Month: April 2016

(credit: Cellebrite)

We're all familiar with the Breathalyzer, the brand name for a roadside device that measures a suspected drunken driver's blood-alcohol level. It has been in use for decades. Now there's a so-called "textalyzer" device to help the authorities determine whether someone involved in a motor vehicle accident was unlawfully driving while distracted.

The roadside technology is being developed by Cellebrite, the Israeli firm that many believe assisted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in cracking the iPhone at the center of a heated decryption battle with Apple.

Under the first-of-its-kind legislation proposed in New York, drivers involved in accidents would have to submit their phone to roadside testing from a textalyzer to determine whether the driver was using a mobile phone ahead of a crash. In a bid to get around the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, the textalyzer allegedly would keep conversations, contacts, numbers, photos, and application data private. It will solely say whether the phone was in use prior to a motor-vehicle mishap. Further analysis, which might require a warrant, could be necessary to determine whether such usage was via hands-free dashboard technology and to confirm the original finding.

(credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

Republican lawmakers are working on two proposals that would hinder Federal Communications Commission efforts to help consumers.

The House of Representatives may vote as soon as this week on a measure that could disrupt net neutrality rules by stripping the FCC of rate regulation authority, The Hill reported. Separately, the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology on Wednesday will hold a hearing on a bill that would limit the amount of money the FCC's Lifeline program could spend helping poor people purchase Internet service.

The rate regulation bill, approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee over objections from Democrats last month, would strip the FCC of authority to set broadband rates or review whether a rate is reasonable. Although the FCC has no plans to tell broadband providers exactly what they can charge, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler argued last month that the bill's broad language could prevent the FCC from enforcing net neutrality rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. The bill could also prevent the FCC from taking action against zero-rating schemes in which ISPs favor content by exempting it from data caps, and it would "cast doubt on the ability of the Commission to ensure that broadband providers receiving universal service subsidies do not overcharge their consumers," he argued.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

An appeals court has ruled that Google will have to deal with an investigation into its business practices by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. The court also noted the search company can still challenge the investigation at a later time.

It's a reversal of a big win by Google last year when a federal judge halted the Mississippi investigation, which sought information about how Google deals with links related to counterfeit goods, illegal drug sales, copyright violations, and other matters. Google sued to stop the investigation while litigation was underway, saying that Hood's goal was to "punish" Google while he pursued his goal of a "pre-filtered Internet"—a power denied him by both Congress and the Constitution, Google lawyers argued.

Hood's investigation had been egged on by lobbyists from the Motion Picture Association of America, and in some cases demand letters that came from Hood's office were actually written by MPAA lawyers.

(credit: Ford)

As we reported on Sunday, some car makers are unhappy with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's push for coherent nationwide self-driving car regulations. This is partially because optical sensors can't always cope with adverse weather. But lest we forget, the intent—both of regulators and the OEMs that driving this technology—is to save many of the 33,000 lives lost on US roads each year. One of those companies, Ford, has just released the results of recent night testing that it says proves the effectiveness of the company's approach to autonomous driving.

The semi-autonomous cars we've been driving recently from Audi, Tesla, and Volvo all depend mainly on optical sensors to detect their environment. And the critics are correct—these sensors can't always read the lines on the road and can be susceptible to poor weather. Like Google, Ford uses lidar as the car's primary sensor. And after testing in the desert at night, Ford says that the tech far surpasses anything a human could do.

Wayne Williams—who we talked to at CES in January—was one of Ford's researchers who went for a nighttime ride in the autonomous Fusions. “Inside the car, I could feel it moving, but when I looked out the window, I only saw darkness. As I rode in the back seat, I was following the car’s progression in real time using computer monitoring. Sure enough, it stayed precisely on track along those winding roads,” he said.

(credit: NASA)

Late last week, NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft experienced some sort of problem that caused it to enter what's called emergency mode. This should only occur when the spacecraft experiences a serious problem, as it limits its activity and burns through the probe's limited fuel supply at an accelerated pace. This incident marked the first time since Kepler was launched in 2009 that it entered emergency mode.

Today, NASA announced that it had re-established normal communication with Kepler, allowing the spacecraft to exit emergency mode. The telescope's communication hardware is once again pointed directly at Earth. This has allowed controllers to put Kepler in an operational mode where it consumes far less fuel, which will extend its usable life.

But first, the controllers must figure out why Kepler entered emergency mode in the first place. Full communications will allow them to download telemetry and operational data, which will hopefully allow them to identify the underlying problem. Until they do, however, planned observations of the Milky Way's galactic core have been put on hold. The window for observing the core from Kepler's current location closes on July first. Its previous observation work ended in late March, and all data from that work has already been transferred to Earth.

A diagram of a typical field effect transistor. (credit: Wikimedia commons)

Semiconductors are integral to modern electronics. Currently, they're made by etching features into silicon, but researchers are constantly exploring new fabrication approaches that balance cost, energy efficiency, electronic capabilities, and mechanical properties.

Recently, scientists have demonstrated the ability to design and fabricate flexible, high-performance semiconductors out of colloidal nanocrystals. The approach allowed them to lay out the circuitry using simple solution processing, in which the components are put in place while suspended in a liquid. Solution processing is generally cheap and convenient, and it can be used to cover large areas at once.

Field effects

The specific type of device the researchers designed is called a field-effect transistor. In general, transistors are semiconductor devices used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. Field-effect transistors use an electric field in a device called a gate to influence the conductivity of a nearby semiconductor.

Some of the Netherland' most popular websites have fallen victim to a malvertising campaign that managed to compromise a widely used ad platform, security researchers reported on Monday.

The malicious ads were served over at least 11 sites including marktplaats.nl, the Netherlands equivalent to eBay and the country's seventh most visited website, according to a blog post published by security firm Fox IT. Other affected sites included news site nu.nl (which is ranked No. 14), weather site buienradar.nl (54), and startpagina.nl (67). Other widely visited sites were operated by commercial TV stations and magazines.

According to the blog post: