The release cites Five Guys, Panera, Chipotle and Papa John’s as a few of the chains that are participating in their program. The really interesting aspect of this, though, is that Facebook isn’t just partnering with individual restaurants and fast food joints to get this done. They are combining various delivery services such as ChowNow, EatStreet, Delivery.com, Olo and DoorDash. This provides the user with a one-stop shop to look at everything you can have delivered to your home, rather than having to visit individual apps and websites. Note that some of the larger delivery providers, such as Seamless and Caviar, do not appear to be working with Facebook on this feature.
If Facebook’s goal is to allow users to do pretty much everything from within their service, which keeps users engaged, then they’re doing a solid job of it with this new development. You do have to create an account with an individual delivery provider if you’re ordering through their service on Facebook (say Delivery.com), but you don’t have to leave the social network to do it. It’s a pretty easy, low effort way to have food delivered right to your doorstep.
Researchers have discovered a key flaw in the WPA2 WiFi encryption protocol that could allow hackers to intercept your credit card numbers, passwords, photos and other sensitive information. The flaws, dubbed "Key Reinstallation Attacks," or "Krack Attacks," are in the WiFi standard and not specific products. That means that just about every router, smartphone and PC out there could be impacted, though attacks against Linux and Android 6.0 or greater devices may be "particularly devastating," according to KU Leuven University’s Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens, who found the flaw.
Here’s how it works. Attackers find a vulnerable WPA2 network, then make a carbon copy of it and impersonate the MAC address, then change the WiFi channel. This new, fake network acts as a "man in the middle," so when a device attempts to connect to the original network, it can be forced to bypass it and connect to the rogue one.
Normally, WPA2 encryption requires a unique key to encrypt each block of plain text. However, the hack described in the Krack Attack paper forces certain implementations of WPA2 to reuse the same key combination multiple times.
The problem is made worse by Android and Linux, which, thanks to a bug in the WPA2 standard, don’t force the client to demand a unique encryption key each time. Rather, they allow a key to be cleared and replaced by an "all-zero encryption key," foiling a key part of the handshake process. In some cases, a script can also force a connection to bypass HTTPS, exposing usernames, passwords and other critical data.
The system takes advantage of a flaw in the "handshake" method to direct users to the malicious network. Neither WiFi passwords nor secret keys can be obtained, the researchers say, as the hack works by forging the entire network. As such, it can’t be used to attack routers, but hackers can still eavesdrop on traffic, making it particularly dangerous for corporations.
As shown above, the researchers did a proof-of-concept attack on Android, and were able to decrypt all the victim’s transmitted data. They point out that this will "not work on a properly configured HTTPS site," but will work on a "significant fraction" that are poorly set up. Other devices, like those running MacOS, Windows, OpenBSD and other operating systems, are affected to a lesser extent. "When attacking other devices, it is harder to decrypt all packets, although a large number of packets can nevertheless be decrypted," say the researchers.
After earlier, more limited hacks, the WPA2 protocol has been suspect for a while, so many security folks were already bracing themselves for something bad. If you still doubt the seriousness of it, Alex Hudson, for one, is actually advising Android users to "turn off WiFi on these devices until fixes are applied." He adds that "you can think of this a little bit like your firewall being defeated."
As such, you can protect yourself to a great extent by sticking with sites that have solid, proven HTTPS security. And of course, the attack won’t work unless the attacker is nearby and can physically access your network.
The problem should be relatively easy to fix. A firmware change can force routers to require a dedicated certificate for each handshake, instead of relying on the one already generated. And, as the security researchers who discovered it say, "implementations can be patched in a backwards-compatible manner."
That means if you patch your Android device and not your router, you can still communicate and be safe, and vice-versa. Nevertheless, they also advise to patch all your devices as soon as security updates are available. For more details about the hack, check this very detailed FAQ from Aruba Networks.
One of Google Home’s coolest features has for a long time been its ability to present specific information to the voice that activated it. For example, if my wife were to ask Google Home for information from her calendar, it would give her just that – her calendar info. Should I ask the same request a minute later, Google would then switch and access my calendar because it can tell the difference between our voices. It’s a multi-user voice profile type thing and it’s awesome. In fact, it’s so awesome that it has been one of the few advancements that Google Home has had over Amazon’s Echo devices. Well, until this week.
Amazon pushed out an update to the Alexa app this week that activated Alexa Voice Profiles. With Voice Profiles, each user in your home now has the ability to teach Alexa their voice.
What would the benefit of that be beyond just calendar stuff? Let’s say you make a voice call through an Echo device or send a voice message. With a Voice Profile setup, Alexa could then tell the person on the other end specifically that it’s you calling or sending the message. It could also come in handy with notifications or messages that you want to access, since it could recognize your voice, plus a Voice Profile comes in handy when shopping or listening to music through Amazon Music Unlimited.
To get started with setup, head into the Alexa app, swipe out the side menu, tap on Settings, and then scroll down until you see “Your Voice.†Open that section and follow the instructions!
Ever wondered what fast food chicken nuggets are actually made of? So did these researchers, and they actually went so far as to examine formalin-fixed sections of nugget under a microscope. If you enjoy eating these junk food favorites, we suggest you stop reading here. But if you really want to know the results, read on…
The Autopsy of Chicken Nuggets Reads “Chicken Littleâ€
“PURPOSE: To determine the contents of chicken nuggets from 2 national food chains.
BACKGROUND: Chicken nugget
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The computers, that could solve the problems quicker that before are about to be developed.
Quantum computers are being developed around the world while scientists are taking the next step to develop a light-based quantum internet that will have to be just as fast.
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Quantum communications is an attractive field of technology research that will enable us to send more secure messages.
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Still there are problems with this technology that need to be solved in order to put a quantum internet to work:
–Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Quantum computers must be able to talk to each other
–Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Secure communications from hacking
–Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Able to transmit long distances messages without losing parts of it
–Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Routing messages across a quantum network
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This ultra –fast computer will be able to factor impossibly large numbers that the classical computers of today cannot solve.
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There are four types of quantum computers currently being developed, which use: Light particles, Trapped ions, Superconducting qubits and Nitrogen vacancy centers in diamonds. These four types of quantum computers that are being developed won’t be able to talk all to each other without help.
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Joseph Fitzsimons, a principal investigator at the National University of Singapore’s Center of Quantum Technologies tells BBC “ Light is better for communications, bit matter qubits are better for processing,†Â
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There are two different approaches to building quantum networks – a land-based network and a space –based network, each of which has its own problems at the moment until the development is complete and ready for use. Â
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Scientists believe that if people want the global –scale quantum internet, it looks like a space-based solution is the only way but it is the most expensive.
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Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences generated headlines in June when they succeeded in teleporting-entangled photons between tow towns in China located 1,200Km apart. They used a specially developed quantum satellite called Micius.
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Recently the same Chinese scientists topped their own record on September 29th by demonstrating the world’s first intercontinental video call protected by a quantum key with researchers at the Austrian Academy of Sciences over a distance of 7,700Km.
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The Scientists at the Austrian Academy of Sciences institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information believes the quantum internet will need land-based and space-based networks to operate in parallel.
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At the present time all scientists around the world are working nonstop for putting the new technology to work.
Researchers from the Australian national University have developed a telecom compatible quantum memory chip using an erbium –doped crystal.
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This device is able to store light in the right color and it is able to do so for longer than one second, which is 10,000 times longer than all other attempts so far.Â
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It has been told that this technology will take five years before it be comes practical. Â
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CSM-107, more popularly known as Columbia, with LTA-8 lunar module in background.
Lee Hutchinson
Columbia in repose.
Lee Hutchinson
Another look at Columbia. Visible at bottom-left is the “steam duct,” where vapor from the capsule’s cooling evaporator was allowed to escape into space. Other openings include the roll motors for the CM’s RCS (oval openings), the urine and waste water dump valves (below the oval RCS openings), and, below the hatch, the CM RCS pitch motors.
Lee Hutchinson
From the side, Columbia’s yaw thrusters are visible at bottom.
Detail on
Columbia’s
lower and upper ablative heat shields. The heat shield is made out of a material called
, which is a phenolic resin fixed in a fiberglass honeycomb. The small, white, irregular marks indicate areas where assembly technicians had to drill out and re-apply the coating due to subsurface bubbles.
Detail on Columbia’s wide-field Scanning Telescope (left) and sextant (right), which were used for, among other things, aligning the spacecraft’s inertial guidance platform with the stars at various points throughout the mission.
Lee Hutchinson
Detail on the utility connection between Columbia and her service module.
Lee Hutchinson
Columbia’s hatch, displayed separately. In spite of the mechanism’s apparent complexity, it enabled crews to open the hatch in an emergency in only a few seconds, thanks to a gas-assist system.
Trying to push some light into Columbia’s dark interior with a speedlight. Center console’s controls are somewhat visible.
Lee Hutchinson
Detail on LTA-8. Though it now hangs from Space Center Houston’s ceiling, LTA-8 was the first flight-rated production lunar module and used extensively for environmental testing on the ground. It was never flown.
Lee Hutchinson
Lee Hutchinson
Rear view. The injector plate was positioned at the top of the rocket’s thrust chamber and sprayed fuel and oxidizer into the thrust chamber for combustion. Massive pumps shoved about one ton of refined RP-1 fuel and two tons of liquid oxygen through this plate… per second.
Lee Hutchinson
A few items from Buzz Aldrin’s and Mike Collins’ private collections.
Lee Hutchinson
An overhead view of the entire exhibit, which will remain open to the public until March 2018.
Lee Hutchinson
HOUSTON—After carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon in 1969, the Apollo 11 command module splashed into the Pacific Ocean. The spacecraft then returned to Houston with the astronauts before embarking on a tour to all 50 states in 1970 and 1971. An estimated three million people visited the spacecraft along the way as it stopped in one city per state, usually the capital.
Following that tour, the historic capsule was installed at Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and it remained there as one of the institution’s most prized artifacts. Now, finally, the 3.9-meter wide spacecraft is going on tour again. It won’t be visiting all 50 states but instead a select few cities—Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and, lastly, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in 2019, Seattle. The latter city gets the honor because Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is among those underwriting the tour.
The capsule makes its first public appearance on Saturday, October 14 at Space Center Houston. During a media preview, we got a look at the exhibit, which will let visitors get a little more than an arm’s length away from the capsule. This close, we could see how hard the return trip through the atmosphere was on the spacecraft’s heat shield, as well as the wear and tear from the reaction control system thrusters. The capsule is indeed an iconic sight to behold, and it looks all the better for a thorough cleaning and conservation effort before the tour began.
During its engagement until March 2018 at the visitor’s center near Johnson Space Center, space buffs can see both the Apollo 11 capsule and, in a nearby exhibit, the Apollo 17 capsule. Both vehicles have launched to the Moon and back and appear similar. “This is an opportunity to see the historic bookends of the Apollo program,” said William Harris, president and chief executive of Space Center Houston.
Other intriguing objects in the “Destination Moon” exhibit include the visor and gloves Aldrin wore on the Moon’s surface, a shiny lunar sample return container, Michael Collins’ Omega Speedmaster watch, and more. A 3D tour of the spacecraft also highlights graffiti left inside the “Columbia” module by the astronauts. There is also a Moon rock, of course.
This four-city tour, coming on the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Moon landings, is a welcome addition to efforts to highlight the amazing things humans can do in space with clear goals and the funding to accomplish them. In the coming months, Ars will launch its own ambitious series to commemorate the Apollo program, from its successes and travails, to a legacy that reverberates even today in the spaceflight community.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai still hasn’t publicly responded to President Trump’s call for NBC and other networks to have their FCC licenses challenged, and Democratic lawmakers are stepping up the pressure.
Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) today called for a Congressional hearing in which Pai and the other FCC commissioners “can publicly disavow President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to revoke NBC’s broadcaster license due to its reporting.”
Trump made the threats on Twitter yesterday. Members of Congress and members of the media (including Ars) have been contacting the FCC since yesterday morning to get a response from Pai, but the chair has remained silent on the matter.
Pallone and Doyle issued this statement:
Over the past few days, the President has repeatedly attacked news outlets and their FCC licenses. This threat alone may already be chilling free speech across the country. That is why we and others have called on the FCC chairman to immediately condemn this intimidation and promise to the American public that he will not follow through on the directions he has received from the president. Despite our calls, the chairman has refused to say if he agrees with the president. We therefore ask for a hearing as soon as possible with all five FCC commissioners so that they can publicly and under oath commit that they will not threaten broadcasters or their licenses because of the content of their reporting.
FCC Democrats responded to Trump
Both Democratic members of the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, said they would not help Trump attack NBC by targeting its licenses. “Revoking a broadcast license on such grounds will only happen if we fail to abide by the First Amendment,” Clyburn said.
Republican members of the commission have not issued any statements on the topic yesterday or today.
Last month, Pai dismissed the idea of revoking FCC licenses in a speech:
On Twitter, for example, people regularly demand that the FCC yank licenses from cable news channels like Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN because they disagree with the opinions expressed on those networks. Setting aside the fact that the FCC doesn’t license cable channels, these demands are fundamentally at odds with our legal and cultural traditions.
But while Pai was previously willing to criticize unnamed people on Twitter for demanding license revocations, Democratic lawmakers want him to stand up to the president. Revoking licenses is unlikely from a procedural perspective, but the lawmakers said that the president’s threats themselves are harmful to free speech.
“Every day that goes by without comment from the FCC Chairman is a continued threat to the First Amendment,” Pallone and Doyle said.
Trump angry about NBC news story
Trump’s first tweet on the topic yesterday said, “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
Trump’s threat came shortly after he claimed an NBC news story about his nuclear ambitions is “pure fiction.”
Hours later, Trump intensified his call for network licenses to be challenged and possibly revoked. “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!” Trump tweeted.
Trump did not walk back his threats today. “The Fake News Is going all out in order to demean and denigrate! Such hatred!” he tweeted.
The FCC doesn’t issue broadcast licenses to networks, but it does issue licenses to individual stations. The Comcast-owned NBC owns and operates numerous stations in major markets, but NBC content also airs on many affiliate stations that are not owned by NBC.
We contacted Pai’s office again after Pallone and Doyle issued their statement, and we will update this story if Pai offers a response.
