E.Dams-Renault wins Formula E’s first team title

The all-electric Formula E racing league is on the cusp of finishing its inaugural season, and it’s already handing out the first prizes. The E.dams-Renault team has clinched the Formula E’s first-ever team title after drivers Sebastien Buemi and Nicolas Prost respectively placed first and seventh in the initial race of the London ePrix, giving the organization a secure lead over Audi. The event wasn’t as exciting as others (Buemi took the lead early and held it), but it sets up what should be a fierce rivalry for the driver’s title in the last race on June 28th. Buemi is now just a stone’s throw away from frontrunner Nelson Piquet — you can be sure that both EV racers will be determined to finish out in front.

Whether or not it’ll be neck-and-neck in the following season isn’t so clear. Every team is currently driving the same Spark-Renault SRT_01E car, so no one can claim a technological advantage. That’ll change when teams are allowed to build their own powerplants, so you may see certain manufacturers pull ahead in the sophomore season.

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Source: FIA Formula E

Resupply mission to ferry a meteor shower camera to the ISS

There’s a lot at stake with Falcon 9’s June 28th launch. SpaceX plans to use the opportunity to test if its rocket can successfully land on a barge, and the ISS crew needs all the supplies Dragon is carrying, including a camera designed to watch meteor showers from inside the station. The device aboard the capsule was actually a backup of the original meteor camera that blew up along with Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket in 2014. Its creators had to replace some of its cables and hard drives, and it had to be tested thoroughly, but now it’s ready to take its place in the station’s Window Observational Research Facility (WORF).

The camera will sit behind a large window that’s designed especially for the niche and won’t have any effect on image quality. It’s programmed to record recurring major meteor showers in the next two years, though it can also detect unpredicted ones, so long as the window’s protective cover is up. See, the original camera was supposed to come bundled with a shutter actuator system that would have given the ground team control over that cover. Now, the astronauts would have to remove the window shield or place it back manually in between their other tasks. It’s not ideal, since they might be asleep or too busy to lift the covering when the ISS comes across a surprise shower, but they have no other choice.

The ISS crew hopes to have the device up and running in August just in time for the Perseids, which astronaut Ron Garan captured in the picture above back in 2011. More importantly, the scientists are hoping the camera can help them figure out how meteors continue to affect the Earth and how to protect future spacecraft from colliding with ever increasing space debris. By the way, NASA decided on a camera that works indoors, so that it can remain protected from the harsh conditions of outer space. Michael Fortenberry, the meteor camera’s team lead, admitted that they might “not get as much time to take images” without the window actuator, but promised to “still get really good science.”

[Image credit: NASA]

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Source: NASA (1), (2)

Google App updated to version 4.8, brings code for “Ok Google” Offline [APK Download]

The Google App (formerly Google Search App) was updated yesterday bringing it version 4.8 and with it some neat under the hood changes, laying the way for some future features.

Android Police have performed one of their APK teardowns on the update to reveal just what Google has in store for us with some of the commented out lines of code.

One of which of these features is “OK Google” Offline, which yes you guessed it, will allow full hotword functionality without the need for a data connection. Whilst there’s inevitably limits with what information can be delivered without a data connection, caching and local data will be able to deliver most functionality for the hotword searches.

Strings were found within the Google App that reference Offline voice tips that indicate even without an active internet connection, cards can be displayed indicating what commands can be issued offline. The functions that work offline appear to be limited to making a call sending a text, playing music, and turning on WiFi.

Further functionality includes insecure network warnings that will do just what it says, warn of networks that could be insecure and subject to potential attacks from traffic snooping. It does seem that there will be an override button to connect anyway and ignore the warning.

Additional functionality includes:

– Voice commands for brightness and volume
– Google Cast (disabled for now)
– Maps generated based on a users activity
– Reminders shortcuts
– A few icons that could indicate future baked in functionality

For a full teardown of the APK head on over to the source link, and to grab the updated version of the Google App version 4.8 for yourself, hit the APK download link here.

SOURCE

The post Google App updated to version 4.8, brings code for “Ok Google” Offline [APK Download] appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Asteroid-bound spacecraft gets its first scientific instrument

NASA has begun attaching scientific instruments to the OSIRIS-REx probe, just over a year before it starts making its way to asteroid Bennu. The first instrument to arrive at Lockheed Martin’s HQ is Arizona State University’s microwave-sized device called OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer or OTES. It’s designed switch on shortly after the spacecraft begins its two-year journey to Bennu, and to take the near-Earth asteroid’s temperature every two seconds once it arrives. The instrument, which has undergone development and testing these past few years, will also scan the celestial body’s surface to map minerals and chemicals.

OTES is but one of the five instruments that the team is slated to install aboard the OSIRIS-REx before it takes off in September 2016. There’s also the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS) built by a team from the University of Arizona, which will use its three cameras to image Bennu as the spacecraft approaches. The Canadian Space Agency, on the other hand, developed the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA), which will be in charge of producing local and global topographic maps of the asteroid.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center created the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS), in order to detect water and organics by measuring infrared and visible light from the NEA. Finally, an MIT and Harvard student-faculty collab’s brainchild called the Regolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) will map elements on the surface of Bennu. OSIRIS is scheduled to reach its target in 2018, run tests, observe the asteroid and grab a sample to bring back to Earth by 2023. NASA’s hoping the mission can answer some of its questions, including how energy from the sun affects an asteroid’s trajectory — and how life on Earth began.

[Image credit: Symeon Platts/UA]

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Source: NASA (1), (2), University of Arizona

For post-Snowden cloud startups, privacy proves a hard sell

In the two years since Edward Snowden’s revelations about pervasive government monitoring of the Internet first made the news, developers have worked to build hardware and software to help Web users reap many of the benefits of cloud-based services while retaining personal control of their data.

But while recent studies indicate that plenty of consumers wish their online activities were more private, even the creators of many of these privacy tools acknowledge that all but the simplest of them are still too complex to win over the majority of the Internet-using public.

“Unless you understand everything from the ground up, it’s really, really hard to own your data,” says Alex Payne, the creator of a free, open-source, private-cloud toolkit called Sovereign. It equips a stock Linux server with open-source alternatives to standard cloud offerings, including email, calendars, a Dropbox-style file hosting, and even an Instapaper-style Web bookmarking tool.

Alex Payne

Payne, who was previously a cofounder and the CTO of Simple, the online banking service, says he created Sovereign in 2013 as a cheaper and more private alternative to Google Apps.

Since it’s a privacy-oriented project, he says he hasn’t looked very deeply at who the users and open-source contributors are. But Payne believes the project-which has a GitHub page heavy with technical acronyms and command-line transcripts-probably isn’t used much by the general public.

“I don’t think that this is a realistic solution for most people,” he says. “It’s technical folks who want to use this for themselves, their businesses, their families and [if] they feel like they can kind of confidently administer a server that’s set up with Sovereign, I think it’s great.”

It’s really, really hard to own your data

Even some makers of commercial private-cloud tools have had difficulties winning the public’s attention and getting their products to market.

“We believe that government and corporate snooping are the biggest threats to personal liberty and democracy that we’re facing,” wrote the creators of the Community Cube, a privacy-focused personal server and firewall project that successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign this month.

Scheduled to ship to backers this fall, the Community Cube is a customized Linux machine designed to boost users’ privacy on some existing Web services and replace others with private, encrypted alternatives. Its creators, based in Spain and Germany, say the cube will provide services similar to toolkits like Sovereign, bundling personal, open-source alternatives to commercial cloud services. But unlike other purely software packages, their product comes on a preconfigured computer, ready to be plugged in and connected to the Internet.

The Community Cube

Recent research indicates that the Community Cube’s creators and backers aren’t alone in their concern for privacy, but suggests that consumers feel there’s just little they can do about the matter. A University of Pennsylvania report released this month called the notion that consumers deliberately trade access to their data for free or discounted online services a fallacy, arguing that the public is, instead, simply resigned to losing their privacy.

“Rather than feeling able to make choices, Americans believe it is futile to manage what companies can learn about them,” the authors wrote. “Our study reveals that more than half do not want to lose control over their information, but also believe this loss of control has already happened.”

Some consumers have migrated to digital services that pledge not to track their users’ online activities: privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo has seen steady growth since Snowden’s leaks, and secure messaging service Wickr has raised $39 million in funding and claims millions of users around the world.

But neither of those technologies has yet become a household name, and recent reports show that giants Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo still control upwards of 90% of the online search market, and familiar names like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and China-based QQ dominate digital messaging.

For many Internet users, boosting online privacy may still be a daunting task. A Pew Research Center report released in March found that more than half of Americans surveyed said it would be “somewhat” or “very” difficult to find ways to boost their privacy on the Internet and their cell phones.

At the end, the result is that we have a product that is a competitor of everybody- Google . . . Gmail . . . Dropbox . . . Skype.

The Community Cube team hopes to change that. “At the end, it seems like we have a good recipe with the best ingredients to make that open source easy to use,” says Enrique, a Community Cube developer. “We have open hardware and open software device that can offer people the alternative they need, with the privacy and security.”

Community Cube Web traffic will be routed over a peer-to-peer anonymizing service I2P, and email will be encrypted by the open-source webmail tool Mailpile before being sent through users’ existing providers like Yahoo or Gmail, its creators say. Video chats conducted through the device would be routed over a direct, encrypted connection instead of through services like Skype and Google Hangouts, and a distributed, encrypted storage-and-backup system called Tahoe-LAFS would be the devices’ answer to Dropbox or Google Drive.

“At the end, the result is that we have a product that is a competitor of everybody-a competitor of Google, a competitor of Gmail, a competitor of Dropbox, a competitor of Skype,” says Enrique.

Of course, no security solution is 100% foolproof-given enough time, money, and resources, skilled government or even private hackers can probably find their way around most safeguards-and Enrique acknowledges not all users will even want to use all of the features of Community Cube. The system, he says, will warn users if they take actions that could compromise their privacy, like logging into a mainstream webmail provider’s site, but ultimately the choice will be up to the customers, he says. (The company’s motto: “The Spooks Hate Us.”)

There are some people that said, I don’t understand what you’re trying to sell. There are some other people that say it is too much technical.

“I used to make risk analyses [for] companies, and some companies say, you know what, I assume the risk: it’s my budget; it’s my way, and I cannot put more controls to safeguard that asset in the company, so I assume the risk,” he says. “If they assume that risk you cannot say, no, you cannot assume that risk.”

But so far, while the Kickstarter campaign did exceed its $55,000 goal, and the team’s thinking of launching a second campaign on Indiegogo, the project has had some trouble convincing the public and the press. Marketing consultants suggested sending free Community Cube prototypes to tech journalists for review, but the company didn’t have the funds for such a campaign, Enrique says.

“There are some people that said, I don’t understand what you’re trying to sell,” he says. “There are some other people that say, it is too much technical.”

Earlier this year, the Manchester, U.K., creators of a similarly privacy-focused personal file and email server called the Wedg raised about $200,000 in an IndieGogo campaign of its own, which did draw widespread media coverage. Since then, though, the creators have said the product’s scheduled launch is indefinitely on hold, due to an intellectual property dispute with a former Wedg developer’s employer. Wedg’s creators didn’t respond to emails requesting comment for this story.

Wedg

Wedg isn’t the first crowdfunded privacy-focused project to face setbacks. Last fall, a project called Anonabox had its Kickstarter listing suspended after allegations the creators misrepresented which parts of the project were original creations. A similar fate befell an earlier project, TorFi, and another effort, called Cloak, failed to reach its funding goal.

Other, more successful, private-cloud projects have drawn attention beyond technical circles. One project, called Mail-in-a-Box, is intended to relatively simply convert commodity Linux servers into relatively private and secure email servers. Joshua Tauberer, a developer and government transparency advocate perhaps best known for the legislation-tracking site GovTrack.us, says he created the project as much to be a starting point for other engineers who wanted to tinker with the intricacies of email as to be a tool for privacy.

But while the project’s been the subject of a technical blog post by hosting provider Digital Ocean and a few active Hacker News discussions, it was also a semifinalist for last year’s Knight News Challenge grant competition, attracting attention from journalists and others looking for more control over who has access to their email. And Tauberer says that as the software gets easier to install, he hopes it continues to reach a wider audience.

“When I first started working on this two years ago, you really had to be an expert to set it up,” he says. “Only now in the last month is it possible for someone who’s not technical, or at least not particularly technical, to set it up.”

Still, even the technical audience on Hacker News freely admits having difficulties understanding the intricacies of the alphabet soup of programs and protocols surrounding email, from spam filtering to sender authentication, so it’s easy to imagine a less savvy user struggling to understand and trust even a simple version of Mail-in-a-Box or a commercial private cloud tool.

Photo: Flickr user Ben Salter

Ultimately, suggests Julia Horwitz, consumer protection counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the real privacy solutions may have to come from the law, not from hardware or software.

“I’m often asked the question about what consumers can do to protect their privacy, and I think really the answer is, it shouldn’t be up to the consumer to try to protect his or her own privacy,” she says. “There should be a robust enough legal framework in place that would be incumbent on the company to comply with the law, rather than on the consumer to shop around for the most privacy-protecting service, when by the nature of the service, the consumer’s not going to have all of the relevant information.”

That ultimately applies to both privacy from corporate data gathering and from government surveillance, Horwitz says. “I think both kinds of surveillance are unfortunately too present currently, and both need better checks from Congress.”

Filed under: Internet

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