Engadget giveaway: Win a Marantz receiver courtesy of Auro Technologies!

You may have updated your set to 4K HDR to dazzle your eyes, but don’t let your ears miss out on the all the fun. Auro Technologies offers an extremely immersive theater experience with its Auro-3D audio standard. Using a capable 9.1 or 10.1 speaker configuration, you can enjoy realistic three-dimensional sound created through “height layers” and acoustic reflection. The audio experience simulates the sense of location being dictated by the onscreen action. This week Auro Technologies has provided us with a Marantz 9.2 channel receiver that supports Auro-3D for one incredibly lucky reader this week. This top-of-the-line gear ticks all the right boxes for a future-proof setup including HEOS streaming, WiFi, Bluetooth, AirPlay, a 4K full-rate pass-through, HDR and HDCP 2.2 support. All you need to do is head to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning this stellar home theater setup courtesy of Auro Technologies and its Auro-3D software.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

• Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
• Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive one (1) Marantz SR7011 9.2 surround sound receiver ($2,199 value).
• If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
• This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
• The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
• Entries can be submitted until March 8th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!

Amazon hands over Alexa data after murder suspect gives the okay

Amazon has agreed to hand over Alexa data to prosecutors in a murder trial after the defendant, an Echo owner, gave permission. The company had initially refused to do so, saying it “seeks to protect the privacy rights of its customers” and that Alexa’s questions and answers are protected by the first amendment. The case involves Arkansas resident James Bates, who is charged with the murder of a man found dead in his hot tub in November, 2015.

The medical examiner ruled that there had been a fight and that the victim, Victor Collins, died from a combination of strangulation and drowning. His body had cuts, bruises and other signs and violence and police found blood in the hot tub, according to court documents.

While Alexa is constantly listening, it only records data after the “Alexa” or “Amazon” commands are given. However, the Echo speaker was reportedly streaming music near the tub, and investigators believe it could have been awakened intentionally or accidentally. If so,the presence of a recording could tell them if Bates was awake when he said he was sleeping, for instance.

Our obligation is to investigate all of the available evidence, whether [it] proves useful or not.

Bates said law enforcement could review his Echo device because “he is innocent of all charges in the matter,” his lawyers said. The prosecutors said they’re “pleased” to have access to the data, as “our obligation is to investigate all of the available evidence, whether [it] proves useful or not.”

Amazon twice declined to hand over the voice data, saying that its users’ requests and Alexa’s responses were covered by protected speech laws under the US Constitution. It also claimed that investigators can’t prove that they couldn’t find the incriminating information elsewhere. However, the suspect’s acquiescence means that Amazon’s arguments about Alexa’s legal rights will remain untested.

Source: 5 News Online

Land Rover’s Project Hero SUV launches a drone to aid rescue workers

It’s no secret that drones are useful for surveying situations where it might be too dangerous for a human to tread. This includes tough terrain that search and rescue teams encounter and Jaguar Land Rover built a vehicle to lend a hand. The company’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) unit designed and built a unique version of its Discovery SUV for use by the Austrian Red Cross. Officially called Project Hero, the vehicle features a roof-mounted drone landing system.

What’s more, Project Hero’s drone setup has self-centering and magnetic retention tech that allows a small UAV to land while the vehicle is in motion. Jaguar Land Rover says this is the first system of its kind. Once airborne, the drone can send live footage of an area to rescue teams so they can respond more efficiently in situations like earthquakes, landslides and avalanches.

To further aid rescuers, the floor in the back of the Discovery slides out to make a mobile work surface and its heavy duty material protects any gear stored underneath. The vehicle is also equipped with power and a range of plug configurations to fit several different regions as well as all the requisite radio gear needed to maintain contact in remote locations.

For now, Project Hero will be based at the Red Cross training center in Erzberg before making the move to Vienna in June. The vehicle will be used in simulations to help develop new methods and on test runs for complex rescue scenarios like natural disasters. Jaguar Land Rover says the Red Cross will also use the SUV when it provides support following certain events. If the automaker’s other research is any indication, future versions of Project Hero could also be autonomous over any terrain.

Source: Land Rover

Razer’s new digital currency is both outdated and enticing

The last thing the gaming industry needs is another digital currency system that supplants dollars for an exclusive “points” system — and yet that’s exactly what Razer invited me to see at its San Francisco offices last week. The company’s pitch was almost contradictory. Razer zVault is a digital wallet system designed to unify payments across platforms encumbered by a myriad of other fragmented digital wallets.

It sounds ridiculous, but it’s already moderately successful: over six weeks, the zVault pilot program has already tracked over 370,000 transactions using zVault’s zGold currency. That’s probably due in part to the fact that zVault boasts a burgeoning rewards program that offers users discounts, free games and a second bonus currency that can be used to buy Razer accessories and laptops.

Here’s how it works: zVault users load their digital wallets up with denominations of $30, $50 or $100 in cash, which is then converted to zGold, crediting 100 units of Razer’s currency for every dollar deposited. After spending it on Steam keys from stores like GamersGate and Indie Gala, Razer will credit a second digital currency, zSilver, to the user’s account. zSilver works kind of like credit card reward points, and can be redeemed for Razer products and discounts. Razer says it plans to offer gift cards for other stores on the zSilver shop soon, too.

That alone is pretty enticing, but Razer’s bid for zVault’s success goes deeper. Buying Steam keys with zGold can net users discounts on their total purchases (up to 15 percent) and free games. The digital currency can also be used to purchase DLC add-ons and in-game items in titles like Paladins and Smite. On top of that, using Razer’s Cortex software or Arena eSports platform can earn users extra zSilver. In fact, that kind of seems like the point — using the zVault rewards system to drive more users to use Razer’s software suite and entrench themselves deeper in the company’s ecosystem.

That’s a lot carrots to hang in front of prospective users, but the system on a whole still feels a little odd. With the exception of in-game real money currencies like Perfect World’s ZEN, point-based digital wallets are outmoded. Absolutely nobody looks back on Wii and Microsoft points with fondness. Still, if anybody can make an anachronistic points system work, it might be Razer. The company’s fans are notoriously loyal — there’s a reason Razer products win Engadget’s CES people’s choice award on a regular basis. That loyalty has been enough to make zVault’s Razer Insider pilot program a success. If the company can expand its retailer partnerships and reward offerings, it just might draw attention from the rest of the gaming community, too.

Source: Razer

BBC and ITV’s ‘BritBox’ streaming service arrives in the US

The BBC and ITV have banded together to launch their own subscription streaming service in the US. They’ve teased “BritBox” before, but now it’s actually here, for $6.99 per month on the web, Apple TV and Android (Roku, Chromecast and iOS apps are in the works.) If you’ve wanted a Netflix equivalent for Top Gear, Doctor Who and The Great British Bake Off, however, you’ll be sorely disappointed. At launch, the service is being propped up by older classics such as Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes (the one starring Jeremy Brett, not the Benedict Cumberbatch reboot.)

The two companies have, however, promised to release episodes of new and ongoing shows 24 hours after their British broadcast. These are mostly soaps, unfortunately — think EastEnders, Emmerdale, Holby City and Casualty. Most of the BBC’s heavy-hitters, it would seem, are being left out to ensure BBC America — the cable and satellite channel joint-owned by BBC Worldwide and AMC — remains attractive in the States.

That’s not to say BritBox has no value, however. You’ll find award-winning comedies such as Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous and Gavin & Stacey (the show James Corden co-created, co-wrote and starred in). It’s also the exclusive home for the complete series of Sharpe — the Napoleonic Sean Bean extravaganza — and will serve as the US premieres for the BBC’s fresh crime drama New Blood, and ITV’s Tutankhamun. All told, the Britbox team says there are “thousands” of hours to peruse. The problem, of course, will be quality, rather than quantity. If the library is packed with “filler” content, few people will want to pay for a monthly subscription.

Source: BritBox

Pinterest adds visual search to its handy browser extensions

Pinterest introduces new ways for its users to access pinned items on the regular and today it’s revealing yet another. Starting tomorrow, you can employ the company’s visual search tech to hunt for things from inside its browser extensions. How does it work? Well, you can hover over an image on the site you’re reading to find related items on Pinterest without having to leave that page.

For now, the new visual search is only available for Chrome, but the company says the feature will hit extensions for other browsers “in the future.” To give it a go in Chrome, you’ll need to download the browser button extension and hover over any image on a web page. You’ll notice a magnifying glass beside the familiar red “save” button.

Click that new icon and adjust the window to focus on an item to see a list of categories and results for in real time. You can also use the tool to discover specific objects, products, patterns and colors. What’s more, right clicking the background of a web page and selecting “search” will allow you to do some hunting with the entire page rather than just one image. Again, the new functionality launches tomorrow for Chrome, so you’ll be able to use it in a matter of hours.

This attack alarm is baked into a ring

The obvious issue with a personal attack alarm is that if you don’t have one in your hand, it’s pointless. We’ve seen a few devices that incorporate technology inside jewelry, which is the method adopted by Nimb’s smart ring. After a successful crowdfunding campaign last year, the company is preparing to ship the first version of the hardware by May.

The idea behind Nimb is simple: The device is a ring with a tiny button tucked discreetly on the underside. Should the wearer feel that they are in danger, a three-second press will trigger an alert on your phone via Bluetooth. You’ll be told the message was successfully sent with a gentle vibration, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

The alert will be sent to three nominated contacts, giving up your location and a canned message indicating that you are in trouble. If you subscribe to Nimb’s $10-a-month service, your alert will also be sent to a 24/7 contact centre that will dispatch help and record the audio coming out of your smartphone. Details about how the contact centre will work are still being hammered out, but you can pay for a year’s worth of service when you buy the ring itself.

Nimb is available to pre-order now for $130 in either black or white, with shipments expected to begin in May.

Source: Nimb

Lyft lets you hail rides directly through other apps

Before long, you’ll be able to hail a Lyft ride from a lot more places than just the company’s app. That’s the vision behind a new program for developers the company launched today called the Dispatch Developer Program. Lyft says that this set of APIs will let developers build Lyft integration into their apps and services, letting users hail rides without even needing a Lyft account or a smartphone.

Developers will be able to use their own sign-up, billing and notification systems — essentially rolling the ability to request a Lyft ride into their own apps and services without the customer previously having used the service before.

This sounds like it’ll enable integrations to what Uber recently launched with Google Maps. From the Maps app on iOS and Android you can hail an Uber, pick your destination, and pay all without ever opening the Uber app. But Lyft’s system goes even deeper — the Google Maps integration still requires that you have an Uber account and payment system set up.

Lyft gave a few examples of how it imagines the Dispatch Developer Program being used. The company is already working to partner with car dealerships to provide customers with courtesy rides while their cars are being serviced. Other partners providing more critical aid include One Call Care Management and LogistiCare, two companies that offer health care transportation to passengers who can’t drive or otherwise get transportation they need.

Judging from these examples, it sounds like Lyft is targeting businesses to use its services rather than make this something totally consumer facing (like the aforementioned Google Maps integration). Either way, it’s a chance for the company to potentially make more money and find more customers in places it wouldn’t otherwise — something that’ll be crucial in its uphill battle with Uber.

Toyota put on a race to find the most efficient drivers

There’s an air of excitement in the car as we whip around a corner at Sonoma Raceway, 45 minutes north of San Francisco. The passenger up front is barking stats at the driver while staring at an iPad: “We’re at 24 percent, 27 percent, 32 percent, 37 percent! Okay, we’re at 40 percent. Hold it there.” The driver responds in the affirmative and the car continues down the track at a blistering 25 milers per hour. The Prius we’re sitting in isn’t going to break any speed records. Instead it’s being pushed to the limits of its efficiency.

The Sonoma Raceway traditionally hosts Indy and Nascar events where cars sprint around the track at breathtaking speeds, burning thousands gallons of gas pulled from the remains of long-dead dinosaurs. The Toyota Prius Challenge is, in nearly every possible way, the exact opposite of that experience.

Instead of speed, competitors are graded on efficiency. Toyota picked 20 teams to drive around the track in identical Prius’ and tasked them with pulling as many miles per gallon as possible during a 40-minute, nine lap “race.” But the streamlining squads needed more than just a light foot.

Ahead of the competition, Toyota shared data with the teams to help them come up with gas-saving strategies. That information included details of the track’s turns and elevation changes. But, more importantly, the participants were provided details about multiple trips Toyota’s own team had made around the track so that the competitors could use to see how a Prius reacted to different driving styles. They might not have had a chance to actually drive on the track ahead of time, but for the most part they knew what it was like. I was lucky enough to sort of get in on the action.

A week before the event, I was added to team Mile10. I would get the opportunity to be inside the car on race day and could help come up with a winning plan. With a few days to go before the race I joined mechanical engineer Michael Zhang and Gleb Esman, a senior product manager from data analytics company Splunk. We went over the fine details of data we were sent by Toyota.

It was at this point that I realized I wasn’t going to be of much help. Esman had mapped out the track along with information about the car’s performance at various points during a run. He showed us a slick 3D model that was sure yield maximum efficiency. Since we would have to complete our nine laps within 40 to 42 minutes and change drivers twice, timing seemed like the most difficult task. Then race day arrived and it wasn’t as simple as that.

The teams were allowed practice runs to get a feel for the track. Engineers, analysts and developers used real-time data from their cars to see how well their pre-game strategy would play out. Turns out, not so great. For one thing, the teams didn’t take into account track traffic. You can’t just pass a car anywhere on the track if it’s in your way. Plus, actually driving is different from looking at data about driving.

“Initially we were planning on taking it as slow as possible,” said Javier Gonzales from team Phantom. “But that changed when we got here, because we realized we’re going to be racing with a lot of other cars. There’s a lot of dynamic changes that you have to account for and that really changed the way we planned our strategy.”

Data is is wonderful, but real-world implementation of it can be tricky especially when dealing with cars. Variations in temperature, asphalt, tires, wind and the last time the oil was changed, among other things, make car analysis tough. Toyota put on the event not only as a way for developers, researchers and engineers to get together but also, to find potential employees and partners that can tackle these problems.

“We offer this this raw data footage of Prius vehicles we acquired during our test days and have it available for machine learning and data scientists,” said Masanori Yamato, corporate manager of Toyota Ventures. “That way we can find potential collaboration opportunities and potential hires as well.” So teams aren’t just competing for a trophy, then; they might end up working with or for Toyota in the future.

Meanwhile, back in the car, I had a blast even though I didn’t actually get to drive. While this an incredibly boring spectator sport (“oh, look a car doing 15 miles a hour down the straightaway!”), the in-vehicle action is exciting, in an intensely nerdy sort of way. I was tasked with making sure we didn’t creep up on traffic that would interfere with our strategy.

I think we did well, but nonetheless, our efforts weren’t enough to prevail. The winner was team EcoFlow with an average MPG of 85 miles per gallon. The team said that being flexible with their strategy helped them take the top spot. Like the other teams, their initial plans changed after the test laps. But they were able to bring it back via constant communication and combining data and the dynamics of driving on a track with other competitors. In the future, they won’t all be human.

Next year Toyota is adding an autonomous car to the competition. The teams will take on a robot that gets fed the same data. Yet even though the 2018 event will set the cars out on their own without traffic, there’s a good chance that humanity will emerge victorious because while data is important, once a car is on the road, it takes more than just computational power to end up in the winner’s circle.

Source: Toyota

New Wikileaks Series Details CIA’s ‘Specialized Unit’ Dedicated to Creating iOS Exploits

In a new series of leaks focusing on the United States Central Intelligence Agency, code named “Vault 7,” Wikileaks has revealed 8,761 documents discovered within an isolated network in Langley, Virginia that “amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code.” The code contains what Wikileaks referred to as a “hacking arsenal” of malware, viruses, trojans, and weaponized “zero day” exploits for iOS devices, that could give anyone in possession of the code “the entire hacking capacity of the CIA.”

This “Year Zero” release is the first in the full Vault 7 series by Wikileaks, and is said to act as an introduction to the capacity and means of the CIA’s covert hacking program. The agency’s abilities can take aim at a number of popular consumer products from companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft, turning everything from an iPhone to a smart TV into a “covert microphone.”

In its analysis of the released documents, Wikileaks looked at how iPhones and iPads have been targeted by the CIA in the past, and how they can continue to be exploited in the future. Although Android remains a dominant force in the global smartphone market, Wikileaks argued that a “disproportionate focus” has been placed on iOS devices by the CIA, most likely due to the Apple-branded phone’s popularity.

Because of this, the agency has a specialized unit in place within the Mobile Development Branch that creates and executes malware to infiltrate, take control of, and exfiltrate sensitive information from iOS products. The MDB’s methods are said to include a collection of zero day exploits, which are vulnerabilities in a piece of software unknown by the software’s creator and subsequently exploitable by hackers.

Including the iOS malware, Wikileaks claimed that the CIA has recently “lost control” of the majority of its hacking arsenal.

Despite iPhone’s minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA’s arsenal includes numerous local and remote “zero days” developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.

Wikileaks noted that in the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, a group of technology companies convinced the Obama administration to disclose any zero day exploits and bugs to each company, rather than hoard the information. The Vulnerabilities Equities Process underlined this agreement in 2010, and the U.S. government said it would reveal any vulnerabilities discovered to the company in question.

Documents in Year Zero paint a further negative image for the CIA, which is said to not have abided by the agreement between the technology companies and the U.S. government. An example was given by Wikileaks centering on one malware that can control both the Android phone and iPhone software “that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts.” The government is said to not have brought the information forward to Apple or Google in the time it has had the hacking data.

As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.

The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone at the expense of leaving everyone hackable.

The scope of the new Wikileaks documents includes detailed information on the iOS exploits, hacks that could potentially infest vehicle control systems, and even attacks against Samsung smart TV sets. This last point, dubbed “Weeping Angel,” was said to have been developed by the CIA in conjunction with the United Kingdom’s MI5 as a way to convert turned-off television sets into secret microphones.

The full list of the Year Zero documents can be found on Wikileaks, and complete analysis of the documents by independent security experts will take some time in order for the impact of the release to be determined.

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.

Tag: Wikileaks
Discuss this article in our forums