Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

University of Washington

University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration.

Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.

While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing.

“The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.”

Source and Read more: http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/

Don’t Fly During Ramadan

A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to take a trip from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. Every year, my family goes on a one-week pilgrimage, where we put our work on hold and spend time visiting temples, praying, and spending time with family and friends. To my Jewish friends, I often explain this trip as vaguely similar to the Sabbath, except we take one week of rest per year, rather than one day per week.
Our family is not Muslim, but by coincidence, this year, our trip happened to be during the last week of Ramadan.
By further coincidence, this was also the same week that I was moving out of my employer-provided temporary housing (at NYU) and moving into my new apartment. The night before my trip, I enlisted the help of two friends and we took most of my belongings, in a couple of suitcases, to my new apartment. The apartment was almost completely unfurnished - I planned on getting new furniture upon my return - so I dropped my few bags (one containing an air mattress) in the corner. Even though I hadn’t decorated the apartment yet, in accordance with Hindu custom, I taped a single photograph to the wall in my bedroom — a long-haired saint with his hands outstretched in pronam (a sign of reverence and respect).

Read more full article here: http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan

Understanding Radiation: Becquerels and Sieverts

We now know about radiation, half lives, and radiation types. Next, let’s take a look at the units used to talk about radiation levels. The units we hear most often in the news at the moment are becquerels and sieverts.Radiation can damage our bodies by breaking the chemical bonds in our cells. The amount of damage done depends on how much radiation we are exposed to. This in turn depends on how much radioactive material is present in our environment, our food and so on. So it is important to have some way to talk about amounts of radiation. This is what the unit becquerel is for.

Full Article: http://tsukubascience.com/en/understanding-radiation-becquerels-and-sieverts/ 

Computer scientists develop 'mathematical jigsaw puzzles' to encrypt software

Concept illustration of mathematical jigsaw puzzle

UCLA computer science professor Amit Sahai and a team of researchers have designed a system to encrypt software so that it only allows someone to use a program as intended while preventing any deciphering of the code behind it. This is known in computer science as "software obfuscation," and it is the first time it has been accomplished. 

 

Sahai, who specializes in cryptography at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, collaborated with Sanjam Garg, who recently earned his doctorate at UCLA and is now at IBM Research; Craig Gentry, Shai Halevi and Mariana Raykova of IBM Research; and Brent Waters, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin. Garg worked with Sahai as a student when the research was done.

Read more: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-computer-scientists-develop-247527.aspx

Apple developer site targeted in security attack, still down

Apple's site for developers was attacked by an intruder last week, the company said Sunday.

In a note to developers, the company said that an "intruder" tried to gain access to developer information, prompting the company to take the service down. Sensitive information on that site was encrypted, Apple said, however it's keeping the site down while security is being hardened. No estimate was provided for when it will be back up.

Apple sent the following to developers on Sunday, detailing some of what happened:

Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers' names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.

In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we're completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.

An Apple spokesman told CNET that the company's developer Web site is "not associated with any customer information" and that "customer information is securely encrypted."

Apple's developer site is home to software downloads, documentation and forums for third-party software developers. The site became inaccessible to registered developers last Thursday, causing angst for users who could not access those features. On Friday the company noted that it would be extending membership periods to cover the outage, and that any published software would not be removed.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57594770-37/apple-developer-site-targeted-in-security-attack-still-down

SIM Cards Have Finally Been Hacked, And The Flaw Could Affect Millions Of Phones

Smartphones are susceptible to malware and carriers have enabled NSA snooping, but the prevailing wisdom has it there’s still one part of your mobile phone that remains safe and un-hackable: your SIM card.
Yet after three years of research, German cryptographer Karsten Nohl claims to have finally found encryption and software flaws that could affect millions of SIM cards, and open up another route on mobile phones for surveillance and fraud.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/07/21/sim-cards-have-finally-been-hacked-and-the-flaw-could-affect-millions-of-phones/

RELATED SOURCE

SIM cards are the de facto trust anchor of mobile devices worldwide. The cards protect the mobile identity of subscribers, associate devices with phone numbers, and increasingly store payment credentials, for example in NFC-enabled phones with mobile wallets.
With over seven billion cards in active use, SIMs may well be the most widely used security token in the world. Through over-the-air (OTA) updates deployed via SMS, the cards are even extensible through custom Java software. While this extensibility is rarely used so far, its existence already poses a critical hacking risk.
Cracking SIM update keys. OTA commands, such as software updates, are cryptographically-secured SMS messages, which are delivered directly to the SIM. While the option exists to use state-of-the-art AES or the somewhat outdated 3DES algorithm for OTA, many (if not most) SIM cards still rely on the 70s-era DES cipher. DES keys were shown to be crackable within days using FPGA clusters, but they can also be recovered much faster by leveraging rainbow tables similar to those that made GSM’s A5/1 cipher breakable by anyone.

Read more: https://srlabs.de/rooting-sim-cards/

Aireal: Interactive Tactile Experiences in Free Air

AIREAL is a new low cost, highly scalable haptic technology that delivers expressive tactile sensations in mid air. AIREAL enables users to feel virtual objects, experience dynamically varying textures and receive feedback on full body gestures, all without requiring the user to wear a physical device. AIREAL is designed to use a vortex, a ring of air that can travel large distances while keeping its shape and speed. When the vortex hits a user’s skin, the low pressure system inside a vortex collapses and imparts a force the user can feel. The AIREAL technology is almost entirely 3D printed using a 3D printed enclosure, flexible nozzle and a pan and tilt gimbal structure capable of a 75-degree targeting field. Five actuators are mounted around the enclosure which displaces air from the enclosed volume, through the flexible nozzle and into the physical environment. The actuated flexible nozzle allows a vortex to be precisely delivered to any location in 3D space.

AIREAL is part of our long term vision for creating large-scale computer augmented environments which can deliver compelling interactive experiences seamlessly, everywhere and at anytime. Free air tactile feedback technology is a key element of these future interactive spaces with a wide range of applications including gaming and story telling, mobile interfaces, and gesture control among many others.

Read more: http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/aireal/

qooxdoo 3.0 released

We are happy to announce a new major release of the framework, qooxdoo 3.0.
Many thanks go to the entire community for making this happen: the team of core developers,1&1 as the supporting company, all contributors, and last but not least the users and enthusiasts who brought in questions, comments and suggestions.

The release of qooxdoo 2.0 about a year ago was a landmark in the framework’s ongoing evolution to become a universal JavaScript framework. Now with the release of qooxdoo 3.0 each of the three major application domains, i.e. Desktop, Mobile and Website, ship with substantial if not radical improvements.

Read more: http://news.qooxdoo.org/qooxdoo-3-0-released