Forget clean diesel. Forget hybrids, or cars that run on solar power or vegetable oil. Instead, what if a car ran on Tweets? Okay, Tweets and electricity.

A small group of high school students in Kansas City actually made it happen. As part of an extra-curricular program (this was regular curriculum in my school, but whatever) they modified a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia so that it only runs when it gets mentioned in the Twittersphere.

As the Wired article notes, “If that sounds like a publicity stunt, that’s because it is. And it’s for a good cause.”

Here are the basic details:

This year, the team put an electric drivetrain in a 1967 Karmann Ghia. Next week, they’re driving it from Kansas City to Washington, D.C. for a chance to meet elected officials and raise awareness about education. To make sure their voices are heard, they’ve attached an Arduino to the electric drivetrain and programmed it to let the car move forward only when there’s social media buzz about the project. Minddrive calls it “social fuel,” and it provides an important lesson for students: If you want people to care about what you’re doing, you have to make sure they know about it.

My initial reaction was that this HAD to be a joke. It wasn’t. My second thought – something many of the commenters have pointed out – was that this thing better damn well work if they are indeed planning to drive it to the nation’s capital.

I trust they’re done a fair amount of in-the-wild testing, but if you see a red Karmann Ghia on the side of the highway, don’t stop to help them change a tire, stop and send them a Tweet.

Siri has been reigning supreme in the iOS world for a while,  but with rival Google Now coming to Siri’s home turf will she hold on to her postition as go-to voice assistant for iPhone users? Boston.com senior business producer Daniel Kline took the two out onto the streets of Boston to see which virtual assistant would get the job.

Accessibility

Being accessible by holding down the main button helped Siri win this round. Google Now requires you to open an app first.

Direct Search & Directions

When Daniel asked for directions to the Omni Parker House hotel Google Now knew exactly what he was talking about and where it was. Siri? Not so much. Her list of options didn’t even include the right hotel Daniel reported.

Search by Statement

From Boston.com:

“Neither produced a satisfactory answer to the query, “I’m thirsty,” and asking “Where can I get a cup of tea?” was equally unsuccessful. On the tea question, Siri asked if I wanted to do a Web search, while Google produced Web links to establishments that had the words “cup of tea” in their name. Simply asking for “coffee?” was more satisfying as both apps produced lists of nearby options, though neither offered up the Finagle A Bagel I was standing in front of.”

 Let’s call this one a successful and unsuccessful tie.

Search by Question

When Daniel asked a question about the circus being in town both virtual assistants returned the circus’ website.

When he asked where he could find a burger, Siri pulled up some nearby burger joints while Google Now didn’t produce any results.

Clueless when it  comes to pop culture? You might want to go with Google Now.

I asked both assistants, “Who are One Direction?” Siri did not appear to know and offered up a list of Web links not related to the band. Google, however, knew exactly what I was asking and it offered up links to both the band’s website and its Wikipedia page.

When it comes to the Red Sox, though, both apps know their stuff. They both produced graphical information when asked about the next Sox game. Results were a bit iffier when Daniel wanted to know about the Bruins playoffs schedule. Siri had nothing and all Google could muster up was a link to the Bruins website.

This one was close and it seemed to be hit or miss overall, but in the end Google Now inched ahead with slightly better results than Siri.

Local Public Transit

Read more …

Mobile app users are concerned about the privacy and security of their data (in fact, those are two of the 10 important attributes highlighted by Applause). But what happens when it’s your kid using an app? Privacy issues with children’s apps have been making headlines in the past months and at the end of last year the Federal Trade Commission put out a report titled “Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade.”

Kristin Judge, the executive director of the Trusted Purchasing Alliance (part of the Center for Internet Security), used the report and a corresponding article to highlight some particularly disturbing privacy lapses.

• Parents are not being provided with information about what data an app collects, who will have access to that data, and how it will be used. Only 20 percent of the apps staff reviewed disclosed any information about the app’s privacy practices.
• Many apps (nearly 60 percent of the apps surveyed) are transmitting information from a user’s device back to the app developer or, more commonly, to an advertising network, analytics company, or other third party.
• A relatively small number of third parties received information from a large number of apps. This means the third parties that receive information from multiple apps could potentially develop detailed profiles of the children based on their behavior in different apps.
• Many apps contain interactive features — such as advertising, links to social media, or the ability to purchase goods within an app — without disclosing those features to parents prior to download
• Fifty-eight percent of the apps reviewed contained advertising within the app, while only 15 percent disclosed the presence of advertising prior to download.
• Twenty-two percent of the apps contained links to social networking services, while only 9 percent disclosed that fact.
• Seventeen percent of the apps reviewed allow kids to make purchases for virtual goods within the app, with prices ranging from 99 cents to $29.99. Although both stores provided certain indicators when an app contained in-app purchasing capabilities, these indicators were not always prominent and, even if noticed, could be difficult for many parents to understand.

Read the full article at AnnArbor.com >>>

Some of these issues are problems for both adults and children. Others – such as ads, in-app purchases and social network links – are things adults will see and understand, but may be tempting to children who don’t know what they’re clicking or what it does.

How does this tie into in-the-wild testing? When you’re testing an app that a child might use (a game, an entertainment app, etc.) think about it from a child’s perspective. Is it too easy to accidentally click on an ad? Did you get a clear privacy policy statement when you downloaded the app (so that parents are informed)? Does the app match the privacy policy or did it neglect to mention certain features? Test the app as you would normally, then take another look at it through the eyes of a seven-year-old – it can be a world of difference. That’s not something test automation or a simulator can test for.

Apps to track your blood pressure or heart rate, wrist bands to track your calories, forks that help you lose weight… these are just a few of the advancements in technology that will help to shape the future of personalized healthcare.

These devices and mobile apps have the potential to drastically change the healthcare industry for the better. With more accurate, aggregated data doctors can provide more specialized care to prevent diseases and better treat patients – that is, if the technology has gone through the right kind of in-the-wild testing.

One of our favorite in-the-wild testers, Molly Wood of CNET, recently took a closer look at the latest tech trends in fitness and health – including health apps and wearable tech gadgets. Here’s a look:

No matter how good you think your security is, there is always someone who can break it. … But sometimes that’s a good thing.

Jeremiah Grossman, a web app security expert and CTO of WhiteHat Security, changed his password and, unfortunately, forgot the new one. From InformationWeek:

As a result [of forgetting the new password], he was unable to access the many different Mac OS X Disk Image (.dmg) files he uses to store his work, which he created with Apple FileVault using double the default level of encryption: AES-256.

“A great thing about DMGs is that they can be stored anywhere — hidden in some obscure directory on the local machine, a network storage device, a USB drive, whatever. All my confidential files are typically stored this way, in a series of encrypted DMGs with separate passwords,” said Grossman in a blog post.

Being a security expert, you can bet his password wasn’t 1234 or Monkey. He even took extra security steps to keep hackers from getting to his data.

Grossman also mounts the DMGs only when they’re needed, both to make the files harder to find should someone obtain his password, and to make the data much more difficult for any hackers who remotely compromise his system. Likewise, Grossman didn’t store his password in the OS X Keychain. Nor did he write it down and store it in a safe or other hiding place.

Using strong passwords is good, but the down side is that if you do forget your password you’re in a bit of a bind – for Grossman, there were 41 billion password possibilities. He remembered part of the new password (which lowered the possible answers to 22,472) but after a week of trying couldn’t figure out the rest. So Grossman turned to the public for help. Four world-renowned password crackers answered the call and created a new password cracker specifically to get into Grossman’s files.

Grossman issued a plea via Twitter, which was answered by four developers: Solar Designer, gat3way, Dhiru Kholia and Magnum. They collectively created the John the Ripper (JtR) password cracker along with Jeremi Gosney of Stricture Consulting Group, which maintains a powerful GPU cluster for rapidly cracking passwords. “Collectively, these guys are the amongst the world’s foremost experts in password cracking. If they can’t help, no one can,” said Grossman.

They were successful and Grossman got back into his data. He presumably immediately changed the password again (it was just cracked after all) and hopefully this time he came up with a back up plan for remembering. This should teach you an important lesson about software security:

The moral of the story: No matter how secure your system might be, never discount the human element, even if that human is an information security specialist.

Don’t think of that moral as an ominous reason to completely give up on security. Instead, look at it as motivation. You should constantly be conducting security testing on your applications and software because the hackers out there are constantly finding new vulnerabilities and coming up with new ways to get into your systems. You can’t stay one step ahead of them – or even on pace with them – if you’re not continually dedicating time and resources to good security testing.

We have seen a lot of buzz around google glass, what it means for the future, debates on who will be willing to purchase it or be a first adopter. But the realisty is that there are some really compelling things that people plan to use glass for. Here the top 10 ways people plan to use google glass from ReadWriteWeb:

1. Enhancing Surgery With Augmented Reality – “the technology could be use by surgeons as virtual assistants in the operating room. Timothy Lee, a surgical resident at New York University, proposes using Glass to record operations for teaching purposes, enable remote assistance via livestream and show the surgeon vitals, CT scan and other pertinent medical information. “
2. Revolutionizing Higher Education – “For students, Google Glass could be transformative. Some are even talking about how Glass could potentially aid those with learning disabilities.  Recording lectures, live streaming them for remote access, audio-note taking and supplementing lectures with related data are just the beginning.”
3. Enhancing Less Formal, More Hands-On Learning – “Just like people post tutorial videos to YouTube, a camera-equipped camera you wear on your face opens up new possibilities for teaching people things from a hands-on, first person perspective. Fixing things, cooking meals, learning to play the guitar.”
4. Augmented Reality Gaming – “With technology like Glass, game developers can overlay gameplay over the real world, and plenty of them are already thinking about how to take their Android games to this new, exciting (or creepy) level.”
5. Overcoming Disabilities – “At the University of New Brunswick Libraries, Jeff Carter wants to use Glass to make things more accessible to the visually impaired via real-time optical character recognition and text-to-speech translation. “
6. Stargazing – “Amateur astronomers will be able to look at the sky with a whole new layer of digital insight using tiny, face-mounted computers. “
7. Healthier Living – “If Santa Clara University student Alexander Vincent Molloy has his way, you’ll also be able to return health-related information about foods while you’re cooking or even shopping.”
8. Reconnecting With History – “Armed with Glass-supported Android apps, walking through the historical Old City District of Philadelphia or the history-rich parks of Massachusetts could be like taking one of those audio-guided tours on digital steroids.”
9. Augmented Reality Art – “It doesn’t have to bound by museum walls, either. European design agency Nuelandherzer says it would use Glassto create an augmented reality experience for viewing and learning about urban street art around the world.”
10. Real-Time Language Translation – “Using technology Google already owns (OCR and Google Translate), Glass could translate foreign signs and menus. Even more compelling is the device’s theoretical ability to translate spoken language into real-time subtitles, effectively eliminating any language barrier between two Glass-wearing individuals.”

Check out the whole article here. What would you use Google Glass for?

I am not exactly a gun enthusiast, but, being a bit of a geek I find this fascninating. Tracking Point has developed a Linux powered sniper rifle. “The heart of the product lies in a Linux-powered rifle scope. This is not your typical glass scope. Instead, it’s a video recording system that runs the stream through an image processing engine and presents you with a heads-up display. On the rifle is a special button to “paint” a red dot onto your target. The image processing engine sees the dot and keeps it on your target, regardless of motion (your’s or the target’s). Squeeze the trigger to arm the rifle, and the HUD gives you an aiming reticule with a blue dot in the middle. You need to line up the target’s red dot with your HUD’s blue dot. When your HUD’s blue dot lines up correctly with the target’s red dot the rifle will fire. If the dots don’t line up, the rifle won’t fire. In essence, you can’t take a bad shot with this system.” (Read more at TechCrunch)

What if your headphones could detect your mood and play a song that coincides with it? Now they can.

A prototype of a new kind of headphones debuted at SXSW Interactive last week. The Mico headphones – developed by Neurowear – detect a user’s state of mind and select a song to fit their mood. According to Nic Halverson of Mashable:

“…the headphones feature a protruding electroencephalograph (EEG) sensor that scans brain patterns to match a person’s mood with an appropriate song.

When plugged in to a smart device running Mico’s app, the headphones detect the wearer’s state of mind and select a “neuro-tagged,” mood-fitting song from Neurowear’s database. The sides of the ear pieces illuminate when music plays and even show symbols — such as Zzz — if the user is sleepy, stressed or focused.”

However, Halverson brings up an issue; if you’re in an depressed state, you don’t always want to listen to sad music – or what if the headphones select the wrong song? Software as complex as this is certainly going to need some usability and functional in-the-wild testing to verify user-friendliness in a variety of real world scenarios.

Here’s look at how the Mico headphones work:

What happens when you replace a young teen’s iPhone with a Windows Phone? They give you a clear, non-techy analysis of the pros and cons.

Danny Sullivan, of CNET, didn’t set out to do an official test. His 14- and 12-year-old sons saw a commercial for Windows Phone and were intrigued by the distinct UI. Working for a tech publication, Danny was in the perfect situation to obtain a few tester phones and let his kids give them a whirl. The boys used an HTC 8X and a Nokia Lumia 920.  What we ended up with was a combination of usability test and OS/device review from the eyes of the next generation of users. Here’s a few snippets:

For Declan, any chance Windows Phone had for winning him over was pretty much lost when he learned there was no Instagram app. …

“The tiles were what drew me in, but then they didn’t work as well as I thought,” [Declan] said. “They looked cool, but when it comes to using them, it’s kind of confusing.”

Confusing? With the iPhone, each app icon also has a text label, so you know exactly what it is. But with Windows Phone, you only see labels if the apps are medium- or large-sized, not small. It’s not something I thought much about myself, until he pointed it out.

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to be. It’s some lady,” he said, pointing to the Photo Enhancer app. “You have to have them big to have labels.” …

The screen on the Nokia Lumia 920 is even bigger than that of the HTC 8X, and it’s one of the things that won over Rhys. He began watching TV shows on Netflix through his phone, something he never did on the iPhone, because the larger screen makes viewing easier.

Like his brother, Rhys wasn’t happy to find that some games like Plants vs. Zombies were more expensive for Windows Phone ($5) than for the iPhone ($1). One blamed Microsoft for this; the other blamed the game makers. I don’t know who to blame, myself. …

I knew Windows Phone had captured Rhys entirely when, walking out of the house to go on a short vacation, I noticed he’d left his iPhone behind on his desk. He was all in on Windows Phone, no safety net and not worried at all. In fact, his biggest concern has been having to go back to the iPhone 4.

“Overall, it just felt more unique. It felt as if I had control of the phone and was able to do more things with it,” he said when asked to sum up his experience with Windows Phone. …

Read the full article at CNET >>>

So there you go, one son wasn’t impressed with the apps and some user interface decisions. The other was won over by a larger screen and different features. It just goes to show you that without in-the-wild testing, you’ll never know how real users are going to react.

Have you ever thought about the possibility that you might be living inside of a simulation, a la the Matrix? Maybe you’ve seen something unexplainable, perhaps a black cat crossed your path, and then another that looked just like it seconds later. The idea of testing the universe is something a team of physicists at the University of Bonn, Germany have been researching since early 2012. Their goal is to prove whether or not the universe as we know it is a virtual reality simulation.

This is not a new concept but it is one that Silas Beane and his colleagues theorize would still have limitations and ‘bugs,’ so to speak that could be discovered and proven even within a very complex simulation.

Their theory is that the observed universe exists on a numerical simulation performed on a cubic space-time lattice (grid). By using elements of lattice-gauge theory technology as a guide, they hope to determine the high-energy cut off of the cosmic ray spectrum to reveal the highest energy points exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry. The long and short of the theory is that if the world is a numerical simulation, observable consequences could be simulated, revealing this grid on a smaller scale.

Read more …