cyberattacks that appeared similar to those that have crippled some U.K. hospitals. Pyotr Lidov, a spokesman for Megafon, said Friday’s attacks froze computers in company’s offices across Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

“The problem is the larger organizations are still running on old, no longer supported operating systems,” said Lawrence Abrams, a New York-based blogger who runs BleepingComputer.com. “So they no longer get the security updates they should be.”

Short of paying, options for those already infected are usually limited to recovering data files from a backup, if available, or living without them.

British cybersecurity expert Graham Cluley doesn’t want to blame the NSA for the attack.

“There are other criminals who’ve launched this attack, and they are ultimately responsible for this,” he said. “But there’s clearly some culpability on the part of the U.S. intelligence services. Because they could have done something ages ago to get this problem fixed, and they didn’t do it.”

This April 12, 2016 file photo shows the Microsoft logo in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, France. The cyberextortion attack hitting dozens of countries was a “perfect storm” of sorts. It combined a known and highly dangerous security hole in Microsoft Windows, tardy users who didn’t apply Microsoft’s March software fix, and a software design that allowed the malware to spread quickly once inside university, business and government networks. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

He said most people “are living an online life,” and these agencies have a duty to protect their countries’ citizens in that realm as well.

“Obviously, they want those tools in order to spy on people of interest, on other countries, to conduct surveillance,” Cluley said. “It’s a handy thing to have, but it’s a dangerous thing to have. Because they can be used against you. And that’s what’s happening right now.”

People inside a Megafon mobile phones shop in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 13, 2017. A top Russian mobile operator said Friday it had come under cyberattacks that appeared similar to those that have crippled some U.K. hospitals. Pyotr Lidov, a spokesman for Megafon, said Friday’s attacks froze computers in company’s offices across Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

A view of the logo of a Megafon mobile phone shop, in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, May 13, 2017. A top Russian mobile operator said Friday it had come under cyberattacks that appeared similar to those that have crippled some U.K. hospitals. Pyotr Lidov, a spokesman for Megafon, said Friday’s attacks froze computers in company’s offices across Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

People are reflected in a glass sign of a Telefonica building in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, May 13, 2017. The Spanish government said several companies including Telefonica had been targeted in ransomware cyberattack that affected the Windows operating system of employees’ computers. A cybersecurity expert Ori Eisen of Trusona says the biggest cyberextortion attack in history is going to be dwarfed by the next big ransomware attack that could be done to crucial infrastructure, like nuclear power plants, dams or railway systems. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Explore further:
An alert researcher, cooperation helped stem cyberattack

Source link

The article Cyberattack havoc could grow as work week begins appeared first on Arabian Post.

An alert researcher, cooperation helped stem cyberattack

The Arabian Post Network — Sun, 14 May 2017 08:33:52 +0000

The cyberattack that spread malicious software around the world, shutting down networks at hospitals, banks and government agencies, was stemmed by a young British researcher and an inexpensive domain registration, with help from another 20-something security engineer in the U.S.

Britain’s National Cyber Security Center and others were hailing the cybersecurity researcher, a 22-year-old identified online only as MalwareTech, who—unintentionally at first—discovered a “kill switch” that halted the unprecedented outbreak.

By then, the “ransomware” attack had hobbled Britain’s hospital network and computer systems in several countries, in an effort to extort money from computer users. But the researcher’s actions may have saved companies and governments millions of dollars and slowed the outbreak before computers in the U.S. were more widely affected.

MalwareTech said in a in a blog post Saturday that he had returned from lunch with a friend on Friday and learned that networks across Britain’s health system had been hit by ransomware, tipping him off that “this was something big.”

He began analyzing a sample of the malicious software and noticed its code included a hidden web address that wasn’t registered. He said he “promptly” registered the domain, something he regularly does to try to discover ways to track or stop malicious software.

Across an ocean, Darien Huss, a 28-year-old research engineer for the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, was doing his own analysis. The western Michigan resident said he noticed the authors of the malware had left in a feature known as a kill switch. Huss took a screen shot of his discovery and shared it on Twitter.

MalwareTech and Huss are part of a large global cybersecurity community of people, working independently or for security companies, who are constantly watching for attacks and working together to stop or prevent them, often sharing information via Twitter. It’s not uncommon for them to use aliases, either to protect themselves from retaliatory attacks or for privacy.

Soon Huss and MalwareTech were communicating about what they’d found: That registering the domain name and redirecting the attacks to MalwareTech’s server had activated the kill switch, halting the ransomware’s infections—creating what’s called a “sinkhole.”

Who perpetrated this wave of attacks remains unknown. Two security firms—Kaspersky Lab and Avast—said they identified the malicious software in more than 70 countries. Both said Russia was hit hardest.

These hackers “have caused enormous amounts of disruption— probably the biggest ransomware cyberattack in history,” said Graham Cluley, a veteran of the anti-virus industry in Oxford, England.

The ransomware exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. Hackers said they stole the tools from the NSA and dumped them on the internet.

A malware tracking map showed “WannaCry” infections were widespread. Britain canceled or delayed treatments for thousands of patients. Train systems were hit in Germany and Russia, and phone companies in Madrid and Moscow. Renault’s futuristic assembly line in Slovenia, where rows of robots weld car bodies together, was stopped cold. In Brazil, the social security system had to disconnect its computers and cancel public access.

But while FedEx Corp. reported that its Windows computers were “experiencing interference” from malware—it wouldn’t say if it had been hit by the ransomware—other impacts in the U.S. were not readily apparent on Saturday.

The worldwide effort to extort cash from computer users spread so widely that Microsoft quickly changed its policy, making security fixes for this vulnerability available for free for the older Windows systems still used by millions of individuals and smaller businesses.

Britain’s home secretary said one in five of 248 National Health Service groups had been hit. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said all but six of the NHS trusts back to normal Saturday.

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center was “working round the clock” to restore vital health services, while urging people to update security software fixes, run anti-virus software and back up their data elsewhere.

All this may be just a taste of what’s coming, another cyber security expert warned.

Computer users worldwide—and everyone else who depends on them—should assume that the next big “ransomware” attack has already been launched, and just hasn’t manifested itself yet, said Ori Eisen, founder of the Trusona cybersecurity firm in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The attack held hospitals and other entities hostage by freezing computers, encrypting data and demanding money through online bitcoin payments. But it appears to be “low-level” stuff, Eisen said Saturday, given the amount of ransom demanded—$300 at first, rising to $600 before it destroys files hours later.

This is already believed to be the biggest online extortion attack ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and India. Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said the onslaught was at “an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.”

Huss and others were calling MalwareTech a hero on Saturday, with Huss adding that the global cybersecurity community was working “as a team” to stop the infections from spreading.

“I think the security industry as a whole should be considered heroes,” he said.

But he also said he’s concerned the authors of the malware could re-release it—perhaps in the next few days or weeks—without a kill switch or with a better one, or that copycats could mimic the attack.

The MalwareTech researcher agreed that the threat hasn’t disappeared.

“One thing that is very important to note is our sinkholing only stops this sample and there is nothing stopping them removing the domain check and trying again, so it’s incredibly important that any unpatched systems are patched as quickly as possible,” he warned.

The kill switch also couldn’t help those already infected. Short of paying, options for these individuals and companies are usually limited to recovering data files from a backup, if available, or living without them.

Security experts said it appeared to be caused by a self-replicating piece of software that enters companies when employees click on email attachments, then spreads quickly as employees share documents.

The security holes it exploits were disclosed weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious hacking group. Microsoft swiftly released software “patches” to fix those holes, but many users still haven’t installed updates or still use older versions of Windows.

Explore further:
Nations battle cyberattack damages; UK focuses on hospitals

Source link

The article An alert researcher, cooperation helped stem cyberattack appeared first on Arabian Post.

Huge cyberattack forces Microsoft to offer free tech fix

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 13 May 2017 22:32:31 +0000

Teams of technicians worked “round the clock” Saturday to restore hospital computer systems in Britain and check bank or transport services in other nations after a global cyberattack hit dozens of countries and crippled the U.K.’s health system.

The worldwide attack was so unprecedented that Microsoft quickly changed its policy and announced that it will make security fixes available for free for older Windows systems, which are still used by millions of individuals and smaller businesses.

In Russia, where a wide array of systems came under attack, officials said services had been restored or the virus contained.

The extortion attack, which locked up computers and held users’ files for ransom, is believed to be the biggest of its kind ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Spain and India.

Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said the onslaught was at “an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.”

Before Friday’s attack, Microsoft had made fixes for older systems, such as 2001’s Windows XP, available only to mostly larger organizations that paid extra for extended technical support. Microsoft says now it will make the fixes free for everyone.

It was not yet known who perpetrated Friday’s attacks. Two security firms—Kaspersky Lab and Avast—said they had identified the malicious software behind the attack in over 70 countries, although both said the attack had hit Russia the hardest.

In Britain, the National Cyber Security Center said it is “working round the clock” with experts to restore vital health services.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd—who was chairing a government emergency security meeting Saturday in response to the attack—said 45 public health organizations were hit, though she stressed that no patient data had been stolen. The attack froze computers at hospitals across the country, with some canceling all routine procedures. Patients were asked not to go to hospitals unless it was an emergency and even some key services like chemotherapy were canceled.

Security officials in Britain urged organizations to protect themselves from ransomware by updating their security software fixes, running anti-virus software and backing up data elsewhere.

The Russian Interior Ministry, which runs the country’s police, confirmed it was among those that fell victim to the ransomware, which typically flashes a message demanding a payment to release the user’s own data.

Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk was quoted by the Interfax news agency Saturday as saying the problem had been “localized” and that no information was compromised. But the ministry’s website still carried a banner on Saturday afternoon saying that technical work was continuing.

A spokesman for the Russian Health Ministry, Nikita Odintsov, said on Twitter that the cyberattacks on his ministry were “effectively repelled.”

“When we say that the health ministry was attacked you should understand that it wasn’t the main server, it was local computers … actually nothing serious or deadly happened yet,” German Klimenko, a presidential adviser, said on Russian state television.

Russian cellular phone operators Megafon and MTS said some of their computers were hit and the Russian national railway system said although it was attacked, rail operations were unaffected.

Russia’s central bank said Saturday that no incidents had “compromising the data resources” of Russian banks, state news agency Tass reported.

French carmaker Renault’s assembly plant in Slovenia halted production after it was targeted in the global cyberattack. Radio Slovenia said Saturday the Revoz factory in the southeastern town of Novo Mesto stopped working Friday evening to stop the malware from spreading—and was working with the central office in France to resolve the problem.

Krishna Chinthapalli, a doctor at Britain’s National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery who wrote a paper on cybersecurity for the British Medical Journal, said many British hospitals still use Windows XP software, introduced in 2001.

Security experts said the attack appeared to be caused by a self-replicating piece of software that enters companies when employees click on email attachments, then spreads quickly internally from computer to computer when employees share documents.

The security holes it exploits were disclosed several weeks ago by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has published what it says are hacking tools used by the NSA. Shortly after that disclosure, Microsoft announced that it had already issued software “patches,” or fixes, for those holes—but many users haven’t yet installed the fixes or are using older versions of Windows.

In the U.S., FedEx Corp. reported that its Windows computers were “experiencing interference” from malware, but wouldn’t say if it had been hit by ransomware.

Elsewhere in Europe, the attack hit companies including Spain’s Telefonica, a global broadband and telecommunications company.

Germany’s national railway said Saturday departure and arrival display screens at its train stations were affected, but there was no impact on actual train services. Deutsche Bahn said it deployed extra staff to busy stations to help customers, and recommended that they check its website or app for information on their connections.

Other European organizations hit by the massive cyberattack included soccer clubs in Norway and Sweden, with IF Odd, a 132-year-old Norwegian soccer club, saying its online ticketing facility was down.

Explore further:
Nations battle cyberattack damages; UK focuses on hospitals

Source link

The article Huge cyberattack forces Microsoft to offer free tech fix appeared first on Arabian Post.

Unprecedented cyberattacks wreak global havoc

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 13 May 2017 17:31:39 +0000

The huge cyberattack wiped out display screens at rail stations in Germany

Cyber security experts rushed to restore systems on Saturday after an unprecedented global wave of cyberattacks that struck targets ranging from Russia’s banks to British hospitals and a French carmaker’s factories.

The hunt was on for the culprits behind the assault, which was being described as the biggest cyber ransom attack ever.

State agencies and major companies around the world were left reeling by the attacks which blocked access to files and demanded ransom money, forcing them to shut down their computer systems.

“The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits,” said Europol, Europe’s policing agency.

The attacks, which experts said affected dozens of countries, used a technique known as ransomware that locks users’ files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual Bitcoin currency.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cyber security company F-Secure, told AFP that the attack was “the biggest ransomware outbreak in history”, saying that 130,000 systems in more than 100 countries had been affected.

He said that Russia and India were hit particularly hard, in large part because the older Windows XP operating software is still widely used in the countries.

The attacks apparently exploited a flaw exposed in documents leaked from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The attacks hit a whole range of organisations and businesses worldwide.

French carmaker Renault was forced to stop production at sites in France and Slovenia, saying the measure was aimed at stopping the virus from spreading.

In the United States, package delivery group FedEx acknowledged it had been hit by malware and said it was “implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible.”

Russia’s interior ministry said that some of its computers had been hit by a “virus attack” and that efforts were underway to destroy it.

The country’s central bank said the banking system was hit, and the railway system also reported attempted breaches.

The central bank’s IT attack monitoring centre “detected mass distribution of harmful software” but no “instances of compromise”, it said.

Russia’s largest bank Sberbank said its systems “detected in time attempts to penetrate bank infrastructure”.

Germany’s Deutsche Bahn computers were also impacted, with the rail operator reporting that station display panels were affected.

Self-replicating ‘worm’

In a statement, computer security group Kaspersky Labs said it was “trying to determine whether it is possible to decrypt data locked in the attack—with the aim of developing a decryption tool as soon as possible.”

On Saturday, a cyber security researcher told AFP he had accidentally discovered a “kill switch” that could prevent the spread of the ransomware.

The researcher, tweeting as @MalwareTechBlog, said that the discovery was accidental, but that registering a domain name used by the malware stops it from spreading. Computers already affected will not be helped by the solution.

But @MalwareTechBlog warned that the “crisis isn’t over” as those behind it “can always change the code and try again”.

The malware’s name is WCry, but analysts were also using variants such as WannaCry.

Message to users: ‘Oops’

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre and its National Crime Agency were looking into the UK incidents, which disrupted care at National Health Service facilities, forcing ambulances to divert and hospitals to postpone operations.

Pictures on social media showed screens of NHS computers with images demanding payment of $300 (230 pounds, 275 euros) in Bitcoin, saying: “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!”

It demands payment in three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received in seven days the files will be deleted, according to the screen message.

“Ransomware becomes particularly nasty when it infects institutions like hospitals, where it can put people’s lives in danger,” said Kroustek, the Avast analyst.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA, Kaspersky said.

Although Microsoft released a security patch for the flaw earlier this year, many systems have yet to be updated, researchers said.

“Unlike most other attacks, this malware is spreading primarily by direct infection from machine to machine on local networks, rather than purely by email,” said Lance Cottrell, chief scientist at the US technology group Ntrepid.

Some said the attacks highlighted the need for agencies like the NSA to disclose security flaws so they can be patched.

G7 finance ministers meeting in Italy discussed the attacks and were expected to commit to stepping up international cooperation against a growing threat to their economies.

Explore further:
Researcher finds ‘kill switch’ for cyberattack ransomeware

Source link

The article Unprecedented cyberattacks wreak global havoc appeared first on Arabian Post.

Researcher finds ‘kill switch’ for cyberattack ransomeware

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 13 May 2017 12:30:52 +0000

A cybersecurity researcher appears to have discovered a “kill switch” that can prevent the spread of the WannaCry ransomware—for now—that has caused the cyberattacks wreaking havoc globally

A cybersecurity researcher appears to have discovered a “kill switch” that can prevent the spread of the WannaCry ransomware—for now—that has caused the cyberattacks wreaking havoc globally, they told AFP Saturday.

The researcher, tweeting as @MalwareTechBlog, said the discovery was accidental, but that registering a domain name used by the malware stops it from spreading.

“Essentially they relied on a domain not being registered and by registering it, we stopped their malware spreading,” @MalwareTechBlog told AFP in a private message on Twitter.

The researcher warned however that people “need to update their systems ASAP” to avoid attack.

“The crisis isn’t over, they can always change the code and try again,” @MalwareTechBlog said.

Friday’s wave of cyberattacks, which affected dozens of countries, apparently exploited a flaw exposed in documents leaked from the US National Security Agency.

The attacks used a technique known as ransomware that locks users’ files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Affected by the onslaught were computer networks at hospitals in Britain, Russia’s interior ministry, the Spanish telecom giant Telefonica and the US delivery firm FedEx and many other organisations.

French carmaker Renault also announced it was attacked. A spokeswoman said the company was “doing what is needed to counter this attack.”

“I will confess that I was unaware registering the domain would stop the malware until after I registered it, so initially it was accidental,” @MalwareTechBlog tweeted.

Ransomware: how hackers take your data hostage

Unfortunately however, computers already affected will not be helped by the solution.

“So long as the domain isn’t revoked, this particular strain will no longer cause harm, but patch your systems ASAP as they will try again.”

The malware’s name is WCry, but analysts were also using variants such as WannaCry.

Forcepoint Security Labs said in a Friday statement that the attack had “global scope” and was affecting networks in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Mexico.

In the United States, FedEx acknowledged it had been hit by malware and was “implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible.”

Also badly hit was Britain’s National Health Service, which declared a “major incident” after the attack, which forced some hospitals to divert ambulances and scrap operations.

Pictures posted on social media showed screens of NHS computers with images demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in Bitcoin, saying: “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!”

It demands payment in three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received in seven days, the files will be deleted, according to the screen message.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA, according to Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity provider.

Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu cited 45,000 attacks in 74 countries as of Friday evening.

Explore further:
Alarm grows over global ransomware attacks

Source link

The article Researcher finds ‘kill switch’ for cyberattack ransomeware appeared first on Arabian Post.

Installing solar to combat national security risks in the power grid

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 13 May 2017 07:26:35 +0000

Solar technology could help make the power grid more resilient to attacks and natural disasters. Many military bases are located in regions with a history of power outages; microgrids could serve as back-ups to prevent service disruption during natural disasters and attacks. Credit: Sarah Bird, Michigan Tech

Distributed microgrid tech can secure the electrical grids at military bases to reduce the impact of cyberattacks, physical attacks from terrorists and natural disasters.

Vulnerabilities in the power grid are one of the most prevalent national security threats. The technical community has called for building up the resiliency of the grid using distributed energy and microgrids for stabilization. Power production from multiple sources increases the difficulty of triggering cascading blackouts, and following an attack or natural disaster, microgrids can provide localized energy security.

In a new paper published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, an interdisciplinary team of engineering and energy policy experts from Michigan Technological University says the first step is to outfit military infrastructure with solar photovoltaic (PV)-powered microgrid systems. Their results found that the military needs 17 gigawatts of PV to fortify domestic bases—the systems are technically feasible, within current contractors’ skill sets and economically favorable.

Additionally, the paper’s lead author, Emily Prehoda, who is finishing her PhD in energy policy at Michigan Tech, says boosting bases’ energy independence supports local communities.

“I come from a military-oriented family, so for me the military is important to bridge the technical capacities and policies to trickle down to other critical infrastructure and services,” Prehoda says. “This is such a huge issue, not only for the military but for other organizations, and it hits from all different sides, from the technical, economic and social—and it leads back to the idea of security.”

Independent Energy

The US military already has a renewable energy plan in place: 25 percent of energy production from renewable sources by 2025, but only 27 of the more than 400 domestic military sites either have fortified PV microgrids running now or have plans to do so, which makes the majority vulnerable to long-term power disruptions. Co-author Joshua Pearce says this is a great start but more is needed as most military backup systems rely on generators, which are also vulnerable to fuel supply disruption.

Many military bases are located in regions with a history of power outages; microgrids could serve as back-ups to prevent service disruption during natural disasters and attacks. Credit: Michigan Technological University

“The US military is extremely dependent on electricity now; it’s not people fighting with bayonets,” says Pearce, a dual-appointed professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as materials science and engineering. “If we put the money into PV-powered microgrids, it would be making us objectively more secure and we get a return on our investment as after the initial investment in PV the military would enjoy free solar electricity for the next 25 years.”

The main historical threats to the electrical grid come from natural disasters like tornados, hurricanes and winter storms, which cost between $18 and $33 billion every year in power outages and US infrastructure damage. The threats that keep grid security experts up at night are deliberate attacks on the grid. These can either be physical attacks—like the 2013 sniper attack on a Silicon Valley substation, which cost $100 million and lasted 27 days —or computer hacking that causes cascading disruptions like in the Ukraine blackouts in 2016. In 2012, the US Department of Defense reported about 200 cyber incidents across critical infrastructure systems and nearly half targeted the electrical grid.

During any event, energy generation and distribution unhitch like a lost caboose on a runaway train. Microgrids provide flexibility and enable generation to persist even if distribution fails, maintaining performance for critical infrastructure while decreasing the chance of cascading failures. Solar, because of its decreasing costs and geographically distributed access to long-term solar “fuel”, makes the most sense for powering microgrids.

PV-Powered Microgrids

To quantify the technical impacts of distributed energy systems, the team looked at domestic military bases and their current electric loads. Then they reviewed where the military’s existing and planned PV-powered microgrids lined up with past grid failures as well as every state’s potential for solar power.

The team found that it would take 2,140 gigawatts to supply all critical infrastructure in the US with 100 percent solar power and a hybrid microgrid system with storage provide protection against grid failure. The military alone would need 17 gigawatts. To put that in perspective, the US has installed a total capacity of 22.7 gigawatts of solar to date.

The team then looked at the technical and economic feasibility of employing the top 20 contractors already working with the US Department of Defense to install more microgrids and performed a detailed case study of three companies, Lockheed Martin, Bechtel and General Electric, to gauge the extent of the technical skills and resources available.

Solar has not reached full capacity across the US and many sites, including military bases, can take advantage of the technology to improve grid security. Credit: Michigan Technological University

Given the results, the challenge to meet grid resiliency with microgrid deployment is feasible because the resources to install these systems already exist domestically.

Renewable Energy Policy

Prehoda also worked with her PhD adviser Chelsea Schelly, an associate professor of sociology at Michigan Tech, to assess policy needs. Despite the substantial national security risk, policy that addresses electrical grid failures has been minimal. Schelly explains that support for PV makes sense in terms of national security.

“There is some policy recognition that energy can be a security priority,” Schelly says, adding that while the US does not have a national renewable energy policy, the military does, and it has the capacity for implementation through existing contractors. “If we recognize that this capacity already exists, then we can start thinking about PV as a security measure by integrating microgrids—and then creating local resilience based on military technologies.”

In the paper, the team examined how securing top-priority military microgrids could trickle down into different levels of critical infrastructure. Technology designed and implemented at military bases could lead to similar microgrids for other government facilities, critical infrastructure like hospitals, industry and commercial systems as well as homes and neighborhoods.

“For me, starting with the military is important for national security and grid vulnerabilities,” Prehoda says. “But it also jumpstarts technology.”

The first step is recognizing what it takes to outfit domestic military bases—and eventually military sites abroad—to combat power grid failure from natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

Explore further:
Energy surety microgrid model to be tested

More information:
Emily W. Prehoda et al, U.S. strategic solar photovoltaic-powered microgrid deployment for enhanced national security, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.094

Source link

The article Installing solar to combat national security risks in the power grid appeared first on Arabian Post.

“Ransomware” cyberattack cripples hospitals across England

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 13 May 2017 02:25:26 +0000

This is screengrab taken from the website of the East and North Hertfordshire NHS trust as Britain’s National Health Service is investigating “an issue with IT” Friday May 12, 2017. Several British hospitals say they are having major computer problems Hospitals in London, northwest England and other parts of the country are reporting problems with their computer systems as the result of an apparent cyberattack,.(PA via AP)

A large cyberattack crippled computer systems at hospitals across England on Friday, with appointments canceled, phone lines down and patients turned away.

Britain’s National Health Service said hospitals were hit by an apparent “ransomware” attack, but there was no immediate evidence that patient data had been accessed.

NHS Digital, which oversees hospital cybersecurity, says the attack used the Wanna Decryptor variant of malware, which infects and locks computers while the attackers demand a ransom.

Pictures posted on social media showed screens of NHS computers with images demanding payment of $300 worth of the online currency Bitcoin, saying: “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!”

NHS Digital said the attack “was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organizations from across a range of sectors.” It said 16 NHS organizations had reported being hit.

Spain, meanwhile, said several Spanish companies had been targeted in ransomware cyberattack that affected the Windows operating system of employees’ computers. It did not say which companies were targeted but telecommunications company Telefonica said it had detected a cybersecurity incident that had affected computers of some employees.

In the U.K., hospitals in London, northwest England and other parts of the country reported problems and asked patients not to come to the hospitals unless it was an emergency. Most of the affected hospitals were in England, but several facilities in Scotland also reported being hit.

This Friday Aug. 14, 2009 file photo shows a sign outside one of London’s National Health Service hospitals. Several British hospitals say they are having major computer problems Hospitals in London, northwest England and other parts of the country are reporting problems with their computer systems as the result of an apparent cyberattack, Friday May 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

NHS Merseyside, which operates several hospitals in northwest England, tweeted that “following a suspected national cyberattack, we are taking all precautionary measures possible to protect our local NHS systems and services.”

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, which runs hospitals in an area north of London, said “the trust has experienced a major IT problem, believed to be caused by a cyberattack.”

It said its hospitals had shut down all computer systems as a protective measure and canceled all non-urgent activity.

Bart’s Health, which runs several London hospitals, said it had activated its major incident plan, cancelling routine appointments and diverting ambulances to neighboring hospitals.

Britain’s National Health Service is a source of pride for many Britons but faces substantial budget issues and has had previous problems with its huge IT system.

Ransomware attacks are on the rise. In February 2016, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California said it had paid a $17,000 ransom to regain control of its computers from hackers.

Krishna Chinthapalli, a registrar at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, warned that British hospitals’ old operating systems and store of confidential patient information made them an ideal target for blackmailers.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: “We should be prepared: more hospitals will almost certainly be shut down by ransomware this year.”

Explore further:
Hospitals must be prepared for ransomware attacks

Source link

The article “Ransomware” cyberattack cripples hospitals across England appeared first on Arabian Post.

Major cyber attacks strike worldwide (Update)

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 12 May 2017 21:24:33 +0000

Britain’s National Health Service reported a cyber attack on a number of hospitals on May 12, 2017

A fast-moving wave of cyberattacks swept the globe Friday, apparently exploiting a flaw exposed in documents leaked from the US National Security Agency.

The attacks came in the form of ransomware, a technique used by hackers that locks users’ files unless they pay the attackers a designated sum in the virtual currency Bitcoin.

The scope of the attacks was not immediately clear, but some analysts reported that dozens of countries had been affected, with the malware linked to attacks on hospitals in Britain as well as the Spanish telecom giant Telefonica and the US delivery firm FedEx.

The US Department of Homeland Security’s computer emergency response team said it was aware of ransomware infections “in several countries around the world.”

“We are now seeing more than 75,000 detections… in 99 countries,” Jakub Kroustek of the security firm Avast said in a blog post around 2000 GMT.

Earlier, Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu cited 45,000 attacks in 74 countries, saying that the malware, a self-replicating “worm,” was spreading quickly.

Forcepoint Security Labs said that “a major malicious email campaign” consisting of nearly five million emails per hour was spreading the new ransomware.

The malware’s name is WCry, but analysts were also using variants such as WannaCry.

Forcepoint said in a statement that the attack had “global scope”, affecting organisations in Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Mexico.

In the United States, FedEx acknowledged it had been hit by malware and was “implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible.”

The UK’s state-run National Health Service declared a “major incident” after the attack, which forced some hospitals to divert ambulances and scrap operations.

In Spain, major firms including Telefonica were hit, with employees told to shut down workstations immediately through megaphone announcements.

‘Direct infection’

At least 16 organisations within the NHS, some of them responsible for several hospitals each, reported being targeted.

“We are aware that a number of NHS organisations have reported that they have suffered from a ransomware attack. This is not targeted at the NHS, it’s an international attack and a number of countries and organisations have been affected,” said Prime Minister Theresa May.

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre and its National Crime Agency were looking into the UK incidents.

Pictures posted on social media showed screens of NHS computers with images demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in Bitcoin, saying: “Ooops, your files have been encrypted!”

It demands payment in three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received in seven days, the files will be deleted, according to the screen message.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA, Kaspersky said.

Although Microsoft released a security patch for the flaw earlier this year, many systems have yet to be updated, researchers said.

“Unlike most other attacks, this malware is spreading primarily by direct infection from machine to machine on local networks, rather than purely by email,” Lance Cottrell, chief scientist at the US technology group Ntrepid.

“The ransomware can spread without anyone opening an email or clicking on a link.”

Ambulances diverted

NHS Incident Director Anne Rainsberry urged the British public to “use the NHS wisely while we deal with this major incident which is still ongoing”.

The sort of ransom demands seen on the NHS screens are not without precedent at medical facilities. In February 2016, a Los Angeles hospital, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, paid $17,000 in Bitcoin to hackers who took control of its computers for more than a week.

“Ransomware becomes particularly nasty when it infects institutions like hospitals, where it can put people’s lives in danger,” said Kroustek, the Avast analyst.

A spokesman for Barts Health NHS Trust in London said it was experiencing “major IT disruption” and delays at all four of its hospitals.

“We have activated our major incident plan to make sure we can maintain the safety and welfare of patients,” the spokesman said. “Ambulances are being diverted to neighbouring hospitals.”

Two employees at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which is part of Barts Health, told AFP that all the computers in the hospital had been turned off.

Caroline Brennan, 41, went to the hospital to see her brother, who had open heart surgery.

“They told us there was a problem. They said the system was down and that they cannot transfer anyone till the computer system was back up so he is still in the theatre.”

Explore further:
Cyber strike on UK hospitals is ‘international attack’: PM

Source link

The article Major cyber attacks strike worldwide (Update) appeared first on Arabian Post.

Researchers unveil new password meter that will change how users make passwords

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 12 May 2017 16:23:51 +0000

One of the most popular passwords in 2016 was “qwertyuiop,” even though most password meters will tell you how weak that is. The problem is no existing meters offer any good advice to make it better—until now.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago have just unveiled a new, state-of-the-art password meter that offers real-time feedback and advice to help people create better passwords. To evaluate its performance, the team conducted an online study in which they asked 4,509 people to use it to create a password.

“Instead of just having a meter say, ‘Your password is bad,’ we thought it would be useful for the meter to say, ‘Here’s why it’s bad and here’s how you could do better,'” says CyLab Security and Privacy Institute faculty Nicolas Christin, a professor in the department of Engineering and Public Policy and the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon, and a co-author of the study.

The study will be presented at this week’s CHI 2017 conference in Denver, Colorado, where it will also receive a “Best Paper Award.” A demo of the meter can be viewed here.

“The key result is that providing the data-driven feedback actually makes a huge difference in security compared to just having a password labeled as weak or strong,” says Blase Ur, lead author on the study, formerly a graduate student in CyLab and currently an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Department of Computer Science. “Our new meter led users to create stronger passwords that were no harder to remember than passwords created without the feedback.”

The meter works by employing an artificial neural network: a large, complex map of information that resembles the way neurons behave in the brain. The team conducted a study about this neural network approach that received a Best Paper Award at the USENIX Security conference in August 2016. The network “learns” by scanning millions of existing passwords and identifying trends. If the meter detects a characteristic in your password that it knows attackers may guess, it’ll tell you.

“The way attackers guess passwords is by exploiting the patterns that they observe in large datasets of breached passwords,” says Ur. “For example, if you change Es to 3s in your password, that’s not going to fool an attacker. The meter will explain about how prevalent that substitution is and offer advice on what to do instead.”

This data-driven feedback is presented in real-time, as a user is typing their password out letter-by-letter.

The team has open-sourced their meter on GitHub.

“There’s a lot of different tweaking that one could imagine doing for a specific application of the meter,” says Ur. “We’re hoping to do some of that ourselves and also engage other members of the security and privacy community to help contribute to the meter.”

Explore further:
Users’ perceptions of password security do not always match reality

Source link

The article Researchers unveil new password meter that will change how users make passwords appeared first on Arabian Post.

Physical keyboards make virtual reality typing easier

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 12 May 2017 11:22:06 +0000

To find out how to type better with virtual reality technology, computer scientists used a light-up virtual display, autocorrect algorithms and a physical keyboard. Credit: Kiran Udayakumar

What’s better than a holographic keyboard? A real one, apparently. New research from computer scientists at Michigan Technological University delves into the different ways to type in a virtual reality (VR) space. They’re presenting their work at ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI 2017), noting that while cranking out text is an integral part of our digital lives, it’s a field of research that has a surprising lack of emphasis in VR development.

“Lots of people are buying head-mounted displays, but it’s mostly for video games,” says Scott Kuhl, an associate professor of computer science at Michigan Tech. “We’re trying to figure out how we can use a head-mounted display for office work like writing and editing a document or sending a message to someone.”

Though these mundane tasks aren’t ideal yet in VR, by wearing a headset that looks an oversized sleeping mask, VR can make an enchanted forest walk feel real—or at least surreal—and can transport a viewer halfway around the world. The key is balancing what a person can see through the head-mounted display and what they can touch physically. For typing, people need both visual and tactile feedback.

Head-Mounted Display

James Walker, a lecturer in computer science, led the research as part of his dissertation, working with Kuhl. He says the challenge stems from the fact that people need to see what they’re typing—a bit difficult with an over-eye headset on—so he developed a light-up virtual keyboard synced with a physical keyboard. This virtual keyboard lets a VR typist see in the head-mounted display what keys they typed on the physical keyboard.

Other VR typing systems rely on either mid-air virtual keyboards or overlaying of real-world video into the VR display. But both approaches require extra equipment such as tracking cameras that can be error-prone and intrusive. People’s texting performance also declines with only virtual keyboards.

“Typing in midair is very fatiguing,” Walker says. “Our solution is noteworthy because it enables people to continue using their physical peripherals, which gives the best performance, and it doesn’t need any extra hardware or require superimposing a video feed into the virtual environment.”

Credit: Michigan Technological University

VelociTap: Autocorrect Algorithm

To assess the effectiveness of a physical keyboard, Walker conducted an experiment in which participants typed on a keyboard they couldn’t see. In one part, participants wore a head-mounted display—in this case, an Oculus Rift. In the other part, participants used a desktop monitor with their view of the keyboard occluded by a cover. In each part, Walker tested participants’ performance with and without his virtual keyboard.

To start, a large number of people reported their typing prowess to be expert or at least proficient. Being human, participants made mistakes—lots of them—especially those without the virtual keyboard lighting up keys. That makes this experiment a perfect set-up not just for testing VR text hardware, but also to examine how autocorrect fits in.

“People underappreciate the redundancy in natural language,” says Keith Vertanen, an assistant professor of computer science who assisted Walker and Kuhl with a language model to correct participants’ typing. “Our recognition touch screen program, VelociTap, is extremely accurate as it’s been trained on billions of words.”

Still, Vertanen says he and the rest of the team were pleasantly surprised by how well the autocorrect algorithm shifted from its touch screen origins to predicting intended letters on a physical keyboard. In addition, the team observed that error rates declined as people continued typing with the VelociTap feedback and the model corrected about two-thirds of the text errors.

Full Texting

The team’s research has focused on the input of short, informal text messages. Next steps include supporting the input of numbers, punctuation and capitals, and to allow the editing and styling of text.

“The long-term goal is facilitating arbitrary input while wearing a head-mounted display,” Walker says.

The team knows how to catalyze that integration: use what’s at hand. Physical keyboards can help push VR into the text-filled world of work and play.

Explore further:
Acer’s Iconia laptop skips keys in favor of double touch screens

More information:
chi2017.acm.org/

Source link

The article Physical keyboards make virtual reality typing easier appeared first on Arabian Post.

Battery-free implantable medical device draws energy directly from human body

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 12 May 2017 06:18:15 +0000

The supercapacitor invented by researchers from UCLA and the University of Connecticut could lead to pacemakers and other implantable medical devices that last a lifetime. Credit: Islam Mosa/University of Connecticut and Maher El-Kady/UCLA

Researchers from UCLA and the University of Connecticut have designed a new biofriendly energy storage system called a biological supercapacitor, which operates using charged particles, or ions, from fluids in the human body. The device is harmless to the body’s biological systems, and it could lead to longer-lasting cardiac pacemakers and other implantable medical devices.

The UCLA team was led by Richard Kaner, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering, and the Connecticut researchers were led by James Rusling, a professor of chemistry and cell biology. A paper about their design was published this week in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

Pacemakers—which help regulate abnormal heart rhythms—and other implantable devices have saved countless lives. But they’re powered by traditional batteries that eventually run out of power and must be replaced, meaning another painful surgery and the accompanying risk of infection. In addition, batteries contain toxic materials that could endanger the patient if they leak.

The researchers propose storing energy in those devices without a battery. The supercapacitor they invented charges using electrolytes from biological fluids like blood serum and urine, and it would work with another device called an energy harvester, which converts heat and motion from the human body into electricity—in much the same way that self-winding watches are powered by the wearer’s body movements. That electricity is then captured by the supercapacitor.

“Combining energy harvesters with supercapacitors can provide endless power for lifelong implantable devices that may never need to be replaced,” said Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher and a co-author of the study.

Modern pacemakers are typically about 6 to 8 millimeters thick, and about the same diameter as a 50-cent coin; about half of that space is usually occupied by the battery. The new supercapacitor is only 1 micrometer thick—much smaller than the thickness of a human hair—meaning that it could improve implantable devices’ energy efficiency. It also can maintain its performance for a long time, bend and twist inside the body without any mechanical damage, and store more charge than the energy lithium film batteries of comparable size that are currently used in pacemakers.

“Unlike batteries that use chemical reactions that involve toxic chemicals and electrolytes to store energy, this new class of biosupercapacitors stores energy by utilizing readily available ions, or charged molecules, from the blood serum,” said Islam Mosa, a Connecticut graduate student and first author of the study.

The new biosupercapacitor comprises a carbon nanomaterial called graphene layered with modified human proteins as an electrode, a conductor through which electricity from the energy harvester can enter or leave. The new platform could eventually also be used to develop next-generation implantable devices to speed up bone growth, promote healing or stimulate the brain, Kaner said.

Although supercapacitors have not yet been widely used in medical devices, the study shows that they may be viable for that purpose.

“In order to be effective, battery-free pacemakers must have supercapacitors that can capture, store and transport energy, and commercial supercapacitors are too slow to make it work,” El-Kady said. “Our research focused on custom-designing our supercapacitor to capture energy effectively, and finding a way to make it compatible with the human body.”

Explore further:
Innovative device could offer new hope for heart patients

More information:
Islam M. Mosa et al. Ultrathin Graphene-Protein Supercapacitors for Miniaturized Bioelectronics, Advanced Energy Materials (2017). DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201700358

Source link

The article Battery-free implantable medical device draws energy directly from human body appeared first on Arabian Post.

Microsoft aims at ‘mixed reality’ with new devices

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 12 May 2017 01:17:28 +0000

This image shows the stage of the Microsoft Build developers conference in Seattle, Washington on May 11, 2017, where the tech giant unveiled new hardware for “mixed reality” computing

Microsoft on Thursday debuted hardware for reaching into virtual worlds powered by its technology as it looked to “mixed reality” as the next big computing platform.

An update coming to Windows 10 operating system later this year will “see the magic of mixed reality brought to consumers around the world,” Microsoft executive vice president Terry Myerson said at the company’s annual Build developers conference in Seattle, Washington.

Mixed reality motion controllers shown at the conference pair with headsets made by Microsoft partners using Windows software let users interact with both virtual and augmented reality.

“Mixed reality is the future of computing,” said Microsoft technical fellow Alex Kipman, the software engineer behind HoloLens augmented reality gear.

“Windows 10 is the only operating system created specifically and from the ground up for mixed reality devices.”

Microsoft slipped when lifestyles shifted to mobile devices, a market dominated by smartphones powered by Apple or Android software, but is dashing forward in the budding trend of augmented and virtual realities, according to Gartner analyst Van Baker.

“In some ways Microsoft is catching up, and in other ways it is out ahead,” Baker told AFP at the conference.

HoloLens augmented reality gear has been in the hands of developers for a year or so, but Microsoft has yet to release the gear to consumers.

Partners, however, have built the company’s mixed reality technology into virtual reality headsets. Microsoft has also collaborated with agencies and companies to put augmented reality to use in factories, medical schools, and elsewhere.

While virtual reality devices such as those from Facebook-owned Oculus and Sony’s PlayStation unit immerse users in fantasy worlds, HoloLens and similar gadgetry “augment” reality by overlaying holograms on the real world in view.

With its latest devices, Microsoft is betting that both of these technologies will catch on, and is developing the hardware and software for the platforms.

Cirque jumping in

Members of famed Cirque du Soleil acrobatic theater group joined Kipman at Build to show how they plan to use HoloLens to design stages, settings and performances with augmented reality.

HoloLens has been used by US space agency NASA to simulate walking on Mars, and by an airline in Japan to train aircraft mechanics without having to take real jets out of commission.

Tens of thousands of developers in cities around the world have been dabbling with HoloLens, and it will be available for software makers to try in China by the end of this month, according to Kipman.

“I just love that across the globe inspirational mixed-reality hackathons have been taking place,” Kipman said during an on-stage presentation.

Mixed reality controllers unveiled by Kipman will let people reach into augmented or virtual worlds, with internal sensors tracking hand movements.

Microsoft had previously limited HoloLens control to pre-set gestures, such as pinching fingers together, to interact with virtual settings.

Acer will sell a Windows Mixed Reality headset and motion controller bundle priced at $399 during the holiday season at the end of this year, according to Microsoft.

Explore further:
Microsoft wants Windows to open into mixed reality

Source link

The article Microsoft aims at ‘mixed reality’ with new devices appeared first on Arabian Post.

Robotic ‘exoskeleton’ prevents elderly falls: study

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 11 May 2017 20:12:52 +0000

Scientists unveiled a lightweight, robotic, outer “skeleton” Thursday that can detect when someone loses their balance, correct their gait, and prevent their fall.

Designed to limit stumbles among the elderly, the device has sensors that can discern in real time when a limb starts to buckle or flail, and lightweight motors which exert instant force on both legs to restore balance.

“Wearable machines that enhance your movement and endurance no longer belong to the realm of science fiction,” the device’s creators said in a statement.

According to the World Health Organization, falls are the second cause of death from accidental or unintentional injuries worldwide.

Every year, more than 420,000 people die from falls—most of those are older than 65.

Nearly 40 million falls that require medical attention are reported annually, says the WHO, and this number is likely to skyrocket as people live to become ever older.

Dubbed the Active Pelvis Orthosis or APO, the new device could also help disabled people and amputees, said its designers from the Scuola Sant’Anna, an Italian University, and Switzerland’s EPFL polytechnical school.

The video will load shortly

“It’s technology that will actually help people with their daily activities,” they added.

The team published the results of their lab experiments in the journal Scientific Reports.

The “exoskeleton” is worn from the waist down, its creators explained, “and is vastly different from the armoured stuff you see in today’s science fiction movies”.

More confident

It is attached to a belt worn around the middle that holds small motors at the hips, and soft braces strapped to the thighs.

The device weighs about five kilogrammes (11 pounds), can be easily adjusted to a person’s individual height and girth, and does not interfere with normal walking, the team said.

The “assistive mode” is activated only when balance loss is detected.

“The robotic exoskeleton is able to identify an unexpected slippage and counteract it,” Peppino Tropea, one of the study authors, told AFP.

The APO “increases stiffness at hip joints against limb movements, indeed, the slipping leg is slowed down, while the other one is forced towards the ground. This strategy is effective for balance recovery.”

Tropea and the rest of the team tested their creation on eight elderly people and two amputees with prosthetic limbs—two groups particularly vulnerable to potentially devastating falls.

They were made to walk on a treadmill with a platform that would unexpectedly slip sideways, causing the walker to lose balance.

Repeated tests showed that the device “effectively” aided balance recovery, the paper reported.

“I feel more confident when I wear the exoskeleton,” a statement quoted 69-year-old Fulvio Bertelli, one of the trial participants, as saying.

Explore further:
Researchers developing robotic prosthetics to help restore balance in fall victims

Source link

The article Robotic ‘exoskeleton’ prevents elderly falls: study appeared first on Arabian Post.

What’s holding back self-driving cars? Human drivers

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 11 May 2017 15:11:28 +0000

In this Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016, file photo, a self-driving Uber car stops at a red light on Liberty Avenue through the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh. In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robocars and is slowing their development. But experts say eventually the cars will coexist with human drivers on real roads. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robotaxis.

A self-driving car would be programmed to drive at the speed limit. Humans routinely exceed it by 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph)—just try entering the New Jersey Turnpike at normal speed. Self-driving cars wouldn’t dare cross a double yellow line; humans do it all the time. And then there are those odd local traffic customs to which humans quickly adapt.

In Los Angeles and other places, for instance, there’s the “California Stop,” where drivers roll through stop signs if no traffic is crossing. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, courteous drivers practice the “Pittsburgh Left,” where it’s customary to let one oncoming car turn left in front of them when a traffic light turns green. The same thing happens in Boston. During rush hours near Ann Arbor, Michigan, drivers regularly cross a double-yellow line to queue up for a left-turn onto a freeway.

“There’s an endless list of these cases where we as humans know the context, we know when to bend the rules and when to break the rules,” said Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who leads the school’s autonomous car research.

Although autonomous cars are likely to carry passengers or cargo in limited areas during the next three to five years, experts say it will take many years before robotaxis can coexist with human-piloted vehicles on most side streets, boulevards and freeways. That’s because programmers have to figure out human behavior and local traffic idiosyncrasies. And teaching a car to use that knowledge will require massive amounts of data and big computing power that is prohibitively expensive at the moment.

“Driverless cars are very rule-based, and they don’t understand social graces,” said Missy Cummings, director of Duke University’s Humans and Autonomy Lab.

Driving customs and road conditions are dramatically different across the globe, with narrow, congested lanes in European cities, and anarchy in Beijing’s giant traffic jams. In India’s capital, New Delhi, luxury cars share poorly marked and congested lanes with bicycles, scooters, trucks, and even an occasional cow or elephant.

In this April 27, 2017, photo, drivers cross a double-yellow line as they queue up for a left turn onto a freeway, near Ann Arbor, Mich. In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robocars and is slowing their development. But experts say eventually the cars will coexist with human drivers on real roads. (AP Photo/Tom Krisher)

Then there is the problem of aggressive humans who make dangerous moves such as cutting cars off on freeways or turning left in front of oncoming traffic. In India, for example, even when lanes are marked, drivers swing from lane to lane without hesitation.

Already there have been isolated cases of human drivers pulling into the path of cars such as Teslas, knowing they will stop because they’re equipped with automatic emergency braking.

“It’s hard to program in human stupidity or someone who really tries to game the technology,” says John Hanson, spokesman for Toyota’s autonomous car unit.

Kathy Winter, vice president of automated driving solutions for Intel, is optimistic that the cars will be able to see and think like humans before 2030.

Cars with sensors for driver-assist systems already are gathering data about road signs, lane lines and human driver behavior. Winter hopes auto and tech companies developing autonomous systems and cars will contribute this information to a giant database.

Artificial intelligence developed by Intel and other companies eventually could access the data and make quick decisions similar to humans, Winter says.

Programmers are optimistic that someday the cars will be able to handle even Beijing’s traffic. But the cost could be high, and it might be a decade or more before Chinese regulators deem self-driving cars reliable enough for widespread public use, said John Zeng of LMC Automotive Consulting.

In this Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, file photo, an Uber driverless car waits in traffic during a test drive in San Francisco. In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robocars and is slowing their development. But experts say eventually the cars will coexist with human drivers on real roads. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Intel’s Winter expects fully autonomous cars to collect, process and analyze four terabytes of data in 1 ½ hours of driving, which is the average amount a person spends in a car each day. That’s equal to storing over 1.2 million photos or 2,000 hours of movies. Such computing power now costs over $100,000 per vehicle, Zeng said. But that cost could fall as more cars are built.

Someday autonomous cars will have common sense programmed in so they will cross a double-yellow line when warranted or to speed up and find a gap to enter a freeway. Carnegie Mellon has taught its cars to handle the “Pittsburgh Left” by waiting a full second or longer for an intersection to clear before proceeding at a green light. Sensors also track crossing traffic and can figure out if a driver is going to stop for a sign or red light. Eventually there will be vehicle-to-vehicle communication to avoid crashes.

Still, some skeptics say computerized cars will never be able to think exactly like humans.

“You’ll never be able to make up a person’s ability to perceive what’s the right move at the time, I don’t think,” said New Jersey State Police Sgt. Ed Long, who works in the traffic and public safety office.

Explore further:
California gives green light to self-driving car tests

Source link

The article What’s holding back self-driving cars? Human drivers appeared first on Arabian Post.

3-D-printed ‘bionic skin’ could give robots the sense of touch

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 11 May 2017 10:10:35 +0000

A one-of-a-kind 3D printer built at the University of Minnesota can print touch sensors directly on a model hand. Credit: Shuang-Zhuang Guo and Michael McAlpine, University of Minnesota, “3D Printed Stretchable Tactile Sensors,” Advanced Materials. 2017. Copyright Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Engineering researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a revolutionary process for 3D printing stretchable electronic sensory devices that could give robots the ability to feel their environment. The discovery is also a major step forward in printing electronics on real human skin.

The research will be published in the next issue of Advanced Materials and is currently online.

“This stretchable electronic fabric we developed has many practical uses,” said Michael McAlpine, a University of Minnesota mechanical engineering associate professor and lead researcher on the study. “Putting this type of ‘bionic skin‘ on surgical robots would give surgeons the ability to actually feel during minimally invasive surgeries, which would make surgery easier instead of just using cameras like they do now. These sensors could also make it easier for other robots to walk and interact with their environment.”

McAlpine, who gained international acclaim in 2013 for integrating electronics and novel 3D-printed nanomaterials to create a “bionic ear,” says this new discovery could also be used to print electronics on real human skin. This ultimate wearable technology could eventually be used for health monitoring or by soldiers in the field to detect dangerous chemicals or explosives.

“While we haven’t printed on human skin yet, we were able to print on the curved surface of a model hand using our technique,” McAlpine said. “We also interfaced a printed device with the skin and were surprised that the device was so sensitive that it could detect your pulse in real time.”

McAlpine and his team made the unique sensing fabric with a one-of-a kind 3D printer they built in the lab. The multifunctional printer has four nozzles to print the various specialized “inks” that make up the layers of the device—a base layer of silicone, top and bottom electrodes made of a conducting ink, a coil-shaped pressure sensor, and a sacrificial layer that holds the top layer in place while it sets. The supporting sacrificial layer is later washed away in the final manufacturing process.

The video will load shortly

Surprisingly, all of the layers of “inks” used in the flexible sensors can set at room temperature. Conventional 3D printing using liquid plastic is too hot and too rigid to use on the skin. These flexible 3D printed sensors can stretch up to three times their original size.

“This is a completely new way to approach 3D printing of electronics,” McAlpine said. “We have a multifunctional printer that can print several layers to make these flexible sensory devices. This could take us into so many directions from health monitoring to energy harvesting to chemical sensing.”

Researchers say the best part of the discovery is that the manufacturing is built into the process.

“With most research, you discover something and then it needs to be scaled up. Sometimes it could be years before it ready for use,” McAlpine said. “This time, the manufacturing is built right into the process so it is ready to go now.”

The researchers say the next step is to move toward semiconductor inks and printing on a real body.

“The possibilities for the future are endless,” McAlpine said.

Explore further:
3-D printed guide helps regrow complex nerves after injury

More information:
Shuang-Zhuang Guo et al, 3D Printed Stretchable Tactile Sensors, Advanced Materials (2017). DOI: 10.1002/adma.201701218

Source link

The article 3-D-printed ‘bionic skin’ could give robots the sense of touch appeared first on Arabian Post.

Laser, sound waves provide live views of organs in action

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 11 May 2017 05:07:50 +0000

Photoacoustic imaging uses light to induce cells to emit ultrasound waves. Advances in the technology now allow it to scan entire cross-sections of a live mouse in real time for an entire body view in under a minute. Credit: Junjie Yao & Kara Manke, Duke University

Biomedical engineers are now able to take a live, holistic look at the inner workings of a small animal with enough resolution to see active organs, flowing blood, circulating melanoma cells and firing neural networks.

The technique dubbed “single-impulse photoacoustic computed tomography (SIP-PACT)” uses the best of both light and ultrasound to peer inside living animals. Researchers at Duke University and CalTech have shown this hybrid imaging technology breaks the longstanding resolution and speed barriers in small-animal whole-body imaging. It provides a full cross-sectional view of a small animal’s internal functions in real time.

The results appear online on May 10, 2017, in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“Photoacoustic imaging has been highly expected to get real-time whole-body imaging of a small animal with rich functional information,” said Junjie Yao, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University. “With this advance, researchers can easily watch as drugs are distributed throughout an animal and track how different organs respond.”

Photoacoustic imaging combines a variety of imaging techniques into one platform.

Traditional light-based microscopy provides fast, high-resolution images that retain important functional information based on the wavelengths of light (i.e., colors) that the tissue absorbs, reflects or emits. The significant amount of light that scatters as it travels through tissue, however, limits the depth of light microscopy to just a few millimeters.

A live look at the inner workings of a mouse’s intestines using photoacoustic imaging, which uses light to induce cells to emit ultrasound waves. Credit: Junjie Yao & Kara Manke, Duke University

Ultrasound waves easily travel through tissue, providing a much more in-depth view, but do not have the ability to read tissue’s chemical components and miss much of the important information that light carries with it. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can also see deep into tissue, but requires a strong magnetic field and often takes seconds to minutes to form an image. X-rays and positron emission tomography (PET) deliver too much radiation to the subject to be practical over long time periods.

Photoacoustic imaging uses powerful but extremely short laser bursts that safely cause cells to emit ultrasound waves, which then travel unimpeded back through the tissue.

“It’s basically compressing one second’s worth of summer-noon sunlight over a finger nail area into a single nanosecond,” said Yao, who has been working with the technology for nearly a decade. “When the laser hits a cell, the energy causes it to heat up a tiny bit and expand instantaneously, creating an ultrasonic wave. It’s like the difference between pushing on something to slowly move it and striking it to cause a vibration.”

The result is an imaging technique that can peer up to five centimeters into the typical biological tissue with sub-millimeter-level resolution while retaining the functional information provided by traditional optical microscopy. For example, melanin absorbs near-infrared light, while blood’s reaction to light differs depending on how much oxygen it is carrying.

In the new paper, Yao and colleagues led by Dr. Lihong Wang at the California Institute of Technology add the highly desired speed and panoramic views to the imaging technology’s repertoire. They have built a circular ultrasonic detector and a fast data-acquisition system that can triangulate the origin of an ultrasonic wave from anywhere within the body of a small animal. And with the help of a fast laser that operates within the safety limit, the upgraded device can image the full cross-section of an adult rat 50 times per second, providing detailed movies of its inner workings with 120-micrometer resolution.

This live look at a mouse’s brain tracks neurons firing by measuring oxygen levels, much like a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. This image however, was created with photoacoustic imaging that uses light to induce ultrasound waves, resulting in a color image which can reveal functional information such as the amount of oxygen present. Credit: Junjie Yao & Kara Manke, Duke University

“The panoramic effect provides information from all directions and all angles, so you do not lose any information from each laser shot,” said Yao. “You can see the dynamics of the body in action—the pumping of the heart, the dilation of arteries, the functioning of various tissues.”

In the paper, Yao and colleagues describe how they use these abilities to track cancerous melanoma cells traveling through blood vessels of a mouse. They also demonstrate the ability to watch entire neural networks firing in real time.

“This approach is especially powerful because it does not rely on the injection of any type of contrast agent,” said Yao. “You can be sure that changes are not caused by foreign variables. We think that this technology holds great potential for both pre-clinical imaging and clinical translation.”

Explore further:
Compound boosts contrast of photoacoustic images

More information:
Lei Li et al, Single-impulse panoramic photoacoustic computed tomography of small-animal whole-body dynamics at high spatiotemporal resolution, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-017-0071

Source link

The article Laser, sound waves provide live views of organs in action appeared first on Arabian Post.

New 3-D printing method promises vastly superior medical implants for millions

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 11 May 2017 00:06:59 +0000

Credit: University of Florida

For the millions of people every year who have or need medical devices implanted, a new advancement in 3D printing technology developed at the University of Florida promises significantly quicker implantation of devices that are stronger, less expensive, more flexible and more comfortable than anything currently available.

In a paper published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers lay out the process they developed for using 3D printing and soft silicone to manufacture items that millions of patients use: ports for draining bodily fluids, implantable bands, balloons, soft catheters, slings and meshes.

Currently, such devices are molded, which could take days or weeks to create customized parts designed to fit an individual patient. The 3D printing method cuts that time to hours, potentially saving lives. What’s more, extremely small and complex devices, such as drainage tubes containing pressure-sensitive valves, simply cannot be molded in one step.

With the UF team’s new method, however, they can be printed.

“Our new material provides support for the liquid silicone as it is 3D printing, allowing us create very complex structures and even encapsulated parts out of silicone elastomer,” said lead author Christopher O’Bryan, a mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student in UF’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and lead author on the paper.

The video will load shortly

Silicone is 3D printed into the micro-organogel support material. The printing nozzle follows a predefined trajectory, depositing liquid silicone in its wake. The liquid silicone is supported by the micro-organgel material during this printing process.

It also could pave the way for new therapeutic devices that encapsulate and control the release of drugs or small molecules for guiding tissue regeneration or assisting diseased organs such as the pancreas or prostate.

The cost savings could be significant as well.

“The public is more sensitive to the high costs of medical care than ever before. Almost monthly we see major media and public outcry against high health care costs, wasteful spending in hospitals, exorbitant pharmaceutical costs,” said team member Tommy Angelini, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace. “Everybody agrees on the need to reduce costs in medicine.”

The new method was born out of a project Angelini and his team have been working on for several years: printable organs and tissues. To that end, the team made a significant discovery two years ago when it created a revolutionary way to manufacture soft materials using 3D printing and microscopic hydrogel particles as a medium.

The video will load shortly

Water is pumped from one reservoir to another using a 3D printed silicone valve. The silicone valve contains two encapsulated ball valves that allow water to be pumped through the valve by squeezing the lower chamber. The silicone valve demonstrates the ability of our 3D printing method to create multiple encapsulated components in a single part — something that cannot be done with a traditional 3D printing approach.

The problem was, the previous granular gel materials were water-based, so they were incompatible with oily “inks” like silicone. It was literally a case of trying to mix oil and water.

To solve that problem, the team came up with an oily version of the microgels.

“Once we started printing oily silicone inks into the oily microgel materials, the printed parts held their shapes,” Angelini said. “We were able to achieve really excellent 3D printed silicone parts – the best I’ve seen.”

Manufacturing organs and tissues remains a primary goal, but one that likely is many years away from reality.

Liquid silicone is 3-D printed into a micro-organogel support to create a perfusable tube network. Once cured and removed from the support material, water is pumped through the printed structure. Credit: O’Bryan et al. Sci. Adv. 2017;3:e1602800

Not so with the medical implants.

“The reality is that we are probably decades away from the widespread implanting of 3D printed tissues and organs into patients,” Angelini said. “By contrast, inanimate medical devices are already in widespread use for implantation. Unlike the long wait we have ahead of us for other 3D bioprinting technolgies to be developed, silicone devices can be put into widespread use without technologically limited delay.”

Explore further:
New 3-D printing method creates shape-shifting objects

More information:
Self-assembled micro-organogels for 3D printing silicone structures Science Advances 10 May 2017: Vol. 3, no. 5, e1602800, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602800 , http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/5/e1602800

Source link

The article New 3-D printing method promises vastly superior medical implants for millions appeared first on Arabian Post.

Microsoft aims to make artificial intelligence mainstream (Update)

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 10 May 2017 19:05:48 +0000

Microsoft, whose campus is shown in this 2014 picture, has told developers at its annual Build conference it wants to bring artificial intellience into the mainstream

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled new tools intended to democratize artificial intelligence by enabling machine smarts to be built into software from smartphone games to factory floors.

The US technology titan opened its annual Build Conference by highlighting programs with artificial intelligence that could tap into services in the internet “cloud” and even take advantage of computing power in nearby machines.

“We are infusing AI into every product and service we offer,” said Microsoft executive vice president of artificial intelligence and research Harry Shum.

“We’ve been creating the building blocks for the current wave of AI breakthroughs for more than two decades.”

Microsoft research has gone deep into areas such as machine learning, speech recognition, and enabling machines to recognize what they “see.”

“Now, we’re in the unique position of being able to use those decades of research breakthroughs,” Shum said.

Microsoft rivals including Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM have all been aggressively pursing the promise and potential of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is getting a foothold in people’s homes, with personal assistants answering questions and controlling connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs.

Digital assistants already boast features such as reminding people of appointments entered into calendars and chiming in with advice to set out early if traffic is challenging.

Steering away from ‘1984’

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, who opened the Seattle conference, also highlighted the need to build trust in technology, saying new applications must avoid the dystopian futures feared by some.

Nadella’s presentation included images from George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” to underscore the issue of responsibility of those creating new technologies.

“What Orwell prophesied in ‘1984,’ where technology was being used to monitor, control, dictate, or what Huxley imagined we may do just by distracting ourselves without any meaning or purpose,” Nadella said.

“Neither of these futures is something that we want… The future of computing is going to be defined by the choices that you as developers make and the impact of those choices on the world.”

Microsoft’s aim on Wednesday was on businesses and software developers, whether they be students building a fun app or professional technology teams.

“Microsoft is trying to use AI for businesses to solve business problems and app developers to make applications better,” said Moor Insights and Strategy principal analyst Patrick Moorhead.

“Which is different from Amazon, Facebook, and Google whose primary business model is to mine personal information using AI to sell you things or put ads in front of you.”

Microsoft is taking a unique approach by letting developers customize gesture commands, voice recognition and more instead of making them conform to settings in “off-the-shelf” AI, according to the analyst.

Microsoft executives used demonstrations to provide a glimpse into a near future in which artificial intelligence hosted online works with internet linked devices such as construction site cameras to alert workers of dangers, available tools, or unauthorized activities.

Devices like smart surveillance cameras, smartphones, or factory floor machines were referred to as “edge computing,” with the coordination of cloud power and intelligent edge devices improving productivity and safety on the ground.

Windows numbers rise

Nadella also told developers that some 500 million devices now run on Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 operating system, creating a huge audience for their software creations.

Microsoft’s online Office 365 service has some 100 million commercial users monthly, while Cortana digital assistant is used by 140 million people monthly, according to the Redmond, Washington-based technology firm.

“The future is a smart cloud,” Nadella said, forecasting a future in which mobile devices take back seats to digital assistants hosted in the cloud that follow people from device to device.

“It is a pretty amazing world you can create using intelligent cloud and intelligent edge.”

Explore further:
Virtual assistant Cortana holds people to promises

Source link

The article Microsoft aims to make artificial intelligence mainstream (Update) appeared first on Arabian Post.

Research may help combat abusive online comments

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 10 May 2017 14:05:00 +0000

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Interactive Computing have come up with a novel computational approach that could provide a more cost- and resource-effective way for internet communities to moderate abusive content.

They call it the Bag of Communities (BoC), a technique that leverages large-scale, preexisting data from other internet communities to train an algorithm to identify abusive behavior within a separate target community.

Specifically, they identified nine different communities. Five, such as the free-for-all of internet communities 4chan, are rife with abusive behavior from commenters; four, like the heavily moderated MetaFilter, are helpful, positive, and supportive.

Using linguistic characteristics from these two types of communities, researchers built an algorithm that can learn from the comments and, when a new post is generated within a target community, it can make a prediction of whether or not it is abusive.

“MetaFilter is known around the internet as a good, helpful, supportive community,” said Eric Gilbert, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing and a member of the team of researchers on the project. “That’s an example of how, if your post is closer to that, it’s more likely that it should stay on the site. Conversely, if your post is closer to 4chan, then maybe it should come off.”

The researchers provide two algorithms. One is a static model, off the shelf with no training examples from the target community, and can achieve roughly 75 percent accuracy. In other words, with access only to posts from the other nine communities, the algorithm can accurately predict abusive posts in the target community roughly three quarters of the time.

“A new community that does not have enough resources to actually build automated algorithms to detect abusive content could use the static model,” said Georgia Tech doctoral student Eshwar Chandrasekharan, who led the team.

A dynamic model, one that mimics scenarios in which newly moderated data arrives in batches, learns over time and can achieve 91.18 percent accuracy after seeing 100,000 human-moderated posts.

“Over time, as new moderator labels come in, when it has seen examples of things that have been moderated from the site, it can learn more site-specific information,” Chandrasekharan said. “It can learn the type of comments that get moderated, and if there is a level of tolerance that is different from what you see in the static model, it could learn that over time.”

Both the static and dynamic models outperformed a solely in-domain model from a major internet community.

Anyone who has managed an online community has encountered problems with abusive content from users. From social media to message boards to comments sections in online news publications, regulating what is and isn’t allowed has become overly costly and taxing on existing human moderators.

Founders at social media startup Yik Yak spent months of their early time removing hate speech, and Twitter has stated publicly that dealing with abusive behavior remains its most pressing challenge. A number of major news agencies are buried under the demands of strict moderation, and many have shut down comments sections altogether.

Prior research into abuse detection and online content moderation has focused on in-domain methods – using data collected from within your own community – but those face challenges in obtaining enough data to build and evaluate algorithms. In a BoC-based method, algorithms would leverage out-of-domain data from other existing online communities.

Gilbert said that the applications from such a model could be widespread.

“This is a core internet problem,” he said. “So many places struggle with this, and many are shutting comments off because they just don’t want to deal with the trouble they cause.”

This research is presented in a paper (The Bag of Communities: Identifying Abusive Behavior Online with Preexisting Internet Data) at the Association for Computing Machinery CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2017.

Explore further:
Google rolls out AI tool to combat online trolls

Source link

The article Research may help combat abusive online comments appeared first on Arabian Post.

Brain-imaging system uses ‘multi-pupil’ prism arrays

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 10 May 2017 09:02:32 +0000

Purdue University graduate student Yifeng Zhou, at left, and assistant professor Meng Cui review data from a new adaptive-optics technology for brain research. The method, called multi-pupil adaptive optics, is aiding research into brain function. Credit: Purdue University image/Erin Easterling

A specialized type of adaptive-optics technology that has been demonstrated by taking high-resolution time-lapse images of functioning brain cells might be used to better understand how the brain works.

The system is capable of revealing changing details of biological processes in cells over a larger field of view than otherwise possible, allowing “high throughput” essential for the study of brain activity.

“We are looking at huge numbers of neurons, so the number of data points you can measure per second is 20 million, 30 million,” said Meng Cui, an assistant professor in Purdue University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Biological Sciences. “High throughput is very important because you want to measure these numerous neurons simultaneously at very high speed and also at high spatial resolution.”

The method, called multi-pupil adaptive optics, hinges on deformable mirrors that change shape to counteract the distortion caused when light passes through biological tissue, and a “prism array” containing many faceted segments. Each segment produces its own image corresponding to a different part of a microscope’s field of view.

“That way you simultaneously correct the distortion in different regions and you can look at them all together,” Cui said. “So you can see clearly over a wider field of view than before and at high resolution.”

Researchers used the system to image brain cells called microglia; signaling processes of neurons involving calcium; vasculature in the brain; and “dendritic spines,” structures in neurons critical to learning and communication between brain cells.

Findings are detailed in a research paper published on May 8 in the journal Nature Methods.

The video will load shortly

Credit: Purdue University

“The microglial cells are important for maintaining brain health and recovering from strokes,” Cui said. “High-resolution in-vivo imaging of dendritic spines is also of great importance in neuroscience. And calcium imaging has been widely used in neuroscience for in-vivo large-scale recording of neuronal network activity, which demands both high speed and excellent image quality.”

The system was used to perform time-lapse imaging to study changes in functioning brain cells, in research with laboratory mice.

Cells and living tissue contain a complex combination of structures and materials, all having a different index of refraction, which defines how fast light travels while passing through materials. Because of this heterogeneity, light traveling through cells produces blurred images, not unlike the effect of raindrops on a car’s windshield. Devices called spatial light modulators in adaptive optics systems are able to counter this distortion by changing shape when voltage is applied, adjusting for the refraction differences. However, conventional adaptive optics systems are limited because they are able to image only small areas at a time.

“Multi-pupil adaptive optics solves this problem,” said Cui, who invented the method.

The initial research used a 3-by-3 prism array containing a total of nine segments, each around a square centimeter.

“The current version of multi-pupil adaptive optics is about 10 times better than conventional methods,” he said.

However, the performance might be improved by increasing the size of these arrays to contain perhaps as many as 36 segments.

Explore further:
First images from Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager (AOLI)

More information:
Jung-Hoon Park et al. Large-field-of-view imaging by multi-pupil adaptive optics, Nature Methods (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.4290

Source link

The article Brain-imaging system uses ‘multi-pupil’ prism arrays appeared first on Arabian Post.

Study researches ‘gorilla arm’ fatigue in mid-air computer usage

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 10 May 2017 04:01:32 +0000

Arm fatigue accumulates during a prolonged use of mid-air interfaces such as Oculus Rift. Credit: Purdue University Photo/Brian Huchel

Researchers at Purdue University’s C Design Lab are studying arm and muscle fatigue connected to advancements in the use of hand gestures for mid-air computer interaction.

Computer interaction improvements have included the expanding use of natural motions and gestures to control floating graphical user interfaces. As a result, fatigue from prolonged use of the motions and gestures has become an issue.

Karthik Ramani, the Donald W. Feddersen Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, is part of a study to evaluate and quantify arm fatigue in a simplified framework compared to current methods.

“In previous years, all the computer interaction technologies we had included something to support our limbs,” Ramani said. “But with newer forms of interaction, there is no support. The question now is what the guidelines are to design new interfaces and interaction for such settings.”

Technology has created mid-air interaction advancements in gaming, augmented and virtual reality applications and the use of mobile technologies using hands.

“Physical ergonomics is an important design factor for mid-air interaction,” Ramani said. “In particular, arm fatigue – the so-called ‘gorilla arm syndrome’ – is known to negatively impact user experience and hamper prolonged use of mid-air interfaces.”

Results of the study will be presented Tuesday (May 9) at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Denver. The event is one in a series of prestigious academic conferences in the field of human–computer interaction and one of the top conferences in computer science. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the special interest group on computer–human interaction.

Ramani, who also has a courtesy appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is joined in the research by Sujin Jang, a doctoral student in the School of Mechanical Engineering, and Satyajit Ambike, an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, as well as Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, a professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

The study looked at the issue of human-computer interaction in two ways: Determining an individual’s arm strength and estimating cumulative subjective fatigue levels.

Ramani said current methods to examine strength are expensive and invasive and can leave out considerations for rest. To simplify the issue, the study opted for inexpensive depth cameras, which are used in popular home video game systems to sense body motion and hand motion.

According to Jang, 24 participants were asked to grasp a dumbbell (5-pound for 20 males and 3-pound for four females) and hold their arm out horizontally for as long as they could. The camera sensors measured what their hands and arms are doing.

Using shoulder torque and endurance time, researchers were able to determine arm strength with an average error of 8.4 percent, slightly higher than the 6.2 percent recorded by current, higher-priced methods. That difference is negligible given the latter’s accessibility and price tags of tens of thousands of dollars.

“With a simple depth camera and a dumbbell, we are able to do as good measurements as the other methods,” Ramani said.

In determining cumulative subjective fatigue, the study once again looked to improve current methods, which usually register an error rate of 35 percent.

Jang said 24 subjects were shown targets on screen and asked to touch the targets as many times as possible with good accuracy for four one-minute segments, with random rest durations of 5-20 seconds between each segment. The screens were placed at shoulder- and waist-level heights for the experiment, and depth cameras were used to examine the body’s skeleton.

He pointed out the researchers utilized a biomechanical model that includes the idea of a rest period into their estimate of the subject’s fatigue. The status of the muscle as it transitioned from rest to activation to fatigue also was considered in estimating the subject’s fatigue.

In the end, Ramani said the study was able to estimate the cumulating subjective fatigue at an improved 15 percent error rate over traditional methods.

According to Stuerzlinger, an expert on 3-D user interfaces, the “gorilla arm syndrome” is already an issue with vertical touchscreens, making it a problem even beyond augmented and virtual reality systems.

“The results of our work enable user interface designers to predict how fatiguing a specific user interface is, even before a new design is built/realized, which enables the designers to make better decisions around new, proposed 3-D user interfaces,” he said. “This, in turn, will accelerate and lead to the development of better user interface solutions for virtual and augmented reality systems.”

For Ambike, the study’s method of measuring strength and fatigue could have far-reaching implications for the aging population.

“Our inexpensive methods will potentially translate to establishing the relation between fatigue/strength and health, as well as into continuous monitoring of fatigue levels in at-risk populations,” he said. “In this way, this technology promises to have a significant clinical impact.”

Explore further:
New tool for virtual and augmented reality uses ‘deep learning’

More information:
Modeling Cumulative Arm Fatigue in Mid-Air Interaction based on Perceived Exertion and Kinetics of Arm Motion. engineering.purdue.edu/cdesign/wp/modeling-cumulative-arm-fatigue/

Source link

The article Study researches ‘gorilla arm’ fatigue in mid-air computer usage appeared first on Arabian Post.

Experiments show that a few self-driving cars can dramatically improve traffic flow

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 09 May 2017 23:00:51 +0000

According to Daniel Work, assistant professor of civil environmental engineering at the University of Illinois, The use of autonomous vehicles to regulate traffic flow is the next innovation in the rapidly evolving science of traffic monitoring and control. Credit: John de Dios

The presence of just a few autonomous vehicles can eliminate the stop-and-go driving of the human drivers in traffic, along with the accident risk and fuel inefficiency it causes, according to new research. The finding indicates that self-driving cars and related technology may be even closer to revolutionizing traffic control than previously thought.

“Our experiments show that with as few as 5 percent of vehicles being automated and carefully controlled, we can eliminate stop-and-go waves caused by human driving behavior,” said Daniel B. Work, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead researcher in the study.

The use of autonomous vehicles to regulate traffic flow is the next innovation in the rapidly evolving science of traffic monitoring and control, Work said. Just as fixed traffic sensors have been replaced by crowd-sourced GPS data in many navigation systems, the use of self-driving cars is poised to replace classical freeway traffic control concepts like variable speed limits. Critical to the success of this innovation is a deeper understanding of the dynamic between these autonomous vehicles and the human drivers on the road.

Funded by the National Science Foundation’s Cyber-Physical Systems program, the research was led by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with expertise in traffic flow theory, control theory, robotics, cyber-physical systems, and transportation engineering. Principal investigators (PIs) were: Benedetto Piccoli, the Joseph and Loretta Lopez Chair Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, Camden; Benjamin Seibold, associate professor of Mathematics at Temple University; Jonathan Sprinkle, the Litton Industries John M. Leonis Distinguished Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tucson; and Daniel B. Work, assistant professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The team conducted field experiments in Tucson, Arizona, in which a single autonomous vehicle circled a track continuously with at least 20 other human-driven cars. Under normal circumstances, human drivers naturally create stop-and-go traffic, even in the absence of bottlenecks, lane changes, merges or other disruptions, Work said. This phenomenon is called the “phantom traffic jam.” Researchers found that by controlling the pace of the autonomous car in the study, they were able to smooth out the traffic flow for all the cars. For the first time, researchers demonstrated experimentally that even a small percentage of such vehicles can have a significant impact on the road, eliminating waves and reducing the total fuel consumption by up to 40 percent. Moreover, the researchers found that conceptually simple and easy to implement control strategies can achieve the goal.

“Before we carried out these experiments, I did not know how straightforward it could be to positively affect the flow of traffic,” Sprinkle said. “I assumed we would need sophisticated control techniques, but what we showed was that controllers which are staples of undergraduate control theory will do the trick.”

The video will load shortly

This latest research suggests that even the related technology available now – such as adaptive cruise control – has the power to improve traffic even before there are large numbers of autonomous vehicles on the road.

“Fully autonomous vehicles in common traffic may be still far away in the future due to many technological, market and policy constraints,” Piccoli said. “However, increased communication among vehicles and increased levels of autonomy in human-driven vehicles is in the near future.”

The near future with only a few autonomous vehicles on the road is more challenging than the far future in which all vehicles are connected, Seibold said.

“The proper design of autonomous vehicles requires a profound understanding of the reaction of humans to them,” Seibold said, “and traffic experiments play a crucial role in understanding this interplay of human and robotic agents.”

The researchers say the next step will be to study the impact of autonomous vehicles in denser traffic with more freedom granted to the human drivers, such as the ability to change lanes.

The paper describing this work, “Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments,” is available here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.01693

Explore further:
California gives green light to self-driving car tests

More information:
Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments, arXiv:1705.01693 [cs.SY] arxiv.org/abs/1705.01693

Source link

The article Experiments show that a few self-driving cars can dramatically improve traffic flow appeared first on Arabian Post.

Amazon’s new Alexa speaker has a screen too (Update)

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 09 May 2017 17:59:51 +0000

This photo provided by Amazon shows models of the Amazon Echo Show. Amazon is giving its voice-enabled Echo speaker a touch screen and video-calling capabilities as it competes with Google’s efforts at bringing “smarts” to the home. The new device, called Echo Show, goes on sale on June 28, 2017. Amazon says it’s also bringing calling and messaging features to its existing Echo and Echo Dot devices and the Alexa app for phones. (Amazon via AP)

Amazon on Tuesday unveiled the latest member of its family of devices powered by its Alexa digital assistant—this one with a touchscreen.

The new device called Echo Show steps up efforts by Amazon to be part of the connected home, and potentially create a market for a new kind of computing device.

The new device will sell for $229 and ships starting June 28, according to Amazon’s website. It will include the features of its other Echo devices along with video shown on a seven-inch touchscreen.

“With Echo Show, customers can watch video flash briefings and YouTube, and see music lyrics, smart home cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, and more,” said a blog post from Amazon developer anc chief evangelist for Echo devices David Isbitski.

Users will also be able to call or message others who also have an Echo or the Alexa application.

Last month the US online giant began selling its Echo Look gadget, which includes the voice-activated assistant but with a camera, allowing Alexa to offer fashion advice.

Amazon’s latest hardware foray comes after limited success with its Kindle and Fire tablets, but also a failure for its Fire smartphones.

This photo provided by Amazon shows an Amazon Echo Show on display in a living room setting. Amazon is giving its voice-enabled Echo speaker a touch screen and video-calling capabilities as it competes with Google’s efforts at bringing “smarts” to the home. The new device, called Echo Show, goes on sale on June 28, 2017. Amazon says it’s also bringing calling and messaging features to its existing Echo and Echo Dot devices and the Alexa app for phones. (Amazon via AP)

The new Echo Show “looks like a lot of other products that have been launched in the past,” said analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis in a tweet. “Unlike those, it will sell.”

Ian Fogg of the research firm IHS Markit said on Twitter: “What’s most interesting about #Echo Show is the extent it is different & enhanced from simply a combination of Echo + Fire tablet.”

More options

Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research said the new device adds additional features to the Alexa family by giving consumers a screen option.

“I don’t think all voice assistants need to have screens, but Amazon is wise to give people the option,” Dawson said in a blog post.

“What we’re seeing is Amazon using its smart original foray into and early dominance of this space as a beachhead to spread into lots of other areas.”

But Dawson echoed comments made by other observers that the Echo Show “isn’t attractive.”

In this Wednesday, July 29, 2015, file photo, Amazon’s Echo, a digital assistant that can be set up in a home or office to listen for various requests, such as for a song, a sports score, the weather, or even a book to be read aloud, is shown, in New York. Amazon is giving its voice-enabled Echo speaker a touch screen and video-calling capabilities as it competes with Google’s efforts at bringing “smarts” to the home. The new device, called Echo Show, goes on sale on June 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

“If there’s one area where Amazon’s various bits of hardware have always struggled, it’s design,” he said.

“There’s no real consistency or style, and as I said last week, this thing looks like a miniature version of one of those old massive tube TVs.”

Amazon has dominated the category of connected speakers since 2014 when it introduced its first Echo, which responds to voice commands and allows users to order goods or rides and control connected appliances.

A survey released Monday by research firm eMarketer found Amazon’s Echo speakers held 70.6 percent of the US market, compared with 23.8 percent for Google Home and 5.6 percent for others including Lenovo, LG, Harmon Kardon and Mattel.

The report said 35.6 million Americans will use a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month this year, a jump of 128.9 percent over last year.

Separately Monday, Samsung-owned Harman Kardon announced the release of its new Invoke speaker powered by Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana and integrating Skype for making calls using the device.

Explore further:
Amazon leads surging connected speakers market: survey

Source link

The article Amazon’s new Alexa speaker has a screen too (Update) appeared first on Arabian Post.

Right research and development investments are ‘good bets’ for both climate and economies, say researchers

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 09 May 2017 12:57:17 +0000

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Investing in new ways of utility-scale electricity storage and capturing carbon to store underground should be a priority for governments aiming to meet the greenhouse gas and ‘green energy’ targets set out in the Paris Agreement despite shrinking research and development budgets, suggests a new paper published today in Nature Energy.

Researchers analyzed a range of studies and expert reports on public energy R&D investments to uncover common threads and trends – pulling together the current state of knowledge on cost-effective investments across a range of energy technologies.

Laura Anadon from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies and colleagues from the universities of Bocconi and Massachusetts Amherst, say the new paper identifies those energy technologies that appear to be “good bets”: technologies that become more cost-effective as either climate policy becomes more stringent or R&D budgets tighten.

They say the right tech investments will help economies by reducing energy costs – even creating new industries, in some cases – at the same time as reducing the emissions that are damaging the environment.

“Innovation is the driver of most economies, and can help us address environmental threats such as climate change and local air pollution while reducing the costs to taxpayers. But figuring out where to invest dollars or euros to best spur innovation is difficult,” says Anadon.

Investing into research on new ways of storing electricity and capturing carbon to store underground should increase as both technologies provide “more flexibility in the energy system” say the research team. Utility scale electricity storage allows for the increased integration of renewable energy sources into current national grid systems – as renewables themselves can be affected by unforeseen “fluctuations”.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) also provides energy systems with greater flexibility and “gives the world a little breathing room in addressing climate change,” say the researchers. “CCS sucks carbon emissions out of the atmosphere, so it allows for the use of coal to continue while alternatives are developed. When used in conjunction with biomass energy, such as energy from trees or corn stover, it can suck emissions while generating electricity,” say the researchers.

The researchers also found that funding solar power development as well as advanced batteries for use in environmentally friendly vehicles should also increase as R&D budgets decrease (although they note that investments in low-carbon R&D should increase).

“Solar power has huge potential, and cleaner vehicle technologies – particularly better batteries for electric vehicles – will allow us to reduce emissions from transportation, which now makes up a quarter of the US greenhouse gas emissions,” says Erin Baker, coauthor from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The researchers say their findings are extremely timely, as the second ministerial meeting of the Mission Innovation initiative will be held in Beijing next month to discuss the future focus of energy technology investment.

Mission Innovation is described as a global initiative comprising of 22 countries and the European Union, which aims to “dramatically accelerate clean energy innovation”. As part of the initiative, launch at the Paris climate change conference in 2015, participating countries committed to doubling their clean energy R&D investments over five years.

“Climate change is a huge issue, but some governments are concerned that the cost of addressing it will be economic competitiveness. Investing in cutting-edge technologies that can cost-effectively reduce the health and environmental toll of current energy technologies, while at the same time help the economy by reducing energy costs is a win-win situation,” says coauthor Valentina Bossetti from Bocconi University.

Adds Cambridge’s Laura Anadon: “Our work pulls together the research that can help Europe to continue to address climate change, meeting the pledges made by many of the current EU countries, including the UK, to double public energy R&D investment while increasing competitiveness through good bets on energy technologies.”

“This research contains insights that can help the US to continue addressing climate change even if Department of Energy budgets are reduced under the Trump administration.”

Explore further:
A new study details why it’s prudent to invest in carbon-free electricity now

More information:
Laura Díaz Anadón et al, Integrating uncertainty into public energy research and development decisions, Nature Energy (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.71

Source link

The article Right research and development investments are ‘good bets’ for both climate and economies, say researchers appeared first on Arabian Post.

Dutch open ‘world’s largest offshore’ wind farm

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 09 May 2017 07:55:54 +0000

But the Dutch government has committed to ensuring that some 14 percent of its energy comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020

Dutch officials on Monday opened what is being billed as one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, with 150 turbines spinning in action far out in the North Sea.

Over the next 15 years, the Gemini windpark, which lies some 85 kilometres (53 miles) off the northern coast of The Netherlands, will meet the energy needs of about 1.5 million people.

At full winds the windpark has a generating capacity of some 600 megawatts, and will help supply some 785,000 Dutch households with renewable energy, the company said.

“We are now officially in the operational stage,” the company’s managing director Matthias Haag told AFP, celebrating the completion of a project first conceived in 2010.

The 2.8-billion-euro ($3 billion) project is a collaboration between the Canadian independent renewable energy company Northland Power, wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Wind Power, Dutch maritime contractor Van Oord and waste processing company HVC.

It has been “quite a complex” undertaking, Haag said, “particularly as this windpark lies relatively far offshore… so it took quite a lot of logistics”.

Gemini will contribute about 13 percent of the country’s total renewable energy supply, and about 25 percent of its wind power, he added.

It will also help reduce emissions of carbon-dioxide emissions, among the so-called greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, by 1.25 million tons, the company says.

The Netherlands remains dependant on fossil fuels which still make up about 95 percent of its energy supply, according to a 2016 report from the ministry of economics affairs.

But the Dutch government has committed to ensuring that some 14 percent of its energy comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020, and 16 percent by 2023, with the aim of being a carbon neutral by 2050.

Gemini “is seen as a stepping stone” in The Netherlands, and has “shown that a very large project can be built on time, and in a very safe environment,” Haag added.

Explore further:
Shell-led consortium to build 700MW offshore Dutch wind farm

Source link

The article Dutch open ‘world’s largest offshore’ wind farm appeared first on Arabian Post.

Ditch the Stradivarius? New violins sound better: study

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 09 May 2017 02:54:31 +0000

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Despite the lofty reputation of old violins by Italian masters such as Antonio Stradivari, blindfolded listeners in concert halls in New York and Paris say they preferred the sound of newer instruments.

The latest salvo in the long-running debate over which violins best project sound appeared Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal.

“Because Old Italian instruments are now priced beyond the reach of the vast majority of players, it seems important to test the fundamental assumption of their tonal superiority,” said the study, led by Claudia Fritz, a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Stradivarius violins were made in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, the instruments often fetch millions of dollars.

Experts say these antiques possess the curious ability to sound quieter under the player’s ear, yet project sound farther and better in a concert hall than newer models.

So researchers asked musically versed listeners to compare three Stradivarius violins to three newer models, based on listener preference and sound projection.

One test was conducted in a 300-seat concert hall near Paris, involving 55 listeners. The second involved 82 listeners in an 860-seat hall in New York.

The instruments were played behind a screen by blindfolded soloists—sometimes with an orchestra, sometimes without.

“Regardless of musical experience, listeners preferred new over old violins and found that new violins projected sound better than old violins,” concluded the study.

Both players and listeners were “unable to consistently distinguish new from old violins,” it added.

“Contrary to conventional wisdom and practice, soloists might benefit from playing new rather than old violins during auditions and competitions, provided the violins’ provenance is shielded from the judges.”

Two of the study’s authors made a conflict of interest disclosure. One was employed by a studio that builds violins and violas, and other works for a company which manufactures orchestral strings.

A 2014 study based on 10 professional violinists also found that musicians—when they were unaware of which were old or new—preferred newer instruments.

After playing each instrument, first in a rehearsal room and later in a concert hall, six chose new violins and four chose old ones.

Explore further:
In blind test, soloists like new violins over old (Update)

More information:
Claudia Fritz el al., “Listener evaluations of new and Old Italian violins,” PNAS (2017). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1619443114

Source link

The article Ditch the Stradivarius? New violins sound better: study appeared first on Arabian Post.

Expert rock climbing routes recreated indoors using 3-D modeling and digital fabrication

The Arabian Post Network — Mon, 08 May 2017 21:53:22 +0000

A crux of an outdoor climbing route (left) vs. one using fabricated holds (right). Credit: Dartmouth College

Through a combination of 3-D modeling, digital fabrication and other techniques, a Dartmouth-led research team has replicated sections of popular, outdoor rock climbing routes on an indoor climbing wall. The study demonstrates how these technologies can be used strategically to reproduce large-scale environments by considering how users interact with such sites. The study may be the first of its kind.

The research will be presented on May 9 at the 35th Annual ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Denver, Colo., and will be published as part of the conference proceedings.

The research team reconstructed the most challenging sections or “cruxes” of two expert climbing sites outside, New Hampshire’s “Things As They Are Now (TATAN)” and Utah’s “Pilgrimage,” on a climbing wall indoors. Both sites have a difficulty rating of 5.12a. The study focused on the key rock features in each crux that the climber used for the ascent, as fabricating an entire crux would be cost prohibitive.

To replicate the climbing routes indoors, the team created 3D reconstructions of the rock walls using multi-view stereo. They also shot reference video of the climber’s ascent to capture where he supported his body and to estimate his skeletal poses, including the contact regions for his hands and feet on the rock wall. This information was critical to isolating the rock wall’s geometry, which informed the shapes of the holds and where they would need to be fastened later on the indoor wall.

The video will load shortly

Once the routes, rock features and climbing holds were 3D modeled, the team used rapid prototyping, and molding and casting techniques, to create climbing holds similar to those found at indoor climbing gyms. The holds are first fabricated out of foam using a CNC router, which naturally has a gritty texture; then the final hold is cast with high strength resin.

The study compared climbers’ moves on the indoor replicas to those outdoors and found a close visual match between the climbers’ poses on the original and replication. The climbers agreed that the movement felt similar and indicated that they liked the idea of climbing a replica of a route that was located nearly 2,000 miles away.

“We’re bridging between large-scale and small-scale fabrication. By fabricating only key pieces of the rock face, we’re able to recreate outdoor environments without the need for oversized gantries or other non-standard manufacturing equipment,” says lead author and rock climbing enthusiast, Emily Whiting, an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College. Whiting and co-author Ladislav Kavan, an assistant professor at the University of Utah, used to climb together when they were postdocs at ETH Zurich. “Since there’s limited time and accessibility at remote climbing locations, the ability to train at a convenient indoor gym can make the difference between success and failure,” adds Whiting.

Outdoor climbing routes have long served as a natural source of inspiration for creating training tools for the climbing community. For example, the “campus board,” an inclined board with thin horizontal slats, which was invented by Wolfgang Güllich in 1988, continues to be found in many indoor climbing gyms today. It is credited with enabling some of the best climbers to help train for some of the toughest terrain in the world. In like manner, replicas of outdoor routes using fabricated holds have the potential to provide climbers with invaluable site-specific training.

The team hopes that their work inspires future research in environment-scale fabrication as well as related scientific and technological questions, including measuring and replicating friction properties of natural materials, and studying the biomechanics of human locomotion in challenging conditions.

Explore further:
Rock climbers consistently risking injury and pain to maximise performance

Source link

The article Expert rock climbing routes recreated indoors using 3-D modeling and digital fabrication appeared first on Arabian Post.

Researchers create touchpads with a can of spray paint

The Arabian Post Network — Mon, 08 May 2017 16:52:30 +0000

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute have developed a low-cost method of turning a wide variety of surfaces into touchpads, such as this steering wheel Credit: Future Interfaces Group

Touch sensing is most common on small, flat surfaces such as smartphone or tablet screens. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, however, can turn surfaces of a wide variety of shapes and sizes into touchpads using tools as simple as a can of spray paint.

Walls, furniture, steering wheels, toys and even Jell-O can be turned into touch sensors with the technology, dubbed Electrick.

The “trick” is to apply electrically conductive coatings or materials to objects or surfaces, or to craft objects using conductive materials. By attaching a series of electrodes to the conductive materials, researchers showed they could use a well-known technique called electric field tomography to sense the position of a finger touch.

“For the first time, we’ve been able to take a can of spray paint and put a touch screen on almost anything,” said Chris Harrison, assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and head of the Future Interfaces Group. The group will present Electrick at CHI 2017, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, this week in Denver.

Until now, large touch surfaces have been expensive and irregularly shaped, or flexible touch surfaces have been largely available only in research labs. Some methods have relied on computer vision, which can be disrupted if a camera’s view of a surface is blocked. The presence of cameras also raises privacy concerns.

With Electrick, conductive touch surfaces can be created by applying conductive paints, bulk plastics or carbon-loaded films, such as Desco’s Velostat, among other materials.

The video will load shortly

HCII Ph.D. student Yang Zhang said Electrick is both accessible to hobbyists and compatible with common manufacturing methods, such as spray coating, vacuum forming and casting/molding, as well as 3D printing.

Like many touchscreens, Electrick relies on the shunting effect—when a finger touches the touchpad, it shunts a bit of electric current to ground. By attaching multiple electrodes to the periphery of an object or conductive coating, Zhang and his colleagues showed they could localize where and when such shunting occurs. They did this by using electric field tomography—sequentially running small amounts of current through the electrodes in pairs and noting any voltage differences.

The tradeoff, in comparison to other touch input devices, is accuracy. Even so, Electrick can detect the location of a finger touch to an accuracy of one centimeter, which is sufficient for using the touch surface as a button, slider or other control, Zhang said.

Zhang, Harrison and Gierad Laput, another HCII Ph.D. student, used Electrick to add touch sensing to surfaces as large as a 4-by-8-foot sheet of drywall, as well as objects as varied as a steering wheel, the surface of a guitar and a Jell-O mold of a brain. Even Play-Doh can be made interactive with Electrick.

The technology was used to make an interactive smartphone case—opening applications such as a camera based on how the user holds the phone—and a game controller that can change the position and combinations of buttons and sliders based on the game being played or the player’s preferences.

Zhang said the Electrick surfaces proved durable. Adding a protective coating atop the conductive paints and sheeting also is possible.

Explore further:
SkinTrack technology turns arm into smartwatch touchpad

Source link

The article Researchers create touchpads with a can of spray paint appeared first on Arabian Post.

Iceland drills 4.7 km down into volcano to tap clean energy

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 06 May 2017 09:35:45 +0000

Iceland says its geothermal power station at Reykjanes can produce clean energy independent from fossil fuels by generating electricity from the heat stored inside the earth

It’s named after a Nordic god and drills deep into the heart of a volcano: “Thor” is a rig that symbolises Iceland’s leading-edge efforts to produce powerful clean energy.

If successful, the experimental project could produce up to 10 times more energy than an existing conventional gas or oil well, by generating electricity from the heat stored inside the earth: in this case, volcanic areas.

Launched in August last year, the drilling was completed on January 25, reaching a record-breaking depth of 4,659 metres (nearly 3 miles).

At this depth, engineers hope to access hot liquids under extreme pressure and at temperatures of 427 degrees C (800 F), creating steam that turns a turbine to generate clean electricity.

Iceland’s decision to harness the heat inside the earth in a process known as geothermal energy dates back to the 1970s and the oil crisis.

But the new geothermal well is expected to generate far more energy, as the extreme heat and pressure at that depth makes the water take the form of a “supercritical” fluid, which is neither gas nor liquid.

“We expect to get five to 10 times more power from the well than a conventional well today,” said Albert Albertsson, an engineer at the Icelandic energy company HS Orka, involved in the drilling project.

To supply electricity and hot water to a city like Reykjavik with 212,000 inhabitants, “we would need 30-35 conventional high temperature wells” compared to only three or five supercritical wells, says Albertsson. The cost would be much less.

Scientists and the team working on the “Thor” drill project have two years to determine its success and the economic feasibility of the experiment, which is called the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP).

Situated not far from the Blue Lagoon, whose steaming blue waters attracted more than one million tourists last year, the IDDP overlooks craters formed by the last volcanic eruption 700 years ago that covered this part of the Reykjanes peninsula with a sea of lava.

The peninsula’s moon-like landscape also attracted NASA training missions in 1965 and 1967, aiming to prepare astronauts for unknown landscapes they might encounter on the moon.

Engineer Albert Albertsson says Iceland’s geothermal well could generate five to 10 times more power than a conventional well

CO2 emissions rising

A Nordic island nation, rich in geysers with fountainlike jets of water and steam, hot springs and breathtaking volcanoes, Iceland is currently the only country in the world with 100 percent renewable electricity. Geothermal accounts for 25 percent, while the rest comes from hydroelectric dams.

But is Iceland a model for clean energy?

The answer is complex, according to Martin Norman, a Norwegian sustainable finance specialist at Greenpeace.

Although geothermal energy is still preferable to gas, coal and oil, it’s not “completely renewable and without problems,” he said.

“As soon as you start drilling you have issues to it, such as sulphur pollution and CO2 emission and they need to find solutions to deal with it,” he added.

Albertsson agreed but said geothermal emissions were only “a fraction” compared to those produced by oil and natural gas. He added that recycling methods are progressing rapidly.

Iceland prides itself on being at the forefront of renewable energy, yet “it is far from meeting the international objectives in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Norman said.

The Institute of Economic Studies at the University of Iceland said in a February report that the country will not be able to abide by the COP21 climate change agreement signed in Paris in 2015.

Greenhouse gas emissions are rising in all sectors of the economy, except in fisheries and agriculture, it said.

And they are predicted to rise by between 53 and 99 percent by 2030 from 1999 levels, a far cry from the island nation’s COP21 summit pledge to slash carbon pollution by 40 percent compared to the same benchmark.

Geothermal energy already accounts for a quarter of Iceland’s 100 percent renewable electricity generation—but Greenpeace is not yet convinced the country’s plans make it a model for clean energy

‘Costa del Reykjavik’

Iceland’s heavy and energy-intensive—aluminium, silicon—industries and booming tourism are some of the causes.

The land of ice and fire, with a population of 338,000, expects to welcome more than two million foreign visitors this year.

With the frequent landing of charter planes, coaches weaving through the interior of the country, quads and powerful 4×4 driving over the black lava landscape and hotels sprouting up in the capital, the growing volume of holidaymakers is taking a toll on Iceland’s environment.

Norman, of Greenpeace, fears the capital will turn into “a Costa del Reykjavik” due to the lure of the profits to be made and result in Icelanders giving up the country’s unique nature.

In an interview with AFP, Icelandic Environment Minister Bjort Olafsdottir said she hopes her nation will find the political will to reach its COP21 goals.

“If we do nothing, if we don’t take strong actions, we won’t reach the Paris agreement goals. But that’s not the plan,” she said.

The current government has doubled taxes on CO2 emissions and financial incentives for polluting industries have been removed, she argued.

“It is the first step, probably it is not enough. We have to do it with the help of the industry,” she said.

Iceland’s long-term goal is to reduce the country’s dependence on hydrocarbons by having all cars run on electric power.

Explore further:
Geothermal power potential seen in Iceland drilling project

Source link

The article Iceland drills 4.7 km down into volcano to tap clean energy appeared first on Arabian Post.

First test flight of stratospheric solar plane (Update)

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 06 May 2017 04:34:24 +0000

Raphael Domjan, who initiated the SolarStratos project, Raphael Domjan, shakes hands with pilot Damian Hischier after the first test flight

The first solar plane aimed at reaching the stratosphere made an initial low-altitude test flight over Switzerland Friday.

The SolarStratos, a super-light, sleek, white two-seater aircraft with long wings covered with solar panels, took off from Payerne at 8:00 am (0600 GMT), according to an AFP photographer at the airbase in western Switzerland.

“The maiden flight of the prototype … went off without a hitch,” the SolarStratos team said in a statement.

Pilot Damian Hischier took the craft for a seven-minute test flight, reaching an altitude of 300 metres (nearly 1,000 feet), it said.

“The group will now study the test flight results before scheduling a longer flight at higher altitude,” the statement added.

Eventually, the plane is expected to be able to fly at an altitude of 25,000 metres (82,000 feet), an impossible feat using a propulsion-driven aircraft.

Swiss adventurer Raphael Domjan, who is behind the project, aims to take the plane on its first stratospheric flight next year.

Harness potential

“We must continue to work hard to learn how to harness the potential of this solar-powered treasure,” he said Friday.

“We want to demonstrate that with current technology, it is possible to go beyond what fossil fuels offer.”

The SolarStratos is 8.5 metres long, with long wings covered with 22 square metres (237 square feet) of solar panels, which are meant to provide it with 24 hours of autonomous flying time.

The plane weighs just 450 kilos (992 pounds).

Domjan, who in 2012 became the first person to sail around the world in a fully solar-powered boat, is aiming to go on a five-hour mission into the stratosphere: two hours up and three hours back.

The stratosphere lies above Earth’s lowest atmospheric layer, called the troposphere.

At middle latitudes, the stratosphere runs from a lower boundary of about 10,000 metres to an upper boundary of about 50,000 metres.

Until now, reaching the stratosphere has required large quantities of energy or helium.

Reaching an altitude of 25,000 metres will pose huge technical and human challenges, SolarStratos points out on its website.

The plane and pilot will also be subject to temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit), it said.

And for weight reasons, the aircraft will not be pressurised, forcing Domjan to wear a spacesuit, meaning he will not be able to get out of the plane using a parachute in the case of an emergency, SolarStratos said.

The project comes after two of Domjan’s compatriots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, completed the first-ever round-the-globe trip in a solar plane last July, in a bid to showcase the possibilities for the future of renewable energy.

Explore further:
Swiss unveil stratospheric solar plane

Source link

The article First test flight of stratospheric solar plane (Update) appeared first on Arabian Post.

Shape-changing fog screen invented

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 05 May 2017 23:33:48 +0000

There is something spooky about being able to see and talk to the pirate Blackbeard while one walks down a dark alley and then stepping right through him as he disappears into thin air. Such entertainment experiences are now possible thanks to a shape-changing fog screen that has been developed at the University of Sussex.

The mid-air display allows users to reach through it and interact with 2D and 3D objects, all the while changing shape and position to optimize visibility, facilitate interaction or flexibly adapt to single or multiple users interacting with the floating content.

While shape-changing displays and fog screens already exist, in labs at least, this is the first time the two technologies have been combined, which opens up new possibilities.

The invention, called MistForm, is being presented next week (Wednesday 10 May) in Denver, USA, at the world’s biggest conference on human-computer interaction, called CHI 2017.

Fog displays scatter light in an uneven way – a different amount of light in different directions. By understanding these scattering patterns and controlling the shape, common visibility and brightness problems can be addressed. Also, by making use of shape reconstruction and 3D projection algorithms, MistForm adjusts its shape to better support user interaction, all while removing any image distortion caused by projecting on moving, curved fog surfaces.

The video will load shortly

Dr Diego Martinez Plasencia, a Lecturer in the Interact Lab at the University of Sussex’s School of Engineering and Informatics, said: “This has the potential to enable new forms of interaction and collaboration with computers, liberating users from fixed, static screens and opening up whole new interactive spaces.

“This latest study builds upon early concepts to provide a far more enjoyable and reliable user experience, by combining two exciting technologies to combat the issues of distortion and uneven brightness that we often see with fog screens.

“With other 3D display technologies your eyes need to focus on the display surface, even if you see an object “popping out” of the screen. If you then try to touch it, your eyes will need to focus either on your hand or on the display, which soon can lead to eye fatigue (unless the 3D object and your hand are really close to the display surface). MistForm can adapt to these scenarios, moving the display surface so that both the object and the hand remain comfortably visible. With this kind of technique, we can provide comfortable direct hand 3D interaction in all the range your arms can reach.”

MistForm is roughly the size of a 39-inch TV screen and is formed of fog stabilised by curtains of air. The screen can move towards and away from the user and can bend into numerous different shapes. For example, it can curve around two collaborators, providing optimum visibility for both people, or it can take on a triangular shape if those two people need to work on different areas of the screen independently.

The display is projected from above and motion trackers detect the user’s movements and intentions, allowing the display to adapt accordingly.

Explore further:
Sneak a peek through the mist to technology of the future (w/ video)

More information:
MistForm: Adaptive Shape Changing Fog Screens, dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3025453.3025608

Source link

The article Shape-changing fog screen invented appeared first on Arabian Post.

How Burger King revealed the hackability of voice assistants

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 05 May 2017 18:33:06 +0000

In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, file photo, Google Home, right, sits on display near a Pixel phone following a product event, in San Francisco. Voice assistants such as Google Home, Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa have always been susceptible to accidental hijack. Burger King’s manipulation of Google Home illustrates the vulnerabilities intrinsic to voice assistants that can be targeted by brands, or worse, hackers. But the stunt might help speed up the next developments for home voice assistants: individual voice recognition and even image recognition. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Burger King pulled a pretty juicy marketing stunt last month that drew plenty of attention—not just to the Whopper, but also to the intrinsic vulnerabilities of a new type of voice-activated gadget.

The fast food chain’s 15-second television ad targeted Google Home, a speaker that can answer questions and control other smart appliances. When an actor in the ad said “OK, Google” and asked a question about the Whopper, Google Home obediently began reading the burger’s ingredients in homes around the country—effectively extending the commercial for however long it took someone to shout “OK, Google, stop!”

Google and Wikipedia quickly made fixes to shut it down. Though annoying, the stunt may have done some good by highlighting how easy it is to hijack such devices. (Just imagine a burglar spying a voice assistant and asking it to unlock all the doors.) It could also speed the development of home voice assistants with better security.

“It’s a wakeup call,” said Earl Perkins, a digital security analyst at the research firm Gartner. “It’s a harbinger of things to come.”

TRIGGER WARNING

Voice assistants such as Google Home, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Echo devices have always been susceptible to accidental hijack. A Google ad during the Super Bowl that used the phrase “OK, Google” reportedly set off people’s devices. And in a January story that briefly turned a family into media celebrities, a woman’s 6-year old daughter ordered a dollhouse and sugar cookies simply by asking Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa for them.

Since the devices are so new—the Amazon Echo debuted in 2015, Google Home last year—they’re still having growing pains. And they’re growing in popularity; Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that Amazon sold 3 million Echo devices in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2016, bringing the total to more than 8 million. Amazon doesn’t release sales figures.

Many experts believe that deliberate attempts to trigger voice assistants will be short-lived. Among other things, brands have to face the consequences of potentially annoying millions of people.

“Burger King was doing what the Burger King brand is known to do, stir controversy and make sure it gets lots of coverage,” Forrester principal analyst James McQuivey said. “Very few brands want to do that.”

Of course, spammers and other bottom-feeding marketers can still try to implement the technique. But voice assistants already have a few ways to block them.

THREATS AND COUNTERMEASURES

In this March 2, 2016, file photo, David Limp, Amazon Senior Vice President of Devices, pushes down on an Echo Dot in San Francisco. Voice assistants such as Google Home, Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa have always been susceptible to accidental hijack. In January 2017, a woman’s 6-year old daughter ordered a dollhouse and sugar cookies simply by asking Alexa for them through an Echo Dot. Since these devices are still new, they’re still having growing pains. But the next generation of voice assistants may come with better security, including individual voice recognition and even image recognition. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Amazon already makes sure its TV commercials and those of its partners can’t inadvertently trigger the speaker. Developers that provide Echo with “skills” that let it, for instance, order pizza, are also prohibited from creating Alexa commands that would trigger ads. Google says it also has techniques to block TV ads from activating Google Home. Neither company provided details on those techniques.

Voice assistants are still in their “very early days,” Google says; the company plans to “monitor and learn as we go.”

Hackers might also be a threat. But because voice assistants are so new and limited in scope, more established connected devices such as webcams, routers and printers pose more of a threat for now.

“It’s not that we won’t see some creative or unique instance (of hacking), but I don’t think this is going to be the next great wave of cybercrime,” said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at the security company McAfee.

MORE SECURITY TO COME

But before long, the devices are going to need better security. “When you move into a world of voice, some of the rules that we’re accustomed to, related to security for computers, change,” Gartner’s Perkins said.

Exactly how that works could depend on exactly what task a voice assistant is performing. Asking about the weather requires less security than say, shopping or accessing a bank account.

Amazon already has options for setting up security codes to shop, make financial transactions or unlock and start cars.

Of course, someone could always overhear you reciting a security phrase. A better solution, and one that companies are hard at work on, would be to identify a person’s voice, much the way Google and Facebook identify faces today. Beyond improving security, that technology could help the device personalize recommendations or even ads for the individual, not the whole family.

Apple already lets users voice-train its Siri digital assistant so it’s more likely to activate only when it hears a specific voice. Amazon has a voice training option for Alexa. Google Home can recognize up to six different voices, though it won’t prevent unauthorized users from activating the assistant.

Experts suggest that companies will eventually add cameras to voice assistants. Amazon’s new Echo Look has a camera, but it’s for offering fashion advice. Combining a facial scan with voice recognition would definitely beef up security, although they’ll also create new privacy concerns.

“Without any security or minimal security, (voice assistants are) going to be a fat target,” Perkins said. “There will be all kinds of innovation associated with compromising these systems.”

Explore further:
Google Home’s assistant can now recognize different voices

Source link

The article How Burger King revealed the hackability of voice assistants appeared first on Arabian Post.

Study highlights growing significance of cryptocurrencies

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 05 May 2017 13:31:45 +0000

Credit: fdecomite

More than 3 million people (three times previous estimates) are estimated to be actively using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, finds the first global cryptocurrency benchmarking study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

While many members of the general public may have heard of “bitcoin”, the first decentralised cryptocurrency launched in 2009, a new report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) paints a broader picture of “cryptocurrencies”.

The report shows that cryptocurrencies – broadly defined as digital assets using cryptography to secure transactions between peers without the need for a central bank or other authority performing that role – are increasingly being used, stored, transacted and mined around the globe.

The Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study gathered data from more than 100 cryptocurrency companies in 38 countries, capturing an estimated 75 per cent of the cryptocurrency industry.

Prior to this research, little hard data existed on how many people around the world actively use cryptocurrencies. The conventional wisdom has been that the number of people using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was around 1 million people; however, based on newly collected data, including the percentage of the estimated 35 million cryptocurrency “wallets” (software applications that store cryptocurrencies) that are in active use, the CCAF research team estimates that there at least 3 million people actively using cryptocurrency today.

While bitcoin remains the dominant cryptocurrency both in terms of market capitalisation and usage, it has conceded market cap share to other cryptocurrencies – declining from 86 per cent to 72 per cent in the past two years.

The study by the CCAF at Cambridge Judge Business School breaks down the cryptocurrency industry into four key sectors – exchanges, wallets, payments, and mining. Highlights of the findings are:

Exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges provide on-off ramps to cryptocurrency systems by offering services to users wishing to buy or sell cryptocurrency. This sector was the first to emerge in the cryptocurrency industry, and has the most operating entities and employs the most people. Currently, about 52 per cent of small exchanges hold a formal government license, compared to only 35 per cent of large exchanges.

Wallets

Wallets have evolved from simple software programs to sophisticated applications that offer a variety of technical features and services. As a result, the lines between wallets and exchanges are increasingly blurred, with 52 per cent of wallets providing an integrated currency exchange feature.

Payments

Cryptocurrency payment companies generally act as gateways between cryptocurrency users and the broader economy, bridging national currencies and cryptocurrencies. They can fit into two broad categories: firms that use cryptocurrency primarily as a “payment rail” for fast and efficient cross-border transactions, and firms that facilitate the use of cryptocurrency for both users and merchants. The study found that the size of the average business-to-business cryptocurrency payment ($1,878) dwarfs peer-to-peer and consumer-to-business cryptocurrency payments.

Mining

In the absence of a central authority, cryptocurrencies are created by a process called “mining” – usually the performance of a large number of computations to solve a cryptographic “puzzle”. The study shows how cryptocurrency mining has evolved from a hobby activity into a professional, capital-intensive industry in which bitcoin miners earned more than $2 billion in mining revenues since 2009. The cryptocurrency mining map indicates that a significant proportion of publicly known mining facilities are concentrated in certain Chinese provinces.

The study found that more than 1,800 people are now working full time in the cryptocurrency industry, as more companies are engaged across various cryptocurrency sectors.

“Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been seen by some as merely a passing fad or insignificant, but that view is increasingly at odds with the data we are observing,” says Dr Garrick Hileman, Research Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School, who co-authored the study with Michel Rauchs, Research Assistant at CCAF.

“Currently, the combined market value of all cryptocurrencies is nearly $40 billion, which represents a level of value creation on the order of Silicon Valley success stories like Airbnb,” Dr Hileman says in a foreword to the study. “The advent of cryptocurrency has also sparked many new business platforms with sizable valuations of their own, along with new forms of peer-to-peer economic activity.”

Explore further:
Towards equal access to digital coins

More information:
The report is available online: www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/global-cryptocurrency/

Source link

The article Study highlights growing significance of cryptocurrencies appeared first on Arabian Post.

‘Smart’ denim promises touchscreen tech clothes

The Arabian Post Network — Fri, 05 May 2017 08:30:23 +0000

People touch specially woven Project Jacquard fabric being used in new ‘smart’ Levi denim jackets

A young man in a white t-shirt pulls on a dark blue denim trucker jacket, tucks his smartphone in an inside pocket and puts in-ear headphones in his right ear.

He mounts a fixed-gear bike with flat, slightly curved wide handlebars. Riding through the streets of San Francisco, he occasionally taps or swipes his right hand over the left cuff of his jacket, as the directions he’s listening to continually pop up on the screen of this advertisement.

It’s an ad from iconic US jeans maker Levi Strauss for Project Jacquard, an initiative with Google that the companies started two years ago for so-called “smart” denim.

The future of the popular fabric was the focus at a recent international fashion fair in Paris—after all most believe the word denim derives from the French “serge de Nimes”, a serge from the city of Nimes.

The fair featured many wearable innovations such as a waterproof jacket with sunscreen bands and a cable in the pocket to recharge a cellphone, or jeans that keep your body temperature stable.

Once mainly the purview of athletic gear—with moisture-wicking shirts and trousers and then clothing that can track motion, heart rate, and body temperature—the new trend for fashion designers is to take everyday wear and transform it using new technologies.

This is clothing made from specially woven fabric with touch-screen control capabilities that can be designed in such a way to visually stand out or go unnoticed depending on designers’ wishes.

French-based fashion company Spinal Design, for example, has created jeans that can give wearers with directions without having to whip out the mobile at every single intersection.

Through blue tooth sensors stitched into the jeans’ waistband, the smart phone stays out of sight.

“You put a destination into the pap (and) sensors will vibrate right if you need to turn right, left if you need to turn left,” Spinal innovation director Romain Spinal told AFP.

In 2015, the company from the eastern French town of Mulhouse designed a bikini that tells women when it’s time to apply more sun screen.

The two-piece retails for 149 euros ($163) and comes with a small detachable ultraviolet sensor that, through a smart phone or tablet, sends a “sun screen alert” when the sunbather’s skin needs more protective cream.

The detector is calibrated to the wearer’s skin type and how much of a tan she wants to get, and is “virtually devoid of any radiation,” Spinal said.

The Spinal jeans, made in France, cost 150 euros and also have email notification capabilities.

Models with their smartphones wear connected swimsuits by French company Spinali Design that tell when it’s time to put on more sunscreen

“They will vibrate differently depending on whether the message received is from your family, your friends or work, in a way that you won’t have to constantly check your email on weekends or on vacation,” Spinal said.

On their end, Google and Levi expect to release their denim jacket sometime this year, but it will come with a hefty $350 price tag due in part to its special interactive fabric that allows the jacket’s wearer to order various products online.

Environmental concerns

Other international etch and fashion companies have also jumped on the “smart” denim bandwagon.

Using thermo-regulated fabric and microfiber cloth popular in athletic wear, Brazilian textile maker Vicugna Tex til has designed denims that will keep the wearer’s core temperature stable.

American designer Cone Denim for its part has blended its denims with technical textile fibres from equipment used on motorcycles—this to better tout the sturdiness of its clothes.

But these companies recognise that there has to be more to “smart” jeans than just fashion sense and connected capabilities and that means making sure they are environmentally friendly.

“The consumer demands greater traceability and ecology, especially when it comes to denim because it is a product that is a bit controversial,” said Marion Foret, fashion products chief for Premiere Vision Paris, which organises trade shows for the textile and clothing sector, including the denim show.

Denim is a product “that doesn’t always carry the best reputation, so textile makers are forced to use more ecological processes,” Foret added, such as making denims with organic or traceable cotton, cleaning denims without water, and using dyes that won’t pollute the land.

In keeping with that trend, Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Wongen makes denims using fabrics from used and already worn jeans.

Others seek to keep consumers better informed like Pakistani manufacturer Artistic Fabric Mills which developed an application to retrace the history of the jeans.

But for some young fashion students the future of jeans is not all about technology.

“Connecting jeans to a smartphone is not necessarily what we want to have,” said Aurelia Martin, who studies fashion in Brussels.

“There are problems that are a little more essential in terms of production, the dye, the cotton, the (jeans’) pretty weak longevity, and the quality.”

Explore further:
Eco-friendly treatment for blue jeans offers alternative to controversial ‘sandblasting’

Source link

The article ‘Smart’ denim promises touchscreen tech clothes appeared first on Arabian Post.

Novel technique measures warpage in next-gen integrated circuits

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 04 May 2017 17:27:12 +0000

Figure 1: An X-ray diffraction image of a chip package containing four multi-stacked silicon die. The thickest silicon die (300 µm thick) is the large flat stripe, which experiences the least warpage as it is glued to the package lead frame (lead frame not imaged). The three “wiggly” strips are individual transmission section images for each of the three remaining die (each 50 µm thick) stacked upon the thicker silicon substrate. The significant variations from the “flat stripe” condition indicates that these three dies are subject to large warpages. The total width of this image is 4 mm. This single image, acquired in two seconds, was taken towards the centre of the chip package. Credit: Dublin-Durham-Freiburg team

As integrated circuit components are coming up against size limits, manufacturers are turning to new approaches based on stacking extremely thin wafers. However, the thin wafers easily warp under the stresses involved in fabrication, and measuring the stress and warpage has so far proven challenging.

In a paper published in the Journal of Applied Crystallography, Professor Patrick McNally’s team at Dublin City University, together with collaborators Brian Tanner at Durham University and Andreas Danilewsky at the University of Freiburg, report on a new technique using the Test beamline (B16) at Diamond Light Source to accurately, precisely, and verifiably measure the stress and warpage in individual silicon wafers. The researchers are now cooperating with industry partners to translate their approach into a tool which can be used for quality assurance and to improve fabrication processes. Meanwhile, they continue to work at Diamond to improve the technique and adapt it to different contexts and materials.

A stack of measurement trouble

In a 1965 paper, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore observed that the density of transistors in integrated circuits doubled every 18-24 months, a trend which has held well in the decades since. However, manufacturing techniques are nearing the limits of ‘Moore’s law’ as the components printed onto integrated circuits approach atomic dimensions. To continue improving performance, manufacturers are exploring a new direction by combining different chips, each with a specialised function, into a vertical package in a ‘more than Moore’ approach known as heterogeneous integration.

The new technique involves using wafers less than a tenth as thick as those currently in use. Since they are so thin – just 25 to 100 µm – the wafers are extremely flexible, but they are also subjected to extreme stress during the fabrication process. “Imagine you glue together four or five pieces of silicon, each thinner than a human hair, then heat them up to 100-200° C, and then stand on top of them with your boot. Maybe you jump up and down a bit. That’s the sort of damage that’s done as part of semiconductor processing,” explains Professor Patrick McNally of Dublin City University. The stress and resulting warpage of the wafers during manufacturing can lead to malfunctions, altered performance, and silicon ‘real estate’ lost to stress-related ‘keep out zones’ on the chip. To avoid these pitfalls, manufacturers are eager to understand how to manage stress and warpage in their design and fabrication processes.

So far, measuring the warpage of the individual silicon wafers without damaging them has been impossible, forcing people to use the warpage of the entire package as a proxy. Using the Test beamline (B16) at Diamond, the trio have developed a non-destructive technique to precisely and accurately measure the warpage of each wafer in a package through transmission X-ray diffraction imaging. To confirm their measurement technique, the team included samples with known curvature and displacement from IMEC in Belgium. “We’ve proven that it can be done reliably and verifiably,” said Professor McNally.

To industry and beyond

While the new technique shows great promise, “no one in the semiconductor business is going to back a synchrotron into their fabrication facility,” noted Professor McNally. The team has already successfully carried out preliminary trials with a commercial tool as an X-ray source, and work is underway with X-ray metrology companies to bring the technique into industry as a quality assurance tool. Improving the measurement speed of the commercial tools is a major outstanding challenge – measurements done in minutes at Diamond can take hours with commercial tools – but the team is pursuing avenues to improve this.

The technique offers an opportunity not only to measure warpage during fabrication but also to improve the design process. Mechanical engineers at a large chip company are working with the team to test the finite element models they use to predict stress and warpage in their designs. “The idea is that we provide a ‘sanity check’ on their modelling so they can use it to improve their designs,” said Professor McNally.

Meanwhile, the team is continuing to develop the approach using the facilities at Diamond, which underpins any advancements. The team has recently tested their new technique on chips, which were receiving power to measure how the warpage might change under different usage conditions. “We do our top end development at Diamond,” said Professor McNally, explaining that the ability to rapidly test and explore ideas at the synchrotron is crucial before they can be adapted for industry applications.

Explore further:
Computer model provides important clues for the production of tightly packed electronic components

More information:
B. K. Tanner et al. Nondestructive X-ray diffraction measurement of warpage in silicon dies embedded in integrated circuit packages, Journal of Applied Crystallography (2017). DOI: 10.1107/S1600576717003132

Source link

The article Novel technique measures warpage in next-gen integrated circuits appeared first on Arabian Post.

Does my algorithm work? There’s no shortcut for community detection

The Arabian Post Network — Thu, 04 May 2017 12:25:38 +0000

Metadata is not ground truth. In the space of all possible partitions of a real-world social network, the lower peak corresponds to the social group partition given by the metadata. The higher peak corresponds to a leader-follower partition within the network. Image courtesy Peel, Larremore, and Clauset. Credit: Santa Fe Institute

Community detection is an important tool for scientists studying networks. It provides descriptions of the large-scale network by dividing its nodes into related communities. To test community detection algorithms, researchers run the algorithm on known data from a real-world network and check to see if their results match up with existing node labels—metadata—from that network.

But a new paper published this week in Science Advances calls that approach into question.

Real-world networks are large and complex. Food webs, social networks, or genetic relationships may consist of hundreds, or even millions, of nodes. To understand the overarching layout of a large network, scientists design algorithms to divide the network’s nodes into significant groups, which make the network easier to understand. In other words, community detection allows a researcher to zoom out, seeing big patterns in the forest, instead of being caught up in the trees. In the past, researchers have used metadata as a sort of answer key or “ground truth” to verify that their community detection algorithms are performing well.

“Unfortunately, tempting as this practice is, with real-world data, there is no answer key, no ground truth,” explains Daniel Larremore, one of two lead authors of the paper and an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. “Our research rigorously shows that using metadata as ground truth to validate algorithms is fundamentally problematic and introduces biases without telling us what we really need to know: does my algorithm work?”

When scientists use metadata to validate algorithms, they limit the types of communities they can validate. Larremore likens this to a teacher leading a class discussion, and only responding to students who raise points the teacher is already familiar with.

“If we want creative algorithms that can handle all kinds of challenges, then restricting the answers to one set of “ground truth” metadata means we’re pushing our algorithms through this bottleneck of low diversity, and low creativity,” he says. “We’ll only ever get algorithms that solve a small and restricted set of problems.”

Having exposed the shortcomings of metadata as a test for community detection, Larremore and co-authors Leto Peel (Université Catholique de Louvain) and Aaron Clauset (SFI, CU Boulder) go on to quash any hope of creating a universal algorithm for detecting communities by their network structures. The paper mathematically proves the first No Free Lunch Theorem for community detection: any algorithm that’s exceptionally good at finding communities in one type of network must be exceptionally bad at finding communities in another.

David Wolpert, also of the Santa Fe Institute, first posited a No Free Lunch Theorem for machine learning algorithms in 1997.

The authors hope that by mathematically proving the futility of universal detection algorithms, they can, according to Larremore “free people up to work on specialist algorithms.”

The new paper curbs enthusiasm for finding any single, universally optimal approach to understanding complex network datasets. Still, the authors do see a constructive side to their findings. In the final section of their paper, they reverse the usual script. Instead of using metadata to validate an algorithm’s performance, as in the past, they introduce two new statistical approaches that use metadata in conjunction with the network itself to probe the more fundamental questions of network science: what are the deeper patterns between the nodes, links, and metadata alike, and how can we use these to learn about the system that the network represents?

Explore further:
Network paradox may help algorithms overcome ‘universal limitation’

More information:
Leto Peel et al. The ground truth about metadata and community detection in networks, Science Advances (2017). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602548

Source link

The article Does my algorithm work? There’s no shortcut for community detection appeared first on Arabian Post.

Engineering research focuses on bringing efficiency to network processes

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 03 May 2017 21:21:53 +0000

A graphical representation of a swath of Facebook users illustrates the distributed nature of this research. The nodes represent Facebook accounts and connections represent friendships. Credit: Isaac Klickstein

It is human nature to seek to spend the least amount of energy, time and cost on any given task to achieve a desirable result, whether that is working out at the gym, finding the best path to travel to work or buying cereal at the grocery.

Now University of New Mexico researchers have discovered through complex numerical modeling a method that could lead to ways to more efficiently perform a variety of tasks and processes, from drug delivery to advertising.

Francesco Sorrentino, UNM assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is the author of an article that recently published in Nature Communications called “Energy Scaling of Targeted Optimal Control of Complex Networks.” Co-authors on the paper are Isaac S. Klickstein and Afroza Shirin, both graduate students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The research group examined the problem of reducing the energy consumption when trying to control a large distributed system, such as the power grid, the food web or the Internet.

“It’s a very general type of problem,” Klickstein said. “We’re looking at how to reduce the energy or effort required to reach a certain goal. For instance, how much money do you need to put into a certain advertising campaign? Or if you’re an environmentalist, how much government regulation do you need to implement in order to increase animal populations. Our focus is to reduce the amount of effort or energy required.”

Klickstein said one of the most useful findings from the research, which spanned about two years, was that the effort can be reduced dramatically by simply focusing the goal of the control action toward only the elements that you care about most rather than the more traditional outlook of monitoring all elements.

“By keeping track of everything, the energy you must expend increases exponentially,” he said. “Instead, we say focus your action on only a few parts, say the population of one animal species or the power generation for one neighborhood. And what we’ve found with our research is that what you do for that small part will affect everybody else without having to focus on the whole population, so the level of impact can be determined and then used to make the decision whether that is an acceptable change.”

The concept is similar to using a sample size in a survey: If the goal is to survey those making $50,000 a year, the most efficient way is not to survey everyone, then go through all the data and just pick up the subset you’re interested in, but to focus your efforts initially on the group you’re interested in, Klickstein said.

He said the issue of applying a control action to influence a system has been a popular research topic, with most of the effort being put toward spreading a control action over more of the network (such as every single house that feeds into a power grid), but costs can be prohibitive with that kind of focus.

“We chose to keep the amount of locations of our control actions small and instead reduce the number of elements in the network we care about,” Klickstein said. “And lo and behold, we ended up seeing that we get essentially the same type of behavior by removing control action goals as previous papers got by increasing the number of control action locations.

This is significant because it proves that you can approach a problem in two different ways and get similar results, but ours is a cheaper solution,” said Klickstein. “You get all the benefits of having a few control locations (such as reduced cost and effort) but you get the benefit of accomplishing whatever task you want to.”

Sorrentino said that another significant finding of the research is that it now becomes possible to control systems that may not have been possible with past methods.

“If you request an action that is too large, you might not be able to do it at all, such as injecting too much energy into the power grid. Plus it is often cost-prohibitive,” he said. “By restricting the number of elements we care about and finding that the energy is reduced exponentially, we can make controlling this system visible whereas it would be invisible otherwise.”

Shirin said the next step in the research is to apply the theories to real-world systems, such as looking at biological systems as applied to the food web.

“There are a lot of species of some animals, but some of these species are going to waste while others are going extinct, so our goal could be to save a particular species,” she said. “This research will allow us to control just the portion we want to study, not the whole population.”

Klickstein said that with the continued advances in technology, making systems more and more interconnected, their research findings will become more relevant.

“The work we have done is very theoretical, but I do see there can be applications,” he said. “From self-driven cars to cloud storage to the smart grid, everything is becoming more distributed. These are systems that will need to perform complex operations, and it can’t take a lot of time. It can’t require a lot of effort. This type of directed control action I believe will help drive more efficient algorithms in the future.”

The group has recently started working with a group in biology that is working on drug development. Klickstein said that the hope is that their findings could give those who develop drugs information about what is needed for drugs that can be more efficient and targeted.

“We’re hoping we’ll be able to say, ‘Here are a few theoretical drugs. If you can develop these, we can promise you these are the best drugs,’ ” he said.

Although this research is all in the programming realm, another research group at UNM will be building a small play network using Arduino microcontrollers that will be able to test some of the theory.

“This will allow us to study problems we couldn’t study in real life, like the power grid or the food needed for a species to survive,” he said.

They are also hoping to connect with other research groups at other universities so their work can be applied to a variety of systems.

“It will take a lot of tuning of our work to apply to any specific system, but the possibilities are definitely out there,” Klickstein said.

Explore further:
Electronic control to ensure photovoltaic systems always work at maximum power

More information:
Isaac Klickstein et al, Energy scaling of targeted optimal control of complex networks, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15145

Source link

The article Engineering research focuses on bringing efficiency to network processes appeared first on Arabian Post.

Hand that ‘sees’ offers new hope to amputees

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 03 May 2017 16:21:00 +0000

Prototype of the hand that sees. Credit: Newcastle University

A new generation of prosthetic limbs which will allow the wearer to reach for objects automatically, without thinking—just like a real hand—are to be trialled for the first time.

Led by biomedical engineers at Newcastle University, UK, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the bionic hand is fitted with a camera which instantaneously takes a picture of the object in front of it, assesses its shape and size and triggers a series of movements in the hand.

Bypassing the usual processes which require the user to see the object, physically stimulate the muscles in the arm and trigger a movement in the prosthetic limb, the hand ‘sees’ and reacts in one fluid movement.

A small number of amputees have already trialled the new technology and now the Newcastle University team are working with experts at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to offer the ‘hands with eyes’ to patients at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.

Publishing their findings today in the Journal of Neural Engineering, co-author on the study Dr Kianoush Nazarpour, a Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering at Newcastle University, explains:

“Prosthetic limbs have changed very little in the past 100 years—the design is much better and the materials’ are lighter weight and more durable but they still work in the same way.

The video will load shortly

“Using computer vision, we have developed a bionic hand which can respond automatically—in fact, just like a real hand, the user can reach out and pick up a cup or a biscuit with nothing more than a quick glance in the right direction.

“Responsiveness has been one of the main barriers to artificial limbs. For many amputees the reference point is their healthy arm or leg so prosthetics seem slow and cumbersome in comparison.

“Now, for the first time in a century, we have developed an ‘intuitive’ hand that can react without thinking.”

Artificial vision for artificial hands

Recent statistics show that in the UK there are around 600 new upper-limb amputees every year, of which 50% are in the age range of 15-54 years old. In the US there are 500,000 upper limb amputees a year.

Current prosthetic hands are controlled via myoelectric signals – that is electrical activity of the muscles recorded from the skin surface of the stump.

Controlling them, says Dr Nazarpour, takes practice, concentration and, crucially, time.

Using neural networks—the basis for Artificial Intelligence—lead author on the study Ghazal Ghazaei showed the computer numerous object images and taught it to recognise the ‘grip’ needed for different objects.

“We would show the computer a picture of, for example, a stick,” explains Miss Ghazaei, who carried out the work as part of her PhD in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Newcastle University. “But not just one picture, many images of the same stick from different angles and orientations, even in different light and against different backgrounds and eventually the computer learns what grasp it needs to pick that stick up.

“So the computer isn’t just matching an image, it’s learning to recognise objects and group them according to the grasp type the hand has to perform to successfully pick it up. “It is this which enables it to accurately assess and pick up an object which it has never seen before—a huge step forward in the development of bionic limbs.”

Grouping objects by size, shape and orientation, according to the type of grasp that would be needed to pick them up, the team programmed the hand to perform four different ‘grasps’: palm wrist neutral (such as when you pick up a cup); palm wrist pronated (such as picking up the TV remote); tripod (thumb and two fingers) and pinch (thumb and first finger).

Using a 99p camera fitted to the prosthesis, the hand ‘sees’ an object, picks the most appropriate grasp and sends a signal to the hand—all within a matter of milliseconds and ten times faster than any other limb currently on the market.

“One way would have been to create a photo database of every single object but clearly that would be a massive task and you would literally need every make of pen, toothbrush, shape of cup—the list is endless,” says Dr Nazarpour.

“The beauty of this system is that it’s much more flexible and the hand is able to pick up novel objects—which is crucial since in everyday life people effortlessly pick up a variety of objects that they have never seen before.”

First step towards a fully connected bionic hand

The work is part of a larger research project to develop a bionic hand that can sense pressure and temperature and transmit the information back to the brain.

Led by Newcastle University and involving experts from the universities of Leeds, Essex, Keele, Southampton and Imperial College London, the aim is to develop novel electronic devices that connect to the forearm neural networks to allow two-way communications with the brain.

Reminiscent of Luke Skywalker’s artificial hand, the electrodes in the bionic limb would wrap around the nerve endings in the arm. This would mean for the first time the brain could communicate directly with the prosthesis.

The ‘hand that sees’, explains Dr Nazarpour, is an interim solution that will bridge the gap between current designs and the future.

“It’s a stepping stone towards our ultimate goal,” he says. “But importantly, it’s cheap and it can be implemented soon because it doesn’t require new prosthetics—we can just adapt the ones we have.”

Anne Ewing, Advanced Occupational Therapist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has been working with Dr Nazarpour and his team.

“I work with upper limb amputee patients which is extremely rewarding, varied and at times challenging,” she said.

“We always strive to put the patient at the heart of everything we do and so make sure that any interventions are client centred to ensure patients’ individual goals are met either with a prosthesis or alternative method of carrying out a task.

“This project in collaboration with Newcastle University has provided an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of upper limb prosthetics, working towards achieving patients’ prosthetic expectations and it is wonderful to have been involved.”

Case Study—Doug McIntosh, 56, from Aberdeen, Scotland

“For me it was literally a case of life or limb,” says Doug McIntosh, who lost his right arm in 1997 through cancer.

“I had developed a rare form of cancer called epithelial sarcoma, which develops in the deep tissue under the skin, and the doctors had no choice but to amputate the limb to save my life.

“Losing an arm and battling cancer with three young children was life changing. I left my job as a life support supervisor in the diving industry and spent a year fund-raising for cancer charities.

“It was this and my family that motivated me and got me through the hardest times.”

Since then, Doug has gone on to be an inspiration to amputees around the world. Becoming the first amputee to cycle from John O’Groats to Land’s End in 100hrs, cycle around the coast line of Britain, he has run three London Marathons, cycled The Dallaglio Flintoff Cycle Slam 2012 and 2014 and in 2014 cycled with the British Lions Rugby Team to Murrayfield Rugby Stadium for “Walking with Wounded” Charity. He is currently preparing to do Mont Ventoux this September, three cycle climbs in one day for Cancer Research UK and Maggie’s Cancer Centres. Involved in the early trials of the first myoelectric prosthetic limbs, Doug has been working with the Newcastle team to trail the new hand that sees.

“The problem is there’s nothing yet that really comes close to feeling like the real thing,” explains the father-of-three who lives in Westhill, Aberdeen with his wife of 32 years, Diane.

“Some of the prosthetics look very realistic but they feel slow and clumsy when you have a working hand to compare them to.

“In the end I found it easier just to do without and learn to adapt. When I do use a prosthesis I use a split hook which doesn’t look pretty but does the job.”

But he says the new, responsive hand being developed in Newcastle is a ‘huge leap forward’.

“This offers for the first time a real alternative for upper limb amputees,” he says.

“For me, one of the ways of dealing with the loss of my hand was to be very open about it and answer people’s questions. But not everyone wants that and so to have the option of a hand that not only looks realistic but also works like a real hand would be an amazing breakthrough and transform the recovery time—both physically and mentally—for many amputees.”

Explore further:
Bionic hand that is ‘sensitive’ to touch and temperature

More information:
G. Ghazaei, A. Alameer, P. Degenaar, G. Morgan, and K. Nazarpour, “Deep learning-based artificial vision for grasp classification in myoelectric hands,” Journal of Neural Engineering, 17(3): 036025, 2017.

Source link

The article Hand that ‘sees’ offers new hope to amputees appeared first on Arabian Post.

China to launch own encyclopaedia to rival Wikipedia

The Arabian Post Network — Wed, 03 May 2017 11:19:56 +0000

China plans to launch its own online encyclopaedia next year, hoping to build a “cultural Great Wall” that can rival Wikipedia as a go-to information source for Chinese Internet users who Beijing fears are being corrupted by foreign influences

China is under pressure to write its own encyclopaedia so it can guide public thought, according to a statement by the project‘s executive editor Yang Muzhi published last month on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He once listed Wikipedia, which is available in China, and Britain’s Encyclopaedia Britannica as potential rivals and said the project aims to exceed them, according to an article he wrote late last year.

The project, which will be under the guidance of the state-owned China Publishing Group, “must have Chinese characteristics,” he wrote, adding it would be a “symbol of the country’s cultural and technological development” and increase its softpower and international influence.

Unlike Wikipedia—and its Chinese version Baidu Baike—which are written by volunteers and are in a constant state of revision, the new project, which was approved in 2011, will be entirely written by professionals.

So far over 20,000 scholars and academics have been enlisted to compile the project, which aims to have more than 300,000 entries by its 2018 launch.

The new encyclopaedia will be based on a previous printed version, published in book form in 1993. A second edition, which can be accessed through a special terminal, was released in 2009.

The newest version will be released online before being published in a bound edition.

China has over 700 million internet users but a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria.

It has maintained that its various forms of web censorship—collectively known as “The Great Firewall”—are necessary for protecting its national security.

Sites blocked due to their content or sensitivity, among them Facebook and Twitter, cannot be accessed in China without special software that allows users to bypass the strict controls.

Beijing issued a new restriction for online freedoms, requiring Chinese Internet users to provide their real names when accessing online news sources.

The new restriction will come into effect on June 1.

Explore further:
China tightens rules for online news providers

Source link

The article China to launch own encyclopaedia to rival Wikipedia appeared first on Arabian Post.

Microsoft out to regain ground in schools with Surface Laptop

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 02 May 2017 20:15:20 +0000

Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a Surface laptop and streamlined operating software in a move aimed at regaining ground in classrooms, where Google Chromebooks have taken hold.

Surface Laptop powered by a Windows 10 S operating system were shown off at an education-focused Microsoft event in New York City, and will hit the market next month in an array of countries with the hardware starting at $999.

Surface Laptop was aimed at college students and evidently intended to set a performance bar for partners, some of which will be coming to market with lower priced computers powered by Windows 10 S to entice students at all grade levels.

“Our goal with Windows 10 S is to develop the open vibrant partner-centric ecosystem we have today,” Windows and Device group executive vice president Terry Myerson said in a release.

He gave a list of partners that included Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Samsung, and Toshiba, and said Windows 10 S devices priced as low as $189 should be available in coming months.

Microsoft is taking orders for Surface Laptop, and planned to begin shipping them in mid-June.

Google Chromebooks that act as gateways to programs and services hosted in the internet cloud have become a hit in US classrooms, taking terrain once dominated by Microsoft and Apple.

The video will load shortly

Computers running on streamlined Windows 10 S will tap into online tools such as Microsoft Office 365 and will get applications that have been vetted at a Windows online shop, according to the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant.

“Windows 10 S is inspired by students and teachers, streamlined for simplicity, security and superior performance,” Myerson said.

“I believe it best reflects the soul of Windows.”

Microsoft also announced a partnership with educational company Pearson to integrate 3D and mixed reality experiences into higher level curriculum.

The alliance could lead to classroom content tailored for Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headgear.

Among Microsoft’s other education announcements:

— Microsoft is adding a coding feature to Minecraft Education, the offshoot of its wildly popular creator game. Called “Code Builder,” the feature combines Minecraft with learn-to-code tools such as Tynker and a new one from Microsoft called MakeCode.

— A classroom version of Microsoft Teams will let students (supervised by their teacher) chat and work together online. In classroom group chats, students can listen to guest speakers, interact and even send emojis and GIF images. If it gets too rowdy, teachers can mute individual students or the whole class, or delete individual comments. Microsoft hopes the tool will serve as a digital hub for classrooms, where teachers can personalize learning and communicate with students and their parents.

Explore further:
Microsoft makes cheaper version of Surface Pro 3 tablet

Source link

The article Microsoft out to regain ground in schools with Surface Laptop appeared first on Arabian Post.

Researchers find more efficient way to make oil from dead trees

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 02 May 2017 15:13:58 +0000

A forest with beetle-killed trees as seen from Mt. Fraser, British Columbia. Credit: Themightyquill/Wikimedia Commons

The mountain pine beetle has destroyed more than 40 million acres of forest in the western United States. That amounts to an area the size of Washington state that is strewn with conifers left for dead.

The beetles introduce a fungus that prevents critical nutrients and water from traveling within a tree. Beetles also lay their eggs under the bark and the feeding larvae help kill the trees, sometimes within several weeks of the initial attack. These standing dead trees can fall at any moment or add fuel to a wildfire, and scientists and land managers are left scrambling to deal with millions of the precarious dead giants. Harvesting the wood for lumber is out of the question, because the infestation stains the wood and causes the tree to crack on the inside.

A University of Washington team has made new headway on a solution to remove beetle-killed trees from the forest and use them to make renewable transportation fuels or high-value chemicals. The researchers have refined this technique to process larger pieces of wood than ever before ― saving time and money in future commercial applications. They published their methods last month in the journal Fuel.

“We came up with a different way of converting wood into oil—that’s really the main accomplishment of this project,” said senior author Fernando Resende, a UW assistant professor of bioresource science and engineering in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

A container of bio oil produced by the UW research team. Credit: University of Washington

“Not only do we want to reduce the costs, but we are hoping to increase the value of what we produce so we have a better chance of making it commercial.”

The process of heating wood and other natural materials at extreme temperatures to create oil—called “fast pyrolysis” ― is being widely explored in research labs across the country. Each system varies, but the general process involves heating small pieces of organic material in an oxygen-free chamber at about 500 degrees Celsius, until the solid material becomes a vapor. As the vapor rises and moves into other chambers, it cools and becomes a dark brown liquid fuel. Scientists call this “bio oil,” and it is already used in some European countries for heating hospitals.

Researchers, including the UW team, currently are testing whether this bio oil can be upgraded by adding substances called catalysts. This upgrade intends to convert the bio oil into transportation fuels that resemble gasoline and diesel.

A diagram showing the transformation of wood to bio oil. Woodchips are loaded into an oxygen-free, heated chamber, then a hot upper plate presses down on the wood. The resulting vapor cools to become bio oil. Credit: University of Washington

The beetle-killed trees are a good fit for making bio oil, Resende said, in part because the entirety of a tree becomes extremely dry when it is killed by an infestation. That makes for a simpler fast-pyrolysis process, because it isn’t necessary to first dry the wood before heating it to extreme temperatures.

“If you can extract the wood and process it using fast pyrolysis, not only will you free up space and safety hazards in the forest, but you also have the organic liquid that could potentially be used for products,” Resende said.

The system developed by the UW can efficiently break down woodchip-sized pieces, though the team has successfully turned an entire log into bio oil. Other fast pyrolysis systems must use small wood pellets 1 to 2 millimeters in length, which often adds an extra step of grinding larger pieces down to the appropriate size before converting them to bio oil.

The reactor in the UW lab. Credit: University of Washington

In the UW method, woodchips are placed on a rotating surface and a hot stainless steel plate moves down from above, crushing the wood. The woodchips become hot from direct contact with the metallic surface, and the chemical transformation from solid to vapor begins.

The researchers say this method could be used in mobile pyrolysis units so dead trees can be processed on site, saving on transportation costs associated with moving large pieces of wood out of the forest. The mobile units ― cylinder-shaped reactors that sit on a small flatbed truck ― are already being used for standard wood-to-oil processing, and the improvements by the UW team could make the process more efficient and cost effective, they say.

The new technique involves a rotating surface and a hot plate that heats the woodchips. Credit: University of Washington

Explore further:
‘Forest mobilisation:’ Unlocking Europe’s wood energy potential

More information:
Guanqun Luo et al, Pyrolysis of whole wood chips and rods in a novel ablative reactor, Fuel (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2017.01.010

Source link

The article Researchers find more efficient way to make oil from dead trees appeared first on Arabian Post.

Detecting walking speed with wireless signals

The Arabian Post Network — Tue, 02 May 2017 00:08:20 +0000

WiGait uses wireless signals to continuously measure a person’s walking speed. Credit: Jason Dorfman, MIT CSAIL

We’ve long known that breathing, blood pressure, body temperature and pulse provide an important window into the complexities of human health. But a growing body of research suggests that another vital sign – how fast you walk – could be a better predictor of health issues like cognitive decline, falls, and even certain cardiac or pulmonary diseases.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to accurately monitor walking speed in a way that’s both continuous and unobtrusive. Professor Dina Katabi’s group at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have been working on the problem, and believe that the answer is to go wireless.

In a new paper, the team presents “WiGait,” a device that can measure the walking speed of multiple people with 95 to 99 percent accuracy using wireless signals. The system is an update of a device that Katabi’s team presented to President Obama in 2015.

The size of a small painting, the device can be placed on the wall of a person’s house. It builds on Katabi’s previous work that analyzes wireless signals reflected off people’s bodies to measure a range of behaviors, from breathing and falling to specific emotions. (The signals emit roughly 100 times less radiation than a standard cellphone.)

“By using in-home sensors, we can see trends in how walking speed changes over longer periods of time,” says lead author and PhD student Chen-Yu Hsu. “This can provide insight into whether someone should adjust their health regimens, whether that’s doing physical therapy or altering their medications.”

WiGait is also 85 to 99 percent accurate at measuring a person’s stride length, which could allow researchers to better understand conditions like Parkinson’s disease that are characterized by reduced step size.

Hsu and Katabi developed WiGait in collaboration with CSAIL PhD student Zachary Kabelac and master’s student Rumen Hristov, alongside undergraduate Yuchen Liu from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and assistant professor Christine Liu from the Boston University School of Medicine. The team will present their paper in May at ACM’s CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Colorado.

The video will load shortly

How it works

Today walking speed is measured by physical therapists or clinicians using a stopwatch. Wearables like FitBit can only roughly estimate your speed based on your step count; GPS-enabled smartphones are similarly inaccurate and can’t work indoors; and cameras are intrusive and can only monitor one room at a time. The only method that’s comparably accurate is VICON motion-tracking, which isn’t widely available enough to be practical for monitoring day-to-day health changes.

Meanwhile, WiGait measures walking speed with a high level of granularity, without requiring that the person wear or carry a sensor. It does so by analyzing the surrounding wireless signals and their reflections off a person’s body. Also, the team’s algorithm can distinguish walking from other movements, such as cleaning the kitchen or brushing one’s teeth.

According to Katabi, the device could help reveal a wealth of important health information, particularly for the elderly: a change in walking speed, for example, could mean an injury or that the person is at an increased risk of falling.

“Many avoidable hospitalizations are related to issues like falls, congestive heart disease, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which have all been shown to be correlated to gait speed,” Katabi says. “Reducing the number of hospitalizations, even by a small amount, could vastly improve healthcare costs.”

The team developed WiGait to be more privacy-minded than cameras, showing you as nothing more than a moving dot on a screen. In the future they hope to train it on people with walking impairments like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or MS, to help physicians accurately track disease progression and adjust medications.

“The true novelty of this device is that it can map major metrics of health and behavior without any active engagement from the user, which is especially helpful for the cognitively impaired,” says Ipsit Vahia, a geriatric clinician at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the research. “Gait speed is a proxy indicator of many clinically important conditions, and down the line this could extend to measuring sleep patterns, respiratory rates, and other vital human behaviors.”

Explore further:
X-ray vision? New technology making it a reality for $300

More information:
Paper: “Extracting Gait Velocity and Stride Length from Surrounding Radio Signals” people.csail.mit.edu/cyhsu/papers/wigait_chi17.pdf

Source link

The article Detecting walking speed with wireless signals appeared first on Arabian Post.

Zapping bacteria with sanitizers made of paper

The Arabian Post Network — Mon, 01 May 2017 19:06:25 +0000

Paper-based plasma generators — consisting of laminated assemblies of honeycomb-patterned, metallized paper — are capable of sanitizing surfaces with 10 seconds of treatment. These devices are also customizable into varied planar geometries and bendable/mechanically flexible to conform to curved surfaces. Credit: Jingjin Xie

Imagine wearing clothes with layers of paper that protect you from dangerous bacteria.

A Rutgers-led team has invented an inexpensive, effective way to kill bacteria and sanitize surfaces with devices made of paper.

“Paper is an ancient material, but it has unique attributes for new, high-tech applications,” said Aaron Mazzeo, an assistant professor in Rutgers’ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “We found that by applying high voltage to stacked sheets of metallized paper, we were able to generate plasma, which is a combination of heat, ultraviolet radiation and ozone that kill microbes.”

The researchers detail their invention in a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A video detailing the work is also available on YouTube.

In the future, paper-based sanitizers may be suitable for clothing that sterilizes itself, devices that sanitize laboratory equipment and smart bandages to heal wounds, among other uses, the study says. The motivation for this study was to create personal protective equipment that might contain the spread of infectious diseases, such as the devastating 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

The researchers’ invention consists of paper with thin layers of aluminum and hexagon/honeycomb patterns that serve as electrodes to produce the plasma, or ionized gas. The fibrous and porous nature of the paper allows gas to permeate it, fueling the plasma and facilitating cooling.

“To our knowledge, we’re the first to use paper as a base to generate plasma,” said Jingjin Xie, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

In experiments, the paper-based sanitizers killed more than 99 percent of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a yeast species) and more than 99.9 percent of E. coli bacteria cells. Most E. coli bacteria are harmless and are an important part of a healthy human intestinal tract. However, some types of E. coli can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and other illnesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Preliminary results showed that our sanitizers can kill spores from bacteria, which are hard to kill using conventional sterilization methods,” said Qiang (Richard) Chen, study coauthor and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Biology in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“Our next phase is to vigorously test how effective our sanitizer system is in killing spores,” said James F. White Jr., study coauthor and professor of plant pathology in the Department of Plant Biology.

Mazzeo said one of the goals of their ongoing research is to make sensors that resemble how human and animal skin provides protection from external microbes and bacteria, while detecting input (touch, force, temperature and moisture) from environmental surroundings. Such sensors might cover parts of prosthetics, buildings or vehicles. It also might be possible to sterilize vehicles, robots or devices before they enter contamination-prone environments and when they come out to keep them from contaminating people and clean environments.

Professor Mazzeo is a recent recipient of a 2017 NSF CAREER Award, which will allow his research group to continue work with papertronic sensors. The scientists will explore the design and fabrication of paper-based sensors for wearable devices capable of measuring brain waves and sweat to determine human alertness and stress. Their future work should lead to electronic devices that bridge the gap between machines and humans, while creating new processing techniques for renewable paper products.

Explore further:
Engineers create a soft motor that could power versatile soft robots

More information:
Jingjin Xie el al., “Paper-based plasma sanitizers,” PNAS (2017). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1621203114

Source link

The article Zapping bacteria with sanitizers made of paper appeared first on Arabian Post.

Study finds gender bias in open-source programming

The Arabian Post Network — Mon, 01 May 2017 14:05:05 +0000

Credit: North Carolina State University

A study comparing acceptance rates of contributions from men and women in an open-source software community finds that, overall, women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s – but when a woman’s gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often.

“There are a number of questions and concerns related to gender bias in computer programming, but this project was focused on one specific research question: To what extent does gender bias exist when pull requests are judged on GitHub?” says Emerson Murphy-Hill, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate professor of computer science at North Carolina State University.

GitHub is an online programming community that fosters collaboration on open-source software projects. When people identify ways to improve code on a given project, they submit a “pull request.” Those pull requests are then approved or denied by “insiders,” the programmers who are responsible for overseeing the project.

For this study, researchers looked at more than 3 million pull requests from approximately 330,000 GitHub users, of whom about 21,000 were women.

The researchers found that 78.7 percent of women’s pull requests were accepted, compared to 74.6 percent for men.

However, when looking at pull requests by people who were not insiders on the relevant project, the results got more complicated.

Programmers who could easily be identified as women based on their names or profile pictures had lower pull request acceptance rates (58 percent) than users who could be identified as men (61 percent). But woman programmers who had gender neutral profiles had higher acceptance rates (70 percent) than any other group, including men with gender neutral profiles (65 percent).

“Our results indicate that gender bias does exist in open-source programming,” Murphy-Hill says. “The study also tells us that, in general, women on GitHub are strong programmers. We don’t think that’s because gender affects one’s programming skills, but likely stems from strong self-selection among women who submit pull requests on the site.

“We also want to note that this paper builds on a previous, un-peer-reviewed version of the paper, which garnered a lot of input that improved the research,” Murphy-Hill says.

The paper, “Gender Differences and Bias in Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance of Women Versus Men,” is published in the open-access journal PeerJ Computer Science. The paper was co-authored by Josh Terrell, a former undergraduate at Cal Poly; Andrew Kofink, a former undergraduate at NC State; Justin Middleton, a Ph.D. student at NC State; Clarissa Rainear, an undergraduate at NC State; Chris Parnin, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State; and Jon Stallings, an assistant professor of statistics at NC State. The work was done with support from the National Science Foundation under grant number 1252995.

Explore further:
Women accepted as better coders as long as no gender link

More information:
Josh Terrell et al, Gender differences and bias in open source: pull request acceptance of women versus men, PeerJ Computer Science (2017). DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.111

Source link

The article Study finds gender bias in open-source programming appeared first on Arabian Post.

Elon Musk teases future plans at TED talk

The Arabian Post Network — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 23:02:00 +0000

Elon Musk went teased the audience with a photo of a self-driving truck that his company Tesla Motors is adding to its line of electric cars

Elon Musk paused while chatting about his series of potentially world-changing endeavors to say he isn’t in it to provide salvation.

It was during a talk on Friday at a prestigious TED Conference in Vancouver, where the tech entrepreneur was discussing his ventures building electric cars and trucks, rockets, a newly launched tunnel-boring company and even dabbling with super-fast mass transit.

“I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior,” Musk said while discussing colonizing Mars and other dreams. “I am just trying to think about the future and not be sad.”

“You’ll tell me if it ever starts getting genuinely insane, right?” the Silicon Valley star known for turning his passions into visionary enterprises added playfully.

Musk went on to tease the audience with a photo of a self-driving truck that his company Tesla Motors is adding to its line of electric cars.

Describing the vehicle as powerful enough to tow a regular big rig up a hill, he said it would handle like a sports car.

“When I was driving the test prototype for the first truck, it was really weird,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is crazy!’ driving this large truck and it’s doing these amazing maneuvers.”

Racing a snail

A founder of the PayPal online payment system as well as Tesla and SpaceX—the maker and launcher of rockets and spacecraft—Musk is also working on building tunnels more efficiently at his aptly named Boring company.

Describing traffic jams as “soul-crushing,” he said they could be eliminated by building multi-level tunnel networks for cars.

His company is already trying to bore tunnels under Los Angeles, he said.

The Boring company has a pet snail named Gary that inches along far faster than the current machines used to create tunnels, he added.

His machines would build small-bore tunnels “faster than Gary,” in what he said would be a major, cost-saving advance.

A concept video illustrated how cars might someday drive from streets onto sleds lowered into tunnels and be whisked on their way.

Musk also described dabbling with an ultra-fast rail transport system known as Hyperloop that he detailed in a paper several years ago, inviting entrepreneurs to make it real.

In his vision, Hyperloop pods would zip along vacuum-sealed tubes in tunnels that could conceivably be built by the Boring company.

But Musk devotes only two or three percent of his time to the Boring company, he said, calling it more of a hobby—and boasting that it is nevertheless making good progress.

Wary of flying cars

Although he also admires flying innovations—witnessed by his SpaceX endeavors—Musk isn’t keen on the idea of cars in the sky.

“If there were a whole bunch of flying cars going all over the place, that’s not an anxiety-reducing situation,” he quipped.

“You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hub cap, or is it going to come off and guillotine me?'”

Speaking tech to power

Musk depicted a not-to-distant future in which solar roof tiles generate electricity in homes and people share self-driving electric cars.

With his first lithium battery Gigafactory ramping production in the United States, he revealed that he would announce plans later this year for as many as four more facilities “to address the global market.”

Musk also shrugged off criticism for agreeing to take part in advisory councils to US President Donald Trump.

They meet approximately once a month and essentially consist of going around a room asking opinions.

“I have used them thus far to argue in favor of immigration and in favor of (addressing) climate change,” he said.

“That wasn’t on the agenda before,” he added. “Maybe nothing will happen, but at least the words were said.”

One of Musk’s latest big ideas is to send space tourists on trips around the moon.

“There have to be reasons you get up in the morning and want to live,” he said of pursuing big dreams such as space exploration.

“If the future doesn’t include being out there in the stars, being a multi-planet species, that is incredibly depressing.”

Explore further:
Tesla’s Musk announces plans for semi-truck launch

Source link

The article Elon Musk teases future plans at TED talk appeared first on Arabian Post.

Researchers study whether we’re underestimating risk

The Arabian Post Network — Sat, 29 Apr 2017 11:53:26 +0000

Of 35 bridge collapses analyzed, floods caused 13, erosion of sediments around bridge foundations — scour — caused 16, a hurricane caused 1 and other influences (such as waterborne or hydraulic debris) caused 5. Superimposed H denotes sites where a hurricane or tropical storm occurred and may have influenced bridge collapse. Area of circles is proportional to drainage area of bridge sites. Credit: Flint, et al.

The United States is considering a $1 trillion budget proposal to update infrastructure, including its crumbling bridges. An obstacle to spending the money wisely is that the current means of assessing bridges may underestimate their vulnerability, according to a new study published in the Journal of Infrastructure Systems.

Case in point is a bridge along California’s iconic Big Sur coast, which collapsed in March, isolating communities and costing local businesses millions of dollars. Although California’s recent unprecedented rains were likely to damage infrastructure, standard risk assessments made it hard to identify which bridges were most vulnerable.

“This winter in California has highlighted the vulnerabilities of our nation’s infrastructure,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford and the Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “Updating our infrastructure will require both making up for deferred maintenance, and preparing for the increasing risk of extreme events that comes along with global warming.”

More frequent flooding

Big Sur’s damaged Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge – out until at least September – is a harbinger of things to come. As climate and land-use change drive more frequent and intense flooding, collapses among the nation’s more than 500,000 water-spanning bridges will likely increase, the authors state.

Complicated natural factors make accurate damage estimates hard to come by, but regional and national bridge studies have predicted up to $250 billion in direct climate impacts costs – numbers that serve only as indicators of the true magnitude of costs related to climate change impacts on bridges, including lost business and ability to commute to work.

U.S. risk assessments generally assume that bridges may collapse when a 100-year flood – a streamflow with 1 percent probability of being exceeded in any given year, or 63 percent over the course of a century – occurs. This assumption underestimates risk, the paper’s authors find, because it fails to capture the full range of stream flow conditions that can cause bridge collapse.

A new model

In their analysis, the researchers considered the full variability of floods that could cause collapse, as opposed to the 100-year approach taken previously. As a result, their findings identified a greater sensitivity to changes in the underlying frequency of flooding. This result appears to support the idea that analyses considering a range of flood scenarios, as opposed to a single 100-year threshold, could be more robust and accurate.

Indeed, of the 35 bridges analyzed, 23 were estimated to have collapsed during a water flow of lesser intensity than a 100-year flood level. The authors note that a primary reason for these lower flow collapses is the fact that most of those collapsed bridges were built before modern design standards. Because most U.S. bridges, along with most U.S. infrastructure, pre-date the modern design standards, the results highlight a more general risk that extreme climate events pose to U.S. infrastructure.

The American Society for Civil Engineering gives U.S. bridges a C+, estimating that $123 billion is needed to clear the maintenance backlog. An additional $140-$250 billion over the 21st century may be required to address the increasing risks posed by climate change, according to past research.

“To balance funding between the backlog and climate adaptation, bridge managers will need robust data on collapse risk,” said lead author Madeleine M. Flint, an assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “Our study is a step in that direction.”

Explore further:
New research shows how old tyres can support bridges

Source link

The article Researchers study whether we’re underestimating risk appeared first on Arabian Post.