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October 29 2010
Everest Gets 3G Coverage; Avalanche of Tweets & Status Updates to Follow
Ncell, a subsidiary of the Swedish telecom company TeliaSonera, has installed a 3G data network in a Nepalese town that should reach the summit of Mount Everest. This high up, high-tech improvement will allow summit-ers to communicate with friends, family, and organizers from the top of the world.
A phone base station was set up near the town of Gorakshep at 17,000 feet above sea level, and the signal should reach to the peak about 12,000 feet above that, telecom officials said–but it hasn’t been tested yet. The service should be fast enough to allow adventurers to make video calls and surf the Internet from their phones.
Lars Nyberg, CEO of TeliaSonera, told the Associated Foreign Press how excited they were to take the mountain into the wireless internet age:
“This is a great milestone for mobile communications as the 3G high speed internet will bring faster, more affordable telecommunication services from the world’s tallest mountain,” said Lars Nyberg.
The service is definitely an upgrade from the voice-only network set up in 2007 by China Mobile on the Chinese side of the mountain, and the erratic coverage of satellite phones. Who wouldn’t want to update their Facebook status to “chilling at the summit of Mount Everest” or “check-in” there? Now we can all wait with bated breath to see who gets the first Mayorship.
An Irish mountain climber named Gavin Bate was aiming to send the first tweet from the summit in 2009, but because of the weather conditions couldn’t reach the summit. Perhaps as people start to use the data network Everest will get better reviews on Google Maps; right now it’s at 2.5 stars.
But apparently the mountain committee had other ideas of how to use the connection–at least that’s what Ang Tshering Sherpa told the Associated Foreign Press:
“The erratic and expensive satellite connection that many times does not work for days will be replaced with this service, making it possible for all climbers to keep in touch with their organisers and family,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a member of the International Mountain Protection Commission. “This will also be helpful, possibly, when there is an accident or an expedition mishap,” he added.
Related content:
Discoblog: Would You Give Up Sex for Internet Access?
80beats: EXTREME SCIENCE: Doctors Drop Their Pants on Everest for a Blood Oxygen Test
80beats: Why Climbers Die on Everest: It’s Not the Avalanches (or the Yeti)
80beats: “Interplanetary Internet” Will Soon Bring Twitter to the ISS
DISCOVER: How Much Does The Internet Weigh?
Reality Base: “PopeTube” Launches, Brings New Holiness to Internet
Image: Flickr/stevehicks
September 16 2010
iPhone App Lets You Tell Drivers Exactly What You Think of Them
A new smart phone app aims to get you communicating with the drivers around you, and we don’t mean yelling choice obscenities through the window or shaking your fist of rage when someone cuts you off.
By photographing, typing, or saying a license plate number and state you’ll be able to message the driver–if they’re also signed up for the service, named Bump. The message recipient can choose how they get their messages, through text or the Bump.com website. Bump launches today on iPhones, and an Android app will soon be ready as well.
Venture Beat talked to Bump’s CEO, Mitch Thrower about the idea:
Thrower says his social network for cars brings to mind a classic scene in the film American Graffiti…. Actor Richard Dreyfuss sees a beautiful blonde played by Suzanne Somers in a white T-Bird. She blows a kiss at him. He tries to follow her but can’t catch up. Maddeningly, he never sees her again. Oh, if he had only gotten her license plate.
And while the idea of giving drivers more reasons to constantly be on their phones gives most of us the willies, Bump’s developers say using their application could encourage a safer diving experience overall, bringing personal accountability to the road–a normally anonymous place. As fun as scolding bad drivers sounds the service can also be used to warn other drivers about low tires, broken tail-lights, car alarms, or headlights left on. Or, of course, we could turn traffic jams into the new singles scene.
The company is touting the app as some sort of social network for drivers, but it also has a data-mining trick up their sleeve. Bump wants to offer up its users as targets for advertising, by selling businesses the ability to contact people who frequently drive by their establishments.
Bump’s VP of technology, John Albers-Mead, explained the idea to Technology Review:
“It allows us to track users, it’s like putting a cookie on a car,” says Albers-Mead, likening his technology to the small files used to track web users and offer functionality like autologins online. Once connected up to Bump’s tech, a camera at a store or drive-in burger joint could, for example, showing menu choices similar to those you’ve selected before. That extra data could be valuable to store owners, Bump say, who could also make use of the messaging functions. “You could register as a fan of the Dodgers and then receive a message welcoming you to the stadium and offering discount vouchers when you visit,” says Albers-Mead.
Related content:
Discoblog: AD4HERE: Digital License Plate Ads May Come to California
Discoblog: Texting-While-Driving Coach Slightly Delays Appalling Crashes
Discoblog: Woman Receives First Ever PhD in Texting
Discoblog: NASA iPhone App Lets You Drive a Lunar Rover (Just Try Not to Get Stuck)
80beats: Sorry, Australian iPhone Users: You’ve Been Rickrolled
Image: Wikimedia Commons / Ed Poor
August 16 2010
Can Greasy Fingerprints on Smart Phones Give Away Passcodes?
That grease trail you’ve smeared on your smart phone’s touchscreen could give away more than your lightsaber skills or virtual girlfriend’s whims: Would-be smudge attackers, a recent paper argues, could follow your finger oils as a clue to your passcode.
In the paper “Smudge Attacks on Smartphone Touchscreens,” which we first saw on Gizmodo, a team in the computer science department at the University of Pennsylvania tried to pick out grease patterns from Android phones by photographing the phones and enhancing the patterns with photo-editing software. From the paper’s introduction:
“We believe smudge attacks are a threat for three reasons. First, smudges are surprisingly persistent in time. Second, it is surprisingly difficult to incidentally obscure smudges through wiping or pocketing the device. Third and finally, collecting and analyzing oil residue smudges can be done with readily-available equipment such as a camera and a computer.”
Though the smudge alone can’t confirm the exact passcode, the study’s authors hint that it may help an attacker rule out possibilities. In the paper, the authors describe the three by three number grid of “contact points” that some earlier Android phones employed for entering passcodes. The team assumed three limitations on smudge patterns using this grid: it must have four or more contact points; it cannot use any contact point more than once; and if there is any contact point between two others on a smudge trail, then it must also be a contact point. They calculate that using just the last of these restrictions, an attacker could reduce the number of possible patterns from 1 million to 389,112 patterns–a way to reduce a phone lockout during hacking.
The study also investigated the best conditions for identifying a smudge pattern. A particularly easy partial pattern to find, the researchers say, appeared when the phone was “dirty prior to password entry,” i.e. after the user had just finished chatting, allowing the phone’s screen to soak up some extra face dirt for finger smudge contrast.
Related content:
Discoblog: Bizarre Makeup Patterns Can Fool Face Recognition Software
Discoblog: Augmented Reality Phone App Can Identify Strangers on the Street
Discoblog: Augmented Reality Tattoos Are Visible Only to a Special Camera
Discoblog: One Small Step Closer to Superhuman Cyborg Vision
Discoblog: Will the Laptops of the Future Be a Pair of Eye Glasses?
Image: flickr / p_kim
June 01 2010
Confused (and Injured) Pedestrian Sues Google Maps Over Bad Directions
On a midday stroll through Park City, Utah, you decide to turn onto the quaint-sounding Deer Valley Drive. You see this:
If you think you should turn back, you are not the intrepid Lauren Rosenberg. Armed with a Blackberry and Google Maps, she marched on, and could not believe when Patrick Harwood struck her with his car. She is now suing both Harwood and Google.
As CNET reports:
Perhaps some of you might think of Rosenberg as just a perambulating chaser. Yet she and her lawyers reason that Google’s walking directions were “careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions.”
But what about Google Maps’ warning to such adventure-seekers? There’s a yellow box that appears whenever you request walking directions using their website: “Walking Direction are in Beta. Use caution–This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.”
Apparently this isn’t enough. On Rosenberg’s Blackberry, the route lacked the warning. She feels this entitles her to over $10,000 in medical expenses.
Though GPS victims haven’t won in similar suits, Rosenberg’s turn in court will soon come. Here’s hoping someone drives her to the hearing.
Related content:
DISCOVER: Think Tech A GPS to Augment Your Entire Reality
80beats: Lost in Space: GPS System May Soon Begin Deteriorating
Discoblog: Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Google Earth shows that cow and deer herds align like compass needles
Image: Google Maps / Danny Sullivan
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