news.buyenne.com

A law professor has filed a formal legal complaint on behalf of three advocacy organizations, arguing that stingray use by law enforcement agencies nationwide—and the Baltimore Police Department in particular—violate Federal Communications Commission rules.

The new 38-page complaint makes a creative argument that because stingrays, or cell-site simulators, act as fake cell towers, that law enforcement agencies lack the spectrum licenses to be able to broadcast at the relevant frequencies. Worse still, when deployed, cell service, including 911 calls, are disrupted in the area.

Stingrays are used by law enforcement to determine a mobile phone's location by spoofing a cell tower. In some cases, stingrays can intercept calls and text messages. Once deployed, the devices intercept data from a target phone along with information from other phones within the vicinity. At times, police have falsely claimed the use of a confidential informant when they have actually deployed these particularly sweeping and intrusive surveillance tools. Often, they are used to locate criminal suspects.

At Google I/O 2016, Google announced two new and separate communication apps: Allo, a new instant messenger app, and Duo a video calling app. Today Google announced Duo is finally rolling out to the masses on Android and iOS.

Google Duo is a video calling app and just a video calling app—it does one-to-one video calls and nothing else. It's also only available for mobile phones—there are no Web, Chrome, or desktop clients. It doesn't even require a Google Account—Google says that "all you need is your phone number and you’ll be able to reach people in your phone’s contacts list."

Duo has two features. The first is that the video calling is claimed to be "fast and reliable" even with limited bandwidth. It can switch between Wi-Fi and cellular data without dropping the call and can "gracefully degrade" the video when bandwidth gets low. The other feature is called "Knock Knock," which shows live video from your contact on the incoming call screen before you even answer the call. Knock Knock doesn't work on iOS right now. On the security side of things, Google notes that "all Duo calls are end-to-end encrypted."

The latest news about CBS's new Star Trek series Discovery says the show will be set ten years before the events of the original Star Trek adventures with Captain Kirk and the Enterprise. Like the J.J. Abrams movie trilogy and the most recent Trek series Enterprise, Discovery will be a return to the origins of the franchise. This is a departure from the 1987-2001 period, when Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager drove the story forward into the 24th century. For the past 15 years, Trek has been stuck in the past of the franchise itself. What do we gain by endlessly returning to the origins of this interstellar tale?

Obviously, we get to go back to a fan favorite period of adventure and strife. Back in the crazy days of the 23rd century, humanity didn't have replicators or positronic brains, and there was no peace with the Klingon Empire. That affords more opportunities for the kinds of problems that make for good drama. This period also offers narrative comfort food for fans, reminding them of the "good old days" of the show before everybody got so uptight about the Prime Directive and started worrying about post-colonial politics on Bajor and other developing worlds.

24th century Trek

As Manu Saadia points out in his excellent book Trekonomics, there's a huge gulf between the civilization of TOS and TNG for one reason: the replicator. As a result of this one piece of technology, humans can basically turn energy into matter (with a few exceptions, like the dilithium crystals needed for warp drive and the valuable material latinum). The replicator means pretty much all problems with scarcity are technically solved. Nobody needs to work for a living, because all our material needs can be met as fast as you can say "tea, Earl Grey, hot." Work itself as a concept is radically transformed. People only work because they choose to work; everyone enjoys (or at least gets satisfaction from) their job.

USB Type-C remains a versatile port with a ton of potential, but the fact that different Type-C ports have different capabilities is still a sticking point. Especially in laptops and desktops, it’s hard to tell whether a port will charge the laptop or drive a monitor or just do plain old data. For the USB Implementers Forum, a body which can strongly recommend ways for USB licensees to market and label their products but can’t actually mandate anything, defining new standards and logos are its best weapon against consumer confusion.

To that end, the USB-IF is introducing a new “Certified USB Charger Compliance and Logo Program,” a more consumer-friendly face for Type-C chargers compatible with the USB Power Delivery spec. Certified chargers will “resemble a traditional power brick or wall wart” and “will be interoperable with compatible USB Type-C devices,” and it’s one more incremental step toward universal chargers that actually work with every gadget you’ve got to carry around.

The new USB logo for certified power adapters. (credit: USB-IF)

In return for meeting the requirements, manufacturers will be able to (but are not required to) slap a USB logo on the chargers that denotes that it’s been certified by the USB-IF and how much power it can supply. The USB Power Delivery spec can supply up to 100W of power, but the USB-IF believes that 15W, 27W, 45W, and 60W will be the most common. And there’s nothing stopping licensees from using their power adapters to supply some additional functionality, like Intel’s Compute Stick power brick that doubles as a USB hub.