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Bionic contact lens ‘to project emails before eyes’ | BBC News

November 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A new generation of contact lenses that project images in front of the eyes is a step closer after successful animal trials, say scientists.

The technology could allow wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images, Terminator-syle.

Seattle’s Washington University which is working on the device says early tests show it is safe and feasible.

But there are still wrinkles to iron out, like finding a good power source.

Currently, their crude prototype device can only work if it is within centimetres of the wireless battery.

And its microcircuitry is only enough for one light-emitting diode, reports the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.

“Our next goal is to incorporate some predetermined text in the contact lens”

Lead researcher Professor Babak Parviz

But now that initial safety tests in rabbits have gone well, with no obvious adverse effects, the researchers have renewed faith about the device’s possibilities.

They envisage hundreds more pixels could be embedded in the flexible lens to produce complex holographic images.

via BBC News – Bionic contact lens ‘to project emails before eyes’.

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NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post

June 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say.

The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation’s largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets.

“We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.

via NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post.

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India data privacy rules may be too strict for some U.S. companies – The Washington Post

May 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Data privacy rules enacted last month in India are now alarming some U.S. companies, which worry that they may be too restrictive.

The rules in India’s Information Technology Act govern the collection and use of personal information including banking and medical details. But business leaders in India and the United States worry that they add a cumbersome layer of disclosures such as obtaining written consent from each customer before collecting and using personal data.

Google has protested some sections of the rules, which make Internet intermediaries responsible for any objectionable content, which is defined as “harassing,” “grossly harmful” or “ethnically objectionable.”

The rules about data privacy will apply to all Indian organizations and will affect multinational corporations that outsource business operations to India or have opened back-offices here.

via India data privacy rules may be too strict for some U.S. companies – The Washington Post.

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SEC staff’s ‘revolving door’ prompts concerns about agency’s independence – The Washington Post

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

From Capitol Hill to academia and the SEC inspector general’s office, observers of the agency have voiced concern that the revolving door can make the SEC a more docile protector of the public interest.

A study to be released Friday by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), based on hundreds of SEC documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, sheds new light on the relationship between the regulators and the regulated.

Over the past five years, 219 former SEC employees filed disclosures with the SEC saying that they planned to represent clients or employers in dealings with the agency, POGO found.

Many of those former SEC employees were appearing before the agency on multiple matters; altogether, they filed almost 800 disclosure statements, the private watchdog group reported.

via SEC staff’s ‘revolving door’ prompts concerns about agency’s independence – The Washington Post.

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Justice Department, SEC cracking down on U.S. companies engaging in bribery abroad – The Washington Post

March 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

To win computer business with the South Korean government, IBM allegedly delivered cash bribes in shopping bags.

In pursuit of Ni­ger­ian construction contracts, Halliburton and its international business partners allegedly routed illicit payments through bank accounts in Switzerland and Monaco.

And a middleman for a middleman of the Italian energy company ENI allegedly made repeated trips to a Ni­ger­ian hotel room and handed over briefcases containing millions of dollars in U.S. currency to a government official. But paying the balance of the alleged $5 million bribe in the local currency was more problematic — the local bills were so bulky that the bagman allegedly had to deliver them by the carload.

These alleged schemes have come to light as part of an escalating effort by U.S. law enforcement officials against companies that engage in bribery abroad. Just last week, federal authorities announced they had charged IBM with corruptly pursuing contracts in Asia.

In recent years, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have filed an increasing number of foreign corruption cases, charging companies such as Tyson Foods, General Electric, Alcatel-Lucent and Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars and the former parent of Chrysler.

The cases reach from Latin America to Africa, Asia and the Middle East, involving contracts worth billions of dollars. Together, they suggest that illicit payments often tip the scales of global business — sometimes with the blessing of top corporate executives.

via Justice Department, SEC cracking down on U.S. companies engaging in bribery abroad – The Washington Post.

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Agencies to look for a ‘cloud option’ | Washington Post

November 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The federal government is adopting a “cloud-first” policy, marking the administration’s strongest statement yet in support of Web-based computing as it looks to overhaul the way it buys information technology.

Jeffrey Zients, the federal government’s first chief performance officer, announced last week that the Office of Management and Budget will now require federal agencies to default to cloud-based solutions “whenever a secure, reliable, cost-effective cloud option exists.”

The shift is part of a broader set of changes aimed at improving IT procurement. In recent months, the federal government has shut down or restructured a host of technology programs after they ran over budget and behind schedule.

“Fixing IT is central to everything we’re trying to do across government,” Zients said. “IT is our top priority.”

via Agencies to look for a ‘cloud option’.

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Mobile sign language being developed at UW – Computerworld

August 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle are building the first mobile devices to effectively transmit American Sign Language via compressed video over a 3G cellular network.

The problem they are trying to solve is optimizing the compressed video for sign language so that it can be transmitted on a 3G network, instead of requiring faster 4G network speeds, according to a report published on the university’s Web site. The engineers have increased image quality around faces and hands used in ASL while still delivering intelligible sign language via video at speeds of 30Kbit/sec.

The engineers on the project are finishing a three-week initial trial of the MobileASL tool on older phones equipped with cameras for video chat, although the software is designed to work on a range of smartphones and other mobile devices.

via Mobile sign language being developed at UW – Computerworld.

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Momentum building for federal online privacy rules | Washington Post

July 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that he plans to introduce an online privacy bill that would create standards for how consumer information is collected and used for marketing. It would also give users more control over how their Internet activity and profiles are accessed by advertisers and Web sites.

Kerry’s bill, announced in a news release during a hearing on online privacy held by the Senate commerce committee, follows two privacy bills introduced in the House in recent months aimed at protecting sensitive information such as health and financial data. Kerry said he hopes his bill will be passed at the beginning of the next Congress.

via Momentum building for federal online privacy rules.

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TSA wants cyber forensics info — Washington Technology

June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

TSA is interested in products that would give the agency the ability to scan, capture, identify, report, and resolve IT forensics matters, according to a sources sought notice published on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site June 1. The agency said it’s not issuing a solicitation at this time.

The agency is interested in solutions that would allow TSA forensic users to deal with insider threats, e-discovery procedures, data leakage, misuse of IT assets, anomaly detection, identification of malicious code, and compliance verification, according to the notice.

TSA wants companies to provide detailed descriptions of how their products work and what makes them unique. Specifically, TSA is interested in how a product:

  • Supports legal e-discovery processes.
  • Manages and performs enterprise forensics activities across multiple IT systems.
  • Can be used to schedule periodically recurring scans.
  • Integrates with desktop products.
  • Manages and tracks forensic information.
  • Identifies suspicious system activities, including any known exploits.
  • Supports remediation activities to remove identified threats while sweeping for known malicious code.
  • Reports problems.
  • Analyzes data.
  • Interfaces with other systems.
  • Is designed from an IT architecture perspective.

via TSA wants cyber forensics info — Washington Technology.

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Microsoft cracks down on ad click fraud | Seattle PI

May 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Image representing Microsoft adCenter as depic...
Image via CrunchBase

In anticipation of a planned announcement Wednesday regarding click fraud, Microsoft has filed at least two lawsuits against companies it believes are mixed up in the illegal manipulation of online-advertising commerce.

Microsoft on Monday implicated two established websites, RedOrbit and HelloMetro, in two fraud complaints filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. Microsoft alleges the defendants used malicious means to artificially increase the number of times that advertisements on those sites were clicked.

The defendants, Microsoft claims, used the software company’ adCenter and pubCenter platforms to surface advertisements on their websites. When a Web user clicks one of those ads, money is automatically transferred from the advertiser’s account to the ad publisher’s account.

Click-fraud perpetrators can use automated computer scripts, deploy malware, e-mail spam links or hire people to generate an inflated number of clicks on online advertisements. Such practices bring extra money to the ad publisher, and fraud is suspected when the action is hidden.

In an interestingly timed move, Microsoft filed the lawsuits two days before it announces “some significant news,” as the company has said, about click fraud trends. Seattlepi.com has learned that the announcement will provide better context for the lawsuits, though it is unclear exactly what the news will be.

A spokesperson said the announcement will also relate to a third legal filing, but Microsoft would not elaborate. Stay tuned to The Microsoft Blog on Wednesday for more information.

In the RedOrbit case (PDF), Microsoft names the company, founder Eric Ralls and 10 “John Does” as defendants. RedOrbit.com is a Tyler, Texas-based online news site that publishes articles, photos and videos about science, space, technology and health.

via Microsoft cracks down on ad click fraud.

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