AT&T halts tracking

After issues were raised with AT&T’s tracking techniques placing them and their rivals Verizon Wireless into the fire of privacy advocates and consumers together. However, they announced today that they would stop their tracking practices after naming it a ‘test run’.

AT&T (Source: Unknown)

The scandal started after a unique identifier was found inserted into the web activity of the consumers. This would not have been so bad had consumers had a method to opt-out of the tracking. AT&T announced that they tracking served as a powerful tool for advertisers even if it the consumers were not happy. “It has been phased off our network,” a spokesperson told ProPublica.

However, AT&T did not mention anything about the possible relaunching of the program, but did say that if the plan were ever to be rolled out to a wider audience, consumers would have a method to opt-out.

Verizon (Source: Unknown)

It was discovered that Verizon had stopped tracking also when websites set up to detect the technique show that phones on the network are no longer being tracked. Some hypothesize that Verizon has used a new technique to avoid detection, but it’s more likely that the negative response from consumers pressured Verizon into backing down.

Fontus

The Austrian designer Kristof Retezár has developed a new device that attaches to the underside of a bike and generates water just through the act of riding the bike named Fontus.

Fontus (Source: James Dyson Awards)

He claims that under the right conditions (40 degrees and 60% humidity) it can generate up to half a litre of drinking water for an hour’s worth of cycling. However, this raises the question of efficiency as, currently, this is impracticable as the standard person loses approximately double the amount of water they produce through sweat during a casual cycle. Likewise, Retezár has not mentioned anything about the effect of pollution on the output. This raises the question of hygiene in city’s and highly polluted areas.

However, Retezár claims that this device could be not only used for generating water for cyclists, but in areas without access to large amounts of groundwater, which Retezár announced by saying

Form exploration (Source: James Dyson Awards)

“Fontus can be applied in two different areas,” says Retezár. “Firstly, it may be interpreted as a sporty bicycle accessory [that’s] useful on long bike tours. Secondly, it might be a clever way of acquiring freshwater in regions of the world where groundwater is scarce, but humidity is high.”

The device employs a scientific method named the ‘Peltier effect’ also know as thermo-electric cooling. The process used the heat transfer of electricity running through a conductor pushing heat from one side of a slotted piece of metal (more commonly known as a heat sink) to the opposite side.

Fontus (Source: Design Boom under BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Fontus uses solar cells arranged on the upper side of the device to power the Peltier cooler as discussed above. This cools the air chamber that absorbs fresh air as the bike moves. The air is slowed and condensed producing water, which is outputted into a bottle fitted to the bottom.

The device, in essence, produces clean drinking water (in the right conditions) out of air and sunlight. This is why it has been nominated for the Dyson award, which means it could win £28,719 ($45,000) for extended development.

Cyborg Cockroaches

A group of US researchers has developed a cyborg cockroach that can be sent into wreckages to search for survivors.

It’s a well known fact that Cockroaches are one of the world’s toughest creatures being able to survive for days without food or water and being able to live through much higher levels of radiation that it is humanly possible.

Cyborg Cockroach (Source: The Independent)

The new cockroaches have been fitted with a ‘backpack’ (pictured below) which is fitted with a small microphone and a wireless transmitter. This allows them to be sent into a destroyed building to locate trapped persons.

Cyborg Cockroach Backpack (Source: Hackaday)

“In a collapsed building, sound is the best way to find survivors,” said Dr Alper Bozkurt, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University, he continued “The goal is to use the biobots with high-resolution microphones to differentiate between sounds that matter—like people calling for help—from sounds that don’t matter—like a leaking pipe. Once we’ve identified sounds that matter, we can use the biobots equipped with microphone arrays to zero in on where those sounds are coming from.”

As well as the backpacks they have developed a method to ‘steer’ the cockroaches. This method has also been employed to create a ‘fence’ around a building, effectively stopping the cockroaches from leaving. In a real scenario, a fence would be set up around the building and the cockroaches released. From here they would be steered to the sounds of importance, such as people talking or calling for help.

Lander Leap

At approximately 21:00 GMT tonight the scientists controlling the Philae Lander that landed on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will upload commands in an attempt to fire the spring loaded legs. This is one of the final attempts to move the Lander from its current position in the shade of the comets rocky surface into the light allowing it to continue its research. This could be the last possible communication with the Lander until August of 2015.

The comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen by the Philae lander (Source: NASA)

The essence of this plan is to get the Lander to ‘hop’ sideways into a sunnier area of the comet recharging its secondary batteries. This is one of the final attempts the scientists can make due to the quickly draining power remaining in the Landers primary batteries. The scientists have, so far, tried to release a 1.2 meter arm with an attached drill in an attempt to create an “equal and opposite reaction” and push the Lander sideways into the sunlight.

The Philae Lander (Source: Wikipedia)

Valentina Lommatsch, a member of the DLR Lander team, announced that “We are unlucky, in a corner, surrounded by rocks” after figures were released claiming that, instead of the expected 6-7 hours of sunlight the Lander would have achieved were it to land in its correct position, it is receiving only 1.5 hours. Other ideas have been hypothesized by the team behind the Lander such as plan to enable a flywheel contained within the Lander causing it to “cartwheel” or roll into an area of sunlight; however, this idea was deemed unsuitable at the current time due to the large amount of energy it consumes. If the current plan is to fail, scientists must wait until August of 2015 during which time it will come close to the Earth’s orbit. They hope that the increased light and proximity will allow the Lander to reboot and re-establish contact with Earth.

COSAC (Source: Open University – Rosetta in Space)

However, this landing has not been a failure announced Stephan Ulemac, the Philae landing manager, stating that 80% of the intended work of the Lander had been completed. This figure could be raised as high as 90% if the Lander is capable of delivering a sample to one of its on-board sensors. In an attempt to gain as much information from the Lander as possible, the COSAC (Cometary Sampling and Composition Experiment) has been chosen to conduct testing of the first samples instead of the PTOLEMY instrument built in the UK. This is due to the power constraints currently in place on the Lander as well as the fact this data can be more easily compared to the data received from Rosetta orbiter. Nonetheless, the PTOLEMY has still been generating and transmitting data in “sniffing mode”, collecting samples of gas naturally drifting off the comet. Lommatsch said “We juggled everything so that every instrument got to do a measurement, so we are very happy with the mission so far” during an announcement.

PTOLEMY Device (Source: Open University – Rosetta in the UK)