researchers

Researchers say they can accurately figure out what somebody is typing from the sound of their keyboard. The "technique" has some significant practical flaws but is a useful reminder of good password practice. The researchers looked into a theory ... that seems to get tested every few years: that different keys make different sounds. That's partly because they are differing distances from the device recording the audio and partly because the gaps between pressing different letters may vary depending on the typing style. The main difference with this latest test was using deep learning, which aims ... (view more)

Researchers say smartwatches could predict people getting Parkinson's disease up to seven years before they developed symptoms. The next steps could be as much an ethical challenge as a technical one. The finding came from researchers who looked at ... data from the UK's Biobank project. That's a database that tracks anonymized health data from half a million volunteers. The idea is that the sheer amount of data makes it easier to spot patterns and connections between different health factors and conditions. As part of the project, just over 100,000 people agreed to wear a smart watch for a seven ... (view more)

Researchers say a feature in a jogging and running app called Strava makes it possible to track down a user's home address. However, they make a pretty weak argument about how plausible and successful an attack would be. Strava lets users track ... their fitness activities, including running routes. Since 2018, the app has included a "heatmap" feature that shows areas where a lot of users are active. The idea is to let people spot well-used running routes that may be useful for their needs. The feature has already been criticized after it revealed routes used by US military personnel on foreign ... (view more)

Human brain cells could power computers of the future, according to a new study. Researchers say they've already seen a bunch of brain cells in a petri dish learn to play the old video game Pong. The bizarre-sounding concept already has a name: ... organoid intelligence, or OI for short. It's already prompted questions about the ethics involved. While the concept sounds pretty disturbing, the reality wouldn't be quite as unsettling as it might seem. There's no suggestion we'll be sticking human skulls inside the desktop computer in our living room. Instead, the idea is that brain cells, generated ... (view more)

Researchers say a thermal imaging camera could help crack passwords. It's not exactly a looming threat for the average user, though the study does reinforce the important of longer passwords. The research from the University of Glasgow appears to ... have been inspired by noticing that thermal-imaging cameras are becoming more affordable (less than $220 in some cases) and wondering how they could combine with machine learning. The researchers say they same idea may have struck would-be criminals, so it was worth trying to get one step ahead of them. (Source: zdnet.com ) The project followed a ... (view more)

Two researchers say voice controlled "assistant" devices could harm children's development. The claims are more of a warning than proven results at this stage. The claims come from Ananya Arora and Anmol Arora, both of the School of Clinical ... Medicine at the University of Cambridge. They were writing in the publication Archives of Diseases in Childhood. (Source: bmj.com ) The pair say they have three main fears about the uses of devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, along with Apple's Siri. In all three cases, the researchers say it appears some parents may have mistaken ... (view more)

Social media users are more likely to share posts that criticize political opponents by name than those which praise people and ideas they support according to newly-published research. The pattern was consistent across different sites and people ... with different views. Researchers at the University of Cambridge were exploring what makes some posts on Facebook and Twitter more likely to be shared. Previous research had suggested the main driver was the tone of the language, with negative emotions such as anger, or a "sense of moral indignation" the most likely to lead to a post being widely ... (view more)

Researchers believe a new type of cable could carry Internet data at speeds 100 times greater than even the fastest on offer today. The new technology could benefit hospitals and research facilities in particular. The technique was developed by ... researchers at universities in Leeds and Nottingham in the United Kingdom, and is based around similar technology found in fiber optic cables. Those are the fastest data-carrying cables and work by sending pulses of light down a tiny transparent tube. By far, the greatest benefit of utilizing fiber optic cables is that it can transfer data over long ... (view more)

Google is fixing an Android bug that let hackers remotely capture videos and images without permission. The bug could also have revealed the user's precise location, making it particularly dangerous if exploited by stalkers. Security researchers at ... Checkmarx discovered the bug in several default camera apps on a variety of Android phones, including the Google and Samsung apps. (Source: arstechnica.com ) The bug could only be exploited once malware was on the phone, but even then it still shouldn't have allowed such an attack. That's because it involved using a rogue app on the phone to access ... (view more)

Most people know not to open an executable file or document attached to an email unless they were expecting it. But a new example of malware means even an audio file could trigger a payload. Researchers at Blackberry Cylance Threat recently ... uncovered malicious code hidden inside WAV files. That's a computer format for audio that was common for music on PCs before MP3 became established. The attackers are using a technique called steganography, which is a way to hide a file inside another file in a way that normally cannot be detected. Steganography has previously been used in image files, and ... (view more)