Month: May 2016

(credit: Qualcomm)

For the past five years, a vulnerability in many Android phones has left users' text messages, call histories, and possibly other sensitive data open to snooping, security researchers said Thursday.

The flaw, which is most severe in Android versions 4.3 and earlier, allows low-privileged apps to access sensitive data that's supposed to be off-limits, according to a blog post published by security firm FireEye. But instead, the data is available by invoking permissions that are already requested by millions of apps available in Google Play. Company researchers said the vulnerability can also be exploited by adversaries who gain physical access to an unlocked handset. Indexed as CVE-2016-2060, the bug was first introduced when mobile chipmaker Qualcomm released a set of programming interfaces for a system service known as the "network_manager" and later the "netd" daemon.

"CVE-2016-2060 has been present on devices since at least 2011 and likely affects hundreds of Android models around the world," FireEye researchers wrote. "This vulnerability allows a seemingly benign application to access sensitive user data including SMS and call history and the ability to perform potentially sensitive actions such as changing system settings or disabling the lock screen. Devices running Android 4.3 (“Jelly Bean MR2”) or older are the most affected by the vulnerability, and are likely to remain unpatched. Newer devices utilizing SEAndroid are still affected, but to a lesser extent."

(credit: Axel Krieger])

Step aside, Ben Carson. The once lauded ability to perform delicate operations with gifted hands may soon be replaced with the consistent precision of an autonomous robot. And—bonus—robots don’t get sleepy.

In a world’s first, researchers report using an autonomous robot to perform surgical operations on soft tissue and in living pigs, where the adroit droid stitched up broken bowels. The researchers published the robotic reveal in the journal Science Translational Medicine, and they noted the new machinery surpassed the consistency and precision of expert surgeons, laparoscopy, and robot-assisted (non-autonomous robotic) surgery.

The authors, led by Peter Kim at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC, emphasized this feat is not intended to be a step toward completely replacing surgeons. Rather, they want the technology to provide new tools that help every operation go smoothly. “By having a tool like this and by making the procedures more intelligent, we can ensure better outcomes for patients,” Kim said.

(credit: Sergio Ruiz)

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that General Motors and Lyft would be testing a self-driving taxi service within the year. GM pledged $500 million to Lyft in January, hoping to advance “driverless taxi research.” At the time, however, there was no mention of how long it would take for the companies to roll out an actual driverless taxi experience.

The WSJ indicates that GM will be using Chevy Bolts to test the service. The all-electric Bolt is slated to go into production toward the end of 2016, and it’s seen as the only real competitor to the all-electric, mass-market Tesla Model 3, which will go into production in late 2017. Tesla has already pushed some autonomous vehicle functions out to its Model X and S owners, and GM seems to be trying to follow suit—in March, the Detroit-based automaker bought Cruise Automation, a Silicon Valley software company, for $1 billion.

A Lyft executive told the paper that when the self-driving taxi service rolls out, it will be available to Lyft customers in one city that's yet to be determined. Customers will be able to opt out of hailing a self-driving car and, at the beginning, a driver will be required to sit in the driver’s seat in case anything happens. That's meant to appease regulators, "but the driver is expected to eventually be obsolete,” the WSJ reports.

(credit: ibbl)

A former Massachusetts drug-lab chemist was high on the job nearly every day for eight years, according to a report from the state's attorney general. The report said that the chemist, Sonja Farak, was under the influence of drugs like crack, meth, LSD, and ketamine as she testified in court in drug cases and while examining drug samples in a crime lab between 2004 and 2013.

The report from AG Maura Healey also said the chemist cooked crack cocaine in a crime lab at night while working overtime.

Anthony Benedetti of the Committee for Public Counsel Services said that "thousands" of drug prosecutions were imperiled. "Anything that went through that lab while she was there is in question," he told the Boston Globe.

Boost your video quality in Netflix's mobile app. (credit: Netflix)

Netflix has updated its iOS and Android applications to let customers adjust streaming quality on mobile networks so that users with high data caps or unlimited data can choose higher-quality video.

Netflix sets its default mobile bitrate at 600kbps, limiting resolution to about 360p on AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and most other carriers. This helps customers stay under restrictive data caps, but the one-size-fits-all policy prevented customers from boosting the quality of video. The default setting will remain at 600kbps, but the new controls available to Netflix customers worldwide will boost data usage to as much as 1GB in 20 minutes.

"The default setting will enable you to stream about three hours of TV shows and movies per gigabyte of data. In terms of bitrates, that currently amounts to about 600 Kilobits per second," Netflix said today. "Our testing found that, on cellular networks, this setting balances good video quality with lower data usage to help avoid exceeding data caps and incurring overage fees. If you have a mobile data plan with a higher data cap, you can adjust this setting to stream at higher bitrates."