Reuters reports:
Google and Apple have sought to build public trust by emphasizing that the changes they are making to Bluetooth to allow the tracing apps to work will not tap phones’ GPS sensors, which privacy activists see as too intrusive. But the states pioneering the apps — North and South Dakota, and Utah — say allowing public health authorities to use…
Tag: Bluetooth
France Says Apple Bluetooth Policy Is Blocking Virus Tracker
France is asking Apple to remove a technical obstacle that it says is delaying a government contact-tracing application designed to contain the coronavirus spread. Bloomberg reports: Apple’s operating system prevents contact-tracing apps using its Bluetooth technology from running constantly in the background if that data is going to be moved off of the device, a limit designed to protect users’ privacy….
Apple and Google Are Launching a Joint COVID-19 Tracing Tool
Engineering teams at Apple and Google have banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that will help individuals determine whether they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. From a report: Contact tracing is a useful tool that helps public health authorities track the spread of the disease and inform the potentially exposed so that they can get tested….
Italy Working On Coronavirus Tracing App To Help Lockdown Exit
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Italian authorities are working on introducing a smartphone app that would help health services trace the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus as the government looks at ways of gradually lifting a lockdown imposed a month ago. Innovation minister Paola Pisano acknowledged that launching the app would raise major issues…
Meet the Man Being Sued By the FTC Over His Kickstarter Campaign for a High-Tech Backpack
The Verge takes a 5,000-word look at a Kickstarter campaign “that raised more than half a million dollars, only to never ship and leave behind thousands of angry backers.” “The difference in this story, however, is that for only the second time, the Federal Trade Commission is coming for the creator.”
The agency claims Doug Monahan took his backpack funds and spent…
Google Tracked His Bike Ride Past a Burglary, and That Made Him a Suspect
JustAnotherOldGuy shares a tale for our time: “I was using an app to see how many miles I rode my bike and now it was putting me at the scene of the crime,” said Zachary McCoy. Yep, that’s all it took. Google’s legal investigations support team emailed him to let him know that local police had demanded information related to his…
New $300 Kitchen Playset For Children Includes Amazon’s Alexa
“Kids can play with Alexa in their very own $300 pretend kitchen and grocery store,” CNET reports, “with the Amazon voice assistant dishing out cooking advice, shopping help and plenty of goofy toddler humor.”
The Alexa 2-in-1 Kitchen and Market, from toymaker KidKraft, is making its debut at this weekend’s New York Toy Fair… It uses a mix of RFID sensors and…
Broadcom Announces BCM4389 Wi-Fi 6E Client Chipset
The Wi-Fi Alliance announced the new Wi-Fi 6E terminology for 802.11ax operation in the 6 GHz band last month. At CES 2020, Broadcom announced a number of Wi-Fi 6E access point solutions. Today, Broadcom is announcing the BCM4389 client Wi-Fi 6E chipset. From a report: Consumers can expect to see the chipset in the next generation of high-end smartphones. We have…
Google Fixes No-User-Interaction Bug In Android’s Bluetooth Component
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Google has patched this week a critical security flaw in Android’s Bluetooth component. If left unpatched, the vulnerability can be exploited without any user interaction and can even be used to create self-spreading Bluetooth worms. Researchers said that exploiting the bug requires no user interaction. All that is required is that the user…
Coming Soon: an Open Source eBook Reader
Electronic component distributor Digi-Key will be producing a small manufacturing run of the “open hardware” ereader from the Open Book Project, reports Gizmodo: The raw hardware isn’t as sleek or pretty as devices like the Kindle, but at the same time there’s a certain appeal to the exposed circuit board which features brief descriptions of various components, ports, and connections etched…