Peter Sayer
Author Archives: Peter Sayer
- Home → Author's archive:
Peter Sayer
0
Intel sets up talking shop to improve automotive security
The dramatic hack of a Jeep Cherokee, which resulted in Fiat Chrysler Automobile recalling over one million vehicles, has also prompted Intel to take action.Security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely hacked their way into the Jeep's Uconnect navigation and entertainment system via its connection to Sprint's wireless network, taking control of it while a reporter for Wired magazine was at the wheel.The hack prompted Fiat Chrysler to issue a recall notice for 1.4 million vehicles in order to patch the software bug exploited by the researchers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French ISPs petition court to overturn secret foreign surveillance decree
Two French ISPs have asked France's highest court to make public a secret government decree defining how French security services can monitor the Internet.France's foreign intelligence service, the Directorate General of Exterior Surveillance (DGSE) operates under rules set in a secret government decree in 2008. The existence of the decree was revealed by the magazine l'Obs in July this year.The decree's existence has not been denied by the government. While its content remains secret, it is known that it authorizes the DGSE to tap Internet communications entering or leaving French territory on a massive scale.On Thursday, ISPs FDN and FFDN, along with online rights group La Quadrature du Net, revealed that they had filed two suits with the Council of State, seeking a summary judgment and suspension of the unpublished decree. The Council of State is, among other functions, France's highest court for matters involving the administration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Intel promises $50M for quantum computing research
A fully functioning quantum computer is still twelve years off, according to Intel, but the company is already plowing research funding into the field.On Thursday, Intel promised to fund QuTech, a research unit at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, to the tune of US$50 million over 10 years, and to provide additional staff and equipment to support its work.QuTech hopes the partnership will allow it to combine its theoretical work on quantum computing with Intel's manufacturing expertise to produce quantum computing devices on a larger scale.Quantum computers are composed of qubits that can take on multiple values simultaneously, unlike the bits stored and processed in traditional computers, which are either 0s or 1s. This multiplicity of values makes quantum computing, at least in theory, highly useful for parallel computing problems such as financial analysis, molecular modelling or decryption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French surveillance law is constitutional, highest court says
A surveillance law rushed through the French parliament in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January is constitutional, the country’s highest court ruled late Thursday. The decision gives law enforcers and intelligence agencies the power to gather communications metadata—who is communicating with whom, where, and when—in real time, with few restrictions.As the law on surveillance progressed through parliament, the government declared it “urgent”, meaning elected representatives in the Senate and National Assembly had only one opportunity to amend it instead of the usual two. They waved it through anyway. Some parliamentarians challenged parts of the law on constitutional grounds, calling on the Constitutional Council to give its verdict.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French surveillance law is constitutional, highest court says
A surveillance law rushed through the French parliament in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January is constitutional, the country’s highest court ruled late Thursday. The decision gives law enforcers and intelligence agencies the power to gather communications metadata—who is communicating with whom, where, and when—in real time, with few restrictions.As the law on surveillance progressed through parliament, the government declared it “urgent”, meaning elected representatives in the Senate and National Assembly had only one opportunity to amend it instead of the usual two. They waved it through anyway. Some parliamentarians challenged parts of the law on constitutional grounds, calling on the Constitutional Council to give its verdict.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Cisco quits set-top box market, sells business to Technicolor
After ten years of making networked set-top boxes, Cisco Systems plans to quit the business, selling its Connected Devices division to French firm Technicolor, the companies said Thursday.Although Cisco will stop making video customer premises equipment for service providers, it will continue to develop software and cloud services to help telcos deliver IPTV and other video services to their customers, Cisco’s business development director Hilton Romanski wrote in a blog post.The companies plan to collaborate on developing video products for service providers, he wrote, and that collaboration will include Romanski taking a seat on Technicolor’s board.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Microsoft pulls back from phone business, announces 7,800 layoffs
Microsoft is scaling down its mobile phone activities, writing off the entire value of the former Nokia smartphone business it bought last year and laying off almost one-third of that business’ staff. The company will no longer try to build a standalone phone business, but instead plans to build a Windows ecosystem that includes its own devices, CEO Satya Nadella told staff in an email announcing the changes. Up to 7,800 jobs will be cut, most of them in the phone business. The cuts come in addition to 18,000 layoffs announced last year: Those cuts included around half of the 25,000 staff who joined Microsoft from Nokia. + A LOOK BACK: Bloodiest tech industry layoffs of 2014, so far +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Microsoft pulls back from phone business, announces 7,800 layoffs
Microsoft is scaling down its mobile phone activities, writing off the entire value of the former Nokia smartphone business it bought last year and laying off almost one-third of that business’ staff. The company will no longer try to build a standalone phone business, but instead plans to build a Windows ecosystem that includes its own devices, CEO Satya Nadella told staff in an email announcing the changes. Up to 7,800 jobs will be cut, most of them in the phone business. The cuts come in addition to 18,000 layoffs announced last year: Those cuts included around half of the 25,000 staff who joined Microsoft from Nokia. + A LOOK BACK: Bloodiest tech industry layoffs of 2014, so far +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Uber throws in the towel in battle with French taxi drivers
Uber Technologies is suspending its UberPop service in France, after a bitter fight with taxi drivers who say the service breaks the law.The company plans to remove access to UberPop from its mobile app in France from 8 p.m. local time Friday, it said in a blog post.UberPop allows passengers to hail rides from unlicensed drivers and is similar to the Uber X service offered in the United States and other countries.Uber has been disrupting transportation markets around the world—nowhere more so than in Paris, where taxi drivers recently blocked highways and airport entrances with burning tires in protest at the company’s behavior. The protests also reportedly included attacks on Uber drivers, their vehicles and passengers. The taxi drivers are angry because, they say, UberPop breaches a new law on hiring vehicles with a driver that entered effect on Jan. 1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Amazon now an open book on search warrants and subpoenas
Amazon.com has published its first transparency report describing how it has responded to requests from law enforcers for information about its customers.The company fielded 813 subpoenas, 25 search warrants, 13 court orders and fewer than 250 national security requests from U.S. authorities. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act prohibits Amazon from disclosing exactly how many National Security Letters and FISA court orders it has received: the number may have been zero.Despite its reluctance to release the information—companies such as Apple and Google are years ahead of it—Amazon says it is no lackey of the state security apparatus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
German climate researchers prepare for rising seas of data
It’s nice to have the latest kit, but a supercomputer upgrade is about to bring the German Climate Computing Center, DKRZ, a big problem: a shortage of space.Not space for the computer itself, but for the data it generates.DKRZ runs climate models on its supercomputer, projecting how our planet’s weather will evolve over decades or even, in some cases, hundreds of millennia, from the last ice age and into the future.All those models generate huge volumes of data—40 petabytes of so far—that DKRZ archives for future reference, allowing researchers to analyze the models’ output in different ways. The center also offers to store the output from climate models run by other supercomputing centers, forming a world climate studies archive drawn on by researchers around the world.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French lawmakers take first step toward gathering all communications metadata
French lawmakers have taken a first step toward allowing real-time surveillance of Internet and mobile phone use in France.Following attacks on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket in Paris in January, the government rushed out a bill that will allow French intelligence services to collect communications metadata on the entire country’s phone calls and Internet traffic, in some cases installing their own equipment on operators’ networks. On Tuesday, the French National Assembly approved the bill by 438 votes to 86.The proposed surveillance measures have encountered opposition from many quarters: Internet service providers, civil liberties groups, and even an association of motorcyclists, concerned about the potential for government monitoring of lobby groups.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French lawmakers take first step toward gathering all communications metadata
French lawmakers have taken a first step toward allowing real-time surveillance of Internet and mobile phone use in France.Following attacks on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket in Paris in January, the government rushed out a bill that will allow French intelligence services to collect communications metadata on the entire country’s phone calls and Internet traffic, in some cases installing their own equipment on operators’ networks. On Tuesday, the French National Assembly approved the bill by 438 votes to 86.The proposed surveillance measures have encountered opposition from many quarters: Internet service providers, civil liberties groups, and even an association of motorcyclists, concerned about the potential for government monitoring of lobby groups.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
French self-driving car goes for a spin around Paris monument
For this self-driving car, the roadside hazards included traffic jams, undisciplined bystanders—and centuries-old cannons.That’s what you get when you demonstrate your latest technology at the National Army Museum in central Paris, as French companies Safran and Valeo did on Friday.Safran, a defense contractor, and Valeo, an automotive parts manufacturer, kitted out a Volkswagen CC with radar, lidar and all-round cameras for their demonstration, and let it loose on a winding track around the museum grounds. They wanted to show how close the European automotive industry is to its goal of having self-driving cars for sale in 2020.There were no wheel-spins or clouds of dust: This was a simulated urban environment with traffic lights, slow-moving or stopped vehicles ahead, and speed limits of 20 km/h or less. The car glided to a halt a few meters behind a stopped vehicle, moving on as soon as the way was clear; respected stop signals; and slowed gently at a variable sign indicating the speed limit had dropped to 10 km/h. When the curious crowd spilled into the road at the circuit’s finish line, the car pulled up cautiously a few meters short of the line.To read this article in Continue reading
0
Huawei multiplies partnerships with software and service providers
Chinese telecommunications and networking equipment giant Huawei Technologies is partnering left, right and center at Cebit as it seeks to more firmly establish itself in Europe.Huawei derives around one-tenth of its revenue from enterprise products, with the bulk of the rest coming from mobile phones or carrier networking equipment. But the company has bigger ambitions for this segment.Germany is still a major manufacturing power, and one of the focuses of the Cebit trade show is the modernization of its industries through what the Germans call “Industry 4.0,” a move to increase interoperability and real-time monitoring in manufacturing and distribution systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Ideovitra seeks to slay PC power vampires with SensyBee smart switch
There’s a vampire-slayer stalking the halls at Cebit.With SensyBee, a curvy little box that plugs into the back of a PC between the power supply and the wall outlet, turning the PC off when it is unused, Ideovitra hopes to eliminate PCs’ vampire power consumption.A typical desktop PC consumes around 200 watts when running—but still as much as 50W when in Windows 8’s “sleep” mode. Even when “turned off,” it can consume up to 20W, as the power supply and some other components remain powered up to perform functions such as wake-on-LAN, said Ideovitra’s sales manager David Chedotal.In the 6,500 hours a year that the average office PC lies unused, that vampire power consumption can add between 130 and 325 kilowatt-hours to the energy bill. At German electricity prices, that’s anywhere from €30 (US$32) to €90 wasted each year, according to Ideovitra.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Pixometer app offers a smarter way to read dumb meters
So you want to track your water, electricity or gas consumption, but you still don’t have a smart meter on your supply? Pixolus has a mobile app that makes it easier to keep track of meter readings, even with dumb meters. Just tell the Pixometer app which meter you’re going to read, point the phone’s camera at it, and let the optical character recognition software do the work. Once the app gets a lock on the numbers, it speaks the reading out loud and stores it, and the date, in that meter’s file. You can even enter the price per kilowatt-hour, for electricity, or per cubic meter, for water, and the app will show you the expenditure since the last meter reading, and what that works out to per month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Pixometer app offers a smarter way to read dumb meters
So you want to track your water, electricity or gas consumption, but you still don’t have a smart meter on your supply? Pixolus has a mobile app that makes it easier to keep track of meter readings, even with dumb meters. Just tell the Pixometer app which meter you’re going to read, point the phone’s camera at it, and let the optical character recognition software do the work. Once the app gets a lock on the numbers, it speaks the reading out loud and stores it, and the date, in that meter’s file. You can even enter the price per kilowatt-hour, for electricity, or per cubic meter, for water, and the app will show you the expenditure since the last meter reading, and what that works out to per month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Face of Chinese IT industry doesn’t please everyone at German trade show
Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, made his first visit to the Cebit trade show 14 years ago, pitching Chinese products to Westerners from a small booth that attracted few visitors.Eight years ago, he returned, that time hoping to interest European companies in an online marketplace. That didn’t work out, because people saw the Internet and trade fairs as competitors.Now, though, Ma has it made. China’s tech industry, of which his company is one of the leaders, is a guest of honor at this year’s show, and Ma was the industry star of Sunday night’s Cebit opening ceremony, where he told the story of his previous visits.Feted during the opening ceremony, Ma would have been jeered on Monday morning had he been among the first through the gates. Two groups of protestors greeted visitors, one from Amnesty International, the other from Germany’s Society for Threatened Peoples. Both were unhappy about how the Chinese government orders companies to censor the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Face of Chinese IT industry doesn’t please everyone at German trade show
Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, made his first visit to the Cebit trade show 14 years ago, pitching Chinese products to Westerners from a small booth that attracted few visitors.Eight years ago, he returned, that time hoping to interest European companies in an online marketplace. That didn’t work out, because people saw the Internet and trade fairs as competitors.Now, though, Ma has it made. China’s tech industry, of which his company is one of the leaders, is a guest of honor at this year’s show, and Ma was the industry star of Sunday night’s Cebit opening ceremony, where he told the story of his previous visits.Feted during the opening ceremony, Ma would have been jeered on Monday morning had he been among the first through the gates. Two groups of protestors greeted visitors, one from Amnesty International, the other from Germany’s Society for Threatened Peoples. Both were unhappy about how the Chinese government orders companies to censor the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here