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Submission Summary: 2 pending, 11 declined, 5 accepted (18 total, 27.78% accepted)

Submission + - One Shared Key Lets Phones Unlock or Immobilize 2 Million Cars (youtube.com)

Submitted by cortex
cortex writes: A WIRED Investigations video (YouTube) shows UC San Diego researchers discovering that dealer-installed KARR (and SWDS) aftermarket car alarms—estimated in more than 2 million U.S. vehicles, mostly from Southern California dealerships since around 2017—share a single Bluetooth authentication key. Anyone within Bluetooth range can use a simple reverse-engineered app to silently unlock doors, disable the alarm, honk the horn, flash lights, or immobilize a parked car so it won’t start, often without the owner even knowing the hidden under-dash module is present or active (it can still respond even if the paid service was declined). The vendor (Acrisure Protection Group) has released a manual firmware patch via the KARR smartphone app; owners can check for a KARR/SWDS window sticker or a blinking light under the dash. Full details in the accompanying WIRED story.

Submission + - Auto Dealerships make cars hackable (youtube.com)

Submitted by cortex
cortex writes: UCSD and UW researchers show that hackers can control a vehicle by exploiting a vulnerability in an antitheft device unknowingly installed on millions of cars.

Submission + - Look at What I'm Saying (plosone.org)

Submitted by cortex
cortex writes: University of Utah bioengineers discovered our understanding of language may depend more heavily on vision than previously thought: under the right conditions, what you see can override what you hear. In an article published in PLOS One "Seeing Is Believing: Neural Representations of Visual Stimuli in Human Auditory Cortex Correlate with Illusory Auditory Perceptions" the authors showed that visual stimuli can influence neural signals in the auditory processing part of the brain and change what a person hears. In this study patients were shown videos of an auditory illusion called the McGurk Effect while electrical recordings where made from the surface of the cerebral cortex.
Android

Submission + - New smartphone with forked version of Android from (xda-developers.com)

Submitted by
cortex
cortex writes: "XDA developers is reporting on a the release of a new smart phone, which runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system.

"Dell and Baidu, the Chinese search giant with over 80% marketshare in its home-country, unveiled the Streak Pro on Tuesday (via Computerworld). The device has a 4.3 AMOLED screen with 960×540 resolution and packs a 1.5 GHz dualcore Qualcomm processor. Most notably, however, is the operating system it runs: a forked Android version dubbed Baidu Yi, which replaces Google’s services with those of Baidu."

How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"
Science

Submission + - Brain Reading: translating brain waves into words (latimes.com)

Submitted by
cortex
cortex writes: "In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain. The device could benefit people who have been paralyzed by stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease or trauma and are "locked in" — aware but unable to communicate except, perhaps, by blinking an eyelid or arduously moving a cursor to pick out letters or words from a list.

Researchers have made tremendous strides in developing ways for patients to move a computer cursor or even an artificial arm using electrodes implanted in the brain. But researchers have been reluctant to implant electrodes in the speech centers for fear of causing irreversible damage.

Some researchers have been attempting to "read" speech centers in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. But such electrodes "are so far away from the electrical activity that it gets blurred out," Greger said.

He and his colleagues instead use arrays of tiny microelectrodes that are placed in contact with the brain, but not implanted. In the current study, they used two arrays, each with 16 microelectrodes."
Medicine

Submission + - "Manhattan Project" for prosthetic arm

Submitted by
cortex
cortex writes: "The IEEE Spectrum has a nice story on DARPA's prosthetic limb project. From the article:

"Johns Hopkins researchers lead a nationwide effort to make a bionic arm that wires directly into the brain to let amputees regain motor control — and feeling".

In February, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) authorized the next phase of a four-year program to create prosthetic arms that can better emulate natural limbs. They will more closely match the real thing in appearance and function. And the user's ability to feel with them and control them will be vast improvements over anything currently available. The Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program is spread over 30 different organizations, including 10 universities across Canada, Europe, and the United States: the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, is working on signal processing and pattern recognition for natural arm control; the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, is working on electrodes for brain implants. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Md., is "herding the cats," according to DARPA project manager Colonel Geoffrey Ling, ensuring that these far-flung research partners work together to make the bionic arm a near-term reality. Scientists involved say that this Manhattan Project-like system — on which DARPA has already spent US $30.4 million — is the only way to bring technology this advanced into the world by 2009."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Best motherboards with large RAM capacity? 1

Submitted by
cortex
cortex writes: "I routinely need to analyze large datasets (principally using Matlab). I recently "upgraded" to 64-bit Vista so that I can access larger amounts of RAM. I know that various Linux distros have had 64-bit support for years. I also typically use Intel motherboards for their reliability, but currently Intel's desktop motherboards only support 8GB of RAM and their server motherboards are too expensive. Can anyone relate their experiences with working with Vista or Linux machines running with large RAM (>8GB). What is the best motherboard (Intel or AMD) and OS combination for workstation applications in terms of cost and reliability?"

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