Month: May 2016

We now know that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars. Streaks of dark material flow down crater walls, appearing and disappearing with the seasons. Imaging from orbit has confirmed that these features contain hydrated salts, leading researchers to conclude that the water took the form of a salty brine, which would prevent it from immediately evaporating into Mars' cold, thin atmosphere.

But a new paper released today argues that we might want to rethink the role of brine. The international team behind it tested what would happen if pure water were flowing through sand under Mars-like conditions. Some of the water boiled off quickly, but it managed to spread a bit further than expected and produced features similar to some that have been imaged from orbit.

There are a number of challenges with figuring out what's happening on Mars. The first is that we've got no hardware anywhere near where the watery features form; all our direct exploration has to take place from orbit. Another challenge is that we don't know the nature of the water. At Martian pressures, pure water could boil at temperatures reached in the daytime and freeze at night, while salts could keep it liquid at the prevalent temperatures.

A Southern California woman was recently ordered to provide her fingerprint to unlock a seized iPhone, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

The case highlights the ongoing balancing act between security and convenience and how the law treats something you know (a passcode) as being quite different than something you are (a biometric). Under the Constitution, criminal defendants have the right not to testify against themselves—and providing a passcode could be considered testimonial. However, being compelled to give up something physiological or biometric (such as blood, DNA sample, fingerprint or otherwise), is not.

As the Times reports, Paytsar Bkhchadzhyan was ordered by a federal judge to provide her fingerprint on February 25, and the warrant was executed and unsealed on March 15.

Shiv Integer is a bot whose entire purpose in life is to create bizarre objects for 3D printers. It has been living for several months on 3D printer project site Thingiverse, posting objects cobbled together out of dozens of other objects listed on the site. The results are art or spam, depending on your perspective. Last month, artists Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and Julien Deswaef finally came out as the humans behind Shiv Integer, showcasing the results of the bot's work at an event called (appropriately) The Art of Bots in London's Somerset House.

Taken on its own terms, Shiv Integer's work is fanciful and amusing. Each piece looks like a mutant gadget, possibly unprintable, often with one recognizable item merging into another one. The best part is that even the names of the objects are a random salad of words taken from other objects on Thingiverse, creating inadvertent absurdist poetry like "quick cat near a jaw," "disc on top of an e-juice golf," "automatic event adapter," and "customizable damage mask." The bot is known to post several times per day, and in the "about" section of the entry it always credits users whose objects it has repurposed (the bot only works with objects that have been CC licensed for remixing).

Artists Plummer-Fernandez and Julien Deswaef explain the idea behind their project:

A Washington county judge has ruled that the city of Seattle’s warrantless searches of garbage violated the state’s constitution.

In her 14-page order, King County Judge Beth Andrus found in favor of eight Seattle residents whose trash was searched by sanitation workers. The workers were operating under a city ordinance that allowed them to inspect trash for possible violations of a city composting law. Violators could be fined $1 if they mistakenly put food waste into their regular garbage rather than organic waste bins.

The ruling turned on whether these inspections amounted to a privacy violation. The order, which was handed down last week, illustrates that states are able to grant more rights than those interpreted by the Supreme Court.

Computer scientists have discovered vulnerabilities in Samsung's Smart Home automation system that allowed them to carry out a host of remote attacks, including digitally picking connected door locks from anywhere in the world.

The attack, one of several proof-of-concept exploits devised by researchers from the University of Michigan, worked against Samsung's SmartThings, one of the leading Internet of Things (IoT) platforms for connecting electronic locks, thermostats, ovens, and security systems in homes. The researchers said the attacks were made possible by two intrinsic design flaws in the SmartThings framework that aren't easily fixed. They went on to say that consumers should think twice before using the system to connect door locks and other security-critical components.

"All of the above attacks expose a household to significant harm—break-ins, theft, misinformation, and vandalism," the researchers wrote in a paper scheduled to be presented later this month at the 2016 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. "The attack vectors are not specific to a particular device and are broadly applicable."

Update, May 25, 2:40 p.m. EDT: Following the Oculus Rift's limited launch at Best Buy's physical locations, the virtual reality headset has now gone live at the retailer's web site. In-store pick-up is not available, so interested shoppers will want to rush to the site and pick a shipping option should they want a headset with estimated delivery as soon as June 3rd—which may still be quicker than trying to buy from Oculus's own site. We imagine this availability will be gone almost as quickly as this update goes live.

Original report, May 2, 2:20 p.m. EDT: The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset will be available for demonstration and purchase at select Best Buy stores starting May 7 (and for purchase through Amazon and Microsoft Stores online starting at 9am Pacific on May 6). That means walk-in customers at brick-and-mortar stores will be able to get their headset well before many who pre-ordered the system directly from Oculus months ago.

While Oculus started taking Rift pre-orders in January and officially started shipping the units in March, many early pre-orders have seen their shipping date estimates slip amid production delays. In April, Oculus admitted that an "unexpected component shortage" meant early adopters could have to wait an extra month or two from initial estimates to receive their units. Orders placed on the Oculus site right now are slated for August delivery.