Aug 07
It is impossible to believe that Trump will not escalate his campaign of vilification of Mueller and his associates.
Aug 07
When you think of drones, there’s a good chance that you might think of DJI, and rightfully so considering that the company does make a good many drones for both consumer and commercial purposes. It has also even been used by the US Army, or at least it was because it looks like the US Army has decided to stop using them entirely.
According to a memo obtained by sUAS News (via Engadget), the US Army has issued an order to cease the use of DJI drones effective immediately. Apparently this is due to some security concerns that they have had. The memo reads, “Due to increased awareness of cyber vulnerabilities associated with DJI products, it is directed that the US Army halt use of all DJI products.”
DJI has since issued a statement of their own in which they will be reaching out to the US Army to confirm the memo, but in the meantime they say, “We are surprised and disappointed to read reports of the U.S. Army’s unprompted restriction on DJI drones as we were not consulted during their decision. We are happy to work directly with any organization, including the U.S. Army, that has concerns about our management of cyber issues.”
While it is unclear about the specifics of these security concerns, sUAS News did publish a report back in May earlier this year about how the data collected by drones is being stored on servers in countries such as China and Hong Kong (along with the US).
US Army To Cease The Use Of DJI Drones , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
The Apple Watch’s design is by no means terrible, but safe to say the hype leading up to its launch a couple of years ago, coupled with Apple’s reputation for design, it wasn’t quite what many had expected. However that could soon change because it has been reported that the Apple Watch Series 3 could introduce a new form factor.
This is according to a report from John Gruber at Daring Fireball (via MacRumors) who talked about a Bloomberg report that suggested that the next Apple Watch could feature LTE connectivity, in which he was quoted as saying, “It’s hard to overstate just how big a deal this could be. No mention in Businessweek’s report, though, of the all-new form factor that I’ve heard is coming for this year’s new watches.”
However Gruber does caution against believing this rumor completely as he states that it comes from an unconfirmed source. “That tidbit came from an unconfirmed little birdie, though, so I wouldn’t bet the house on it.” That being said, Gruber’s report seems to be in line with an earlier report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who previously claimed that the Series 3 will introduce the watch’s first redesign.
This also goes against earlier rumors which suggested that Apple might not redesign the smartwatch, or could only introduce minor changes if anything, but we guess we’ll just have to wait and see for this fall. In the meantime other rumored features include possible cellular/LTE connectivity and maybe the introduction of a micro-LED display.
Apple Watch Series 3 Could Feature An All-New Form Factor , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
As it stands Google Assistant is only available on devices like the Pixel handsets and Google Home, although there are reports to suggest that it could be finding its way onto Chromebooks as well. However it seems that might not be all the platforms that Google is aiming for, and that soon users could use Google Assistant from the web.
This is according to a recently discovered commit to the Chrome development repo in which it hints that Google Assistant could be made available on the web through the Chrome browser (which we guess isn’t surprising). As Ausdroid points out, the recent stats have shown that Chrome is the most dominant browser at the moment and commands a little over 50% of the market.
This means that by introducing Google Assistant to its Chrome web browser, Google will already have a pretty huge base of users already, kind of like how Apple Music might have gotten such a strong head start as it comes installed on iOS devices by default. It also makes Google Assistant more available to non-Android users, since presumably making it available through Chrome means that using it on Windows and Mac computers is possible.
There is no specific date on when Google Assistant could arrive for the web/Chrome, if at all, but what do you guys think of the feature? Is this something you might be interested in?
Google Assistant Could Soon Be Available From The Web , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
There have been rumors that smartphone makers are trying to transition into creating phones where fingerprint scanners are built into the display of the phone itself, as opposed to existing outside of the phone, and that is apparently a feature that will be coming to the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
This is according to a note to investors by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who claims that this feature will make an appearance in the Note 9 which is largely expected to be launched next year. Such a feature has been rumored about for a while now and was supposed to make an appearance in the Galaxy S8/S8+ and the Note 8, but apparently Samsung has not been able to get it to work.
The note also suggests that Samsung will be switching suppliers from Synaptics to Egis, and that the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will not be getting the feature either, although we’re not sure why Samsung has to wait so long before introducing the feature. It seems that getting the feature to work is proving to be harder than we thought because a recent report has suggested that even Apple has given up on their plans for the iPhone 8.
We’re not sure if there are plans to keep trying for next year’s iPhone, but it looks like neither the Galaxy Note 8 or iPhone 8 will sport embedded scanners this year.
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Could Have Embedded Fingerprint Scanner , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
Smartphones are meant to make our lives easier, and for the most part they do. They deliver us news, alerts for when our food is cooked, lets us hire rides, send emails, take amazing photos, offer up directions, play music, and so much more. It almost sounds like with all these amazing and convenient features, smartphones are anything but bad, right?
However in an article by Jean M. Twenge at The Atlantic, she found that maybe smartphones aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and that those born between 1995 to 2012 (who she refers to as the iGen generation) are affected more negatively by smartphones. In fact it seems that because of smartphones and the fact that we’re connected all the time has made iGen a more depressed generation compared to Millennials.
Twenge quotes a 13-year old named Athena (not her real name) who said, “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.” The article also goes on to present some interesting statistics, such as how eighth-graders who spend more than 10 hours a week on social media are 56% more likely to say they are unhappy compared to those who spend less time.
This is a stark contrast to those who spend an “above-average” amount of time with friends in-person, and are found to be 20% less likely to say they are unhappy compared to those who don’t spend as much in-person time with their peers. This is actually not the first time we’re hearing about how too much social media can be a bad thing, and hopefully with these studies parents can do something about it for the mental health of their kids.
The Smartphone Era Is Apparently Creating More Depressed Teens , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
Smartphones are getting more and more powerful each year and consumers have expected as much from high-end models year after year. The actual hardware components used in these smartphones, however, have a harder time catching up to expectations. Batteries, most especially, haven’t changed that much in the past decade or so and the only solution has been to just use … Continue reading
Aug 07
Medical sensors that sample your sweat are great, as they can accurately gather some of the data you’d get from blood without having to poke through your skin. There’s just one problem: this usually means going for a run or otherwise doing something…
Aug 07
Image credit – University of Washington
Carmakers have been hard at work developing technology for self-driving cars and this includes sensors and algorithms to detect obstacles around them so that cars know when to brake, how to avoid them, and so on. However it seems that tricking a self-driving car is apparently pretty easier and relatively low-tech, and that is by simply defacing a street sign.
In a report from Car and Driver (via WIRED), it seems that researchers at the University of Washington have found out that they can easily confuse self-driving cars by defacing street signs. All they had to do was put stickers onto road signs and convinced the car’s image-detecting algorithm that what they were seeing was a speed limit sign instead of a stop sign.
The dangers here are pretty obvious since it means that you could trick cars into speeding up when they’re supposed to slow down, or stopping when they should be driving, leading to possible accidents. The scary thing is that some of the images weren’t modified too greatly, but yet were interpreted as something else entirely.
For example the researchers printed a Right Turn sign with some slight modifications, and overlaid it on top of an actual Right Turn sign which caused the car’s algorithm to read it as a Speed Limit 45 sign. The researchers have since suggested that using contextual information is one way to overcome this problem, such as how a 65 mph sign in a suburb, or a stop sign on a highway would not make sense.
Self-Driving Cars Can Be Tricked With Defaced Street Signs , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Aug 07
The fascinating thing about the 2002 movie “Minority Report” is that while it is supposed to be based on a fictional future, a lot of what was shown in the movie is starting to become reality. In fact to a certain extent, it seems that the main crux of the show, which is the ability to predict crimes before it happens, is already being used by police.
In a report from Reuters, it seems that the police in Chicago have been employing the use of predictive software to help beat crime. While it hasn’t stopped crime from happening anyway, it seems that it is helping because the number of shooting in the 7th District from January to July this year fell by 39% compared to the same period last year. The number of murders has also dropped by 33% to 34 (although citywide the numbers have actually gone up by 3% to 402).
The software is being used to help determine when and where to best deploy officers based on socioeconomic data, weather, business locations, and so on. According to Jonathan Lewin, chief of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Technical Services, “We are not saying we can predict where the next shooting is going to occur. These are just tools. They are not going to replace (officers).”
Basically if the police were to deploy their resources more efficiently, it could deter crime from happening in places where they’re more likely to happen. While this isn’t exactly the same in Minority Report, we have to say that it’s not entirely different.
Police In Chicago Are Using Predictive Software To Beat Crime , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
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