Do you know what your IoT devices are doing?
You may have a number of smart Internet-connected devices in your home, but do you have any idea who they’re talking to or what they’re sending? For instance, let’s say you have a Roku TV and that you are live-streaming the Bloomberg Channel. Do you know that the Bloomberg Channel could be communicating with 13 different advertising and tracking servers in the background? Or that your smart Geeni light bulb could be communicating with a Chinese company every 30 seconds even while you are not using the bulb? To learn more about your own IoT devices, you could set up a wireless hotspot and run Wireshark, but Princeton University says it has a better solution. Princeton IoT Inspector is an open-source tool that lets you inspect IoT traffic in your home network from the browser. With a one-click install process, you can watch how your IoT devices watch you. Download at https://iot-inspector.princeton.edu/blog/post/getting-started/
Apple Music vs Spotify
Apple Music now has more paid U.S. subscribers than Spotify – specifically, more than 28 million versus Spotify’s 26 million, as of February 2019, reports Ars Technica. Sources claim that Apple Music is expanding more rapidly in the U.S., at a rate of about 2.6% to 3%. Spotify’s growth rate is reportedly 1.5% to 2%. It’s unlikely that Apple will claim this as a victory, because it, like Spotify, doesn’t publicly break out regional subscriber counts.
Space spinoffs
No, Tang, Teflon and Velcro are not spinoffs of the U.S. space program, though their popularity was heightened by it. However, material meant to bring back samples from Mars, originally developed for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is now used in suture during heart surgery. What’s more, a lightweight, high-pressure tank NASA invented to hold rocket fuel now stores oxygen to keep pilots, firefighters and intensive care patients breathing. The latest edition of NASA’s Spinoff publication features nearly 50 commercial technologies that were developed or improved by the agency’s space program, and provides a look at some future ones too. Spinoff is part of the agency’s Technology Transfer program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Don’t tell Facebook!
Want to hide your browsing from Facebook? Here’s a Tip of the Week from The New York Times: On your computer: Install the Firefox web browser and download the Facebook Container, which is an add-on that isolates your browsing activity from Facebook. On your phone: Delete the Facebook mobile app and use only Facebook.com via the mobile browser. Install a tracker blocker, such as Disconnect.me, and activate the blocking. Alternatively, install a private web-browsing app like Firefox Focus, which blocks trackers by default, and only use this browser when loading Facebook.com
No more Google Glass
Huawei is expected to launch a line of smart glasses this summer. The glasses let you listen to music in stereo and take calls. They also charge wirelessly. Writes a critic from CNET: “What’s impressive … is that there’s absolutely no discernible sign of any technology at all, no buttons and no bulges, and to the naked eye it would be impossible to distinguish them as smart glasses at all. We’ve come a long way since the days of Google Glass.”
Internet around the world
OneWeb, a space startup that recently launched its first “constellation” of micro-satellites to deliver broadband access across the globe, has raised $1.25 billion to begin mass-producing its satellites and capitalize on what it calls “first mover advantage,” reports Venture Beat. Founded in London in 2012, OneWeb is one of a number of startups planning to bring affordable, high-speed Internet access to more people around the world by deploying hundreds of low-orbit satellites. The infrastructure is intended to not only help mobile operators and internet service providers extend their coverage to hitherto hard-to-reach areas, it will also ensure always-on coverage during natural disasters.
In-depth news from Alexa
One of the top use cases for Amazon Alexa is its ability to quickly summarize the day’s headlines via its customizable “Flash Briefing” skill, reports TechCrunch. Now, Amazon is rolling out a new feature that will allow Alexa device owners to get more in-depth news from their preferred news provider – the launch of “long-form news.” Currently, the new feature works with news from Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Newsy and NPR, Amazon says. Getting the news is already a top voice activity among smart-speaker owners. Amazon says that voice commands, such as “Alexa, tell me the news,” followed by the source’s name, will launch in-depth news sessions featuring stories curated by the news provider.
Wi-Fi 6 routers from Netgear
Netgear is said to be introducing a family of four new routers that makes the migration to Wi-Fi 6networking easy, reports Venture Beat. The San Jose, California-based maker of networking hardware has created four routers that support the latest Wi-Fi networking standard, 802.11ax. These devices are intended to help households that are dealing with an increasing number of connected devices and an increasing demand for greater bandwidth from streaming video, audio and online gaming. Netgear’s Wi-Fi 6 routers are said to deliver up to four times better performance than Wi-Fi 5, or 802.11ac.
Bottom-of-the-ocean dominance
Google makes billions from its cloud platform. Now it’s using those billions to buy up the Internet itself – or at least the submarine cables that make up its backbone, reports Venture Beat. In February, the company announced its intention to move forward with the development of the Curie cable, a new undersea line stretching from California to Chile. It will be the first private intercontinental cable ever built by a major non-telecom company. Google has fully financed a number of intracontinental cables already; it was one of the first companies to build a fully private submarine line. And Google isn’t alone. The year 2016 saw the start of a massive submarine cable boom, and this time, the buyers are content providers. Corporations like Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon all seem to share Google’s aspirations for bottom-of-the-ocean dominance.