Technology

My first reaction is that I need one of these wristbands that lets me control the temperature as I walk around a building. Oh yeah, and you can do other gesture controls with it too, but mostly it lets you not be freezing cold all the time. Except, it requires working in a smart building, not to mention a building with a more functional HVAC than I currently have. I am then struck by the fact that this sounds great until hit with the reality that different people have radically different temperature comfort zones. As the only person in the … Continue reading Personal Thermostats

There’s been discussion about the changes to Google Reader (some of which was – wow, people are still using Google Reader…) and how it was going to have its social sharing features moved to Google+. I honestly didn’t have a strong opinion, because I have never used the social features of Google Reader and so long as I would still be able to keep my RSS feeds organized. In fact, I was fairly puzzled that Google+ and Google Reader played so poorly with each other so figured the move would be positive. However, now I am seeing comments about how … Continue reading Google Reader design frustration

I absolutely love these hacking tricks where you snoop passwords from information leakage – this one from Georgia Tech using a smartphone’s accelerometer is an awesome addition. Short version: if your smartphone has malicious software on it, and you put it on the same desk as your keyboard, the phone can deduce what you’re typing from the vibrations. Yes, even if you don’t type as vigorously as I do (though only at close range – no need to panic). The press release notes that using the accelerometer is an improvement over using the microphone because, even though it is less … Continue reading Smartphones, Statistics and Spying

I have forwarded the link to this article that I got via Slashdot about how social media could render covert policing impossible to a number of people and somehow didn’t think to post it here (I must have pre-semester brain…). The idea is simple once you see it – with good quality facial recognition software, we know anonymity becomes challenging, and that is particularly true for careers, like undercover police work, that require strong anonymity and yet for which there is strong incentive to discover true identities, and high risk if they are found out. Though I do think the article … Continue reading I see you

I love stories of unexpected weak spots, like the discovery that Apple laptop batteries can be hacked to store malicious code and brick the battery. The weakness revolves around cracking a couple of passwords, one of which is a factory default – with the protection being patches that will reset the password and lock the battery’s firmware. From there, it doesn’t seem like the researcher who discovered the weakness has found any particularly damaging holes from the battery back to the rest of the system, besides having the battery lie about its state, so this probably won’t be the root of … Continue reading Battery Hacking

I do not want a computer telling me what other people are feeling, or telling other people what it thinks I am feeling – these emotion indicating glasses do not appeal to me at all. First, even if people only assess others’ emotions correctly 54% of the time, a 64% success rate isn’t that impressive either. It means that over a third of the time, you could be getting the wrong advice from your emotional feedback device. Furthermore, this tells you nothing about why the person is reacting that way. If you say something that makes me react in a … Continue reading Ultra Xray Specs

So, seems that iRobot has come full circle, taken one of their high power industrial robots, and now attached a vacuum to it; specifically they have modded a Warrier to have an industrial vacuum attached to it to clean up radioactive dirt and debris at the Fukushima plant. Follow the link for video – go little robot, go!

In the further disappearance of the concept of anonymity, statistical analysis allows individuals’ marks on bubble forms to be identified as corresponding to the same person. That is, someone’s marks on a bubble form can be used to identify them the same way handwriting might (though it still seems with less accuracy). We learn that filling in your bubbles thoroughly and completely is probably the best way to stay anonymous. The shocker here of course is that a small little mark – filling in a circle – can be unique across a sample of almost 100 surveys. It did bring … Continue reading Fill-in-the-Bubble Anonymity