If you have an internet-connected home appliance, such as a crock-pot, a lightbulb, or a coffee maker, you can control it from the comfort of your smartphone. However, a bug in the Android app that controls some of those devices made by a popular manufacturer also allowed hackers to steal all your cellphone photos and even track your movements.
Continue reading… “Hackers could steal cellphone pictures from your IoT crock-pot”
Spinach is no longer just a superfood. By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect explosives and wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a smartphone.
After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert.
Continue reading… “Nanobionic spinach plants detect explosives”
It’s no secret that Apple has ambitious plans for iPhone and Apple Watch in the health industry, but it’s not the only company looking for ways to integrate smartphones in the medical field. Recently, a research team from Washington State University, under the leadership of assistant professor Lei Li, developed a portable laboratory that’s powered by a smartphone and capable of detecting cancer nearly instantly…
Tech behemoths Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon announced this week that they are teaming up to develop new standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It’s a much-needed move. Soon AI will change everything from warfare to our bodies. But we don’t want to become slaves to the robots, so how do we stop the Terminators?
Continue reading… “AI: A five-point plan to stop the Terminators taking over”
Continue reading… “Cities Are Making Parking (and Cars) Obsolete”
Drones are used for a variety of tasks including the delivery of goods, the monitoring of areas, and now with thanks to DARPA they can even search houses. These miniature drones are so small they can be used almost anywhere and are fairly undetectable to an unsuspecting person.
Continue reading… “Autonomous Are Microdrones Designed To Spy on Us”
With all the different types of social platforms out there, it can be challenging for brand marketers to decide when is the optimal time and day to post. According to H1 2016 research, on Facebook and Twitter, the best-performing posts were made in the evenings, and later in the work week.
Continue reading… “What Day and Time Are Best for Social Posts?”
Like some kind of 21st century Willy Wonka, audacious entrepreneur Elon Muskchose a prime spot on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot tour to unveil his latest attempt to energize an industry — roofs that generate solar power but look like no other.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity, showcased a line of high-design solar roof tiles that would replace clunky solar panels and tie into an upgraded version of the Tesla wall-mounted battery for those times when the sun doesn’t shine. The glass solar shingles resemble French slate, Tuscan barrel tile or more conventional roofing materials with a textured or smooth surface.
Even as self-driving cars become more and more ubiquitous, there’s one problem that Silicon Valley hasn’t solved: the traffic jam. But Airbus Group, a U.S. aeronautics and space company, thinks that it has a solution. The company’s Silicon Valley branch recently announced it’s been working on a secret project titled “Vahana,” an autonomous flying vehicle that can be used for both passenger and cargo transport.
Continue reading… “Airbus: flying taxis a reality by 2020”
Traffic lights are finally getting smarter in Pittsburgh.
Thanks to a new pilot program from the tech startup Rapid Flow Technologies, Steel City now boasts 50 intersections whose stoplights are running artificial intelligence software known as Surtrac that reduces wait times on empty or lightly-traveled roads.
Imagine you’re trying to find your car in a crowded parking lot. Rather than let frustration take hold, you simply say “locate car” and a tiny drone perched on your shoulder flies off and guides you to it. Amazon has been awarded a patent for a voice-activated personal assistant drone that would do just that, and may be used by emergency personnel for slightly more important tasks, like locating missing children or spotting fires.
Continue reading… “Amazon patents personal mini drones that locates lost cars or kids”
Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet. These probes take the form of precisely calibrated attacks designed to determine exactly how well these companies can defend themselves, and what would be required to take them down. We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.
Continue reading… “Somebody Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.