A few years ago, researchers at MIT developed a new technology that could detect movement by measuring changes to wireless signals. This device, called Radio Frequency (RF) Capture, could in effect "see through walls" by detecting ripples in Wi-Fi or other wireless signals anywhere in a house. Now, the company Cognitive Systems has harnessed this technology to build a new kind of home security system called Aura. Instead of using cameras or motion sensors, Aura can detect home intruders by looking at how movement affects wireless signal.

At its most basic, Aura is a base station and a companion unit placed on opposite sides of a house. It can tell you, via a smartphone app, if there is movement in your house and how much. It can't, however, tell you what is making that movement, unless it's a person who has already registered their phone with the device. Aura can also automatically tell when you leave your home by detecting that you phone is no longer present. Then, it automatically arms itself though you can do that manually as well. When movement is detected, Aura will send an alert to your phone or set off an alarm.

Aura is programmed to recognize the differences in movements made by a pet or a human, or ambient movement like a fan blowing a curtain. Humans in a space change the wireless spectrum much more dramatically than other sources of movement.

A device like Aura may appeal to some people who are concerned about security but don't like the idea of pointing a camera at your bedroom. Aura, on the other hand, doesn't record or even "see" what is happening in your house—it only detects movement.

"There's no sense of privacy invasion," Cognitive Systems CEO Hugh Hind ssaid.

To make Aura, Cognitive Systems built a new kind of microchip, one that can detect a broad spectrum of frequencies, from 80 MHz to 4 Ghz. This novel technology could be very useful for manufacturers of other gadgets, and it's possible that Cognitive Systems' chip will outdo the security system it powers.

But that success has yet to be determined, since Aura has just started shipping to customers. But it's not hard to imagine that a device that can see movement through solid walls , all without using a camera, could change the landscape of surveillance and security.
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Aura is available at the company’s website at $499/each.

A new camera developed in Sweden is faster than any photography gear on the planet.

Researchers at Sweden's Lund University built a crazy-fast camera that can capture a staggering five trillion frames per second, or events as short as 0.2 trillionths of one second. Conventional cameras, by contrast, top out at around 100,000 frames per second.

With the new high-speed film camera, the researchers plan to film rapid processes in chemistry, biology, and physics that are otherwise impossible to capture in photos or videos.

"Explosions, plasma flashes, turbulent combustion, brain activity in animals, and chemical reactions — we are now able to film such extremely short processes," Elias Kristensson, a combustion physics researcher and co-inventor of the camera, said in a news release. 

Kristensson and his research partner Andreas Ehn plan to use the camera — called FRAME (Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures) — to record combustion as it occurs at the molecular level, they said.

Combustion is a chemical reaction between a fuel and oxygen, which produces heat. The researchers’ ultimate goal is to help make fuel-burning machines (such as car engines, gas turbines, and boilers) more energy-efficient by examining combustion at every fleeting, minuscule stage.

"In the long term, the technology can also be used by industry and others," Kristensson said.

The FRAME camera works differently from more conventional devices. Most high-speed cameras capture images one by one, in a rapid sequence. But the Swedish creation uses a computer algorithm that captures several coded images in one picture; those are later sorted into a video sequence.

When filming a chemical reaction, the camera exposes it to light by firing off laser flashes. Each light pulse is given a unique code, and the object reflects those bursts of light, which merge into a single photograph. Next, those images are separated using an encryption key.

The researchers said that in addition to setting a new speed record, the camera is especially exciting because of its ability to film chemical changes in real time. Without this new high-speed camera, researchers could only visualize such rapid events by photographing still images of the process, Kristensson explained.
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"You then have to attempt to repeat identical experiments to provide several still images, which can later be edited into a movie," he said. "The problem with this approach is that it is highly unlikely that a process will be identical if you repeat the experiment."

We are all experiencing the increasingly invasive robocall phenomenon. Sometimes robocallers disguise themselves with allegedly valid caller IDs and other times they don’t. Whatever they do, it’s a constant plague on our privacy.

“Blocking robocalls on a home landline is like trying to stop a star athlete,” says Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services and adjunct professor of communications at the University of Denver. “Most coaches will say they are just trying to control the superstar because they know they can't truly stop him or her completely. There is no sure-fire way to stop unwanted calls completely, so the best thing to do is simply try to limit them.”

Don’t Answer. As rudimentary as it seems, one the most effective deterrents is to screen your calls. “If no one ever picked up the phone when it rang, robocalls would stop,” says Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, a visual voicemail and robocall blocking service. “If I’m going to scam you to buy a fake cruise or install fake virus software, I need you to answer the phone so that I can pitch you.”

Quilici said he turned his landline ringer off altogether, and all calls go through an answering machine with caller ID. If the caller doesn’t leave a message, he doesn’t worry about it. If they do, he can still grab the phone while the caller is talking, or call him or her back. “These aren’t perfect solutions, it’s like bringing back the 80’s and 90’s, but it goes a long way to solving the problem.” He also told me that he convinced his mom to do this, too (and it’s working).

Call Blocking Boxes. Then there are "robocall blocker" boxes. I have a friend who swears by the $100 CPR V5000 Call Blocker he picked up for his aging father. He said his parent's phone went from ringing more than ten times a day with political polls, solar panel and security system sales, to remaining blissfully quiet unless a “whitelisted” number comes through. The boxes range anywhere from $30-$150 dollars.

The blocking box does contribute to one concern. One of the biggest reasons people keep landlines is for emergencies. The boxes “could present problems in emergency situations or when it comes to "legitimate" robocalls (school snow days, product recalls, etc.),” says Tim Prugar, who sits on the Communication Fraud Control Association’s consumer education committee.

Free Solutions. An app called Nomorobo is one of the top recommendations for stopping robocalls on your smartphone, and it's just as good for blocking bad callers on your home phone. On mobile, it’s a paid subscription, but it's free for landlines. It automatically blocks almost 500,000 confirmed robocallers and doesn't use ads or any other goofy tricks to get money out of you — it's just plain free.

The catch is that it only works with VoIP phone service, so if you get your phone through an internet or cable provider like Charter, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon Fios, Comcast Xfinity, Vonage, or several others, you're good to go. It does not work, however, on traditional "analog copper" phone lines. If you’re not sure what you have, call your phone company.

Another freebie helper for ridding robocalls is anonymous call rejection. To enable it, just pick up your phone and press "*77.” You should hear three short beeps to let you know it's activated, and then you can hang up. After that, all calls that come in as Anonymous, Private (a favorite of robocallers), or Blocked won’t get through. You can turn the feature off whenever you want by pressing "*87.” Virtually every phone company has this feature built right into your service, and it’s just sitting there waiting for you.

None of these solutions are perfect because it turns out, blocking robocalls on home phones is much more complicated than blocking them on smartphones.

The best way to limit all these unwanted calls is to follow a few simple guidelines:

• Never interact with a robocall.
• Don’t press a button, wait for an agent, or even speak.
• Anything you do that shows your number is real and active will just make you an even bigger target for promotions, actual or fake, in the future. Seriously, just hang up! (Or better yet, don’t answer at all.)

It’s a super complicated problem, and right now there’s just no one solution. But with the right tools and a bit of common sense, you can avoid scams and hurt the annoying callers right where it hurts the most: Their ability to rob us blind.

This year, I have covered Blockchain technology with four different articles (Issues 3-17, 3-24, 3-25, 3-31). Blockchain's claim to fame is its ability to fully encrypt personal data on the internet, allowing for the digital translation of assets and the elimination of need for a protective middle man. Essentially, this new crypto-technology enables secure-funds transactions and ensures that data cannot be hacked by outsiders.

Epstein explained that blockchain is a "distributed ledger." It's not a database sitting in an office. It's a database that everyone can access.

"We're seeing decentralization and a paradigm shift of moving from institutions to ourselves. Power has been given back to the business owners, who no longer need to rely on the permission of banks and governments to send money electronically," says blockchain expert Jeremy Epstein.

When you use a bank as an intermediary to transfer funds to another person by check, each person involved in the transaction has a separate record. The bank doesn't know right away that the person writing the check has a balance to cover the amount written out--there is an element of trust, and things can go wrong.
"We've been built to have other organizations be custodians of our assets (like banks). However, there have been more and more violations of our data,” Epstein added.

Conversely, Blockchain allows for privacy in the combination of records and the elimination of any intermediaries. Both parties can view the encrypted ledger and see any mutual transactions, but no one party controls it. Rather, each transaction is a block that is added to a chain once all parties affirm the block is correct. The chain itself is protected by cryptography.

"With blockchain, everyone can clearly see who the owner of the asset is, but only the person with the right key can unlock the door of that asset.

Think about the title of the asset - it would be in your control. This is why people buy title insurance. Blockchain lets us buy and sell any asset without an intermediary. Additionally, the asset is programmable, so you can set up business rules and computational logic for each asset. For instance, you could put in place a rule that states, 'I can't sell this without others signing off.' Thus, the asset cannot be not sold unless business rules are met."

According to Harvard research, Blockchain also maximizes transparency and anonymity. Each transaction is seen by anyone who has access to the chain; however, since each node (or user) has a unique alphanumeric identifier, each user can decide whether to remain anonymous in the transaction between addresses. These transactions can also be programmed with algorithms that can automate transactions between users.

So, if blockchain is so good, why hasn’t it caught on yet? There are four reasons to that question.

• Trust Issues. Epstein emphasized the issue of believability and gaining trust of users. He said, "How will people get their head around this technology? Building trust and credibility will take time.
• Stigma. Harvard found that some industries may view blockchain as "disruptive" because it "can attach a traditional business model with a lower-cost solution and overtake incumbent firms quickly." However, they argue that blockchain is most importantly a foundational technology that can be used to create new business models and underpin business, economic, and social infrastructure.
• Novelty. It will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure. The process of adoption will be gradual and steady. Epstein agrees, saying that, "it is still very, very early. Think Internet circa 1993."
• Adoption. Epstein indicates that the financial services industry has implemented blockchain technology more than any other. They're looking to improve efficiencies with cross-border transactions. Bitcoin is the most well-known blockchain application.
  

Essentially, "Email is to the internet the way bitcoin is to blockchain. There are multiple apps, just like there are multiple blockchains," says Epstein.

Blockchain is still in its early stages, and new crypto-technology applications and advancements are regularly occurring. We expect big changes over the next few years, as over $1 billion has been invested into this tech by venture capitalists.