Thousand megabit broadband is a turning point for internet delivery speeds. Newer tech, such as virtual reality, and the incumbents, such as video streaming, will benefit. Right now, though, only about 17 percent of the U.S.’s population has access to those super-fast speeds, which are primarily delivered by fiber, according to Viavi Solution’s latest Gigabit Monitor report.Although Gigabit is kicking in, it’s not going to be particularly simple to implement at the networking level, internet metrics company Ookla said earlier this month. Upgraded, wired installs will likely handle the throughput better than existing, now commonly used Wi-Fi, among other things, the company said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Flaws in passwords can be eliminated with artificial intelligence (AI), say researchers. This includes identifying common words that hackers know, too. The mending is accomplished with AI-garnered analysis of existing insecure passwords, coupled with feedback to the user based on that. It makes password creation more reliable, say scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago.+ Also on Network World: Vendors approve of NIST password draft +
The group says it’s no good simply telling users their password isn’t secure when they attempt to create one—like the current password strength meters do using colored graphs. The meter should tell the creator what’s wrong with the secret word and advise how to conjure up a better one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Flaws in passwords can be eliminated with artificial intelligence (AI), say researchers. This includes identifying common words that hackers know, too. The mending is accomplished with AI-garnered analysis of existing insecure passwords, coupled with feedback to the user based on that. It makes password creation more reliable, say scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago.+ Also on Network World: Vendors approve of NIST password draft +
The group says it’s no good simply telling users their password isn’t secure when they attempt to create one—like the current password strength meters do using colored graphs. The meter should tell the creator what’s wrong with the secret word and advise how to conjure up a better one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wi-Fi’s explosive growth is gaining even more momentum.Recently the Wi-Fi Alliance launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology. Now, that location add-on tool is about to be joined by a kind of three-dimensional, Wi-Fi-derived holographic imaging. Both use the ubiquitous Wi-Fi data network we’ve come to know and love.Holographic Wi-Fi is a way to create three-dimensional images of spaces. It’s achieved by coupling Wi-Fi radio with graphical holograms.+ Also on Network World: Wi-Fi expanding to indoor location services +
Some uses for the technology could be tracking products as they’re manufactured and move along in the production process, as well as searching for victims buried in collapsed buildings, say researchers from the Technical University of Munich who are developing the system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wi-Fi’s explosive growth is gaining even more momentum.Recently the Wi-Fi Alliance launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology. Now, that location add-on tool is about to be joined by a kind of three-dimensional, Wi-Fi-derived holographic imaging. Both use the ubiquitous Wi-Fi data network we’ve come to know and love.Holographic Wi-Fi is a way to create three-dimensional images of spaces. It’s achieved by coupling Wi-Fi radio with graphical holograms.+ Also on Network World: Wi-Fi expanding to indoor location services +
Some uses for the technology could be tracking products as they’re manufactured and move along in the production process, as well as searching for victims buried in collapsed buildings, say researchers from the Technical University of Munich who are developing the system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Humans are developing extreme emotional connections with their virtual assistants—so much so that about a quarter of regular users say they have sexual fantasies about those digital voice assistants.That’s according to new research by J. Walter Thompson and Mindshare (pdf).The virtual assistants include devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Echo brands and Apple’s Siri smartphone virtual assistant. They’re used for giving verbal instructions to and consequently operating residential Internet of Things applications, playing music and reading the news out loud, among other things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few special “light antennas” dotted around a room would provide significantly more bandwidth for internet-connected devices than traditional Wi-Fi, says a Dutch scientist. Wi-Fi’s days could be numbered if the technology works as suggested.+ Also on Network World: IoT device sales set to surge in next decade +
With this new Wi-Fi replacement system that’s been proposed, benign, infrared rays of light emitted from ceiling-mounted transmitters would beam bandwidth-intensive streams of data at smartphones and laptops within the room. And each ray of light could provide 40 gigabits per second, says Joanne Oh, a Ph.D. researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in a news article on the university’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few special “light antennas” dotted around a room would provide significantly more bandwidth for internet-connected devices than traditional Wi-Fi, says a Dutch scientist. Wi-Fi’s days could be numbered if the technology works as suggested.+ Also on Network World: IoT device sales set to surge in next decade +
With this new Wi-Fi replacement system that’s been proposed, benign, infrared rays of light emitted from ceiling-mounted transmitters would beam bandwidth-intensive streams of data at smartphones and laptops within the room. And each ray of light could provide 40 gigabits per second, says Joanne Oh, a Ph.D. researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in a news article on the university’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Almost a third of people living together in homes no longer converse face-to-face and text as a substitute, says a British insurance company who polled random consumers.Insurance giant Aviva found that a massive 32 percent of respondents text each other “in the same house, rather than actually speaking face-to-face,” it claims in a news release.That statistic soars to almost half (45 percent) when the homes contain kids. One of the reasons, the company believes, is that folks don’t put down their smartphones, and other devices when they’re having meals. Smartphones, or mobiles as they are called there, are in use at mealtime in about a third of homes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Office scanners are now susceptible to attack, according to researchers. The ubiquitous office equipment’s light-sensitivity can allow passing vehicles, or laser-carrying drones to trigger malware in a network, says a research team from two Israeli universities.The computer experts say they have been able to successfully create a test “covert channel” between a server and flatbed scanner. The proof-of-concept hack, in some experimental cases, was performed almost a kilometer away from the scanner. They used a kind of infiltrating illumination to fool the device.Numerous light sources could be used, they say. Hijacked smart bulbs and lasers were both used for the data-grab in experiments, the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers say in their paper (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Office scanners are now susceptible to attack, according to researchers. The ubiquitous office equipment’s light-sensitivity can allow passing vehicles, or laser-carrying drones to trigger malware in a network, says a research team from two Israeli universities.The computer experts say they have been able to successfully create a test “covert channel” between a server and flatbed scanner. The proof-of-concept hack, in some experimental cases, was performed almost a kilometer away from the scanner. They used a kind of infiltrating illumination to fool the device.Numerous light sources could be used, they say. Hijacked smart bulbs and lasers were both used for the data-grab in experiments, the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers say in their paper (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Increasing the size of images and text will speed up web page delivery, say scientists. This counter-intuitive idea has been put forward as a solution to latency in browser page loading.The reason the idea works, in theory at least, is that the larger image pushes subsequent, following images farther down the page and out of the browser’s work area. Consequently the browser has less to do, pulls less data and provides a faster delivery of content.The researchers, who are from Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, say this fiendishly simple idea will work particularly well for developers working with airplane networks, where it will stop browsers struggling to load a page. Airplane Wi-Fi can be hindered by latency, they explain.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Capturing radio signals that are already in the air, then adding data and reflecting the combination back to passersby’s smartphones is how marketing and smart city communications should take place in the future, say researchers.By doing so, one can use everyday objects as radio stations, say scientists from University of Washington. A kind of smart-poster would be one use for the technology, they say.Bus stop billboards, for example, would be able to broadcast a message to be picked up by a transit customer’s FM radio already built into their smartphone. The “singing poster,” as they call it, wouldn’t need to be powered with any great oomph—the radio signal reflective technology consumes “close to zero power,” the researchers claim in an article on the university’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Capturing radio signals that are already in the air, then adding data and reflecting the combination back to passersby’s smartphones is how marketing and smart city communications should take place in the future, say researchers.By doing so, one can use everyday objects as radio stations, say scientists from University of Washington. A kind of smart-poster would be one use for the technology, they say.Bus stop billboards, for example, would be able to broadcast a message to be picked up by a transit customer’s FM radio already built into their smartphone. The “singing poster,” as they call it, wouldn’t need to be powered with any great oomph—the radio signal reflective technology consumes “close to zero power,” the researchers claim in an article on the university’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A newfound vulnerability in smartphones could let hackers remotely control the devices.With the acoustic injection attack, “attackers that deliver high intensity acoustic interference in close proximity” can interfere with a device accelerometer and get the sensor to send “attacker–chosen” data to the smartphone’s processor, say researchers from the University of Michigan and University of South Carolina in a paper.Accelerometers measure changes of speed in a device, and they are used industrially to sense vibration for machinery health. In a smartphone, the accelerometer sensor can be used to detect screen orientation, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A newfound vulnerability in smartphones could let hackers remotely control the devices.With the acoustic injection attack, “attackers that deliver high intensity acoustic interference in close proximity” can interfere with a device accelerometer and get the sensor to send “attacker–chosen” data to the smartphone’s processor, say researchers from the University of Michigan and University of South Carolina in a paper.Accelerometers measure changes of speed in a device, and they are used industrially to sense vibration for machinery health. In a smartphone, the accelerometer sensor can be used to detect screen orientation, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon’s voice-first assistant technology could be worth billions for the e-tailer in just a few years, says an investment bank quoted by Fox News last week. RBC Capital Markets says Alexa could trigger $10 billion in revenue for Amazon by 2020.This startling prediction comes alongside recent speculation that Alexa will be incorporated into smartphones sometime in 2017. That wrapping-in (if it were to include the voice element, rather than simply account management) would be part of a major second-generation update. It also means Amazon will compete with native telephony-supplied AI voice products such as Siri.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Criminals are increasingly offered crime as a service (CaaS) and are using sharing-economy ride-sharing and accommodation services, too, a major law enforcement agency says.Europol, the European Union’s policing office says tech-oriented CaaS is being offered to swathes of the underbelly of Europe. Criminals gain an advantage because they can perform crimes better and more efficiently, and they can work at scales greater than their existing technical proficiency.+ Also on Network World: Anonymous hacker causes dark web to shrink by as much as 85% +
An estimated 5,000 internationally operating crime gangs are currently being investigated in the trading bloc, according to Europol.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Criminals are increasingly offered crime as a service (CaaS) and are using sharing-economy ride-sharing and accommodation services, too, a major law enforcement agency says.Europol, the European Union’s policing office says tech-oriented CaaS is being offered to swathes of the underbelly of Europe. Criminals gain an advantage because they can perform crimes better and more efficiently, and they can work at scales greater than their existing technical proficiency.+ Also on Network World: Anonymous hacker causes dark web to shrink by as much as 85% +
An estimated 5,000 internationally operating crime gangs are currently being investigated in the trading bloc, according to Europol.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A mounting list of robot-related accidents has experts questioning whether the devices will be prone to more dangerous malfunctions or even programmed attacks.Notable mishaps that have been documented include a robotic security guard knocking over a child at a California shopping mall, a demonstration robot smashing a window at a Chinese conference—it caused a bystander to get injured, and 144 deaths in the United States caused by robotic surgery. All this according to security firm IOActive.+ Also on Network World: How secure are home robots? +
These incidents “clearly demonstrate the serious potential consequences of robot malfunctions,” the consultancy says in a white paper it recently published about existing robot security (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Patrick Nelson