Hasta La Gadget!

We think you’re going to be hearing a lot about this one over the next few days… or weeks. A team of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California San Diego have determined that, with physical access to your car’s ECU, a hacker could “adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input — including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine, and so on.” For example, the team was able to connect a computer to a car’s ODB-II port, access that computer wirelessly, and then disable the brakes in the first car while driving down the road in a separate vehicle. The conclusion is that these in-car systems have few if any safeguards in place and, with physical access, nearly anything is possible. The solution, of course, is to prevent physical access. So, if you see a hacker hanging around in your car looking all shady, or a laptop computer sitting in the footwell that totally wasn’t there before, well, you know who to call.

Continue reading Hackers can remotely disable your car’s brakes, create sensationalist headlines

Hackers can remotely disable your car’s brakes, create sensationalist headlines originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 09:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Yahoo!  |  CAESS Publications  | Email this | Comments

There were certainly a couple whiz kids at Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair this year, but high school senior John Hinckel’s a regular MacGyver: he built a wheelchair remote control out of a couple sheets of transparent plastic, four sliding furniture rails and some string. A Nintendo Wiimote goes in your hat and tells the whole system what to do — simply tilt your head in any direction, and accelerometer readings are sent over Bluetooth. The receiving laptop activates microcontrollers, directing servo motors to pull the strings, and acrylic gates push the joystick accordingly to steer your vehicle. We tried on the headset for ourselves and came away fairly impressed — it’s no mind control, but for $534 in parts, it just might do. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who thought so, as patents are pending, and a manufacturer of wheelchair control systems has already expressed interest in commercializing the idea. See the young inventor show it off after the break.

Continue reading Student moves quadriplegics with Wiimote wheelchair control (video)

Student moves quadriplegics with Wiimote wheelchair control (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

If you’ve been playing Modern Warfare 2 so much that you’ve studied Arabic just to learn what the OpFor team is saying, yet you’re more interested in photographing birds than capturing flags, this is the hotshoe accessory for you. Thanks to Brando it’s easy to make your camera a little more lethal looking with the Tactical Four Reticle Sight, an adapter that screws into a camera’s hotshoe and then enables the addition of an included sight, which has four separate crosshairs, two colors, and three laser strengths. Yes, we know people have been doing this for years on their own, but this is the cheapest ($45) and easiest way we’ve seen to get such a thing secured on your SLR. Oh, and “Tango sakat?” It means “tango down,” duh.

Red dot sight for hotshoes makes shooting tangos a viewfinder-free experience originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 08:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Firearm Blog  |  Brando  | Email this | Comments

Tabloids is a beautifully designed iPad application that turns your Twitter stream into a newspaper. More correctly, it grabs the links found in the Tweets of people you follow and formats them into a tabloid-newspaper-style page.

I think the idea is fantastic, although this first, 1.0 version is still rather sparse. I already use Twitter as a replacement for my Sunday newspapers, shuffling off the links of interest to Instapaper for browsing later. Tabloids takes this a step further, automating the process (and as the product blurb points out, showing up the Twitterers who post lame links).

The pages combine headlines, articles ledes and a What’s Trending section, complete with descriptions for the hashtags. You can click through to read further with the in-app web browser, and there is support for multiple accounts. This is handy if there are multiple users of your iPad, or to separate work and personal feeds. Future versions should also support your Twitter lists, which will be kind of like the different sections in your newspaper. I shall be putting my fellow Gadget Lab Twitterers in with the funnies.

The app is $3, available now.

Tabloids [iTunes via Mashable]

File under “first-world problems”. This travel belt from Hermès concertinas, zig-zag, like a folding ruler and ends up short enough to fit into a carry-on bag. It is made of metal and leather and costs €580, or $725. I hate it.

Are you ready for the rant? First, a well made leather belt is probably the least likely item of clothing to malfunction on any length of trip. But second, a belt – by its very nature – is a flexible strip that will bend, twist and roll into any shape, adopting the form of any nook or cranny in your suitcase. The Hermès belt turns into an inflexible block of hide and metal, demanding its own space in your luggage and managing to fail utterly in its purpose.

It doesn’t end there. Take a look at the design, and imagine pulling it through the belt-loops in your pants. The joints are set the wrong way, so every one of them will catch on each and every belt-loop. And remember, these riveted-together offcuts are priced at $750. Classy work as ever, Hermès. I still haven’t forgiven you for buying Leica and turning it into a fashion brand all those years ago.

Hermès Folding Travel Belt [Selectism via Oh Gizmo! Not available on Hermès web-store]