China is preparing to launch an operating system to end its reliance on imported technologies such as Android, the Mac OS, and Windows. The Chinese Academy of Engineering system should be released in October 2014, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The desktop version is expected to be released first, followed by the mobile OS, according to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The goal is to replace foreign-made desktop OSs within one or two years and mobile operating systems within three to five years. Ni Guangnan, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, heads a government development alliance for the academy and told Xinhua that a lack of research funds and too many independent developers working in different directions have hampered the new design effort and that the government should direct the project. The Chinese government has been pushing the use of domestic technology to avoid what it says are the cybersecurity risks of using foreign technology. In May 2014, it banned the use of Windows 8. (Reuters)(PC Mag)(BBC)(Xinhua News Agency)
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Reuters: Memory Issue in Software Causes Problems in US Air Traffic Control System
A vulnerability in the US air traffic control system’s software, triggered by a military aircraft’s complicated flight plan, caused flight delays and could crash the system in the future, according to a new report by Reuters. On 30 April 2014, a US U-2 spy plane flew through the Western US. Its lack of altitude information in the flight plan as well as its complexity—which was circular rather than point-to-point as is typical for commercial flights—caused the Federal Aviation Administration’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) air-traffic-control software to register an operational error and cycle on and off. This process used much of the system’s memory, leaving it unavailable for other tasks, causing problems throughout the Western US including the grounding or delaying of flights in Los Angeles. Experts cited by Reuters contend that attackers could use the same vulnerability to crash the system, although doing so would be complicated. The FAA has added memory to ERAM and changed some of its rules in an effort to prevent such problems. Weaknesses in the system will be the subject of two Def Con hacker convention talks in August 2014. (Reuters)(BBC)
Friday, March 21, 2014
DARPA Develops Electronic Component-Authentication System
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced that it will launch a program designed to thwart the use of counterfeit electronic components, particularly those in military electronics systems, which is becoming a widespread problem. DARPA’s Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense (SHIELD) program will develop a 100 × 100 micron component, which it calls a dielet, to authenticate electronic components. This tool, according to DARPA, would let users “verify, without disrupting or harming the system, the trustworthiness of a protected electronic component.” It will consist of an encryption engine and antitampering sensors that could indicate tampering if exposed to light, as well as wireless-communications and power components. It will be small enough to fit on microchips by electronics makers. Consumers would apply an ordinary probe to a component to authenticate it. Although the system has yet to be developed, DARPA says, after such a scan, another device, perhaps a smartphone, should be able to upload a serial number to a central server to check the component. The server would send an unencrypted challenge to the dielet for authentication, which sends back an encrypted answer and data from the sensors. “SHIELD demands a tool that costs less than a penny per unit, yet makes counterfeiting too expensive and technically difficult to do,” DARPA program manager Kerry Bernstein, told Network World. “What SHIELD is seeking is a very advanced piece of hardware that will offer an on-demand authentication method never before available to the supply chain.” (SlashDot)(Network World)(RT)(SHIELD: Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense Proposers’ Day)
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Amazon Expands Micropayment System to Android
Amazon announced it will now support its virtual currency on Google Android mobile devices in the US, UK, and Germany. Amazon Coins are a virtual currency introduced by the company in 2013, originally intended for Kindle Fire tablet users to make micropurchases, including applications. Each coin is now worth a penny. The company is reportedly working toward establishing “an end-to-end ecosystem” for developers. Some observers are skeptical about Amazon billing it as a virtual currency since it is linked to a user, unlike Bitcoin, which is anonymous. (SlashDot – 1)(SlashDot – 2)(Tech Crunch)(Amazon.com)
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Microsoft Plans Cryptic Operating System Releases
Microsoft is planning a wave of operating system releases in spring of 2015 across all its various platforms, including Windows, Xbox One, and Windows Phone. This is according to new information reported by ZD Net, which obtained information from an internal Microsoft e-mail. “Threshold” is reportedly updating all three OS platforms in such a way that they will share more common elements. This will apparently be through sharing applications. It is unclear precisely how Microsoft plans to move forward or if it intends to take a device-agnostic approach. “If Microsoft is heading toward some sort of unified programming model, that’s going to require possibly years of work,” noted PC World’s Mark Hachman. “But other elements, such as the UI, services, and user data stored in the cloud, can be more easily manipulated.” Microsoft has indicated it will offer “Update 1” to Windows 8.1 in spring of 2014. (ZD Net)(Engadget)(PC World)
Friday, November 22, 2013
New Haptic System Uses Ultrasonic Vibration
A UK research team created a system designed for use in public spaces that lets people feel what is on a device’s display without needing to touch a separate haptic-feedback object in the process, as is the case with most haptic approaches. University of Bristol scientists designed UltraHaptics, which , uses ultrasonic vibration to provide multiple users with mid-air haptic feedback. The system works with a phased array of ultrasonic transducers, which emit high frequency sound waves. These provide the force that generates haptic sensations for users as they view the screen. The researchers are presenting their work at the 26th annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology this month in St. Andrews, UK. (PhysOrg)(Bristol Interaction and Graphics, University of Bristol)
Saturday, July 20, 2013
PayPal, SETI Developing Intergalactic Payment System
How can people transact business in space? PayPal Galactic is a new initiative designed to answer the question. PayPal, an online money-transfer company, is working toward developing a currency that global companies planning space outposts could easily use to transact business in space. Tourists into space, for example, may need the currency to pay for paying a bill or transferring money to someone back on Earth. A key part of the project is to devise what this payment system might look like. SETI will play a key role in answering those questions and bringing its expertise in space exploration to the project. The endeavor is expected to require various collaborations between technology firms, financial and space experts, and government agencies. The project is part of a growing interest in the commercialization of space travel. Virgin Galactic plans its inaugural consumer space flight in December 2013, and Orbital Technologies says it will open the first space hotel which is in 2016. (Mashable)(ABC News)(Space.com)(PayPal Galactic)
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Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Disaster is just a click away: Computer scientist, psychologist look at developing visual system to warn Internet users of safety risks
Eugene Vasserman, assistant professor of computing and information sciences, and Gary Brase, associate professor of psychology, are researching how to help computer users who have little to no computer experience improve their Web browsing safety without security-specific education. The goal is to keep users from making mistakes that could compromise their online security and to inform them when a security failure has happened.
"Security systems are very difficult to use, and staying safe online is a growing challenge for everyone," Vasserman said. "It is especially devastating to inexperienced computer users, who may not spot risk indicators and may misinterpret currently implemented textual explanations and visual feedback of risk."
Vasserman, whose expertise is in building secure networked systems, and Brase, who studies decision-making and the rationality behind people's choices, are developing a simple visual messaging system that would show novice computer users an easily understandable, relatable warning regarding their security decisions. These could be a choice to visit a website with an expired security certificate, or a website that is know to contain malware, among other online dangers. The idea is to have users make a gut reaction decision based on the message.
"The challenge is to get people to make the right decision," Vasserman said. "For example, sometimes a browser will show a dialog box saying this website has an expired SSL certificate, and sometimes the safer behavior is for people to still proceed and accept the expired certificate. But sometimes a website can pose a serious threat. We want people to make good choices without having to understand the technical detail, but we don't want to make the choice for them; we want to show them the importance and danger level of that choice."
Their project, "Education-optional Security Usability on the Internet," was recently awarded nearly $150,000 by the National Science Foundation. Researchers are using the funding to develop, test and evaluate the effectiveness of new and existing educational tools to find which ones case users to make better online security choices.
This system should minimize the use of traditional text warnings and icons, according to Vasserman.
The messaging system created will also likely be used in a medical project that Vasserman and colleagues are developing. The researchers are designing a secure network for hospitals and doctors' offices so medical devices can communicate with each other to monitor and relay information about a patient's health. Having a system that shows instantaneously recognizable consequences could be helpful to physicians and hospital engineers, who are not familiar with cybersecurity, make a correct decision quickly about what to do with a medical device that has a security problem.
"Presenting bad things with some sort of visual image is tricky because you want to convey to the user that this is not good, but you also don't want to traumatize them," Vasserman said. "For example, some people are terrified of snakes so that may be too intense of an image to use. When this is applied to a medical environment you have to especially conscious, so there are more considerations."
Prior to collaborating with Brase, Vasserman and Sumeet Gujrati, a doctoral candidate in computing and information sciences, tested the effectiveness of textual and visual communication for security messages and workflows.
Researchers spent more than 90 hours collecting data by observing volunteers use a piece of popular software that encrypts files on a computer.
The on-screen instructions asked users to select a location to store the encrypted files, but users often selected an existing file due to the phrasing of the instructions. This prompted an on-screen warning message stating that the selected file would be erased and all of the information inside of it would be lost. Users then had to decide to continue and erase the file or cancel the process and start over.
"I sat in the room many times and watched as people read the warning message carefully, sometimes even re-reading it, and then watched as they clicked on 'yes' and destroyed the file," Vasserman said. "Because the information being conveyed to them in the message was not immediately clear, many users specifically deleted the file they wanted to protect. I see that as an indicator that a text warning is not effective at getting users to make the correct choice."
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
An operating system in the cloud: TransOS could displace conventional desktop operating systems
Computer users are familiar to different degrees with the operating system that gets their machines up and running, whether that is the Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, ChromeOS or other operating system. The OS handles the links between hardware, the CPU, memory, hard drive, peripherals such as printers and cameras as well as the components that connect the computer to the Internet, critically it also allows the user to run the various bits of software and applications they need, such as their email programs, web browsers, word processors, spreadsheets and games.
While, operating systems seem firmly entrenched in the personal computer and their files, documents, movies, sounds and images, sit deep within the hard drive. Traditionally, software too is stored on the same hard drive for quick access to the programs a user needs at any given time. However, there is a growing movement that is taking the applications off the personal hard drive and putting them "in the cloud."
The user connects to the Internet and "runs" the software as and when needed from a cloud server, perhaps even storing their files in the cloud too. This has numerous advantages for the user. First, the software can be kept up to date automatically without their intervention. Secondly, the software is independent of the hardware and operating system and so can be run from almost any computer with an Internet connection. Thirdly, if the user files are also in the cloud, then they can access and use their files anywhere in the world with a network connection and at any time.
The obvious next step is to make the entire process transparent by stripping the operating system from the computer and putting that in the cloud. The computer then becomes a sophisticated, but dummy terminal and its configuration and capabilities become irrelevant to how the user interacts with their files. Already most types of software are represented in the cloud by alternative or additional versions of their desktop equivalents but we are yet to see a fully functional cloud-based OS. For instance, systems such as Java were developed to allow applications to run in a web browser irrespective of the computer or operating system on which that browser was running.
Now, Yaoxue Zhang and Yuezhi Zhou of Tsinghua University, in Beijing, China, have at last developed an operating system for the cloud -- TransOS. The operating system code is stored on a cloud server and allows a connection from a bare terminal computer. The terminal has a minimal amount of code that boots it up and connects it to the Internet dynamically. TransOS then downloads specific pieces of code that offer the user options as if they were running a conventional operating system via a graphical user interface. Applications are then run, calling on the TransOS code only as needed so that memory is not hogged by inactive operating system code as it is by a conventional desktop computer operating system.
"TransOS manages all the resources to provide integrated services for users, including traditional operating systems," the team says. "The TransOS manages all the networked and virtualized hardware and software resources, including traditional OS, physical and virtualized underlying hardware resources, and enables users can select and run any service on demand," the team says
The researchers suggest that TransOS need not be limited to personal computers, but offers the capacity to be enabled on other domestic (refrigerators and washing machines, for instance) and factory equipment. The concept should also work well with mobile devices, such as phones and tablet PCs. It is essential, the team adds, that a cloud operating system architecture and relevant interface standards now be established to allow TransOS to be developed for a vast range of applications.
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Journal Reference:
Yaoxue Zhang, Yuezhi Zhou. TransOS: a transparent computing-based operating system for the cloud. Int. J. Cloud Computing, 2012, 1, 287-301Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Indoor navigation system for blind
"Existing indoor navigation systems typically require the use of expensive and heavy sensors, or equipping rooms and hallways with radio-frequency tags that can be detected by a handheld reader and which are used to determine the user's location," Bekris, of the College of Engineering's Robotics Research Lab, said. "This has often made the implementation of such systems prohibitively expensive, with few systems having been deployed."
Instead, the University of Nevada, Reno navigation system uses digital 2D architectural maps that are already available for many buildings, and uses low-cost sensors, such as accelerometers and compasses, that are available in most smartphones, to navigate users with visual impairments. The system locates and tracks the user inside the building, finding the most suitable path based on the users special needs, and gives step-by-step instructions to the destination.
"Nevertheless, the smartphone's sensors, which are used to calculate how many steps the user has executed and her orientation, tend to pick up false signals," Folmer, who has developed exercise video games for the blind, said. "To synchronize the location, our system combines probabilistic algorithms and the natural capabilities of people with visual impairments to detect landmarks in their environment through touch, such as corridor intersections, doors, stairs and elevators."
Folmer explained that as touch screen devices are challenging to use for users with visual impairments, directions are provided using synthetic speech and users confirm the presence of a landmark by verbal confirmation or by pressing a button on the phone or on a Bluetooth headset. A benefit of this approach is that the user can leave the phone in their pocket leaving both hands free for using a cane and recognizing tactile landmarks.
"This is a very cool mix of disciplines, using the user as a sensor combined with sophisticated localization algorithms from the field of robotics," Folmer, of the University's Computer Science Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Lab, said.
The team is currently trying to implement their navigation system in other environments and integrate it into outdoor navigation systems that use GPS.
"My research is motivated by the belief that a disability can be turned into an innovation driver," Folmer said. "When we try to solve interaction design problems for the most extreme users, such as users with visual impairments, there is the potential to discover solutions that may benefit anyone. Though the navigation system was specifically developed for users with visual impairments, it can be used by sighted users as well."
For their work on the indoor navigation system for the blind, Bekris and Folmer recently won a PETA Proggy Award for Leadership in Ethical Science. PETA's Proggy Awards ("Proggy" is for "progress") recognize animal-friendly achievements. The navigation system was deemed such an achievement because it could decrease the need to rely on guide dogs.
They presented and demonstrated their research at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St. Paul., Minn. on May 15 and on May 7 at the CM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, which is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nevada, Reno.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Sensing technology: Motherboard monitoring inspired by the immune system
Now Haruki Shida, Takeshi Okamoto and Yoshiteru Ishida at Toyohashi University of Technology have drawn inspiration from biological immune systems to develop a new model for detecting abnormal operation of network components more accurately.
Their model mimics biological immune systems where cells test each other to protect against disease. In the immunity-based diagnostic model, the sensors for the individual components are also linked for mutual testing. An algorithm determines the credibility of each sensor from comparisons of output from other sensors in the network.
The researchers tested the approach in a simulation of a mother board where they monitored the temperature, voltage and fan speed of the central processing unit and core. The immunity-based diagnostic model identified abnormal nodes more accurately than isolated sensors.
The researchers also developed a hybrid network combining isolated and immunity-based sensing. Here the immunity-based diagnostic model used a correlation-based network, which removes connections between sensors that have weakly correlated output. Compared with the fully connected network, the hybrid model further improved the accuracy of the tests.
The work will contribute to identifying abnormal component behaviour to avoid system failure.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Toyohashi University of Technology, via ResearchSEA.
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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Indoor navigation system for blind
"Existing indoor navigation systems typically require the use of expensive and heavy sensors, or equipping rooms and hallways with radio-frequency tags that can be detected by a handheld reader and which are used to determine the user's location," Bekris, of the College of Engineering's Robotics Research Lab, said. "This has often made the implementation of such systems prohibitively expensive, with few systems having been deployed."
Instead, the University of Nevada, Reno navigation system uses digital 2D architectural maps that are already available for many buildings, and uses low-cost sensors, such as accelerometers and compasses, that are available in most smartphones, to navigate users with visual impairments. The system locates and tracks the user inside the building, finding the most suitable path based on the users special needs, and gives step-by-step instructions to the destination.
"Nevertheless, the smartphone's sensors, which are used to calculate how many steps the user has executed and her orientation, tend to pick up false signals," Folmer, who has developed exercise video games for the blind, said. "To synchronize the location, our system combines probabilistic algorithms and the natural capabilities of people with visual impairments to detect landmarks in their environment through touch, such as corridor intersections, doors, stairs and elevators."
Folmer explained that as touch screen devices are challenging to use for users with visual impairments, directions are provided using synthetic speech and users confirm the presence of a landmark by verbal confirmation or by pressing a button on the phone or on a Bluetooth headset. A benefit of this approach is that the user can leave the phone in their pocket leaving both hands free for using a cane and recognizing tactile landmarks.
"This is a very cool mix of disciplines, using the user as a sensor combined with sophisticated localization algorithms from the field of robotics," Folmer, of the University's Computer Science Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Lab, said.
The team is currently trying to implement their navigation system in other environments and integrate it into outdoor navigation systems that use GPS.
"My research is motivated by the belief that a disability can be turned into an innovation driver," Folmer said. "When we try to solve interaction design problems for the most extreme users, such as users with visual impairments, there is the potential to discover solutions that may benefit anyone. Though the navigation system was specifically developed for users with visual impairments, it can be used by sighted users as well."
For their work on the indoor navigation system for the blind, Bekris and Folmer recently won a PETA Proggy Award for Leadership in Ethical Science. PETA's Proggy Awards ("Proggy" is for "progress") recognize animal-friendly achievements. The navigation system was deemed such an achievement because it could decrease the need to rely on guide dogs.
They presented and demonstrated their research at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St. Paul., Minn. on May 15 and on May 7 at the CM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, which is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nevada, Reno.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.