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Police officer fired for refusing to turn on body cam

The idea of putting body-worn cameras on police officers has spread since protests and unrest following the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. Earlier this week, the Obama administration proposed federal funding to get 50,000 more officers equipped with the cameras. The increased use of cameras makes a few policy questions around them more pressing. One such question: what happens when a police officer fails—or straight-up refuses—to turn on the body camera? The issue was highlighted in today’s Wall Street Journal , which features a story about a New Mexico police officer who “was fired for allegedly not following an order to record and upload all contacts with citizens,” according to the Albuquerque Police Department and the officer’s lawyer. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Police officer fired for refusing to turn on body cam

You’re Doing It All Wrong: Solar Panels Should Face West, Not South

HughPickens.com writes In the U.S., a new solar project is installed every 3.2 minutes and the number of cumulative installations now stands at more than 500, 000. For years, homeowners who bought solar panels were advised to mount them on the roof facing south to capture the most solar energy over the course of the day. Now Matthew L. Wald writes in the NYT that panels should be pointed west so that peak power comes in the afternoon when the electricity is more valuable. In late afternoon, homeowners are more likely to watch TV, turn on the lights or run the dishwasher. Electricity prices are also higher at that period of peak demand. “The predominance of south-facing panels may reflect a severe misalignment in energy supply and demand, ” say the authors of the study, Barry Fischer and Ben Harack. Pointing panels to the west means that in the hour beginning at 5 p.m., they produce 55 percent of their peak output. But point them to the south to maximize total output, and when the electric grid needs it most, they are producing only 15 percent of peak. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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You’re Doing It All Wrong: Solar Panels Should Face West, Not South

This wifi-connected battery will make your smoke alarm more clever

Add / Remove This is part of a series of articles that looks at entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing, each of these innovations is currently seeking funding. We’re going through a transitional stage where the technology to make our homes smarter already exists, but not everyone can afford to replace the appliances in their home. This has resulted in an entire market dedicated to retrofitting existing machines, from old heating systems to cookers . Now the smart Roost battery is designed to simply replace the existing one in any smoke alarm to make it more useful and safe. The key to Roost is that it’s the same size and shape as a standard 9V battery, so it can be swapped out with the old one to enable homeowners to make their home smarter. The battery connects to the home wifi so that users can control their smoke alarm from their smartphone. It tracks the activity of the alarm, sending notifications to owners when it goes off, whether they’re in the house or not. It also sends an alert when the battery’s running low weeks before the alarm starts to chirp in the middle of the night. If the Roost Kickstarter campaign hits USD 150,000, the team promise to add capabilities to snooze an alarm when the toast is burning, and alert family members remotely. Watch the video below to learn more about Roost: Backers can get their hands on a Roost battery for just USD 35 until it ends on 19 December. Could this kind of smart battery work for other battery-operated devices? Kickstarter: www.kck.st/1zJJVlt Website: www.smartroost.net Contact: info@smartroost.net

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This wifi-connected battery will make your smoke alarm more clever

Chromebooks Overtake iPads In US Education Market

SmartAboutThings writes In Q3 2014, IDC notes that Google shipped 715, 500 Chromebooks to U.S. schools while Apple shipped 702, 000 iPads. Thus, Apple’s iPad has lost its lead over Google’s line of Chromebook laptops in the U.S. education market as Google shipped more devices to schools last quarter. While analysts say [registration required] that this advantage for Google’s Chromebooks can be attributed to their low cost, the presence of a physical keyboard has also been seen as an important factor. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chromebooks Overtake iPads In US Education Market

Android 5.0.1 released; fixes inadvertent factory reset bug

It seems like every big software release is quickly followed up by a bug fix update, and it looks like that’s what Google has just pushed out to AOSP and the Nexus image page . Android 5.0.1 is the latest version of Lollipop, and is now available for select devices. On the factory images page, there are downloads for the Wi-Fi Nexus 9 , Wi-Fi Nexus 7 (2013) , and the Nexus 10 , and we’re expecting updates for the rest of the Nexus devices soon. Google hasn’t said anything official about the update, but Peter Kiddier, an intrepid commenter  over at Android Police , has picked out the new commits from the source code. The major showstopper looks to be this bug , which, in some instances, could cause stray input on the lock screen to erase everything on the device. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Android 5.0.1 released; fixes inadvertent factory reset bug

Operation Cleaver report ties Iranian hackers to attacks on major companies

Back in 2013, US officials accused Iranian hackers of breaking into the Navy’s computers. Now, US cyber security firm Cylance says it has evidence to prove that the same team has infiltrated not just the Navy, but also various top companies across the globe within the past two years. An 86-page report published by the firm says the state-sponsored group has hacked more than 50 aerospace companies, airlines, petrol and energy firms, universities and hospitals, among other entities. Among them, ten are reportedly based in the US, while others are based in China, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico and South Korea. The report didn’t name any of them, but a Reuters source listed these corporations in particular: California power company Calpine Corp, Saudi Arabia’s petroleum and gas company Aramco, Mexican-state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos or Pemex, Qatar Airlines and Korean Air. According to Cylance, the campaign it’s dubbed as Operation Cleaver has concentrated mostly on gathering data from these various agencies. But the firm admits it’s uncovered but a small portion of the breaches thus far, so the campaign could be much larger in scope. Iranian spokesperson Hamid Babaei, however, has denounced Cylance’s report as a “baseless and unfounded allegation fabricated to tarnish the Iranian government image, particularly aimed at hampering current nuclear talks.” If you’re wondering what Iran’s motives are exactly for doing something like this, Cylance suspects it’s revenge. It could be part of the country’s efforts to get back at the US and Israel for (reportedly) developing the Stuxnet worm that infected Iran’s nuclear program years ago. Whatever the real reason is, the firm’s researchers are worried that the stolen data could be used to compromise people’s — say, airline passengers — safety. Hence, they’ve chosen to reveal what they’ve learned to “minimize additional real-world impact and prevent further victimization.” [Image credit: scyther5/Getty] Filed under: Misc Comments Via: Recode Source: Cylance

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Operation Cleaver report ties Iranian hackers to attacks on major companies

This Maglev Gearbox Doesn’t Need Teeth

The most inefficient part of a gearing system is also its most vital: the teeth. While they allow the systems to, y’know, work, they also introduce vast quantities of frictional losses and, in turn, mechanical wear—so this new system uses magnetic levitation to do away with them. Read more…

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This Maglev Gearbox Doesn’t Need Teeth

New Bluetooth devices will connect directly to the internet

For all the talk of an Internet of Things , many Bluetooth devices aren’t very internet-savvy; they usually have to rely on WiFi (or another gadget entirely) to hop online. That’s going to change very shortly with the advent of Bluetooth’s new 4.2 spec . If a sensor, smart light bulb or other low-power device supports the new technology, it can connect directly to the internet (through a router or other access point, at least) without needing a go-between. That’s potentially huge for home automation — you could control all your appliances and light fixture from anywhere in the world without requiring special hubs. There’s a lot more going on besides this, of course. Privacy is now much more important; Bluetooth 4.2 makes it harder to track a device without your permission, so a store with iBeacons (as an example) can’t follow you around unless you’ve installed an app. The new wireless tech is also up to 2.5 times faster, and it should be both more power-efficient and reliable. The gotcha with all these updates? You’ll have to wait. The Bluetooth 4.2 standard is ready now (internet access is due within a month), but device makers will still have to implement it before you can see any benefit. You probably won’t get to use 4.2-capable devices until sometime in 2015 as a result, but there are enough heavy-hitting features that your patience may pay off. Filed under: Household , Peripherals , Networking , Internet , Mobile Comments Source: Bluetooth SIG

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New Bluetooth devices will connect directly to the internet

Gangnam Style Broke YouTube’s View Counter

Gangnam Style fell out of the public eye a while ago (thank god) but people haven’t stopped watching it. It’s been seen so many times that it actually broke YouTube’s view counter, in the nerdiest possible way by busting the code behind the scenes. Read more…

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Gangnam Style Broke YouTube’s View Counter