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Weekly Tech Recap - № 177 - GPS spoofing, ant emojis, Apple leadership memojified, Infobar XV, chemistry robot

July 20, 2018.

GPS spoofing

GPS navigation.

© iStock.

Researchers have put together a kit that masquerades as a GPS satellite in order to lure receptors into sending drivers in the wrong direction. The team, made up of researchers from Microsoft and Virginia Tech in the U.S. and China’s University of Electronic Sciences and Technology, explained in an article published this month that by sending packets of fake satellite data, they could deceive smartphones and onboard GPS systems, remotely changing routes with a 95% rate of accuracy. The device is based on the Raspberry Pi and is made up of just US$223’s worth of components. “According to our calculations, the effective spoofing range is 40 to 50 meters”, wrote the researchers. Should we be worried?

Ars Technica, “A $225 GPS spoofer can send sat-nav-guided vehicles into oncoming traffic.”

 

An entomologist critiques ant emojis

Ants emojis.

Behind the CurlicueCal handle is a Doctor in Entomology specialized in ant behaviour. Recently, CurlicueCal posted ratings of various ant emojis on her Tumblr page: Microsoft’s, Apple’s, Facebook’s, Twitter’s and others. From a myrmecological point of view, the worst emoji is Mozilla’s, since it’s in fact a termite. Among the better ones are Facebook’s, described as “elegant”, and Messenger’s: “This ant is a bold and challenging mixture of photorealism and caricature.” But head and shoulders above its peers is Apple’s ant, with a score of 11 out of 10. Mind you, CurlicueCal’ assessment is not consensual.

Ants emojis.

“This makes me angry”, said Stephane De Greef, a Belgian environmental engineer, when iOS 11.2. was launched. “Why fix it if it ain’t broken? The old one [the iOS 11.1 ant] was a cute Lasius-kinda ant and now we have this rounding monstruosity with no petiole and widening fluffy legs?” asks De Greef, who photographs ants in nature. “It honestly looks more like a spider than an ant”, said Joanie King, an entomologist at A&M University in Texas specialized in the social behaviour of ants. As for us, we kind of like Google’s ant for its surprised look, but we’re no entomologists.

CurlicueCal, “An entomologist rates ant emojis.”

Quartzy, “Biologists are bugged about the ant emoji.”

The Daily Ant, “New iOS ant emoji enrages entomologist.”

 

Apple leadership memojified

Apple executive profiles.

Tuesday July 17 was World emoji Day, and to celebrate, Apple emojified its entire leadership team. From Tim Cook to Eddy Cue, through Craig Federighi and Jonathan Ive, every last director was replaced by memojis, avatars that can be personalised to turn people into emojis. Memojis came out with iOS 12 and can be animated with iPhone X’s Face ID. But that’s not all: Apple also unveiled over 70 new emojis that will be added this year to iOS 12, watchOS 5 and macOS Mojave. The new emoji designs, based on approved characters in Unicode 11.0, include new hair options to better represent the differently-haired: red, grey, curly, or none at all.

The Verge, “Apple replaced its executive portraits with Memoji.”

The Verge, “Apple adding 70 new emoji including super hero, cupcake, and redheads to iOS 12.”

 

Infobar XV phone

Infobar XV.

Infobar XV. © Buzzap!(バザップ!).

To celebrate the Infobar phone’s 15th birthday, Japanese company KDDI will be launching a third iteration of the handset in October, and it’s fair to say that third time pays for all. Of course, it’s still an Android phone with bare-bones capabilities (a “feature phone”), but its gorgeous design, by Naoto Fukasawa, makes it unique. Infobar XV will come in three colours: classic Nishikigoi (think koi carp, i.e. red and blue), Nasukon (blue) and Cherry Berry (red). It can launch preset applications, but doesn’t provide access to the Play Store. It measures 48mm x 138mm x 14mm, its weight hasn’t been specified, and it has a 3.1-inch 800 x 480 WVGA liquid cristal screen with about 8 million pixels. It also has a rear 8 MP camera, a 1,500 mAh battery, extendable microSDHC storage (up to 32 GB), LTE and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately for us, this phone will only be available in Japan. Its price is as yet unknown.

Three generations of Infobar.

Three generations of Infobar (2003, 2007, 2018). © Buzzap!(バザップ!).

Circuit Breaker, “The 15th-anniversary Infobar is a beautiful Japanese Android feature phone.”

Android Police, “The INFOBAR xv is a gorgeous Japanese feature phone that can run a limited number of Android apps.”

 

Chemistry robot

Chemistry robot.

Chemistry robot. © Lee Cronin.

A team at the University of Glasgow has paired a machine-learning system with a robot capable of executing and analyzing chemical reactions. The result is a system able to figure out every possible reaction for a given set of input. An automatic learning algorithm enables the robot to predict the result of untested reactions with 80% accuracy after randomly testing 10% of all possible reactions. Once it has built its model, the system can determine which ones of the remaining untested reactions are most likely to produce a result, and test those first. The system can continue testing until it obtains a given number of reactions, stop after a given number of unsuccessful tests, or test all possible reactions. The robot is made up of several tanks containing the various input chemicals, which flow into reaction chambers. Three spectrometers (IR, mass and RMN) analyze the results of the reactions.

Ars Technica, “AI plus a chemistry robot finds all the reactions that will work.”

 

IoT Podcast

Shop Talk Show.

Dale Sande and Kianosh Pourian, from Spiria Boston, recorded an hour-long podcast for the Internet show Shop Talk. Of course, it’s all about their passion and specialty: the Internet of Things. If you’re interested and want to know more, go listen to it!

Shop Talk, “#320 Internet of Things.”