Facebook’s new privacy blunder may have exposed your private photos

https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/612611/facebooks-new-privacy-blunder-may-have-exposed-your-private-photos/


Facebook’s new privacy blunder may have exposed your private photos

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December 14, 2018 at 01:18PM

Hyundai will sell a car that can be unlocked with a fingerprint

https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/17/hyundai-car-unlocked-with-fingerprint/



Hyundai

Hyundai has unveiled a new car system that lets drivers unlock and start a vehicle using their fingerprints. The tech is built in to the door handle and ignition button of the new 2019 Santa Fe SUV, showcased at an auto show in China last week.

Multiple owners will be able to register their encrypted fingerprint data for the same vehicle, according to the South Korean auto-maker. And, depending on the person using the car, it will then automatically adjust seat positions and the angle of the rearview mirrors. A future update could also allow the biometric system to add personalized temperature, humidity, and steering settings, Hyundai said. For now, the company is planing to limit the feature to China upon its launch in the first quarter of 2019.

The fingerprint sensor uses human capacitance to pull off the trick, differentiating between the electricity levels in different parts of the finger to prevent hacking or faked fingerprints. Hyundai said the system — which receives your encrypted fingerprint data from the touch sensor in the handle before unlocking the car — has an error rate of 1 in 50,000 (that’s the same figure touted by Apple for its Touch ID tech for iPhones, iPads, and select MacBooks).

The Santa Fe’s other tech includes a rear occupant alert system, which uses ultrasonic sensors to detect the movements of children in the back to avoid anyone being left behind. The car also comes equipped with Chinese internet giant Baidu‘s voice recognition system and a wireless phone charger.

This isn’t the first time fingerprints have been used to start cars, but the unlocking tech has never before been baked in to a vehicle’s door handle. Tesla Model 3 owners are also already using their smartphone as a car key while the rest of the industry (including Hyundai) is busy building a virtual key standard that could popularize the tech. Elsewhere, Hertz recently brought biometric data to car rentals at Atlanta International Airport.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

December 17, 2018 at 06:27AM

The Education Department Is Canceling $150 Million Of Student Loan Debt

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/14/676755770/the-education-department-is-canceling-150-million-of-student-loan-debt?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news


U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attends an event at the White House.

Cheriss May/Getty Images


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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos attends an event at the White House.

Cheriss May/Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Education is sending emails to about 15,000 people around the country telling them: You’ve got money.

These are former students — and some parents of students — who took out loans for colleges that shut down between Nov. 1, 2013, and Dec. 4, 2018. About half attended campuses run by Corinthian Colleges. They will get their money back or have their debt forgiven — an amount estimated at $150 million, all told — under a provision called Automatic Closed School Discharge.

As part of the Obama-era crackdown on for-profit colleges like ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges, the Education Department wrote something called the “borrower defense rule.” It specified how students could get their loan money repaid if their schools were found to be shady. Borrowers had to submit an application and show how they were being defrauded. But if the school was shut down altogether, the loan discharge was supposed to be automatic.

Under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the department took a series of steps to try to delay borrower defense from going into effect, as it was supposed to do in the summer of 2017. DeVos called it: “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools, and puts taxpayers on the hook for significant costs.”

But the department lost in court repeatedly and also missed a key technical deadline for replacing the rule. In October, a federal judge ordered that the department begin forgiving loans under the rule. Now, per a statement, the government seems to be complying with the closed-school portion of the rule, at least.

Since 2013, 3,600 schools have closed at least one campus, according to the National Student Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group that has filed many lawsuits against the department. Education Corporation of America, another for-profit college chain, officially closed on Dec. 5, stranding another 20,000 students.

So the department’s liability could ultimately mean many more millions of dollars beyond the initial $150 million being returned or cancelled now, NSLDN says.

“There are thousands of students entitled to automatic relief who in all likelihood don’t know it,” says NSLDN’s chief counsel, Dan Zibel. He pointed out that the department is still working to weaken the borrower defense rule and, NSLDN argues in another suit, to slow-walk the claims of students who say they are being defrauded.

The Education Department has not yet responded to NPR’s requests for comment.

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December 14, 2018 at 12:24PM

Volvo to sell electric Class 8 truck in U.S. in 2020

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/17/volvo-electric-class-8-truck/


Volvo

Trucks, the world’s second-largest truckmaker, will join the growing list of Class 8 truck companies to put an electric heavy-hauler on U.S. roads. The Swedish company announced in a tweet that its VNR Electric will head to California for demonstration testing in 2019, before commercial sales begin in 2020. All we know so far is that the VNR Electric will wear an illuminated logo on the grille and swoopier bodywork.

Volvo

Buses began selling an FE electric bus in Europe in 2011, and has moved more than 4,000 of the FE buses since then. At the beginning of this year,

Volvo Trucks announced the FL medium-duty

electric truck in three battery sizes, able to haul 16 tons up to a maximum of 300 kilometers. That vehicle’s been in use in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a garbage company and urban hauling company before it hits the market next year.

In April, having adopted the FE transmission to trucking, Volvo Trucks announced the FE medium-duty truck in Europe, capable of hauling 27 tons. The FE will go into small-scale service in Germany next year before commercial sales in 2020. The truck comes in two battery sizes, either 200 kWh or 300 kWh, powering two electric motors that produce up to 496 horsepower and

626

pound-feet of torque. The truck has a two-speed transmission and can run up to 124 miles.

A full charge happens in two hours

with 150-kW DC fast charging.

The VNR Electric is based on the Class 8 Volvo VNR

truck on sale

in the U.S. now with traditional

diesel

drivetrains, using the FE powertrain. As part of the automaker’s LIGHTS program — Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions — Volvo will put eight demo trucks with different battery configurations and another 15 pre-production and production units on Golden State roads with two trucking companies.

The

California Air Resources Board (CARB) awarded $44.8 million

to the state’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) for the LIGHTS effort. There are 16 partners involved as Volvo works to solve round-the-clock and long-term electric trucking issues for a “comprehensive transport ecosystem,” including urban frameworks, niche applications,

second-life battery uses

, and solar energy production. Numbers for the LIGHTS project say it will “reduce an estimated 3.57 tons of criteria pollutants (defined air pollutants) and 3,020 tons of greenhouse gases annually.”

The domestic electric trucking club already counts

Daimler, which has put 20 demo Freightliner eCascadia

units to work at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Thor Trucks committed to

deliver medium-duty Class 6 trucks to UPS, which are testing in California now. The

Tesla Semi

has been testing this year and has been promised for production in 2019. Diesel engine maker

Cummins showed an electric truck

effort last year with a 100-mile range. The

Volkswagen

Group owns two truck manufacturers and has put $1.7 billion to work on electric trucks in Europe, but neither brand is on sale here. It can be expected that once VNR Electric commercial sales begin, the technology will spread to Volvo’s other U.S. truck brands, Mack and UD trucks.

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December 17, 2018 at 09:46AM

Ford builds a noise-canceling doghouse to fight off fireworks sounds

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/17/ford-noise-canceling-doghouse/


If you have dogs or grew up with dogs, chances are you’ve encountered at least one that gets really skittish around loud booms from thunder or fireworks. There haven’t been good ways to handle this, aside from keeping your dog company and comforting him until the sounds stop.

Ford

may have a better solution, though. It built a doghouse that cancels out noises.

It’s called the Quiet Kennel, and it uses noise cancellation technology available in current

Ford cars

including the

Edge crossover

and

Fusion

sedan. As you can see in the video above, the modern, minimalist doghouse has sound deadening panels sandwiched between the layers, and there are active noise-canceling speakers to dull the booms of fireworks. There are additional features not necessarily car-related such as vibration-reducing feet on the doghouse and soundproof ventilation.

Unfortunately, this doghouse isn’t going on sale anytime soon, since it’s just a concept. Even if it were for sale, it would likely cost a bundle with all of that technology embedded inside. Still, it’s a nice idea, and maybe some company could implement some of the more affordable ideas, such as the sound deadening pads, into something for consumers.

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December 17, 2018 at 08:42AM