How a 3D-printed boat race united a Red Hook community

Last Sunday, nearly 500 people gathered at Valentino Pier in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to cheer on close to 20 radio-controlled boats as they sped towards a target 150 feet away. The boat races were part of the second annual Red Hook Regatta, which was born last year as a means to highlight the area’s history as a freight port, as well as the work of local youth. The competing vessels were either handmade or 3D printed, and were created to showcase the expertise of Red Hook’s so-called Digital Stewards.

The Digital Stewards fellowship is part of the Red Hook Initiative, which is a nonprofit that was founded in 2002. The yearlong program gives local youth free training in technology, digital media and skills such as 3D modeling, web development and WiFi architecture. It also includes a paid three-month internship. In the fellowship’s last two generations, the Stewards have been learning how to create 3D models and design boat hulls that had to be watertight.

After completing their masterpieces, two of the fellows, Laurenzo Reed and Jesus Benitez, felt that there needed to be a celebration at the end of the program to showcase what the Stewards had been doing, especially around 3D printing. Event organizer David Sheinkopf thought it was a good idea. He said he had wanted to do a 3D printed boat race for awhile, because he thought “everyone would love it,” and that it is a good opportunity for education about and exposure to tech.

Sheinkopf co-directs the education and tech integration arm of Red Hook-based nonprofit foundation Pioneer Works. He’s been working with the Digital Stewards three years now, and recently received a grant for the organization to integrate civic journalism in their programs. That led him to research the area’s history and talk to older members of the community. He learned that about 10,000 people lost cargo-related jobs in the 1950s, when the local shipping industry made the move to container stations,. And so, to tie the historical relevance to the modern technology that the community’s youth were learning in the fellowship, the 3D printed boat race was born.

This year, three main events anchored the Regatta’s program: a first-ever homemade (non-3D-printed) boat race, a halftime show and a 3D-printed boat race. Each vessel had to fit within a 2 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot box, and was equipped with a motor and rudder. About 14 teams competed in the 3D printed category, compared to just four for the DIY, and each team consisted of a captain and a stevedore (a cargo loader). The captain was in charge of steering the boat towards two magnet-equipped fishing hooks at stations about 150 feet out in the water, while the stevedore’s duty was to load the boat with foam bricks. These had metal attachments on them so they could be easily picked up by the hooks.

One of the competing vessels heading back to shore after offloading its cargo.

The goal of the race was to send your vessel, loaded with one foam brick at a time, to one of the hooks. You’d score a point if your boat delivered a brick to the nearer checkpoint, and two points if your cargo got picked up at the station farther out. Then, you’d have to steer your boat back to the coast to get another brick and head back out to the hooks. The team that scored the most points within 15 minutes won the race.

I joined former Digital Steward, Robert Smith this year as the stevedore to his boat (which he named Ice Kingdom). The white, almost grandfather-clock shaped hull was slightly over a foot long and about five inches wide. A laser-cut piece of plastic that covers the hull is the only part of the boat other than the motor and transmission (provided by the event’s organizers) that weren’t 3D printed. The hull is covered to provide a platform for the foam bricks, as well as stabilize the ship. On Smith’s boat, this plastic covering had some Transformer stickers as well as the letters ICE. “Be careful, it’s an Autobot,” he told me.

Small parts of the boats, such as rudders and rotors, were printed with a Makerbot Replicator 2 at Pioneer Works’ lab in Red Hook. The hulls were printed with a Gigabot 2, which has a larger platform and capacity.

Smith working on his boat right before we launched it into the water.

Up until the very last minute before the race, Smith tinkered with the boat’s motor and rudder, tightening wires and ensuring everything worked, while I tried to (trash) talk to some of our competitors. Not all of them were affiliated with the Digital Stewards program. Susse Soenderby and Guri Venstad, who hail from Norway and Denmark respectively, learned of the race through Pioneer Works. Their vessel, a colorful mermaid-esque ship named Frøja was modeled in Solidworks. The ladies printed their hull at 3D printing service 3D Hubs, then painstakingly sandpapered and spray-painted the hull with a gorgeous blue-green gradient themselves. The result was stunning and looked more like a toy you could buy off the shelf for your Barbie than a 3D printed project.

The gorgeous paint job on Frøja.

In the end, although Ice Kingdom and Frøja lost to winners Malachi and La Corncita, both created by Digital Stewards, all participating boats performed respectably, and not a single vessel got lost at sea. Ice Kingdom was even the first to score a point at all, but eventually had to bow out due to motor failure.

Despite many frustrating defeats, people who turned up to show support remained in high spirits. A particularly heartwarming entrant was crowd favorite Garbage Boat, an artistic bag of trash strapped to a motor that competed in the DIY category. Garbage Boat, and its maker Sam Levine, drew loud cheers and applause, even though they failed to score a single point. And the halftime show, which had organizers landing a drone on a homemade 6-foot aircraft carrier, was yet another demonstration of tech coming out of Red Hook.

The homemade aircraft carrier on standby before the halftime show.

Spectators were also treated to a performance by neighborhood children’s dance team Flagpole’s Finest, and kid-friendly activities were also available throughout the day for younger attendees. Sheinkopf said, “Our goal with this race was to have an event that was so inherently interesting and weird and different” that it would attract a truly diverse audience. And indeed, I saw people of all ages, ethnic groups and genders out that day. This level of representation in the turnout was, to Sheinkopf, “a measure of success.” And as for what events like this can do for local youth, he believes “just putting these young adults in proximity to all this tech just makes it more real.”

Uber’s trucking plan will connect drivers with cargo

When Uber bought up Otto’s self-driving truck platform, the initial reaction was to imagine a future fleet of autonomous trucks traveling coast to coast on America’s interstates. According to a new report from Reuters, that reality is still years — possibly decades — away. In the short term, however, Uber plans to leverage the Otto purchase to build up its own freight business and make a name for itself as the go-to technology partner for the trucking industry.

“Uber has already started pitching services to shippers, truck fleets and independent drivers, and the services go well beyond Otto’s initially stated goal of outfitting trucks with self-driving technology,” Reuters reports. “It also plans to compete with the brokers who connect truck fleets and shippers.”

CEO Travis Kalanick has long described Uber as a logistics company and the Otto partnership comes with additional navigation, mapping and tracking technology that will give Uber footing as it looks to build out a freight network connecting shippers and carriers. The company’s UberEats food delivery and UberRush shipping service have already done the same thing on the city-level and, according to Otto co-founder Lior Ron, the new goal is about “building that long-haul piece.”

Whereas an Uber might take three minutes to show up at your door, Ron explained, “the golden standard [in freight] is that it takes (the broker) five hours of phone calls to find your truck. That’s how efficient the industry is today.” Although Otto already employees a handful of truckers to help test the self-driving technology, the company will reportedly start moving real shipments “fairly soon” and Otto’s next goal is to build relationships with independent truckers, much as it did with taxi and delivery drivers — for better or for worse.

Source: Reuters

Verizon technician admits he sold customer data for years

A former Verizon Wireless network technician in Alabama has admitted to using company computers to steal and sell private customers’ location and call data over a period of five years. As Ars Technica reports, Daniel Traeger of Birmingham faces up to five years in prison or a $250,000 fine for the federal hacking charge. As part of a plea deal, Traeger confessed that he sold the data to an unnamed private investigator.

According to the terms of the plea (PDF), Traeger and the PI made a deal sometime in 2009, when Traeger agreed to provide the information even though he was aware he was not authorized to access the data or provide it to a third party. Using two different internal systems, Traeger accessed call records and pinged the victims’ cellphones to get their location. He then compiled all the data into spreadsheets which he passed along to the PI over email.

Traeger made only $50 per month, or about $25 per record, when he started selling the information. By the time he was finally caught in 2014, Traeger had racked up a nest egg of more than $10,000 from Verizon customers’ private data. While Traeger’s relatively small-time hack came from within the company, earlier this year Verizon’s anti-hacking task force was hacked along with a cache of Enterprise customer data. Last year, Buzzfeed also reported that a vulnerability in Verizon’s system made it painfully easy to access the accounts of home internet customers.

*Verizon has acquired AOL, Engadget’s parent company. However, Engadget maintains full editorial control, and Verizon will have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.

Source: Ars Technica

Arduino is making an Internet of Things kit with your help

Arduino boards can certainly be used to create homebrew connected devices, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. What if you’re a rookie who has yet to master programming or wiring? That’s where Arduino’s new, crowdfunded ESLOV kit might save the day. All you have to do to create a basic Internet of Things device is snap in some plug-and-play modules, connect your creation to your PC and draw connections between those modules in an editor. You only have to dive into serious programming if you have specific needs — there’s ready-made code for common devices like air quality sensors, baby monitors and remote-controlled thermostats.

If you like the idea, you can pledge to get one of several ESLOV kits that’s more likely to meet your technological ambitions. Contributing about $55 will get you the core WiFi Hub, which includes a motion sensor. Spending $99 or higher will get you multiple modules, with higher tiers carrying more exotic parts like hall sensors and OLED screens. Arduino hopes to ship its crowdfunded kits in June 2017 if it meets its funding goal. No, this isn’t the cheapest way to get started on DIY devices (an Arduino Uno board costs about $22), but it might be ideal if you’re teaching kids to build electronics or want to gradually ease into a gadget making hobby.

Source: Kickstarter, Arduino Blog

Apple and Deloitte Partnering on Consulting Service to Promote iOS Devices in Enterprise

Apple today announced an enterprise partnership with Deloitte, which will see Deloitte creating an Apple practice with more than 5,000 “strategic advisors” focused on providing businesses with guidance on how to “change the way they work,” updating technology on all of their systems, from retail to R&D to inventory management.

The two also plan to create a new service from Deloitte Consulting called “EnterpriseNext,” which will help Deloitte clients “fully take advantage” of the iOS ecosystem, from hardware to software.

“As the leader in digital transformation strategy, Deloitte is an ideal partner that brings a team of Apple-dedicated strategic advisors to help clients truly revolutionize how they work using iOS, iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone and iPad are transforming how people everywhere get work done. And through this partnership, we’re able to help even more businesses tap into the incredible capabilities that only the Apple ecosystem can deliver.”

EnterpriseNext will offer expertise to businesses across more than 20 industries, providing guidance on how to take advantage of iOS devices, offering workshops on creating iOS solutions, and developing full native apps for businesses from Deloitte Digital Studios.

– EnterpriseNext Value Maps for iOS to help them discover the highest impact possibilities for iPhone and iPad within their industries, align their mobile opportunities and prioritize digital resources;
– EnterpriseNext Workshops for iOS to quickly take ideas from prototype to custom-built iOS solutions; and
– iOS architects, designers and engineers – housed within Deloitte Digital Studios around the world – to help produce easily deployable, high-quality native apps that integrate seamlessly with existing business platforms including ERP, CRM, analytics and HR.

Apple has been ramping up its efforts in the enterprise market over the past few years, first teaming up with IBM to get iPads and iPhones into the hands of businesses and help them to develop a range of custom apps. Apple has also partnered with Cisco and SAP to offer the necessary tools and integrations to make it easy for companies to adopt iOS devices.

Tags: enterprise, Deloitte
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Apple Tracks Who You Contact on Messages, Stores Logs for 30 Days

Conversations in the Messages app feature end-to-end encryption that makes the content of the messages impossible to decipher, but according to documentation found by The Intercept, Apple tracks who its customers send iMessages to and is able to hand that information over to law enforcement when compelled to do so through a court order.

When a text message is sent to someone, the Messages app pings Apple’s servers to see if the person has an iPhone or iPad in an effort to determine whether to send a message via iMessage or SMS. Each ping records date, time, number, and IP address, all of which is kept in a log that Apple says it stores for 30 days

Apple confirmed to The Intercept that it only retains these logs for a period of 30 days, though court orders of this kind can typically be extended in additional 30-day periods, meaning a series of monthlong log snapshots from Apple could be strung together by police to create a longer list of whose numbers someone has been entering.

The data on how Messages works was reportedly obtained by The Intercept from a document entitled “iMessage FAQ for Law Enforcement” that was given to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Electronic Surveillance Support Team. While labled “Law Enforcement Sources” and “For Official Use Only,” it is not clear who wrote it.

Click to enlarge. Image via The Intercept
As The Intercept points out, the documentation suggests that each number entered into the Messages app is transmitted to Apple when a new chat is opened, even if a conversation does not end up taking place. An Apple spokesperson said that the logging information in the iMessage FAQ is “generally accurate” but did not give additional data to make it clearer exactly when the Messages app pings Apple’s servers. Apple did, however, give the following statement:

When law enforcement presents us with a valid subpoena or court order, we provide the requested information if it is in our possession. Because iMessage is encrypted end-to-end, we do not have access to the contents of those communications. In some cases, we are able to provide data from server logs that are generated from customers accessing certain apps on their devices. We work closely with law enforcement to help them understand what we can provide and make clear these query logs don’t contain the contents of conversations or prove that any communication actually took place.

Apple takes a strong stance on privacy and promises to keep customer data private with tools like end-to-end encryption for the Messages app, but it has always maintained that there is some information that it is able to provide to law enforcement officials when compelled to do so.

Apple’s website features a privacy section that details the information it collects and the types of data that it provides for government requests, including a full rundown of what’s available to law enforcement [PDF]. Apple’s documentation does not appear to mention Messages specifically, but it does specify that iCloud connection logs are retained for 30 days and that FaceTime calls logs are also maintained.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: iMessage, privacy
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