Researchers led by MIT professor Daniel Nocera have produced something they’re calling an “artificial leaf”: Like living leaves, the device can turn the energy of sunlight directly into a chemical fuel that can be stored and used later as an energy source.

The artificial leaf — a silicon solar cell with different catalytic materials bonded onto its two sides — needs no external wires or control circuits to operate. Simply placed in a container of water and exposed to sunlight, it quickly begins to generate streams of bubbles: oxygen bubbles from one side and hydrogen bubbles from the other. If placed in a container that has a barrier to separate the two sides, the two streams of bubbles can be collected and stored, and used later to deliver power: for example, by feeding them into a fuel cell that combines them once again into water while delivering an electric current.

The device, Nocera explains, is made entirely of earth-abundant, inexpensive materials — mostly silicon, cobalt and nickel — and works in ordinary water. Other attempts to produce devices that could use sunlight to split water have relied on corrosive solutions or on relatively rare and expensive materials such as platinum.
Ultimately, he sees a future in which individual homes could be equipped with solar-collection systems based on this principle: Panels on the roof could use sunlight to produce hydrogen and oxygen that would be stored in tanks, and then fed to a fuel cell whenever electricity is needed. Such systems, Nocera hopes, could be made simple and inexpensive enough so that they could be widely adopted throughout the world, including many areas that do not presently have access to reliable sources of electricity.

Professor James Barber, a biochemist from Imperial College London who was not involved in this research, says Nocera’s 2008 finding of the cobalt-based catalyst was a “major discovery,” and these latest findings “are equally as important, since now the water-splitting reaction is powered entirely by visible light using tightly coupled systems comparable with that used in natural photosynthesis. This is a major achievement, which is one more step toward developing cheap and robust technology to harvest solar energy as chemical fuel.”

For some, this topic might seem boring, and for others might sound interested. This topic is specially for those people who like technology and companies. I am part of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) club, which is a club that focus on how technology can improve the productivity of a company. Last night we had a meeting where teams would come up with innovative and technological business based solutions for a company, Sears, that have been disruptive by relative newer companies, such as Wallmart or Home Depot. Here are some of the solutions that people came up with.

One of the most popular solutions was that Sears should implement more the concepts of Big Data and Internet of Everything in their business model. These two are being implemented by many smaller companies leading to their success. Every device is going to have a micro-chip built in where it would record data. These would allow us to have a better optimization in our everyday life involving with technology. For example, coming back to Sears, people said that they should include these two concepts so that they can give more customization and better preferences to the users. 

The other solution was the active participation in social media. One of teams was taking about how Sears do not use the social medias, such as Facebook or Twitter, as a way of advertising their service/products. They compared their tweeting activity with Wallmart, and the difference was noticeable. While Wallmart tweet once every twice or three times every in an hour, Sears would tweet around once every one day. If they want to know why they are loosing costumers, they should probably go out there on the websites and ask customers. By asking customers is the best way to know whether your business would succeed.

Lastly, some of the teams also suggested the implementation of the fog computing, which is basically cloud computing. This should be done in way in which Sears provide a personal service in every of their products in relation with cloud storing. Very similar to what Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive do in their business. Everything nowadays is about being connected. That’s what Sears should provide to their customers; a way in keeping their products aligned with the cloud so that customers stay connected to their work.

All of these components tied to what technology can do to improve the structure of a company in many ways. This is what Enterprise Architecture is about. Technology is the future of the today. Traditional companies have to pivot even faster because otherwise they won’t catch up with other innovative companies.

This article about Motorola’s new Droid Turbo 2 and it’s specialty feature the shatterproof screen caught my eye right away.  I thought it was interesting because people nowadays.  This new idea was apart of Motorola’s marketing department’s attempt to revitalize their brand and product.

The shatterproof glass is the main feature on the phone that will grab customer’s attention.  It will be a huge improvement for people and will be especially good for the younger generation, who seem to be more careless and have cracked screens. According to research, a smartphone display cracks every 2 seconds, and 63% of smartphone owners who have shattered their current display choose not to have it repaired due to the expense and the hassle, obviously this new piece of technology will help.

Here’s a video to see just how durable the phone is:

There are also many other benefits to this phone.  The company claims that the battery life will last up to two days on a single charge.  the phone can get 13 hours of power from just 15 minutes of charging.

Cell phones are one of the essential items in a lot of people’s lives, and obviously everyone should be careful not to drop or damage their phone, but sometimes that is out of the user’s hand, so this improvement will definitely be of value to customers.

Motorola is definitely not up to par with other companies like Samsung and Apple.  They are hoping with this new phone that they will be able to compete with phones like the Galaxy and the iPhone.  I think the shatterproof screen is a great feature, but I don’t think that Motorola’s phones have enough other features and a good enough reputation to compete with these other companies.

References:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2015/10/27/shatterproof-screen-droid-2-phone-help-shatter-motorolas-rivals/74681984/

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/10/27/cnn-tries-to-break-the-motorola-droid-turbo-2s-shatterproof-screen-phone-walks-away-with-a-few-dents-but-no-cracks/

Apparently, there is another major leakage of customers’ username and password, which happen on a free web host named 000Webhost. After the reporter’s finds out the problem, he tried various ways to contact the company about this serious problem, such as email, phone, even Linkedin. There is never clear response or public warning to customer about the problem.

Instead, the company just claim they have a website security check and block everyone’s account until Nov 10 without telling customer what is really happening.

Lewis Kimber, a UK-based computing student based in York said, “I am more angry than worried, simply because the data was in plaintext, no matter how secure your password is or how many combinations of symbols, numbers and capital letters you’ve used; it’ll be there for anybody to see as it wasn’t even encrypted.”

I think nowadays, people has an increasing concern about internet security。 Company should do better on enhancing their own websites security. Especially when real leakage happen. Face it directly, warn the customers and solve it as quick as possible.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/10/28/000webhost-database-leak/

Internet privacy is a major concern for people every day. There are many different kinds of threats that people face on the internet. People face threats from malware, spyware, phishing, and many others. One company working to protect people on the internet is Barracuda. Many companies like FedEx, IBM, CitiBank, and others are using Barracuda. One product available for people to purchase can help them stay safe while being online. The product is called the Barracuda Web Filter. The Barracuda Web Filter protects people from malware and other security threats.

The Barracuda Web Filter protects its’ users by blocking spyware downloads and preventing viruses. It filters content and protects against malware. Malware can be removed from a device if it is detected, When a threat is detected, it sends an alert to the user. This product allows its’ users to view the activity and network threats occurring. The activity can include information about what websites were visited and how much time was spent using those websites. Users can view information on a report. Also, there is a Barracuda Web Security Agent and Barracuda Safe Browser to protect remote users. Users can use this product to control social media as well. This product can scan a user’s social media page to look for out of place comments or messages. The comments and messages can be stored in the Barracuda Message Archiver. They can be looked at in the future in case a problem occurs. The Barracuda Web Filter can be managed through the Barracuda Cloud Control. The cloud holds information about all the user’s devices using the Barracuda Web Filter. Also, this product can filter websites and images. Users can filter certain websites and images they do not want to visit or see. The Barracuda Web Filter is connected with Barracuda Central. Barracuda Central is a security center that monitors threats occurring. It collects data from various places and develops ways to prevent threats to users. When new data is collected, Barracuda Central creates updates for Barracuda Web Filter to make the product even more effective.

I think the Barracuda Web Filter is a great way for people to protect themselves while being online. I like that the product comes with a security center that continuously monitors for problems. I would feel very secure online with all the features that come with this product, but I would be worried that something could go wrong with the product, and I could get a virus.

Do you think the Barracuda Web Filter is useful? Is there anything you think could be added to make the product better?

Source:

https://www.barracuda.com/products/webfilter/index

This is a very interesting article that relates the maps of Apple and Google. A ton of big differences are mentioned in the article about the two interfaces and multifunctional uses. After reading through this article, it seems most people enjoy Google because of its easy to use and understandable background and display. However, Apple maps is becoming more popular due to its ability to react to user experience.

The traditional and popular Google maps is both well known and liked because of simple and easy to use features. For example, Google maps is great for the casual driver that likes to pay attention to the road because it shows traffic patterns with red yellow and green, uses a loud voice for direction(sometimes annoying), and displays information as accurately as possible.

Apple Maps is getting some attention too. They are making it easier for users to find businesses if you were to type them in. For example, it is harder on Google Maps to get accurate search results if you were to search “Bob’s Tacos.” Apple streamlines this process by coming up with more accurate and closer results. Also, instead of the long rerouting times for Google, Apple makes finding a faster and more efficient route considerably easier. This allows users to not feel panicked at the wheel in their car if something were to happen on the road.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the fact that Apple’s maps are more appealing than Google’s. The 3D view on Apple provides users with a more concise sense of direction. This may be the advantage Apple is trying to take in the market.

In conclusion, it is hard to say whether Google or Apple maps are better. Many people do not even know that Apple maps exist but the few that do are having a satisfactory experience with it.

What do you guys think? Will we see more of Apple maps in the future or will Google maps continue to dominate the market? Either way it is hard to say.

http://news.yahoo.com/apple-maps-vs-google-maps-235902393.html

I came across this article on the MSN home page and was very interested to see what everyone else thinks.

The video clearly shows a police officer violently throwing a teenage girl to the ground and then dragging her to the front of the classroom. Notice how the cop took her down by the neck. Check out below.

South Carolina School Investigating Video of Female Student Being Wrestled Down by Police Officer http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/BBmsBbk?ocid=st

Now besides for that disturbing video we should focus on how quickly this video was spread throughout twitter and other social media platforms. This video received over 7900 retweets and 4500 favorites in just a couple of hours on twitter. Absolutely crazy to think about considering how fast the information can be spread and disseminated online. For obvious reasons, the cop and the Police Department will be under heavy investigation for the upcoming weeks because of the incident. The classmate’s tweet will provide for more up close examination and insight. Great example of an average media reporter in action.

What do you guys think about the whole incident? Is sharing information like this helpful to get the word out for such events? Or is it just disturbing to see over and over again? Either way it does provide insight and makes us aware of the powerful tool we call social media.

At Spring Valley high school pic.twitter.com/ScWrJz6x6J

— Yezze (@Motive__Money) October 26, 2015

Internet privacy tools have an unfortunate but well-deserved reputation for being technically difficult and bothersome. There’s a persistent story that says that there is an intrinsic, irreducible complexity to the problem of keeping your communications from being snooped on and keeping your data from leaking that makes it the exclusive domain of spies and the professionally paranoid.

I don’t believe it. I think that the real reason that privacy is so user-unfriendly is that the case for privacy is intensely technical. The privacy risks presented by everyday internet use involve subtle and esoteric principles – understanding the risks of having your computer turned into a node in a botnet; or having its passwords harvested; or having your search- and browser-history logged and used against you (either to compromise you directly, or in use for attacks on your password-recovery questions); and having your metadata mined and joined up in ways that reveal your deepest secrets or result in false, incriminating, and hard-to-refute accusations being made against you, potentially costing you the ability to get credit, board an airplane, or even walk around freely.

You don’t need to be a technical expert to understand privacy risks anymore. From the Snowden revelations to the daily parade of internet security horrors around the world – like Syrian and Egyptian checkpoints where your Facebook logins are required in order to weigh your political allegiances (sometimes with fatal consequences) or celebrities having their most intimate photos splashed all over the web.

The time has come to create privacy tools for normal people – people with a normal level of technical competence. That is, all of us, no matter what our level of technical expertise, need privacy. Some privacy measures do require extraordinary technical competence; if you’re Edward Snowden, with the entire NSA bearing down on your communications, you will need to be a real expert to keep your information secure. But the kind of privacy that makes you immune to mass surveillance and attacks-of-opportunity from voyeurs, identity thieves and other bad guys is attainable by anyone.

I’m a volunteer on the advisory board for a nonprofit that’s aiming to do just that: Simply Secure (which launches Thursday at simplysecure.org) collects together some very bright usability and cryptography experts with the aim of revamping the user interface of the internet’s favorite privacy tools, starting with OTR, the extremely secure chat system whose best-known feature is “perfect forward secrecy” which gives each conversation its own unique keys, so a breach of one conversation’s keys can’t be used to snoop on others.

More importantly, Simply Secure’s process for attaining, testing and refining usability is the main product of its work. This process will be documented and published as a set of best practices for other organisations, whether they are for-profits or non-profits, creating a framework that anyone can use to make secure products easier for everyone.

Technical people need our non-technical friends to adopt good privacy practices. Every communications session has at least two parties, the sender and the recipient(s), and your privacy can leak out of either end of the wire. It doesn’t matter if I keep all my email offline, encrypted on my laptop, if it all ends up in the inboxes of people who leave it sitting on Gmail’s servers.

So this is critical, and not just for “normal people”. Even technically sophisticated people often find it difficult to follow security protocol in their own communications and computing. Things that aren’t usable just don’t get used. Making crypto as easy as your favourite websites and apps is the only way to make privacy a reality for everyone.

This is also critical, even for people who aren’t worried about their private lives spilling over into the databases of big corporations, spies, voyeurs and identity thieves. If you were lucky enough to be born with the unearned privilege of having “nothing to hide”, then you owe it to your children, brothers, sisters, parents, and friends who don’t have your good fortune to help provide cover for them: if the only people maintaining their privacy are the people with “something to hide”, then figuring out whose health, political beliefs, sexual orientation or other personal details are sensitive is just a matter of presuming the guilt of anyone who tries to protect her privacy.

In the days before the desktop publishing revolution, all the tools for setting type assumed a huge body of highly technical knowledge and skill. It’s true that beautiful, high-spec typesetting still requires this knowledge and skill. But between beautiful, professional-grade design and hand-written scribbled notes are a huge range of typesetting possibilities, things that were once the domain of skilled experts are now possible for virtually anyone to attain. Making privacy technology usable by anyone makes everyone more secure.

Bottom line: your computer should do what you ask of it. Asking it to keep your private information private is a reasonable request.

Here is the original link:http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/sep/18/privacy-technology-everyone-can-use-would-make-us-all-more-secure

Facebook users are being encouraged to double-check their privacy settings after the social network introduced an update to its search feature which adds almost 2 trillion older posts by its members to the index.

Previously, Facebook’s search feature was largely limited to groups, events and locations, with individuals’ public posts difficult to find without directly navigating to the user’s profile page.

Now, the site has indexed more than 2trn posts, and the search function enables users to seek out a specific post from any public profile, whether or not the two are friends on the site.

In a post, Tom Stocky, the site’s VP of search, said : “When you search, you’ll now see the most recent, relevant public posts along with posts from your friends. Search results are organised to help you cut through the noise and quickly understand what the world is saying about a topic in the moment. You also can pull-to-refresh and see the latest public posts.”

But the new feature has led to concern that posts which many would rather stay hidden will be revealed to the world. Stocky says: “Your search results are personalised and unique to you and, as always, you can only see things that have been shared with you. Likewise, you control who can see your posts on Facebook and it’s easy to change the audience of your past posts any time.”

With some users having over a decade of past posts indexed on the site, however, it is possible that users may not remember which posts were made with which privacy settings, which could lead to some uncomfortable posts resurfacing.

The change is part of a push on the part of Facebook to compete with main rival Twitter on live events, something where the latter’s broad search and chronological focus has given it the edge.

Recent introductions such as Facebook’s “trending” bar have let users search the site for current events, but until this most recent change, it was difficult to find and take part in the public conversation around what was going on in the wider world.

Here is the original link:http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/26/facebook-check-privacy-settings-public-post-search-index

Are we closer to seeing killer robots than we think? When people hear the term, much like myself, we probably think about a crazy cyborg running around town causing havoc. Although not realistic, with the technology we have today lethal autonomous weapons (the legal term for such robots) were discussed at meetings present at the United Nations last week. Lethal autonomous weapons would be any weapons able to operate lethally without any human control, somewhat like a drone that does not need to be directed. Many people are adamantly against such devices being produced, with an official global campaign that began in 2013. These robots are feared to have a can of worms effect, as once the devices are made legal, someone somewhere will be finding ways to severely exploit them. The author of this article jokingly mocks Moore’s Law saying that “Schwarzenegger Law’s” will have to do with the exponential growth of these bots, in reference to classic robot killing franchise The Terminator. Another scary thought about these will be the accuracy, with “9 out of 10” drone strikes in the Middle East from 2011-2013 not being direct American targets, one can only imagine how a third-party killing device would operate. Several other concerns are expressed by the author of this article including regulation laws and eventual potential ease of access into the wrong hands, but to say these devices are useless would be ignorant. Costs of military operations would fall and if the technology is developed properly eventually lives could be saved. However there definitely would be a time period of a learning curve in which these weapons would be too new and too quick with a probable volatile environment arising in the race to perfect these weapons. To say this is an uncharted field would be an understatement, and the future can only hold the answer as to how these killer robots will play out but, do you think lethal autonomous weapons are a good or bad idea?

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/26/opinions/killer-robots-walsh/index.html