For everything from family to computers…
The prototypes, code-named “Fishbowl”, make encrypted calls, and may be emulated by handset manufacturers.
The US National Security Agency has modified Google’s Android operating system to create smart phones that use powerful encryption to protect every call. The “Fishbowl†devices were announced today at the RSA security conference in San Francisco by Margaret Salter, the agency’s Technical Director, who said she hoped to encourage companies to adopt some of ideas used in the system.
Diagram for AED electrode placement.
Touted as life-saving devices, some 1.5 million automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are around the US. AEDs are designed to be used by anyone, regardless of training, to jumpstart the heart in a case of sudden cardiac arrest. And in this life-or-death situation, a surprisingly number of the devices fail.
Between 2005 and 2009, there were 28,000 reports of AED malfunction in the US, representing 1 out of 50 devices in the country. Mark Harris at IEEE Spectrum investigates the cause of these failures. Surprisingly basic engineering errors were responsible for some of the malfunctions, such as parts that are just too imprecise for a matter of life or death:
One AED, the brand name of which the FDA would not disclose, was found to occasionally misdiagnose the heart’s electrical rhythm. It delivered some shocks that weren’t needed and failed to deliver others that were. The culprit was a resistor that could vary in resistance by up to 10 percent of its stated value. “When our engineer looked at this design, it was an instant ‘uh‑oh,’ †says [Al Taylor of the FDA].
How could regulations on medical devices be so lax? …
from Discover Magazine
The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has got many experts predicting a future in which currently tractable diseases, like tuberculosis, became untreatable again. The popularity of modern antibiotics, ironically, is what is leading to their downfall: antibiotics in consumer products, like soaps, as well as the excessive use of antibiotics by people who have no bacterial infections, help select for strains of bacteria that don’t respond to drugs. Factory-farmed livestock, which receive tremendous doses of antibiotics in their feed, are also a likely breeding ground for resistant bacteria that could potentially infect humans.
Proponents of factory farming have scoffed at such claims [pdf], but now, scientists have provided definitive evidence that this happens: through genetic analysis, they found that a strain of MRSA, already resistant to one family of drugs, had hopped from people to farmed pigs, acquired resistance to another antibiotic being fed to the pigs, and then leapt back into humans, taking its new resistance with it. That strain, called MRSA ST398 or CC398, is now causing 1 out of 4 cases of MRSA in some regions of the Netherlands [pdf], where it arose, and it has also been found across …
from Discover Magazine
This is the WaterBob, a single-use water reservoir that you can stick in your bathtub and fill with 100 gallons of water – and that can keep it fresh for up to four weeks. If you live in a disaster-prone area it could be useful, but there are a few things that one should consider before blowing $30 on a 100-gallon FDA approved plastic water-bag.
Let’s say an earthquake hits, a big earthquake – what happens? Assuming your house is still standing, you probably have no power, and your water company is probably in the same situation, so you have no water. Basically, unless you are prepared to live without a bathtub and want to spend $30 a month on water reservoirs for your bathtub so that you can have it filled up before the earthquake hits… you are going to be out of luck. So for earthquakes it probably isn’t much good.
For hurricane/cyclone prone areas it might be better. Let’s say you see on the news that a Katrina-sized storm front is heading your way. You would have enough forewarning to get it filled up. Assuming that all hell broke loose and your house was on high enough ground that it didn’t need to be evacuated, 100 gallons of clean water could be a life saver.
Price: $30 [Book of Joe]
from The UberReview
Staring at screens for three hours (or more) a day or having our necks flexed down for extended periods of time while texting surely can’t be good for us. Just as a reminder, the “Are Mobile Devices Destroying Your Body?” infographic points out these and other health implications when using mobile devices and things we can do to minimize them. More »
from Lifehacker
Secret sensors sniffed 60 GPS jamming attempts in the UK in the last six months, says a government backed project
When a Swedish man drove down a deserted forest road near Umeaa, Sweden last December 19th, he was probably looking forward to Christmas. But that day, his car somehow became buried under a mountain of snow. He was trapped there for two months, suffering insanely low temperatures, with no access to food. Last Sunday, he was discovered. Alive. But how? More »
from Gizmodo