Alibaba wants you to pay for things on your smartphone by scanning your face

he future of payments may be staring us right in the face. 

 

Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce giant with more money than it knows what to do with, is planning to introduce a facial recognition option called Smile to Pay that would let shoppers pay for purchases on their smartphones by scanning their faces. 

"Online payment to buy things is always a big headache," Jack Ma, cofounder and chairman of Alibaba, said while demonstrating the new feature during a presentation at CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany on Sunday. He highlighted concerns about passwords and security. "Today we show you a new technology in the future of how people can buy things online."

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These jeans use RFID-blocking fabric to prevent identify theft

Developed in a partnership between clothing designer Betabrand and security software company Norton, a new pair of men’s jeans, as well as a women’s blazer, will include a lining of radio frequency identification (RFID) blocking material to prevent a trend the two companies are calling “digital pickpocketing.” According to the crowdfunding page for the jeans, the two companies claim “that more than 10 million identities are digitally pickpocketed every year” and “70% of all credit cards will be vulnerable to such attacks” by 2015.

The READY Active Jeans will include this material on both a front and back pocket, usually the spot where you would store credit or debit cards in a wallet. In addition, the Work-It Blazer for women will include one pocket lined with the blocking material.

Including this type of technology within an article of clothing isn’t cheap though. The regular MSRP on the jeans is priced at $168 and the blazer is priced at $198. However, both can be funded at a discount on the Betabrand site. Betabrand expects to ship the jeans during late February and the blazer during mid-March 2015. That’s assuming the blazer reaches the initial funding goal. The jeans have already surpassed the funding goal and will definitely become a product.

Of course, there are many less expensive alternatives if you are really concerned about digital thieves taking advantage of RFID. There are a number of RFID-blocking wallets carried by online retailers as well as upstart companies that are developing pouches and cases with similar fabric specifically for smartphones. The downside to using that type of case would be having to flip open the case each time the phone was being used or slip it out of the pouch to check it. However, it could be ideal for travel when a phone is tucked away in a backpack or purse.

via: digitaltrends

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The card aiming to end Nigeria's fraud problem

Nigeria has a bad reputation when it comes to fraud.

"Dear Friend" emails originating from the country - also known as 419 scams - are among the most notorious in the world, with statistics from Ultrascan AGI suggesting losses from such schemes totalled $12.7bn (£8.2bn) in 2013. And the number of scams is growing by 5% each year.

"Nigeria certainly has a problem," says Cormac Herley, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, who has looked in detail at 419 scams. "[The country has] become associated with a particular form of scam that's very visible and known to everyone who receives those emails."

However, identity fraud is also a serious problem.

Identity problems In May last year, 16 people were charged in the US for using stolen information to obtain money and goods and then shipping them to Nigeria. Those arrested, most of them Nigerian, were charged with taking over bank or stock brokerage accounts, removing all the money, and making purchases. They were eventually sentenced to seven years imprisonment. 

And it is not just foreigners who are targeted by such fraud. Nigeria's Inter-Bank Settlements Systems estimates the country's banks lost 159 billion naira ($800m; £515m) to electronic fraud between 2000 and 2013. Faced with its negative international reputation, and local banking losses, the Nigerian government is seeking to address the issue centrally.

 Last year, the National Electronic Identity (e-ID) Card was launched in collaboration with MasterCard, with President Goodluck Jonathan the first recipient. Ending impersonation The smart card's Match-On-Card technology matches a holder's fingerprint against a profile stored in the embedded chip.

The card is also a travel document, conforming to the same standards as international passports. It contains electronic identification information, as well as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology that allows for document signing, non-repudiation and encryption.

The new card is "actually addressing the issue of multiple identities by some Nigerians," explains Mr Onyemenam.
"It is addressing the issue of stolen identity. It is helping security agencies verify and fish out who the real culprit is."
Aside from its identification features, the card offers can be used as a form of payment.
Separated from the other services by a firewall, the payments function uses MasterCard's prepaid technology and is chip and pin certified.
Daniel Monehin, division president for sub-Saharan Africa at MasterCard, says the fact the card has a computer chip embedded protects cardholders from fraud, and protects against the creation of counterfeit cards.
The rollout of the payments-enabled e-ID card will also go some way to addressing another of Nigeria's major issues: lack of access to banking.
Fully 70% of adult Nigerians do not have a formal bank account.
"By giving every Nigerian of 16 and older an identity card with payments functionality, the government can effectively eliminate financial exclusion in Nigeria, and help citizens to improve their livelihoods," says Mr Monehin.

 via BBC

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Office plants computer chips under workers’ skin instead of ID cards

A new Swedish office block is implanting the workers inside of it with computer chips under their skin, rather than issuing them with ID cards.

The small radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are pushed under the skin in the hand, and can then be used to open doors or use the photocopier.
The chips have been offered to the 400 people that have signed up to the Epicenter hi-tech office block in Sweden. That now includes the BBC’s technology reporter Rory Cellan-Jones, who said that when a tattooist put it in there “was a moment of pain - not much worse than any injection - and then he stuck a plaster over my hand”.

Those behind the chips hope that they will eventually become common enough to be used to pay for sandwiches in the canteen, or even replace passwords and PINs to get into computers. They can also be programmed to hold contact information and communicate with smartphone apps.
All workers at the office are being offered to have the chips implanted. It is done by a Sweden-based biohacking group, which hopes that implanting the technology will lead people to think about how it might be used for even more dystopian purposes.
 Hannes Sjoblad, who is chief disruption officer at the office development, told the BBC: “We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped — the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip."
Sjoblad has his electronic business card built into the chip, which others can then access using their smartphones.
The whole office will be internet-enabled — its building management will be run through Microsoft’s “internet of things” technology. That will tell facilities management when a plant needs watering or a meeting room needs emptying, all through connected appliances and sensors.
Epicenter is a “members-only workplace collective and innovation hub”, which promises to pioneer new ways of working. It has been built by Swedish property company AMF Fastigheter, and has members including Microsoft.
source: independent:

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Nasa Calls for Designs of High-Altitude Airships

Nasa has called for designs of an airship that can fly at altitudes higher than the current 65,000-foot limit for weather balloons and for longer than the existing ones.
Weather balloons can soar to that height but are difficult to control and vulnerable to winds.
Such airships could aid scientists in research on astronomy and climate change and even be more capable than weather balloons.
An airship could carry telescopes into the stratosphere to observe stars and other celestial bodies.
"You would be able to follow weather patterns, even get above a hurricane," said Jason Rhodes, astrophysicist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab in California, who is leading the proposed challenge.
"A satellite can not do that because its orbit can't be changed," Jason pointed out.
Such airships will be designed to aid scientific research projects, Space.com reported.

Currently, no airship, a blimp-like craft, can maintain an altitude of 65,000 feet for more than eight hours. Scientists are also working on an airship that could survey the skies of Venus.
Airships could also provide valuable insight into weather patterns. The proposed challenge would include two tiers.
The first tier would call for designs for an airship that can lift 44 pounds and remain at 65,000 feet for at least 20 hours. The second tier designs would need to be a little more complex.
Those airships would have to support 440 pounds at the same height but for at least 200 hours. Nasa will first measure public interest in the airship competition before officially launching it.
source:gadgets.ndtv

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US Navy’s first laser weapon cleared for combat, blows up a boat, a small plane

Earlier in the year, the US Navy deployed its first combat-ready laser weapon system in the Persian Gulf — and now, after some field testing, we have a glorious video of the laser being used to blow up (unmanned) boats and drones. I’m happy to report that laser weapons are as awesome as you may have hoped — even if they don’t look quite like the beam weapons from Star Wars or Star Trek.

The Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) was deployed to the Persian Gulf back in April, on the USS Ponce — a fairly humdrum amphibious ship. The LaWS had been extensively tested on land, but the Navy had to see if all of the various systems would work while bobbing around at sea. As you can see in the video below (which I strongly encourage you to watch), the answer is a resounding “yes, LaWS works very well.”

The LaWS consists of a 30-kilowatt solid-state infrared laser, a Phalanx CIWS (close-in weapon system) radar detection and tracking system, and a special computer terminal that controls the LaWS. Somewhat amusingly, the main interface with LaWS is a controller that looks a lot like an Xbox gamepad — but more ruggedized and military-looking (pictured below). In the video, the LaWS disables a small Scan Eagle-class UAV, detonates a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), and burns out the engine of a small inflatable boat (RHIB). Following these successful tests, the US Navy has given the commander of USS Ponce permission to use the laser weapon in combat.

As far as the US Navy is concerned, they see laser weaponry as a good way of taking out small boats and planes that get uncomfortably close to its ships. Laser weapons can be fired very quickly, and the cost per shot is very low (something like $1, as opposed to thousands of dollars for a small missile). At 30 kilowatts (which is pretty weak for a laser), we’re not looking at a weapon that will change the rules of engagement — but worry not, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is already looking at developing a 150-kilowatt laser system, for testing in 2016 or 2017. At that kind of power output, you are then talking about a laser that can punch holes in the hulls of other large ships, or explode someone’s head from a few miles away.

 

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