OS X Lion Flaw! (and wonderful article re: Sound Gesture Technology)

Security Alert!  Please be aware that there is a SERIOUS security flaw in the Apple OS X Lion OS that allows hackers access to your passwords, without any *** value being displayed.  ...Just something for you all to keep in mind until the hole is patched.  See article here.  Also, here's an interesting article [source: Mashable] regarding the future of #soundgestures - 

When you learned about the Doppler Effect in high school physics class—the wave frequency shift that occurs when the source of the wave is moving, easily illustrated by a passing ambulance—you probably didn’t envision it helping control your computer one day.

But that’s exactly what a group of researchers are doing at Microsoft Research, the software giant’s Redmond, Washington-based lab. Gesture control is becoming increasingly common and is even built into some TVs. While other motion-sensing technologies such as Microsoft’s own Kinect device use cameras to sense and interpret movement and gestures, SoundWave does this using only sound—thanks to the Doppler Effect, some clever software, and the built-in speakers and microphone on a laptop.

Desney Tan, a Microsoft Research principal researcher and member of the SoundWave team, says the technology can already be used to sense a number of simple gestures, and with smart phones and laptops starting to include multiple speakers and microphones, the technology could become even more sensitive. SoundWave—a collaboration between Microsoft Research and the University of Washington—will be presented this week in a paper at the 2012 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing in Austin, Texas.

The idea for SoundWave emerged last summer, when Desney and others were working on a project involving using ultrasonic transducers to create haptic effects, and one researcher noticed a sound wave changing in a surprising way as he moved his body around. The transducers were emitting an ultrasonic sound wave that was bouncing off researchers’ bodies, and their movements changed the tone of the sound that was picked up, and the sound wave they viewed on the back end.

The researchers quickly determined that this could be useful for gesture sensing. And since many devices already have microphones and speakers embedded, they experimented to see if they could use those existing sensors to detect movements. Tan says standard computer speakers and microphones can operate in the ultrasonic band—beyond what humans can hear—which means all SoundWave has to do to make its technology work on your laptop or smart phone is load it up with SoundWave software.

Chris Harrison, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University who studies sensing for user interfaces, calls SoundWave’s ability to operate with existing hardware and a software update “a huge win.”

“I think it has some interesting potential,” he says.

The speakers on a computer equipped with SoundWave software emit a constant ultrasonic tone of between 20 and 22 kilohertz. If nothing in the immediate environment is moving, the tone the computer’s microphone hears should also be constant. But if something is moving toward the computer, that tone will shift to a higher frequency. If it’s moving away, the tone will shift to a lower frequency.

This happens in predictable patterns, Tan says, so the frequencies can be analyzed to determine how big the moving object is, how fast it’s moving, and the direction it’s going. Based on all that, SoundWave can infer gestures.

The software’s accuracy hovers in the 90 percent range, Tan says, and there isn’t a noticeable delay between when a user makes a gesture and the computer’s response. And SoundWave can operate while you’re using the speakers for other things, too.

So far, the SoundWave team has come up with a range of movements that its software can understand, including swiping your hand up or down, moving it toward or away from your body, flexing your limbs, or moving your entire body closer to or farther away from the computer. With these gestures, researchers are able to scroll through pages on a computer screen and control simple Web navigation. Sensing when a user approaches a computer or walks away from it could be used to automatically wake it up or put it to sleep, Tan says.

Harrison thinks that having a limited number of gestures is fine, especially since users will have to memorize them. The SoundWave team has also used its technology to control a game of Tetris, which, aside from being fun, provided a good test of the system’s accuracy and speed.

Tan envisions SoundWave working alongside other gesture-sensing technologies, saying that while it doesn’t face the lighting issues that vision-based technologies do, it’s not as good at sensing small gestures like a pinch of the fingers. “Ideally there are lots of sensors around the world, and the user doesn’t know or care what the sensors are, they’re just interacting with their tasks,” he says.

Security: Where are we headed in 2012?

2011 had been pretty tough for Android and iOS in terms of security. Both the platforms attracted plenty of attention, well, the wrong type of attention as they had to endure malware and virus attacks. Though, both the operating systems managed to escape relatively unscathed but it did raise the questions about their security. However, as a nod of approval, both the operating systems have been declared safer that Microsoft’s Windows.

In a report issued by Symantec, iOS has been crowned as the most secure operating system. The main factor behind the stellar performance is thatApple screens its apps for security threats, which leads to lesser incidents of security malfunctioning.

Android, on the other hand, has a comparatively lax screening process for its apps and its effects considerably reduce the robustness of the OS. Another problem faced by Android is the device fragmentation, which is a natural byproduct of the open nature of the operating system. This also means that a large number of devices are not running the updated version of the operating system and hence, are not fully protected against threats.

Recent attacks on Android and iOS have also raised question whether these operating systems are inherently more secure or do they just lack the critical user base to make them attractive enough target for hackers. It may well be the combination of both the factors. But as the report indicates, Apple does retain proper control over its platform, thereby making it much more secure than Windows. Microsoft can probably learn a lesson or two from Apple.

How to Find Yourself Online: "Be one with the ball..."

Matthew Rogers — Sometimes you just have to know what people are saying about you on the internet. It may not be vain for you to want to know these things, but it can be pretty difficult to satisfy that curiosity.

The problem isn't so much a lack of tools, since there's no shortage of search engines, but more an abundance of people who have the same exact name that you have. Sorting through the noise takes a little bit more effort than just entering your name in Google and hitting the Search button. These tips should help you find yourself on the internet, and what people are saying about you.

At this point, it basically comes down to two major search veins that need to be tapped (it'd be three if Facebook ever opened up public posts). There are normal web sites, and there are tweets.

Finding Yourself on Web Sites

First and foremost, there are general pages—which basically include blogs, static web sites, or maybe even local news outlets. On the internet, the odds are stacked against you finding yourself in this big mess if you don't have a somewhat unique name. Famous people throw the curve off even worse.

As an example, my personal arch nemesis in ego searching is a guy with my name who happened to be on American Idol a few years ago. For other people, it could be a local news anchor across the country, or maybe an athlete on a big team. The problem's the same any way you cut it—you just have to narrow the search so that you come out on top.

Google is your friend. Start using the site: search in Google. It allows you to search for anything you want, but to limit that search to a specific web site. So, if your name is Jane Doe, and you want to know if anybody's mentioned your name in Lifehacker's comment threads, you'd type Jane Doe site:lifehacker.com into Google and hit Search. If you want to really make sure your name doesn't get split up, try to make a habit of putting it in quotes to force an exact match ("Jane Doe").

Then there's combining the site: search with other search operators to narrow your search even deeper. Let's say Jane Doe wanted to see if anyone on Blogger mentioned her recent performance at a local play, MacBeth on Ice. She could try searching for something like "Jane Doe" site:blogspot.com macbeth OR "bad skater"—this is the same as using the advanced search to look for the exact phrase "Jane Doe," on any Blogger blog, with either the word "Macbeth" or the phrase "bad skater" mentioned somewhere in the text. You can add as many specifics as you like.

Now, you might be asking yourself "well, why can't I just use the site: search to find people talking about me on Twitter?" The problem is, if you try doing this with site:twitter.com, you'll get an enormous list of search results for everybody with a Twitter account that has the name you entered in the search field. It's possible to start getting actual tweets if you go a few dozen pages into the search results, but it's just not effective. Instead, use Twitter's own search engine.

Sifting through Twitter's Tweets

Twitter's got its own built-in search tool that sits right on the front page, and can be found directly at Search.Twitter.com. From there, hit the link for Advanced Search, and you'll find loads of options for finding specific things people have tweeted recently. So, using Jane Doe again, she'd want to put her name in the field for "This exact phrase."

There are other fields there, and while "advanced search" fields aren't new in a search engine, they're more important in Twitter. There's one, specifically, that uses the geo-tagging feature—so you can narrow down your search to within just a one-mile radius of your home (or office). It's also got options to narrow the search to tweets to and from specific users, or to only include tweets that include a link (possibly useful for checking to see if people are referencing your blog).

The thing to remember in using Twitter's search is that plenty of people have geo-tagging disabled, so don't plan on relying on it. Much like the example with Blogger from earlier, you'd probably be better off if you tried to use words from an event or place. Because conversations on Twitter tend to be casual, you should also keep nicknames and short names in mind, too. If your name is Matthew, like me, you should definitely include Matt, Mat, and Mathew in your searches, because people tend to apply their own spelling to names. Also include your twitter account name without the @ symbol—people will often refer to other users without it just so they don't automatically see the tweet.

Teach Our Kids Now About Cyber-Security

The Epsilon security breach has really got me thinking today about my friends and family, so this post is for you: Please grasp that our generation is the first generation that will have to deal with cyber-crime on a constant basis. *EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN* as young as possible about the danger in creating a password that is NOT your last name, your dog's name, your birthday, etc. There are certain common passwords that our brains will want to revert to; a good hacker begins the 'brute force' hack with these combinations... And for heaven's sake people, even though the copies of the fraudulent emails looked authentic due to their formatting, ONE NEVER, EVER would legitimately be asked for 'information to be updated' via E-mail! In conclusion, if you have a doubt about an email inquiring about personal matters, call up the company the alleged e-mail originated from and ask a human being if the e-mail is legitimate. 10/10 times it will be fraudulent. The percentage of victims affected by phishing scams is at an all-time high, and the consequences of not protecting and educating yourself now can potentially alter your life forever. [at the very least inconvenience you for a decade or better... and who wants that?] Fall victime to a phishing scam and your credit score could not be as high as it should be, all the way to your loss of Social Security! Is anybody else worried about this? If I was a full-time hacker, I'd focus my energy on breaking the children's passwords to get to the parents'. Food for thought, new Moms and Dads!

Class Dismissed.