Roving Robot Security Guards: Safety Or Just More Surveillance?

Surveillance robots are a fact of modern society.  Whether they be drones in the sky, surreptitious cameras discreetly hidden in public, or even the wiles in the wires of your own computer turned against you, they are out there.  Now, Silicon Valley has upped the robot game with new five-foot multi-sensory patrol droids.

Every day they risk their microchips and processors, just to keep you safe.
(Image courtesy businesswire.com.)

These "Knightscope" robots, according to the Daily Mail, are intended to use their arrays of microphones, sensors, and cameras to spot and report intruders.  They don't have trigger fingers (or even weapons) like humans do, so they may be thwarted in a fight, but they will record you severely in the process (possibly even using their LIDAR laser ranging to make a 3D map.)  Thermal imaging and even an odor sensor complete the observational package.  That's right, the robot could incriminate you just by your human-stench alone.

Truly a service droid, the Knightscopes operate and charge autonomously thanks to a combination of of laser scanning, wheel encoders, inertial measurements, and GPS.  Eventually, their creators hope to send them out to patrol various neighborhoods or businesses, where they can operate indoors or out.  

Yes, it is very much like an R2 unit.  C-3PO not included.
(Image courtesy urbantimes.co.)

A button on the top of the robot's head allows for humans to interact with a live person (not inside the robot) in case of emergency.  This is a feature perhaps intended to endear the robots to humans, which seems to be part of their creators' mission, as they ask, "Imagine a friend that can see, hear, feel and smell that would tirelessly watch over your corporate campus or neighborhood, keep your loved ones safe and put a smile on everyone passing by..."

So we're supposed to "smile" at our new robot "friends."  With all those cameras and sensors, they'll surely know about it and get mad if we don't.  So, which gang is going to start knitting robot blindfolds?

Don't start trouble in the wrong neighborhood of Silicon Valley.
(Image courtesy fusion.net.)

Compete On The Street: New "Street Pong" Enables Gamer Showdowns At Crosswalks

If you live in a city that is too polite to cross the roads against a traffic light, what are you supposed to do while you wait in that interminable nether-space that is too short for a phone call or a smartphone jaunt online?  One German town has the answer:  stoplight Pong.

Except it's vaguely soccer themed, because Germany.
(Image courtesy image24.co.za.)

According to thelocal.de, the town of Hildesheim has made waiting for the lights to change a matter of competitive gaming, at least by 1970s arcade standards.  With small touchscreens pitting foes from both sides of the street in fierce Pong battle, one may elude the ennui of daily life for a few precious minutes, locked in slidey, soccer-ball-rebounding victory or defeat.

A red and green hourglass timer indicates the available moments left until the light changes and you must return to your regularly-scheduled existence.

But at least you don't have to feed a paycheck's worth of quarters into this thing.
(Image courtesy pongmuseum.com.)

Creator Sandro Engel was enthusiastic about the project, stating, "You play with people you haven't seen before, which is also cool."

The Street Pong experience will remain in place in Hildesheim for four weeks to gauge interest, and possibly longer if it proves popular.  Requests from cities in France and Norway have already implied that this is a fun idea.

Just hope they don't install "Street Fighter II."  Then the traffic would be on the sidewalks, instead of in the streets.

Let's hope the serious gamers don't take this too far.  A ragequit could lead to a real-life pedestrian fatality.
(Image courtesy davisny.com.)

Grounding Big Brother: Amnesty International Releases Anti-Government-Spyware Detection Software

Are you a closet revolutionary who is constantly aware of the deterioration of society and informs themself on ways it can be fixed?  Are you a casual bystander who once googled a song by a band that prided themselves on questioning authority?  Are you just paranoid as hell that the Man is out to get you?  Now, you can stop governmental cyber-peeping for sure, thanks to new technology released by Amnesty International.

As reported by the BBC, it is no secret that governments use "sophisticated spying tools that could grab images from webcams or listen via microphones to monitor people." Amnesty International knows how wrong that is, and has released the Detekt software to combat Big Brother's unsavory advances. Detekt scans your computer for government-grade spyware that might be missed (or intentionally looked over) by other more mainstream virus or malware detectors.

They're not this overt, but they are this unpleasant.
(Image courtesy wpremedy.com.)

Created through a collaboration between Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy International and Digitale Gesellschaft, the free software is designed to operate on Windows (the platform which most spied-on people are apparently using.) Its availability should be helpful in putting a damper on the $5 billion international government spyware market.

That's your tax money, getting spent to indiscriminately spy.  Kill the idea that this could ever be acceptable.
(Image courtesy betanews.com)

"People think the uses of spyware by governments are isolated cases. They are not," said Claudio Guarnieri, the German creator of Detekt. "Their discovery is isolated...Spyware is becoming the final solution for surveillance operations to overcome encryption.

"The real problem is nobody really asked the public whether that's acceptable and some countries are legitimizing their use without considering the consequences and inherent issues."

One of those inherent issues being that average civilians shouldn't be covertly spied on by their government.  Better fire up the Detekt, we probably just got put on a list.

There is nothing noble about blindly swinging a cyber bat at peoples' computers, hoping a pinata of prosecutable info will explode.  Even if it did, that candy is probably supposed to be helping the people.
(Image courtesy thehackernews.com.)

This Drone Is Not Trying To Kill You

Every year, 800,000 people in the European Union suffer a heart attack, but the survival rate remains only about 8%.  Now, thanks to an innovative "ambulance" drone created by a Belgian engineering student, reaching people in a time of emergency can be more effective than ever.

According to inquisitr.com, grad student Alec Momont developed the drone to reach the scene of an accident in considerably less time than the standard urban emergency services.  With most post-cardiac-arrest brain death occurring within 4-6 minutes, the ambulance drone can save lives by reaching anywhere in a 12-kilometer zone in one minute (as opposed to an actual ambulance's 10+ minute arrival time.)

This speed, coupled with onboard defibrillator equipment, could theoretically raise the survival rate from 8% to 80%.

The Ambulance Drone floats like a butterfly, shocks like an electric eel.
(Image courtesy omroepwest.nl.)

The drone uses GPS from an emergency caller's phone to arrive at their position.  Onboard cameras, speakers and microphones enable emergency service providers to coach the on-site rescuer in aid techniques until professional lifesavers can arrive.

Momont wants the drones to eventually contain a "flying medical toolbox" with gear including insulin needles and oxygen masks, to provide for other types of emergencies.  Now, instead of drones stereotypically raining down "death from above", a more optimistic option can take flight.

This drone is considerably less helpful to your health.
(Image courtesy robedwards.com.)

Pay Your Dues As You Snooze: New Alarm Clock App Makes Charity Donations Every Time You Hit "Snooze"

Do you hate leaving the warm embrace of your bed in the morning?  Do you hit the snooze button enough to prolong your beauty sleep by a matter of hours?  Now, put your laziness to work, with a new app that donates money to charity every time you choose to snooze.

"I will give you $100 to shut up and let me sleep until it's dark out again."
(Image courtesy solent.photoshelter.com.)

iCukoo, according to the Daily Mail, is a new app that functions as an alarm clock and donation device.  Just select your charity of choice, the usual duration of your snooze-nap, and the amount you're willing to donate rather than get up and be a productive human being.

The app currently only donates to charities in the UK, but the list is a nicely diverse one.  Parkinson's UK, National Literacy Trust, Starlight (a support group for seriously ill children), Prostate Cancer UK and Maggie's (a cancer charity) can all benefit from your extended sweet dreams.

iCukoo is currently available on iOS and is in development for Android devices, so soon all types of smartphone users can enjoy their snooze as a donation accrues.

Just don't do to your smartphone what you did to your last obnoxious alarm clock.
(Image courtesy rediscoverthemagic.com.)

New York Brings Wireless To The Masses With New LinkNYC Plan

The Big Apple loves going big for its citizens, and now, it's doing so technologically.  A new initiative is set to bring NYC "the fastest and largest free municipal Wi-Fi deployment in the world."

According to theverge.com, the new LinkNYC program will supplant public pay phones with wifi-enabled kiosks that operate 24/7 (because the city doesn't sleep, just like the internet.)  The extremely useful e-encampments will also provide free domestic phone calls and access to information on a host of city services (yes tourists, that includes directions.)

"GIVE ME CUPCAKES...oh wait, it's not one of those cupcake ATMs.  Well...GIVE ME DIRECTIONS TO CUPCAKES."
(Image courtesy dailytech.com.)

Funded by ad revenue from the kiosk's lit-up sides, the machines are to operate at significant speeds using gigabit Wi-Fi, which according to planners "is more than a 100 times faster than the average public Wi-Fi and more than 20 times faster than the average home Internet service in NYC."  Yes, this probably means a lot of people will use it for naughty purposes, even (or especially) due to the public location.

Of course, this is NYC, so some will just remain dirty with no help from the internet.
(Image courtesy trunkrecords.com.)

The program's intent is to have the first wave of machines operational by the second half of 2015, with 10,000 LinkNYC stations eventually accessible from all five boroughs (yeah, even you, Staten Island.)

It's not like you're going to miss these.
(Image courtesy nyt.com.)

Swift Networking Tutorial Index: Building a Swift App to Query a Custom API

Our tutorial series on networking in Swift provides a detailed, practical overview of the topic from the back-end API to the end user application. The series is broken up into two major parts. In the first part, we build a custom web service in PHP which provides access to a RESTful API that serves inventory content from a hypothetical plumbing supply shop. Knowing how to create a simple API is useful for delivering mock content during your app development cycle, and provides application developers with more knowledge on precisely how such a service is constructed. In the second part, we use table views to create a Swift application to query our custom API and deliver the contents of the service to the end user of the application. Use the index below to navigate the tutorial.

Introduction
Introduction and Overview: From the Back End API to the End User Application

The Web API
Building a RESTful API in PHP, Part 1
Building a RESTful API in PHP, Part 2

The Swift Client App
Networking in Swift: Building the Swift Client, Part 1
Networking in Swift: Building the Swift Client, Part 2
Networking in Swift: Building the Swift Client, Part 3
Networking in Swift: Building the Swift Client, Part 4
Networking in Swift: Building the Swift Client, Part 5
 

This tutorial was authored by Stefan Agapie, a Senior iOS Software Engineer, and adapted for the present piece.