Uber CEO reveals details on sexual harassment investigation

A former Uber engineer’s blog post that blew up online did more than just shame the company into finally investigating her long-ignored sexual harassment allegations. It has also forced the ride-sharing service to take a look at its diversity numbers. In a memo sent out to employees earlier, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has revealed that he and new Chief HR Officer Liane Hornsey are working on publishing the company’s first diversity report in the next few months. While diversity reports are common in the tech industry, it’s out of the norm for Uber, which is still a private entity.

The decision was most likely made in response to part of Susan Fowler’s (that’s the name of the former engineer) post that talked about the service’s gender balance issues. She said “out of over 150 engineers in the [site reliability engineer] teams, only 3 percent were women.” Kalanick insisted in his memo, however, that Uber’s gender balance issues aren’t that bad. He said 15.1 percent of the company’s employees are women. “As points of reference,” he added, “Facebook is at 17 percent, Google at 18 percent and Twitter is at 10 percent.”

In addition to diversity numbers, Kalanick also talked about the ongoing investigation. Apparently, former US Attorney General Eric Holder and another partner at his law firm will conduct an independent review into “the specific issues relating to the work place environment” that Fowler raised. Uber board member Arianna Huffington and Liane Hornsey are also planning group and one-on-one sessions with employees. You can read the whole company-wide memo below:

here is Travis Kalanick’s company wide email to Uber employees, sent Monday afternoon, regarding Fowler’s claims and HR investigation. pic.twitter.com/39PYrKr6SR

— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) February 20, 2017

Source: VentureBeat, Mike Isaac (Twitter)

Forget RoboCop, this police robot is designed to make traffic stops safer

Why it matters to you

Police officers’ traffic stops should become a bit safer with the Sentinel robot’s help.

Any technology worth its silicon chips is born out of the desire to solve a problem. The spark which prompted the Sentinel Robotic System just happens to be more tragic than most.

“In July last year, there were two specific instances that really pushed us to develop this device,” Vaibhav Tadepalli, a researcher at Duke University, told Digital Trends. “On July 6, Philando Castile was shot during a traffic stop in front of his girlfriend and four-year-old daughter. Then, two days later, officer Michael Flamion was shot as he approached a vehicle during another traffic stop.”

What Tadepalli and Sentinel co-founder Chris Reyes, along with three others, set out to develop was a robot that could law enforcement with this sometimes dangerous task.

More: Amazon wants police officers to have a tiny ‘assistant’ on their shoulder

The idea is simple: An officer involved in a traffic stop presses a button on the central console of his or her vehicle. This deploys the Sentinel robot, which autonomously approaches the stopped car. It then raises a video display that serves as a two-way link between the officer and the driver of said traffic stop vehicle.

The officer can request that the driver holds up their license and ID, and then scan this from the safety of their own vehicle. The robot can also perform breathalyzer and THC tests. If the officer deems the driver to be safe, they can exit their vehicle and proceed as normal.

If it turns out that the person pulled over has previous violent convictions, or a warrant out for their arrest, they can make an informed decision without putting themselves into harm’s way.

“Everything we looked at that tried to solve a similar problem focused on recording what happens,” Tadepalli continued. “For example, there’s been a lot of work put into body cams. Then there’s another company called Blue Eyes, which deploys drones to provide an elevated view of what’s happening. But there was nothing we could find that would keep officers out of danger. In every scenario, officers still needed to exit their cars and walk up to the window of the car they had pulled over.”

At present, the team behind the Sentinel Robotic System is raising the money to further develop the idea. If you’re interested in supporting it, can do so by pledging on Indiegogo, where contributing to the $7,500 goal can gain you a project sticker, T-shirt, scale model of Sentinel, or even the ability to name one of the bots.

KasperskyOS aims to secure the billions of forgotten network devices

Why it matters to you

Russian security company Kaspersky just announced a new initiative that might make us all safer from cyberattack.

Today, there are not only more internet-connected devices in sheer absolute numbers, but there are also more different kinds of devices than ever before. In particular, there are more “hidden” devices, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, webcams, routers, and the like that don’t always get the same attention as our PCs when it comes to security.

Russian security company Kaspersky is responding to the growing threat of unsecured devices with its KasperskyOS (KOS), a secure operating system that the company has been working on for 14 years. The initiative was announced today by Eugene Kaspersky on the company’s official blog.

More: Analysis of internet-connected devices reveals millions are vulnerable to attack

Kaspersky was quick to point out in the blog post that KasperskyOS is not just another Linux distribution. In fact, as he puts it, “It’s literally not Linux; there’s not a single string of Linux code in it. We designed the OS from scratch, for different applications and purposes.” It’s also not a product that’s bought off the shelf, but rather one that will be priced and configured based on the needs of specific customers.

Instead, KasperskyOS aims at compatibility and universality with regard to Windows, Linux, and MacOS, with a secure operating system that aims to provide a practical an accessible solution for IoT, industrial, network, and other internet-connected devices. The new solution is made up of three products, including KOS, a standalone secure hypervisor (KSH) for running virtual machines, and a system for secure interaction between OS components (KSS).

Already, Germany company SYSGO has licensed KSS for use in its OS, PikeOS. Meanwhile, some companies are looking license the KSH by itself, while other companies, such as Kraftway, which makes switches, are integrating the entire KOS system. Kaspersky points to this purpose-built nature as a key strength of its new OS.

The company responded to those questioning its strong security claims:

“Our operating system’s architecture is based on the principle of dividing objects into the maximum number of isolated entities. Customers may examine the source code to make sure there are no undocumented capabilities inside the system. The rest is in effect configured together with the customer in the shape of various security policies designed to substantiate literally every tiny thing.”

The details of why the company is so confident in the inherent security of KasperskyOS is worth delving into if you’re in charge of selecting an OS for your upcoming internet-connected device, and the blog post provides some of those details. For the rest of us, we can take some solace in the promise of a secure OS that can help ensure security of our billions of internet-connected devices.

Android Wear 2.0 update brings swimming metrics to Polar M600

Why it matters to you

Polar adapted its M600 smartwatch by adding swimming metrics, making it even better for fitness geeks everywhere.

With all the sports wearables on the market, there are not many that are designed with swimming in mind. Polar, a leader in wearables sports tech, is updating its current M600 smartwatch to Android Wear 2.0 later this spring. With the update comes the ability to keep track of indoor swimming metrics.

Beyond the standard distance and pace, swimmers using the Polar M600 can see a real-time look at their strokes per minute and strokes per pool length. The smartwatch can even determine the type of stroke being used. Whether swimming freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly, the M600 will keep track of it.

More: Will your watch get Android Wear 2.0? Read our guide to find out

The Polar M600 was designed with sports training in mind, yet retains a sleek design to fit in with daily use. For detecting heart rate, it features Polar’s custom LED optical technology and algorithms to give a consistent, accurate reading. Other features within the watch include integrated GPS, 24/7 activity tracking, and Polar Smart Coaching. With an updated battery life of 36 hours, the Polar M600 promises not to die when it is needed the most.

In addition to swimming, the M600 gains the ability to access the Google Play store from the watch itself. Apps can be downloaded and operated directly on the device. Google Assistant will also allow users to get the most out of their watch. Don’t like how the watch face looks? Customize it to your liking. Tired of reaching your phone for every email or text? Now you can reply directly from the watch itself. Even social media feeds can now be accessed.

The update to Android Wear 2.0 will be available this spring to all Polar M600 users. For those without, this sports watch can be found on Amazon for $330 in black or white varieties. Further customization is available through additional wrist straps in black, red, or white for $30.

Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

Grade Pending

Before you eat, inspect the restaurant. All New York City restaurants appear on a map, color-coded to reveal the grade provided by the health department.

Available on:

iOS

Aureus

Memorize the board, match hidden elements, produce gold, upgrade the machine, and fight the ever-so-quickly increasing pressure. Play online with up to 3 opponents.

Available on:

iOS

Findit

Each picture has three differences, and you have 15 seconds to identify them. But find the wrong so-called difference and suffer a penalty.

Available on:

iOS

Thunderspace 5k

During the day, Thunderspace won’t let you focus on all the noise around you. And at night, it will make you very sleepy.

Available on:

iOS

iPicBox

Keep your photos safe from prying eyes with iPicBox, the app that lets you lock your private content and protect yourself from nosy friends.

Available on:

iOS

Rendezvous Appointment Book

The Rendezvous Appointment Book for the iPhone provides an efficient way to create and manage appointments from anywhere.

Available on:

iOS

PC microphones helped steal hundreds of gigabytes of data from Ukraine firms

Why it matters to you

Large-scale hacker and sophisticated operations are stealing more and more data from government and private organizations.

Allegations of state-sponsored cyberattacks have been in the news lately, including alleged Russian hacks during the recent U.S. elections. These allegations are sometimes based on the code used to break into systems, and sometimes due to the sheer scale and sophistication of attacks that could only be brought by government agencies.

One such large-scale cyberattack, dubbed “Operation BugDrop,” seems to have been perpetrated against targets in the Ukraine, as reported on its blog by security firm CyberX. The attack went after at least 70 victim organizations and stole huge amounts of sensitive information using a number of methods including one attack vector — the PC microphone — that is very difficult to guard against.

More: FBI, DOJ eyeing Russian operatives in Clinton campaign cyberattack

According to CyberX, Operation BugDrop, so named because the microphones of target PCs were “bugged,” used compromised Microsoft Word documents to install malware capable of eavesdropping and capturing hundreds of gigabytes of data. The firm described Operation BugDrop a “well-organized operation that employs sophisticated malware and appears to be backed by an organization with substantial resources.”

CyberX

Chief among those resources appear to be a very large and sophisticated infrastructure enabling the attackers to decrypt and analyze massive amounts of data — up to several gigabytes each day — and then store it in a massive cache of data. As CyberX points out, it’s not just a machine-driven attack because the stolen data requires many human analysts to comb through and make sense of it. While state involvement isn’t guaranteed, it is likely.

CyberX

Most of the targets were organizations located in the Ukraine, including companies involved in engineering and designing oil and gas distribution facilities, human rights organizations, newspaper editors, and more. A smaller number of organizations in Russia, Austria, and Saudi Arabia were also targeted. Stolen data appears to include audio recordings, screenshots, documents, and passwords.

Operation BugDrop serves to highlight the growing importance of well-organized and heavily financed cybercrime operations aimed at private and governmental organizations and capable of accumulating and analyzing massive amounts of proprietary information. CyberX concludes, not surprisingly, that organizations need to be diligent in monitoring their networks and applying more modern technologies to identify and respond to these increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Best Android Wear 2.0 apps for your watch: Google Fit, Uber, and more

Android Wear 2.0 is finally here, and that means apps can now be directly installed on your watch and run without your phone.

You will longer need your phone nearby to use apps on your Android Wear device, because instead of requiring a tethered connection to your phone, it will communicate through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular network. In the older version of Android Wear, you could still use apps when out of range of your phone, as long as that phone was connected to a network — now your phone doesn’t need to be turned on at all.

This also means you’ll be able to go straight to Google Play on your Android Wear device and browse apps that are designed specifically for the watch. You will no longer need to install Android Wear-compatible apps on your smartphone first. Instead you simply launch the Play Store on your wrist and download the app right there on your smartwatch. This is a new level of independence.

Here’s a selection of the Android Wear 2.0 apps you’ll want to try first.

Best Android Wear 2.0 apps

In alphabetical order:

Google Fit

• Download (free)

Google Fit has a tonne of new functionality, thanks to Android Wear 2.0. You can do everything from basic daily step-tracking to gym workouts, and the new interface has been designed to show you snippets of at-a-glance. If you want a more thorough looks at everything, just go to the Fit app on your phone. Google Fit not only offers more activities, but it makes Android Wear device more useful with things like pushup or squat challenges, as your watch can now not only advise on form, but also measure your performance.

Google Fit has automatic activity recognition, as well as a Google Fit API, so data can sync with third party running apps, meaning you should be able to sync your data to your favourite platform — like Strava, even if you’ve used the Google Fit app to gather it.

Facebook Messenger

• Download (free)

This Android Wear 2.0 app isn’t just a smaller version of the mobile app. It shows up as a normal notification and give you options when responding to people. You will be able to quickly reply to messages, send stickers, and voice messages. It’s especially convenient when you forgot you’re phone at home. From what we can tell, however, the Messenger icon itself sits in your drawer and doesn’t do anything.

Find My Parked Car

• Download (free, offers in-app purchases)

Finding your car in a big parking lot is annoying. But the Find My Parked Car app for the smartwatch makes this task more manageable — thanks to GPS on your phone. Once you park your car, just press the park button to drop a pin and mark your parked car’s location. When you want to find your car, you can open the app on your Android Wear 2.0 watch and will find the exact location from it. 

Recordr

• Download (free, offers in-app purchases)

The Recordr app makes it easy to use your Android Wear 2.0 watch mic and record voice notes. Once you record the note on your smartwatch, you can easily transfer or share it to Google Drive.

Uber

• Download (free)

Two years after Google announced Uber would come to Android Wear, you can now finally download the standalone app on your watch to hail a ride, check your driver’s progress, choose a destination, compare prices and ETAs — all without taking out your phone.

Are there more Android Wear 2.0 apps?

Yes. Here’s the full list of confirmed standalone apps for Android Wear 2.0 that will work for both Android and iPhone users (some of which we’ve already detailed above):

• AccuWeather
• Android Pay
• Bring!
• Foursquare
• Find My Parked Car
• Glide
• Google Fit
• Google Keep
• Google Messenger
• Google Play Music
• Lifesum
• Nest
• Pulse SMS
• Recordr
• Robinhood
• Runkeeper
• Runtastic
• Shazam
• Strava
• Telegram
• Uber

We will constantly update this list with more Android Wear 2.0 apps when they’re made available.

Want to know more?

Check out Pocket-lint’s Android Wear 2.0 guide as well as this piece for more details about which models will be able to get Android Wear 2.0:

• When is Android Wear 2.0 coming to my smartwatch?

• When is Android Wear 2.0 coming to my smartwatch?

Crowdsourced research predicts what molecules smell like

As of now, the only way to tell how something smells is to actually take a sniff. That is to say, there’s no observable, scientific measure we know of that can predict how we’ll perceive a specific odor. In comparison, things are a little more cut and dried with sights and sounds; because humans use wavelengths to process what they see and hear, we generally agree on, say, how we expect a specific color to look. But scientists now seem to be making progress on the olfactory front: New crowdsourced research has brought scientists closer to predicting a molecule’s smell based solely on its chemical properties.

A team led by Leslie Vosshall, head of The Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, recruited a group of 49 volunteers for an olfactory experiment, the university announced yesterday. The volunteers were presented 476 vials of different molecules, including substances like water, vanillin and methylthiobutyrate (which gives some cheeses their stink). After taking a whiff, participants rated the vials based on how strong and pleasant they found the smells. They also recorded how much the odors reminded them of garlic, flowers, urine and 16 other distinct scents.

The research provided over a million data points for the DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge, a collaboration between 22 teams from various companies and research institutions. Each crew used the information to come up with algorithms to predict a molecule’s smell based on its chemical features. When they were done, study researcher Pablo Meyer, of IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, compiled the individual formulas into an aggregate model.

To ensure the model’s effectiveness with all substances, 69 molecules not included in the initial sniff test were tested. While matching olfactory attributes to the molecules, the algorithm scored a 0.83 of a possible 1.0, which Rockefeller called “significantly better” than previous attempts at pairing perception to chemical structure.

This progress is encouraging, but we still don’t totally understand what happens when odor molecules are converted into electrical signals for the brain to perceive. Still, Vosshall says the results of this research are significant in the pursuit of that knowledge. This information should also make it easier to reverse-engineer aromas, so perfumes and candles of the future ought to smell more like the fruits and flowers they’re named after.

Source: The Rockefeller University, Science

AI turns Game Boy Camera photos into decent shots

Many people have fond memories of using the Game Boy Camera, but to call its low-resolution black-and-white shots “photos” would be… generous. Don’t tell that to Roland Meertens, though. He recently devised a neural network that turns Game Boy Camera images into more presentable pictures. He trained the AI to clean up, colorize and fill in details for images by feeding it thousands of photos reduced to Game Boy-level image quality. The results aren’t exactly good enough to frame for posterity, but they’re far easier on the eyes.

As is, this is strictly a novelty. It’s hard just to find a Game Boy Camera, let alone the companion printer you’ll likely need to get images off the system. It’s also focused on faces where everything is clearly visible, and has trouble with sideways glances, sunglasses and other However, it isn’t hard to see the technology applying to other instances where AI can improve image quality. This could help identify a suspect from grainy security camera footage, for instance, or restore damaged photos. However it’s used, it’s a testament to how far imaging tech has come since the Game Boy Camera’s 1998 debut.

Via: Prosthetic Knowledge (Tumblr)

Source: Pinch of Intelligence

Piloted hoverbike redefines ‘dangerous’

Good news: a private company has developed a manned hoverbike you may well fly one day. Only… you might not want to. Startup company Hoversurf is teasing the Scorpion-3, an electric quadcopter bike that offers both automated and manual control. It’s billed as safe thanks to “state of the art flight controllers” that keep checks on aspects like altitude and speed, and those are no doubt true. But, well, look at it — you’re one jolt away from losing your legs to those unprotected blades. And did we mention how easy it would be to fall off with that unrestrained, motorcycle-style seating?

It’s not clear how likely the Scorpion-3 is to reach mass production, let alone when you’d have a crack at it. It’s entirely possible that the design could change between now and any formal launch. Until then, though, it’s a well-meaning idea that’s clearly meant more for daredevils (or at least, the very well insured) than the average person. We’ll stick to terra firma for now.

Via: The Next Web, The Verge

Source: Hoversurf, YouTube