Helping 'smart' devices talk to each other

 

Why shouldn't your phone be able to talk to your washer or your robot vacuum? Long the stuff of science fiction, emerging technology is helping form an "Internet of things," connecting devices in the home to create a more seamless, hands-off lifestyle.

 A house that tracks your every movement through your car and automatically heats up before you get home. A toaster that talks to your refrigerator and announces when breakfast is ready through your TV. A toothbrush that tattles on kids by sending a text message to their parents.

Exciting or frightening, these connected devices of the futuristic "smart" home may be familiar to fans of science fiction. Now the tech industry is making them a reality.

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The secret military tech inside household robot vacuum cleaner

Imagine: you are sitting with friends, one day in the distant future, in a space-age house, while robot servants cook dinner, fold laundry and mow the lawn.

Inevitably the question arises: "What was your first robot?"

For many -- 10 million, in fact -- the answer will be Roomba. The mini vacuum cleaning robot, launched in 2002, has become an everyday fixture in homes across the world -- earning pet-names from affectionate owners and a unique place

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Apple and Samsung patent row back in court

The latest round in a bitter tit-for-tat legal row between the two biggest players in smartphones will be resumed later in California.

Apple has accused Samsung of "systematically" copying distinctive features such as "slide to unlock" from its devices.
But Samsung said it was a "pioneer", and that Apple was doing the copying.
Apple is suing the South Korean firm - which is the market leader - for up to $2bn (£1.2bn).
Apple wants Samsung to be forced to pay a $40 (£24) royalty on every device it deems to be copying its software.
"Apple revolutionised the market in personal computing devices," the company said in court filings.
"Samsung, in contrast, has systematically copied Apple's innovative technology and products, features and designs, and has deluged markets with infringing devices.''
Apple has made copying claims over five features found within its iOS software.
Most recognisable to smartphone users is "slide to unlock" - in which a user slides their finger across the device's screen to unlock it and make it ready for use.

Former Google engineer Andy Rubin is listed as a potential witness in the case

The company has also claimed that Samsung stole tap-from-search technology.
An example of this is when a phone number is being shown - perhaps on a web page or within a text message - and the user is able to tap it to begin a call.
Google involvement But Samsung has hit back at Apple's claims with two of its own.
"Samsung has been a pioneer in the mobile device business sector since the inception of the mobile device industry," said Samsung lawyers.
"Apple has copied many of Samsung's innovations in its Apple iPhone, iPod, and iPad products.''
Samsung said that it owns a patent relating to how media - pictures and video - are organised on a device.
It also said it invented a method for sending and receiving data using low bandwidth connections.
However, given that this is a case involving disputes over features in software - rather than the hardware of the devices - many have speculated that it is as much about Apple taking on Google, as it is about Samsung.
Google's mobile operating system Android powers the Samsung devices implicated in the case.

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'Shakedown'

Another high-profile patent case, which could have ramifications for the entire technology industry, is kicking off this week.
In the US Supreme Court, a company that owns a patent for electronic currency transactions has accused UK bank CLS of infringement.
CLS has said that the patent should be invalidated as it is overly broad.
In simple terms, the patent covers an electronic escrow service - a method by which money can be transferred between two parties with less risk.
According to the Financial Times, CLS transfers $5tn of foreign currency transactions every day.
The newspaper said a win for Alice Corporation - which owns the patent in question - would amount to a "shakedown" of the world's financial markets.
The wider question to arise from the case is whether certain types of software can be considered patentable.
Many in the technology sector say vague patents, some of which are owned by companies that use them simply to sue other firms, are stifling innovation.
But defenders of Alice Corp's action said protecting software patents was crucial to supporting the creation of jobs in the sector.Among the potential witnesses is former Google engineer Andy Rubin, who oversaw the development of Android.

He is expected to suggest that Google was working on the features in question before Apple had filed its patents. Ahead of this process, Samsung complained about a video that would be shown to jurors to explain the basics of the US patent system.

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New IRS rules make using Bitcoins a fiasco

The Internal Revenue Service's notice last week will force the average Bitcoin user to keep a strict record of every purchase made all year long -- then perform difficult calculations to account for the changing value of a bitcoin.

It's meant to extract taxes from any gains in Bitcoin's value, and the rule applies to everything bought with electronic money, from coffee to cars.
That's problematic for two reasons. The going rate for a bitcoin fluctuates wildly -- easily by more than $10 a day. And no one diligently records the price of a bitcoin at every purchase.
"That would obviously create an accounting nightmare for taxpayers and may cause taxpayers to avoid using virtual currency," said Jeffrey Hochberg, a tax attorney in New York.

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NASA's new spacesuit

But had Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin not been wearing their fancy A7L spacesuits when they stepped off the Eagle, readers would probably have woken up to "WELL, THAT GOT MESSY."

"Apparently This Matters" Is Jarrett Bellini's weekly (and somewhat random) look at social-media trends.

To be fair, I don't actually know what happens if an astronaut ventures out into space wearing, say, blue jeans and a Mexican Baja hoodie, but if cartoons have taught me anything -- and God knows they have -- it's that people tend to explode.

So that's exactly what would happen. Cartoons don't lie.

Of course, the Apollo 11's original A7L spacesuit was a technological achievement for its time. But like all things NASA, it was a constant work in progress, and four missions later when Apollo 15 blasted off for

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Designer genes take a leap forward after scientists make new chromosome

Look miles into the future and imagine a day, when geneticists can design a flawless set of human genes in a laboratory.

That future vision may never arrive, but it has taken a step closer.

Scientists have built a designer chromosome and inserted it into a cell, geneticist Jef Boeke from New York University announced this week.

The chromosome was a heavily altered version, a departure from its natural counterpart. A team of scientists from around the world made 500 changes to its genetic base.

"When you change the genome, you're gambling," said Boeke, who led the project. "One wrong change can kill the cell."

But the cell survived and made use of its new chromosome. It also reproduced, and subsequent cells carried the new chromosome forward.

Actually, make this breakthrough a second step closer to that way-out-there future.

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Apple’s A7 Cyclone CPU detailed: A desktop class chip that has more in common with Haswell than Krait

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Some six months after Apple shocked the world with its 64-bit A7 SoC, which appeared in the iPhone 5S and then the iPad Air, we finally have some hard details on the Cyclone CPU’s architecture. It seems almost every tech writer was wrong about the A7: The CPU is not just a gradual evolution of its Swift predecessor — it’s an entirely different beast that’s actually more akin to a “big core” Intel or AMD CPU than a conventional “small core” CPU.
These new details come from Apple’s recent source code commits to the LLVM project. For some reason, Apple waited six months before committing the changes (the Swift core was committed very close to its

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Sony’s 13-inch Digital Paper is the first device to use a flexible e-ink display

After almost a year of agonizing posturing by Sony, the semi-flexible 13.3-inch Digital Paper has finally been unveiled. For $1100, you can get your hands on the thinnest, lightest A4-sized e-ink tablet. The Digital Paper supports stylus input, has built-in WiFi, and lasts up to three weeks on a single charge. The key technology here is the new Mobius display from E Ink, which is very light and highly flexible — though it isn’t clear how much of that flexibility made it into the final Digital Paper product.
When it comes to displays, the problem — as far as weight and flexibility are concerned — has always been the substrate. The liquid crystals, the organic diodes, the capsules of ink, the transistors, the wiring — all of the key display stuff is already light and flexible. But you have to build all of that stuff on something heat-resistant and transparent —  i.e. glass. Glass is heavy (especially at larger sizes), and it’s very brittle (especially when it’s thin, which is necessitated by weight constraints). Glass is a terrible display substrate, basically, but sadly there hasn’t been another option. Until now.

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How satellites tracked down flight MH370 – but why we still can’t find the plane (updated)

Thailand’s Thaicote satellite has spotted another 300 objects in the Indian Ocean, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of the objects spotted by the French satellite. This new imagery was captured on March 24, one day after the French data. Earlier today, the 11 search-and-rescue aircraft were called off after just a couple of hours due to bad weather and zero visibility. We still haven’t physically located any of the objects spotted by satellites — and due to bad weather and strong currents, it may be some time until we finally track down the debris of flight MH370.

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How to boost your WiFi speed by choosing the right channel

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If you’ve ever poked around your WiFi router’s settings, you’ve probably seen the word channel. Most routers have their channel set to Auto, but I’m sure that a most of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. Well, I’m happy to report that some channels are indeed much faster — but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and recklessly change them. Read on to find out more about 802.11 channels,

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ET deals: 20-inch touch display, Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, Webroot, more

 
It’s been another good week for laptop and desktop (of both the gaming and mobile variety) deals, but today we’re branching out to give you the best deals on everything from monitors to HDTVs to tablets to really complete your tech setups. Some of our best deals include the 20-inch Dell E2014T multi-touch display for just $135, $50 off the Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, and a 5-user license of Webroot SecureAnywhere Complete 2014 for 63% off.
We’ve also found some other steals, like a 480GB SSD Crucial M500 SSD for $228, the Lenovo N800 SmartTouch for just over $14, and for those for whom price is no object, the return of the $950 discount on the excellently spec’d Alienware Aurora r4 desktop and 32-inch UltraSharp 4K monitor bundle.
Scroll down to see all our best deals for your tech needs and check them out while they last.
Dell E2014T 20-inch 1600×900 multi-touch monitor for $135.99. Apply coupon

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Microsoft's Word for iPad cracks top 10 in gross revenue

Computerworld - Microsoft's new Word for iPad app has cracked the top 10 on Apple's App Store "Top Grossing" chart.

The app, which was released March 27, was in the No. 6 spot on the U.S. App Store's chart Sunday. The other Office for iPad apps, Excel and PowerPoint, held No. 11 and No. 32, respectively.
As of early Monday, those rankings had slipped slightly, to No. 8 (Word), No. 16 (Excel) and No. 40 (PowerPoint).
Apple does not publicly disclose the dollar amounts that apps for its iPad gross, but simply ranks them. Only Apple and the app developer knows the exact amount of revenue generated by any specific app.
Although Microsoft made its Office for iPad apps free to download for viewing documents, to edit existing or create new documents, spreadsheets and presentations, customers must subscribe to an Office 365 software rent-not-own plan. Those plans can be obtained through a number of non-App Store outlets:

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Moto G, Apple iPhone fuelling UK smartphone market as Android and Samsung witness rare slump Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2014/03/31/iphone-and-moto-g-surge-in-popularity-in-uk-but-android-sees-overall-decline

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We're all used to Android being the definitive king of the smartphone hill by now, so it's not often you hear news of a wobble from Google's OS. However, market research bean counters Kantar Worldpanel Comtech's latest stats have shown that Android has slipped recently.
The numbers (spotted by the Inquirer) are for the end of February, and show that the iPhone has increased its market share by 3.1 per cent year-on-year in the UK, to 31.1 per cent – much of which, we'd imagine, will be down to the iPhone 5S (as the 5C wasn't so well received given its price not being much less than the flagship).
Android, however, has dropped from a 58.3 per cent market share to 54 per cent over the last quarter – a fairly substantial dip for a three month period. Samsung in particular had a rough ride, falling from 36.7 per cent to 30.2 per cent.

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Headless Web Traffic Threatens Internet Economy

Much of that non-human traffic is created by botnets -- armies of compromised computers used to inflate traffic to websites that, if left to their own merits, wouldn't draw any traffic at all.
Those ghost websites typically contain mock content that's not designed to attract people but just to serve as a container for advertising.
"There are some nefarious actors out there," comScore Vice President for Marketing and Insights Andrew Lipsman told the E-Commerce Times. "Some of these websites are created for the sole purpose of generating false ad impressions."
Most advertisers don't have the time to verify a website's traffic before including it in their ad mix, which opens the door for fraud.

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Rocket the Vote! NASA Asks People to Vote on New Space Threads

 NASA is asking people to vote on their favorite design for the outer shell of the new Z-2 spacesuit.

While the Z-2 models may descend from their Apollo 13-style ancestors, there are some decidedly 21st Century twists. The "Biomimicry" design, for example, has a reptilian flare; "Trends in Society" has a more everyday look -- at least, as far as spacesuits go; and "Technology" has electroluminescent wire and exposed rotating bearings, among other features.
Chinese authorities detained more than 1,500 people in a crackdown on spam sent to mobile phones via text message, a practice that is commonplace in China.
The anti-spam campaign targets fake telecommunication base stations. Launched in February, the crackdown has led to the seizure of more than 2,600 fake base stations.
These fake base stations are used to send spam messages to mobile phone users. Said messages are disguised as texts from (fake) phone numbers, or as messages from official sources, e.g., government offices.

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NSA Listens to International Calls From the Past

The National Security Agency reportedly possesses a system that enables it to record telephone calls -- all telephone calls -- in a foreign country, and review conversations for up to a month after they took place.

The system is akin to a time machine, according to a source cited by The Washington Post, allowing for retroactive snooping on foreign targets.

Thanks to this technology, the NSA can record "every single" call made across an entire nation, according to a classified summary cited by the Post, which broke the story. The billions of calls are then stored in what the Post calls "a 30-day rolling buffer" that replaces the old with the new.This, according to the summary, enables the NSA to go back and listen to calls that may not have been so noteworthy when they actually

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Microsoft Does Some Scroogling to Catch a Thief

Microsoft, which has been mocking Google's searching of Gmail subscribers' emails with its "Scroogled" campaign, is fielding criticism for having itself searched the email of a Hotmail user.

The search, which came to light last week, was conducted after Microsoft found that an employee, Alex Kibkalo, who worked for it in Lebanon, had stolen proprietary code and shared it with the Hotmail user, who is a blogger.
Microsoft later turned over the information to the FBI, which reportedly has filed a complaint in a Washington court alleging Kibkalo stole trade secrets.
"Microsoft appears to have acted reasonably under the circumstances, and engaged the FBI upon knowing of the theft," patent and IP lawyer Raymond Van Dyke told TechNewsWorld.

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China Seeks Answers About NSA/Huawei Report

China's government is asking the U.S. to explain itself -- and to knock it off with all the cyberespionage -- following reports that the National Security Agency has had its way with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

The NSA reportedly penetrated Huawei servers to monitor communications among company executives, and to gain access to the dealings of Huawei customers. Huawei does business all over the world, of course, so knowing its ins-and-outs is quite the snooping boon.
Even fervent believers in American exceptionalism will appreciate the double-standard at play. Congress, after all, has long chided Huawei, warning that the company would carry out the sort of surveillance against the U.S. that, lo, the U.S. had been carrying out against the company.

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Objecting to new CEO, resignations sweep Mozilla board

• Mozilla announced some management changes Monday, but it turns out the shakeup isn't over

Three members of Mozilla's board resigned over a disagreement over the Firefox developer's promotion of former Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich to the chief executive job, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Eich took the new job Monday and, in an interview with CNET that day, said three board members had resigned: John Lilly, a former Mozilla CEO who's now working at venture capital firm Greylock Partners; Ellen Siminoff, CEO of online education company Schmoop; and Mozilla's most recent CEO, Gary Kovacs.
Mozilla said the board changes happened last week, but disputed the Journal's account.

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T-Mobile does away with company discount plan

T-Mobile CEO John Legere at the company's press conference at CES 2014. CNET/James Martin

T-Mobile is changing the way it offers discounts to T-Mobile customers whose companies have discounts for individual bills, the carrier announced Friday.
T-Mobile is dumping its current discounts plan, starting April 1. The plan took a percentage -- set by a customer's company and T-Mobile -- off of a customer's total bill each month. Instead, these customers will get $25 off a device each time they purchase or upgrade to a new device.
Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile said this is meant to make discounts less confusing and more equal. Instead of varying percentages of discounts for different companies, there will just be one flat rate of savings for customers, according to Sherrard.

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Microsoft to Stop Inspecting Private Emails in Investigations

   

Stephen Brashear/Getty ImagesBradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, right, last year. He wrote Friday that the company would not inspect the content of its customers if Microsoft suspected its services had been used to traffic stolen property.

SEATTLE — Microsoft will no longer snoop on customers’ private communications during investigations of stolen property, the company’s general counsel said on Friday.

Instead, the general counsel, Brad Smith, said Microsoft would hand over any such investigations to law enforcement agencies. Those agencies can then obtain court orders to inspect private communications on Microsoft’s various Internet services, which include Outlook.com and Skype.

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Cloud Computing’s Watershed Week

To consider just a few of the biggest moves over the week: Google harmonized its cloud computing business to a single entity, with a pricing model intended to hold customers by enticing them to build ever cheaper and more complex software.

Cisco announced it would spend $1 billion on a kind of “cloud of clouds” project. Later in the week it was part of a consortium of big multinationals that will set engineering standards for wiring people, machines and computers together in large industrial settings.

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Newspapers Cling to Life Despite Online News Trend

Print media is limping along and TV news has gained some strength, even though the trend toward getting news online continues to grow, Pew Research reported this week.

It all boils down to economics, said Mark Jerkowitz, associate director of the Pew Research Center Journalism Project.
Advertising revenues for newspapers have fallen about 50 percent from 2006, forcing some smaller publications to close. Others have reduced their publication schedules.
Still, newspapers "are going to be around awhile ... because they're supplying most of the print revenue," Jerkowitz told TechNewsWorld.
The allure of print publications is fading only in North America and Western Europe, Mukul Krishna, digital media senior global director at Frost & Sullivan, told TechNewsWorld. "Print is still thriving across much of the world."
Digital news now dominates, with 82 percent of Americans getting news on a desktop or laptop, and 54 percent on a mobile device, based on survey results.

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There's a New Kid on the Solar System Block

It's not official, but Vice President Joe Biden has a newfound planet nicknamed after him. The honor comes from the "VP" in the planet's identifying tag. The discovery suggests the potential presence of an enormous, unseen planet -- perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth -- that could be influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113 as well as other inner Oort cloud

Astronomers this week reported what they believe to be the most-distant member of our solar system discovered so far. 2012 VP113, a probable dwarf planet that was found to lie beyond the known edge of the solar system,

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Apple Patent Addresses Texting-Walking Risk

Texting while walking can be dangerous, but Apple could be aiming to make it less so, judging from a patent awarded Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple has found an innovative way to use an electronic communication device's camera to continuously capture and present video images as background within a text-messaging session, its patent application 20140085334, titled "Transparent Texting," suggests.
The device's rear-facing camera could be used to make it appear the user was looking through a transparent screen. That would allow a texter to be continuously aware of the environment beyond the device's display, while continuing to text or engage in an instant messaging conversation.
"The background within the text messaging session can continuously be a live and current video image of the view seen by the camera at any given moment," Apple's patent application reads. "Consequently, the device's user is less likely to collide with or stumble over an object while participating in a text messaging

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Microsoft hopes iPad users won't exploit Office loophole

 

Microsoft wants you to buy Office 365, making the $100 subscription service mandatory to access the full power of Office apps for iPad. But if you don't want to pay the price, you don't technically have to.
After tinkering with numerous devices and accounts since the debut of Office on iPad Thursday, CNET discovered a loophole in how Office 365 authentication gets enforced on Apple tablets. The loophole allows users who have not paid for the subscription to enjoy the benefits of those tablet apps for iOS.

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