Chrome cracks down on sites that don’t use encryption

Chrome is embarking on a crusade to crack down on websites that still aren’t using encryption, and it starts with the latest version of the browser, Chrome 56.

Chrome 56 is launching in January, and will implement a new warning that you’ll see on any login sites that are still unencrypted. The pages will be marked as “not secure” in a small window by the address bar, which should help usher browsers away from any site that’s still not utilizing HTTPS. In the future, these pages will also be denoted with a special red triangle symbol as well.

This is in contrast to the way Chrome already warns users, as it uses a “neutral indicator,” as explained by Emily Schechter, Chrome Security Team.

HTTPS, as Schechter explains, is important because loading sites via regular HTTP opens you up to potential attacks: “When you load a website over HTTP, someone else on the network can look at or modify the site before it gets to you.” Attacks utilizing these windows of opportunity do happen, and quite a bit more often than you’d think.

Chrome is continuing a series of ongoing efforts to improve the browser’s security, but these are a couple of the most recent and important steps in keeping users and their information safe.

Via: The Verge

Source: Google

Google DeepMind’s AI can mimic realistic human speech

It’s still pretty easy to tell whether it’s a real person who’s talking or a text-to-speech program. But there might come a time when a robot could dupe you into thinking that you’re speaking with a real person, thanks to a new AI called WaveNet developed by Google’s DeepMind team. They have a pretty good track record when it comes to building neural networks — you probably know them as the folks who created AlphaGo, the AI that defeated one of the world’s best Go players.

Currently, developers use one of two methods to create speech programs. One involves using a large collection of words and speech fragments spoken by a single person, which makes sounds and intonations hard to manipulate. The other forms words electronically, depending on how they’re supposed to sound. That makes things easier to tweak, but the results sound much more robotic.

In order to build a speech program that actually sounds human, the team fed the neural network raw audio waveforms recorded from real human speakers. Waveforms are the visual representations of the shapes sounds take — those squiggly waves that squirm and dance to the beat in some media player displays. As such, WaveNet speaks by forming individual sound waves. (By the way, the AI also has a future in music. The team fed it classical piano pieces, and it came up with some interesting samples on its own.)

For instance, if used as a text-to-speech program, it transforms the text you type into a series of phonemes and syllables, which it then voices out. Subjects who took part in blind tests thought WaveNet’s results sounded more human than the other methods’. In the AI’s announcement post, DeepMind said it can “reduce the gap between the state of the art and human-level performance by over 50 percent” based on those English and Mandarin Chinese experiments. You don’t have to take the team’s word for it: We’re still far from using a WaveNet-powered app, but you can listen to some samples on DeepMind’s website.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: DeepMind, WaveNet (PDF)

Burritos by drone will soon be a thing

In the biggest test of drone deliveries to date, Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. and Chipotle are bringing airborne burritos to the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. According to Bloomberg, the trial runs start this month using Alphabet’s experimental Project Wing drones flying out of a Chipotle food truck.

The drones, which are all approved under the FAA’s new commercial guidelines, can fly autonomously but will have a human backup ready to take the controls if something goes awry. When a drone reaches the hungry customer on the other end of the delivery, it will hover in place while lowering the burrito payload to the ground using a winch. The project’s engineers will be testing everything from the drone’s navigation systems to customer satisfaction. After all, what good is a drone if it can only bring you a cold, mushy burrito?

While the concept seems simple, the data gathered from the project will actually help the FAA design a new system of low-altitude air traffic control that will be necessary once drone deliveries start catching on in earnest. As the director of the project partnership, Mark Blanks told Bloomberg, the lucky volunteers ordering the airlifted burritos will be a select group of users made up of “Virginia Tech employees, students and possibly other recruits.”

Source: Bloomberg

Go through virtual spacewalk training with this NASA video

Most people will never train to walk in space, but you can always get a cheapo Google Cardboard and play the latest 360 ultra high-definition video out of NASA’s headquarters to pretend that you are. The space agency used Harmonic’s VR tech to show three different perspectives of astronauts training at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. That’s a humongous pool with a life-size replica of the ISS, where they perform simulated tasks for their future missions aboard the space station. If you don’t have a VR headset right now, you can still watch the whole thing below the fold — don’t forget to set the quality to 4K and drag the screen to look around for max enjoyment.

Source: NASA (1), (2)

Google aims its terrorist-dissuading ads at North America

As radical terrorists ramp up their online recruitment, social media services like Twitter often bear the brunt of criticism for failing to curb their outreach. But sometimes Google gets an earful too, leading them to research how to counter to the narrative ISIS spreads online. To that end, the search giant’s subsidiary incubator Jigsaw has spent the last year building a program that uses its own advertising tech to persuade potential recruits not to join the extremist organization. Their next phase, beginning this month, will deploy it in North America to target both possible terrorist sympathizers and white supremacists.

The program, called Redirect Method, activates when anyone searches with keywords or phrases used by ISIS supporters. Alongside results, it places advertisements leading to pre-existing YouTube channels with videos Jigsaw believes can undo the terrorist group’s cult-like brainwashing, according to Wired. They include testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing the Islamic extremists and more — what the Google think tank hopes can counterbalance ISIS’s propaganda with critical accounts.

“This came out of an observation that there’s a lot of online demand for ISIS material, but there are also a lot of credible organic voices online debunking their narratives,” Jigsaw head of research and development Yasmin Green told Wired. “The Redirect Method is at its heart a targeted advertising campaign: Let’s take these individuals who are vulnerable to ISIS’ recruitment messaging and instead show them information that refutes it.”

The program has seen some success: Over a two-month trial earlier this year, more than 300,000 users clicked into the Jigsaw-chosen YouTube channels. This month, they plan a second-phase relaunch of the Redirect Method to target North American extremists, specifically targeting both potential ISIS recruits and white supremacists.

While social media networks have a social responsibility to cooperate with government authorities in tracking whom they deem threats, Green told Wired, the Redirect Method doesn’t trace users after sending them to the deprogramming YouTube accounts. She sees it as an extension of Google’s core mission to make information more accessible, arming individuals to combat the one-sided influence ISIS holds on potential recruits.

Source: Wired

Nest’s smart thermostat now comes in limited edition colors

Nest’s third-generation Learning Thermostat wasn’t exactly a design revolution — surprise, it’s another metal puck with a display — but the company is doing something to jazz things up. It’s introducing limited edition versions of the smart temperature controller that come in black, white and an especially attention-grabbing copper. If you’ve ever thought that the regular steel thermostat was too gauche (or not gauche enough), you now have the option of a model that better matches your decor.

You don’t have to pay a premium over the $249 standard edition to get the style you want. You’ll want to act quickly if you’re planning to spruce up your home’s climate control, though. While the new hues are available in Nest’s online store now and retail stores soon, they’ll only be around for a “limited time” (Nest hasn’t said how long). Oh, and a quick heads-up: if you’ve been looking forward to the Nest Cam Outdoor, you’ll be happy to know that the $199 security cam is available to order today in the US, and October for European customers.

Source: Nest