Honda retires its amazing Asimo robot, but its technology will live on

Honda is retiring its amazing Asimo robot.

News of company’s decision to end development of the robot came via local media. But Honda insisted Asimo’s talents will not be wasted, with much of it incorporated into other technology produced by the company, such as mobility aids and autonomous vehicles.

Asimo, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, first appeared on a Honda drawing board in the mid-1980s. The curtains came off the initial version in 2000 and wowed commentators for being the first robot to walk independently and climb stairs, though admittedly the process didn’t always go too smoothly.

The 4-foot-3 robot tipped the scales at 119 pounds and had a myriad of truly impressive capabilities.

For starters, it could walk smoothly, run at a speed of 5.6 mph, and hop on the spot with amazing fluidity, and with far greater skill than even most of today’s humanoid robots. In fact, its agility was so remarkable that sometimes you couldn’t help wondering if there was actually a Honda employee inside pulling all the moves.

But Asimo’s talents extended far beyond its physical skills. Multiple sensors enabled it to recognize people’s faces, postures, gestures, and speech, allowing it to converse with humans and take commands. Asimo even had the ability to identify different voices speaking at the same time and could respond to different instructions from each one. It could hold and move objects with its human-like hand, and sign language was a part of its repertoire, too.

Although it’s the end of the road for Asimo, a number of the engineers who helped develop it are continuing with other projects using elements of the robot’s technology, with several reported to be working on Honda’s autonomous-car project using their acquired knowledge of sensors and artificial technology.

The Japanese automaker showed off four new robots last year that incorporate some of Asimo’s smarts. Among them are a companion robot and a small, autonomous, off-road vehicle.

Honda produced several different versions of Asimo, with the last one emerging from the workshop in 2011. With the likes of Boston Dynamics making great advances in recent years with their own super-agile robots, one can only imagine how awesome Asimo might be today if Honda’s engineers had continued developing its skills over the last seven years.

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After 14 years, a new generation of Wi-Fi security is coming. Here’s what to know

(in)Secure is a weekly column that dives into the rapidly escalating topic of cybersecurity.

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is something that internet users the world over have enjoyed the protection of for nearly two decades in one guise or another, but because it’s so unobtrusive, you might never have noticed it.

With the certification of a third-generation of that protection, (WPA3) it’s as good a time as ever to brush up on what this important security standard does and what a new version could mean for your future wireless access and hardware choices.

What does WPA actually do?

Although the original WPA was introduced in 2003, it was swiftly replaced by WPA2 in 2004 and until recently, that’s been the standard security system in place for home wireless networks and built in to just about every home router you could buy. Indeed in order to claim that a router supported “Wi-Fi” manufacturers had to include WPA2 security in their product.

WPA is a method of protecting the content you transmit between your wireless device and your router. WPA2 implemented strong encryption of wireless connections so that once the router acknowledges that your device’s Wi-Fi password matches the one in its memory, devices not connected to the network can’t snoop on the traffic you’re sending back and forth.

What’s different with WPA3?

Much as WPA2 was seen as a leap in protection for wireless internet networks, WPA3 makes a similar step forward in securing the data of the network’s users by enhancing encryption to 128-bit. It also expands beyond the home in a few interesting ways.

With WPA3 you’ll be able to connect smart devices lacking a display to your network by using a device like your smartphone.

WPA3 introduces “Simultaneous Authentication of Equals,” otherwise known as the Dragonfly Key Exchange system. It makes passwords resistant to dictionary hacks by requiring network interaction in order to attempt a login. That boils down to users being able to use easy-to-remember passwords, whilst still protecting their network from easy infiltration.

Even if you end up enjoying this new security feature though, we’d still recommend you use a complicated password and save it in a password manager.

WPA3 also takes a stab at protecting typically vulnerable public networks. Where open Wi-Fi networks in airports, coffee shops, and hotels have been easy hunting grounds for hackers in the past due to completely unsecured and unencrypted connections, WPA3 will change that with new security protocols. “Individualized data encryption” provides a fully encrypted, one-off connection for those connecting to a WPA3-certified router over an open Wi-Fi network. That means that the connection between your device and the router is encrypted, despite the fact that you never entered a password to use it.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has also received much attention under WPA3. With so many smart devices having no display, WPA3 makes it so that you’ll be able to connect these devices to your network by using a companion device like your smartphone. Instead of tapping in a password though, you’ll be able to scan a QR code, providing a quick and secure method of getting a new IoT device online.

Governments and corporations will be able to take advantage of WPA3 Enterprise too, which provides even greater security with stronger encryption options. At a minimum, WPA3-Enterprise offers 192-bit encryption, but there are also options for 256-bit and even 384-bit encryption for different authentication settings.

Will my router support it?

While we know many router manufacturers are keen to implement WPA3 security in new products, it’s not clear if existing routers will be able to.

Qualcomm, Silicon Motion, Marvell, Huawei Wireless, and Hewlett Packard have pledge support for WPA3.

Cisco recently stated that it was looking for ways to implement the enhanced security measures of WPA3 in its existing lines of networking hardware. It didn’t state whether this was something we could expect to see in just select models — or in a wide range of existing hardware though.

Linksys contacted Digital Trends to confirm its commitment to bringing WPA3 security to new and existing hardware, though again wasn’t able to provide any firm guidelines of if or when it would come to specific models.

“Linksys plans to support next-generation WPA3 security,” Linksys said in its statement. “This functionality is highly dependent on the Wi-Fi chipset provider, thus support will be on a case-by-case basis.  If legacy products are supported, Linksys will deploy automatic firmware updates to all enabled products.  In many cases, WPA3 support will be offered in newer chipset and products.  More details will be released at time of availability.”

Intel too has committed to implementing the new standard where possible. GM of Intel’s Wireless Solutions Group, Eric Mclaughlin said, “Intel supports WPA3 and through our involvement in the test bed, we are helping our customers incorporate WPA3 into their products for enhanced security protections.”

Other companies which have also pledged support for WPA3 include Qualcomm, Silicon Motion, Marvell, Huawei Wireless, and Hewlett Packard. While most if not all of these companies will implement WPA3 in their new hardware, it remains to be seen how many WPA2 certified products that consumers and businesses currently own will be able to meet the new standards of WPA3 certification with software updates. It’s possible that such devices will be limited, as companies will likely be more interested in selling new products with certification, than adding that functionality for free to existing hardware.

When will WPA3 be available?

The first WPA3 certified devices are expected to debut towards the end of 2018, with companies like Qualcomm claiming to already be in the process of making chips for smartphones and tablets that will give them full support for the new standard. It’s possible that we’ll see certain devices retroactively certified before then, but as of yet nothing like that has materialized.

At the very least the transition process of most wireless networking hardware to WPA3 will begin in 2018 and will no doubt continue into 2019. If you’re considering buying a new router or other wireless-networking hardware, it may well be worth waiting until later in the year to see which devices will support WPA3. Before long, WPA2 will be more of a legacy standard. WPA3 may also come to new hardware hand in hand with the 802.11ax wireless networking standard which debuted last year.

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Microsoft’s foldable Andromeda PC could transform into five distinct modes

With two rumored screens, Microsoft may be positioning its highly anticipated foldable PC as the ultimate convertible computing device. Known by its Andromeda code name and widely believed to debut as the Surface Phone, Microsoft’s dual-screen PC could be used in up to five different configurations, depending on the orientation of the screens. This is up from the three configurations found on many hybrid laptops, like HP’s Spectre x360 and Lenovo’s Yoga series.

Code from Windows 10 build 17704 obtained by Twitter user @h0x0d reveals that Microsoft is creating different usage scenarios based on how the screens are oriented around the 360-degree hinge. The screens can show different content and be used in different context based on the positioning of the hinge, and the device can operate in closed, flat, convex, concave, and full modes.

Credit: Twitter user @h0x0d

Presumably, closed mode is where the screens face inward, concave is similar to today’s laptop mode, convex is similar to tent mode, flat could be similar to tablet mode where the screens are fully opened to create a larger combined display surface, and full mode could represent both screens facing outward. Modern hybrid laptops today can convert to only laptop, tablet, and tent modes.

Although it’s not exactly clear how Microsoft will design the user experience around the modes, MS Power User reported that “the API would mean applications will be able to respond to changes in the orientation of the device, with Microsoft in patents suggesting that in tent mode the device could display an alarm clock and in convex mode one side could present an on-screen keyboard like a laptop to users.”

Microsoft’s Andromeda has been showing up in a number of leaks recently, and it’s reported that the device could be announced as early as late this year. Although there is a lot of anticipation around Andromeda — Microsoft debuted the concept initially as part of its Courier project nearly a decade ago — Microsoft isn’t the only one rumored to be working on dual-screened devices. Intel recently showed off a few concepts under its Tiger Rapids codename, which the chipmaker said would get adopted into commercial designs from Lenovo and Asus. Dell is also rumored to be working on its own dual-screen PC under the Project Januss code name. Unlike the Tiger Rapids concepts that Intel is pioneering with Lenovo and Asus, however, Andromeda may take on a form factor that’s more compact than a laptop and the device could represent Microsoft’s newest push into the smartphone and mobile computing space.

Additionally, Microsoft’s recent work on its Windows 10 operating system may suggest that the company is ready to embrace having a second glass screen replace the keyboard portion of a laptop. Microsoft’s testing SwiftKey integration to make it easier to type on glass, and the company is bringing inking support to the Windows 10 Mail and Calendar apps, a move that may make a dual-screen device more appealing to paper planner addicts.

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Best Writing Apps for Android in 2018

Everybody needs a writing app — here’s what we recommend.

Whether you’re writing essays for school, drafting updates for your blog, or just jotting notes, everybody needs a writing app. There’s no shortage of them on the Play Store, and in theory it shouldn’t be hard to find a good one — it’s just a place to type, right?

Turns out there are quite a few useful features that you might want to look for when settling on a writing app. You probably want an app that syncs with other devices — Android or otherwise — so that you can pick up where you last left off. Diverse file support is good, too, for those times you need to export .doc files or PDFs.

Google Docs

It’s hard to argue with an app that comes pre-installed on most Android phones. Google Docs is an entirely cloud-based app that can be accessed from any machine that’s signed into your Google account, and has full support for images, text formatting, and a wide array of file formats.

One of the best parts of Google Docs is its collaborative nature, with the ability to share your documents with others and even write simultaneously within the same file. You can even notate certain sections of a document with editor’s comments for the other writers’ reference. Best of all, it’s completely free, without any in-app purchases or tiers to worry about.

Download: Google Docs (free)

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is another classic writing app, and it’s one that you probably grew up using on your computer before smartphones were even around. Word works a lot like Google Docs, though it syncs to OneDrive rather than Google Drive (you can also set it to sync with Dropbox). The interface is familiar if you’ve used recent versions of Word on the desktop, and the app also serves as a PDF reader.

Some of the features, including custom headers/footers and file history, require an Office 365 subscription, so power users that need to meet specific formatting standards for, say, college essays, may not be able to get away with using Word for free. But for the majority of users, the free version should offer plenty of functionality and hold up to alternatives like Google Docs.

Download: Microsoft Word (free)

iA Writer

iA Writer is a fantastic writing app that focuses more on simplicity than formatting — though it does allow for the latter, as well. It features its own file browser for your documents, as well as the ability to sync your work to Google Drive or Dropbox, and best of all, it’s cross-platform with support for iOS, Windows, and MacOS.

One of iA Writer’s most unique features is its focus mode, which obscures the sentences you’re not currently working on, but there’s plenty of other great features like Markdown support, night mode, and the ability to publish directly to Medium. iA Writer is free on Android, but keep in mind that you’ll need to shell out some cash to use it on your computer.

Download: iA Writer (free)

Evernote

The go-to for nearly every college student, Evernote is an immensely popular writing app that’s also equal parts organizer, planner, document scanner, to-do list, and much, much more. The interface can be a bit overwhelming at times, but in return, you get a wealth of features unmatched by the competition.

Evernote syncs your notes and files within its own cloud service, and offers apps for almost every device you can think of, as well as a web interface. Like the other note-taking apps in this list, you can export your writings as PDFs or other file formats, and Evernote can import from PDFs as well. If you shell out for Evernote Premium, you’ll benefit from things like unlimited device access, offline notes, PDF annotation, and much larger storage.

Download: Evernote (free)

Which is your favorite?

Do you swear by one of the writers listed above? Or have you been using something else throughout the years? Let us know in the comments!

The best journaling apps for Android

Amazon Fire TV Cube review from CordCutters.com

It’s good. It’s really good. But is it going to kill Android TV or Apple TV?

Well, Amazon went and did it. It combined its uber-popular Fire TV with its even more popular Echo Dot, mashing up the two into a cube. The result? Pretty predictable, actually. You’ve got a Fire TV with exactly the sort of hands-free voice control you’d expect.

But that’s just the start of the Fire TV Cube story. Where things start to get interesting is when you consider that hands-free control like that — paired with CEC and IR control of other devices connected to your TV — mean that the Fire TV Cube is sort of the ultimate hands-free remote control. Right?

Welllll, not quite.

Read: Amazon Fire TV Cube review

New RAMpage attack affects all Android phones released since 2012 [Update]

RAMpage can access passwords, photos, documents, and more.

Updated June 29, 2018: Shortly after news broke on RAMpage, Google reached out to Android Central with the following statement: “We have worked closely with the team from Vrije Universiteit, and though this vulnerability isn’t a practical concern for the overwhelming majority of users, we appreciate any effort to protect them and advance the field of security research. While we recognize the theoretical proof of concept from the researchers, we are not aware of any exploit against Android devices.”

There’s a new security vulnerability, boys and girls. It’s called RAMpage and is the latest type of Rowhammer attack to hit the scene.

RAMpage was discovered by a group of eight academics across three different universities and the official research paper was published on June 28, 2018. It reads as follows:

RAMpage breaks the most fundamental isolation between user applications and the operating system. While apps are typically not permitted to read data from other apps, a malicious program can craft a RAMpage exploit to get administrative control and get hold of secrets stored in the device.

As for what kind of secrets RAMpage could access, the paper notes that “this might include your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, your personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.”

RAMpage targets the ION subsystem in Android which is a memory allocation driver that was first launched by Google alongside Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. However, even though Android’s the focus of the attack right now, it’s expected that RAMpage could also impact iOS devices, desktops, and more.

Because RAMpage targets ION, gadgets that use LPDDR2/3/4 RAM are all impacted. In other words, if your Android phone was released during or after 2012, it’s vulnerable to the attack.

The research going into RAMpage is still quite new, but now that a spotlight is being placed on it, hopefully we’ll see Google and other OEMs do their part to get devices patched up for users around the globe.

Read through the full research paper here

LinkedIn Mobile App Gains QR Code Scanner and Translation Service

LinkedIn is adding a couple of new features to its iOS app that should make it easier for users to expand their professional networks on the service.

For the first time, QR codes can now be used to connect with other user profiles. This can be done by either tapping the QR code icon in the Home tab search bar to launch the QR scanner, or uploading a photo of a code taken with your device’s camera. As you’d expect, LinkedIn profile codes can also be shared easily over email or messaging platforms as well as displayed on websites and relevant merchandise.

In addition, the LinkedIn app will soon boast a translation feature powered by Microsoft Text Analytics (the same API that provides translations for Skype, Office, and Twitter). The feature, which supports over 60 languages, is accessed via a “See Translation” button that will appears in relevant LinkedIn feed posts, as well as on users’ profile and recent activity screens.

As of writing, the translation feature is only available on the desktop and mobile web versions of LinkedIn, but the company says it will be accessible in its mobile apps in the coming weeks.

LinkedIn is a free download for iPhone available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: LinkedIn
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Apple CarPlay and Android Auto react quicker than native infotainment systems

In its latest automotive safety report, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety measured the distraction times required for drivers to complete typical in-car infotainment tasks and the results showed Google’s Android Auto and Apple’s Carplay were significantly faster on average than car manufacturer’s native infotainment systems. The smartphone apps were 24 percent (five seconds) faster when making phone calls and 31 percent (15 seconds) faster programming navigation than standard car systems.

Even with faster performance than in-car systems, however, the smartphone apps were overly demanding. According to the AAA, drivers double their crash risk when they take their eyes off the road for more than two seconds. The group stated that distracted driving causes 3,500 deaths and 390,000 injuries annually.

AAA placed a positive spin on the CarPlay and Android Auto performance, however, even though the driver demand was still significant with the smartphone apps.

“Google and Apple are proving that it is possible to reduce the level of demand in-vehicle infotainment technology places on drivers,” David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said in a statement. “While improvements are necessary before any of the systems can be considered safe to use while driving, this research shows that smartphone-based software has the potential to offer a simpler, more familiar design that is less confusing to drivers, and therefore less demanding.”

The Foundation for Traffic Safety measured visual and mental demands on drivers completing typical infotainment tasks with five 2017 and 2018 vehicles. University of Utah researchers compared the demand on drivers with CarPlay, Android Auto, and the vehicles’ standard systems.

The researchers considered CarPlay and Android Auto roughly equivalent in visual demand, mental demand, and the time needed to complete infotainment tasks. Overall, the group rated the smartphone apps “moderately demanding” and the native systems “very highly demanding.”

AAA recommends that vehicle manufacturers and industry suppliers combine their efforts to develop infotainment technology with low driver demand levels.

“Automakers are experts at building safer cars, but Google and Apple are more skilled at building safer vehicle infotainment technology,” Marshall Doney, AAA president and CEO, said in a statement. “By leveraging their strengths, the two industries must work together to significantly improve the design, functionality, and safety of these technologies.”

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CIMON the ‘flying brain’ is heading to the space station

Airbus

SpaceX’s Friday-morning mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will include a new crew member quite unlike any other.

The name of the new addition is CIMON (pronounced Simon) and it’s being sent to act as a mobile autonomous assistance system.

Still not sure? Think HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon‘s GERTY, and Holly in the BBC’s Red Dwarf.

Developed by Airbus and Germany’s DLR space agency, and powered by IBM’s Watson supercomputer, CIMON will be the first form of artificial intelligence (A.I.) to arrive on the space station, where it’ll aid the astronauts with their research work and presumably become their buddy, as well.

CIMON, which stands for Crew Interacitve MObile companioN, is about the size of a volleyball and has a display built in. It can see, hear, talk, and comprehend, and its A.I. smarts mean that the more it interacts with crew members, the more abilities it will develop.

Fourteen built-in fans will enable the 11-pound (5 kg) robot to float in any direction once inside the weightless environment of the space station. The near-spherical robot will be able to turn toward an astronaut when it’s spoken to, as well as nod and shake its head during a conversation. It will even follow an astronaut autonomously or on command.

Besides helping the crew, it’s hoped CIMON’s presence will offer researchers an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of having an A.I. assistant on board. “Spaceflight missions put the crew under a substantial amount of stress and workload, and it is thought that A.I. could provide operational support to crew members,” NASA said.

It’s “a kind of flying brain”

Speaking earlier this year about the technology, Manfred Jaumann, Airbus’s head of microgravity payloads, described CIMON as “a kind of flying brain.”

Airbus hopes CIMON will become “a genuine colleague” of the astronauts during its stay on the space station.

“With CIMON, crew members can do more than just work through a schematic view of prescribed checklists and procedures; they can also engage with their assistant,” Airbus said. “In this way, CIMON makes work easier for the astronauts when carrying out everyday routine tasks, helps to increase efficiency, facilitates mission success, and improves security, as it can also serve as an early warning system for technical problems.”

Current ISS astronaut Alexander Gerst will work with CIMON on three specific tasks, one of which involves performing a complex medical experiment using the robot as an intelligent flying camera. CIMON will also show detailed instructions on what steps to take, displaying relevant text, images, and video on its screen.

But what if CIMON ends up going haywire like HAL 9000, causing chaos on the space station? German space agency physicist Christian Karrasch insists there’s nothing to worry about. “He’s a friendly guy and he has this hard power-off button.”

With reassurances like that, the six crew members must be pretty excited to meet CIMON when it arrives Monday. It won’t, however, be the first high-tech bot to visit the orbiting research lab. In its 20-year history, the ISS has also hosted Japan’s Kirobo, a floating camera sphere called Int-Ball, and a humanoid robot by the name of Robonaut.

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Google reportedly planning to launch a game platform to rival PlayStation and Xbox

Google is said to be working on a game streaming service and an Android-based gaming console.

It looks like Google is planning to launch a game streaming service to take on the likes of PlayStation and Xbox. We’ve been hearing rumors of a subscription-based game streaming service — codenamed Yeti — from as far back as February, with the company said to be working on an Android-based gaming console to complement the streaming service.

Jason Schreier over at Kotaku has more details on Google’s plans for a gaming platform. It looks like Google execs met with video game companies at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year to gauge interest in the company’s streaming platform, and there’s a possibility that Google is looking to buy out game studios entirely as a content play.

A streaming service eliminates the need for beefy hardware, as the processing is done elsewhere. That’s the same approach NVIDIA took with its own game streaming service, GeForce NOW, and it looks like Google is trying to emulate the same strategy. Offloading the hardware component to the cloud allows any device to play visually-intensive titles, and while previous attempts at making such a service scale to a wider audience have failed (remember OnLive?), if there’s anyone that can sort out the technical details, it’s Google.

Another feature that Google is allegedly working on is tight integration with YouTube. If you’re stuck at a particular part of a game and need a few hints, you’ll be able to activate an overlay with the press of a button that brings up a walkthrough of that game on YouTube. That sounds like a neat idea, but once again we’ll need to see how it works in real-world scenarios.

As for the gaming console that is rumored to accompany the streaming service, details are light on what sort of hardware it will offer and what dedicated games it will offer. One of the reasons NVIDIA’s Shield works so well for gaming is that it has a dedicated library of games optimized for the platform, and it remains to be seen if Google will take a similar approach.

For now, Google’s game streaming service sounds like an ambitious idea, but the company has been known to abandon endeavours that don’t meet its expectations. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this project, but the idea of a subscription-based game streaming service from Google certainly sounds exciting.

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