Science & TechnologyS


Display

Your TV might be watching You!

Erica Fink and Laurie Segall
CNN Money
Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:32 UTC
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Today's high-end televisions are almost all equipped with "smart" PC-like features, including Internet connectivity, apps, microphones and cameras. But a recently discovered security hole in some Samsung Smart TVs shows that many of those bells and whistles aren't ready for prime time.

The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs' built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you're watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you. Hackers also could have easily rerouted an unsuspecting user to a malicious website to steal bank account information.

Samsung quickly fixed the problem after security researchers at iSEC Partners informed the company about the bugs. Samsung sent a software update to all affected TVs.

But the glitches speak to a larger problem of gadgets that connect to the Internet but have virtually no security to speak of.

Security cameras, lights, heating control systems and even door locks and windows are now increasingly coming with features that allow users to control them remotely. Without proper security controls, there's little to stop hackers from invading users' privacy, stealing personal information or spying on people.
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Display

Real-time speech translation ahead


connexionfrance.com
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:22 UTC
Google has announced its prototype real-time speech translation systems are performing with "close to 100% accuracy" in laboratory conditions.

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However the web giant has given no indication as to when a finished product will become a reality.

Google Translate, the web and mobile tool for converting text from one language to another, is already indispensable for most business travelers, expats and holidaymakers.

The company is developing a real-time translation tool that can do for voice what its current systems can do for text.

In an interview with The Times, Android product management vice president Hugo Barra revealed that the current prototypes are achieving "close to 100% accuracy," and that with some language pairings, the results are "near perfect," meaning that in laboratory conditions at least (ie. without background noises and over a perfect internet connection), two people speaking two completely different languages can communicate via the system.

Earlier this month, Microsoft Asia researchers demonstrated a system that uses the Kinect sensor that can translate sign language in real time and also turn text into visual sign language via an avatar.
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Comet 2

Comets could arise closer to Earth, study suggests

Elizabeth Howell
Universe Today
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 14:13 UTC
Comet
© NASAArtist’s conception of a comet breaking up.
There's a potential "cometary graveyard" of inactive comets in our solar system wandering between Mars and Jupiter, a new Colombian research paper says. This contradicts a long-standing view that comets originate on the fringes of the solar system, in the Oort Cloud.

Mysteriously, however, 12 active comets have been seen in and around the asteroid belt. The astronomers theorize there must be a number of inactive comets in this region that flare up when a stray gravitational force from Jupiter nudges the comets so that they receive more energy from the Sun.

The researchers examined comets originating from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a spot where it is believed there are only asteroids (small bodies made up mostly of rock). Comets, by contrast, are a mixture of rocks and ice. The ice melts when the comet gets close to the sun, and can form spectacular tails visible from Earth. (Here's more detail on the difference between a comet and an asteroid.)
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Comet 2

Astronomers discovery a graveyard for comets


ScienceDaily
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:00 UTC
asteroid belt
© Ignacio Ferrin / University of AnitoquiaThese illustrations show the asteroid belt in the present day and in the early Solar System, located between the Sun (at centre) and four terrestrial planets (near the Sun) and Jupiter (at bottom left). The top image shows the conventional model for the asteroid belt; largely composed of rocky material. The middle image shows the proposed model, with a small number of active comets and a dormant cometary population. The lower diagram shows how the asteroid belt might have looked in the early Solar System, with vigorous cometary activity.
A team of astronomers from the University of Anitoquia, Medellin, Colombia, have discovered a graveyard of comets.

The researchers, led by Anitoquia astronomer Prof. Ignacio Ferrin, describe how some of these objects, inactive for millions of years, have returned to life leading them to name the group the 'Lazarus comets'.

The team publish their results in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Comets are amongst the smallest objects in the Solar System, typically a few km across and composed of a mixture of rock and ices. If they come close to the Sun, then some of the ices turn to gas, before being swept back by the light of the Sun and the solar wind to form a characteristic tail of gas and dust.
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Clock

Waking up tired? Blame electricity

Kelly Servick
ScienceNow
Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:30 UTC
Internal Clocks
© iStockphoto/ThinkstockSolar cycles. Time spent outdoors without electrical lighting retunes our circadian clock to the sun’s cues, new research suggests.
Our internal clocks are drifting out of sync, and indoor lighting may be to blame. A new study suggests that just a few days in the great outdoors puts us back in tune with the solar cycle, and reconnecting with the sun could make us less drowsy.

Electricity has given us the freedom to choose our bedtimes; staying up after dark is as easy as flipping a light switch. But we pay a price for this luxury, says integrative physiologist Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the new study. People with later bedtimes and wake times are exposed to more artificial light and less sunlight, he says, which means their bodies aren't getting the natural cues humans once relied on.

To understand how falling out of sync with the sun changes our body's internal clock - or circadian rhythm - sleep researchers look to the timekeeping mechanisms in the brain, particularly how we regulate the hormone melatonin. Released about 2 hours before sleep, melatonin makes us feel drowsy as we wind down for rest, Wright says. It then decreases as we become alert in the morning. The mechanisms driving our clock are complex and hard to measure, but the daily spike and drop in melatonin are like its chimes. "Melatonin tells us what time it is in the body," Wright says.

And when we keep strange schedules, our melatonin goes haywire. Turning lights on at night can delay melatonin release and shift the timing of our internal clock, says sleep physiologist Derk-Jan Dijk of the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the work. But it wasn't clear just what would happen in modern, electricity-adapted humans if all artificial light were suddenly taken away. "This is the first time that somebody has done the obvious but important experiment," he says.
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Info

Genetic 'Adam' and 'Eve' uncovered

Tia Ghose
LIveScience
Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:00 UTC
Chromosomes
© Sebastian Kaulitzki/ShutterstockA pair of sex chromosomes.
Almost every man alive can trace his origins to one man who lived about 135,000 years ago, new research suggests. And that ancient man likely shared the planet with the mother of all women.

The findings, detailed today (Aug. 1) in the journal Science, come from the most complete analysis of the male sex chromosome, or the Y chromosome, to date. The results overturn earlier research, which suggested that men's most recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Despite their overlap in time, ancient "Adam" and ancient "Eve" probably didn't even live near each other, let alone mate.

"Those two people didn't know each other," said Melissa Wilson Sayres, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.
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Info

Harvard creates brain-to-brain interface, allows humans to control other animals with thoughts alone

Sebastian Anthony
Extreme Tech
Wed, 31 Jul 2013 07:45 UTC
Human to Animals Interface
© Extreme Tech
Researchers at Harvard University have created the first noninvasive brain-to-brain interface (BBI) between a human... and a rat. Simply by thinking the appropriate thought, the BBI allows the human to control the rat's tail. This is one of the most important steps towards BBIs that allow for telepathic links between two or more humans - which is a good thing in the case of friends and family, but terrifying if you stop to think about the nefarious possibilities of a fascist dictatorship with mind control tech.

In recent years there have been huge advances in the field of brain-computer interfaces, where your thoughts are detected and "understood" by a sensor attached to a computer, but relatively little work has been done in the opposite direction (computer-brain interfaces). This is because it's one thing for a computer to work out what a human is thinking (by asking or observing their actions), but another thing entirely to inject new thoughts into a human brain. To put it bluntly, we have almost no idea of how thoughts are encoded by neurons in the brain. For now, the best we can do is create a computer-brain interface that stimulates a region of the brain that's known to create a certain reaction - such as the specific part of the motor cortex that's in charge of your fingers. We don't have the power to move your fingers in a specific way - that would require knowing the brain's encoding scheme - but we can make them jerk around.
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Info

Say hello to life-sized holograms

Nic Halverson
Discovery News
Wed, 31 Jul 2013 08:16 UTC
Holograms
© HoloVision
From Princess Leia's evocation and Star Trek's Holo-Deck, to Marty McFly ducking holographic sharks in Back To The Future II and the resurrection of Tupac Shakur, holograms are never far from the zeitgeist of pop culture.

However, Provision - a leader in the commercialization of 3-D holographic displays - wants to take the fiction out of science fiction and up the ante with HoloVision, a display touting life-sized holograms.

"Imagine a human-sized, floating hologram projected from a 3-D display," claims Provision. "The hologram requires no special glasses, no virtual reality goggles and literally hovers in air standing next to you!"
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Sherlock

Hacker Barnaby Jack's cause of death could remain unknown for months

Amanda Holpuch
The Guardian
Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:42 UTC
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© Isaac Brekken/APBarnaby Jack demonstrates an attack on two automated teller machines during the 2010 Black Hat technology conference.
Celebrated hacker who infiltrated implanted medical devices and ATMs was found dead Thursday in San Francisco

The San Francisco medical examiner's office has said it could be several months before the cause of death for acclaimed hacker Barnaby Jack is released.

Jack, who was born in New Zealand, was famous for hacking implanted medical devices and ATMs. He was found dead in San Francisco on 25 July.

A San Francisco police department spokesperson told the Guardian Jack was found dead by "a loved one" in an apartment in the city's Nob Hill neighborhood and that no foul play was suspected.

Jack lived in San Francisco, where he worked as the director of embedded security research at security firm IOActive. The company said Jack was survived by his mother and sister in New Zealand and his girlfriend in California.

"This is an extremely sad time for us all at IOActive, and the many people in our industry that Barnaby touched in so many ways with both his work and vibrant personality," IOActive CEO Jennifer Steffens said in a statement. "But as a personal friend of Barnaby's for many years I know he'd want sadness to quickly turn to celebration of his life, work and the tremendous contributions he's made spanning well beyond his widely acclaimed professional accomplishments."
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Info

Evidence of serious disease may be found via saliva test

Rebekah Eliason
RedOrbit
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 16:59 UTC
Saliva Test
© Thinkstock
A recent study from Malmo University's Faculty of Odontology discovered serious illnesses, such as cancer, leave evidence of their existence in saliva. This new information could lead to future tests that allow for early detection of diseases by using a simple saliva sample.

Professor Bjorn Klinge, of the Department of Periodontology said, "An early diagnosis has significant implications for both patients and healthcare."

In previous studies it was discovered mouth and throat disease can be detected through salivary samples. One study also found a saliva sample detected the autoimmune disease Sjogren's Syndrome, which affects four million US adults.

Certain illnesses, such as growth of certain tumors, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, contain an inflammatory component. Klinge and his colleagues have shown diseases with the inflammatory element possibly leave traces of it in saliva.

Klinge explained, "We have successfully linked the secretion of substances in patient saliva to these illnesses." He also described how this important discovery could have a monumental effect on the future of medical examinations. "Instead of having to visit the doctor, patients will be able to swab the inside of their mouth with a cotton bud and send it away for analysis. If the test shows signs of illness, the patient will be called in to a doctor."
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