Android Ads Could Attack, Study Warns

Trap Door: This permission screen—typical for a free Android app—also grants the same permissions to the app’s ad libraries.
Technology Review

Android Ads Could Attack, Study Warns

Ad libraries, bundled with free apps, could sniff data and even install malicious software.

• Monday, March 19, 2012
• By David Talbot

To guard against malicious behavior, apps that run on Android smart phones must ask politely for permission to do things like access your personal information, track your location, or transmit data via the Internet. But once they have approval, these apps can share the permissions with the advertising libraries they use to serve up ads, creating serious potential privacy and security vulnerabilities, researchers have found.

Combing through 100,000 apps selected randomly from Google Play (the erstwhile Android Market), a team of researchers at North Carolina State University found that 48,139 of the ad libraries used by these apps tracked the user's GPS location; 18,575 tracked the identity of the phone (its IMEI number); 4,190 let advertisers track the user via GPS; and 4,047 accessed the device's phone number.

Dozens of such "ad libraries" exist, generating onscreen ads with the associated apps. When you click on an ad, the app maker gets a fee. One of these libraries, called energysource, uses an insecure method of loading code from the Internet, says Xuxian Jiang, the North Carolina professor who led the study, released as a paper to be presented at a conference in Tucson next month. Though the researchers did not detect malicious behavior from the app, they did say it poses a security threat simply by allowing code to be downloaded and run.

Of the 100,000 apps, 297 contained ad code that allowed the phone to run code downloaded from the Internet, providing a potential path for malicious software to get inside the device. "If your app has permission to access personal information, the ad library also has permission to access your information," Jiang says.

The North Carolina research is only the latest evidence of gaping security and privacy holes in smart phones. In April of last year, iPhones and Android devices were found to track users' locations automatically. Then, in December, these and other smart-phone devices were found to carry diagnostic software that also tracks a wide range of user information. More recently, it was discovered that both iPhones and Android devices share users' address books and other information with apps. And instances of mobile malware have been rising.

The new findings point to a flaw in the business model behind apps, Jiang says. Developers rely on revenue from ad libraries to support free apps, but they have no control over what those libraries do. "The current model of embedding ad libraries in mobile apps for monetization purposes poses security and privacy risks. These ad libraries will essentially have the same set of permissions granted to the apps that enclose them. And certain ad libraries may abuse them for other unwanted purposes."

Mobile device makers should provide ways to isolate the two, Jiang says, so that the ads run separately from the host apps—and require separate explicit permissions. "There are fundamental concerns in the way mobile apps are being monetized," he adds.

Adding insult to injury, other research has recently found that ads associated with free Android apps are also battery-drainers. Abhinav Pathak, a computer scientist at Purdue University, and colleagues at Microsoft Research found that as much as three-quarters of the juice used by such apps is spent to serve ads and transmit user data back to advertisers.

New service reports text spam

In the United States, text spammers have to stop sending you messages if you reply "stop."

• North American wireless carriers have deployed a new spam-reporting service
• Service generates a data feed of spam reports that carriers can integrate into security
• Organizations that disobey shortcode rules can find their shortcode lease revoked
• The service doesn't tell you if any action was taken against the spammer you reported

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) -- Unsolicited text messages from scammers, companies and political campaigns are illegal and annoying. But at least now they're easier to report.

Recently all of the major North American wireless carriers have deployed a centralized spam-reporting service backed by GSMA, a global association of wireless carriers. This service collects information about spam complaints from all participating carriers into a common database, which may make it easier for carriers to identify spammers and take action against them.

According to GSMA, one feature of the new spam-reporting service is that it generates a data feed of spam reports that carriers can integrate into their network security measures.

It may be hard to tell whether this new system does any good. But it probably can't hurt.

I just tested it. Here's how it works:

When you receive a spam text message on your phone, forward that text to the shortcode 7726 (which spells "SPAM"). You'll then receive an automated message from your wireless carrier, asking you then to enter the phone number from which the spam text was sent.

I first reported as spam a text message I received from the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. (To be clear, the Romney campaign did not spam me. I voluntarily signed up to receive its text updates. However, I had to test this spam reporting service with somebody's text message, and I doubt that one spam report would do Romney much harm.)

The Romney campaign sends texts from a common shortcode (a short telephone number that's leased by the U.S. government for texting programs -- a use that is highly regulated). So when I responded to Verizon with the sender's phone number, I received a response that said: "It is likely that your message came from a shortcode. Please return to the original message and reply STOP."

OK, this might sound like the new spam reporting service didn't really do anything -- but actually it probably did the right thing. In the United States, any texting campaign that uses a shortcode has to obey strict rules. One of those rules is that if you reply "stop" to any message that came from a shortcode, it has to stop sending you messages.

Many mobile users don't know this, so this is a good reminder first to try to unsubscribe. And also, it verifies that my test didn't do Romney's campaign any harm.

But many text-spam messages are sent from regular phone numbers, not shortcodes, precisely because shortcode use is so tightly monitored and regulated. Organizations that disobey U.S. shortcode rules can find their shortcode lease revoked, or their messages blocked by carriers.

Next I tested the spam-reporting service by forwarding to it a spam text I had received from an ordinary phone number. It claimed to be offering a Walmart gift card, but that was most likely a ruse.

After I got Verizon's acknowledgment of my spam report and sent it the full 10-digit phone number of the spam sender, the system responded: "Thank you, we appreciate your assistance." It also offered Verizon's instructions for blocking text messages from a specific number.

This spam reporting service apparently doesn't tell you whether any action was taken against the spammer you reported. So it's a little unsatisfying in that regard. Also, this service is new, so it's unclear so far what kind of difference it might make in the fight against spam texts.

However, forwarding spam texts to an easy-to-remember shortcode is a simple thing to do. So it might be a good idea to try using this service to report any spam texts that you receive. Let's hope it helps.

The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran.

Genius SW-G2.1 3000 Gaming Speakers

Genius SW-G2.1 3000 Gaming Speakersby Edwin - on March 19th, 2012

I clearly remember when I bought my very first gaming rig with my own money more than a decade ago, setting up a LAN in the home with my brother and a housemate, where we need not waste any more money at cybercafes since we can always get some good, old fashioned fragging Quake action going on in the comfort of our homes. Of course, to go up head to head against one’s opponent required plenty of stealth and guile, not to mention wearing a pair of headphones so as not to give away my location to the opponent so easily.

When I am playing other single player games alone, however, that is a totally different matter – it was time to unplug the headphones, jack in a pair of high powered speakers, and blast away. Blasted away I did, until the neighbor from the row of houses behind ours came knocking on our gate, asking me to reduce the volume as he wanted to get a good night’s rest. Of course I complied, but those were the days when I was living the “young and dangerous” lifestyle. Genius knows that a power-packed speaker system is always something worth looking into, hence the Genius SW-G2.1 3000 Gaming Speakers.

With the Genius SW-G2.1 3000 Gaming Speakers, it will offer 70 watts RMS of juice, throwing in the GX series’ loudest subwoofer at the same time with 6.5″ of tub-thumpin’ goodness, delivering 40 watts of bass, while a couple of 15 watt curvaceous satellite speakers and a separate control box for easy adjustment of volume and bass rounds off the list of included hardware as well as their capabilities.

It comes highly recommended for you to place the subwoofer, speakers, and control box in the right array in order to maximize the acoustics and layout of just about any room, all the while retaining volume and bass control at your fingertips. With 3″ metal cones, the SW-G2.1 3000 satellite speakers are capable of playing middle to high range audio in a vivid and vibrant manner, while audio from the satellite speakers will be able to complement the deep, rich bass of the wooden cabinet subwoofer. In order to achieve high volumes at low distortion, the Genius SW-G2.1 3000 speaker system has more than enough wires inside going to have it achieve such depths of performance. If you are interested, it will retail for $119.99 a pop.

Product Page

King Jim Pomera DM100 digital memo

King Jim Pomera DM100 digital memoby Edwin - on March 19th, 2012

Most of us these days own a smartphone, a tablet, a phablet (like the Galaxy Note), or all three. Just when you thought that there was no longer any room to fit yet another gadget into your pant’s pockets, here we are with a digital memo known as the King Jim Pomera DM100. A digital memo? Don’t we all have a smartphone or tablet that has the Calendar app to remind us of all our appointments already? Why is there a need to carry another redundant device?

Hold your horses, boys and girls, as we read about how the King Jim Pomera DM100 digital memo is going to add value to your life. After all, the Japanese do not create anything without any purpose or not having a niche to fulfill, so with the King Jim Pomera DM100 digital memo, it is meant to help you take your memos with you wherever you go, being able to access it anytime, and there are also features like a straight keyboard for easy typing and preloaded electronic dictionaries to get you started.

I guess the King Jim Pomera DM100 digital memo caters for those who have a phobia of devices that are too convergent – and once in a while, would prefer something else that has only one function, and does it well. The moment you open up the King Jim Pomera DM100, you are able to write a memo there and then. It will obviously be powered by batteries, and uses Sanyo’s Eneloop AAA batteries at the moment. There is an SD memory card slot for you to stash away all your created documents and for easy transfer to a computer later on.

The Pomera DM100 measures 24.5mm at its thickest point, and 11.6mm at its thinnest. The display itself is a 5.7″ TFT monochrome LCD display with backlight that will be able to do more than enough to show off its SVGA resolution. There are also pre-loaded copies of the Meikyo Japanese dictionary MX, Genius English-Japanese dictionary MX, and Genius Japanese-English dictionary MX. Whenever you create a document, you just need to press a button to reference the Japanese dictionary.

Apart from that, there is also a QR code conversion feature that has been thrown into the mix, where pressing this button will have a previously created document converted to QR code instantly. It can then be read by a smartphone using the right app, where said document is then imported as text. Now how about that?

Source

iPhone To Television Karaoke Player

iPhone To Television Karaoke Playerby Edwin - on March 19th, 2012

Love singing your heart out? Well, we do know that it was the Japanese who invented karaoke, and since then the whole world has also caught up with this particular craze. However, not all of us are willing to let our voices be heard in public, simply because we croak like Kermit the Frog. I am one of those, for example, and I guess the only way you are ever going to get me sing is to purchase the $79.95 iPhone To Television Karaoke Player, hook it up to my TV at home, and when there is nobody around (with all the windows and doors closed, of course), I will then start to croon, thinking that I am like Frank Sinatra but ending up like performing a mating call of some undiscovered species.

Back to the iPhone To Television Karaoke Player – this particular device will display lyrics as well as play music on your TV, where the iPhone dock itself will obviously need to be hooked up to the TV via the included component cable. Thankfully, there is also a free app that offers access to five songs, including All You Need Is Love by The Beatles, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, and Cry Me A River by Ella Fitzgerald. There is a built-in microphone that transmit your voice through the TV’s speakers while the lyrics appear on the screen. Nice to know your iPhone gets juiced up as it is docked.

Recesky Twin Lens Reflex Camera Kit

Recesky Twin Lens Reflex Camera Kitby Edwin - on March 19th, 2012

So, we are living in a digital age where digital cameras all sport super high resolution counts, but with the $29.99 Recesky Twin Lens Reflex Camera Kit, things are a little bit different. This particular twin-lens reflex camera is one which you are fully capable of building yourself, assuming you are able to interpret all the fixing together instructions properly. I know, some of us still do experience such troubles, but it is nothing that cannot be overcome with sheer perseverance.

The Recesky Twin Lens Reflex Camera Kit will rely on standard 35mm film (your kids might just ask you as to why you use such film, as they scratch their heads to comprehend an age where there was no such thing as film in the past) to get the job done, that is, helping you create old school pieces that used to use film. Retro always has a place in the hearts of man, that is for sure.

Library of Classics MP3 Player – Your Required Reading List in your Pocket

Library of Classics MP3 Player – Your Required Reading List in your Pocketby Julie - on March 19th, 2012

I love to read and I can honestly say that my whole family enjoys a good story, but they just don’t invest the time it takes to be able to sit down and enjoy a good novel, its a shame, because there are so many tales worthy of the few hours it would take to experience them. I must admit I actually hated to read in school, but I think that was more because I HAD to, I’ve always had a problem being told what to do. I wish I got this next item for one of my birthdays, back when I was in High School… It would have changed my life.

Let’s welcome the Library of Classics MP3 Player, this nifty little unit, smaller than a deck of cards, comes already loaded with 100 of the most important literary works of all time (and need I point out, required reading in most High Schools and Colleges) Simply press a button and listen to:  A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, The Art of War, or Gullivers Travels. For a complete list of the 100 unabridged titles, click  here. 

So imagine if you will, all the great literary masterpieces you will now be able to experience while you are working out, driving to work or just relaxing at the beach. Every book is recorded by an expert narrator and is digitally enhanced for the highest sound quality.

So whether you just love a good story, or want to finally read all the stuff you lied about in college, you might want to put this tiny pocket library on your wish list. The Library of Classics MP3 Player comes with the Personal MP3 player preloaded with the 100 greatest books in audio format, headphones, adapters for listening in the car and at home and a bonus gift that includes 50 of the Greatest Classical Music Performances of all time, all for under 99 bucks at Amazon.com Wow, I feel smarter already!

source

'Infinity Computer' Calculates Area Of Sierpinski Carpet Exactly

A Sierpinksi carpet is one of the more famous fractal objects in mathematics. Creating one is an iterative procedure. Start with a square, divide it into nine equal squares and remove the central one. That leaves eight squares around a central square hole. 

In the next iteration, repeat this process with each of the eight remaining squares and so on (see above). 

One interesting problem is to find the area of a Sierpinski triangle. Clearly this changes with each iteration. Assuming the original square has area equal to 1, the area after the first iteration is 8/9. After the second iteration, it is (8/9)^2; after the third it is (8/9)^3 and so on. 

So the area of a Sierpinski carpet after n iterations is (8/9)^n. That's straightforward.

But what is the area of the carpet after an infinite number of iterations?

Ordinary mathematics has no answer to this question because it lacks the tools for handling infinity. Instead, mathematicians look at the properties of the mathematical system and how it behaves as it tends towards infinity. They even have plenty of formal tools for exploring these limits. But the properties at infinity have to be assumed. 

In this case, the area of the carpet tends to zero as the number of iterations tends to infinity so the area of a Sierpinski carpet is zero.

That leaves many mathematicians with a sour taste in their mouths. The reason is that the area of a Sierpinski carpet close to infinity ought to be highly sensitive to its original shape, whether a square or some other pattern. But the process of finding the limits blurs this behaviour.

For example, instead of starting with a square, imagine starting with the shape in the top left had corner of the figure above, let's call it a square doughnut. The square donut consists of eight squares, each with sides of length 1/3. Obviously, the area of this Sierpinksi carpet tends to zero as n tends to infinity.

But the square doughnut carpet is one step ahead of the traditional Sierpinski carpet but that gets lost in the traditional approach. At infinity they are treated as equal.

If that doesn't sound very significant, imagine running the process in reverse, starting from infinity and working backwards to end up with a square or a square doughnut or some other shape in the carpet sequence. 

In that case, each shape can be created by the same (infinite) number of steps so it's not possible to distinguish between them. That's clearly absurd.    

Today, Yaroslav Sergeyev, a mathematician at the University of Calabria in Italy solves this problem (and the analogous three dimensional version called Menger's sponge). 

For the last few years, Sergeyev has been championing a new type of mathematics called infinity computing. The basic idea is to replace the notion of infinity with a new number that Sergeyev calls grossone, which he writes like this: 

Sergeyev begins by adding a new axiom to the axiom of real numbers, which he calls the infinite unit axiom. This introduces grossone--the infinite unit. 

Because it is governed by the other axioms of real numbers, grossone behaves much like one too. So it's possible to multiply grossone, divide it, add to it and subtract from it, just as is possible with other real numbers.

That suddenly makes working at infinity much easier by using a computing process that Sergeyev calls the infinity computer, which has the additional axiom built in. "The introduction of grossone gives a possibility to work with finite, infinite and infinitesimal quantities numerically," he says.

To show off its power, he works through the Sierpinski carpet examples given above, revealing how it's possible to keep track of the number of iterations at infinity simply by adding or subtracting real numbers from grossone. If a square can created in grossone steps, a square doughnut can be created in -grossone minus 1- steps. In this way, it's a simple matter to differentiate between any of the shapes in carpet sequence. 

That looks handy. The inability to keep track of mathematical processes at or close to infinity in a consistent fashion has frustrated mathematicians and physicists for centuries.

So if Sergeyev has found a way round this that works, that's clearly a highly significant advance.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1203.3150: Evaluating The Exact Infinitesimal Values Of Area Of Sierpinski's Carpet And Volume Of Menger's Sponge

NPR retracts Foxconn report

Among the facts Daisey fabricated, according to "This American Life," were the number of workers he spoke with.

• Public radio retracted an episode after learning Mike Daisey "partially fabricated" information
• "This American Life" producer Brian Reed says, "In the end, this was our mistake"
• Daisey issued a statement about the incident on his personal blog

(Wired.com) -- Acclaimed Public Radio International program "This American Life" has retracted an entire episode about working conditions inside Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer that builds much of Apple's most popular hardware, after learning the reporter "partially fabricated" information about his visit to the factories.

In the episode, PRI aired a monologue from reporter Mike Daisey, a self-proclaimed performer whose one-man show, "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," detailed alarming labor practices which he claimed to witness during his time visiting Foxconn.

Among the many facts Daisey fabricated, according to PRI, were the number of Foxconn factories he visited, the number of workers he spoke with, as well a major lie about meeting with a number of workers who claimed to have been poisoned by chemicals used on iPhone assembly lines.

"Daisey lied to me and to "This American Life" producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast," the show's host, Ira Glass, wrote in a blog post on Friday. "That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake."

The retraction came even as consumers lined up Friday to buy Apple's latest iPad amid protests over its treatment of workers -- protests that did little to dampen sales.

Public debate rages on about working conditions inside of Foxconn's Chinese factories, which have for years been the subject of reports that employees endure long hours and unsafe working environment.

Playwright targets Apple

Wired dug into the subject more than a year ago in a cover story after 17 Foxconn employees committed suicide. More recently, The New York Times reported a series of investigative pieces further detailing the undesirable jobs of Foxconn employees.

In an unprecedented response from the normally stoic Apple, the company responded to the reports publicly by cooperating with the Fair Labor Organization for audits of its entire supply chain. An entire page dedicated to Apple supplier responsibility can now be found on Apple's website.

Daisey issued a statement about the incident on his personal blog:

"I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity.

"Certainly, the comprehensive investigations undertaken by The New York Times and a number of labor rights groups to document conditions in electronics manufacturing would seem to bear this out."

"What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed THIS AMERICAN LIFE to air an excerpt from my monologue. THIS AMERICAN LIFE is essentially a journalistic -- not a theatrical -- enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations."

"But this is my only regret. I am proud that my work seems to have sparked a growing storm of attention and concern over the often appalling conditions under which many of the high-tech products we love so much are assembled in China."

PRI's "This American Life" website was bombarded with traffic upon news of the retraction, buckling the site under the torrent of traffic.

Apple, Public Radio International and Daisey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wired confirmed that none of Daisey's U.S. performances of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs were canceled after news of the retraction, save for one special broadcast: the April 7 show slated for performance at the Chicago Theater, which was originally sponsored by This American Life and Chicago public radio station WBEZ 91.5FM.

Roberto Baldwin and Tim Carmody contributed to this report.

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Copyright 2011 Wired.com.

Analysis: Apple, China, Foxconn and the fabulist

Apple labor story poisoned by lies

• A popular U.S. radio show has retracted an episode on Apple supplier Foxconn
• Several dramatic claims by Mike Daisey have been found to be fabricated
• Claims of talking with underaged and injured workers disputed by translator
• Show helped fan the flames that sparked numerous protests against Apple

Hong Kong (CNN) -- A story that helped catapult the issue of poor work conditions for Chinese workers at Foxconn -- a primary maker of iPads and other devices for Apple Inc. -- back into the spotlight in January has unraveled.

An episode of "This American Life," a wildly popular U.S. radio show distributed by Public Radio International that is regularly the most downloaded podcast on Apple's iTunes store, broadcast an hour-long radio version of monologist Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," in which he details a 2010 trip he took to meet workers at Foxconn in Shenzhen, China.

That episode -- which broke records as the most downloaded show of "This American Life" -- has now been retracted for numerous fabrications, many of which were repeated by Daisey in subsequent interviews, including one with CNN International.

The power of Daisey's storytelling, coupled with a New York Times investigative series of stories in January, fanned the flames that launched a number of off-and-online protests, including a petition on Change.org that seeks to "protect workers making iPhones in Chinese factories" that has nearly 250,000 signatures.

CNNMoney: Apple and the Daisey affair

But several of Daisey's dramatic claims, some of which he repeated to CNN's Zain Verjee, have been retracted after Daisey's Chinese translator was found by a reporter from "Marketplace," distributed by American Public Media, and disputed his version of events, including:

Playwright targets Apple

* Meeting workers with shaking hands that were poisoned by the chemical n-hexane. Apple itself acknowledged there were incidents with the chemical at two plants, but not at Foxconn.

* Found workers who were as young as 12 years old. The translator told public radio they interviewed no underage workers, although some may have looked young. Apple's 2010 audit found 10 suppliers who hired 91 underage employees out of hundreds of thousands of employees.

* In one of the show's most dramatic moments, Daisey said he interviewed a former worker now handicapped from repetitive stress injuries seeing an iPad for the first time, describing it as "a kind of magic." The translator said that never happened.

Questions raised about work conditions at Foxconn are nothing new. The electronics supplier -- who also makes electronic goods for Sony, Microsoft, Nokia and other household brands -- came under intense scrutiny by CNN and other media outlets in 2010 after a series of suicides at its Chinese plants. Daisey told public radio that after seeing the news story slip away from public attention, he wanted to create a story that would help sustain interest in the work conditions for overseas makers of popular electronics goods.

"And everything I have done in making this monologue for the theater has been toward that end -- to make people care. I'm not going to say that I didn't take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard. But I stand behind the work," Daisey said. "My mistake, the mistake that I truly regret is that I had it on your show as journalism and it's not journalism. It's theater. I use the tools of theater and memoir to achieve its dramatic arc."

But purporting as truth the fabrications of his show in dozens of media interviews has raised a number of questions about the line between drama and journalism. "The net result of Mike Daisey's efforts to put self-promotion ahead of the facts has badly muddied the waters, and has probably done more harm to the people he sought to help," wrote Arik Hesseldahl, senior editor for All Things D.

"Everybody who has touched Mike Daisey in the past three to four months has been tainted and they need to go back and re-examine their archives," Hesseldahl told CNN's Howard Kurtz.

Kai Ryssdal, host of "Marketplace," which broke the story, said Daisey's account mixed fact and fiction. "Mike Daisey is a great, great story teller and when you have a guy who spins a web like that and gets you involved, it's really difficult to take it apart and say, wait a minute, let's think about this for a second ... what doesn't work here?" he told CNN.

"Also, there are parts of Mike Daisey's story that are true -- it does happen that Apple has had underage workers (at its suppliers); it does happen that people have n-hexane poisoning and all that," he said. "But the bottomline is Mike Daisey tells a great story and people suspended their disbelief."

MindWave – Please Use Your Brain

by Julie - on March 16th, 2012

Most people are probably familiar with NeuroSky, even if they haven’t heard the name. NeuroSky are the folks that brought you Mindflex and the Star Wars Force trainer. What you might NOT know is that NueroSky doesnt just make kids games, they are integrating nueroscience into education, medicine and even automobiles.

The cornerstone of the “mind mingling” is the MindWave headset and, using bio-sensors just like the above mentioned games, it can communicate with a Mac or PC, and it does so via a wireless USB connection. Once connected, there are a multitude of focus inducing games, serene meditation apps and educational workouts that you can download directly from their app store. Who knew that? And theres a whole lot more…

Imagine driving a car that will alert you if you start to fall asleep, playing a game where your headpiece can actually monitor your attention level, or a “Cloud Smart TV” that can read your mental state and determine how a movie should end, how about a device that tells exactly when to hit your next golf shot? I know it sounds like science fiction but it could be a reality in a galaxy not that far away at all!

NeuroSky is also involved in ADHD, Alzheimers and brain injury programs, working with universeties to study how the brain can be “talked to”, exercised or even healed. Unlocking the mysteries of the human brain, now that would certainly change every aspect of life as we know it.

So now you know that NeuroSky is developing some pretty amazing technology, and some of it is available already. The MindWave (headset with 10 included applications) is available for 99 dollars and it turns your computer into a high tech private tutor. Check neurosky.com to purchase, or for a  lot more information.

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Instant French Fry Slicer

by Edwin - on March 17th, 2012

Remember the hoo-ha over the naming convention of ‘french fries’ being changed to ‘freedom fries’ all those years ago? Well, I am glad that we stuck to french fries, and common sense prevailed (which is a commodity that gets more and more rare each year). For those who feel that they have been spending way too much money at fast food chains on french fries and want to do something about cutting down on their monthly expenses, then the $69.95 Instant French Fry Slicer might just do the trick for you. After all, there is nothing quite like a DIY project to introduce satisfaction of knowing that you’ve achieved something.

This slicer prides itself in cutting perfectly shaped French fries with a single press of a lever. The slicer itself will feature interchangeable blades which are capable of yielding up to 36 steak fries, and if you prefer something more refined, 64 matchstick fries, where each one measures up to 3.5″ in length and are nearly identical in size so that even cooking in a deep fryer or oven can be achieved. Rubberized feet ensure that stability is provided, and all the components are dishwasher safe for your added convenience.

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Loudmouth Can Holder

by Edwin - on March 17th, 2012

Yes, the next edition of Superbowl is still quite some time away, but at least you have the summer Olympics to tide you through this year as the major sporting event of 2012. Having said that, booze and sports tend to go hand in hand, and instead of just being a loudmouth, you are able to “outsource” it to someone…or something else. Case in point, the $9.99 Loudmouth Can Holder. Yes sir, this unique can holder is the perfect tool for parties, where all it takes is a single touch of a button, and one out of 8 hilarious sound effects will play back.

Add that to the fact that you need not wrap your hand around the can of ice cold beer, and you have quite the invention here. Heat from your hand will not be transferred over to the beer can, ensuring it remains as cold as possible for the longest time before the laws of nature take its tool. Apart from that, your hand will also not end up wet due to the external condensation from the beer can, making this a truly win-win situation. At least it comes with batteries right out of the box to get you started straight away.

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My Book Thunderbolt Duo from Western Digital

by Edwin - on March 18th, 2012

Western Digital has come up with the My Book Thunderbolt Duo which is a dual-drive storage system, where it will offer supremely fast read and write times, targeting those who are in the creative industry, as well as consumers who are in a “need it now” mentality. This is the first external hard drive that the company will be shipping with Thunderbolt technology, and the My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system is said to offer both professionals and Mac enthusiasts with five primary areas of performance, double-safe data protection and flexibility; ultra-fast data transfer rates for greater work efficiency; a choice between 4TB or 6TB of storage space, customized dual-drive storage system with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD options; customer serviceable drives; and dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining multiple My Book Thunderbolt Duo devices or other peripherals.

It basically offers a spanking new method of hooking up just about any high-speed storage devices to any desktop or notebook computer via a Thunderbolt port, and with Thunderbolt, the port basically lives up to its own name, delivering unmatched speed for multitasking activities such as, editing video/music, 3D rendering, and completing other high definition graphics-intensive projects. It can be configured as either RAID 0 or RAID 1, and as mentioned earlier, will come in both 4TB and 6TB capacities.

According to Jody Bradshaw, general manager of WD consumer storage solutions “The My Book Thunderbolt Duo offers large storage capacities for creative professionals and enthusiasts who produce, edit, or need quick access to large files, including HD video. Its dual Thunderbolt ports provide amazing creative flexibility while allowing daisy-chaining of up to six My Book Thunderbolt Duo drives or other high performance peripherals for fast and efficient workflow. The combination of storage, backup, security, flexibility and speed makes the My Book Thunderbolt Duo the ideal choice for creative professionals who need to write, store, protect and edit high-definition and graphic intensive projects.”

If you are interested, the My Book Thunderbolt Duo will retail for $599.99 for the 4TB model, while 6TB of storage space will set you back by $699.99.

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Sony works on authenticated power outlets

by Edwin - on March 18th, 2012

The name Sony evokes plenty of memories – among the more notable triumphs from the past included the Walkman, the Discman, and in Japan, the Minidisc format, while the world benefited from the introduction of the PlayStation, and subsequently, its sequel as well as the current high powered console, the Sony PS3. Well, one thing that Sony is famous for would be the proprietary formats that they come up with, and while we have seen them finally take a step back from being so “controlling” by allowing the SD memory card format to make its way to their digital cameras instead of just relying on Memory Sticks, here we are with another potentially liberating step.

Sony has decided to come up with smart power outlets, and I kind of like the idea that they are toying with. We are talking about power outlets that are capable of logging the total amount of electricity used, now how about that?

Known as the power authentication system, it is capable of knowing just which gadget has been plugged in. Currently, the system remains as a prototype, and will allow power to flow only if the device that is plugged in is recognized. Sounds nifty, so that your freeloading friends will no longer be able to drop by your place, only to charge their smartphones and portable media players as though you were running a hotel for charity. You, as the owner, will be able to determine just which outside gadget or gizmo can be juiced.

According to Sony, such smart power sockets might eventually come in handy as electric cars get more and more common on the roads as well as in garages around the world. Not only that, it can be a nifty tool to aid management of the electrical grid. What lies at the heart of Sony’s smart power system? Well, there are two types of wall sockets which can “interrogate” any device that is plugged into them. These sockets will come with sensors of their own, functioning with either Radio Frequency ID (RFID) or Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range radio communications. A chip built into the electrical device will be the determining factor for the smart sockets to read identification and authentication data.

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Mobile Payments: Diversity Is Good

New ways to buy things with your mobile phone are popping up all over the place, as we’ve been reporting this month. But which technologies will win? At Xconomy’s Mobile Madness conference on Wednesday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, three CEOs in the game prognosticated.

• Seth Priebatsch of location-based gaming startup Scvngr, which recently launched a spin-off called LevelUp (which combines location-based gaming with deals offered by sites like Groupon), said consumers would make the call. “The consumer controls pretty much everything. While everyone [merchants and credit-card companies] has a lot of blocking power—and everybody needs to cooperate—it will be consumer choice that drives adoption of whatever platform ends up winning."

• Chris Gardner of Paydiant, which lets banks and retailers run their own mobile wallet and loyalty platforms, said merchants would be in the driver’s seat: “History is the judge: All payment models have started with merchant acceptance. Until retailers give you a place to use your mobile money, there is no ‘there’ there … Ultimately, there will be a few winners. Not one, but a few.” And he and others pointed out that what will make merchants care is if mobile technologies prove better at roping in customers with loyalty programs, coupons, and other incentives.

• Andrew Paradise of Aislebuyer, which provides mobile checkout technologies, made the point that the plethora of technologies and strategies was a good thing—it echoes the existing chaos in our wallets (credit cards, debit cards, cash, gift certificates, and store cards—often with special incentives attached). The diversity of approaches will gradually show people how to do similar things with phones. “It’s going to take a variety of technologies to drive the idea of mobile payments in stores,” he said.

Consensus point: diversity is good. Google has been pushing its “Google Wallet,” in which special chips called near-field communications wirelessly transmit payments with the wave of a phone; and three carriers are pushing a similar strategy. Certain apps give you a QR code that is then scanned, and you get a digital receipt.  Merchants including Starbucks, Target, and Walmart are developing their own systems. Square lets merchants swipe traditional cards with a card-reading gadget that plugs into smart phones. Apple, the secretive behemoth, might someday unveil a strategy.

But nobody has a corner on mobile wallet. The phone itself is the wallet. That's the point: it will eventually fill up with chip-and-software versions of the same stuff our wallets are crammed with today.

A Quarter-Century of Losing Stuff

A new study from Kroll Ontrack about data recovery services points to the ways data--and our tendency to lose it--has transformed our lives.

Kroll Ontrack crunched the numbers on the data recovery services it had performed over the years (it’s been in the business for a quarter-century). The most startling statistic? Today, Kroll Ontrack recovers 35 million GB of data a year (35 PB)--a suitably huge number. But in 1987, Kroll Ontrack only recovered a measly 1.2 GB of data, total--the merest fraction of what your laptop’s hard drive is capable of holding.

As our creation and use of data has skyrocketed over the years, it’s no surprise to learn that data recovery had become a bigger and bigger deal. Kroll Ontrack puts some interesting numbers on this, though: for example, in the second half of the 1980’s, there were about 7,000 devices per million people, and roughly 33,000 of these experienced data loss. By last year, there were 200,000 devices per million people and 1.4 million cases of data loss.

Another interesting tidbit from Kroll Ontrack: only about a quarter of data loss cases are due to human error; over half of the time, you’re justified in cursing at your computer for failing you, since some 56% of data loss is a result of hardware failure.

It’s pretty fascinating some of the feats that data recovery providers can pull off. Said Kroll Ontrack’s Todd Johnson in a release: “In the past 25 years, the worst cases Kroll Ontrack has seen have coincided with natural disasters, which included burned, water logged and physically damaged drive... Despite this, even in extreme situations, Kroll Ontrack has been successfully recovering incredible amounts of digital information in both our global recovery labs and cleanrooms. For example, one of the company’s most successful endeavors was the recovery of more than 99 percent of mission-critical data from a melted, crashed and burned drive from the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia.” Disasters like floods or fires only account for 3% of Kroll Ontrack’s cases, though.

And how about the amount of data out there overall? IDC Digital Universe says that our data collectively doubles each year; this year it should hit 1.8 “zettabytes.” As Kroll Ontrack puts it: “That is the equivalent of 200 billion two-hour long HD movies that one person would have to watch continuously for 47 million years.” (I think I would tire even of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at that point.)

For more details on the Kroll Ontrack study, check out the nifty infographic on their site.

With Relentless Testing, a Professor Watches His Body Get Sick

Testing, testing: Via self-tracking, Michael Snyder learned he was vulnerable to diabetes. Soon thereafter, he developed the actual disease.
Stanford University School of Medicine

With Relentless Testing, a Professor Watches His Body Get Sick

An unprecedented effort at molecular self-quantification shows how personalized medicine could help head off disease.

• Friday, March 16, 2012
• By Karen Weintraub

Michael Snyder knows his body better than anyone in history.

For two-and-a-half years, he's had regular blood samples drawn, and tracked the ebb and flow of 40,000 different molecules within his cells, from hormones to blood sugar, to the proteins of the immune system and mutated genes. Snyder also watched as his genetic vulnerability to diabetes turned into actual disease.

In a paper published today in the journal Cell, Snyder, a genetics professor at Stanford University, and his collaborators recount 14 months of living a Truman Show kind of life, but with a microscope instead of a television camera. His story marks the first time anyone's physiology has ever been followed this closely, and portends the future of personalized medicine, according to Snyder and others.

"This article reminds us that the future is now," says Charis Eng, a professor of genomic medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "I think we're heading in this direction, and I think we must prepare in every way, not just scientifically, not just medically, but as a society—[considering] all the ethical, moral, and regulatory issues."

The cost of providing such analysis—genomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics, along with immune system measures—was significant. Snyder, who is also director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford, says it cost about $2,500 to collect molecular data from each blood sample, not counting the price of analyzing it or the millions of dollars in setup costs to purchase equipment.

Snyder, however, predicts the costs of such studies could drop dramatically, and become a common part of medicine. "In my case, it potentially saved a lot of damage," he says.

During the course of the study, Snyder had his genome sequenced. The DNA testing suggested he was at risk for type 2 diabetes. Although his doctors didn't see any outward signs that he might be developing the condition, his self-testing revealed early signs. He later developed the disease.

Cashing out of Corruption

Cashing out of Corruption

Are fifteen million mobile phones enough to wage war on graft in Afghanistan?

• Monday, March 19, 2012
• By Jessica Leber

Jan Chipchase

See the rest of our Business Impact report on The Future of Money.

When police officers in Afghanistan's mountainous Wardak province began receiving their $200-per-month salaries via their mobile phones in 2009, many wondered why they had gotten a raise. They hadn't. It turns out their superiors had been skimming from their salaries, previously paid in cash.

The anecdote appears in State Department cables describing M-Paisa, a mobile-phone payment system run by Afghanistan's largest telecom operator Roshan that now reaches 1.2 million Afghans and is described by U.S. officials as a potential "breakthrough technology" for the country.

Cash is linked to corruption at all levels in Afghanistan, whether it's a few dollars under the table or thousands stuffed in a briefcase. According to the United Nations, government corruption is the biggest day-to-day concern of Afghans, more than even poverty or violence. Between 2008 and 2009, the U.N. estimated that half of all Afghans paid at least one bribe to an official—the average amount was $160.

The idea now taking hold in Afghanistan is to avoid graft by paying people electronically, using the country's network of 15 million mobile phones. "Anywhere you have middleman touching cash, you increase the opportunity for skimming" says Zahir Khoja, executive director for mobile money at Roshan, which is partly owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development.

As cell phone use skyrockets in even the poorest countries, mobile money is seen as a way to extend banking services more broadly. The people with by far the most to gain are the impoverished 2.5 billion who don't have access to a bank account and can't reliably receive, send, save, or borrow money.

According to Afghanistan's banking authority, the country has only about 300 branches and a few dozen ATMs for 34 million people. Less than 5 percent of Afghans have bank accounts. The banks aren't trusted, either. The largest, Kabul Bank, is embroiled in perhaps the nation's worst public corruption scandal, which caused a run on deposits in 2010 after $900 million went missing.

"The mobile network is one of the only networks that knits the country back together," says Kathleen McGowan, senior policy analyst for in Afghanistan for the United States Agency for International Development. The mobile phone companies, which got going only in the last decade, are also Afghanistan's largest industry and its biggest taxpayer.

M-Paisa ("paisa" means money in the Dari language) allows anyone with a cell phone to receive a payment on their phone with just a text message, or because most Afghans are illiterate, a call to a voice-activated menu. They can then obtain cash at an M-Paisa agent. There's no bank involved; under a special license issued last year to Roshan keeps subscribers funds in escrow-like accounts.

Startups Aim to Make Coding Fun

Code racer: A game created by Treehouse has players race to complete coding tasks.
Treehouse

Startups Aim to Make Coding Fun

The companies use video-game tricks to make people forget that they're learning.

• Monday, March 19, 2012
• By Rachel Metz

For Jacob Arriola, a business development manager for a Spanish media company in Los Angeles, learning to program wasn't a necessity. But figuring it might help with his job, he started using an online code-tutorial service called Treehouse in January.

After three months with the paid service, he's earned several dozen badges for completing programming quizzes and challenges, and watching coding-related video lessons. More importantly, he's built his own website from scratch and made some simple changes to websites that his company runs. "I'm able to do it myself, which is pretty cool," he says.

Arriola is one of a growing number of non-techies turning to Web-based sites to learn how to code, either for fun or in hopes of advancing their job prospects. And while the basic concept isn't new, the execution is. The addition of video-game elements like badges and points is helping startups such as Treehouse take off.

Perhaps the most well-known of these companies is Codecademy, a New York-based startup with hundreds of thousands of subscribers to its free weekly JavaScript programming lessons through its Code Year program. Codecademy incorporates several gaming principles to keep users motivated: Users get points and badges for completing lessons and projects, such as building a simple blackjack or dice game.

Cofounder Zach Sims says the site was created to solve two problems: The frustrations (which he himself encountered) that can accompany learning to program, and the challenges of educating many people at once. Codecademy encourages users to help one another to resolve problems by visiting the site's forum.

Codecademy rolled out this past August. Over 200,000 people used the site within its first three days. It had another growth spurt early this year with the introduction of Code Year, which sends its now 400,000 users a weekly e-mail outlining a new programming concept they can learn on the site.

Over a million people have signed up for Codecademy so far, and their efforts have started to bear fruit, such as an app a teacher built that allows students to digitally convert DNA into RNA.

Though simple, Sims believes the gaming elements built into Codecademy's lessons—intended to stanch some of the boredom he felt when learning to program—are key to attracting users and keeping them motivated.

Orlando, Florida-based Treehouse plans to take the idea of gamification even further. Treehouse—which charges a monthly fee for online lessons in Web design, Web development, and development of apps for Apple's iOS operating system—also offers badges that users earn by learning coding principles. But it also recently rolled out a free, simple game called Code/Racer that truly makes programming into a game, and it hopes to incorporate other gamelike elements into the learning process.

With Code/Racer, two players race to complete small website coding tasks in short bursts of time—creating a header on a webpage that says "Frogarri 5000" and adding an image of a cartoon-like race car, for example—while zippy music plays in the background. Code/Racer is more like a proof of concept than a full-fledged game right now, and it's confusing if you're not familiar with some basic HTML. But playing it does make learning fast-paced and fun, and you can see how it might make it easier to pick up a topic like programming.