Google Glass for the Blind?

As reported by the Boston Business Journal: GPS navigation systems are increasingly being used to help blind people get around on the street, but what happens when blind individuals move into areas where GPS doesn't work?

This is the problem that Cambridge-based Draper Laboratory and Alabama-based Auburn University, are working to address in a project funded by the Federal Highway Administration.

The collaborators are building a prototype that can work indoors, and can also alert users to the presence of objects not found on maps, such as crowds and cars. The model will include technology that Draper Laboratory developed for soldiers and unmanned vehicles.

While the device will track the movements of the wearer while integrating data from GPS satellites, when indoors, it will use visual information from cameras, and wireless information from pedestrian signals in order to enhance safety and mobility. It is designed to be able to work in challenging unstructured environments such as MBTA stations, construction sites and event arenas.

Auburn and Draper are working with the National Federation of the Blind to ensure all of the visually impaired wearers’ needs will be addressed in their design. A prototype is expected to be ready in 2015 and is likely to take the form of an ankle bracelet with movement sensors and a small camera placed in a pair of glasses. Tactile vibrators will likely be used to provide directional guidance to users.

Similarly Google Glass is being used to help the visually impaired through the Dapper Vision's OpenGlass Project.  Harnessing the power of Google Glass’ built-in camera, the cloud, and the “hive-mind”, visually impaired users will be able to know what’s in front of them. The system consists of two components: Question-Answer sends pictures taken by the user and uploads them to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and Twitter for the public to help identify, and Memento [Memento, allows people to record descriptions or commentary about a certain scene] takes video from Glass and uses image matching to identify objects from a database created with the help of seeing users. 

Information about what the Glass wearer “sees” is read aloud to the user via bone conduction speakers.

BBM’s Android And iOS Launch Weekend Going About As Badly As Possible

As reported by TechCrunch: BlackBerry trumpeted its intention to deliver the long-awaited Android and iOS versions of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service this weekend, and so fans around the world eagerly awaited the mobile software’s debut. But debut the apps didn’t, at least not as intended and not for the vast majority of expectant fans.

As of right now, BlackBerry’s BBM apps for iOS and Android are nowhere to be seen, after the iOS version’s staged rollout of midnight local time at each country around the world got put on hold somewhere around India, and the Android version was a no-show altogether. The Android BBM app was originally slated for a Saturday launch, but the iOS version beat it out of the gate, and both got “paused” after a leaked version of the official Android .apk decimated BlackBerry’s servers.

Late yesterday BlackBerry was forced to put its rollout on hold, which it says is due to overwhelming demand.

“Prior to launching BBM for Android, an unreleased version of the BBM for Android app was posted online,” reads a statement from its official blog. “The interest and enthusiasm we have seen already – more than 1.1 million active users in the first eight hours without even launching the official Android app – is incredible.”

After that original post, those waiting for the official apps had nothing to go on for roughly 15 hours, followed by the most recent official word on the situation via BBM’s verified Twitter account. The most recent news is no news, however, with simply a restatement of its message from earlier that the company is working hard to restore the rollout.

I’ve been eager to get on board with either the Android or the iPhone version, because it means I can finally talk to my father again after so many years of silence. I’ll be able to BBM him for the two months it’ll take for his new iPhone to ship to him, and then I can safely delete the app again.

I asked my sister’s boyfriend, who just got an iPhone 5s, whether he’s excited about being able to take his BBM network with him as he switches. Here’s what he had to say:

I only have 3 people on BBM now. 2 are [your sister, work and personal ] and the other is your dad. I used to have 30 BBM contacts.

The launch of BBM for iPhone and Android, should it ever actually happen, will be a nice escape raft for people still clinging to the sinking ship, but that’s about it. The other ship BlackBerry is conceivably aiming to float here, the one where it builds a competitive cross-platform messaging platform to rival WhatsApp and others, has already sailed long, long ago.

Cygnus Delays ISS Berthing Following GPS Time Discrepancy

From NasaSpaceflight.com: Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft was into the final leg of berthing with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday morning, prior to a discrepancy relating to the way the ISS and Cygnus determine GPS data. The fascinating issue can be fixed via an update to Cygnus’ software, allowing for a second rendezvous and berthing attempt, potentially as soon as Tuesday.

Cygnus was successfully lofted into space via the second flight of Orbital’s Antares rocket on September 18 from its Wallops facility.

Per L2 information, the post-flight review – known as the “24 hour quick look review” – noted no issues with the launch phase of ORB-D.

Bidding farewell to Antares – and completing what is known as the Integrated Launch Operations Phase (ILOPS), for the ascent and insertion element of the mission – Cygnus immediately began completing numerous first-time operations, stretching out its solar arrays before setting its sights on the orbital outpost.

The Cygnus vehicle – under the control of Orbital at MCC-Dulles – then prepared for a series of well-practiced demonstrations over its four day period of catching up to the ISS.

Known as the Phasing Operations Phase (POPS) – for the pursuit of the ISS – Cygnus has a task sheet of 10 specific demonstrations to complete during its four-day in-orbit journey to rendezvous with the ISS.

These demo elements have been intertwined with orbital operations such as Delta V burns to raise its orbit, the first of which was successfully completed early into the mission.

Cygnus’ flight profile – as seen in an expansive overview presentation acquired by L2 – involves chasing the ISS from behind and below.

Following another burn, the team carried out free drift and abort demonstrations – known as Demos 2a and 2b – marking the completion of the first demonstration milestones under the ORB-D requirements.

With Cygnus closing in on the ISS’ neighborhood, along with its altitude showing a large up curve per the flight profile, the spacecraft has completed a total of four Delta V burns to get within a four kilometers of the ISS’ altitude.

The trouble-free flight of the new spacecraft was marked by a NASA Mission Management Team (IMMT) providing approval for Cygnus to continue its pursuit of the Station, along with a provisional green light for berthing to take place early on Sunday.

However, Sunday’s rendezvous is arguably the most tricky part, as Cygnus uses its brain to track and communicate with the ISS.

Cygnus will eventually – from OrB-2 onwards – use the TriDAR vision system – designed by Canadian company Neptec, with the support of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. This system provides real-time visual guidance for navigation, rendezvous and docking procedures.

The system has proved its worth by flying on three shuttle missions, previously with Discovery on STS-128 and STS-131, prior to its final shuttle trip with Atlantis on STS-135.

Its performance with Atlantis during rendezvous was impressive, with the TriDAR-created video (L2) of the acquisition of the International Space Station showing how the system tracked the orbital outpost from 34km out, all the way through to Atlantis’ docking.

For this mission, Cygnus is using sensors from Jena, scanning LIDARs that track retros – the same sensors that are used by Japan’s HTV resupply vehicle.

Overall, Cygnus will utilize three sensors on each flight. For the first couple of flights all of the sensors are supplied by Jena. However, during ORB-2 – the third flight of Cygnus – there will be two Jena sensors and one Neptec TriDAR sensor.  All subsequent missions will see the spacecraft use two Neptec TriDAR sensors and one from Jena.

The ISS and Cygnus also need to show they have a strong communication link, required not least for the ability to manually abort the approach – or at least retreat – in the event of problems. This phase of the mission is called the Joint Operations Phase (JOPS).

This critical approach period is called Proximity Ops, with Cygnus using the JEM PROX system for direct communications with ISS, effectively resulting in the use of the same system Japan’s HTV uses for arriving at the ISS, as much as there will be a number of different settings employed for Cygnus’ arrival.

As with SpaceX’s Dragon, Cygnus will stalk the ISS, slowly creeping up to its target via a large series of demos to test its systems. As the Orbital spacecraft sneaks up the R-bar, under the ISS, it will enter the KOS (Keep Out Sphere).

Once inside the KOS, Cygnus will demonstrate that he can hold and retreat, prior to receiving the go – via polling – to proceed.

With its sensors locked on – the tenth demo of the approach at this point – a final go will be given for Cygnus to approach to the capture point, mirroring Dragon’s own successful approach last month.

UPDATE: However, with Cygnus around 15km from the ISS, a problem was noted with the GPS readings between Cygnus and the ISS – one of the key demo requirements – resulting in an abort being called.

“This [Sunday] morning, at around 1:30 a.m. EDT, Cygnus established direct data contact with the ISS and found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data,” noted Orbital. “This mandated an interruption of the approach sequence. Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix.”

Expanding on the specifics, information acquired by L2 cite the two ways of specifying GPS time as key to the problem on Sunday.

GPS time is specified using week numbers, however there are two forms of GPS time – one based on the original 1980 ephemeris, and another based on an ephemeris designed around 20 years later in 1999, with the difference being exactly 1024 weeks.

The 1980 GPS time uses 10-bit week numbers, while the 1999 version, which uses 13-bit week numbers, was introduced to save old hardware-based receivers that were rolling over the GPS time “week number” – a problem similar to – but not exactly – the “Y2K” issue.

The relevance to the issue between the ISS and Cygnus is in the Japanese PROX system on the ISS, which transmit GPS data (including time) from the SIGIs (Space Integrated INS [Inertial Navigation System]\GPS) units located in the JEM (Japanese Experiment Module) to Cygnus.

The Cygnus then uses that data in a Kalman filter to produce a best estimate of the ISS-relative Cygnus position.

Before Cygnus uses the GPS time data from the PROX system SIGIs however, it first compares it with the GPS time derived from its own on-board SIGI units, which are the same make and model as those used on the ISS. The issue that led to the Cygnus-ISS GPS communication issue is that Orbital interpreted that that ISS PROX system was transmitting GPS times based on the 1980 ephemeris, and thus used the 1980 ephemeris in Cygnus’ on-board SIGI units too.

In reality however, the ISS PROX system uses the 1999 ephemeris for its GPS time data, which meant Cygnus could not understand the GPS time data being transmitted to it from the ISS, hence the reason for the aborted rendezvous attempt.

In all of the integrated Cygnus rendezvous tests that were performed on the ground, the incorrect 1980 ephemeris was used, and thus it was not until the JEM PROX receivers were put into the loop that the discrepancy was discovered.

While the JEM PROX system has been used on the four Japanese HTV missions flown to date, it appears that the HTV does not use the PROX-transmitted GPS week number at all, hence why the issue never surfaced before now, despite the fact that the PROX is a proven system.

SpaceX’s Dragon vehicle does not use the PROX system at all, and instead performs it’s Relative GPS (RGPS) navigation using the US SIGIs on the ISS, rather than the Japanese SIGIs of the PROX system.

As such, rather then being a “problem” with either Cygnus or the ISS, the issue is merely a simple case of the two vehicles trying to communicate with each other the wrong way, and thus the solution is fairly simple. The simple fix is to add “1024″ (the difference in week numbers between the 1980 and 1999 ephemeris) to the data received from the PROX system, which only requires modification of a single instruction in the Cygnus software.

As of Sunday morning Orbital began running regression tests to ensure nothing breaks as a result of this minor change, but the very limited nature of the modification can insure high confidence by means of inspection.

The only issue is that in order to execute the new code, the Cygnus avionics must be reset – and NASA would like Cygnus to be several hundred miles away from the ISS when it resets.

While the relatively simple issue may seem obvious now, it is a good example of the challenges of testing hardware for use on or with the ISS, where testing with actual flight hardware is not possible, leading to a situation where many issues can only be found or resolved in-flight (hence the need to perform demonstration flights in the first place).

The next attempt – per a call to the ISS crew – will not take place before Tuesday.

When Cygnus does manage to complete rendezvous with the Station, the ISS’ Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) will then reach out and grapple Cygnus, prior to being berthed on the Station.

Once berthed, the ISS crew will begin vestibule ops and Cygnus activation via ISS power jumpers on rendezvous day, documented as a nine hour procedure.

Hatch opening and ingress will occur on the following mission day.

“Cygnus receives power via PVGF; overnight park position not required for capture delay. Current timeline gets through berthing, start of vestibule ops & Cygnus activation via ISS power jumpers on rendezvous day.  Hatch open and ingress is the following day,” noted an associated overview presentation (L2).

Cygnus’ hatch is very similar to a standard US segment hatch, albeit slightly smaller, making it a similar sight to the ISS crewmembers. A ventilation duct will be hooked up, and the spacecraft cleared of any dust prior to becoming safe to ingress without eye protection and masks.

One the hatch is open, crewmembers will begin cargo removal operations, during its month-long stay, a phase of the mission known as the Berthed Operations Phase (BOPS).

Cargo ops involves the crew removing the “top layers” on PORT and STBD pallets to make room in PCM. They will then remove components of the Secondary Structure as required, ahead of emptying the FWD and AFT pallets to gain access to the Standoff pallets, which they will empty and repack.

The reverse sequence will be employed until the vehicle has been repacked, although all the return cargo won’t be classed as downmass, because – unlike Dragon – Cygnus won’t be returning to the ground or water.

Instead, it’ll be sent on a path to a destructive re-entry.

The final phase of the mission – a reverse of the berthing procedures – is called the Descent & Reentry Operations Phase (DROPS), as Cygnus ends its life in a disposal corridor during entry, hopefully with a smile on its face, following a successful demonstration that paved the way for its siblings to each take a turn in providing full CRS operations.

The deal to carry out ISS resupply flights – under the $1.9 billion CRS contract – encompasses eight missions between 2012 and 2015 carrying approximately 20,000 kg of cargo to the ISS.

Preparations are already in full swing for the ORB-1 mission, with hardware already being processed at its Wallops base.

(Images: via L2′s Antares/Cygnus Section – Containing presentations, videos, images, interactive high level updates and more, with additional images via Orbital and Neptec).

iPhone 5 TouchID broken by Chaos Computer Club

As reported by the Register: Well, that lasted a long time: the Chaos Computer Club has already broken Apple's TouchID fingerprint lock, and warns owners against using biometric ID to protect their data.

As the group explains here, it seems that the main advance in Cupertino's biometrics was that it uses a high resolution fingerprint scan. The post states:A lot of bogus speculation about the marvels of the new technology and how hard to defeat it supposedly is had dominated the international technology press for days.

"In reality, Apple's sensor has just a higher resolution compared to the sensors so far. So we only needed to ramp up the resolution of our fake", said the hacker with the nickname Starbug, who performed the critical experiments that led to the successful circumvention of the fingerprint locking.

All the CCC needed to defeat the scanner was an image of a user's fingerprint at 2,400 dpi resolution. That scan was “cleaned up”, inverted, and printed into a transparent sheet. The image of the print is then lifted from the sheet using latex milk or woodglue.

“After it cures, the thin latex sheet is lifted from the sheet, breathed on to make it a tiny bit moist and then placed onto the sensor to unlock the phone,” the post states, adding that this technique can be used against “the vast majority” of fingerprint scanners.

At the time of writing, the CCC hadn't announced whether it will claim any of the prizes on offer for a successful attack.

A YouTube video of how to break the fingerprint scan can be found here.

Why Taxi Cab Drivers Cannot Put Down Their Smartphones

As reported by Euro2Day: The New York minicab service I used to favor communicated in code. When you rang and gave your address, the radio dispatcher would reply "five minutes" and hang up. This meant a cab would arrive at any time from one to 10 minutes later. "Seven minutes" meant 20, and "10 minutes" meant that anything, or nothing, could happen.

This week, when I wanted a ride to London's Heathrow airport, I used a computer account with Addison Lee, the biggest London service. The software told me when the car would come, showed me the likely route and deducted the fare from a credit card. A clean Ford Galaxy van arrived early and took me there smoothly - at twice the price of my former, less predictable journey to John F Kennedy International.

The revolution in the 400-year-old industry - from standing on the pavement to hail a taxi to summoning it by smartphone - is not cheap. But the cab-hiring applications, from Hailo to Uber, that challenge global tradition (Hailo launched last Thursday in Japan) are having a profound impact.

It is often possible to imagine what technology might achieve years ahead of it happening in practice. Think of the services in the dotcom boom that only worked properly when broadband came. A similar turning point has finally arrived in mobile, through a combination of smartphone apps, digital mapping and location tracking.

Every Silicon Valley buzz-phrase - the app economy, the sharing economy, social networking, the internet of things - has converged on the taxi industry. It has upset as many drivers and regulators as the invention of the hackney-coach in 17th-century London ("They have undone my poor trade, whereof I am a member," lamented John Taylor, the Thames ferryman-poet), but is a boon for passengers.

If you include all the world's cities, the taxi industry is big - Uber, the Silicon Valley limousine-hiring app, gained a $3.5bn valuation when Google and the private equity group TPG invested in August - and the competition is going global. As importantly, it illustrates how other local services could be transformed.

The industry is ripe for disruption because it is highly regulated, based on principles reaching back several centuries, and bespoke. Most cities divide cabs into licensed taxis - the only kind that are allowed to "ply for hire" by stopping in the street when hailed by a passenger - and minicabs that must be booked.

The tradition is that licensed taxis are of higher quality, especially in London, where drivers study for three or four years to gain "the Knowledge" of its streets and must go to any destination a passenger wants. In return, they gain privileges that go with their official status, such as the right to use London bus lanes (much to Addison Lee's annoyance).

Mobile technology undermines this. The passenger can now "e-hail" either a taxi or a minicab by pressing a button on an app and waiting for the vehicle to arrive, which weakens the "ply for hire" privilege. "It has been fantastic for private hire because our cars can be hailed like taxis," says Liam Griffin, Addison Lee's managing director.

Meanwhile, satellite navigation is reducing the Knowledge barrier; a machine can guide a driver who lacks it. No satnav device fully matches human expertise - an experienced driver will often reach the destination faster - but London is an unusually skilled market (take a New York taxi driver off Manhattan's grid and see what happens) and technology keeps improving.

It is not all bad for licensed taxis. A set of technology companies, such as Hailo, Easy Taxi and GetTaxi, have offered apps to taxi drivers that allow passengers to book without making eye contact. "This is one of the first truly mobile app technologies that is functional and useful, not a game or a fad," says Ron Zeghibe, Hailo's chairman.

Arguably, the only real losers are the radio networks that take bookings for licensed cabs at call centers. Technology can now do the job more effectively by matching buy and sell orders on a spatial network, the cab equivalent of the automation of stock exchanges. The elimination of floor traders hurt those affected but increased the speed of trading.

At peak times, after all, there are too few licensed taxis to meet demand - London has 23,000 black cabs in a city of 8.3 million people - and the app networks draw on a bigger pool.  Outside peaks, taxi drivers can spend half their time trawling for fares, so technology helps reduce the waste of time.

It has upset incumbents, including regulators who prefer clear distinctions between hailable taxis and bookable minicabs. The District of Columbia Taxicab Commission has drafted silly new rules, such as minimum weights for "digital dispatch" cars, while New York's liveried taxi companies want to stop yellow cabs taking smartphone bookings. They will not succeed in obstructing technological advance any more than the 17th-century ferrymen of the Thames. There are good reasons for licensing of taxis - public safety and service consistency - as well as bad ones, such as the restriction of trade and giving regulators power. Drivers who meet high standards will do fine.

Indeed, a striking aspect of the taxi upheaval is that it has come at the top end of the market. There have been cheap, low-quality minicabs for years but this wave of disrupters offers services akin to licensed taxis or limousines, albeit a bit cheaper and easier to book. (Uber has added UberX, a lower-cost service, to its original luxury vehicles). Despite the commotion, the taxi business has not fallen apart. To this passenger, it feels like an improvement.

Soldier Smartphones: Army Presses Ahead with Ambitious Technology Program

As reported by the Washington Times: he U.S. Army wants to press ahead with an ambitious program to bring the capabilities of the smartphone and the tablet computer to soldiers on the move in battle, despite problems identified in testing, according to briefing slides for a high level Pentagon panel.

The Defense Acquisition Board decides this week whether to push ahead with full production of the program: the Warfighter Information Network — Tactical, Increment 2, or WIN-T Inc 2.

The $5 billion program was rolled out to several combat brigades in Afghanistan last month. The system is built on a truck-mounted mobile network backbone but also includes smartphone and tablet-like handsets, called “End User Devices,” that can transmit text messages, GPS locations and other data.

Now the Army wants to extend that to 125 combat brigades across the whole force, despite problems identified last year in testing.

“The overall WIN-T Inc 2 system is not operationally suitable and not survivable,” concluded a test last year overseen by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test & Evaluation J. Michael Gilmore, according to the slides.

But an Army spokesman said the system “has demonstrated significant improvement since its first operational test.”

The Army “continues to refine and simplify the system to make sure the best capabilities are delivered to the soldier throughout the program’s lifecycle,” Lt. Col. Jerome Pionk said.

But he added that the Army “will fully support” whatever decision the Defense Acquisition Board makes with respect to the program.

GPS Jammers Could Knock out Signals in a Medium Sized City

As reported by NextGov: A single well-placed GPS jammer or spoofer could disrupt signals in an entire region of the United States, an official from the Homeland Security Department told a GPS conference in Nashville, Tenn.

At the same time, the U.S. still “lacks the capability to rapidly detect and geo-locate jamming or spoofing of GPS services,” DHS program manager John Merrill told the annual meeting of the Civil Global Positioning System Service Interface Committee, a global forum that fosters interaction between the U.S. and worldwide GPS users. The U.S. developed and operates GPS.

Merrill did not define the size of a region a GPS jammer could knock out, but Jules McNeff, who spent 20 years in the Air Force working on GPS and is now vice president for strategies and programs at Overlook Systems Technologies Inc., a GPS engineering firm in Vienna, Va., estimated a [properly placed] one watt GPS jammer could blanket a medium sized city.

Logan Scott, president of a company with GPS expertise called LS Consulting, said in a May webinar run by Inside GNSS that a GPS jammer with one-tenth of a watt of transmit power has a range of 9.4 miles, a one watt jammer, 29.8 miles, and a ten watt jammer, 94.2 miles. Inside GNSS is a magazine on GPS and other satellite navigation systems operated by China, the European Union and Russia, collectively called Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

A typical Chinese GPS jamming device for using in a vehicle.
They are illegal to purchase in the USA.

Consumer jammers at these power levels can be purchased on the Internet primarily from Chinese manufacturers at prices as low as $40.

DHS and the Defense Department have worked to develop a jammer location system that picks up and feeds jammer signals to a master station run by the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency since 2010, but to date the only feeds it receives are from sensors located at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Merrill told the conference.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission spent two years -- from March 2009 to April 2011 -- locating just one GPS jammer used on the New Jersey Turnpike. That jammer interfered with an FAA system that provides enhanced navigation signals to aircraft in the vicinity of the airport for precision approach, departure procedures and terminal area operations.

McNeff called the jammer location system a “concept,” not an operational countrywide system.

The FAA plans to place heavy reliance on GPS between now and 2030, with the satellite system as the core of its Next Generation Air Transportation System, and plans to decommission its ground based VHF omnidirectional radio, or VOR, by then.

Jammers can affect GPS as well as other GNSS systems. In September 2012, the FAA set up a GNSS Intentional Interference and Spoofing Study Team to “identify technical, political, legal, and operational ways to mitigate the impact of GPS spoofing and jamming.”

Deborah Lawrence, manager of FAA's navigation programs, told the conference that the study team will, by the end of September, provide the agency with “specific, actionable recommendations” on how to counteract spoofing and jamming.