Ticketmaster hopes to speed up event access by scanning your face

Ticketmaster envisions a future wherein you no longer need either a physical or a digital ticket to get into a venue. Its parent company Live Nation, has announced that the ticket sales giant has teamed up with and invested in a face recognition company called Blink Identity. In its first quarter financial report (PDF), Live Nation has explained that Blink has “cutting-edge facial recognition technology, enabling you to associate your digital ticket with your image, then just walk into the show.”

According to Blink’s website, its system can register an image of your face as soon as you walk past a sensor. Blink’s technology can then match it against a large database in half a second — in a blink, so to speak. It’s also apparently powerful enough that you don’t even have to slow down for its system to recognize you: Just walk normally, and if the technology gets a match, it’ll automatically open doors or turnstiles to let you in.

While some might find value in a ticketing system that relies on facial recognition, others are understandably concerned about its implications. Facial recognition is far from perfect and still has issues recognizing PoCs, which could lead to some event attendees not being able to enter venues they were supposed to have instant access to.

Further, if Ticketmaster collects data on facial recognition, then that’s one more potential source for the government’s surveillance efforts. It doesn’t help that Blink spent a decade developing and deploying large scale biometric identification systems for the Department of Defense. Finally, if hackers breach the company’s system, then they could get away with its customers’ face and details, maybe even including the payment method they used to purchase tickets.

Facial recognition is a growing technology, though, and we’ll probably have to get used to the idea of non-tech companies like Live Nation and Delta moving into the space. We’ll just have to wait and see how things work out from a privacy perspective.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Live Nation (PDF)

Elon Musk’s next project might be… a candy company?

No, Elon Musk isn’t done envisioning strange new ventures just yet. Hot on the heels of his cyborg dragon, a comedy project and the Boring Company’s flamethrower, the serial entrepreneur has declared that he’s starting a candy company. We’ve asked for confirmation, but Musk was quick to follow up with word that he was “super super serious.” Given that he announced the Boring Company in a Twitter thread about sluggish traffic, you shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Musk-made confectionery in the near future.

Provided this isn’t just a lark, the main question is… why? And will any of Musk’s more grandiose projects play a role? We wouldn’t be surprised if the company delivered treats to stores with Tesla Semi trucks, but much of anything else remains a mystery. Just don’t expect SpaceX to send candy to Mars colonists… we think.

I’m starting a candy company & it’s going to be amazing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 5, 2018

Source: Elon Musk (Twitter 1), (2)

Facebook’s ‘Sauron alert’ protects staff against privacy breaches

The news that Facebook fired an engineer who abused his power to stalk women has raised a question: can the social network raise alarm bells if one of its workers accesses private data? The answer appears to be yes — though you’ll currently have to work at Facebook to get a warning. The Wall Street Journal has learned that Facebook has a “Sauron alert” (yes, like Lord of the Rings’ oppressive eye) that notifies employees when other staffers access their personal profiles. Everyday users only get notices of unusual login behavior, which could prove worrying if there is a case of abuse. However, Facebook may have a solution in the long run.

A spokesperson told the WSJ that Facebook has talked about offering “something similar” to Sauron for everyone, not just its own workers. The challenge is considering the implications, the company said. It doesn’t want to alert “bad actors” or spark “real world harm,” such as retaliation from an abusive partner.

The company’s internal policies are already designed to curb at least some abuse. Only a handful of employees have access to data without triggering the usual login alert, and those people are “closely monitored,” the WSJ’s sources said. When they use their powers to access other accounts, they’re required to provide a valid reason for looking at a profile (managers inspect those reasons later) and ideally get permission in writing. If a worker ever gets one of those alerts, they can track down the reasoning in a bug report or talk to Facebook’s security team. “Multiple” workers have been fired over the years as a result.

There were already clues this system existed. Paavo Siljamäki, part of the trance trio Above & Beyond, noted in 2015 that Facebook didn’t need his login details after he gave them permission to access his account. This appears to be the first time outsiders have learned the extent of Facebook’s access and its ability to fight abuse, however. And the stalking incident exacerbates things — there’s a clear gap between safeguards for Facebook staff and everyday users, and there are instances where users could benefit from that added protection.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Wall Street Journal

Chrome’s search bar may soon display pictures for your browsing pleasure

Credit: Francois BeaufortThe search bar is getting a big upgrade in Chrome. After revealing a visual makeover for Chrome’s user interface, Google is now turning its attention to the search bar to make it even more useful and descriptive when you search.

When you type your search in the omnibox (or the unified address and search bar), you’ll not only see auto-suggestions for potential results based on what you’re typing, but you’ll also find relevant images and text next to these results.

The new feature isn’t out for everyone just yet. Google is currently testing out this option for the Canary channel of Chrome.

“The Chrome team is experimenting with showing images and descriptive text about suggested entries in the address bar in Canary channel,” Chromium evangelist Francois Beaufort wrote in a Google+ post. If you want to test out the feature today, you can enable the experimental flag at chrome://flags/#omnibox-rich-entity-suggestions and then restart Chrome.

If all goes well during testing, the feature will likely enter the Dev and Beta channels before being released into the Stable channel to the public. It’s still unclear when the feature can be expected to be available for the Stable channel, 9to5 Google noted.

In a screenshot posted by Beaufort, typing in “blink-1” shows a few auto-suggestions for the band Blink-182 right below the omnibox. These auto-suggestions also feature images of the band and popular songs recorded by Blink-182 alongside album art.

Google has been working on updating a number of its popular web-based products head of its I/O developer conference this month. A recently published Material Design document revealed that the company is planning on some user interface updates to the look of Chrome, replacing its more angular tabs with a more bulbous look. The new Material Design Refresh interface also featured larger elements, leading some to speculate that Google is updating the UI to optimize it for touch, a move that makes sense given that Chrome OS now runs on some newer tablets and Chrome convertibles.

Additionally, Google also refreshed Gmail, giving it more features to make it more attractive to businesses and security-focused users.

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World Video Game Hall of Fame welcomes John Madden and Lara Croft

Strong Museum

The 2018 class of games for the World Video Game Hall of Fame includes a renowned sportscaster and a globe-trotting archaeologist. This is the fourth year that The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, has recognized pioneering achievements in video games, and four new games will join the ranks of classics like Pac-Man and Tetris to be enshrined.

In a press release, the museum announced that John Madden Football, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy VII, and Spacewar! have been selected from a field of 12 finalists. The awards are determined via a Player’s Choice ballot and an advisory board comprised of scholars, journalists, and video game historians.

Games accepted into the hall must be iconic, must have stood the test of time, and must have worldwide appeal. Games that have transcended the genre and contributed significantly to pop culture or society in general may also be recognized.

John Madden Football from 1990 has influenced not just sports games, but sports in general. The unveiling of the cover athlete — and the ongoing debate over the “Madden Curse” — has become a yearly event. Its influence has even reached into broadcasting, with the “Madden-cam” a popular addition to NFL broadcasts over the past few years.

Strong Museum

In 1996, Tomb Raider defined a new style of gameplay that combined a revolutionary 3D viewpoint with cinematic action and puzzle solving. The museum notes that Guinness cites Lara Croft as the most recognized female video game hero of all time. “The character is not without controversy for her early status as a sex symbol, but she’s evolved with the franchise to become the epitome of a strong female hero,” said curator Shannon Symonds.

Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997 and became the second-most popular game for PlayStation with more than 10 million copies sold. Many credit FF7 with pushing role-playing games (RPGs) beyond cult status and into mainstream popularity. Of course, it also introduced the world to Sephiroth.

Strong Museum

You may not have heard of Spacewar!, but it certainly deserves to be recognized. Created in 1962 on a PDP-1 minicomputer by members of the MIT Model Railroad Club, it featured two starships in a top-down view firing torpedoes at each other as they orbit around a central star. The game “went viral” and was spread from computer to computer around the world. Computer Space, the first mass-market video game from Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, was based on Spacewar!

Nominated games that didn’t make the cut this time around include Asteroids, Half-Life, and Metroid. Nominations are now being accepted for the 2019 class, and you can include your suggestion here.

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How Google’s Pixelbook broke the laptop mold with a Swedish design

Laptops all look the same. Yes, some are black, and some are silver, some are aluminum, and some are fake aluminum — distinguishing one laptop from another has been a job left to the logo on the back.

Still, the second I first saw the Pixelbook, I knew there something different about it. It wasn’t like other laptops, or even previous Google laptops. It felt designed in a way the sea of silver MacBook clones flooding store shelves don’t.

The untold story of Google’s most ambitious product is one of meticulous attention for detail, and an uncompromising vision for how a laptop should be used. We sat down with them to go behind the scenes of how, and why, the Pixelbook was brought to life.

The material break

The lead designer of the Pixelbook — and the Pixel phones before it — is Alberto Villareal. He described the contours and design features of the Pixelbook more like a sculptor and less like a laptop manufacturer. Hailing from Mexico City and learning design in Sweden, Villareal’s approach was to make the Pixelbook fit in with the world around us.

“We took influences from interior design or fashion or furniture — we’re applying it to the entire color portfolio of the product,” said Villareal, holding the laptop in his hand. “We very intentionally wanted something that was bright and light in terms of color, so that we have a more positive and happy view when you open the laptop, and you’re looking at the keyboard and trackpad.”

Nowhere is that more evident than the iconic “material break,” as Villareal calls it, which has become a distinctive, visual indicator of the entire portfolio of new Google products.

“We very intentionally wanted something that was bright and light in terms of color, so you have a positive and happy view when you open the laptop.”

“It’s a bold gesture that’s recognizable from a distance,” he told Digital Trends. “We could have taken the whole product in the same sort of grey and aluminum. But we wanted to make it in a more visual way, so that when you see this product from a distance, you can immediately tell which product this is.”

It’s not hard to guess where his influences came from. You’ll see clean lines and two-tone color breaks all down the aisles of Ikea, or on racks of Swedish-made Cos clothing.

It’s the simplest design flourish you could imagine — a horizontal line, separating the back of the product in two with color, material, or both. It’s become iconic of the entire Google family of products, whether you’re talking about the Pixel phone, the Pixelbook, or Google’s smart speakers.

The material break isn’t just skin-deep. Once you open the Pixelbook, the two-tone color and material separation continues onto the keyboard and palmrest areas. It’s subtle, but it’s once again a significant departure from what you’ll find on other laptops.

Alberto Villareal, lead designer of the Google Pixelbook and Pixel phones.

“We also wanted to take an approach that is semantically telling the user which areas are for which functions,” said Villareal. “The color break that is very intentional — the white portion on the front and the aluminum grey keys — are to visually separate and guide the user to which areas are for typing and which areas are for trackpad and resting.”

Of course, the story of design isn’t just about aesthetics. In the same way that a well-designed chair needs to be able to hold your weight comfortably, the design language behind the Pixelbook also needed to be linked, at the hinge, to its function as a laptop – and tablet.

One product, two purposes

The Pixelbook is a 2-in-1, meaning it can be used as either a traditional laptop or folded into a tablet. I wasn’t surprised to hear the choice to move to a 360 hinge was no arbitrary decision for Google.

“We do a lot of research,” Villareal said. “We look at how some of people’s behavior patterns have changed over time. We looked at how people are using these products not only on the desk or in the office but also working in a mobile context. Sometimes you don’t want to have to pull out your phone to open certain applications, so by combining the efforts on our software teams and hardware teams. We really want to bring these together.”

Think of it like a fully-reclining chair that must be comfortable both sitting and laying down. Instead of just throwing a 360 hinge on a traditional laptop design, Villareal and his team embarked on the mission to make every bump, edge, piece of material, and design flourish function in more ways than just one.

“Sometimes when we’re designing a laptop that is not 360, you might want to think of a form that looks good when it’s closed and looks good at a certain angle,” said Villareal. “But these had to work on all four orientations. That was a challenge. As we were negotiating some of the thicknesses with engineering and looking at those details, that’s where we found those solutions.”

Villareal and his team embarked […] to make every bump, edge, and design flourish function in more ways than just one.

The solutions came in finding ways to integrate things like antennas into the material break of the device, across both the top and the bottom. Most of the product is aluminum, which provides structural integrity and heft. But where the antennas are placed along the material break, it transitions to glass for the purposes of antenna transparency. After all, the antennas still must work when you’ve got it flipped around in tablet mode.

Then there’s the soft silicon pads around the touchpad, which are working overtime. They serve as palm-rests while typing, feet while in tent mode, and raised support to keep the keys from touching the table in tablet mode. Even the built-in microphone serves double-duty as a hole through which the power LED shines.

To accomplish the dual-purpose functionality of every aspect of the Pixelbook, Villareal said the hardware teams and software teams had to be united in their efforts. “It’s a very, very collaborative process,” he noted. “It’s very organic where we’re thinking about crafting the product and bringing all those areas together. These industries are moving so fast and there’s technology developments happening so fast, that we can’t afford to first spend three months designing it and then pass it over to the engineering team to engineer it. We basically have to work together since day one.”

Merging Chrome and Android

While the hardware is important, the operating system, Chrome OS, had to ensure everything worked in unison, in both laptop and tablet modes. Trond Wuellner, Product Team Lead, believes that’s what makes the Pixelbook stand out from the competition.

“If you look at both Apple and Microsoft, neither have a compelling manifestation of a mobile ecosystem in their devices,” said Wuellner. “That’s something that’s going to be really difficult for both of those competitors to do effectively.”

“If you look at Apple and Microsoft, neither have a compelling manifestation of a mobile ecosystem in their devices.”

While Apple has been coy about its plans to bring iOS apps to the Mac, Google has stepped into it in full force. With the recent integration of Android apps onto Chromebooks, Wuellner argues that Google now has a platform for connecting the worlds of mobile and desktops in a meaningful way. “You’ve got to bring people the applications they know and love,” he said. “That was the center-point for how we started thinking about what we wanted to start doing differently with the hardware itself.”

Wuellner said such deep collaboration was only possible after a shift in organization behind the scenes at Google. Before the last few years, Chrome and Android weren’t integrated the way they are today.

“The DNA of the platform team is more unified and more together than it’s ever been in the past,” he remarked. “Everyone from the design teams to the product teams — and even the engineering and overall platform organization leadership — is the most tightly-coupled teams we’ve ever had working on these different approaches. It’s been a really important milestone in bringing a unified experience to our users.”

Still, Wuellner admits that Google’s use of Chrome OS as a touch-capable operating system isn’t perfect. Developers still must be courted to make apps more seamless, and the operating system itself must continue to evolve to make the mobile and desktop interfaces feel more unified. The Pixelbook must be the start of the journey, not the destination.

“We’ve done a lot of work with the Chrome OS team to iterate the OS forward so it’s more touchable than it’s ever been before,” Wuellner said. “That’s still a work in progress, but we really aspire to make the roots of it a productivity-focused OS, with the touch targets that just work better.”

The Pixelbook might not have the entire picture painted yet, but one thing is clear: Google intends to solve the problem through careful, concentrated design.

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UK orders Cambridge Analytica to provide data on US voter

Cambridge Analytica isn’t completely out of the woods just because it’s technically shutting down. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered Cambridge Analytica affiliate SCL Elections to provide the personal data of David Carroll, an American professor who became wary of how the company was profiling American voters. As Cambridge Analytica had processed his data in the UK, he filed a test case to see if he would receive access despite living on the other side of the Atlantic.

Carroll had requested his data in January 2017, well before the Cambridge Analytica data sharing scandal became public. However, he received significant pushback. Cambridge Analytica initially gave him just a small amount of data, and he wrote to the ICO in September concerned that the company wasn’t being honest. The firm “refused” to address questions, the ICO said, and “incorrectly” claimed that Carroll had to be a UK citizen or resident to access his data. It even denied that the ICO had any authority and likened its requests to harassment.

Cambridge Analytica hasn’t officially responded to the order so far, but it won’t have much choice. If there’s a “continued refusal” to cooperate, it may violate an Enforcement Notice and face criminal action.

It’s easy to understand why the company might fight back against the order. Now that Carroll is supposed to have access to his info, this opens the floodgates to requests from anyone who knows Cambridge Analytica handled their data. And when there are as many as 87 million affected people, the volume of requests could easily prove overwhelming. Now, however, it isn’t in a position to bargain — it either complies with requests or faces serious repercussions.

Via: Guardian, TechCrunch

Source: ICO

NSA tripled its phone record collection in 2017

The NSA retired its old surveillance program that indiscriminately inhaled billions of phone logs a day back in 2015, but that doesn’t meant it’s no longer collecting call data. According to a transparency report (PDF) released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency got its hands on 534 million call and text records from telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon in 2017. That’s over three times the number (151 million) it collected in 2016, which was the first full year since new surveillance rules under the USA Freedom Act took effect.

While the NSA can no longer scoop up everyone’s info, phone companies have to keep call and text metadata, including phone numbers, call duration and number of characters in texts, under the new law. The NSA can then put in a request to access all the records of its targets and everyone they’ve been in contact with. Before the agency can get those records, though, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has to agree that the main target can reasonably be linked to terrorist activities.

Since the whole process sounds quite complex, these new numbers have alarmed privacy advocates. Robyn Greene from Washington-based Open Technology Institute told Reuters that “[t]he intelligence community’s transparency has yet to extend to explaining dramatic increases in their collection.” Office of the Director of National Intelligence spokesperson Timothy Barrett, however, defended the NSA and said that it “has not altered the manner in which it uses its authority to obtain call detail records.”

It’s unclear if the agency found loopholes in the law it can exploit, but the sudden spike in the number of records it collected could be attributed to several things. To start with, the way the new rules work means a single request could generate massive amounts of data. For instance, the report says the agency only put in a request for 40 targets in 2017, and yet those produced 534 million logs, because the NSA got access to the records of every single person they’ve been in contact with. Further, there could be a lot of duplicates in that pile, since every single telecom keeps its own documentation. Due to those factors, Barrett said he expects the stats in the report to “fluctuate from year to year.”

In addition to revealing how many metadata records are now in the NSA’s hands, the report also contains information on the agency’s other surveillance activities. The number of people targeted by court-approved wiretaps apparently dropped from 1,687 in 2016 to 1,337 in 2017. However, the NSA’s warrantless surveillance targets, noncitizens overseas whose data the agency gets from American tech corporations like Google, went up from 106,469 to 129,080.

Source: Reuters, The New York Times, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (PDF)

Elon Musk hung up on NTSB chairman during a call regarding deadly Model X crash

A few weeks prior to his famously frustrated investor call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hung up on the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board during a call regarding an investigation into a fatal crash involving a Model X, Bloomberg reports.

NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt called Musk to warn him that the company’s blog posts placing blame on the car’s driver for the fatal accident had crossed a line. Tesla had previously been warned against making statements regarding the crash while it was under investigation.

During a speech given to the International Society of Air Safety Investigators’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Chapter, Sumwalt said that “best I remember, he hung up on us.” Sumwalt had been discussing the NTSB’s policy of bringing on industry experts to help with its investigation.

The NTSB was originally looking into why the Model X’s battery caught fire after the car crashed into a highway barrier. Tesla later said that the car had been in Autopilot mode when the accident occurred. This prompted the NTSB to expand the scope of its investigation to include the Autopilot feature.

Musk’s decision to hang up on Sumwalt may have prompted the board to kick Tesla’s representatives off the investigation. Tesla had previously released a statement saying that it had decided to “withdraw” from the NTSB’s investigation. On April 12, however, the NTSB released a statement saying that it had chosen to remove Tesla’s represtentatives.

While Tesla has not responded to Sumwalt’s comments regarding the phone call, it has spoken out about the board’s decision to remove Tesla from the ongoing investigation. A Tesla spokesperson even told TechCrunch that the NTSB is “more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety.” Tesla maintained that it had a right to warn customers to maintain control of their vehicles while Autopilot was being used.

In addition to the Mountain View investigation, the NTSB is also investigating a Tesla crash in Los Angeles. As of right now, the NTSB has not released any findings regarding the Mountain View crash, though Tesla has cast blame on the car’s driver.

Sumwalt isn’t the only person to annoy Musk during a phone call. During a recent earning’s call, the Tesla CEO lashed out at Wall Street for focusing too much on quarterly earnings.

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Idaho State lost a gram of weapons-grade plutonium

Idaho State University has lost 1 gram of weapons-grade plutonium — nuclear material that was being used for research purposes before it was misplaced, the Associated Press reports. In response, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed an $8,500 fine against the university.

An NRC spokesperson, Victor Dricks, said that the amount of material was too small to create a nuclear weapon, but said it could be used in a dirty bomb meant to spread the radioactive substance. The university’s VP of research, Dr. Cornelis Van der Schyf, blamed incomplete record keeping for the loss, reiterating that the lost material poses no risk to the public.

“Unfortunately, because there was a lack of sufficient historical records to demonstrate the disposal pathway employed in 2003, the source in question had to be listed as missing,” he told the AP. “The radioactive source in question poses no direct health issue or risk to public safety.”

The discrepancy was discovered by a school employee during the course of a routine inventory investigation. The employee found that the university could not account for one of its 14 samples of plutonium. Records from 2003  indicate that the material was on the campus and had been marked for disposal. There are no records to indicate that the disposal took place, however.

The last known record of the missing plutonium comes from November 23, 2003, which states that it had been marked “pending disposal of the next waste shipment.”

School officials reviewed documents relating to waste barrels that had been shipped off campus but found no trace of the plutonium. A search of the campus also yielded no results — forcing the university to conclude that it was missing.

The material in question was being used by the university’s nuclear engineering program, which partners with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. The university was researching means of ensuring that containers of nuclear waste did not leak as well as ways to better detect the material.

The university has 30 days to dispute the NRC’s proposed fine though it has not indicated whether it will or not. Dricks has said that, overall, the university has a “good record with the NRC.” The missing material is a shame; after all, NASA plans to use nukes to save us all from killer asteroids.

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