Mozilla Starts Crowdsourcing Data to Help Devices Find Your Location Without GPS

As reported by Engadget: Mozilla's got a full plate between browsers, Firefox OS and a mess of other projects, but that hasn't stopped it from starting a new initiative. The software community has set up the experimental Mozilla Location Service to collect crowdsourced geolocation data from public WiFi networks and cellular towers. According to the outfit, devices with weak or non-existent GPS capabilities will be able to determine where they're at with the help of the service. Anyone interested in contributing will need to download the MozStumbler app for Android, walk around and upload data. Mozilla's aware you'd be handing over personal location info by using the application, so it's vowed to improve privacy all around. There's no word of an iOS counterpart just yet, so contributors will be limited to Mountain View's OS for the time being.

Bluetooth Gets Smart

Most modern day mobile devices incorporate the new
Bluetooth 'Smart' communications capability.

As reported by the Denver Post: You may know Bluetooth as the wireless technology you use to connect your phone with your wireless headset or your car's hands-free speaker systems. But in the near future, you may use the wireless technology to do a lot more than that.

Dubbed Bluetooth Smart (or Bluetooth low energy), the new version of the technology is already being used in fitness devices, including Fitbit's Force and Nike's latest FuelBand, to help track users' physical activity. The technology is at the heart of AirDrop, a feature included in the latest version of Apple's iOS operating system that allows iPhone and iPad users to transfer photos and other files to nearby users of other Apple handhelds. And an upcoming deadbolt lock from Kwikset uses the technology to allow owners to unlock their doors with a simple touch, rather than a key.

Fitbit's wrist band physical activity tracker, as well as many
other similar bands (such as the Nike 'Fuel') incorporate
Smart Bluetooth in order to send updates to applications on
smartphones.

The technology will soon be available in a range of health monitoring devices, such as a blood glucose sensor developed by Johnson & Johnson. It also may be used soon to allow users to make wireless payments at their local coffee shop or for retailers to identify frequent customers and send them targeted ads. And Bluetooth proponents think it will be a key part of the “smart home” of the future, helping consumers control everything from their TVs to their thermostats.

The new technology “changes the perception of Bluetooth and what it can be used for,” said Mark Hung, an analyst who covers wireless technologies for Gartner, an industry research group.

Smart Bluetooth is also being used for medical device
integration with smartphones - such as glucose monitors.

In some ways, the new version of Bluetooth is a “back to the future” moment for the technology.

When Bluetooth was first being developed nearly 20 years ago, technology experts thought it would be used for a lot more than headsets. In fact, Bluetooth was initially pitched as a technology for “personal area networks.” These were envisioned as a collection of devices worn by or positioned near an individual who could interact with them through a phone or a Palm Pilot-style personal digital assistant.

But that vision never materialized. While Bluetooth is commonly used to connect wireless keyboards and mice to PCs, and has started to be used more frequently to connect phones to portable speaker systems, it's mostly been used just for hands-free devices.

That's starting to change thanks to the updated technology, which is part of what's more broadly called Bluetooth 4.0.

The key innovation with Bluetooth Smart is that it uses very little energy. The new technology allows devices to run for weeks without needing a recharge and to send bursts of data while consuming very little power.

That makes it a good fit for health and fitness devices. Bluetooth Smart serves as a conduit that takes data collected from sensors either in the phone or in the fitness accessories and transfers it to apps on the phone where the data can be processed. The first examples of these are the fitness bands. But soon to come are soccer balls and basketballs that have sensors and Bluetooth Smart radios built into them to help athletes track how they are shooting, kicking or dribbling and suggest ways to improve.

Part of what's driving Bluetooth Smart into new uses is that it's gained wide support among computer platforms. Apple integrated the technology into iOS two years ago. Microsoft built support for it into Windows 8, which the company released last year. And this summer, Google added support for Bluetooth Smart to Android.

In addition to health and fitness uses, Bluetooth Smart is also starting to be used as an invisible beacon. When an iPhone makes an AirDrop file transfer, it uses Bluetooth Smart to find other nearby devices and to create secure one-to-one connection. Similarly, the Bluetooth signal can be used to identify an individual phone user for the purpose of making a payment or sending a marketing message.

Zigbee hopes to be the 'home' standard for communication
but Bluetooth appears to have an edge in the market.

While other technologies can and are being used for wireless payments — most notably NFC, or near field communication, radios — the advantage of Bluetooth is that it's already in nearly every phone. By contrast, NFC is less widely supported and isn't used in Apple devices at all.

Bluetooth Smart could also have a future in the smart home. It's already being used in some remote controls, allowing users to change channels or turn on equipment even when its hidden in cabinets, something they can't do with old-style infrared remotes. And the Kwikset lock could trigger a wave of broader use of Bluetooth in home automation devices.

I haven't been a huge fan of Bluetooth in the past. In some cases I haven't been able to get devices to connect using Bluetooth. In other cases, I've had to repeatedly re-pair formerly connected devices.

Suke Jawanda, the chief marketing officer at the Bluetooth industry's trade group, said that the widespread support for Bluetooth 4.0 at the operating system level should solve some of those problems.

I hope so, because of the new uses for Bluetooth sound pretty cool.

Telematics and Smartphone Lessons in Product Differentiation

Where is the best location to integrate a vehicle user
interface - in the car or in an associated smartphone?

As reported by Telematics Update: Andrew Thompson looks at what happens to product differentiation once OEMs begin to let go of their proprietary platforms and start going the way of smartphones.

It’s one of the biggest pickles in mobile telecommunications.

A device manufacturer’s proprietary platform gives a product a distinct feel, but only at the cost of forcing app developers to wrestle with a dizzying number of platform-specific modules and, in turn, a higher price for the consumer.

In mobile, this problem has been all but solved. Apple and Blackberry have their own branded platforms, and everyone else – for the most part – uses Android, with a smattering of Windows Mobile.

But what is now taken for granted by phone designers, is only beginning to be realized by vehicle OEMs.

Car manufacturers are already looking at telematics that can
be accessed by an associated user's phone - using specialized
apps for Android and iOS devices.

“Right now, if you’re an app developer, you’re doing one app for GM and another for Ford,” says T.C. Wingrove, senior manager of global electronics innovation at Visteon. “And even within GM, you’re doing one for Chevrolet and another for Cadillac.”

As of this year, Linux-based platforms – the closest the automotive industry comes to having a unified platform – only accounted for roughly 2% of the market, according to IHS. That’s expected to grow to about 30% in 2018, by which time proprietary systems begin to fade into the background – or so it is hoped.

So if OEMs give up the keys to their platforms, how will they distinguish the in-vehicle infotainment of their products?

Differentiating the product
“There’s not a single correct answer,” Wingrove says. And the problem is that so few automakers have adopted a uniform platform that, at this point, there is little more then conjecture.

Still, a consensus is beginning to emerge that innovation needs to pick up and that the best way to realize that is by standardizing some of the many components at the base of car makers’ elaborate infotainment systems. “The ones who will innovate the best will be the ones who can collaborate the best,” Wingrove says.

In other words, companies that can bring together the players in an increasingly complex supply chain and sacrifice their proprietary platforms in order to further actual innovation, instead of furthering mere branding illusions, will come out ahead.

How much should be integrated into the user's phone - and how
secure will this approach be?

In mobile, this has resulted in products that in many ways resemble their competitors. Still, the different brands manage to distinguish themselves. “Just like in the phone OS, where they make 80% to 90% of the platform identical and then the top 10% is the special stuff on their phones only, they could do that with the HMIs,” says Mark Boyadjis, senior analyst, IHS Automotive.

Still, not everyone agrees.

“The current automobile market has become too competitive with very few well-delineated areas of product differentiation,”says Frank Hirschenberger, senior director of product innovation at Agero. “Connected vehicles are viewed as one of the primary areas where OEMs can still substantially differentiate their product and also provide services for the life cycle of the vehicle. The acceptance of open source is typically reserved for non-differentiating functions, as opposed to differentiating features.”

HMI, services and performance
Boyadjis expects innovation to come in three areas: human-machine interface (HMI), services and performance of the actual product.

“Be it a Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei or other brand of smartphone, they will all have Android, but have very different implementations at play,” he says. “These differences are the icing on the cake, which help sales of one phone separate from another. This would also happen in vehicles if a common platform emerged.”

For example, a proprietary voice recognition system similar to Samsung’s S Voice or vehicle-specific social linking tools like those found in some of HTC’s phones serve to differentiate phones that both operate in the familiar Android platform. And similar differentiators might be seen in cars.

“Innovation will come from the features, services, performances at the application level,” says Phillipe Gicquel, president of GENIVI, one of the industry’s biggest proponents of Linux-based systems. “Using GENIVI standards changes the supplier ecosystem because OEMs can more easily make their own choices for each software module, like navigation engine, voice recognition and so on.”

Voice recognition integration into the vehicle won't be much
of a significant differentiatior alone.

One of the biggest differentiators will be the services themselves, according to experts, and this is where the phone analogy begins to falter. Unlike phones, in which apps are universally available across all supported devices, there would still be a variety of different apps available for different vehicles.

“While a common app store is shared within all Android phones, this would be different in the vehicle,” Boyadjis says. “Many apps and services would be shared, but because some of them will be vehicle-centric applications, reading data from sensors and other connectivity platforms in the car, the total services and applications offered will be a point of differentiation for OEMs."

Then, of course, there’s the basic performance of the product itself – the parts and processes involved in making the HMI, apps and everything in between run at an optimum level. “Different processors, memory and other hardware-based solutions will differentiate across vehicle brands,” Boyadjis says. “The problem with this differentiation is it’s easy to replicate, and thus is no longer a differentiation.”

There’s another way to look at it, though, which is that the difference in performance will itself take the forefront in differentiation. Samsung may have used the branded S Voice feature, but it was the sheer firepower under the hood that made the Galaxy series a runaway success.

A similar process of differentiation might be seen in vehicles. In this case, the leaders of innovation would become the chipmakers and engineers, not the OEMs.

One GPS/GNSS Device for Every Person on the Planet by 2022

7 billion devices with GPS/GNSS capabilities are predicted to
be available by 2022, with smartphone functionality making up a
significant portion of the overall $344 billion GNSS market.

As reported by Spar Point Group: By 2022, the number of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receivers and devices in use is predicted to hit seven billion. That’s nearly one GNSS device for every person crowding the planet, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) said in its third market report on the positioning technology.

Today, the installed base of GNSS devices is over two billion, and most of those are in Europe and North America. In the future, however, most of this growth will be driven in regions outside Europe and North America, the report said.

GNSS is a system of satellites that provide geospatial positioning with global coverage through receivers using available GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and other middle Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites, typically hovering about 10-20 miles above the planet.

Multi-constellation GNSS receivers grab market share
Today, multi-constellation receivers, which use all navigation signals in view, are becoming more widely available on the market with more than 70 percent of GNSS models SBAS (Satellite Based Augmentation System) capable. These devices offer increased availability of signals, especially in urban environments, and more robust performance in professional applications such as surveying. GLONASS is the second constellation of choice for users after GPS, the report said.

Global GNSS-enabled markets are forecast to grow to $344 billion per year by 2022, according to the report, which also said core revenues - attributable to direct GNSS functionality and service - are expected to reach $138 billion over the period.

Countries will increasingly implement regulatory measures to promote the use of GNSS, for example in emergency location sharing or search and rescue operations, which will further drive growth in Europe and North America over the next five to 10 years, according to the report.

The report analyzes key market segments: location-based services, road, aviation, maritime, agriculture, surveying, and rail.

It's estimated that smartphone location based services will
make up 47% of the overall revenue for the market, (down
from the current 90% share of the market) with vehicle
based services making up 46.2% of the market.

Smartphones dominate
The market for Location-based services (LBS) includes smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, laptops, fitness and people tracking devices, and mobile data revenues.

For example, LBS devices increasingly support navigation and other services in the Road market segment, which is cannibalizing the share of personal navigation devices (PND) in the market, the report said.

Smartphones comprise 90 percent of LBS devices sold, and new smartphone capabilities “will dominate global GNSS revenues and with other integrated technologies they are entering into other market segments, not only LBS,” according to the report.

However, with the growing penetration of tablets and increased GNSS usage in digital cameras, the smartphone share is expected to decrease over the next decade, the report said.

Chinese Appliances are Shipping with Malware-Distributing WiFi Chips

As reported by Geek: Was the iron in the last hotel room you stayed in made in China? Bad news: it may have been hiding an insidious little chip designed to infect your computer with spam-serving malware.

It’s not just irons that are being used as tiny trojan horses, either. Dashboard cameras, cell phones, and tea kettles have also been found inconspicuously outfitted with the malicious chips. They’re reportedly capable of latching on to any computer within 200 meters that’s attached to an unsecured WiFi network… like the ones in many hotels and coffee shops.

Shipments of modified small appliances are apparently popping up in Russia, but that could just be the tip of the iceberg. It’s entirely possible that the Russian gadgets were the first to be spotted and that similar malware gear has already been shipped to other corners of the globe.

It’s bad enough that you can’t trust that unfamiliar USB charger you were just about to plug your smartphone in to, but now you can’t even trust the iron you were going to use to press your slacks.

So what are these sneaky Chinese appliances up to? Right now, it looks like they’re only looking for unsuspecting drones to add to someone’s spam-serving army. Once a machine has been compromised, though, it’s possible that those in control would push additional malware to a victim’s machine.

They may even start sniffing WiFi traffic for usernames, passwords, and payment data being passed around in the open. Until security researchers learn more, you may want to unplug the iron in your next hotel room right after you inspect the mattress for bed bugs.

Thieves Pose as Truckers to Steal Huge Cargo Loads

As reported through the AP news wire: To steal huge shipments of valuable cargo, thieves are turning to a deceptively simple tactic: They pose as truckers, load the freight onto their own tractor-trailers and drive away with it.

It's an increasingly common form of commercial identity theft that has allowed con men to make off each year with millions of dollars in merchandise, often food and beverages. And experts say the practice is growing so rapidly that it will soon become the most common way to steal freight.

A generation ago, thieves simply stole loaded trucks out of parking lots. But the industry's widening use of GPS devices, high-tech locks and other advanced security measures have pushed criminals to adopt new hoaxes.

Helping to drive the scams, experts say, is the Internet, which offers thieves easy access to vast amounts of information about the trucking industry. Online databases allow con men to assume the identities of legitimate freight haulers and to trawl for specific commodities they want to steal.

Besides hurting the nation's trucking industry — which moves more than 68 percent of all domestic shipments — the thefts have real-world consequences for consumers, including raising prices and potentially allowing unsafe food and drugs to reach store shelves.

News reports from across the country recount just a few of the thefts: 80,000 pounds of walnuts worth $300,000 in California, $200,000 of Muenster cheese in Wisconsin, rib-eye steaks valued at $82,000 in Texas, $25,000 pounds of king crab worth $400,000 in California.

The Hughson Nut Co. fell victim twice last year, losing two loads valued at $189,000. Each time, the impostor truckers showed up at the Livingston, Calif., nut processor on a Friday with all the proper paperwork to pick up a load of almonds.

On the Monday following the second theft, a customer called to complain that the almonds had never arrived in Arizona. The company's quality assurance manager, Raquel Andrade, recalled getting a sinking feeling: "Uh-oh. I think it happened again."

The thefts are little-known and seldom discussed outside the world of commercial trucking. Companies that have been victimized are often reluctant to talk about their losses. But crime reports and Associated Press interviews with law enforcement and industry leaders reveal an alarming pattern that hurts commerce, pushes up consumer prices and potentially puts Americans' health and safety at risk.

"In the end, the consumer winds up paying the toll on this," said Keith Lewis, vice president of CargoNet, a theft-prevention network that provides information to the insurance industry.

The economic results go beyond adding a few nickels or dimes to retail prices. The "consequential damages" from stolen cargo easily run into the millions of dollars, far exceeding the value of the lost shipments. For example, a stolen load of pharmaceuticals might necessitate a worldwide recall of every drug with that lot number to ensure none of the product ends up back in the market in case it gets tampered with.

Stolen food shipments pose similar health concerns.

"It might be low value, but that load of poultry could be high-risk," Lewis said, explaining that if it spoils and gets back into the supply chain, hundreds or thousands of people could get sick.

The scheme works like this: Thieves assume the identity of a trucking company, often by reactivating a dormant Department of Transportation carrier number from a government website for as little as $300. That lets them pretend to be a long-established firm with a seemingly good safety record. The fraud often includes paperwork such as insurance policies, fake driver's licenses and other documents.

Then the con artists offer low bids to freight brokers who handle shipping for numerous companies. When the truckers show up at a company, everything seems legitimate. But once driven away, the goods are never seen again.

The thieves target mostly shipments of food and beverages, which are easy to sell on the black market and hard to trace. Some end up on the shelves of small grocery stores. Others go to huge distribution warehouses like the one authorities raided in August in North Hollywood, Calif. It was filled with stolen steaks, shrimp, energy drinks, ice cream and other frozen foods.

Last year, carriers reported nearly 1,200 cargo thefts of all kinds nationwide, about the same as the previous year, according to CargoNet, a division of Verisk Crime Analytics, which estimated losses that year at nearly $216 million. Since many thefts go unreported, the real figure is almost certainly far higher.

The most common crime is still the "straight theft" of trailers left unattended in parking lots or at truck stops. But CargoNet says the new trucking scams are growing at a rapid 6 percent each quarter. Of the average three to five truckloads stolen each day in the United States, at least one involves what are known in the industry as fraudulent or fictitious pickups.

The thefts emerged three or four years ago and are now "the latest, greatest thing" for organized groups seeking to steal freight, said J.J. Coughlin, vice president for law enforcement services at LoJack SCI, a supply chain protection company.

LoJack examined 947 cargo thefts last year and identified 45 of them as fictitious pickups. So far this year, the number of fictitious pickups has probably already doubled, Coughlin said. The average loss last year was more than $170,000 per incident.

Although cargo thieves prey on companies across the nation, the hot spots are places with shipping ports or rail hubs. California leads the nation. Large numbers of thefts have also been reported in Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Scott Cornell, national manager of a special investigation group focusing on supply chain security at the insurance company Travelers, said the thieves take advantage of the Internet, which allows them to do "so many things online where nobody sees you," including setting up a company and bidding on loads.

Within a few years, Lewis said, identity theft-related scams are expected to become the most prevalent method of cargo theft.

Experienced thieves know where the major manufacturers are located. And some are savvy enough to pick out which brand of electronics or appliances to steal by bidding on loads posted online. Someone wanting to steal a truckload of copper, for instance, would target shipments coming out of Carrollton, Ga., where a major copper-wire manufacturer is located.

Food and beverages were the most commonly stolen items, accounting for 23 percent of all thefts last year, followed by metals at 16 percent, and electronics and household goods at 12 percent each. Other products made up the remaining 37 percent, including pharmaceuticals at 3 percent, according to CargoNet's 2012 report.

One reason food shipments are popular targets is because they have a lower value than electronics or pharmaceuticals, which are often more heavily protected. Plus, food generally does not have any serial numbers to trace.

The loads are also difficult to recover. Companies often do not know they have been scammed until their shipments fail to show up, usually four to five days after they were stolen, Coughlin said.

By that time, the goods have probably already been sold on the black market.

The trucking and insurance industries are fighting back, urging freight brokers to take extra precautions, such as checking information before awarding shipping contracts to unfamiliar truckers.

The California Farm Bureau Federation warns about clues that could indicate a suspicious hauler: temporary name placards or identification numbers on the truck, abrupt changes in the time of the pickup and lack of a GPS tracking system on the truck.

Another suggestion is to get a thumbprint from the truck driver.

"This is growing at such a rapid, scary rate," said Sam Rizzitelli, national director for transportation at Travelers Inland Marine Division. "It warrants a lot of attention."

UPS Switching to Natural Gas to Raise Efficiency of Its Big Rigs

As reported by the Blade: Package shipping giant UPS Inc. is expanding the fuel-efficiency of its trucking fleet, and part of that effort will include building a new Liquefied Natural Gas fueling station at its Maumee cargo facility at 1550 Holland Rd.

The facility will be ready by next May, and it is among nine new LNG stations Atlanta-based UPS is building in Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The company already has begun construction on four other LNG stations in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California.

Mike Chavez, manager for UPS plant engineering, said the cost of the Maumee station will not be disclosed, but the company is spending $68 million to construct all 13 of its LNG stations. The Maumee location will not create any jobs, he said.

Liquefied Natural Gas is predominantly methane that has been reduced to a liquid state and has a higher energy density than diesel. That makes it more cost efficient to transport over long distances where natural gas pipelines don’t exist. In a tractor-trailer fleet, LNG enables a vehicle to go farther on the same volume of fuel.

UPS has already purchased 1,000 LNG-fueled tractor-trailers that will displace more than 24 million gallons of diesel fuel annually. The company has used LNG-powered vehicles since 2002.

“The natural gas industry needs companies to commit to using natural gas to help establish a reliable alternative to traditional fuel, and that is just what UPS is doing,” David Abney, UPS chief operating officer, said in a statement. “The UPS strategy is both environmentally friendly and economically viable. LNG is becoming more readily available, plus it’s more insulated from market volatility than diesel fuel.”

Mr. Abney said that UPS’s goal is to reach one billion miles driven by its alternative fuel and advance technology fleet by 2017. It already has more than 2,700 alternative-fuel and advanced technology vehicles in use, including all-electric, hybrid electric, hydraulic hybrid, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquid propane gas, and biomethane.

Mr. Chavez said the company’s diesel-powered tractor-trailers will be retired as they wear out. The company will be running LNG-powered tractor-trailers to the Maumee facility, which is why it needed an LNG fuel station in the Toledo area.