Apple HomeKit Powers On With iDevices Switch Smart Plug

iDevices Switch – World’s First HomeKit Enabled Plug

Users of iPhone and iPad who have been waiting anxiously for news in the HomeKit connected product space, after Apple’s announcement at WWDC 2014 and CES 2015 will be seeing new consumer electronics making way in the market which includes the first devise compatible with Apple’s smart home feature.

The iDevices Switch has been described as `the world’s first HomeKit enabled plug’ helping users to control connected appliances with the help of Siri. The iDevices Switch specifically is a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connected plug which interfaces with the wall outlet and to connect the appliance, one could plug it into the electrical outlet on the wall and plug your lamp, fan, or any appliance or device needed to power in the Switch.

The iDevices Switch can connect to home Wi-Fi network, interfacing with the iDevices Connected iOS app and is compatible with Apple’s HomeKit features. This indicates that users could also use Siri commands from iOS 8 with the capabilities to power appliances on or off by only talking to the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Connected to Home Network – Wi-Fi/Bluetooth

The Switch is not the first smart plug, Many others namely Belkin, D-Link to mention a few have sold connected power plugs for several years. There is not much difference on the premise behind Switch, than its predecessors and due to networking capabilities, built in the outlet hardware, one can use the smartphone in order to manage things plugged into the Switch.

The Switch can connect to home network via Wi-Fi and through Bluetooth can also connect to other devices which do not have Wi-Fi. For instance, smart door locks usually tend to run on batteries since hardwiring is not practical for several residential door designs and to save power, majority of the smart locks utilise Bluetooth which connect to the phone and relies on some type of hub in order to get out to larger internet. Since it incorporated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the iDevices’ Switch acts as the hub.

Stand alone Product

Schlage, lock-maker will have a connected HomeKit compatible lock which could take advantage of this feature. The Switch operates as a standalone product which does not need any additional hub, subscription service or any add-ons and its connected app moreover adds the ability to schedule as well as automate tasks with the iDevices Switch, thereby saving the user from manually controlling it.

The company is likely to schedule the shipping in the first half of this year, with its demo conducted at CES, though its pricing is not yet disclosed. Potential consumers interested in following the availability of the Switch could sign up at the bottom of its product page, to receive notification for product updates.

Besides, iDevices’ announcement of HomeKit enabled smart plug at CES, iHome too shares its plans bringing in its own iSP5 SmartPlug in the market with a demo at the Consumer electronics Show soon, though no announcement with regards to its pricing and availability has been revealed. Some are speculating that the Switch would be costing $49.99 when it will be made available later this year. The Switch also will have a built in colour customizable night light, a charming touch added to it.

Thunderbolt Equipped Monitor – Replacing LED Cinema Display

As announced in July 2011, the current 27 inch Thunderbolt of Apple’s display has been debuted as the first Thunderbolt equipped monitor, replacing the outgoing LED Cinema Display.

When the Thunderbolt display offered cutting edge display technology with 2,560 pixel-by-1,440 pixel WQHD IPS screen from the 27 inch iMac which was launched a few months earlier, has now been overtaken by a higher resolution option or products, offering same feature though at a cheaper cost.

Rumours of updated Thunderbolt Display have been going on though Apple recently announced the stunning iMac with 5K Retina display. Speculations are on that the 5K iMac would be used as an external monitor but have been kept aside keeping in mind Thunderbolt’s bandwidth limitation..

The updated DisplayPort 1.3 supports 5K displays and the functions are not available in Thunderbolt 2 besides the original Thunderbolt protocol that was used by the Thunderbolt Display. Apple is aware of the consumers’ need for more advanced technologies, as observed from the Sharp 4K monitor that has been advertised with the top tier Mac Pro desktop.

Higher Screen Tech –Revised Thunderbolt with DisplayPort 1.3

Apple is likely to wait for a 5K or a higher screen tech which could be backed by a next gen revised Thunderbolt with DisplayPort 1.3. Till then, there are few options made available for Mac owners needing the cutting edge of monitor technology or an affordable method of expanding scream real estate.

UltraSharp monitors of Dell are a few of the best dealers with solid technology together with low prices and the 27 inch UltraSharp is the closest analogy to a theoretical 5K Thunderbolt display which has been made by Apple. Dell’s UltraSharp splits into 5,120 pixels by 2,880 pixels at 60 Hz, with the use of dual DisplayPort setup, while one cable saves a DisplayPortinput, it knocks resolution down to 3,840 pixels by 2,160 pixels at 60Hz.

Besides this, the LED backlighting is bright at 350 cd/m2, under the Thunderbolt Display specification, of 375 cd/m2. Moreover Dell sells an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter which on combining with an on-board 12 bit user accessible 3D lookup table provides an option for precise colour control while advanced colorimetric setting has been reserved for expensive commercial displays.

27-Inch ColorPrime – Next Generation Thunderbolt Display 

Users interested in an updated Thunderbolt Display may not have to go further than LG’s commercial class 27MB85R-B that sports a WQHD display together with IPS technology and LG is known to be one of Apple’s LCD panel suppliers for Thunderbolt display and the ColorPrime has identical specification besides an anti-glare coating.

The LG takes pride in two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Dual-Link DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort as well as mini DisplayPort connections unlike other monitors in its category. Its ColorPrime feature comprises of Scaler and True Colour Pro software which works in tandem with a calibrator that is included for great accuracy. The 27-inch ColorPrime is the next generation Thunderbolt Display that Apple has not built which can be purchased from B&H Photo for $597.99.

Several leading manufacturers are happy employing DisplayPort or mini DisplayPort technology instead of Thunderbolt which means that their product could not be used as docking stations for other Thunderbolt equipped devices and for this reason, Apple’s Thunderbolt Display seems to be the most suitable option.

Hackers Recreate Fingerprints Using Public Photos

Fingerprints – Means of Ascertaining Identity 

Fingerprints have been used as a means of ascertaining a person’s identity for quite some time since 1900 and for the past 10 years or so; it has begun to get fairly common in the form of digital fingerprint readers. It first showed up on expensive laptops and external peripherals in enterprise settings and recently on smartphones like the latest iPhones and the Galaxy S5.A recent cyber security convention in Hamburg, the `Chaos Computer Club’ demonstrated on how someone’s fingerprint could be used which was done by analysing photographs.

Fingerprints could be developed from smudges on windows and from other smooth surfaces. Earlier forgers used tapes, scanner or some plastic material and glue in order to build a fingerprint which could fool scanners. A member of Chaos Computer Club, a European hacker association, showed the possibility of reproducing someone’s fingerprint and probe into systems that were protected by biometric fingerprint scanners, by using a photo of the finger.

A snap or a photo of a celebrity waving their hand could be sufficient to implement this task. The member of the CCC managed to get hold of the fingerprint of Germany’s defence minister Ursula von der Leyen from a photo which was taken during a press conference, which if the German government would use biometric access control systems, could be a kind of security breach.

Hacker Create Fingerprint from Public Photos

Jan Starbug Krissler, the hacker, portrayed his findings at Chaos Communication Congress recently. With the photo of von der Leyen’s thumb gained from a press conference, somewhere in October, together with some other photos of her thumb from various angles, he managed to rebuild her thumbprint with the use of commercially available software – VeriFinger.

Thereafter he used the thumbprint to develop a real world dummy by printing it out on a mask and exposed the mask to create a negative of the print on a substrate. He then filled the negative with wood glue in order to create a positive fingerprint. On testing it showed that this technique could trick Apple’s TouchID sensor. According to Chaos Computer Club, it states that this is the first time a fingerprint has been deceived so far and the group leader, Starbug has informed that he was capable of creating a thumbprint of Ursula von der Leyen, the German Minister of Defence, from several of her news photos.

Need for Fingerprint Security Systems

Starbugobtained the print of the fingerprint from the photos on the tracing paper and then copied it to a plastic board. Thereafter he covered it in graphite making a dummy print by coating the plastic in wood glue. In one of the demonstration, the dummy print managed to trick Apple’s TouchID – APPL, Tech30 that controls Apple Pay.

A statement made by the group states that there would be no need to steal objects carrying the fingerprints anymore and after this talk, politicians would probably wear gloves henceforth while talking in public. The Club also states that the presentation needs the validity of fingerprint security systems and it would be difficult to do any useful thing with the German Defence Minister’s fingerprints though one could use the hacking method to intrude into a friend’s iPhone.

ADAM iOS-Connected Asthma Monitor

The Automated Device for Asthma Management 

The wearable Automated Device for Asthma Management or ADAM by Health Care Originals, as shown to AppleInsider at CES can count coughs as well as measure respiration, wheeze and heart rate. To undermine effective symptoms monitoring and medication which would lead to poor health condition, a device has been proposed which could continuously monitor asthma symptoms especially coughing which is the most common symptom in asthma patients.

The identified symptoms can then be stored and retrieved later by the patient or the physician for reference, indicating the level of asthma control. It is a unique iOS connected medical device which is focused in providing the users with a solution in managing their asthma condition.Measuring vital signs together with other biological reading, the ADAM is capable of predicting as well as logging asthma attack and also recommends behaviour changes.

In other words it will be featuring inhaler detection with alerts and alert forwards together with symptom tracking as well as trending treatment plans. It is proposed to be launched during the second quarter this year, though the price has not been disclosed yet. ADAM users could also have the facility of receiving medication reminders and the device has potential of HIPAA compliant data storage.

Focused on Preventing Complication with Asthma

The device has been focused on preventing complications with asthma which could tend to get serious if not detected in time. Timely treatment could save a lot of time and trouble to the victim. The ADAM sensor has been designed with its own iOS connected application and HealthKit support is also on its way for the smart wearable accessory.

The ADAM comprises of a consumer electronic mobile platform that runs a custom application which acquires an audio signal from external user worn microphone which is connected to the device analog to digital converter or a microphone input.

To determine the absence or presence of cough sounds, the signal is processed where symptoms are tallied and raw audio waveforms are recorded, making easy access for later review by a physician. Symptoms detection algorithm depends on standard speech recognition as well as machine learning paradigms, consisting of an audio feature extraction step with a Hidden Markov Model - HMM, based Viterbi decoder which has been trained on a huge database with audio examples on various subject. Performance of recognizer is shown in terms of sensitivity as well as the rate of false alarm determined in a cross validation test.

Personal Asthma Monitoring Device 

Mobile technology has made much progress so much so that the hardware needs of personal asthma monitoring devices have been created in existing consumer electronics platforms. Due to the broad install base together with software development kit –SDK, Apple’s iOS device have been the chosen platform, specifically, the 4G iPod.

The present approach is based on proven technology and method in the field of speech recognition, keyword as well as key audio effect detection, content based audio analysis and machine learning, like the other audio systems for cough monitoring which have been reported in literature.

Here the cough detection algorithm presented, processes the audio date in two ways where in the initial stage, the incoming stream of digital audio samples tend to get rearranged in fixed length frames from which set of audio features are computed and the sequence of feature vectors are then passed to HMM Viterbi decoder.

The Next Version of USB is the Key to Apple's New MacBook

Apple’s all New MacBook Air for 2015

Apple is on its way in preparing an all-new MacBook Air for 2015 and is working towards a thinner and a totally redesigned MacBook. Reports from 9to5Mac claims, that Apple’s next notebook would be a 12-inch MacBook Air, wherein this new design comes with jettisons standards type, like a full sized USB ports, MegSafe connectors and SD slots in favour of a thinner and lighter body together with a higher resolution display.

Sources who have utilised the internal prototype version of the forthcoming computer, have given details with regards to the machine together with their artist renditions of the latest MacBook Air and a first close look at its first major step in mobile Mac computing from the time the Retina MacBook Pro had been launched in 2012.

The revamped MacBook Air will have a 12 inch screen and will be much narrower than the prevailing 11 inch MacBook Air and the bezels surrounding the MacBook Air screen are shrunk for the display panel and keyboard could take up a larger usable area of the laptop. The keyboard has been changed, placing them together utilising less space with a few key changes like the power button for instance, has been moved to the left upper corner area, towards the left of the escape key.

USB Type-C – Smaller/Faster/Reversible Cable

Besides this, the travel on the trackpad has also been removed keeping in mind to have a slim laptop. Users need to be aware that the new MacBook Air would be coming with only two ports, such as a headphone jack and a single USB Type-C port and it is difficult to imagine a MacBook without a Thunderbolt Connection or MagSafe charger, though the new specification of USB supports driving displays together with device charging.

There are two kinds of technology which Apple needs to take up – USB Type-C and a processor which could run well enough in helping to achieve a thin design without a fan. USB Type-C is the most important with a smaller, faster and reversible cable that will make the device thinner in the future. It could also serve as a power cable and display for devices and would need a single small port for all functions on a laptop.

Thin/Light/Small Laptop

The next thing that Apple would need after the USB-C is the processor and laptop developers are planning to launch laptops with Intel’s latest Broadwell processors though the chip continues to run hot enough with a need of a fan, which a 12-inch MacBook could do without it.

Apple could probably use the Intel Core M processor in order to keep it cool making sure that the battery life is appropriate, which the Company is striving to achieve with MacBook for several years now. This would mean that the MacBook would be comparatively thin, light as well as small though may not be a powerful machine.

The Core M will be capable to power the rumoured high res screen and such screens are standard on most mid-range as well as on some low cost laptop this year, but not a hit. On the contrary, it would be a little machine used for browsing, video watching or other purpose which would involve typing.