Technology

AUSTIN, Texas — Sometime in the near future, drones may be wearable and may even become our buddies — at least if one futurist has any say in the matter.

The wearable tech of the future might be able to perform many more functions than current technology can, from acting as a scout and tour guide in an unfamiliar city to being a rock-climbing companion, one expert said here at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival.

That future isn’t so far away, said Adam Pruden, an interaction designer and tech futurist at design firm frog.”Drones are starting to behave like smartphones — and they’re also entering this era of post-smartphone capabilities,” Pruden said. “One day, drones may become an everyday household device.”

Wearable products

Drone technology is advancing rapidly, and these flying bots are already being used for a growing set of functions, from making agriculture more efficient to capturing dramatic video footage of a churning lava lake. Increasingly, drones are also being seen as a key way to deliver supplies to hard-to-reach areas during humanitarian crises. And as drones get smarter, their capabilities have begun to mirror those of smartphones, Pruden said.

Though wearable drones may seem far-fetched, at least one is almost on the market already: the wearable drone Nixie, which is a camera that launches from the wrist, is supposed to be released soon.

Pruden and his colleagues tried to envision what drones might look like in the future when wearable drones become more commonplace. First, they had to determine where drones could live on the body when they’re not in use.

“We have to find a place to put them when we’re not using them,” Pruden said.

Next, the team came up with myriad possible uses for the machines, from drones that carry intravenous drips to drone dog collars. In the end, they settled on four uses that seem the most promising.

The first, called Breathe, would be a pollution sensor and filter that sits passively on a person’s shoulder but deploys when pollution levels are high. The Breathe drone could hover in front of someone’s mouth and nose, cleaning the air they breathe. [See Images of the Wearable Drone Concepts]

Other devices could clip on to someone’s clothing or backpack and devise active games to play. The drone could even identify the proper route for a rock climber scaling a rock wall, the team said.

“It’s set to challenge the owner to continue to improve as they climb again and again,” Pruden said.

A personal tour guide, called the Flare, could attach to a clear wristband. When it’s time to investigate an unfamiliar city, the Flare could launch from the wrist and fly ahead, scouting out the best routes. When it returned, it could hover a few feet in front of the owner, pointing out interesting sites along the way.

The final concept, called Parasol, could act as a personalized weather drone that could be worn like jewelry or a belt buckle when not in use. If the bot were to detect impending precipitation or high levels of ultraviolent radiation, it could morph into protective gear (like an umbrella) to shield its owner from harm.

Drones of the future

Pruden predicts that wearable drones will be in use by around 2030. As these new objects proliferate, humans may create infrastructure to help them do their work, such as drone superhighways or charging stations that allow them to make long-distance journeys.

But these futuristic devices will likely have functions that are different from those on smartphones, which are basically used by just one person.

“They’re going to have to interact at many different scales — interact with other drones, other people and other objects,” Pruden said.

In a drone-filled world, the ever-present buzzing robots could affect human emotional states, Pruden said.

“We can anticipate that more technology and devices will be taking to the sky,” Pruden said. “We must carefully plan and design these objects to improve our lives rather than disrupting them.”

References:http://www.livescience.com/

The boom in smartphones among often careless users has made happy hunting for hackers, whose virus attacks and hijacking of unprotected mobiles are multiplying, experts warn.

Security analysts and companies at this week’s Mobile World Congress, a top wireless telecom fair in Barcelona, Spain, said phone makers and users must be on guard to stop hackers getting into your pocket.

“With smartphones we are going through what we went through 15 years ago with personal computers,” said Tanguy de Coatpont, head of the French branch of international anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab.

“There are more and more security problems because with their processing power they are really like little computers, permanently connected.”
Kaspersky’s most recent study showed that 28 percent of users were ignorant of the risks of cyberattack on their smartphones.

Just over a quarter of users in that study said they knew of the risk but were not worried about it.
Analysts said that attitude had fuelled attacks on smartphones by hackers over the past two years.

“We are seeing an increase in volume (of attacks) of sometimes more than 400 percent quarter on quarter,” said David Grout, southern Europe director of Intel Security, a global software protection firm.

That is small compared to the scale of attacks on personal computer operating systems such as Windows, but “it is a bigger and bigger risk,” he said.
“Hackers have to hand lots of personal information contained in a smartphone, particularly financial details.”

Innovation, not security

James Lyne, global head of security research at anti-virus firm Sophos, said phone makers must do more to warn customers of the risks of attack on their unencrypted phones.

Most consumer smartphones are not designed primarily with security in mind, with the exception of certain specialised models.
Launching its new flagship smartphone Galaxy S6 smartphone in Barcelona, South Korean giant Samsung vaunted its sleek design, wide-angle camera and wireless charger, but said little about anti-virus protection.

“The mobile market is driven by innovation and focused on adding marketable features rather than security and privacy concerns,” Lyne told a gathering at the congress.
Other lower-profile products stress security, however, such as the Blackphone, whose second-generation model was unveiled in Barcelona.
Selling for more than $600 (543 euros), the Blackphone 2 by US company Silent Circle promises encrypted calls with protection against cyberattacks and spying by intelligence agencies.

It is competing with phone maker Blackberry for business clients, hoping to lure companies who fear their employees’ unsecured phones are a security risk.
Tech security experts say smartphone users should install antivirus programmes on their phones.

French company CS Communication et Systemes presented at the Barcelona congress a protection device in the form of a miniature card that is inserted into the handset.

Ransomware attacking phones

Most cyberattacks nowadays target Android, the widespread smartphone operating system developed by US Internet giant Google, said de Coatpont.
“It is a very open platform that has 80 percent of the market.”

Apple’s iOS system, used on iPhones, is generally considered more secure but is not immune from attack either.

Sean Sullivan, a researcher at anti-virus and online security firm F-Secure, said hackers successfully attacked a gay dating iPhone application in Britain.
The hackers hoped that users would be reluctant to report the attack since the attack obtained sensitive information about their sexuality, Sullivan said.
He added that the smartphone world may need a wake-up call to boost security—something comparable to Cryptolocker, Russian “ransomware” that struck in 2013.
Ransomware, which seizes control of computers and demands money to unblock users’ data, is now targeting smartphones too, Sullivan said.

References:http://phys.org/

University of Tokyo researchers have developed a new ink that can be printed on textiles in a single step to form highly conductive and stretchable connections. This new functional ink will enable electronic apparel such as sportswear and underwear incorporating sensing devices for measuring a range of biological indicators such as heart rate and muscle contraction.

Current printed electronics, such as transistors, light emitted diodes and solar panels, can be printed on plastic or paper substrates, but these substrates tend to be rigid or hard. The use of soft, stretchable material would enable a new generation of wearable devices that fit themselves to the human body. However, it has proved difficult to make an ink that is both highly conductive and elastic without a complicated multi-step printing process.

Now, Professor Takao Someya’s research group at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering has developed an elastic conducting ink that is easily printed on textiles and patterned in a single printing step. This ink is comprised of silver flakes, organic solvent, fluorine rubber and fluorine surfactant. The ink exhibited high conductivity even when it was stretched to more than three times its original length, which marks the highest value reported for stretchable conductors that can be extended to more than two and a half times their original length.

Using this new ink, the group created a wrist-band muscle activity sensor by printing an elastic conductor on a sportswear material and combining it with an organic transistor amplifier circuit. This sensor can measure muscle activity by detecting muscle electrical potentials over an area of 4×4 square centimeters with nine electrodes placed 2 centimeters apart in a 3×3 grid.

 

“Our team aims to develop comfortable werable devices .This ink was developed as part of this endeavor,” says Someya. “The biggest challenge was obtaining high conductivity and stretchability with a simple one-step printing process. We were able to achieve this by use of a surfactant that allowed the silver flakes to self-assemble at the surface of the printed pattern, ensuring high conductivity.”

References:http://phys.org/

In response to public concerns about cryptographic security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has formally revised its recommended methods for generating random numbers, a crucial element in protecting private messages and other types of electronic data. The action implements changes to the methods that were proposed by NIST last year in a draft document issued for public comment.

The updated document, Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators, describes algorithms that can be used to reliably generate random numbers, a key step in data encryption.

One of the most significant changes to the document is the removal of the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm, often referred to conversationally as the “Dual Elliptic Curve random number generator.” This algorithm has spawned controversy because of concerns that it might contain a weakness that attackers could exploit to predict the outcome of random number generation. NIST continues to recommend the other three algorithms that were included in the previous version of the Recommendation document, which was released in early 2012.

The revised version also contains several other notable changes. One concerns the CTR_DRBG—one of the three remaining random number algorithms—and allows additional options for its use. Another change recommends reintroducing randomness into deterministic algorithms as often as it is practical, because refreshing them provides additional protection against attack. The document also includes a link to examples that can help developers to implement the SP 800-90A random number generators correctly.

The revised publication reflects public comments received on a draft version, released late last year.

References:http://phys.org/