Google Tracks Everything You Do. Here's How To Delete It

Google Knows A Lot About Users

In the present scenario, our lives have become more assimilated online than ever before. We tend to interact with families and friends online through social media, emails etc. We also tend to conduct business through difficult, data-driven channels and inventions due to which the culture that we encounter online seems to be essentially connected to what we seem to encounter in real life.

Google being the most popular search engine platform has most of the users utilising its services. It is a known fact that Google tends to know a lot about the user. A major section of the search engine industry model depends on advertising and in order to be successful it requires to know who you are.

Google does not makes an issue regarding its in-depth knowledge of its users however at the same time it does not even tend to keep it undisclosed. Users could get to know how to find out what Google seems to know and take control of your data.Perhaps the least surprising is that Google tends to have all of the search history stored up.

You could follow these guidelines:

If the user prefers not have a list of the search queries stored up, he could go to the history page of Google, click Menu which are the three vertical dots and then hit Advanced - > All Time -> Delete.
If the user desires to stop Google tracking your searches for good, go to the activity controls page and toggle tracking off.

Voice search-saving habits of Google have several times been reported. Those who tend to use voice search or the voice-activated assistant of Google their searches have been stored by Google Now so that more relevant ads are served and the search features are steadily enhanced, the same manner one expects from regular Google search.

Many are not aware that these searches have been actually recorded which means that users are able to listen back to precisely what they have explored by listening to what they said and how they have said it.


If the user has utilised any of the opt-in voice features of Google for yourself, then go to the Voice & Audio Activity page of Google to review your voice searches and listen back the audio. A warning of caution - this could be fascinating, funny or plain cringe-worthy.In order to erase this database of embarrassing searches, you could opt for one or more of the recordings from the check box near them and click `delete’ towards the top of the screen. Google also tends to keep a tab on your location besides recording your searches and your voice.

The location history or timeline page of Google tends to serve up a Google Map enabling you to choose specific dates as well as time and locate where you were. Its precision is based on whether the user were signed in their Google account and carrying a phone or tablet at that point of time. When a user tends to visit the timeline page they can go to setting component towards the bottom right-hand area of the screen and choose delete all from there. Besides this there is also another option to pause location history by going to the big button towards the bottom left area of the screen.However this one seems a bit trickier to get rid completely since to stop it occurring in future, one would need to choose out of both location tracking and location reporting with your device, regardless of running Android or iOS.

A more interesting area of checking out what Google tends to precisely know about the user is to go over its ad setting page where. If signed in Google account, one would see a profile which Google has built for you depending on your search history, YouTube history and interests. For instance, it could know that one is a female, aged 18-24 and interested in banking, consumer electronics, mobile phones, shooter games, rap and much more.

From this page there is a possibility to turn ad personalisation on or off. If the user tends to opt out of personalisation, the adverts which seem to follow you around the web – trainers, after one has searched for them once, will stop showing up. The ad network of Google operates on more than two million websites all across the world and restraining its knowledge regarding the user would make everything less disturbing

If, the user wishes to completely eliminate himself from the internet, then Swedish website Deseat.metends to utilise your Google account for assistance. Utilising OAuth protocol of Google enables third-party users to access your other accounts without knowing your password details, Deseat.me tends to bring up all your online as well as social media accounts, and permits the user to delete his accounts from them.

In order to delete it you could visit Deseat.me and edit your Gmail address. This will bring up all the online accounts that have been linked to that particular email address and enable the user to get rid of the same.

How Self Driving Cars will Get Your Hands Back on the Wheel

Prevailing Navigation System in Cars

Self-driving cars will be driving themselves very soon on long expanses on the highway and it is left to be seen when the car seems to need you to take the wheel. In Germany, at a Bosch-sponsored event, the automotive equipment supplier had shown a solution which tends to work in the same way to the prevailing navigation systems in cars.

The function had been examined by a passenger who took the passenger seat of a heavily modified Tesla Model S while a Bosch test pilot had taken the driver seat for a demonstration on the test track of the company near Frankfurt, Germany.

As the car reached a section of road where it was permitted for self-driving cars, the centre screen calculated the distance and once in the zone area, the driver pushed two buttons on the steering then and let the car manipulate the driving.

As the car neared the end of the approved self-driving zone, the screen started to calculate the distance to when the driver required to take back control portraying and sounding alerts as they got nearer. The information seemed to be the same as the navigation system showing the distance to the next turn, which most of the drivers would find accustomed.

 

Level 3 Self-Driving

 
This competence signified the next step in driver support to what engineers consider Level 3 self-driving, where humans tend to share control with the car. This is a natural evolution of self-driving cars system from the prevailing adaptive cruise control systems that could regulate the speed of the car in relation to the traffic ahead.

Together with the adaptive cruise control cars progressively is likely to come with lane keeping systems which tends to use cameras in recognizing lane line and steering the car in order to avert it from travelling into another lane. In order to permit Level 3 self-driving cars would have to maintain high definition maps of precise roads.

Technology partners together with automakers could develop maps and also wirelessly modernize them to prevailing cars. When the car tends to driver on a mapped road, it has the potential of taking over the driving and the computer of the car is said to constantly compare what its sensors view with its stored map. Super Cruise technology had been recently demonstrated by Cadillac utilising this methodology that would be made available in the next few years.
 

Easier Driving Environments – Highways/Freeways

 
However, when this technology tends to be made available, high definition maps will not be accessible for every road. Similarly, the automakers could also opt for easier driving environments like the highways as well as freeways for the purpose of self-driving cars instead of suburban or city streets.

One can visualize driving down I-5 on the west coast, I-95 down the east coast or I-80 through the country and after merging on the freeway, your car tells you it can take over and so you permit it to drive for some hundred miles to your exit and then take the wheel for the off-ramp.

There could be issues when the section of high definition mapped road may run out and the driver does not seem to take charge. A solution was shown by Bosch for this type of a scenario. When the driver had not taken the wheel after several audio as well as visual warnings, the car seemed to pull over to the side of the road safely.

In the near future, drivers may be awaken from their nap to find that their self-driving cars are parked in a selected pull-over zone, relaxed though several miles down the road.

Alphabet Wants to Store Renewable Energy Using Salt in an Attempt to Save Power

Resources for Storing Renewable Energy – Salt/Antifreeze

 
Google’s parent company has turned to two unexpected resources of salt and antifreeze in order to endeavour in storing renewable energy. Alphabet which is owned by Google has been working on a project known as `Malta’ in storing renewable energy which would else be wasted.

 If the same tends to be effective, the system would be placed almost everywhere thereby saving millions of megawatts of energy which tend to be present lost all over the world annually. According to a report in Bloomberg, the mysterious X division of Alphabet has been operating on the `moonshot’ project Malta.

 The system has the capabilities of lasting longer than lithium-ion batteries and can compete with the other clean energy storage systems according to X executives and researchers. Obi Felton, director at X while speaking to Bloomberg had mentioned that if the moonshot factory gives up on a big important issue like climate change, then probably it would never get resolved.

He added that if they do begin resolving the issue there would be trillions and trillions of dollars in market opportunity. According to Ms Felton, the team of 10 researchers are now on the lookout for partners, in order to build and operate a prototype to the grid, though Malta has not yet been an official X project.
 

Insufficient Means of Storing Energy

 
Huge amount of energy seems to get wasted every year since there is insufficient means of storing the same. For instance, California had wasted 300,000 megawats of energy in the first half of this year that had been produced by solar panels and wind farms, while Chine threw out over 17% of its produced energy as per Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The Malta system seems like a small power plant having four tanks that has been linked to a heat pump. X states that the system tends to come in several sizes ranging from the same size as a garage to a full-scale traditional power plant based on requirements. Julian Green, the product manager for Malta describing the system to Bloomberg had stated `to consider it at a very simple level as a fridge and a jet’.

Two of the cylindrical tanks are said to be filled with salt while the second two seemed to be filled with antifreeze. The energy is said to be taken in the system by way of electricity which is thereafter revolved into separate streams of hot and cold air.
 

Potential of Storing Energy for Days

 
The hot air is said to heat up the salt and the cold air tends to cool the antifreeze. In order to re-generate the energy, the procedure is inverted in order the hot and cold air rush towards each other thereby developing powerful winds which spin a turbine and produce the energy that is utilised.

The system has the potential of storing the energy for days based on the amount of insulation. Mr Green had commented that the thermodynamic physics seem to be quite popular to all who had studied adequately at college level.

The project has now the support of Robert Laughlin, a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose research is said to be the foundation for the system. Laughlin had commented that `a blessing came out of the sky. X came in and took a giant bite out of this problem’. It is not known when the system would be ready for set-up.

What a Good Editing Photo Program Should Always Have

A good photo software program takes a good picture and makes it better. You don’t think a good photographer gets it perfect without using some editing program, do you? Of course, not – they do take great pictures and use a software program and make the photo even better.

Editing functions 

A good editing program does not have to be hard to use but there are some options that they need to have.

Set of editing tools 

Photo editing programs need to have a good set of editing tools. These are used when the photo is good but by just using a few editing tools makes them almost perfect. What type of editing can you use – there are many?

Functions 

You should be able to:

• Crop 
• Exposure 
• Sharpen 
• Rotate 
• Resize 
• Cropping a photo

To crop a photo is to put a fresh spin on your photos. With cropping you can eliminate what is not needed and watch your photo emerge almost perfect. Quickly trimming your photo can do wonders for picture, so cropping is often used.

Cropping is one of the Basic Editing tools. A grid will usually appear over your image. Then you drag the corner handles until you have your desired shape and size. Then you simply click apply and save the photo. Now your picture looks fabulous.

Exposure 

When a photo comes out murky (or a step too light or too dark) you can fix this with the exposure function. Exposure is usually the fix for this problem. Most programs will have simple sliders and by moving them back and forth you can quickly resolve specific exposure issues.

Sharpen 

Clarity might be slightly off and it will make your photo just be a little out of focus. This is when you can use your sharpening tool to make your photos crystal clear. Or perhaps you are trying to set an ambiance that is a little out of focus; you just use this same tool to make the photo have a slight blur.

Rotate 

It looked fine when you were taking the picture but for some reason it now looks upside-down when it is being edited. The rotate tool is there to help to rotate the pictures until you have just what you wanted.

Resize 

This resizing tool will spare you headaches by resizing tools – it can be bigger or smaller, whatever you want. A good program will support common social media, website and print sizes.

Transformative Photo Effects and Filters 

No matter what you are into, a good editing program should be able to make your photo effect match a theme for every image. You can also blend many different effects as possible to give you that perfect photo that will be truly one-of-a-kind.

Black and White 

This is a filter that can make your photo have a touch of class in monochrome – or black and white. Black and white effects can make your photo be silver-screen-worthy in no time.

These are just a few of the many effects that a good photo editing software program will have. Most of them will be included when the Window version of Luminar is finished. Currently Macphun is working on this Window version and has posted the Beta version that you might want to try out.

Google Docs: Big Update Happened with More Editing and Search Tool

Google set to bring a new vital update for the popular Google Docs

For a really long time people were dependent on the Microsoft Office programs to work and share their finding globally. But Google brought a commendable challenge to it through its suite of online office applications and among it the most popular and widely used application is Google Docs. Just a few days ago Google has announced that it will be a big update to the Google Docs which will open a whole new world of opportunities for the users.

This updates has helped in upgrading the online word processing application to the next level. Now more number of users will be able to work, collaborate and edit the documents at the same time. Google understands that modern requirements of the Worksheet processing program should be able to provide a unified control over the collaboration to enhance the productivity of larger teams. This new update will allow users to work on big projects with ease and simply by actively monitoring varied edits or inputs from large number of users. Enhancing the ability of the users in collaborating with large teams is essential as more and more users are working remotely from varied but carefully monitoring the progress or edits made on a single file has always been troublesome. Google Docs will be able to do offers respite to the users in dealing wide amount of edits.

 

What’s new in Google Docs?

This major update has focused on enhancing the editing and collaborative efforts of the users. Now users will be able to see all the team edits at a single place which is known as version history. On one hand users get to every edit made in the document with ‘version history’ view and another option allows them to check every clean version of the document without the presence of the other user’s edits and comments. This is a very thoughtful update as it helps in going back to the older version or understanding which person has made the unwanted edit when a large team collaborates on a single project online.

Another great feature included in this update is the ability to accept or reject all the edits in a single go. This is designed to ensure that one doesn’t spend their time in carefully understanding and going through all the edits made by all the persons appointed on a single project.

 

Challenging the ‘Word’, beating its own game

The latest update will bring almost similar functionalities and features to the Google Docs which is seen on the Microsoft’s Word. In recent time Google has been actively promoting its G Suite as the best reliable work collaboration service which comes loaded with the Docs- a word processing program and Slides – a spreadsheet program. Another awesome feature of the G suite is that it allows users to search for files containing specific words. With the latest update users will be able to make use of the built in explore tab for scanning the files without even leaving any of the program namely Docs and Slides.

Build Your Own Streaming Dash Cam - Do It Yourself

We have always been passionate about home automation and everything related to computers in the home. Most of us love the weather stations that display a lot of information, high-tech clocks that make a calendar and that sounds when you receive a mail, digital photo frames, etc ... Indeed, we find that what exists today is either far too limited or very limited and far too expensive.

Build a Dash Cam with a Raspberry Pi, Two Cameras and GPS

Car video cameras (dash cams) became very popular, where vehicular crash videos outpaced witness testimony in court. Surveillance cameras in cars have become ubiquitous among the driver's daily tools. Increased distractions and shorter care intervals have subsequently led to dangerous traffic. The use of a camera like this means irrefutable proof of guilt in case of being involved in an accident.

We have seen a raspberry Pi used as a dash camera before, but about in Pro techie's they took the same concept, but also have a live-streaming capability provided you can set a hot spot on your smartphone.

Dash cameras are an easy way to record everything you see on your windshield, but they vary …

The dash cameras are a cool, easy way to record everything you see on your windshield, but they vary greatly in price and quality. If you really want to personalize your own, you can make one with a raspberry Pi.

As expected, this configuration has some bells and whistles. It has two cameras, one front and one rear. It also has GPS packaged in it so the camera always knows where it is recording. There is also a button to turn it off and restart it when you need it along with status LED so you know what to do. Of course, most of us probably do not need all this, but it's a fun project, though.

To begin with, you can make use of an old USB camera.
You can combine it with your old USB version and possibly add a GPS.

Hardware - Raspberry Pi model B
OS - Arch Linux
Front camera - Pi camera
Rear USB camera – Any kind of old one
GPS - Adafruit Ultimate GPS Breakout
LEDs - 3 x 3mm
Pi camera mount - From pimoroni
SD card adaptor - pIO microSD card adapter
SD card - Samsung 32Gb micro SD PRO Card Class 10 UHS-I

The camera uses Node.js to set everything up, then takes a picture every few seconds and saves it online using the hot spot on your smartphone. In this way, the flow is available online at any time. To do this, you will need a Raspberry Pi and a camera module next to some form of network access. Beyond that, it is a fairly simple configuration process for the camera itself. When you're done with that, you'll make a viewer so you can see all those images in streaming. This project uses the PubNub application platform, but you can do this project using a free account.

Atomic Movies May Help Explain Why Perovskite Solar Cells Are More Efficient

Perovskites – Cheap/Easy/Flexible 

Perovskites has taken the solar cell industry by storm in recent years. They tend to be cheap, easy in producing as well as flexible in their applications.

Moreover their efficiency in converting light into electricity has developed quicker than that of any other material from under 4% in 2009 to over 20% in 2017, where some of the experts are of the belief that Perovskites Solar Cells could ultimately outperform the most common solar cell material, silicon. However, irrespective of their reputation, researchers are not aware why perovskites solar cells tend to be so efficient.

Research had been carried out with powerful `electron camera’ at the Department of energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory which has now revealed that light whirls atoms around in perovskites, potentially explaining the high efficiency of these next –generation solar cell materials as well as provides clues in making improved ones.

 Aaron Lindenberg from Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences – SIMES and the Stanford PULSE Institute for ultrafast science that had jointly operated by Stanford University and SLAC, had stated that they have taken a step towards resolving the mystery.

He further added that they had recorded movies which tend to show that certain atoms in a perovskite seem to respond to light within trillionths of a second in a very unusual manner.

 

Flexibility Based on Atomic Structure of Material

 
This could facilitate the transport of electric charges through the material and enhance its efficiency. The study had been published recently in Science Advances. When light is said to shine on perovskites solar cell material, its energy tends to displace some of the negative charged electrons of the material.

This is inclined to leave behind `electron holes’ having positive charge where the electrons had initially been located. Electrons and holes tend to migrate in opposite sides of the material thereby developing a voltage which could be utilised to power electrical devices. The efficiency of perovskites solar cell seems to depend on how freely electrons as well as holes tend to move in the material.

In turn, their flexibility is based on the atomic structure of the material. In silicon solar cells for instance, silicon atoms is said to line up in an orderly manner within crystals as well as the smallest structural defects tend to reduce the ability of the material to harvest light efficiently.

As a consequence, silicon crystals need to be grown in costly multistep process under very clean conditions while perovskites are said to be produced with the combination of chemicals in a solvent that tends to evaporate to leave an extremely thin film of perovskite material according to the study’s lead author from SIMES at SLAC, Xiaoxi Wu.

 

Lower Cost/Lightweight

 
He further added that simpler processing would mean lower costs and unlike silicon solar cells, perovskite thin films seems to be lightweight as well as flexible and can be applied with ease to virtually any surface. With regards to perovskites what is it that permits some of them to harvest light in an efficient manner?

Scientists are of the opinion that one of the keys is how their atoms tend to move in reaction to light. In order to get a better understanding, Wu together with his colleagues researched on these motions in a prototype material made of iodine, lead together with an organic molecule known as methylammonium.

 The iodine atoms tend to be arranged in octohedra, eight-sided structures which seems like two pyramids that is joined towards the base. The lead atom tends to sit inside the octohedra and the methylammonium molecule is between octohedra.

The architecture seems common to several of the perovskites investigated for perovskites solar cell applications. The earlier research could have explored mostly the role of the mehylammonium ions together with their motions in transporting electric charge through the material.
 

Light Cause of Huge Deformation in Network

 
Wu had stated that they had found that light is the cause of huge deformations in the network of lead and iodine atoms which tend to be crucial for the efficiency of perovskites. At the Accelerator Structure Test Area – ASTA of SLAC, the researchers had initially hit a perovskite film which was less than two millionths of an inch thick having a 40-femtosecond laser pulse.

One femtosecond is said to be a millionth of a billionth of a second and in order to determine the atomic response, they directed a 300-femtosecond pulse of highly energetic electrons via the material and noticed how the electrons had been deflected in the film. This system known as ultrafast electron diffraction – UED enabled them to reconstruct the atomic structure. The speedy improvement of perovskite solar cells has enhanced them in the photovoltaics world as well as of high interest to the academic community.

While the operational system seems to be comparatively new, there are possibilities of additional research in the basic physics and chemistry regarding perovksites. Moreover, from observations of past two years, the engineering development of perovskite formulation together with the fabrication sequences has given rise to significant increases in power conversion efficiency.

Energy Storage Solution Combines Polymers and Nanosheets

Fresh Lightweight Composite Material – Energy Storage 

 

According to a team of Penn State scientists a fresh lightweight composite material for the purpose of energy storage in flexible electronics, electric vehicles and aerospace application has experimentally revealed energy storage at operating temperatures beyond present commercial polymers.

The said polymer-based ultrathin energy storage material can be produced utilising techniques which are already being used in industry. Professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State, Qing Wang had stated that this is part of a series of work which had been done in the lab on high temperature dielectrics for use in capacitors.

 Prior to this work they had developed a composite of boron nitride nanosheets and dielectric polymers, though had realized that there had been significant issues with scaling that energy storage material up economically’. The defining challenge for several of the new, two-dimensional energy storage materials that are being established in academic labs is scalability or making advanced materials in commercially significant quantities for devices.

Wang has mentioned that `from a soft material perspective, 2D materials are fascinating though how to mass produce them is a question. Moreover, being able to combine them with polymeric materials is a key feature for future flexible electronics applications and electronic devices’.

Functional Dielectric Device-

 

In order to resolve this issue, his lab collaborated with a group at Penn State operating in two-dimensional crystals. Nasim Alem, assistant professor of materials science and engineering as well as a faculty member in Penn State’s Centre for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials had stated that the work had been conceived in conversations between his graduate students, Amin Azizi together with graduate student of Dr Wang, Matthew Gadinski. He further informed that this was the first strong experiment wherein a soft polymeric material together with a hard 2D crystalline material had come together in order to develop a functional dielectric device.

Azizi who presently is a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley and Gadinski, a senior engineer at DOW Chemical had generated a technique utilising chemical vapour deposition in order to make multilayer, hexagonal boron-nitride nanocrystal films to transfer the films to both areas of a polyetherimide (PEI) film.

Thereafter they bonded the films together by utilising force on the three-layer sandwich structure. In the outcome which was surprising to the researchers, pressure itself without the need of any chemical bonding had been adequate in making a free-standing film essentially strong to potentially be manufactured in a high-throughput roll-to-roll process.

 

Hexagonal Boron Nitride – Wide Band Gap Material

 

In a recent issue of the journal Advanced Materials in a paper titled `High-performance Polymers Sandwiched with Chemical Vapour Deposited Hexagonal Boron Nitrides as Scalable High-Temperature Dielectric Materials’, the results had been reported. Hexagonal boron nitride is said to be a wide band gap material having high mechanical strength.

 Its wide band gap tends to make it a worthy insulator, protecting the PEI film from dielectric breakdown at high temperatures, the cause for failure in the other polymer capacitors. Above 176 degrees Fahrenheit, at operating temperatures, the prevailing best commercial polymers begins to lose its efficiency though hexagonal-boron-nitride-coated PEI tends to function at high efficiency at above 392 degrees Fahrenheit.

The coated PEI seems to be stable for over 55,000 charge-discharge cycles in testing even at high temperature. Wang has mentioned that `theoretically all these high performance polymers which seem to be so commercially valuable could be coated with boron nanosheets in order to block charge injection. He further added that he is of the opinion that this would make this technology feasible for forth-coming commercialization.

 

Supported – U.S. Office/National Science Foundation 

Alem has also commented that there are several devices that are made with 2D crystals at the laboratory scale; however the defects tend to make them an issue for manufacturing. With the help of huge band-gap material such as boron nitride, it tends to do a good work in spite of the fact that small microstructural features could not be perfect.

 The first-principles calculations resolute that the electron barrier recognized at the interface of the PEI/hexagonal boron-nitride structure as well as the metal electrodes practical to the structure for the purpose of delivering current was said to be significantly higher than typical metal electrode-dielectric polymers contacts, thus making energy storage materials more complex for charges from the electrode to get injected into the film.

This task had been done by the theoretical research group of Long-Qing Chen, Professor of Materials, Science and Engineering, professor of engineering science and mechanics as well as mathematics – Penn State, Donald W. Hamer. Several others contributing to this work comprise of post-doctoral scholar Qi Li as well as graduate student Feihua Liu in the lab of Wang, undergraduate Mohammed Abu AlSaud in the lab of Alem, senior scientist Jianjun, Wang, post-doctoral scholar Yi Wang together with graduate student Bo Wang who were all from the Chen group at that point of time. This work had also been supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research as well as the National Science Foundation.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Active Leak Shows Lot of Compromises

New Leak: Samsung Galaxy S8, shows a lot of compromises

The next Samsung top model Galaxy S8 will come in two versions, but this does not affect the edge of the screen. After some leaks in the past days and weeks, the two S8 variants comes together.

At the Mobile World Congress last week, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the large version Galaxy S8 +, yet the next flagship of the Koreans is the theme of the hour. If you are interested in the MWC, please contact us.

Fingerprint sensor of the Galaxy S8

The goal is to integrate the fingerprint into the display. Samsung's decision to relocate the fingerprint sensor to the back of the device with its upcoming smartphone Galaxy S8 has not caused much joy for a number of users. The solution, which is also preferred by the company, but technically did not manage.

"Samsung has put a lot of resources into the technology presented by Fingerprint specialist Synaptics last year, but the results were frustrating," South Korean economic magazine The investor cited to the informed source. The result is the displacement of the sensor on the backside next to the camera.

5.7 and 6.2 inches

Now you can still sleep your curiosity in terms of the sizes of the two S8 models, because on the side SlashLeaks (via The Verge) a picture has appeared, which shows the two smartphones side by side. The smaller is, of course, the conventional Galaxy S8, which brings a 5.7-inch screen, next to the 6.2-inch version can be seen.

The data on the two screens are unconfirmed, but it is apparent that customers will actually get a lot of display for their money. Because 5.7 inches is diagonal, which was previously reserved for the Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung Galaxy S8

Source of the current Leaks is a manufacturer of screen protectors. Technical data, the current Leak has not been tested yet.

Samsung will offer a Snapdragon 835 or an Exynos 9 Series 8895, depending on the market, as a chipset. In addition, four gigabytes of RAM and a QHD display with an (unusual) aspect ratio of 18.5: 9.
Chance for Apple

Synaptics had officially launched its on-screen technology last December. This should not have been too late. But the process suggests that the supplier leaned too far out of the window and the technology could not meet the quality requirements of Samsung.

This is, of course, the chance for Apple to grab. The competitor is also in charge of the device. Until the presentation of the next Apple smartphones goes so a few months into the country, which can be of course decisive, in order to get quality necessary for a market maturity of the technology.

Automatic Toothbrush That Takes Just 10 Seconds To Clean Your Entire Mouth

First Fully Automatic Toothbrush

An unusual automatic toothbrush which could help the user in the early hours of the morning in cleaning their teeth and remove plaque in only 10 seconds will be coming up shortly. It is said to the first fully automatic toothbrush in the world. Its patent pending device which brushes all the teeth at once is totally automatic and completes the cleaning in only ten seconds.

All that is needed is to press a single button, wait for ten seconds and the user will have perfectly clean teeth. All the units of Amabrush seem to be equipped with a sound and light indicator which enables to signal several diverse information regarding the prevailing battery status, finished tooth-brushing sessions, flaws, together with other scenarios.

Moreover, their specifically formulated toothpaste has been provided in big bottles together with more durable as well as steady reusable toothpaste capsules. This would be economical in saving shipping fees as well as the complete cost for the user. According to its manufacturers, the brush seems like a bristly mouth guard that has the tendency of dispensing toothpaste and vibrates in order to clean every tooth. With the worldwide shipping beginning in December, customers can now pre-order the device for £70 ($90).

Bacteria-Resistant Silicone – 3D Bristles

In order to utilise the device, the user can put the toothbrush in their mouth and press on a button to begin the cleaning procedure. The system is said to utilise tailored toothpaste capsule that comes at a price of £2.60 ($3.40) and tends to last for around a month.

The manufacturers of this brush had stated that the device has been made from bacteria-resistant silicone featuring 3D bristles on both the sides. According to its inventors, the material is said to be adequately soft to avoid gum disease though hard enough to clean the teeth. They have also informed that since the material tends to be flexible, one type of size would be appropriate for both men as well as women.

The device is said to send out tough vibrations having amplitude of 9.5G, utilising a process to differ the waves of vibrations. The creators had mentioned on Kickstarter that `even in 10 seconds, every tooth surface has been cleaned longer compared with common brushes. If one brushes their teeth for the recommended 120 seconds with a regular toothbrush, every surface tends to get brushed for just 1.25 seconds.

Tooth-Brushing Less Troublesome

They have further added that Amabrush tends to brush all your surfaces for the whole of 10 seconds. The toothbrush would be required to be replaced once in two to three months in order to be effective as per the makers.

It accomplishes all the recommended methods where the bristles are aligned in a 45° angle against the line of the gum and are said to be adequately soft to rub rather than to scratch. Moreover the pressure against the teeth seems to be quite light and the subtle vibrations are said to move the bristles back and forth enabling them to eliminate the plaque, while keeping the gums from getting damaged.

It has been created to make tooth-brushing less troublesome where some may tend to hate brushing their teeth and may not brush the areas which need to be cleaned. Some may not be inclined in brushing correctly. The purpose of focus is – right tooth-brushing for one and all which is done automatically.

The Computer That Know What Humans Will Do Next

Computer Code – Comprehend Body Poses/Movement

A fresh computer code tends to provide robots with the possibility of an improved understanding of humans around them, making headway for more perceptive machines from self-driving cars to investigation. The new skill enables the computer to comprehend the body poses as well as movements of various people even to the extent of tracking parts as tiny as individual fingers.

Though humans tend to communicate naturally utilising body language, the computers tend to be somewhat blind to these interactions. However, by tracking the 2D human form and motion, the new code is said to improve greatly the abilities of the robots in social situations.

A new code had been designed by the researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute by utilising the Panoptic Studio. The two-story dome has been equipped with 500 video cameras developing hundreds of views of individual action for a specified shot. Recording of the system portrays how the system views the movement of humans utilising a 2D model of the human form.

Panoptic Studio – Extraordinary View of Hand Movement

This enables it to trail motion from the recording of video in real time, capturing everything right from the gestures of the hand to the movement of the mouth. Besides this, it also has the potential of tracking several people at once.

Associate professor of robotics, Yaser Sheikh had stated that they tend to communicate mostly with the movement of the bodies as they tend to do with their voice. However computer seems to be more or less blind to it. Multi-person tracking gives rise to various challenges to computers and hand detections is said to be more of an obstacle.

The researchers, in order to overcome this, utilised a bottom-up approach localizing individual body area in an act. Thereafter the areas were associated with certain individuals. Though the image datasets on the hand of the human seemed quite restricted than those on the face or body, the Panoptic Studio provided extraordinary view of hand movement.

 A PhD student in robotics, Hanbyul Joo had stated that a distinct shot provides 500 views of individuals hand and also automatically interprets the position of the hand.

2D to 3D Models

He further added that hands tend to be too small to be interpreted by most of the cameras, but for the research they had utilised only 32 high-definition cameras though were still capable of building a huge data set. The method could ultimately be utilised in various applications for instance helping to enhance the ability of self-driving cars to predict pedestrian movements.

 It could also be utilised in behavioural diagnosis or in sports analytics. Researchers would be presenting their work CVPR 2017, the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference, from July 21 -26 in Honolulu. Up to now they have released their code to several other groups in order to expand on its skills.

Finally, the team expects to move from 2D models to 3D models by using the Panoptic Studio in refining the body, face and hand detectors. Sheikh had mentioned that the Panoptic Studio had boosted their research and they are now capable of breaking through various technical barriers mainly as a result of the NSF grant 10 years back.

How an iOS Developer Just Uncovered the Next iPhone

The HomePod Firmware

Developer Guilherme Rambo thought that it could be a mistake when he had seen Apple’s release of firmware for the forthcoming HomePod speaker, which will not show up till December. Getting more curious over the issue, he had begun probing through the code where he had discovered and probably the last thing which he least expected was the next iPhone of Apple.

Rambo discovered in the HomePod not hints or rumours which had earlier been disclosed but Apple’s documentation of one of its largest releases in years. It endorses a fresh look with a slimmer bezel, an end of the home button together with a powerful new face-recognition feature. It seems to be the major bombshell of Apple leak in years, coming from Apple itself.

The HomePod firmware had first been seen on an official public update feed of Apple recently and Rambo had unpacked it with the intention of gathering anything of interest on how Apple’s Siri powered speaker would function before Apple had comprehended its error and had drawn the code. Similar to the iPhone, the HomePod tends to run iOS which is discreet.

Developers had access to a beta version of iOS 11 for over a month now. However, for a developer like Rambo of a Brazilian e-commerce company, he could quickly make a critical discovery. The HomePod firmware which had been released by Apple was iOS 11.0.2, was a full two patches ahead of what is publicly made available.

Face ID Feature

Supporting the discovery of Rambo, iOS developer Steven Troughton-Smith commented that `it was a process Apple goes through every year, to make sure developers can still access the upcoming iOS without disclosing too much about the unexpected iPhone which would be coming up at the final release’. Comprehending the prospective for discovery he had begun to work stating that he had decided to search for strings within the firmware which could be linked to the rumoured `Face ID’ feature.

He further added that he had searched for the word `face’ and observed that it matched many symbols in BiometricKit, which is the framework that presently handles Touch ID. These references do not prevail in the iOS 11 beta. Rambo kept on persisting with his probe into the issue.

An iPhone 8 does not make references to face recognition. Yet as Rambo went ahead in the investigation through BiometricKit, he came across similar expressions utilised in listing a fresh Touch ID finger `EnrollTouchID’ had a face-authentication counterpart - `EnrollPearlID’. `Pearl ID’ continued to appear all through his explorations, always linked to facial recognition.

Discovered Internal Codename

This may not stop to what Apple considers its face recognition feature but calling it Pearl ID at this stage probably had no intention of hiding its purpose. Troughton-Smith had stated that `the codename just makes it easier to find all the related pieces of code in the OS and by inspecting the code you can then see what type of function it has.

 When Rambo had seen it, it was an unreleased, unexpected Apple feature laid bare. Speculating what `Pearl ID’ meant, led him to a larger discovery. Rambo adds that during the exploration for references to `Pearl ID’ he located a reference to Pearl D-22 and decided to search for D22 and found that it is the internal codename for the `iPhone Pro’ or `iPhone 10’.

 Apple had left little doubts to what it could mean though there were not many D22 references. Rambo had located a file in the PassKit framework utilised by Wallet known as `Payment_glyph_phone-D22.caar’ which is a format type that Apple tends to utilise in storing vector graphics for animated UI elements. When Rambo had extracted that image he viewed an iPhone different from any he had seen earlier since it did not exist till then.

Significant Overhaul of iPhone

He also discovered another reference to D22 in a video file which was not present in the firmware, known as `Enrollment_Tutorial_Loop-D22’ that probably displays iPhone 8 owners on how to register their face with Pearl ID. Rambo had informed that there are some references in the firmware which recommend this D22 model would have a diverse battery charging system, though iOS 11.0.2 provides no hints to what those variances could be.

 The disclosures detail the unreleased iPhone of Apple to the earlier unthinkable degree excepting the early debut of iPhone 4 by Gizmodo in 2010. The slightly bezeled design together with the lack of a home button seems to mark the most significant overhaul of iPhone in years. The face-ID feature tends to be primed by the company, in being a focal point of the ultimate introduction of the phone.

 Troughton-Smith had stated that this could be a rough situation for Apple and for them to be the source of the only concrete leaks regarding it and its design would be to upset a lot of people internally. Beside embarrassment, the influence on actual sales could be subdued.

Internal Security of Apple – Slipped

The founder of Jackdaw Research, Jan Dawson, commented that he thinks that the kind of people probably to wait for a new iPhone based on leaks were possibly aware of all the reporting on the subject in advance.

He also observed that while this seems to confirm the prevailing rumours, the real test of the upcoming features of the iPhone is how well they function and firmware can only tell you so much. In this case, the main takeaway seems that the internal security of Apple has once more slipped as it occurred when macOS Sierra had shown off MacBook Pro with OLED touch panel of Apple, last fall, just a few days before the official unveiling of the product.

Apple had more time on the iPhone 8 than it had on its whole line of laptop put together and while airing it out a month before its announcement could have a material effect on the company and it certainly was not helpful. Tim Cook CEO of Apple had stated at the most recent earnings call of the company that they were seeing what they believe to be a pause in purchases of iPhone which they are of the belief is owing to the earlier and more frequent reports regarding the future iPhones.

Mono-Live.Com Gadget News: Moto G5S Plus

What is New in Moto G5S Plus

Motorola G5S Plus: New aluminum design and dual-cam

The G5S comes with Unibody metal housing, a particularly fast-focusing 16 megapixel camera, 3GB RAM, 32GB memory, Snapdragon 430 and 5.2-inch FullHD display. The 3000mAh battery should have enough power for 15 hours. Dual SIM, fingerprint sensor with the new Moto gestures are the other specifications of the LunarGrey and Fine Gold appearing G5S.

The 5.5-inch G5S Plus with similar specifications but a 5.5-inch display, stronger Snapdragon 625 comes with an f / 2.0 dual camera, which has 13 megapixels and a somewhat sharper 8 megapixel self-camera with wide angle. It dominates to boot 4K video at 30fps and has NFC as well as 5Ghz Wifi (both features with which the G5S can not adorn itself).

With NightDisplay and QuickReply the software of the two motos has also learned new tricks. For the Moto G5S Plus, of course, everything depends on the camera software, which connects the two lenses, but we hoped because of Motorola's experience only good.

Whether it is the two synonymous in other specifications (4GB RAM, 64GB of memory were in conversation) in some countries, is currently unclear, because the Motorola site does not list them.

Just a few months after the launch of the Moto G5S and its plus version announces the successor somewhat early. The Moto G5S Plus is likely to be officially launched soon and will bring new hardware as well as a detachment of the plastic housing. Here, too, there will be an aluminum design in the future.

The Moto G5S Plus also has a metal housing. The display is 5.5 inches slightly larger than the Moto G5S. The device is powered by a Qualcomm-Snapdragon-Octa-Core processor with a clock frequency of up to 2.0 GHz. 4G LTE is also supported.

The battery of the Moto G5S Plus has a capacity of 3,000 mAh and can also be recharged via the quick charging function TurboPower. The fingerprint sensor allows, in addition to unlocking the smartphone, some other functions. In addition, the Moto G5S Plus, like the Moto G5S, also features such as a night display and a quick response function.

Evan Blass once again surprised us with marketing material for the future Moto G5S Plus from Motorola aka Lenovo. The pictures shows a new aluminum housing design of the Midranger, which fits better into the current Motorola lineup by Motorola. On the back, Motorola has donated a Dual Cam to the Moto G5 Plus successor, which consists of two 13 megapixel sensors, one RGB and one monochrome lens. Now, Motorola's midrange offer is now also possible bokeh effects and b / w recording.

At the front, Lenovo has exchanged the 5 megapixel shooter of the predecessor for an 8 megapixel camera. The display is somewhat larger with 5.5 inch diagonal but remains at full HD resolution. The Snapdragon 625-SOC provides midrange performance with a maximum of 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of memory. Whether the Moto G5S Plus is officially presented during the global launch event on July 25 is not certain. Also the Moto X4 and the two high-end devices Moto Z2 and Moto Z2 Force are still waiting for their official launch.

Nuna9 Solar Car Revealed

Nuna9 - Revolutionary

Nuna9 has been designed differently from anything that has ever been created in the solar racing world and the most significant aerodynamic change is that the nose of the Nuna9 has now become more compact and does not tend to overhang any longer.

 The organisers of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge tend to control the regulations for each edition. The solar panel this year is only allowed to be a maximum of 4 m² in comparison to 6 m² in the earlier race. The team aerodynamicist, Jasper Hemmes, had explained that the design of Nuna9 tends to signify a new step ahead in solar racing.

As a consequence of the change to the World Solar challenge regulation, the need of a smaller solar panel had been utilised on cars of this year. This could mean that they had to make dramatic modifications to the car and eventually they had reached at this exceptional shape. The details of the solar car had not been kept undisclosed till date, from the competitors.

Sander Koot, team captain had stated that Nuna9 is revolutionary and the shape of the car is totally different to the earlier solar cars. They wanted to keep the new shape a secret for as long as possible to refrain from letting the competition in the open.

Take on the Dutch Nuna9

In recent years, the gap between the different teams during the race had been lessening down. They also had seen elements of the earlier solar cars reflected in what the other teams had been in the race. It had been naturally important to them once again in bringing home the world championship title this year.

This was the reason why the TU Delft students have kept the interior of the car away from interfering eyes. Sander chuckled that they do not want to go giving them ideas. After winning the race on various cases as well as the reigning world champion, the Nuon Solar Team is said to be the clear favourite to take the title home in Australia.

The controllers of the race have now been utilising the slogan `Take on the Dutch’ in order to challenge teams from across the world to try and overcome the team from TU Delft. To characteristically direct their winning mentality, the team had intended to mount a lion’s mane on their solar car.

Mane of Lion – Symbolic of Dutch Pride/Glory

Sarah Bennink Bolt, a member of the team had explained that the mane radiates strength and the larger the lion’s mane, the stronger and more invincible he is. The mane of the lion is also symbolic of Dutch pride and glory. The Nuon Solar Team for this year tends to comprise of sixteen students.

They will be defending their world title in October 2017 during the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge with Nuna9, their self-built solar car. The TU Delft students had won the race in total of six times inclusive of the last edition of the race in 2015. They had covered over 3,000 kilometres and the track had stretched around Australia, from Darwin to Adelaide.

How to Record Calls on Your Smartphone

Seek Permission before Recording

Recording a call is said to be one of the most reliable means of capturing a conversation though not very convenient. It needs an external gadget which can be linked to a digital recorder to the base and handset of a desk phone. With the entry of smartphones, this has turned out to be quite easy in most areas; though a disappointment since none of the leading mobile operating systems have included a built-in call recorder.

This could be due to some countries or states having a law against recording call without the consent of all parties in the conversation. However in the present scenario, smartphone apps together with cloud services tend to make recording conversations easy and convenient irrespective of chatting with White House officials or not.

Anthony Scaramucci, as Communications Director of White was out after ten days owing to an open late-night phone conversation with New Yorker writer, Ryan Lizza. Similar to most of the journalists, Lizza had recorded his call not for successors but for proof and with audio evidence it tends to get difficult to debate on that issue.

State laws tends to differ significantly with regards to recording phone calls and some may need both parties to approve in recording the conversation and hence it is essential to check the laws of the state and seek permission before indulging in recording. Recording conversation can be done by:

Using an App

iPhone or Android devices do not come with a built-in call recorder though their respective app stores come with a variety of options for downloading.

TapeACall 

This seems to be a favourite with the journalists since the app is made available on iOS as well as Android at $10, which makes recording easy as setting up a three-way call. You could dial the TapeACall line and dial the person you would prefer to talk to and merge the two calls in a conference. The recordings are saved within the app and one can share them through Dropbox, Google Drive or Evernote.

It tends to put out a free version too though one can access only the first 60 seconds of the recording. If one intends talking for over a minute, it is worth indulging for the Pro version. As the app tends to utilise a three-way calling in order to record the conversation, one would need to have a service plan which can sustain three-way calls.

Recording – Privacy Violation 

There are also several other apps which enables you to record for free such as Another Call Recorder for Android. Google Voice also tends to provide free recording but the procedure tends to be a bit fussy One needs to first enable call recording on the account of Google Voice and then can record when calls comes in to your Google Voice number.

The service also tends to announce when the recording has started. When one hangs up, Google tends to save the recording right into your inbox. Recording calls is said to be a privacy violation though there could be several useful reasons for the same. It can be beneficial while conducting phone interviews or in receiving complicated instructions which would be difficult to note down or when one would prefer storing an intimate moment of some personal event, on their phone.

Code Quality And Selling Call Option As Major Parts Of Technical Debt

Majority of developers are looking for technical debt, when they are associated with the engineering department. The front office members are always in lookout for work, directly with the traders and exposed in real time for covering their software needs. While planning to sit with traders, you can check on immediate impact of recent forms of feature additions. The feedback loop seems to be quite tight.

In the past, the engineers have come to work and received feature request early in trading session. It further works with change in code, deployed to production level and seen profits as part of same trading day. During such environment, you might think about caring more on the added features than what you need to do for creating that elegant software.

Cannot ignore code quality

You cannot even ignore the quality of your code, mainly because of its impact on current delivery speed. You will always come handy with constant form of internal personal struggle, which is associated in between keeping quality alive and delivering features at level, which can enable high speed delivery service. The technical debt seems to be quite visible and reminders are given to ensure that you get the chance to address technical debt in future without fail.

Importance of reminders

You cannot deny the importance of reminders in place of technical debt. As mentioned already, these reminders are designed to help to remind you of the technical debt to be solved in future. There are same reminders, used for prioritizing technical debt payoff, which can be quite beneficial for the team. The traders are quite aware of the value associated with technical debt. It is during such instances that you need to get some questions answered first. Do you have to spend more time while paying down technical debt? Get the answer to your question first before coming to concluding point.
Issues to focus on

Working in such an environment where traders are able to learn more about technical debt and know ways to pay it off is really great. However, this might give rise to some issues, which are part and parcel of technical debt. If you want to know more about the issues, then it is mandatory to visit here and get yourself the needful details. Remember that not all bad codes are technical debt. It can even be un-hedged call option. So, it is important to know more about the types first before you get to learn more about it.

Selling call option is great

While going through the types, you might have an idea of selling call option. It is quite a great metaphor, but the problem lies somewhere else. Can selling a call option work well in average workplace? This is the point for you to focus at before you harp on working on the call options. This is going to act in your favor and present you with long lasting response. Just be sure of the consequences and everything else before you get down to the solutions now over here.

Aston Martin’s Valkyrie Hypercar Gets Closer To Production

The Aston Martin Valkyrie

Aston Martin and F1 team Red Bull Racing had revealed their innovative hypercar dubbed AM-RB 001 in July 2016. At the Geneva Motor show, the real name of the car had been eventually disclosed to the world - `The Aston Martin Valkyrie’.

It comes charged with crafting a road car built exceptional invention partnership with Red Bull and Aston Martin wherein the collaboration had designed a car similar to which has not been seen till now. The designer Marek Reichaman of Aston Martin and Adrian of Red Bull Racing have been working together on all aspects of the project striving to make sure that the care is totally useable as well as enjoyable as a road car though with the potential of performing like no other road car on a race track.

For those interested in driving experience, a track-only version is in progress and the probable performance is in line with the prevailing LMP1 Le Mans sports prototypes. Valkyrie tends to continue the tradition of `V’ cars of Aston Martin that had started in 1951 with the Vantage and had been selected as a name to distinguish high performance variants of the present model, the DB2. It continued this lineage in the Virage, Vanquish and Vulcan.

Fabricated Around Lightweight Carbon Fibre Structure

The Valkyrie, fabricated around a lightweight carbon fibre structure tends to have thorough aerodynamics which is said to deliver unique stages of down-force in a road-legal car wherein most of the down-force has been produced through the underfloor aerodynamics.

The same had been constructed by David King together with his team for purpose-built facility developed for the original hypercar, the One-77 of Aston Martins. The Valkyrie is said to be a hybrid, a reunion of a 6.5-litre V 12 with a type of electric powertrain developing more than 1,000 horsepower. There is a bespoke seven-speed paddle-shift transmission coupled to the all-new engine.

It has been designed and manufactured to the specifications of Ricardoto Red Bull Advanced Technologies, where the gearbox would be an appropriate partner to Cosworth’s V12 engine. Besides assigning the ultimate road-legal car, the Valkyrie also tends to boast of a lightweight hybrid battery system provided by Rimac. The Croatian company, recognized as the world leaders in high performance battery technology, has also showcased its competences with the innovative Concept-One which is said to be the first and the fastest electric hypercar in the world.

AM-RB 001 Needs Braking System

Comprising of a power-to-weight ratio of 1:1 – 1 horsepower for each kilogram of kerbweight, the AM-RB 001 needs a braking system which tends to be more than equal of its powertrain. Alcon and Surface Transforms, together tend to be responsible in supplying the lightweight, high performance brake calipers together with carbon discs required in delivering the stopping power.

Electronic experts, Bosch, Transmission Control Unit –TCU and Electronic Stability Programme – ESP has been entrusted with developing bespoke engine Control Unit – ECU, to permit maximum efficiency, performance together with dynamic control while UK light manufacturer, Wipac is in charge for the full LED headlamps and tail lamps of the hypercar.

Around 150 road-legal Aston Martin Valkyries would be constructed inclusive of all outstanding models with an additional track-only versions of 25, have been planned. The first deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2019.

How Hackers Hijacked a Bank’s Entire Online Operation

Extraordinary Incident of Wholesale Bank Fraud Done by Hackers

Hacking a bank is not different from the out-dated means of raiding it and hackers can get in and out with the goods quite easily. However a particular enterprising team of hackers aiming a Brazilian bank seemed to take a much more inclusive and a scheming method of operation.

On a certain weekend afternoon, they had rerouted all the online customers of the bank to effortlessly reconstructed fakes of the bank’s properties wherein the marks offered over their information of the accounts. The researchers at Kapersky the security firm had defined an extraordinary incident of wholesale bank fraud, which had basically hijacked the complete internet footprint of the bank.

 Last year, on October 22 at 1 pm, the researchers had stated that the hackers had altered the Domain Name System registration of all 36 online properties of the bank, taking the desktop and mobile website domains of the bank to take users to phishing site. That meant that the hackers had the potential of stealing login credentials at the sites which had been hosted at the legitimate web addresses of the bank.

The researchers of Kaspersky were of the belief that the hackers could have also simultaneously redirected most of the transactions at ATMs or point-of-sale systems to their own servers, gathering the details of the credit card of anyone who utilised their card on that Saturday afternoon.

Malware Infecting Customers

One of the researchers of Kaspersky, Dmitry Bestuzhey, who had analysed that attack in real time on seeing malware infecting customers from what seemed to be the fully valid domain of the bank, had stated that absolutely all of the bank’s online operations had been under the control of the attackers for five to six hours.

From the point of view from the hackers, according to Bestuzhey, the DNS attack meant that `you become the bank and everything belongs to you now’. Kaspersky has not revealed the name of the bank which had been targeted in the DNS redirect attack. He has stated that it seems to be a major Brazilian financial company with hundreds of branches, operations in the US and the Cayman Islands, with 5 million customers and over $27 billion in assets.

Though Kaspersky is not aware of the full extent of the damage caused due to the takeover, it should be a warning to banks all over to consider how the insecurity of their DNS would support a nightmarish loss of control of their core digital assets. Bestuzhev had commented that they have never seen it exploited in the wild on such a big scale.

DNS – Vital Decorum Under Cover of Internet

The Domain Name System – DNS tends to serve as a vital decorum running under the cover of the internet and translates domain names in alphanumeric characters such as Google.com, to the IP addresses such as 74.125.236.195, which tends to represent the definite locations of the computers hosting websites or other services related on those machines.

 However attacking the records could take the sites down or redirect them to a destination of a hackers’ choice. For instance, in 2013, the Syrian electronic Army groups of hacker had changed the DNS registration of The New York Times in redirecting visitors to a page with their logo. Recently, the Mirai Botnet attack on the DNS provider Dyn had cracked a main portion of the web offline inclusive of Amazon, Reddit and Twitter.

However the attackers of Brazilian bank had subjugated their victim’s DNS in a much more directed and profit-driven manner. Kaspersky was of the belief that the hackers compromised the account of the bank at Registro.br which is the domain registration service of NIC.br, the registrar for the sites ending in the Brazilian .br top-level domain which is said that it also manages the DNS for the bank.

Changing Registrar – Domains of Bank

The researchers are of the opinion that with that access, the hackers had been capable of changing the registrar at the same time for all the domains of the bank, redirecting them to servers which the attackers had set up on the Cloud Platform of Google.

With the hijacking of the domain, those visiting the website URL of the bank were redirected to the duplicate sites where those sites also had valid HTTPS certificates issued in the name of the bank. Hence those visitors’ browsers portrayed a green lock together with the name of the bank like they would in the real sites. Kaspersky also observed that the certificates was provided six months earlier by Let’s Encrypt, the non-profit certificate authority which makes obtaining an HTTPS certificate easy in case of increasing HTTPS acceptance.

 Josh Aas, founder of Let’s Encrypt had stated that `if an entity had gained control of DNS and had gained effective control over a domain, there could be a possibility for that entity to get a certificate from them. Such issuance would not constitute mis-issuance on their part since the entity receiving the certificate would have been able to properly demonstrate control over the domain’.

Hoaxed Sites Infected with Malware

Eventually the hijack had been so thorough that the bank was unable to even send email. Bestuzhev stated that they could not even communicate with the customers to send them an alert and if your DNS is in control of the cybercriminals, you are basically screwed’. Besides phishing, the hoaxed sites also infected victims with malware download which had disguised itself as an update to the Trusteer browser security plug-in which the Brazilian bank provided the customers.

As per the analysis of Kaspersky the malware gathers not only banking logins from the Brazilian banks but also eight others as well as email and FTP credentials together with contact lists from Outlook and Exchange. All of these had gone to command-and-control server hosted in Canada. The Trojan also comprised of an operation intended to disable antivirus software for infected victim, and could have persisted much beyond the five hour window when the attack had taken place.

The malware had scraps of Portuguese language, implying that the attackers could have been Brazilian. Bestuzhev of Kaspersky debates that for the banks the incident could have been a clear warning to check on the security of their DNS. He notes that half of the top 20 banks ranked by total assets do not manage their DNS but tend to leave it in the hands of a potentially hackable third party and irrespective of who tends to control the DNS of a bank they can take special precautions in preventing their DNS registrations from being changed without safety checks such as `registry lock’, which some registrars tend to provide together with two-factor authentication making it difficult for hackers to change them.

Mono-Live Gadget Review: Sonnet Will Turn Your Phone Into Off-Grid Life Saver

Sonnet – Off-Grid Hexagon

Sonnet which is an off-grid hexagon tends to connect to your phone providing the potential of sending messages or even maps without the need of a cellular or satellite signals. It is the most advanced off-grid Mobile Mesh network and is like a walkie-talkie for your phone.

 It tends to have global offline maps, together with a panic button to send an SOS signal as well as a 4000mAh battery to charge your phone when it is on low charge. Our phones are dependent on mobile network and are unable to keep the user connected when the mobile network is inaccessible or defective like on instance when one is

• Travelling the backcountry and the network is not available or could have very light coverage 
• Traveling abroad and the network tends to be unreliable or very expensive 
• Attending crowded events where the network tends to be slow and congested having too many users around the place 
• Encountering a natural disaster where the network service tends to get disrupted or totally damaged 

Walkie-talkies have a tendency of functioning anywhere though they could be:

• Massive and burdensome and some may weigh tons while carrying them around the place 
• Complex and unintuitive where plenty of tuning and setup may be needed before it could be utilised 
• Very low-quality audio with no text, image. It tends to have bad audio which may at times lead to miscommunication

 

Sonnet Super Advanced Walkie-Talkie

 
Sonnet being an Off-the-Grid communication device enables the user to utilise their smartphone as a super advanced walkie-talkie which has the possibility of sending super advanced walkie-talkie that can send instant message, image data, voice recording as well as GPS Coordinates in the absence of cellular coverage’s and internet access.

Sonnet is said to bring about the long range wireless communication of the walkie-talkie to your smartphone and connect to the smartphone via Wi-Fi relaying any data sent from your phone to other sonnet devices through the long-range radio wave. This tends to remove totally the reliance of the smartphone on cellular grid and the other network infrastructure enabling it to be utilised when there is no cellular connectivity or internet access. It does not have any frequency to tune or channel to be set. The user could only connect and get started with chatting. One can utilise the Sonnet App just the way as any other instant messengers for:

• One-on-one private messages 
• Private group messages 
• Public messages to any users of Sonnet within the range.

 

Sonnet Equipped with SMA Connector

 
Sonnet App tends to run directly in the browser of the smartphone and hence one need not download or install any app. Sonnet is entirely off-the-grid and functions independently of any network infrastructure which means that Sonnet enables the user to remain in touch with friends and colleagues irrespective of where they may be.

 The usual point-to-point range between two devices of Sonnet is 5 km, around 3 miles. This range could be up to 15 km in case of a line-of-sight such as when the sender and the receiver seem to be on top of two mountains. Besides this, Sonnet is equipped with a SMA connector wherein one can connect their own directional antenna for the purpose of increasing the point-to-point range much further.

The mesh network of Sonnet tends to intensively increase the effective range further than the point-to-point range by relaying the data via the other devices. The data can be relayed by Sonnet up to 16 times in achieving a maximum range of 80 km. To use Sonnet there is no need of a subscription fee and one can send as many messages as one desires.

 

In Emergency – Panic Button

 
If one device tends to have internet connection, the entire network can then have access to it. If Sonnet is placed in a car or base where there is availability of internet, then one can have access to the internet in the backcountry by being in possession of another Sonnet. The Sonnet App had an offline map wherein one can get directions and view points of interest without the internet connection. In an event of emergency, the app which has a panic button comes in handy.

You could long press the button for five seconds to activate the SOS mode, broadcast your prevailing GPS location and your distress message is conveyed to all Sonnet users within range. Being equipped with a 4000 mAh lithium polymer battery, it comes with a USB port and hence one can charge your smartphone with it.

Sonnet tends to charge fully most of the smartphones on the market. Sonnet is said to have a rugged design making it compatible for the purpose of out-door use and is rated IP66 meaning that it is dust and water resistant.

This enables the user to bring the Sonnet along no matter where one may intend to travel. Sonnet is secure and all communications done with Sonnet are said to be end-to-end encrypted with AES -256-bit. Moreover, Wi-Fi link between Sonnet and the smartphone are said to be secure with WPA/WPA2.