Patent No. 8229853. 2012.
Real-time fraud prevention.
This patented system stops fraudulent credit and debit card purchases before they happen. The locations of the purchases must match what you have indicated in your travel itineraries, and if they don’t, the system will recognize that something’s up and stop the transaction before you fund someone’s extravagant designer-handbag shopping spree.
Network When people talk about the Internet of Things (IoT), the most common examples are smart cars, IP-addressable washing machines and Internet-connected nanny cams.
But IoT is coming to the enterprise as well, and IT execs should already be thinking about the ways that IoT will shake up the corporate network.
[DEFINED: What is the Internet of Things?]
SLIDESHOW: 25 of the weirdest things in the ‘Internet of Things’]
“Products and services which were previously outside their domain will increasingly be under their jurisdiction,” says Daniel Castro, senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based research and educational institute.
So, what are these devices?
Castro says that companies increasingly will be operating in “smart buildings” with advanced HVAC systems that are connected to the rest of the corporate network.
Many utility companies will be deploying Web-connected smart meters at customers’ facilities to allow for remote monitoring.
Companies are tying their physical security to their network security, so that data from security cameras and authentication readers are coming under the purview of enterprise IT.
Retailers such as WalMart, Target and Best Buy already use RFID and other tracking technologies to manage supply chain logistics, says IDC’s Michael Fauscette. IoT is a natural next step.
Then there’s “operational technology,” where enterprise assets such as manufacturing equipment, fleet trucks, rail cars, even patient monitoring equipment in hospitals, become networked devices, says Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner.
The Crazy Accurate Thermal Images That Saw Dzokhar Tsarnaev Through a Boat Tarp
There was no small amount of technology that went into the capture of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev, but perhaps none was more impressive than the helicopter-mounted, forward-looking infrared camera that confirmed once and for all that there was someone hiding in a boat in Watertown, Massachusetts. And that he was almost certainly Dzokhar Tsarnaev.
Here are the pictures that sky-high camera took, just released a few hours ago by the Massachusetts State Police. They’re incredible.
The shot above gives the cleanest look taken by state police’s Air Wing, after being tipped off by the boat’s owner that there was a man smeared with blood (Tsarnaev) hiding inside. You can see Tsarnaev’s legs extended almost to the wheel, and his right arm outstretched. The boat itself looks almost like an X-ray. And that’s no surprise, given the capabilities of the technology involved. As we wrote last night, forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras are equipped with special sensors that can detect infrared radiation, such as that caused by a heat source. Specifically, in this case, caused by a heat source belonging to a human body.
Facial Recognition Tech Could Help Identify the FBI Identity Suspects | MIT Technology Review
The FBI could use software to help identify suspects, and more advanced techniques are around the corner.
The FBI appealed to the public Thursday for help identifying two men shown in pixilated photos and video footage who are suspected of involvement in Monday’s bomb attacks in Boston.
Experts say the FBI may be able to use other images from the scene—together with facial recognition software—to search through identity databases. The approach is likely to become more common in the future as new technology makes using facial recognition on surveillance and bystander imagery more reliable.
Deploying facial recognition software in the Boston investigation isn’t straightforward because the images available are very different from the evenly lit, frontal, passport-style photos stored in law enforcement databases. Such mug shots can be matched with about 99 percent accuracy, says Anil Jain, a professor at Michigan State expert who works on facial recognition, a figure that falls to about 50 percent for images of good quality but with added complications such as a person wearing a hat or glasses.
Hacker Shows How To Attack An Airplane’s Systems—Using A Phone
A German security researcher has demonstrated how easy it can be to hack into the digital systems of an airliner in flight using the right coding knowledge and hardware that’s not hard to get—including a Samsung smartphone.
Can GPS Trackers Help Stop Prescription Painkiller Theft? | Fast Company
Police in New York City are planning to use fake prescription painkiller pill bottles with GPS trackers to try to curb the theft of highly addictive prescription pills, police commissioner Ray Kellyreportedly outlined yesterday in a speech at Bill Clinton’s Foundation’s conference on health issues in La Quinta, Calif.
Under the plan, which has been adopted by a few police departments across the country, police would ask pharmacies to store the fake bottles among the real prescription pills. When one is stolen (or removed from its home), it will emit a special signal that will allow police to track it.
Augmented reality growing popular with U.S. military - QR Code Press
The practical applications of augmented reality are gaining more attention, however, especially amongst military and security organizations. A new report from Mind Commerce, a research organization, shows that augmented reality is, indeed, becoming a popular topic within the U.S. military.
Skywiper, as CrySys calls the virus, may have been active for as long as five to eight years. It uses five encryption methods, three compression techniques and at least five file formats. Its means of gathering intelligence include logging keyboard strokes, activating microphones to record conversations and taking screen shots, CrySys reported.
Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Vehicles developed by KMel Robotics.
A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors (by TheDmel)
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Scientists have designed a car seat which can recognise the ‘bottom-print’ or the way people sit to identify the driver. Scientists at the Tokyo’s Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology have designed the chair which measures 360 pressure points to build a 3D profile of how a person sits.
The discovery could replace car keys and the researchers say it could even be used in offices instead of computer passwords. Scientists say that the system is 98 percent accurate.
It’s a simple matter of fitting pressure sensors inside a normal car seat - so it could be in production cars as early as 2014. The team says that the bottom-scan is actually less intrusive than other forms of biometric scans, such as the face recognition currently in use by Britain passport control.
”As every year, Gartner identifies the 10 technologies that will be strategic for most organizations all through next year. And of course, cloud computing is among them.
For Gartner, the technologies appearing in the report have potential enough to significantly impact during the next 3 years, whether in business or IT department, as well as receive an important volume of investment or mean a risk in case organizations do not implement them in time. A strategic technology can already exist or be mature and/or become suitable enough for a wide range of uses. It can be also an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantages for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption within the next five years. These technologies represent an impact on the organizations long-term plans, programs and initiatives. In short, these technologies will be strategic for most organizations and, as such, they should be included in planning for IT leaders.
Accel Debuts $100M Fund To Invest In Disruptive Big Data Companies | TechCrunch
Accel Partners has steadily been making investments in infrastructure and companies looking to manage big data for the enterprise, including funding Cloudera, CouchBase, and even Fusion-IO. But there’s no doubt that more and more startups are launching to help businesses manage massive amounts of data as technologies like Apache Hadoop become more popular. Today, Accel is launching a $100 million fund dedicated to investing in entrepreneurs who are building disruptive big data companies.
This is actually the first dedicated fund to a specific vertical in Accel’s history as a venture firm. The fund, which is made up of Accel’s existing capital, will be devoted to funding innovation across entire “big data stack” from infrastructure (storage, security, management, etc.) to enterprise applications (business intelligence, collaboration, mobile, vertical apps, etc.).
“When considering the consequences of peak oil, no everyday experiences and only few historical parallels are at hand. It is therefore difficult to imagine how significant the effects of being gradually deprived of one of our civilization’s most important energy sources will be. Psychological barriers cause indisputable facts to be blanked out and lead to almost instinctively refusing to look into this difficult subject in detail. Peak oil, however, is unavoidable.”
~ A quote from the recently translated Peak Oil analysis written by the German Military (via ASPO)
(Image credit: Johns Hopkins Public Health)
Hackers showed they have a very long reach at the Defcon hacker conference this week. They can turn off your power or hack your home automation systems through internet-connected power lines.
Independent security researchers David “Rel1k” Kennedy and Rob “Kc57″ Simon told the audience that they were releasing free tools that will let hackers break into home automation, business automation, and security systems that operate over the electrical wires of a building. It’s one more example of how hackers can pretty much break into any computerized technology available.
“We have to bring more exposure to this attack vector,” Kennedy said in his talk, which drew a big crowd at Defcon.
» via VentureBeat
via infoneer-pulse:
Confidential lost & found tags help protect users’ things
It used to be that protecting one’s stuff meant putting a name or phone number on it somewhere. Today, however, many consumers would rather not expose such potentially sensitive information. As a result, there’s TurlyTag, a system of hard tags and stickers that lets users label their things without giving out personal details. READ MORE…
via springwise:
