How to Hack a Car and Control It From 1500 Miles Away

Imagine this: You’re cruising along when the car suddenly brakes. The doors lock. It starts accelerating backward. A hacker hundreds of miles away has taken control of your car over the cellular network. This is how it happens, as explained by a video from the good folks at Motherboard . Read more…

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How to Hack a Car and Control It From 1500 Miles Away

7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes “Tomi Ahonen’s newly released 2014 Almanac reveals such current mobile phone industry data gems as: ‘The mobile subscription rate is at or very very nearly at 100%. For 7.1 Billion people alive that means 7.1 Billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.’ Compared with other tech industries, he says: ‘Take every type of PC, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs and add them together. What do we have? 1.5 Billion in use worldwide. Mobile is nearly 5 times larger. Televisions? Sure. We are now at 2 Billion TV sets in use globally. But mobile has 3.5 times users.’ Which mobile phone OS is the leader? ”Android has now utterly won the smartphone platform war with over 80% of new sales. Apple’s iPhone has peaked and is in gradual decline at about 15% with the remnant few percent split among Windows, Blackberry and miscellaneous others.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light

cartechboy (2660665) writes “Hitting that red light sucks. We’ve all been there, and you know what I’m talking about. But what if your car could tell you the ideal speed to maintain to hit the next green light? That’s exactly what’s going to happen in the near future thanks to car-to-car technology. Many automakers are already working on this new tech, and Honda’s the latest to trial such systems. This is all part of what’s known as Universal Traffic Management System which will eventually provide feedback on car-to-car and infrastructure systems before they go into practical use. The system will also be able to tell the driver if a red light is likely to show before reaching an intersection so the driver can slow down, or notify the driver when that red light will turn green. All of this may seem like something that’s supposed to benefit the driver’s temper, but in reality it’s to help save fuel and lower emissions without any physical changes to the car. This is the future, and your vehicle will talk to other vehicles whether you like it or not.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light

Department of Transportation Makes Rear View Cameras Mandatory

An anonymous reader writes “The Department of Transportation issued a new rule (PDF) on Monday requiring car manufacturers to include rearview cameras in all cars manufactured after May 1, 2018. The rule applies to all cars weighing less than 10, 000 pounds, including buses and trucks, but does not include motorcycles and trailers. ‘[The cameras] must give drivers a field of vision measuring at least 10 by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. The system must also meet other requirements including dashboard image size, lighting conditions and display time.’ An estimated 13 to 15 deaths and 1, 125 injuries may be prevented with the implementation of this new requirement.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Department of Transportation Makes Rear View Cameras Mandatory

More Than 1 In 4 Car Crashes Involve Cellphone Use

schwit1 (797399) writes “Texting and driving is dangerous but a new survey finds talking on a cellphone while behind the wheel may be even worse. The National Safety Council’s annual report found 26 percent of all crashes are tied to phone use, but noted just 5 percent involved texting. Safety advocates are lobbying now for a total ban on driver phone use, pointing to studies that headsets do not reduce drive distraction.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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More Than 1 In 4 Car Crashes Involve Cellphone Use

Toyota Is Recalling Millions of Prius Hybrids to Fix a Software Bug

Toyota is recalling 1.9 million Prius hybrids to fix a serious bug in the engine control unit which can cause transistors to overheat—and potentially cause the hybrid system to shut down while driving. Read more…        

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Toyota Is Recalling Millions of Prius Hybrids to Fix a Software Bug

Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft.

cartechboy writes “Autonomous driving is every car manufacturer’s immediate R&D project. In car-building terms, even if a new technology isn’t due for 10 years — since that’s just two full vehicle generations away– it has to be developed now. So now it is for autonomous car research and testing, and this week Ford revealed a brand new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle built for autonomous R&D with some interesting tech capabilities. Technologies inside the new Fusion Hybrid research vehicle include LIDAR (a light-based range detection), which scans at 2.5 million times per second to create a 3D map of the surrounding environment at a radius of 200 feet. Ford says the research vehicle’s sensors are sensitive enough to detect the difference between a small animal and a paper bag even at maximum range. More road-ready differentiations include observation and understanding of pedestrians, cyclists, and plain old stationary objects. Ford is working on this project in cooperation with the University of Michigan.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft.

Anonymous Member Sentenced For Joining DDoS Attack For One Minute

jfruh writes “One of the most potent aspects of Anonymous is, well, its anonymity — but that isn’t absolute. Eric Rosol was caught by federal authorities participating in a DDoS attack on a company owned by Koch Industry; for knocking a website offline for 15 minutes, Rosol got two years of probation and had to pay $183, 000 in restitution (the amount Koch paid to a security consultant to protect its website ater the attack).” The worst part? From the article: “Eric J. Rosol, 38, is said to have admitted that on Feb. 28, 2011, he took part in a denial of service attack for about a minute on a Web page of Koch Industries…” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Anonymous Member Sentenced For Joining DDoS Attack For One Minute

Volvo Plans To Have Self-Driving Cars In Swedish Capital Gothenburg By 2017

Qedward writes “Volvo is starting a pilot project that aims to have 100 self-driving cars on Swedish public roads around the city of Gothenburg by 2017. The project is called ‘Drive Me’ and is a joint initiative between the Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and the City of Gothenburg, Volvo said Monday. Together they will make an effort to eliminate deadly car crashes in Sweden, said Erik Coelingh, technical specialist at Volvo Car Group. In the next few years, Volvo will develop its Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) in its XC90 model. The goal is to have the first self-driving cars available to 100 consumers by 2017, Coelingh said. They will be able let their cars navigate about 50 typical commuter arteries that include motorway conditions and frequent traffic jams in and around Gothenburg, the country’s second largest city.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Volvo Plans To Have Self-Driving Cars In Swedish Capital Gothenburg By 2017

Volkswagen’s New App Creates Music Based On Your Driving Style

Have you ever noticed that how you drive is often based on what you’re listening to? Softer music can make you a more cautious driver, while loud upbeat tunes make you more aggressive. But with this new app from VW it’s the other way around. It generates music in real-time based on how you already drive, so your habits behind the wheel affect what’s being played on your sound system. Read more…        

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Volkswagen’s New App Creates Music Based On Your Driving Style