Fingernail-sized chip can repair damaged tissue in seconds

A new device can begin repairing damaged organs in seconds, heralding a major breakthrough for life-saving medicine. Developed at Ohio State University, the technology known as tissue nanotransfection (TNT) uses a small coin-sized silicone chip that “injects” genetic code into skin cells, converting them from one type to another.

During the initial testing phase, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells into vascular cells on a mouse that had a badly injured leg with no blood flow. Within one week active blood vessels appeared around the leg and within two weeks the leg had been completely restored. A mouse that had suffered a stroke was also saved, suggesting this technology can be applied to organs and nerve cells, as well as tissue. It’s the first time cells have been reprogrammed in a live body.

The technology weighs less than 100 grams and has a long shelf life. It’s completely non-invasive — the genetic code is delivered by zapping the device with a small electrical charge that’s barely felt by the patient — and the procedure can be carried out without access to a lab or hospital. This means it will have a significant impact on the lives of those involved in medical emergencies where time is a crucial factor, such as car crash victims and soldiers injured in the field. It’s still waiting for FDA approval, but researchers expect testing on humans to start within the year.

Via: USA Today

Source: Ohio State University

Anchor’s app turns your podcasts into social videos

Podcasts might be enjoying a resurgence, but they’re not exactly designed for social networks. Are your friends really going to notice the link to your latest episode when there’s a cute cat video beckoning? Anchor might have a way to capture their attention. It’s updating its Android and iOS podcasting apps with an option that turns your recordings into easily shared videos. The software automatically transcribes your dialog (you can fix any hiccups, of course) and exports it a slick-looking clip that fits the format of your choice. If you want to get the word out through Instagram, you can have a square-shaped video ready within moments.

The addition could go some way toward democratizing podcasts. It’s relatively easy to record a show, but it’s another to host and promote it. This won’t work so well for longer podcasts (do you really want to proofread 30 minutes of transcripts?), but it could help your shorter soundbites get noticed. You could even use it to create short commercials for longer podcasts, giving would-be listeners a taste of what to expect without asking for a significant commitment.

Via: The Verge

Source: App Store, Google Play

Epic Games gives developers a taste of ARKit ahead of iOS 11

ARKit on iOS may blow up perhaps sooner than expected. That’s because Epic Games have added experimental support for it to the latest version of Unreal Engine. The idea is to give developers an early look at the features before iOS 11 goes live later this fall.

Earlier this year at WWDC, Epic showed off what its iOS AR is capable of on stage with Wingnut AR (director Peter Jackson’s augmented reality studio) and a neat demo looking over a battlefield. Well, a battlefield on a table top. This is AR, remember? The plugin that’s available now is based on that work.

Of course, Unreal supports Google’s Tango AR as well. Last we’d seen of that was at San Francisco’s Game Developers Conference in March. In March, Epic wowed attendees with an AR demo it made in part with Chevy and production house The Mill with a demo of what a high-end version of the tech could look like.

Unfortunately, that Camaro customization demo was just for internal use, but CTO Kim Libreri told us that AR was very much a part of its vision moving forward.

“We want to go beyond gameplay for AR, it’s more about what’s unreal and real,” he said. “The engine is always gonna be a great gaming engine. What we’re really seeing is the gamification of everything else [and] it’s gonna be hugely disruptive.”

And you thought augmented reality was just for catching pokémon.

Source: Unreal Engine

The iPhone 8 may launch in September after all

Earlier this year it was rumored that the iPhone 8 wouldn’t get the what’s come to be standard September release date, but instead would launch later in the year. However, KGI Securities has a new set of predictions and it looks like the upcoming model might get its September reveal after all. A new report from the company, which is usually pretty spot on with its predictions, says that the iPhone 8 will likely launch alongside the 7s and 7s Plus models.

Unfortunately, the sooner-than-expected release date is also likely to come with short supplies, which will be low at launch and continue to be constrained throughout the holidays and into 2018.

KGI also says that the new models will come in three colors: black, silver and gold. The company expects that the new phones will work with fast charging when used with a separately-sold USB-C Lightning cable and may support wireless charging via an additional accessory. Earlier reports have also shown renders of the iPhone 8 with a nearly bezel-less display, a notch for the speaker and front-facing cameras and no home button.

If these supply predictions turn out to be true, expect long lines and quick sell outs come September.

Source: 9to5Mac

Your modern car might be as vulnerable as the first iPhone

Over 10 years ago, the first iPhone burst on the scene and changed mobile computing forever. But it had a flaw: The baseband (the part that manages all the radios) on the installed Infineon chip could be exploited to run the phone on networks other than AT&T — which was, at the time, the exclusive provider. Fast-forward to 2017 and that same chip was recently found in various Nissan Leafs built between 2011 and 2015.

While such chips are typically used in multiple devices across different markets, the problem is that the Infineon chip with the same vulnerability was found in a modern car so many years later. But it’s not just one car with this issue; BMWs and Fords were found to have the same vulnerable silicon that would allow someone to remotely access and control memory. At Def Con recently, McAfee researchers Mickey Shkatov, Jesse Michael and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk warned that the chip could be used to send ransomware to the car. However, they decided that a good old-fashion Rick Roll would suffice for their presentation.

“We just randomly picked a car at the wrecking yard and happened to find this and our jaws kinda dropped,” said Michael.

The actual flaw was discovered in the telematics control units (TCU) of the vehicle supplied by Continental AG. It was a vendor-supplied component that housed the Infineon chip. That piece of hardware found its way into BMWs, Fords and Inifinitis (the luxury arm of Nissan), according to an ICS-CERT (Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team) advisory issued on July 27th this year.

Fortunately, Intel (which purchased Infineon back in 2011) and Nissan worked with the researchers to help identify and figure out a way to fix the issue for current owners. Also, Nissan, BMW and Ford have all delivered system updates to fix or disable the affected modems. But that doesn’t get at the larger issue of potentially vulnerable hardware permeating multiple, unrelated devices. While the iPhone was a huge target for hackers, other lesser-known devices with the same chipset just don’t register with people looking for vulnerabilities. At least not initially.

Car hacking has only recently become something automakers and their suppliers have to worry about. But even in a world where all devices are fair game to bad actors, even the most security-minded company will find it difficult to vet all the hardware that goes into a car that’s teaming with thousands of pieces of silicon.

It’s not only the automotive world that should be concerned. Hardware with known exploits could be in just about anything. Boats, security systems and infrastructure components could potentially have hardware that’s not up to snuff.

It’s not just vulnerable silicon that’s used over and over again. In 2014, researchers Lior Oppenheim and Shahar Tal found routers running old versions of software for embedded devices that let folks bypass the device’s security. The old version of the software had been used over and over again, even though the original vendor issued an update seven years earlier.

“The problem is that the notion of managing your supply chain when it comes to computer technology and software is not there,” Veracode founder and researcher Chris Wysopal told Engadget. Wysopal noted that when it comes to hardware and software, no one seems to be tracking down to the component level.

So who is responsible when something like this happens? In this case is it the automaker, the vendor or the chipmaker? To Wysopal, all parties involved are responsible, and if (for example) a chip is found with a vulnerability, it’s up to the company that built it to recall those pieces of silicon from resellers.

Plus, companies should be tracking updates to the components put into their products. It’s going to be costly, but it needs to happen or the next exploit might not be found by researchers, meaning one morning the owners of certain car models could wake up to a vehicle that’s locked them out unless they are willing to pay a ransom.

When that happens, no amount of PR spin or free fixes from the dealer is going to repair an automaker’s — or any company’s — image.

Wysopal said, “It’s a new world out there. We just need to build some new processes. We need standard industry processes for this solution so people can sort of rely on these things being able to get updated.”

Uber is reportedly closing down its car-leasing program in the US

Uber’s terrible, awful, no-good 2017 isn’t over yet. Two years after it started leasing cars to drivers, the ride-hailing company has realized that it should’ve looked at the economics of such a little better. “The average loss per vehicle was about 10 times what they had thought,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Specifically, WSJ’s sources say that the company is losing around $9,000 per car. That’s a stark contrast to the $500 per-car losses it expected.

And that’s not all. Uber apparently sunk some $600 million into its domestic leasing program, opening it to 24 markets. Recently, the company came under fire for leasing unsafe vehicles to drivers in Singapore.

As WSJ describes, this part of Uber’s business seems like it was doomed from the start. Sources say that the lease costs were more than a driver would pay a typical dealer, which in turn pushed drivers to take more fares. More fares meant more wear and tear on a vehicle, which resulted in lower resale values of said cars.

On top of that, dealers outside of Uber’s own shops were often pushing drivers into more expensive vehicles and perpetuating the vicious cycle. WSJ has even more details so make sure to check out the link below. But rest assured, if you had August 8th in your “Uber is gonna turn itself around” betting pool, today is not your day.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Amazon reportedly plans to add multiroom audio to Echo speakers

The ideal audio system in your home would allow you to hear whatever you’re listening to as you move from room to room. These days, you don’t even need an expensive multi-speaker setup. Google Home already has this capability, as does Chromecast and various Google Cast speakers. Now, according to a report on the German tech site Cashys Blog, Amazon is working on a way to send multiroom audio to its Echo devices.

The report also says that you’ll be able to put your Alexa speakers into groups, too. That could mean that instead of sending audio to every Echo in your house, you can customize the audio to the backyard, bedroom, or living room only. Finally, we’ve got a use for all those half-price Echo devices we bought. We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

Via: CNET

Source: Caschys Blog

FDA hasn’t confirmed if meatless Impossible Burger is okay to eat

The meatless Impossible Burger has been hard to track down since it debuted last August. Its parent company Impossible Foods promised that a massive new factory would put the faux beef patties in 1,000 restaurants by the end of the year, but that rollout might get hampered by the FDA. The agency isn’t sure about what’s in the meat substitute: It turns out the ingredient that makes the Impossible Burger look, taste and (er) bleed like beef hasn’t been consumed by humans before, and could be an allergen that potentially provokes allergic reactions.

The key element in each Impossible Burger is soy leghemoglobin, which is found at the root of soybean plants but is created in Impossible Foods’ labs. The FDA is unsure that these are safe for humans to eat, according to May 2015 documents secured through a FOIA request by ETC Group. The company rejected the agency’s suggestion that the core protein in soy leghemoglobin would threaten consumers and stated it “is substantially similar to proteins consumed daily by the global population, in the form of meat and other vegetables.”

Not that the FDA explicitly stated Impossible Burger’s ingredient was dangerous, or forbade Impossible Foods from selling its meat substitute. But the company still wants the agency to confirm that its product is safe to eat, and plans to petition the FDA again, according to The New York Times.

Source: The New York Times

Disney will shun Netflix for its own streaming service in 2019

Today during an earnings report, Disney announced that it plans to no longer stream its content on Netflix. Instead, it intends to launch its own streaming service sometime in 2019. This comes just a little over a year after the company made Netflix the exclusive streaming service for Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar movies, which brought a lot of new films to the service just last September. Disney, which some have suspected for some time was looking to buy Netflix, will part ways with the company at the beginning of the 2019 theatrical slate.

Additionally, Disney gave more details about its long-planned ESPN streaming service, which will launch in early 2018. It’ll feature content from MLB, NHL, MLS, collegiate events and tennis Grand Slams. The company said it would stream around 10,000 sporting events per year and will allow viewers to purchase individual sport packages like MLB.TV as well. The announcement of the streaming service comes alongside Disney’s purchase of the video streaming tech company BAMTech, which it bought a $1 billion stake in last year. The $1.58 billion deal will give Disney a majority ownership of the company.

In a statement, Disney said that along with new films, its streaming service will also feature other movies from the Disney library as well as Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD programming. This will be quite a loss for Netflix, which just acquired Mark Millar’s comic publishing house earlier this week. Netflix declined to comment on Disney’s announcement.

Via: CNBC

Source: Disney

Apple’s Tiny WestQuay Store Getting Much-Needed Expansion This Weekend

One of Apple’s tiniest retail stores, at the WestQuay shopping center in Southampton, UK, is getting a much-needed expansion this weekend.

Apple’s tiny WestQuay retail store opened in February 2007
The current store, which recently turned 10 years old, will close on Friday evening for the final time, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. On Saturday, a larger store will open down the hall, taking over two units previously occupied by British retailers Sports Direct and Monsoon, the people said.

Lending credence to our report is a WestQuay floor plan with two vacant units—SU41 and MSU2—just steps away from Apple’s current location in the shopping center. In addition, when we searched for Today at Apple events in the Southampton area, the WestQuay store had no workshops scheduled until Saturday.

Apple and WestQuay shopping center management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple retail stores have seen a significant increase in foot traffic since the WestQuay location opened in February 2007, prior to the original iPhone launch. The larger store will be a welcomed change for both Apple retail employees and customers, and it should benefit from an updated appearance as well.

Apple’s financial chief Luca Maestri recently said Apple collectively welcomed over 300 million visitors to its retail stores last quarter.

“It was a very busy quarter for our online and retail stores, which collectively welcomed over 300 million visitors,” he said. “In addition to our spectacular new store at the Dubai Mall, we opened our first stores in Singapore and in Taiwan during the quarter, expanding our total store footprint to 497 stores.”

“In May, we kicked off Today at Apple, with new in-store programming from music to photography to art and coding, and our stores collectively hosted 87,000 sessions during the quarter,” he added. “We have entered a new chapter in retail, with unique and rewarding experiences for our customers.”

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: United Kingdom
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