WITHDRAWING MONEY WITH GOOGLE GLASS

Google Glass not only just alarm privacy activists. Rather, they also enable applications increasing data protection. Computer scientists demonstrate this by combining Google Glass with cryptography methods and novel techniques of image processing to withdraw money at cash machines or to read encrypted documents.

          IT experts celebrate as a new milestone is that it makes privacy groups skeptical. So far, few people have access to the prototype to test how it can be used in daily life.

WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?

The futuristic-looking device consists of a glasses frame on which a camera and a mini computer are installed. It depicts information in the user's field of vision via a glass prism that is installed at the front end of the right temple.

Step 1: The customer identifies himself to the cash machine.

Step 2: It uses the key to encrypt the one-way personal identification number (PIN) and seals it additionally with a "digital signature," the digital counterpart of the conventional signature.

Step 3: The result shows up on the screen as a black-and-white pattern, a so-called QR code.

Step 4: The PIN that is hidden below is only visible for the identified wearer of the glasses.

Step 5: Google Glass decrypts it and shows it in the wearer's field of vision.

Although the process occurs in public, nobody is able to spy on the PIN.

CANNOT INTRUDE:

To spy on the PIN while it is being entered would also be useless, since the PIN is re-generated each time the customer uses the cash machine. An attacker also wearing a Google Glass is not able to spy on the process, either. The digital signature guarantees that no assailant is able to intrude between the customer and the cash machine as during the so-called "skimming."

SEVERAL PERSONS WITH GOOGL GLASS:

Only the customer is able to decrypt the encryption by the public key with his secret key. As long as this is safely stored on the Google Glass, his money is also safe.

 Several persons all wearing Google Glass can read the same document with encrypted text at the same time, but in their fields of vision they can only see the text passages that are intended for them.

OTHER USAGE:

This could be interesting to use in large companies or agencies that are collecting information in one document, but do not want to show all parts to everybody. Google Glass is expected to enter the American market this year.

SUPER FAST 5G

Collaboration between NEC Electronics Samsung and several academic centers in China and Iran, is investigating how software-defined cellular networking might be used to give smart phone users the next generation of super-superfast broadband, 5G. International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems provide these details.

CURRENT TECHNOLOGY:

 The fourth generation of mobile phone connection technology, 4G is as far as it has been adopted provides broadband-type connectivity for enabled devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, laptops and other gadgets.

STANDARDS ADOPTED:

•  The Mobile WiMAX standard
•   Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard

Peak speeds were set in the standards at 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) for mobile users and ten times that for static, domestic 5G users, 1 gigabit per second. 100 Mbits/s is three times faster than the earlier 3G system but users commonly do not see data transfer at such high rates, downloads are usually at best 10 Mbits/s.

DOWNLOADABLE SPEED:

As yet there is no single standard for 5G although various systems are being touted based on rebuilding the cellular networks to be super-efficient and exploiting different frequencies with their capacity for greater data rates. The hope is to be able to achieve download speeds of perhaps 10 Gbits/s.

FEATURES:

Ming Lei of Samsung Research and Development Institute China, Lei Jiang of  NEC Laboratories, both in Beijing are working with colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. They have assessed the latest developments aimed at 5G systems and have proposed their own novel end-to-end (E2E) software-defined cellular network (SDCN) architecture. They  offers

             Flexibility
 Scalability
 Agility
 Efficiency
 Profitable

OTHER PROMISING TECHNOLOGIES:

They are currently building a demonstration system that will allow them to utilise  their architecture for 5G including

·        Cloud computing

·        Network virtualisation

·        Network functions virtualisation

·        Dynamic service chaining

MERITS:

)     Overcome bandwidth shortage problems

)    Improve quality of service so avoiding delays and data loss

)     Reducing the vast number of error-prone network nodes needed

START COMPUTERS INSTANTLY

If data could be encoded without current, it would make things like low-power and require much less energy. Scientists have made this with a room-temperature magneto electric memory device.

TODAY’S TREND:

Computer memory technology uses electric currents to encode data. A major limiting factor

Ø Reliability

Ø Shrinkability

Ø The source of significant power consumption.

TO BE DONE:

 If data could instead be encoded without current that is by an electric field applied across an insulator -- it would require much less energy, and make things like low-power, instant-on computing.

It is possible by making the device using a compound called bismuth ferrite. It's both magnetic -- like a fridge magnet, it has its own, permanent local magnetic field and also ferroelectric, meaning it's always electrically polarized, and that polarization can be switched by applying an electric field, called ferroic materials are typically one or the other, rarely both, as the mechanisms that drive the two phenomena usually fight each other. This combination makes it a "multiferroic" material.

Bismuth ferrite can exhibit enhanced properties and can be grown as extremely thin films , igniting its relevance for next-generation electronics.

USAGE:

Bismuth ferrite can be used for nonvolatile memory devices with relatively simple geometries because it's multiferroic. The best part is it works is at room temperature like 4 Kelvin (-452 Fahrenheit) -- not exactly primed for industry.

They found that the switching happens in two distinct steps. One-step switching wouldn't have worked, and for that reason theorists had previously thought what they have achieved was impossible. But, bismuth ferrite is technologically relevant since the switching occurs in two steps.

ADVANTAGE:

          This new technology results in low energy consumption, requires a low voltage, without current, to switch it. If a device uses currents then it consume more energy and dissipate a significant amount of energy in the form of heat. That is what heating up our computer and draining our batteries.

SMART PHONE - THE TOBACCO SCREENER

Smart phones and tablets may hold the key to screen patients for tobacco use and advise smokers on how to quit. Using mobile phones loaded with tobacco screening guidelines prompted nurses to ask patients about their smoking habits in 84 percent of clinic visits and to offer cessation counseling to 99 percent of smokers expressed a willingness to kick the habit.

IN PRACTICE:

Even though tobacco use is the leading cause of death in the U.S., clinicians don’t ask about smoking during patient exams instead mobile phones are loaded with tobacco screening guidelines.

 These findings suggest that mobile applications can play a significant role in curbing tobacco use. U.S. Smokers are advised on how to quit less than 20 percent of the time and are screened for tobacco use in about 60 percent of office visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

PERFECT APPLICATION:

 These findings are a win in the ongoing battle against tobacco use, and they also point to a broader benefit of mobile applications in getting more clinicians to follow evidence-based practice guidelines.

SCREENING:

Step 1: The study evaluated tobacco screening rates for more than 14,000 visits at clinics in New York City.

Step 2: Clinic patients were treated by 185 registered nurses enrolled in advanced practice degree programs at Columbia Nursing.

Step 3: Overall screening and counseling rates were increased by use of the mobile tools.

          The technology can serve to remove any unintended bias and clinicians might have understand about which patients are most likely to benefit from intervention.

GOAL ATTAINED:

 The study included only patients seen by nurses who had access to mobile health tools, the screening and counseling rates in the study are much higher than the baseline rates tracked by the CDC.

The mobile tools also helped clinicians exceed the targets for screening and counseling established by Healthy People 2020, a national road map for improving health and eliminating health disparities.

Tobacco-related objectives in Healthy People 2020 include

·        Counseling rates of about 21 percent

·        Screening rates of about 69 percent during office visits.

SMART PHONE BASED VOTING SYSTEM

A new study published in Human Factors examines how smart phone-based voting systems can be incorporated into the current large-scale election process.

PROBLEM WITH ELECTRONIC VOTING TECHNOLOGY:

Many U.S. counties have incorporated electronic voting technology, largely in response to well-publicized challenges related to older mechanical and punch-card models. Although these updated systems have solved some usability problems, they present a new set of issues for voters unfamiliar with the technology.

Current electronic voting systems have numerous issues -- from usability and accessibility to security to the fact that many of them are nearing the end of their life cycle.

DESIGN:

Researchers Bryan Campbell, Chad Tossell, Michael Byrne, and Philip Kortum designed a mobile voting system tested its usability against traditional voting platforms and optimizes it for use on a smart phone. They asked 84 participants with a diverse range of voting histories and educational backgrounds to engage in a series of mock elections using different voting methods. It is found that there are numerous potential advantages in using a smart phone-based system.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES:

Ø Nobody likes to wait in line at the polling place and so mobile voting offers the opportunity to cast votes when and where it is convenient for the voter.

Ø However, making this work as an anywhere, anytime system requires solving a substantial number of serious security and authentication problems that may not be solvable, and certainly not in the near term.

Ongoing research is needed to develop systems that allow voters to securely and anonymously submit their ballots.

California Law on Anti-Theft Switch for Smart phones Goes to Governor

The Street (Aug. 12, 2014) — A California law which will require smart phones to have a switch allowing users to render the device inoperable when stolen is in the final approval stage. The California Senate passed the so-called kill switch measure. The bill is now being sent to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. According to the bill's author, theft of smart phones had been growing along its popularity, smart phone makers like Apple and Samsung will need to notify the users when the technology becomes available. It would also require wireless carriers to check user name and passwords associated with phones that were  deactivated before the phones can be used again.

SECURITY PROBLEM IN GOOGLE PLAY

Google Play has more than one million apps and over 50 billion app downloads, but no one reviews what gets put into Google Play -- anyone can get a $25 account and upload whatever they want. “Very little is known about what's there at an aggregate level,” says Nieh, who is also a member of the University's Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering's Cybersecurity Center. Google Play has huge popularity and it is important to take a close look at Google Play content.

PLAYDRONE:

Nieh and Viennot's paper is the first to make a large-scale measurement of the huge Google Play marketplace. To do this, they developed PlayDrone, a tool to successfully download Google Play apps and recover their sources and uses various hacking techniques. PlayDrone scales by simply adding more servers and is fast enough to crawl Google Play on a daily basis,

-->   Downloading more than 1.1 million Android apps

-->    Decompiling over 880,000 free applications.

ANALYSIS:

Nieh and Viennot discovered all kinds of new information about the content in Google Play, including a critical security problem: developers often store their secret keys in their apps software, similar to usernames/passwords info, and these can be then used by anyone to maliciously steal user data or resources from service providers such as Amazon and Facebook. These vulnerabilities can affect users even if they are not actively running the Android apps. Nieh notes that even "Top Developers," designated by the Google Play team as the best developers on Google Play, included these vulnerabilities in their apps.

MEASURES ADOPTED:

All developers  have been working closely with Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other service providers to identify and notify customers at risk, and make the Google Play store a safer place. Google is now using techniques to proactively scan apps to prevent these problems from happening again in the future.

FINDINGS:

¨     A quarter of all Google Play free apps are clones

¨     Very slow app purchases in Google Play  

¨     The worst rated apps had more than a million downloads more than good apps

MICRO WINDMILL – THE BATTERY CHARGER

Electrical engineers have developed an innovative solution to cell phone batteries constantly in need of recharging, a micro-windmill that generates wind energy and may become home energy generation.

INTERESTING DESIGN:

v The device that is about 1.8 mm at its widest point.

v A single grain of rice could hold about 10 of these tiny windmills.

v Hundreds of the windmills could be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone.

Wind, created by waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, would generate the electricity that could be collected by the cell phone's battery.

MATERIALS INVOLVED:

It involves a conventional wafer-scale semiconductor device layout so complex 3-D moveable mechanical structures can be self-assembled from two-dimensional metal pieces utilizing planar multilayer electroplating techniques that have been optimized by WinMEMS Technologies Co., The micro-windmills work well because the metal alloy is flexible. 

UT ARLINGTON – THE DESIGNER:

WinMEMS became interested in the micro-electro mechanical system research and started a relationship with UT Arlington. Company representatives visited with the UT Arlington team several times in 2013 to discuss collaboration.

An agreement has been established for UT Arlington to hold the intellectual properties while WinMEMS explores the commercialization opportunities. UT Arlington has applied for a provisional patent.

Currently, WinMEMS has been showcasing UT Arlington's works on its website and in public presentations, which include the

ü Micro-Windmills

ü Gears

ü Inductors

ü Pop-Up Switches

ü Grippers

All of those parts are as tiny as a fraction of the diameter of a human hair.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES:

The micro-windmills can be made in an array using the batch processes. The fabrication cost of making one device is the same as making hundreds or thousands on a single wafer, which enables for mass production of very inexpensive systems.

When the phone is out of battery power, all you need to do is to put on the sleeve, wave the phone in the air for a few minutes and you can use the phone again.

Also because of the small sizes, flat panels with thousand of windmills could be made and mounted on the walls of houses or building to harvest energy for lighting, security or environmental sensing and wireless communication.