Blue Origin shows how ‘New Glenn’ rocket will fly and land

Yesterday Blue Origin showed off the BE-4 engine for its “New Glenn” rocket, and today CEO Jeff Bezos revealed its launch customer and an animation showing how it’ll fly. Its new ship is capable of putting a 50-ton payload into a low-Earth orbit or 14 tons in a geosynchronous orbit and then landing the first stage on a moving barge (video, below). That’s nearly identical, of course, to what the SpaceX Falcon 9 can do. Blue Horizon has also landed the New Shepherd’s first stage multiple times (on land), but it’s not an orbital-capable rocket like the Falcon 9.

At the Satellite 2017 event in Washington DC, Jeff Bezos also revealed that the New Glenn’s launch customer with be Eutelsat, a France-based TV, corporate network and mobile communications provider. Blue Origin will launch geostationary satellite for the company sometime in the 2021-2022 timeframe, Eutelsat said in a press release.

Bezos said that the company’s overall goal is to reduce launch costs via reusability, much like SpaceX. New Glenn will come in two versions — the one shown in the animation will be a two-stage vehicle that uses multiple BE-4 rockets. Blue Origin will also build a three-stage version that could launch the company’s “Blue Moon” cargo lander to the moon. None of the rockets will take off until at least 2020, however.

The take-off, flight and landing sequences shown in the animation do bear a lot of resemblance to what SpaceX does, especially the part about landing on a barge. However, Blue Origin was actually the first company to land a reusable rocket, albeit a much smaller one, with the New Shepherd. There are also some significant differences between the vehicles, most notably the aerodynamic control surfaces used to help guide New Glenn’s first-stage in for a landing. Reportedly, that negates the need for a re-entry deceleration burn.

Source: Blue Origin (YouTube), Blue Origin (Twitter), Eutelsat

Hyperloop One offers a proper glimpse at its Nevada test site

Hyperloop One has been showing off bits and pieces of its high-speed tube transport system over the past several months, but now it’s ready to show something more complete. The company has offered a fuller look at its in-progress Nevada test tube, the DevLoop, and… it’s a long tube. Really, though, this shows that the 1,640ft-long project is progressing and should be ready for its first public trial. However, you might be waiting a little longer than expected to see it in action.

The company now says that its public test kicks off in the first half of 2017, not the first quarter of the year as previously mentioned. That’s not a gigantic delay, but it hints that Hyperloop One’s vision of fast transport is still a ways off. However, the very fact that DevLoop is approaching completion is a good sign — it shows that Hyperloop One is one step closer to ditching its endless concept images and making a system you can actually use.

Source: PRNewswire, Hyperloop One

Meet the automated triage nurse of the future

If you think that the march of automation isn’t going to affect jobs in the medical profession then, uh, you better sit down. A Belgian company called BeWell is showing off Wellpoint, a self-service kiosk that’s designed for patients entering hospitals or clinics. The Wellpoint is a touchscreen-enabled booth that operates as a first port of call for visitors, quickly checking your basic vitals before you see a medical professional.

According to BeWell’s, initial contact with a nurse where your blood pressure, pulse oximetry and weight were tested, it would take seven minutes. Then, of course, there would be an additional few minutes where that nurse would take that data and enter it into the hospital’s internal IT system. Wellpoint, by comparison, can do it in three minutes and instantly update your medical records.

In addition, the touchscreen can also be used to run through a series of pre-analysis questions to update your medical history. As such, medical professionals could avoid going through the tedious form-filling process that begins every consultation. In addition, the unit has apparently already proven effective, raising the alarm when it found a patient on the edge of an embolism during a test in a European hospital.

The process begins by sitting down at the booth and activating the test, which would normally require offering up your hospital ID card. You’re then asked to slide your arm into an automated blood pressure cuff on the left side and pushing the start button when ready. Once that’s done, you stand up as the footplate of the booth doubles as a scale. Finally, you sit back down and shove your finger into an oximeter to test your levels of oxygen saturation.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/198964701?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

So far, a history and the three measurements outlined above are all that the device can do, but that’s likely to change soon. The company is eyeing up a way of connecting people’s blood sugar monitors to the hardware, letting them share their diabetes testing data to their records.

It’s also not the most expensive piece of gear, especially considering the usual high price of medical equipment. One unit would effectively cost a hospital around €8,400 ($8,800) a year. And, given that the average US nurse earns around $67,000, you can see why there would be interest.

WikiLeaks claims to have the CIA’s hacking toolkit

WikiLeaks just ignited another powder keg. Julian Assange’s outfit has posted the first of a string of CIA leaks, nicknamed Vault 7, that purports to reveal the agency’s “entire hacking capacity.” The information is said to have escaped an “isolated” secure network at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Virginia, and indicates that the organization has far-reaching abilities to snoop on modern technology… including encrypted apps that are supposed to be tough to crack.

According to WikiLeaks, the CIA has horded a slew of zero day (that is, unpatched) exploits that let it infiltrate a slew of platforms, including current desktop and mobile platforms, network routers, smart TVs and antivirus software. Notably, the CIA is capable of bypassing the encryption for secure chat apps like Confide, Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp — the agency compromises the phone and intercepts message traffic before encryption kicks in. The mobile teams have reportedly produced malware that can compromise Android and iOS devices that run or have run “presidential Twitter accounts,” too.

Other infiltration methods are similarly sneaky. An attack against Samsung smart TVs, built in tandem with the UK’s MI5 agency, quietly leaves a set turned on so that it can record conversations like a giant wiretap device. And when the CIA needs physical access to a device, it sends an agent out with a USB drive that grabs data from a PC while a decoy app runs in the foreground. Malware is designed to avoid any fingerprints that would lead back to the CIA or its partners, and even the infection patterns are meant to throw people off the scent. Code can lurk in a device for years.

The leak also goes into some of the organizational structure of the CIA’s digital surveillance efforts, including some security concerns. It notes that the US consulate in Frankfurt doubles as a base for CIA hackers targeting Europe, the Middle East and Africa, giving them freedom to travel throughout much of Europe once they arrive. However, it also appears that the agency’s malware, command and control tools and listening post software are all labeled as unclassified — there’s not much officials can do if it gets out into the wild, which it clearly has given the leak. There’s a similar worry that the CIA’s propensity to hog zero day exploits is violating the government’s Vulnerabilities Equities Process, which promises that the government will share flaws with companies on a continuous basis.

And the very fact that the CIA has a substantial, dedicated hacking division may be a problem. Effectively, the agency has an NSA-like branch with less accountability — it can draw on some of the NSA’s hacking capabilities without the same disclosure and oversight requirements.

WikiLeaks’ source is ostensibly releasing the info to foster a public debate over the possibility that the CIA’s hacking abilities “exceed its mandated powers,” its oversight and the problems of creating cyberweapons that can escape into the wild. It’s another Edward Snowden in the making, if you believe Assange’s outfit. However, the timing is bound to raise eyebrows. While WikiLeaks swears that it posted the leak the moment its “verification and analysis” was ready, it comes right as President Trump has been railing against intelligence agencies over leaks suggesting his campaign staff spoke to Russian intelligence officials months before the election. Intentional or not, the WikiLeaks revelation steers the attention to the CIA’s methods (however questionable), and away from what it may have learned.

Via: WikiLeaks (Twitter)

Source: WikiLeaks

Nest Adds Two-Factor Authentication to Increase Security for Nest Cams and Thermostats

Smart home accessory company Nest today announced the addition of two-factor authentication into its mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, which will act as an extra layer of security that prevents intrusions into a user’s Nest account. The company said that these extra security measures can help prevent malicious access to private information, particularly camera feeds of Nest Cam products.

To activate two-factor authentication, users can find a toggle menu in the Account Security settings of the official Nest app. After “2-step verification” is toggled on, users will have to sign in again by typing in a traditional email and password. Two-factor authentication makes the process more secure by then texting a verification code to an approved device, which Nest owners will then have to enter into the app to gain access to their Nest products.

We all know data security is a moving target. Technology keeps advancing, but so do the people who want to break into your email, your credit card or any other account they can get their hands on. But your home is your safe haven, where private information should stay private. So today we’re adding a new layer of security with the introduction of two-factor authentication.

You may have seen or used two-factor authentication before, probably to get into your email or bank account. It’s simple but very effective – even if someone figures out your password, they still need to actually get their hands on your phone to get into your account. It takes a minute or two for our customers, but for hackers working from computers all over the world, things get a whole lot harder.

Nest said that this isn’t the first time it has updated security across all of its products, and the company intends to continue rolling out security and privacy-focused tweaks to Nest Thermostats, Nest Protect smoke alarms, and Nest Cameras “as new technologies become available or we learn about new threats.”

Tag: Nest
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FreedomPop launches a cheap phone to go with its free SIM

Well, this is unexpected. FreedomPop has unveiled its own Android phone today, for the darn-cheap-but-not-quite-free price of £59. The new FreedomPop V7 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 2,100mAh battery. Not the best components, but respectable ones given the asking price. From the front it looks like a typical low-end handset, with less than stellar bezels and three capacitive touch buttons underneath the display. Flip the phone over, however, and you’ll find a slick aluminium frame and what looks like a skateboard-style grip tape finish on the back — we’re getting some serious OnePlus One vibes here.

Front and centre is a 5-inch, 720p IPS LCD display, which will serve up Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) out of the box. There’s no word on software updates (a Nougat release seems unlikely) though it does appear to run a close to stock version of Android. A 13-megapixel camera sits on the back, while a 5-megapixel selfie snapper hangs out on the front. The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage, and while there is a microSD slot, it only supports cards up to 32GB. Clearly, FreedomPop hasn’t built this phone itself — the company won’t tell us who it’s partnered with, however.

The point of the phone, of course, is to be a vessel for FreedomPop’s SIM card, which offers 200 minutes, 200 messages and 200MB for free every month. You might be wondering how the company makes money: Well, it has four Premium plans too, which range from £4.99 to £19.99 per month.

Curiously, the FreedomPop V7 has a dual-SIM card slot, and isn’t restricted to FreedomPop plans. That means you can use another SIM card with the phone, or switch your FreedomPop SIM to another handset whenever you like. The phone itself, then, feels more like a marketing stunt then a genuine hardware push. Indeed, the phone is only available in the UK and Spain, and in limited quantities. If you’re keen, it’ll be available starting today from freedomshop.com “on a first come first serve basis.”

Facebook reports the BBC for flagging sexualised child images

A BBC investigation has criticised Facebook for failing to tackle inappropriate content posted by its users, specifically sexualised images of children. Reporters tested Facebook’s moderation tools by flagging 100 images which it thought broke company guidelines.

These included photos of people, aged 16 or under, “in highly sexualised poses,” and with “obscene comments” posted underneath. The BBC also reported group pages with names including “hot xxxx schoolgirls,” which contained stolen images. One photo in particular appeared to be a screenshot from a video containing child abuse.

According to the BBC, only 18 images were removed by Facebook’s moderation team. The remaining 82, which included the video still, were left alone.

The BBC showed some of the images to Damian Collins, an MP and the chair of the UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He told the BBC on its Radio 4 Today programme: “I think they are disturbing. I think they do show sexualised images of young children. I don’t believe they should be on the internet and on sites like Facebook. I think they are a breach of the community guidelines that Facebook set for themselves.”

He added: “What is disturbing is when these images were brought to Facebook’s attention, then they have not taken action to remove all of these images, nor have they provided any explanation as to why that is the case.”

BBC reporters wrote a similar story last year about private Facebook groups used by paedophiles to swap images. For its follow-up investigation, the BBC flagged five users who were also convicted sex offenders. Such a background is against Facebook’s rules, however the company didn’t remove them.

The BBC’s Angus Crawford wanted to question Facebook about its decisions. But Simon Milner, the social network’s director of policy, would only agree to an interview, reportedly, if the BBC provided “examples” of the images it believed broke Facebook guidelines. The BBC did, but was surprised when Facebook reported both the images and its organisation to the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

Facebook says it “carefully reviewed the content referred to us” and “followed our industry’s standard practice” by reporting it to the authorities.

“We also reported the child exploitation images that had been shared on our own platform. This matter is now in the hands of the authorities,” Milner clarified. In a statement, he said Facebook has “now removed all items that were illegal or against our standards. This content is no longer on our platform.”

It’s not clear whether all 100 images have now been pulled, however, or if Facebook deemed just a subset — a number that could be anywhere between 18 and 100 — breached its rules.

Milner pulled out of the proposed interview once the BBC had shared the images it had discovered on Facebook. David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy, said he was surprised by the company’s actions, especially its decision to report the BBC to the authorities. “The fact that Facebook sent images that had been sent to them, that appear on their site, for their response about how Facebook deals with inappropriate images…the fact that they sent those on to the police seemed to me to be extraordinary.”

He added: “One can only assume that the Facebook executives were unwilling or certainly reluctant to engage in an interview or a debate about why these images are available on the Facebook site.”

But the chain of events that led to Facebook reporting the BBC, and the images it had discovered on Facebook, could be more complex. As the social network tells it, Facebook representatives met with the BBC to discuss its findings. During that meeting, they told the BBC’s law enforcement team to report the content should it believe the images break the law. The BBC felt — or so the story goes — that the images breached Facebook guidelines, but were not illegal. As such, it was happy to share them with Facebook, presumably to secure the interview with Milner.

Facebook reviewed the images and came to a different conclusion. It then followed what it believes to be proper procedure, reporting both the content and the BBC’s involvement to the NCA, through the CEOP.

A spokesperson for the NCA told Engadget: “We are alive to the threat of those with a sexual interest in children seeking to exploit online services including social media for their own ends. It is vital that social media platforms have robust procedures in place to guard against indecent content, and that they report and remove any indecent content if identified. Social media platforms should also provide easy to use and accessible reporting mechanisms for their users.”

They added: “Anyone who unwittingly encounters indecent images of children on a social network, or is concerned that a young person is being sexually exploited online, can report the matter to us via the Click CEOP button on our website.” The spokesperson would not comment on the Facebook-BBC investigation specifically.

Collins added on the BBC’s Today show: “It’s not just the images themselves, it’s the context within Facebook that they sit. They are on groups where people are discussing them, and the comments that people have posted clearly show that people are engaging with these images as sexualised content of young people. I think most people would look at those images and say ‘I don’t understand why action wasn’t taken as soon as it was brought to Facebook’s attention.’”

Source: BBC

littleBits’ new kit teaches kids to build and code electronic games

Thanks to a bigger push toward computer science education, there’s been an influx of coding toys for kids in recent years. Even tech companies like Apple and Google have joined in with tools to get younger minds to embrace code. Now littleBits, the toy company behind magnetic build-your-own circuits, is getting in on the fun with a new product called littleBits Code Kit. The premise: build games, have fun and, hopefully, learn to code in the process. It will retail for $300 and hit store shelves by June.

Each littleBits Code Kit comes with 16 modular circuits, a codeBit, an LED matrix, a rechargeable battery and 30 different accessories. It ships with four game-based inventions: Tug-of-War, Ultimate Shootout, Hot Potato and Rockstar Guitar. As kids connect modular circuits to construct game, they also have to program certain actions to each building block with the littleBits Code Kit app. The block programming here is based on Google’s Blockly, a drag-and-drop visual code editor that’s suitably kid-friendly. And, as the kids become more proficient, they can come up with more creations beyond just the four that come in the box.

“It teaches the foundation of coding and engineering through physical hands-on games,” said Dave Sharp, littleBits’ product lead for the education market. “We’re expanding the space that kids can invent in […] For the past five years we’ve created this space of modular electronics and building blocks,” said Sharp. “By fusing code with it, we’re blowing it wide open.”

The entire Code Kit project took 18 months and involved a team of over 12 educators. The idea is that teachers could also take these Code Kits and bring them into the classroom. They could build a curriculum and lesson plan around them, not just in computer science, but also in math or music. Indeed, Code Kit has over a 100 different activities and lessons for children in grades three through eight, and there’ll even be a guide that lets educators import lessons into Google Docs.

“We have seen that the combination of games with the tactile experience of littleBits makes for an incredible experience,” said Ayah Bdeir, founder and CEO of littleBits in a statement. “Kids are hyper-engaged, and it’s because they are building something that they actually want to play with.”

Great keyboard design can be undermined by bad decisions

One problem with loving quirkily-designed mechanical keyboards is that there’s a risk of falling onto a hype train of your own making. At first blush, Lofree’s wireless mechanical keyboard looked like a dream product thanks to its Henrik Thor-Larsen-inspired looks. It showed plenty of promise, too, thanks to its Gateron Blue switches and Mac-first layout that works with both iOS and macOS devices (as well as Windows and Android). But despite its gorgeous looks, the Lofree keyboard is a very unpleasant device to use.

In many ways, Lofree’s keyboard is both the philosophical equal and opposite to 2015’s Qwerkywriter, another Bluetooth mechanical keyboard with a typewriter-inspired design. But the Qwerkywriter leaned in to that concept, looking like a 1940s Olivetti, a stark contrast to Lofree’s 60s-inspired retro-futurism. It’s entirely plausible to imagine the stars of 2001: A Space Odyssey hammering out HAL 9000s code using this device.

There are six rows of keys, with function occupying the uppermost and the Mac-standard Fn, Ctrl, Alt and Cloverleaf at the bottom. Each button has a white backlight that illuminates its label, as well as providing a nice glow on your desk. But you can’t deactivate the light, only dim it, and the keys look almost entirely blank when the device is off.

You know when you look at even the smallest wireless keyboard and its creators have sought to make each key distinct? Lofree’s creators went in the opposite direction, creating a keyboard with uniform round keycaps and regular 3mm spacing, barring the shift and return buttons. Those two are a little pair of keys with a little oxbow joining them together to making it easier for touch typists to find them. It does not work.

We then come to the sad state of the keyboard’s arrow keys, which are so well-designed that they’re almost unfit for purpose. Rather than isolating them in space (and making them slightly smaller to compensate), Up, Down, Left and Right are all a part of the regular rows. They’re misaligned, too, since the up key sits over the right key, rather than down, which looks good, but is entirely impractical.

The additional keys on both ends of the keyboard are sufficiently close to the shift and return that there is a persistent risk of mistyping. This isn’t about you needing a learning curve to adjust to a differently-designed input mechanism, either. It’s simply an indictment of how form was prioritized over function. One of the company’s representatives told me that they “chose design over the layout,” later adding that they thought that “design matters more.”

There are some good points, including the fact that you can pair the keyboard with three different devices at a time. Then there’s the fact that the hardware is beautifully solid, with a pair of chunky rubber feet giving you a nice typing angle. The Gateron Blue switches, too, are satisfyingly clicky and require effort to push down like a nice piano, with an excellent amount of travel. The company also promises that the gear will last 15 months at time, which deserves an award for those of us who hate recharging gadgets.

On the downside, and forgive me for nitpicking, but the port design, side switches and labels all have an air of the cheap about them. The micro-USB port, as well as the on/off and Windows/Mac sliders feel a little cheap and as if you could scratch them off pretty easily. It’s as if the company spent the bulk of its time making the device look good face-on, and forgot that you’ll be able to see it from the side.

Nobody needs a wireless mechanical keyboard; it’s a luxury, a statement of intent that you are serious about writing*. It’s the equivalent of buying a $21 pen because a biro won’t cut it for the great American novel you’re about to start creating. But here, you’re buying a $21 pen that only writes at a specific, wrist-breaking angle and only in certain conditions.

It’s an unwritten rule at Engadget that if you write a review, you should use the device that you test to, at least, produce the initial draft. I managed to finish the opening version of this piece on the Lofree before practicality forced me to revert back to my usual keyboard. The frustration of hunting-and-pecking and constantly having to tweak my amendmenbts was getting ridicoylous.

(Those two typos are intentional)

Lofree’s wireless mechanical keyboard is going to look great on the reception desk of a Manhattan art gallery. But, I assure you that the person who winds up being forced to use it regularly is going to loathe their job. The Lofree keyboard is now available on Indiegogo, with early adopters able to snag the device for $74, with delivery expected to take place in May.

* I don’t include gamers in this group purely because wireless introduces latency, and they’d much prefer a wired mechanical keyboard.

Photography by Kris Naudus.

Source: Indiegogo

Nest adds two-factor authentication to protect your data

Nest has finally launched two-factor authentication to prevent hackers from accessing your camera feeds or any other personal info. You can activate the feature under Account Security in the Nest app. If you do, you’ll start getting a verification code through text every time you log into your account. Just take note that you’ll get booted out and will need to sign in again right after you switch the feature on.

Back in early 2016, Princeton researchers discovered that Nest thermostats leaked customer zip codes on the internet, though the company quickly patched the flaw. Other security researchers also showed that attackers could use Nest as an entry point to gain control of your home. Text-based two-factor authentication isn’t exactly the best or the most secure option, since the most persistent attackers could hijack your SMS. However, it still adds an extra layer of protection on top of your (hopefully strong) password.

Source: Nest