Tim Hornyak, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Tim Hornyak

Author Archives: Tim Hornyak

How Japan’s Privacy Visor fools face-recognition cameras

If you’re worried about Big Brother monitoring you from security cameras, Japan has developed eyewear that can keep you anonymous.The Privacy Visor consists of a lightweight, wraparound, semitransparent plastic sheet fitted over eyewear frames. It’s bulky and not exactly stylish, but it could have customized designs.It’s meant to thwart face-recognition camera systems through a very simple trick. It reflects overhead light into the camera lens, causing the area around the eyes to appear much brighter than it normally does.That’s enough to trick standard face-recognition systems, such as the Viola-Jones object detection framework, according to the National Institute of Informatics (NII), which has been developing the visor for years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ink-shooting game ‘Splatoon’ helps power Nintendo to profit

Japanese gaming icon Nintendo posted a profit for the April-June quarter on Wednesday thanks in part to surging sales of a game in which players can squirt ink all over the place and transform into squids.“Splatoon” for the Wii U console launched globally in May and has since sold over 1.62 million units, Nintendo said as it notched a profit of ¥8.3 billion (US$67 million) for the three months to June 30, a reversal of a ¥9.9 billion loss a year earlier.Hardware in the Nintendo 3DS lineup saw global sales reach 1.01 million units in the quarter and associated software reached 7.92 million units. Other factors that buoyed the company’s business were the weakness of the yen and strong sales of Amiibo, which are figurines that are designed to wirelessly communicate with the Wii U and 3DS, triggering in-game benefits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

9 things you didn’t know about Google’s undersea cable

Undersea cables carry virtually all transoceanic Internet data these days, replacing satellites as the preferred medium. Google and some telecom companies invested in one of them, called FASTER, that will stretch 9,000 kilometers between the U.S. and Japan and is due to go into operation next year.With six fiber-pairs in the cable, each carrying 100 wavelengths at 100 gigabits per second, it will have a peak capacity of 60 terabits per second (Tbps). That’s about 10 million times faster than a standard cable modem.Here are some facts about undersea cables and about the FASTER system in particular.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lizard Squad hacker draws suspended sentence for online attacks

A teenager who is apparently a member of the Lizard Squad hacker group has received a two-year suspended sentence in Finland in connection with various cybercrimes including attacks against U.S. university servers.The seventeen-year-old, known as “Zeekill” and “Ryan,” was charged with 50,700 counts of hacking and other offenses including credit card fraud, according to a Lizard Squad Twitter account and Finnish news reports.In a Twitter post, Lizard Squad gloated that “Zeekill got a suspended sentence for 2 years. 0 time spent in prison.”The Espoo District Court ruled on hacking incidents including computer tampering involving servers at MIT and Harvard University as well as money laundering conducted to conceal the origin of illegally acquired funds, according to a a Finland Times report, which did not name the offender, a minor under Finnish law.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google’s 60Tbps Pacific cable welcomed with champagne in Japan

With bottles of bubbly and a purification ceremony, a Google-backed undersea cable was given a warm welcome on a beach in Japan last week, a critical step in building the highest capacity data link in the Pacific ever created.The 9,000-kilometer FASTER cable will have a peak capacity of 60 terabytes per second (Tbps) when it enters operation next year, joining Japan with Oregon on the West Coast of the U.S.Apart from Google, the project is backed by telecom carriers KDDI of Japan, SingTel of Singapore, Global Transit of Malaysia, China Mobile International and China Telecom Global.At the landing site in Shima, Mie Prefecture, east of Osaka, a machine pulled the cable onto the beach from an offshore cable-laying ship while stacks of armored pipes, which shield the link from anchors near the shore, were piled nearby.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Smartphone beacons power crowdsourced weather forecasts

A Japanese climate information company that wants to track just about every cloud in the sky in its own data cloud is handing out atmospheric sensors for smartphones that could improve forecasting.Weathernews is distributing the sensors to users of its Weathernews Touch, a crowdsourced weather info app that has been downloaded more than 13 million times.The hexagonal, palm-sized WxBeacon sensors can detect changes in temperature, barometric pressure and humidity and automatically upload them to the Weathernews cloud.The aim is to improve weather forecasting with more granular, local information and to encourage more people to contribute to crowdsourced weather data, a Weathernews spokeswoman said. The company, which calls itself the world’s largest private weather data firm, believes the data gathered by the beacons could be particularly useful when typhoons strike Japan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone laser dongle makes measuring a snap

iPhone dongles can do everything from high-speed data transfers to testing for HIV.At Computex 2015 in Taipei this week, a local manufacturer is showing off a laser pointer for the Apple phone that can precisely measure short distances.The iPin Laser Ruler is a thumbnail-sized dongle that fits in the iPhone’s audio jack. It houses a class 2 laser pointer that shines a dot of a light on a nearby object, such as a wall or piece of furniture. An app on the phone uses the camera to focus on the dot to determine the distance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Skip the waiter and order with this Bluetooth mat

If you hate waiting for restaurant servers and can’t abide mistakes in your order, there’s an app—and a mat—for that.Putmenu lets diners send their choices directly to a restaurant’s kitchen once they place their smartphone on a smart mat. All they have to do is pick up the mat’s ID via a Bluetooth LE link, order through the app and wait for the food to arrive.Of course, it also minimizes human interaction with restaurant staff and could threaten their jobs. But someone still has to bring out the food.At a demo in Tokyo on Friday, a smartphone with the app was placed on the Bluetooth mat. The mat’s ID was immediately registered, allowing burgers on a mock menu to be ordered. The order was then printed by a cloud-linked kitchen terminal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sony keeps optical discs alive with storage startup acquisition

Sony’s push to get enterprise users to store data on optical discs has received added momentum with its acquisition of a Facebook-linked startup focused on optical storage.Led by former Facebook executive Frank Frankovsky, Optical Archive in California will develop new optical disc library systems for corporate clients’ “cold storage,” which hold data that aren’t accessed often but are preserved for a long time. Examples of such data are photos on social media sites and regulatory or legal documents.The move marks the entry of Sony, which developed the Blu-ray disc over a decade ago, into data center storage, a market it has shied away from partly due to the limited capacity of its optical discs amid the explosion of cloud-based storage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Computer chips made of wood promise greener electronics

U.S. and Chinese researchers have developed semiconductor chips that are nearly entirely made out of wood-derived material.Aside from being biodegradable, the chips could be produced for only a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductors, according to the group of 17 researchers, mostly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with others from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer. Taken from cellulose, a naturally abundant substance used to make paper, cellulose nanofibril (CNF) is a flexible, transparent and sturdy material with suitable electrical properties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Computer chips made of wood promise greener electronics

Sharp phone cameras play slow-motion video at 2,100 fps

Electronics maker Sharp is showing off smartphones that can play back video at rates up to 2,100 frames per second (fps) for a smoother slow motion effect.The struggling manufacturer’s latest Android flagship phones, Aquos Zeta, Aquos Xx and Aquos Serie, have cameras that can record at 210 fps in 854 x 480 pixel resolution (FWVGA mode) or 120 fps in full HD mode.When combined with frame compensation technology, the phone can play back video in slow motion at 2,100 fps in FWVGA or 1,200 fps in full HD. Sharp calls it the world’s highest-rate super slow motion playback for smartphones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Torque G02 smartphone doesn’t mind a saltwater dunk

Many smartphones can stand up to a splash or a dip in fresh water, but they don’t go too well in seawater due to the corrosive salt.Now electronics maker Kyocera has launched an Android smartphone in Japan that’s at home in shallow seas, allowing users to surf, selfie and text at the same time.The Torque G02 is a ruggedized outdoor phone that can be dunked in seawater to a depth of 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. In Kyocera’s tests, it also withstood the weight of a 100 kilogram load spread evenly across its surface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Secom security drone follows, photographs intruders

If you think drones are more than slightly creepy, wait until you meet one that will autonomously follow you and record video.Japanese security company Secom is launching a drone that will automatically launch when an intruder is detected and follow him or her while sending video to human supervisors.The sleek silver quadcopter was shown off this week at the inaugural International Drone Expo held in Makuhari outside Tokyo, where about 50 companies gathered to exhibit drones and related technologies.The UAV will be offered to businesses in Japan operating on relatively large parcels of land—big enough to warrant a flying security camera—such as shopping malls and supermarkets with large parking lots.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple, Google urge Obama to reject encryption back doors

Apple and Google are appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama to reject proposals to allow encryption “back doors” in mobile devices.A letter signed by Apple and Google to be sent Tuesday is aimed at protecting privacy and limiting law enforcement access to encrypted data, according to a report in The Washington Post.“Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” the paper quotes the letter as saying.Over 140 technology companies, technologists and civil society groups also signed it, calling on the president to not “in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” security software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Slammed by phone rivals, Sharp pins hopes on in-car displays

Struggling display manufacturer Sharp, reeling from fierce competition in smartphones, will push automakers to incorporate vehicle dashboards that have gestural commands, thin bezels and other next-generation features.It’s hoping cars will be controlled, in part, through high-resolution displays that can fit any two-dimensional surface area, such as dashboard panels with rounded contours.The company has shown off the wavy screens for cars and consoles in recent months, and has tried to woo automakers to use them. Under the firm’s new medium-term strategy, the push has taken on greater urgency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Japan’s Alsok to launch warning system for unwelcome drones

Burglar alarms could soon incorporate drone-detection technology if a new service from a Japanese security company is anything to judge by.Tokyo-based Sohgo Security Services, also known as Alsok, plans to introduce a system that can detect incoming drones by listening for the signature hum of their rotors.The service could be aimed at government entities, corporations and key facilities such as nuclear power plants as a terrorism countermeasure. Other potential users are people or groups in the public eye who want to ward off the prying eyes of unmanned aerial vehicles.Alsok’s move follows an incident last month when a quadcopter with trace amounts of radiation was found on the roof of the Japanese prime minister’s office, apparently a protest of the government’s nuclear energy policy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NTT DoCoMo launches smartphone with iris unlock feature

Japanese mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo has released a smartphone that can be unlocked with a mere glance.The Arrows NX F-04G, unveiled Wednesday in Tokyo, is billed as the first commercialized smartphone with iris authentication technology, which can also be used to authorize mobile payments.Iris scanners make it easier to unlock phones than keying in a PIN, which can be forgotten or stolen. Authentication takes a second or two, a bit slower than fingerprint authentication, and is based on patterns in the iris that are unique to each individual.The device works with authentication specifications set by the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, which is supported by Microsoft, Google, PayPal and others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NTT DoCoMo launches smartphone with iris unlock feature

Fujitsu pushes wearable IoT tags that detect falls, heat stress

Fujitsu has developed stamp-sized wearable sensor tags that can detect whether users have changed their location or posture, fallen down or are experiencing high heat.The tags transmit data via Bluetooth Low Energy and can be worn as wristbands or location badges on lapels or breast pockets. They could be used by people including hospital patients and infrastructure workers to relay data to supervisors.The tags can also be attached to objects such as shopping carts or walkers for the elderly. They’re part of a cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform from Fujitsu called Ubiquitousware that’s aimed at making IoT applications easier for businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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