Wi-Fi Backscatter Technology Connects Battery-Free Devices To Internet

With a perspective of providing no-power connectivity to ‘internet of things’ devices, a research team at University of Washington has developed a power-efficient technology called Wi-Fi Backscatter that will enable the battery-free devices to connect to Wi-Fi infrastructure. This technology provides internet connectivity to battery-free prototype devices by using radio frequency signals as a source of power. The new, ubiquitous communication system reuses present Wi-Fi infrastructure in order to extend the internet connectivity to these devices. Now, everyday battery-free objects will be able to connect to your internet profiles and can also store information about your day-to-day activities.

The technology is built upon the previous research called Ambient Backscatter which showed that low-powered devices such as temperature sensors or wearable devices like wristwatch can run without batteries by leveraging existing radio and wireless signals present in the air. The following video demonstrates how the two devices without batteries can work by using existing TV or radio signals and can also communicate with each other.
The team has developed a novel ultra-low power tag prototype consisting of antenna and circuitry that can communicate to Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones by using negligible amount of power. This prototype helps the battery-free devices to communicate through Wi-Fi by consuming less power than the power required by a typical Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi backscatter tag can communicate with Wi-Fi devices with a speed of 1 kilobit per second and the range for communication between the two devices is about 2 meters. The team is planning to increase the range to about 20 meters.

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The research will be published at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication‘s annual conference this month in Chicago. The project received funding from the Washington Research Foundation, UW Commercialization Gap Fund, the National Science Foundation, the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship and the UW.

World’s Fastest Camera Shoots at 4.4 Trillion Frames Per Second

Researchers from the Keio University and the University of Tokyo in Japan have jointly developed the world’s fastest camera that is able to capture consecutive shots with a frame interval of 4.4 trillion frames per second. It is thousand times faster than conventional high speed cameras which can capture an image every one-billionth of a second. Apart from the mind boggling frame-rate, the Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography (STAMP) camera has a high pixel resolution of 450 × 450 pixels. In order to understand the working of STAMP camera you need to first see how a conventional high speed camera works. A conventional high speed camera works on the pump-probe process where a pulse of light is initiated (pumped) at the object and then captured (probed). The drawback of this process is that it requires repetitive measurements to construct an image and during these measurements it often misses in probing non-repetitive events such as chemical reactions.

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The STAMP motion picture camera made by the Japanese researchers uses the method of femtophotography to capture images in a single burst without the need of repetitive measurements. Femtophotography involves optical mapping of the target's time-varying spatial profile onto a burst stream of sequentially timed photographs with spatial and temporal dispersion. The researchers have already captured plasma dynamics and lattice vibration waves and hope that their camera will be put to use to study fast dynamics in photochemistry, spintronics , phononics, fluidics and plasma physics. Before launching the camera to the public the team is working on shrinking its size as currently is measures about a square meter.

This Dashboard Camera Knows When You Are Talking On Phone While Driving

Researchers at the Santa Catarina State University in Brazil have developed a software and hardware solution for your car that is able to detect and warn you when you are using your mobile phone behind the wheel. Lead researcher Rafael Berri and his team started by installing a camera on the dashboard of the car just behind the steering wheel. They chose that spot to set up the camera because people talking on their mobile phones while driving tend to fix their gaze straight ahead instead of scanning the road like they do normally. After installing the camera the team programmed the system to work in three steps. First, the camera locates the driver and records a cropped video of him/her just focusing on the face and the area to each side of the face. It monitors these locations to find out if you have raised your hands to bring the mobile phone to your ears.

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Next the system looks for any skin pixels in the image and plots the location of these pixels. It further divides the image into areas showing the hands and faces calculating the probability of the driver talking and warns accordingly. The team put their algorithm to the test on a set of five videos shot by a dashboard camera. The camera shot videos with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels at 15 frames per second. The videos were divided into three second ones and sent to the system for analysing. The system had an efficiency of 87.43 percent. The team warns that the system isn’t perfect and in some cases the accuracy of the algorithm drops drastically such as direct sunlight on the driver’s face.

The system however is not completely fool-proof as MIT Technology Review points out that the researchers have yet not finalised a warning system and the system has no provisions to check whether the car is moving or not. It also cites privacy concerns of constant monitoring by a video camera.

Indian Creates Google Glass Replica "Smart Cap" That Costs < Rs 4,500/-

Arvind Sanjeev, Chief Inventor and Founder of A.R.S. Devices, has developed 'Smart Cap'an augmented reality head-mounted display that works just like Google Glass, for less than $75 or Rs 4,500 within a month using open-source hardware. Arvind has even listed down the steps+hardware+software he employed to create the device on the blog DIY Hacking, so that anyone interested may go ahead and develop their version of the same. Arvind believes that while technologies like Google Glass and Oculus Drift are surely fueling the fad, they are quite expensive to use.

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In case you don't want to shell out $1500 to experience similar functionalities and want to create a similar device of your own, then the creator states that this DIY Head Mounted Display tutorial is what you need. Using this tutorial, he aims to show how one can develop one's head mounted, virtual reality or augmented reality displays from scratch. He then goes on to list down the steps he undertook to create the 'Smart Cap', a first of its kind. His system comprises a webcam for video sharing/recording and voice recognition to render a hands-free experience.

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During his engineering days, confesses Arvind, he wasn't able to understand how a calculator works and found it difficult to develop computer hardware. To make away from these discrepancies in knowledge transfer, he created the blog DIY Hacking to provide useful information/tutorial to students and hobbyists so they don't feel as lost as he did in college. It was in college where he created some veritable gadgets and systems in the connected devices genre, and the attention these projects got him was enough motivation for him to start his own company which later developed many product prototypes like RideSmart, etc.

Vision Correcting Displays Could Spell The End Of Spectacles Era

Wearing glasses or contact lenses for being able to read or see properly has become more common than ever before, thanks to the constant viewing of display screens. What if we could find a corrective solution for our eyes using exactly the same displays as a medium? Well, a team of engineers & researchers from MIT and University of Berkeley has come together to develop a new form of screens called 'vision correcting displays'. The new computational display technology is simply marvelous because the images it displays are pre-distorted so that the viewer can see them clearly without the need of any eyewear. The applications of this tech are immense. Right from our e-readers and tablets, such displays can be used in dashboard mounted GPS devices for cars and other vehicles.

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For thousands of years, our spectacles have undergone little or no change, ever since their invention in the 13th century. In recent times, there have been the upsurge of contact lenses and corrective eye surgery. However, most of these measures are invasive. With the vision correcting displays, the engineers from UC Berkeley and MIT have achieved something that was unthinkable so far. Their solution basically puts the glasses on the display, instead of on your eyes. Considering the fact that, most bespectacled individuals spend a major part of their lives interacting with the digital world, the vision correcting displays are really a great boon in disguise (you won't even know they are there).

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Fu-Chung Huang, the lead author of the paper based on this project and Brian Barsky, a Computer Science professor at UC Berkeley along with Gordon Wetzstein and Ramesh Raskar, researchers from MIT developed computer algorithms that can be used to compensate for a human's visual impairment. Their prototype setup involves a printed pinholes (each 75 micrometers and distanced at 390 micrometers) in a screen placed between two layers of clear plastic to an iPod display to enhance image sharpness. Based on the user's specific kind of visual impairment, the team's algorithm works by adjusting the intensity of each direction of light that emanates from a single pixel in an image. This light then passes through the pinhole array in such a way that the user sees a clear & sharp image.

MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture Group had earlier developed a glasses-free 3-D technology (Take a look here). The vision correcting display seems like a variation of the same. The new system operates by simulating an image at the correct focal distance, between the display and the viewer’s eye. Moreover, the MIT and Berkeley researchers have adapted the algorithm to the problem of vision correction, therefore the new display results in very little loss in resolution.

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In the prototype developed by this team, they had to mask the display pixels from the parts of the pupil for which they’re not intended. To achieve this, they laid a transparency patterned with an array of pinholes so that the appropriate parts of the light emitting are blocked.

Now steal data from laptop just by touching it!

New research at Tel Aviv University (Israel) might just take out the 'heroism' out of being a hacker or a cracker. A team of researchers has developed a technique that lets you steal data from a laptop just by 'touching it'. All you need to do is wear a special wristband and touch the exposed part of the machine that you want to victimize. The wristband will measure all the minute changes in the ground electric potential and figure out encryption keys. You can touch the machine with your bare hands or with a wire.

In their research paper, to be presented at the CHES 2014, the researchers will describe how they were able to extract 4096-bit RSA keys and also 3072-bit ElGamal keys from the test machine. They say that though the machines work at GHz scale frequencies, a full blown attack will require just a few seconds to measure the frequencies using Medium Frequency signals ~2 MHz. The attack would require about an hour, if Low Frequency signals are used ~40 KHz. The team could extract keys from several test machines running a popular open source encryption software called GnuPG, which implements the OpenPGP standard.

The good news is that there's nothing to worry about just yet. The technique has all the focus on the encryption software. While GnuPG's got a patch ready to fix the problem to some level; the crackers will have to monitor the electricity changes during the decryption process to get hold of your data - which isn't quite easy. 

Robo Brains "Digs internet To make Machines More Humans

Robo Brain', a collaborative project between two Indian-origin researchers, is a large-scale computational system that comprehends everything from publicly available Internet resources, in order to teach robots natural human behavior. This complete data-bank for robots shall help the machines with finding keys, pouring a drink, putting away dishes and not interrupting two people when they're amidst a discussion. Lead researcher Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell University (New York) explained about the project, stating that out computers and cell phones have access to all information we require, and if in case a robot encounters a situation it has not experienced before, it can simply query Robo Brain in the cloud.

At present, as you're reading this article, Robo Brain is downloading and processing about 1 billion images, about 120,000 YouTube videos and nearly 100 million how-to documents and appliance manuals. All this information is being translated and saved in a robot-friendly format that the robots will understand when required, Saxena stated. As per him, Robo Brain shall process images in order to pick out the objects in them and by connecting these images and videos with text shall it identify objects and their usage, coupled with human language and behavior.

Take for example, of a robot comes across a coffee mug, it can learn from Robo Brain not only that it's a coffee mug but also the liquid content that can be poured in or out of it, that the mug could be grabbed via the handle, and that it must always be held upright when it's full. Aditya Jami, the large-scale database designer of Robo Brain, states that it'll look like a gigantic branching graph "with abilities for multi-dimensional queries."

Similar to a human learner, Robo Brain shall have teachers thanks to crowdsourcing, concluded Saxena who presented the project at 2014 Robotics : Science and Systems Conference held in Berkeley lately.

Supersonic Submarine Can Travel At Unthinkable Speeds!

While most of the speed experiments are focused on ground and air; the Chinese engineers want to break speed records under water. The latest super high speed submarine prototyped by the team of engineers at the Harbin Institute Of Technology makes it possible to travel underwater at never imagined before speeds. Li Fungchen, professor of fluid machinery and engineering at the HIT informs that the technique is called 'supercavitation'.

Supercavitation isn't an entirely new technique per se. During the cold war, the Russians had developed VA-111 Shkval, a torpedo capable of traveling underwater at the speeds of 370 kmph using supercavitation; and continues to be one of the fastest torpedos till date. Supercavitation is about forming a wrapping air bubble around the torpedo to minimise the direct contact of the body of vessel with water, in order to minimize the drag offered by water. Theory suggests that a supercavitating vessel can reach the speeds of about 5,800 kmph; allowing travel-time from Shanghai to San Francisco cut short to just 1.5 hours
The main issue with the supercavitating vessels is that it's difficult to maneuver them. Also these vessels need to be launched into the water at the speeds of about 100 kmph to maintain the cavitation. The Chinese researchers have succeeded in addressing both these problems. They found out a way to cover the vessel with a specialised liquid membrane allowing a very controlled friction between water and vessel body. It also allows to take care of the challenges associated with high-speed launch required.

Li Fungchen said they need to solve several problems before these vessels can be adopted in the mainstream. The biggest challenge now is to develop an underwater rocket engine that can sustain longer range. The Shkval torpedo could travel only between 11 - 15 km under water.

New Camera System Doesn't Use Mirrors To Capture Objects Placed Around A Corner

Capturing an object positioned around a corner from a camera seems like an impossible task if you don't have a mirror at hand. Well, no magic tricks involved when it comes to the work of a research team from University of Bonn and the University of British Columbia, Vancouvera have developed a camera that can actually "see" around the corner. The novel technology introduced here makes use of diffusely reflected light for reconstructing the shape of objects that's not in the direct field of view of the camera or the person holding it. Prof. Dr. Ing. Matthias B. Hullin from the University of Bonn, who works on this project, shares that the mathematical procedure they created, was coupled with the camera system so that they could transform the wall virtually into a mirror.

In their setup, the laser light shone on the wall would itself act as the source of information. Some of the laser light that gets rebound from the wall also contains some valuable data about the appearance of the object beyond the wall and around the corner. The team has been successful in capturing this "light echo". This light is nothing but the time-resolved data which is later used to reconstruct the object. To achieve this, the team developed a special camera system that records not only the direction from which the light is coming but also how long it took the light to get from the source to the camera.

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Using readily available image sensors from video controllers and spare cameras, the team measured the sum of numerous light reflections which reached the camera through multiple paths. On superimposing them over each other on the image sensor, they were able to get the desired image capture.

The ability to extract only the desired information from this data has been a challenge for the engineering team. Their exclusive mathematical procedure they employed was able to achieve them reasonable results. Thanks to some smart coding and their call on keeping the technical complexity to the very minimal, the researchers were able to do a rapid development of the novel camera system. Their method isn't of course full-proof yet. It comes with its own set of limitations. Even though that's the case, the team looks confident about achieving an even higher resolution soon enough. The applications of the new tech can be found very useful in the field of medical imagery, remote sensing as well as telecommunications.

Source: University of Bonn

PhoneGap 2.0

Everyone seems to agree that mobile is the new black. And since that's the case it's a major pain in the proverbial that this 'new' platform managed to recreate so many of the problems faced by the desktop: different APIs, languages, browsers, file formats… Thankfully, PhoneGap has gone a long way towards smoothing out those difficulties.

PhoneGap 2, the first release since Adobe took the reins, is a significant advance for at least two reasons. The first is the simple increase in platforms reached, Windows 8 phone included. The second is the availability of PhoneGap Build, giving developers a single compile point capable of reaching every platform. No wonder there's so many apps.

BitTorrent Unveils Bleep: A Decentralised & Encrypted Chat Client For Windows

The people behind the massively successful and controversial BitTorrent technology have unveiled Bleep, a new chat client that promises secure and snooping free communication. BitTorrent have implemented their knowledge of decentralised infrastructure to build Bleep. Instead of having a centralised server to handle chats and client metadata, Bleep uses the same BitTorrent technology to build a fully distributed SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) server that serves as an engine for Bleep. Ever since the NSA-Snowden saga many chat clients have included the option of encrypted communication. While the encryption is sufficient to safeguard the messages, the client’s metadata has to remain in the company’s servers making it vulnerable to government snooping and hacking. Bleep does not maintain a central repository of chat log and contact information. People on Bleep can find each other through other nodes in the network. Bleep employs secure encryption protocols such as curve25519, ed25519, salsa20, poly1305, and others for end to end encryption. 

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On Bleep you can communicate with others in text and voice. Since the makers of the chat client believe in the idea of open internet, they have made the Bleep engine to serve as the back-end to any chat and voice application. The company has launched Bleep in its pre-alpha form and is asking users to register their e-mail ids on the website and wait for the invite. Once your request is processed they shall be mailing you back with the download link for the client. The company is targeting the application towards journalists, diplomatic corps, business and individuals who want to safeguard their messages from illegal snooping. The client is currently available for Windows desktops only. The testers have the option of inviting their friends to use the application. BitTorrent warns that since it is an early build users can expect some bugs in the system which will be rectified in future builds.

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To get your Bleep client, you can register on this link and to obtain more information about it head over to theBitTorrent blog (1) (2).

Critical Security Flaw In USB

Security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell of Security Research Lab have managed to exploit a fundamental flaw in USB technology that makes us rethink the way we use this versatile technology. We use USB devices every day; we use them as storage devices, computer peripherals, cell phone chargers, data cables for smartphones and printers and much more. To make USB work with any device a programmer has to reprogram the USB controller chip present in the peripheral. The only problem with this is that most USB controller chips including the ones used in thumb drives have no protection against reprogramming. These researchers exploited this flaw by developing a proof-of-concept malware called BadUSB. Once BadUSB infects a USB drive, it reverse engineers the USB firmware and turns them malicious. They can program any USB device to behave as a keyboard and issue commands to the computer to install harmful malware and corrupt users’ files. The downloaded malware can then be used to infect controller chips of other USB devices connected to the computer. The tainted USB device can also be used to emulate a network card which has the capability to change the computer’s DNS and redirect the traffic to hackers. Finally, there is the threat of injecting a computer with a boot virus with the help of a thumb drive which has been programmed with BadUSB. 

Image Courtesy: CurveFever​

Normally when you discover a malware on your computer you have to rely on your trusted antivirus or in the worst case perform a system format to get rid of the threat. In case of a BadUSB infiltrated system however you do not have any defences because of three reasons. First, antivirus software cannot check the firmware running on a USB device. Second, when a BadUSB infected device is plugged into a computer, the antivirus does not perform a heuristic analysis (checking unusual behaviour for unknown malware detection) because the changed persona of the new device makes it think that the user has plugged in a new device. Finally, a full operating system reinstallation cannot get rid of this because all the while the computer was infected it could have downloaded the malicious software which would have reprogrammed other USB devices connected to the computer such as a hardwired USB webcam on a laptop or worse it could have reprogrammed the computer’s BIOS because as we have mentioned earlier it can behave as a keyboard.

While talking to Wired, the researchers said that once infected with BadUSB one has to think that the USB device is a hypodermic needle which should not be shared among users and immediately thrown away because a technical patch cannot fix the problem. During their research they contacted a Taiwanese USB device maker whom they refuse to name citing the problem but the company insisted that such infection was not possible. The duo is planning to give more details of their research and demonstrate BadUSB at the BlackHat USA 2014.

Adobe Edge Inspect

A great little app for mobile developers, formerly known asAdobe Shadow, which cuts a huge amount of hassle from the design process. Just pair your devices (Android and iOS) with your main machine. Then the sites you browse to are echoed direct to every connected device.

If you've got conditional code or responsive templates then these should work fine. And if you want to tinker with the code, just hit the angle brackets next to your paired device (in Chrome) and away you go.

Adobe Edge Inspect

A great little app for mobile developers, formerly known asAdobe Shadow, which cuts a huge amount of hassle from the design process. Just pair your devices (Android and iOS) with your main machine. Then the sites you browse to are echoed direct to every connected device.

If you've got conditional code or responsive templates then these should work fine. And if you want to tinker with the code, just hit the angle brackets next to your paired device (in Chrome) and away you go.

A Tool To Prevent Malware On Android OS - NCSU Research

In this e-world, everyone wants to secure their electronic devices such as smartphones or tablets and want to remain uninfected by viruses and malware. For this purpose we have mobile security applications to prevent our smartphones from getting infected by viruses and malwares. But these applications are not efficient and make user-experience of the smartphone dull (by consuming more RAM). To tackle this issue, researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new tool named “Practical Root Exploit Containment” to detect and prevent malware in downloaded applications, which tries to root exploit in Android devices.

Root exploits take control of system administration functions of the operating system (Android, in this case). If a hacker successfully root exploits an Android smartphone then, it gives hacker an unrestricted control of user’s smartphone. The PREC tool is developed for the sole purpose of preventing root exploits done by malware. This tool improves the existing technique called 'anomaly detection' which is used to compare the behavior of particular smartphone's application. This technique will check whether the application is behaving properly (as expected) or not. If there is any change in the normal behavior of application, the anomaly detection technique reports the unexpected behavior. With this new tool called 'PREC', the researchers have been able to analyze the problem and check whether the unexpected behavior is malicious or harmless ’false positives’.

PREC targets the code written in C language, which is usually used by hackers to create malware. According to the co-author of this research paper Dr. Will Enck, anomaly detection technique is old and reports lots of false positives. Enck says they are focusing solely on C-code which helps to write this Android root exploits. Other co-author of this research paper Dr. Helen Gu believes, this approach will drive down the number of false positives reported, reduce the disturbances faced by user and make anomaly detection efficient.

Many application vendors upload their product for malicious purposes. Malware programmers have developed techniques that hide malware until the application is installed on the smartphone. Researchers want to take advantage of vendor’s screening efforts to create database of application’s normal behavior, by introducing PREC software into their application’s assessment. The research team also assures that PREC software will not affect the screening process by creating external database for storing application's normal behavior.

Jaguar XE Global Roll Out In Mid 2015, Features At Glance

British car maker Jaguar has officially announced the name of its long awaited compact sports sedan to be Jaguar XE. It will be powered with a new generation of Ingenium engines, which will offer a class-leading performance. XE will also be the first Jaguar to use the advanced aluminium-intensive architecture, which was first exposed on C-X17 crossover concept at the Frankfurt Motor show last year. Jaguar claims XE to be the most advanced, efficient and refined sports sedan in its class. This will be the first aluminium monocoque vehicle in this segment. Designers of this compact size Jaguar XE claim that they have focused mainly on its design, size and exciting look.

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The structure of XE is exceptionally light for engine to be mounted longitudinally and drive the rear on four wheels. About the exteriors it has an aggressively sloping rear glass which is Jaguar sedan design hallmark. It looks more or less like the company's larger four doors. Jeff Curry, Brand Vice President of Jaguar, North America claimed that this all new Jaguar XE will bring Jaguar into the largest segment of luxury car market with a dynamic new entry which will change the status-quo of the luxury car brands.

• The Ingenium Engine:
  
  This new modern Jaguar will be the first Jaguar to come with this new range of engine. Ingenium is a new family of premium, light-weight, low- friction and low emission engine. It is high-output, fuel-efficient 2.0 liter, Four-cylinder engine and comes in both gasoline and diesel versions. These engines are efficient, powerful, capable of emissions of less than 100g/km CO2 and claimed to achieve a top speed of over 186 mph. It is designed for rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive compatibility. It is aimed at offering latest innovations in fuel-efficient technologies without sacrificing its drivability.
  
  

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  Aluminium-intensive architecture:
  
  This scalable aluminium architecture will help Jaguar to achieve best-in-class fuel economy. Its features include lightness, stiffness for unbeatable handling and performance along with refinement and efficiency. Jaguar claims that the new engine and aluminium chassis complement each other perfectly.
  
  

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  Jaguar XE can be viewed as a legitimate small sports car which it desperately needed to compete with segment icons like BMW 3-series lineup, Audi's A4, Mercedes C-class and latest Lexus IS. As Jaguar's sedan is currently limited to highly priced, gorgeous and great XF and XJ models. The launch of this model can be expected to act as a catalyst in boosting its sales. For buyers, it offers a smaller, less-expensive entry point to the brand. Also the launch of this car will finally banish any remaining memory of the Ford Mondeo-based X-type from a few years back. What are your views in this context? We would certainly like to hear from you. Share your views in comment section below.
  
  Source: Jaguar

   

Roku Streaming Stick

• Compact stick design. Plugs discreetly right into the HDMI port. Great for wall-mounted TVs.
• 1,000+ entertainment channels and counting. By far the most movies, TV episodes, sports, news, music, kids’ shows, and free channels of any streaming player.
• Control with included remote. Comes with a simple-to-use remote that the household can share. With RF technology, you can use your remote without pointing it at the TV
• Or control with your smartphone and tablet. Download the free Roku® iOS® or Android™ app to choose what you want to watch on your Roku player via your mobile device. It’s your choice.
• Send to TV from mobile. With apps from Netflix and YouTube, cast videos from your smartphone or tablet straight to your TV.

• Display personal media. Send your videos, photos and music stored locally on your smartphone to your TV screen with the Roku app.
• Find what you want to watch. Roku® Search makes it a snap to find your favorite movies and shows from top channels like Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Amazon Instant Video and VUDU. Even compare pricing.
• Channel shortcut buttons. Jump straight to favorite channels such as Netflix and Amazon Instant Video with the push of a button.
• Stunning HD video quality. Immerse yourself in the action with rich, vibrant video streaming in up to 1080p HD.
• Dual-band wireless N. A robust extended-range wireless connection seamlessly streams video with ease and speed.

source:roku

XMLMATE: Software Uses Genetic Algorithm For Error Detection

Manual testing is a tiring job and when it comes to large software products, it better be not talked of. According to the recent studies, software developers have been found investing a lot of time into the bug discovery and resolution, making it an expensive task. However, engineers have seen the rise of automated testing, the cheaper counterpart, but where do the required test cases come from? This is exactly the point raked up by Andreas Zeller, professor of Software Engineering at Saarland University. But Zeller, with other two computer scientists Nikolas Havrikov and Matthias Hoschele, seems to have developed a solution for generating the test cases and processing them as well.

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The software named XMLMATE works by automatically generating the test cases and using them for testing the given piece of code. As the input given is used to generate initial set of cases, hence it should be structured in a specific way. The XML inputs are parsed into a central structure called tree. Collections of these trees, termed as chromosomes are provided to the genetic algorithm. This algorithm is responsible for the generation of different test cases. The testing of input is modeled on biological evolution, hence, the input that is processed by the maximum units of code survives. Havrikov who implemented XMLMATE admits that finding the errors is a tough task and the real challenge lies in maximum code coverage. according to the developers of the system, the generator mutates, recombines, generates and evolves the input to produce cases.

XMLMATE is developed in java programming language. The inputs are defined in XML and presence of XML schema could be an advantage. However, if the programming input is not XML supported, it can be configured accordingly by using various tools. The software is already on the open source and is being used by many developers. The creators believe that with their framework they can test various spheres ranging from computer networks to car sensors.

Source: AlphaGalileo

Mozilla Launches 'mozjpeg' JPEG Encoder To Reduce Webpage Loads

JPEG has been in the market for quite a long time and it has been showing no signs of disappearing. It is the only lossy compression format which has achieved universal compatibility across all the browsers and software that can display images. That is the reason why Mozilla has announced a new project called mozjpeg, which promises to reduce the file size by up to 10% and aims to compress images more intelligently. The goal of this project is to provide a production-quality JPEG encoder that improves compression rates. However, the company wants to continue compatibility with the majority of deployed decoders.

According to a report, since HTML, CSS, JS files are relatively smaller, Mozilla points out that images make up for the bulk of network traffic for a web page to load. Smaller the file size faster will the web pages load. Moreover, JPEG has been ruling the image compression format across the globe since 1992, so the company wants to reduce the size of these files for optimization and reduce load on the network. Therefore, Mozilla feels that optimization of the compression format is worth trying, even with search on for a better successor.

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This will be challenging for libjpeg-turbo, an existing open-source toolthat is used to create JPEGs. Mozjpeg version 1.0 comes with ‘jpgcrush’ functionality added, that picks the best compression options without sacrificing the image quality. Mozilla has conducted tests shows that the encoder squeezes 10 percent off a sample of 1,500 images on Wikimedia. Further, mozjpeg can also compress PNG file sizes by 2 to 6 percent. Google has also tried to improve the web speed by including a variety of new graphics format like WebP but so far Mozilla does not use WebP. The mozjpeg software is now at version 1.0 but more updates are likely to be added- Trellis quantization being one of them.

FreeKall Offers Free Voice Calling Without Internet, Brings Advertisements In Calls

Engineers from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore have come with a new free voice calling service called 'FreeKall'. Developed by a trio of Yashas Shekar, Vijayakumar Umaluti and Sandesh Eshwarappa, FreeKall service makes it possible for users to make free voice calls without the need to access Internet using data packets on their phones. All this is being offered for no cost, because FreeKall will be incorporating advertisements between your voice calls. So, if you have no problem in listening to some ads in the middle of your conversation, this service is the right thing for you.

Here's how it works - You dial the FreeKall number or give a missed call on it. On doing that, Freekall calls you back on your number. Once you answer the call, you have to enter the number of the person with whom you want to talk. Finally, FreeKall will dial and connect you with that number and then you can start talking for free. The great part is that even if you have a basic phone like the classic Nokia 1100 or a high-end smartphone such as iPhone, FreeKall will work on all devices. When the call is connected, the user hears an ad instead of a ringtone. And at intervals of two minutes, the caller and the called party will have to pause the conversation and hear an ad.



Currently, if you are an unregistered user, you can make a call that lasts three minutes, while if you register, the conversations can last 12 minutes. The folks behind the FreeKall project have promised that after a month there will be no limit to the amount of time a person can FreeKall. We will also have facility to make International calls within a month, once the team obtains legal clearances.

Jarvis Corp - An Indian Startup Developing Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S System From Iron Man

Jarvis Corp is a startup from India founded by Chiragh Dewan from Delhi and Himanshu Vaishnav from Jaipur and they are developing Tony Stark's famous J.A.R.V.I.S. operating system used in Iron Man comics and movies. The duo are calling their product Jarvis, an AI-based life automation system. JARVIS which stand for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System is a highly advanced computer system developed by Tony Stark to manage almost everything, especially matters related to technology, in Tony's life. Replicating the sci-fi system in reality, Dewan and Vaishnav have developed an interactive system that allows the user's machine to learn based on voice recognition and natural language processing technology.

Jarvis can help users in performing routine tasks, provide home entertainment, access internet to handle user's questions, work as a smart media server and also control the appliances and electronic devices in your house. So basically, a do-it-all system. Unlike the conventional way in which OS is designed, Jarvis features a completely different architecture that allows it to adapt itself according to a specific user without making changes to the underlying code. (I bet you recalled the recent movie 'Her' for its personalized operating system.)

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With just a 14-people developer team collaborating virtually via Internet, Jarvis Corp has been able to showcase their product in the following video. The team has been working without little or no funding and though Jarvis project is at its nascent stage of development, it has achieved a lot. It can interact with the user, answer questions, access Facebook, Twitter & emails and control lights using voice command among other things. According to a report on Forbes, the team has Version 0.2 almost ready complete and new video might demonstrate it soon. To see what all has been made possible by the JARVIS system so far, take a look at this video 

Windows Phone 8.1's Cortana App Screenshot Spotted

Microsoft’s Windows phone 8.1 update is becoming the most awaited update for windows phone users and developers. Some features of Windows Phone 8.1 were revealed when WP8.1 emulator was demoed. The feature missing in the previous demo was Cortana, a digital voice assistant brought by Microsoft to compete the present digital voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Android’s Google Now. Screenshot of this voice assistant application is spotted on 'The Verge' and it is replacing the Bing search service on Windows Phone.

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Cortana is a digital voice assistant named after Halo game series. On display, Cortana will take a form of animating circles instead of a female character. This shows that cortana is going to be similar to Apple’s Siri. Another feature of Cortana which matches it with Siri is that you can set your nickname i.e. it will set a name which voice-assistant will use to address you and it can be accessed in the setting menu of Cortana. Due to Artificial Intelligence, Cortana can learn about the user through his/her usage of phone and search queries he/she does on the phone. A rather important and interesting feature of this digital voice assistant is that it stores all the information and data in a Notebook. Notebook helps this assistant to access information like location, reminders, behavior of user, personal and contact information. Remember that cortana will store information and data after device administrator’s confirmation for storing.

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When it comes to the reminders, Cortana has a nice phrase recognition ability. Cortana can read the messages and email on the device and can set reminders or calendar events accordingly. For example if a message contain ”Tomorrow is Adam’s birthday”, Cortana will ask you whether to set a reminder or calendar event for birthday. Cortana will also generate notifications for reminders, calendar events and status of flights too, just like Google Now. This digital voice assistant will run on data services like Bing search, foursquare and some others to get similar contextual powers of Google Now.

Microsoft is using the name Cortana during their testing phase and it is not clear that Microsoft will use the same name in the final build. They will release the Windows Phone 8.1 update in upcoming developer build conference and will provide developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 on the same day.

Source: The Verge

Facebook May Acquire Titan Aerospace For Internet-Beaming Drones

oogle reportedly blew netizens' mind away with its Project Loon, and Facebook is following up close in its pursuit of becoming the 'dial-tone of the Internet'. As per Mark Zuckerberg's long term plan for his social network, that involves bringing free internet to the world, the company is now in acquisition talks with the Titan Aerospace - one of the leading drone manufacturers.

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TechCrunch reported that Facebook being one of the key players in the internet.org initiative, shall employ Titan Aerospace made drones (namely Solara 50 and Solara 60 drone models) to extend internet to sections of world that have little or no internet at all. The report values the deal at $60 million, and even adds that the company shall develop 11,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the social networking giant.

The UAVs developed by Titan Aerospace can fly for five straight years without landing or refueling. This shall be extremely crucial for projects shouldered by Internet.org in the coming future. If Facebook indeed materializes this deal, and if the project kicks off, this shall be a huge win - specially for the developing countries. The report added that Facebook is also somehow revamping its recently acquired WhatsApp so that people may share messages in these parts of the world.

Attesting this long-term vision is Facebook's acquisition of Onavo, a data compressing firm that shall develop technologies wherein Internet shall be accessible to all even with the slowest of speeds.

Motorola Is Next In Line To Launch Smartwatch This Year; Plans Revealed

The smartwatch war is surely going to heat up as Motorola is planning to jump back and take on the likes of Google, Samsung and Apple in the wearables market. Smartwatches and wearables are one of the hottest segments in mobile technology today. With the launch of MotoG and MotoX, Motorola is riding high on success and now it plans to launch a smartwatch later this year.

According to a report in The Verge, the senior vice president of Motorola Rick Osterloh has shared the plans about their smartwatch being customer-centric so that it addresses consumer issues like style and battery life. Osterloh promised that the finished item will be more a like jewellery piece than any ugly tech. As it can be noticed the majority of the smartwatches at the MWC -- the Samsung Gear 2, the Huawei TalkBand, the Sony Smartwatch 2 -- are all high on tech and low on looks. This news was revealed at a panel discussion at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Currently, the wearables market is completely dominated by the Pebble and Samsung’s line of Gear watches with a Google smartwatch, built by LG is expected to be announced next month which will be available in the market later this year. An Apple smartwatch is also round the corner.

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Motorola’s earlier efforts weren’t known for being stylish or having a great battery life. The ill-fated MotoACTV didn’t have a good battery backup. So it looks like the company is taking efforts to overcome these problems. No further details about the product such as probable release date, price was not disclosed but Osterloh did mention that it was an important area for the company. Let us hope that company’s next watch is a marked improvement over company’s last attempt to build a smartwatch. With Moto G and Moto X receiving critical acclaims, expectations are high.

Do you think Motorola can make it three in a row? Share your views in comments.

Source: TheVerge

Gesture Recognition On Smartphones Can Become A Norm With New Technology From Washington University

he time has come to say goodbye to touch screens and sensing technologies. Yes, controlling smartphones via gestures can soon become a reality and we can do away with sensing technologies which consume a lot of battery power. You will be able to mute the song playing on your smartphone in your pocket by flicking your index finger in the air. This kind of gesture control for electronics could soon become an alternative to touchscreens and sensing technologies. The team who developed this gesture technology is led by an Indian-origin researcher with computer scientists from University of Washington. It is a low-cost gesture recognition system that runs without batteries and lets users control the device with hand movements even if it is out of sight.

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Called ‘AllSee’, the prototype uses existing TV signals as a power source and means for detecting a user’s gestures. An assistant professor at University of Washington, Shyam Gollakota claims that this is the first gesture recognition system that can be implemented for less than a dollar and doesn’t require battery. The researchers have built a small sensor that can be placed on a smartphone or a tablet. The sensor uses an ultra-low-power receiver to extract and classify gesture information from wireless transmissions. When the user gestures with his hand, it changes the amplitude of the wireless signals in the air and then the sensors recognize unique amplitude changes created by specific gestures.

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Although, gesture recognition system is already available on some smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy S4 but users have to first manually enable this feature and if left on, it drains out the phone’s battery very fast. On the other hand, AllSee consumes only tens of microwatts of power and can always be left on. The user could gesture at the phone in a pocket or handbag to change the volume or mute the phone without having to touch or see the phone. This technology can further be implemented on other household electronics and make it possible to interact with devices using gestures.

AllSee has already been tested on smartphones and battery-free sensors and the gestures could be identified more than 90 percent of the time. Eight different hand gestures were used from more than two feet away from the device. The response time of the technology was found to be less than 80 microseconds, 1,000 times faster than blinking an eye.

The new technology is set to be showcased at the 'Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation conference' in Seattle between April 2-4, 2014. Can this technology bring a new storm in the tech world? Share your views with us in comments.

Source: Washington University

Google Chrome 34 Beta Gets Hands Free Voice Search Feature

Google has announced the integration of voice-assist feature to its latest Beta version 34. Until now Chrome users had to use Google's Voice Search Hotword extension to enable the same functionality. This new feature is the highlight of the release and packs several other features which include responsive images along with an unprefixed version of Web Audio API. The latest addition of in-built Voice Search for Windows, Mac and Linux will allow users to do voice searches by simply saying "Ok Google". User will have to open a new tab or visit Google.com in chrome, say "Ok Google" and then start speaking the desired search.

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This functionality needs to be enabled. For that, the user will simply have to visit Google.com, click the mic icon at the right of the text input field and finally hit "Ok Google". The Voice functionality isn't limited to performing searches, answering various questions, doing regular searches, measurements and conversions. This feature can be utilized to do other important tasks such as set a timer by saying "Ok Google, Set a timer of 30 minutes" or make a Google Now reminder by saying "Ok Google, remind me to watch movie at 6 pm tonight".

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Google is also introducing 'srcset' to allow developers to display images based on the resolution of the device. This new version of chrome also supports the Web Audio API for processing and synthesizing audio in web apps out of the box. It comes with new feature called "Supervised Users". This feature allows user to add other user to one account and the account holder can add and supervise multiple users on multiple devices.

To use this feature the admin users will have to navigate through 'Chrome menu' located on the toolbar and enter 'settings' page. On this page, under 'users' section, admins will have to click on 'Add new user' followed by 'import an existing supervised user' and finally select the supervised user. This improvement to supervised users is currently supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. However, it will soon be made available on chromebooks.

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This Beta version 34 will be launched in end of March or start of April. This move adopted by Google can be viewed as a big challenge to Siri and other firms working on voice recognition systems. Does anyone already use this feature in chrome using the optionally installed extension? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below.

source:chromblog

Sketch Programming Language Offers 'Auto-Complete' To Your Code

Meet 'Sketch Programming Language' : developed by engineers at MIT that promises to take out the 'tough' part out of writing code; and make life better for the developers. Sketch Programming Language is a brainchild of Prof. Armando Solar-Lezama (MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) who wanted programming languages to be smarter enough to allow the developer to omit computational details. Sketch auto fills in the gaps in the code written by developers, quite intelligently. The language currently is being shaped; and if made more user-friendly; the applications of Sketch would be quite wide-spread.

MIT students have already built multiple projects using Sketch - including auto-grading of programming assignments, a complex system that directly turns hand-drawn diagrams into code and a system that generates SQL queries based on Java code. Lezama and his students have shown how Sketch can be used to built complex systems and handle synthesis tasks. The latest version of Sketch is much more efficient. For example, the latest version could fix the code for auto-grading system in a few milliseconds while its earlier version timed-out or just gave up. 



The team behind Sketch however believes that they'll have to go a long way before the programming language can start benefitting commercial software developers. Lezama and team wants developers to dump C programming language and switch over to Sketch; but they know that there's a lot to cover. Professor Rajeev Alur of University Of Pennsylvania says that Sketch being used for commercial software development is a very ambitious & distant goal. As of now, the programming language can be used in very specialised tasks. Sketch however can be incredibly useful in saving time spent in fine-tuning & optimising the code. 
source:mit

Kaspersky Launches A 'Safe' Windows Phone Browser

Windows Phones might not be popular phones in the market but this fact does give it an advantage. Yes, I know that’s being too optimistic, but due to low market shares Windows Phones are not the targets of malware writers which give users a sense of security. With a distant third place in market share, that lack of exposure does not make it the most popular place to create mass exploitations of security vulnerabilities. So, for the time being the platform can be considered devoid of any malware.

The main reason why malware is not running rampant on Windows Phones is the fact that Windows Phone limits, what users and apps can do to increase security. This is achieved through features like sandboxing. However, operating system cannot keep users from visiting the dark corners of Internet. To tackle this problem, Russian security company Kaspersky has decided to help users who navigate through unsafe websites by launching Safe Browser.

The app is designed to help the users browse through the web safely and protect their personal information against theft. Safe Browser is meant for daily use as well as in corporate environments where administrators can control app’s settings and adjust according it to company’s policy. There have been no details as to why Safe Browser is good choice for Windows Phone users but it might surely have some neat tricks up its sleeve. For instance, the browser can be used to block specific type of websites like the ones that feed nudity or violence. Kaspersky joins the likes of Nokia Express, Maxthon, UC Browser to be among the few third-party browsers available on Windows Phone Store. Kaspersky’s Safe Browser can be downloaded fromWindows Phone Store.

A Wi-Fi Virus That Spreads Like A Contagious Disease: A University Of Liverpool Research

A team of researchers from the University of Liverpool School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science have designed a computer virus that was able to infect and spread across Wi-Fi networks like a contagious disease. The virus titled Chameleon worked in the following manner. First, it detected a list of access points that were inadequately secured. Next it tried to bypass any encryption security and the administrative interface on the access point. After storing the system settings it replaced the original firmware of the access point with the virus loaded firmware. Lastly it reloaded the previously stored system settings of the access point. Once it had taken control of the access point it was able to keep a track on the network traffic passing through it and was able to collect sensitive data like user credentials. The troubling fact with the Chameleon virus is that it never detected by any malware detection software since it never interfered with any data travelling through it. 


While the aforementioned characteristics of Chameleon might seem frightening it’s the next part of the virus that makes it a dangerous threat. Once the Chameleon virus had taken control over the victim’s access point it was then able to seek out other vulnerable access points within the vicinity and was able to attack them without any human input. The virus was clever enough to avoid any heavily secured access points and was able to spot out the weaker ones. The team says that in a densely populated area with lots of Wi-Fi networks the virus spreads like a contagious disease like common cold. They tested this theory by simulating two densely networked urban environments like Belfast and London where the virus could propagate through unsecured networks like the ones you find in coffee shops.
source:crazengineers

WhatsApp to add voice calls after Facebook acquisition

Barcelona:

WhatsApp will add free voice-call services for its 450 million customers later this year, laying down a new challenge to telecom network operators just days after Facebook Inc scooped it up for $19 billion.

The text-based messaging service aims to let users make calls by the second quarter, expanding its appeal to help it hit a billion users, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.

Buying WhatsApp has cemented Facebook's involvement in messaging, which for many people is their earliest experience with the mobile Internet. Adding voice services moves the social network into another core function on a smartphone.

On Monday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg defended the price paid for a messaging service with negligible revenue. He argued that rival services such as South Korea's KakaoTalk and Naver's LINE are already "monetizing" at a rate of $2 to $3 in revenue per user per year, despite being in the early stages of growth.

Media reports put WhatsApp's revenue at about $20 million in 2013.

"I actually think that by itself it's worth more than 19 billion," Zuckerberg told the Mobile World Congress. "Even just independently, I think it's a good bet."

"By being a part of Facebook, it makes it so they can focus for the next five years or so purely on adding more people."

WhatsApp's move into voice calls is unlikely to sit well with telecoms carriers.

WhatsApp and its rivals, like KakaoTalk, China's WeChat, and Viber, have won over telecom operators' customers in recent years by offering a free option to text messaging.

Telecom providers globally generated revenue of about $120 billion from text messaging last year, according to market researcher Ovum.

Adding free calls threatens another telecom revenue source, which has been declining anyway as carriers' tweak tariffs to focus on mobile data instead of calls.