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Unlock Your Door With ShareKey

In the last year, I've locked myself out of my home no less than three times. Consequentially, that's resulted in me having to shimmy through open windows like a burglar. I'm surprised my neighbors never called the cops on me.

If only I had ShareKey, a near field communication (NFC) app for a smartphone, I could have avoided all the breaking and entering.

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Developed by Dr. Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi of Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT), the Android app communicates with smartlocks on one's door via NFC, which allows data to be exchanged wirelessly over a short range. To lock or unlock the door, simply wave the phone near the lock.

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Unlike systems such as Lockitron and UniKey that use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to send instructions remotely, ShareKey requires that a phone be physically waved in front of their locks, making it more difficult for hackers to steal the signal.

Better yet, the system allows for any smartphone to be granted access to the doors for a specified amount of time, be it a few hours or a few weeks. House guests, dog walkers and plant waterers all know what a three-ring circus it can be swapping keys and getting them made, so this feature is an added bonus. ShareKey can send these "electronic keys" directly to the recipient's smartphone as a QR code via email or a multimedia text message.

"For instance, I can grant the building superintendent access to my apartment for a short period so that he can open the door for the gas meter to be read while I'm at work," explains Alexandra Dmitrienko from the SIT. “The solution is built around modern security technologies and can be easily integrated into existing access control systems."

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At this year's CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, Germany, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt will demo ShareKey in an attempt to drum up interest in hopes that it will be on the market soon.

 via Gizmag

Credit: Fraunhofer SIT

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Reverse Predictions For 2013

Playing technology forecaster is a foolish exercise. Software and hardware advances at unpredictable paces, while the players in the market and consumer tastes can shift with confusing speed.

So instead of adding to the noise of 2013 predictions, why not pick seven that seem particularly unlikely?

Apple TV

Pining away for a Web-connected Apple HDTV is understandable: Pay-TV interfaces are a mess that needlessly shut out Internet media. But there's no easy way to ship a device that could plug into any cable-TV feed without a separate box -- even CableCard-ready TiVo recorders sometimes need extra "switched digital video" adapters -- and no way at all to do that for satellite. Just making an Apple TV box that could change channels would entail an iffy customer experience I can't see Apple tolerating.

Death to Paper Books and Magazines

This prediction -- for an example of the latest version, see TechCrunch's John Biggs -- will be wrong for years to come. It's not just because some readers prefer print to pixels; it's because some design-intensive genres, such as coffee-table books, don't fit into the simple templates of Kindle, Nook and iBooks releases. And because the stubborn persistence of "digital rights management" locks turns away potential buyers like me.

Rolling Back Windows 8's Changes

I'd like to see this myself, but I think my friend Steve Wildstrom and others underestimate Microsoft's stubbornness when predicting a return of the Start menu to Windows 8 or a demotion of its new interface. The Redmond, Wash.-company has spent a little too much time telling developers to write for Windows 8's new look to retreat now. And lest you draw too many conclusions from the surprising departure of Win 8 architect Steven Sinofsky, his successor Julie Larson-Green is just as big of an advocate of these changes.

Broad-Based Sales Taxes on Internet Shopping

I think Amazon and other large Internet retailers should collect state sales taxes in the same way catalog-first operations already do. But while some states have struck individual deals -- California and Massachusetts, for example, recently signed up Amazon -- any move in Washington to mandate sales-tax collection by e-tailers seems doomed by the visceral hostility of many Republicans to anything reeking of higher taxes.

Amazon Smartphone

It made sense for Amazon to sell a tablet of its own; Apple had owned that market at the time. Why would Amazon go to the trouble of shipping its own phone when the browser on any decent model gets you to its online store, and when Android phones can also connect to its own app store?

Publishers Push Google News Around

News publishers love to complain about Google News letting some readers skip the actual story (never mind all of the traffic it also sends to a site), but in the United States, few do anything about it. And why should they now? Opting out of Google News only ensures that the zero-value readers who click elsewhere after one sentence will wander away from their own sites instead of Google's.

Humbled Apple

The idea that Apple will fall to Earth by becoming merely "ordinary" comes up strangely often. Apple gets more customers and makes more money just about every quarter, and I thought that was a pretty good definition of success for a capitalist enterprise even if you don't stun observers with the equivalent of the first iPhone every year.

Note that in handing out these reverse forecasts, I have engaged in fallible forecasting of my own. I look forward to reading your explanations of how I was wrong.

Credit: HBSS/Corbis

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Africa Has More Mobile Than U.S.: DNews Nugget

Africa Has More Mobile Phones than U.S.: In fact, the continent has more mobile phones than all of North America and Europe. Asia is the only place in the world with more mobile phones than Africa. There are currently 650 million subscribers in Africa, according to the World Bank. The market has grown 40-fold since 2000.

It shouldn't be a big surprise that they've boomed in popularity over the last decade or so. Landlines are expensive because they require a wired infrastructure; cellphones only require towers.

Having access to a cellular network seems to directly affect personal economic growth. And connectivity is leading to improvements in "telemedicine, mobile-to-mobile money-transfer services for people without bank accounts and climate adaptation measures like crop insurance and GPS mapping for anti-deforestation measures." via Quartz

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Google Maps, Apple Maps, What Each Can't Find

As you may have heard Wednesday (unless bad directions had you lost in the Australian countryside), Google now offers a standalone maps program for Apple's iOS. The long-awaited release gives iPhone users a compelling alternative to Apple's occasionally underinformed, transit-handicapped mapping app for iOS 6.

But for all of Google's progress (for a deeper assessment of its interface, see Jacqui Cheng's writeup for Ars Technica), it's not the last stop in mobile mapping. The ways each program dealt with a few Washington-area itineraries showed that both have things to learn.

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Discovery Communications to National Airport: Both apps agreed on two of three possible routes from Discovery's Silver Spring, Md., headquarters through the District to the airport. Google factored traffic into its time estimates and Apple did not. 

The high cost of parking at National would lead me to take Metro anyway. But Google's app, unlike its website, didn't note transit travel times on the same page as its list of driving routes. And if you did plan on parking at National, you'd also want to check on its availability; understandably, neither app offered help with that.

From my home to my friend Scott's house: This is a trick question: Because Google Maps ties into neither iOS's contacts list nor your Google contacts, I had to type in the address instead of choosing his name off a list. (Because you can't change iOS's default mapping app, you can't start a search from the Contacts app either.) On the other hand, Apple had me take a needless detour along the way to my friend's Annandale, Va. abode.

FedEx Field to Rosslyn: Google offers a 30-minute route via U.S. 50 and D.C. 295 that includes a recently opened offramp. Apple suggests taking 50 and 295, but then would have you exit to eastbound Pennsylvania Avenue SE, make a U-turn to go west and then proceed along I-395. Bad idea: The first mile of that last stretch of highway closed two weeks ago as part of the same construction project.

McPherson Square to 16th and U Streets NW: Both handle walking directions fine. Google listed which Metro buses were scheduled to head north next, while Apple's app required me to switch to a third-party app; I opted for The Transit App, which has worked well in my earlier tests, but you can also use Google Maps itself.

But Google doesn't provide real-time estimates for those buses, thanks in part to Metro's clumsy interface for that data. Although The Transit App claims real-time support, that only applies to trains, not buses. (Try nextbus.com/webkit instead.)

And neither offers the bicycling directions Google's Web app provides -- an even more pleasant option in this case, thanks to the separated cycletrack you can ride up 15th Street.

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Now ponder the travel choices that even Google's excellent Android app leaves out: In Washington, they go beyond cars, your own two feet, a bicycle or buses and subways to include a variety of innovative shared-transportation services.

You can borrow one of Capital Bikeshare's red bicycles for a short run from one neighborhood to another. For a longer ride, you can use a smartphone app to hail a cab or summon an Uber sedan. You could jump into one of car2go's Smart ForTwo vehicles for an on-the-spot, one-way rental, or you could employ ZipCar for a round-trip drive.

Our options for getting around are only increasing, but without more comprehensive apps we may wind up going in circles on our phones first.

Credit: Rob Pegoraro/Discovery

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5 Breakthroughs For Gadgets In 2012

Innovation in the gadget business rarely comes in great leaps forward. Most of the time, somebody will take an existing idea and implement it at a cheaper cost, at a larger scale or in a new context, and that change is enough to shake up our sense of what technology can do.

And that's exactly what these five breakthroughs have done for me this year.

1. "Retina displays" grow up, and out. Two years after Apple's iPhone 4 introduced a display so sharp that you could no longer distinguish its constituent pixels, "Retina displays" started showing up in the Cupertino company's other gadgets (and many competing smartphones). On this spring's iPad, the results were amazing, instantly making the old model's screen look bad.

But on Apple's laptops, Retina displays have jacked up prices substantially. And on flat-panel TVs, ultra-high-resolution "4K" and "8K" resolution suffers from the fact that at typical couch-viewing distance, even mere HD resolution can exceed our visual acuity.

2. Cheaper smartphone service. This year, the cost of keeping a new smartphone finally started ratcheting down in a big way. The prepaid carrier Cricket Wireless slashed the monthly bill for an iPhone to $55, then its competitor Virgin Mobile beat even that with a $30 deal.

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Among the four major carriers, Verizon Wireless may have hiked its rates but T-Mobile has gone in the other direction with "value" plans that subtract the usual subsidy of a cheaper phone price, meaning you save more over time. And next year, that carrier will make that its standard.

3. Affordable gigabit broadband. While most Americans are stuck with the same one or two broadband Internet providers as ever, a lucky few can now sign up for breathtakingly faster connections at prices no higher than a low-end cable bill: Sonic.net charges just $70 for gigabit (1 billion bits per second) service in parts of the Bay Area, a price matched by Google's gigabit-fiber service in Kansas City.

Sure, most of us can't use those speeds. But imagine what the arrival of gigabit access for under $100 would do to your own ISP's pricing... or don't, if you'd rather not depress yourself.

4. Smarter shared transportation. Near-ubiquitous wireless-data service and cheap GPS sensors are making it easier and cheaper to get around cities without having to own your own ride. Among the most interesting such options: car2go, which broke out of its Austin test market this year with a launch in Washington this spring, followed by expansion to Miami, Portland, San Diego and Seattle. It allows you to rent a Smart fortwo at a cheap, per-minute rate and then park it on the street for free -- in effect, making it a longer-distance complement to bicycle-sharing services like D.C.'s Capital Bikeshare.

I'm equally fascinated by startups that make better use of transportation we've already paid for, such as the Uber sedan-ride service. But when these involve privately-owned conveyances -- for instance, Lyft's carpooling -- they can run into legal hangups.

5. The Internet winning in Washington. One of the tech business's most promising developments didn't involve software code or circuit boards. But the way Internet users rebelled at the offensive overreach of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have broken the Net's basic routing system and allowed copyright holders to unplug the finances of allegedly infrinting websites pretty much at will, mattered anyway.

"SOPA" had the backing of some of Washington's most entrenched interests, but individual citizens who didn't want to see technology criminalized overcame all of it. That's good news for continued innovation, both next year and over the next decade.

Credit: Corbis Image

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Get Ready for 'The Hobbit'

By Michael Gowan, TechNewsDaily

Join Bilbo, Gandalf and the others in videos, books and games. Credit: Warner Bros. Entertainment

Bilbo Baggins and his fellow furry-footed hobbits return to movie theaters this week with director Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first in a trilogy. But you don't need to wait until then to dive deep into Middle-earth and the fantasy world that author J.R.R. Tolkien created.

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With apps, games, ebooks and more, you can reacquaint yourself with Bilbo, Gandalf and Gollum in time for the movie's Dec. 14 release and continue the journey afterwards.

How to Get the Story

The story of the hobbit began as a children's book, "The Hobbit: There and Back Again," published in 1937. The movies are expected to stay true to the original story, so you can prepare yourself by reading an ebook version. You'll find it in a variety of formats to match your ereader of choice, including Amazon's Kindle. If you use iBooks for iOS devices, look for it in PDF or ePub formats. Or check out the enhanced version for Kindle, which adds illustrations and audio from Tolkien.

Understanding Tolkien's detailed fantasy world can require some effort. The free official iOS app for the movie includes background on the many characters in "The Hobbit" as well as a map of Middle-earth, the fictional world where Tolkien set the story.

If you prefer to listen to the tale, you can find multiple audiobook versions on the iTunes Store, Amazon and other audiobook sources. You can also listen for free on YouTube.

Options to Play Along

Indulge your inner hobbit and become a part of the action with games tied to the movie's release.

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For mobile gamers, Kabam's free, massively multiplayer strategy-action game "The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-Earth," for iOS and Android, lets you destroy goblins as you build up a city.

If you want to dive deeper into the action, try Monolith Games recently released "Guardians of Middle-Earth," a multiple online battle arena (MOBA)-style game for PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360. In a MOBA-style game, you compete as a single character against online opponents in real time. You can wage epic battles playing as Gandalf, Sauron or other characters from Tolkien's books.

What Else to Watch

"The Hobbit" is the prelude to Tolkien's epic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. You can stream Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of those tales from Amazon for $2 a movie or from iTunes for $4 each. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can buy a DVD (no Blu-ray) of Rankin/Bass's animated version of "The Hobbit" from 1977, but you won't find a digital version to stream.

In the new movie, Bilbo Baggins is played by Martin Freeman, who also stars as Dr. Watson in the new BBC series "Sherlock." You can check out Freeman's work by streaming the re-imagined Sherlock Holmes story on Amazon and Netflix, among other places.

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You'll find plenty of behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube from Peter Jackson. He published videos throughout the process of filming and editing the movies.

Preparing You Eyes for High Frame Rate 3D

Director Peter Jackson shot "The Hobbit" in 3D at 48 frames per second, twice the frame rate of typical movies. High frame rate (HFR) films aim to better imitate the smooth motion we see in real life. But some people complain that it looks too real, like a TV newscast. "The Hobbit" will also appear in standard-frame-rate 2D and 3D, as well as IMAX and IMAX 3D.

Any way you prepare yourself, get ready for a spectacle of the big screen. Hobbits may be small, but these movies won't be.

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Bluetooth Stickers Track Your Stuff

TechNewsDaily Staff

Designers are working on stick-on Bluetooth buttons that communicate with a smartphone app and help users find their stuff. Credit: StickNFind on Indiegogo

Can't find the keys -- or the family dog? A new project can help track them and other easy-to-lose objects using Bluetooth-enabled buttons. 

A group of Bluetooth gadget designers is looking to make Bluetooth "stickers" -- stiff devices about the size of a U.S. quarter -- that users can stick to their wallets, kids' shoes, pets' collars and other objects. The stickers are designed to communicate with a smartphone app, called Stick-N-Find, that has several settings to help people find their stuff.

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The designers have a campaign at Indiegogo, a crowd-funding platform. With 42 days left before the end of their funding campaign, they've already raised more than the $70,000 they asked for. They have prototypes of both the Stick-N-Find stickers and the app and expect to send funders stickers in March 2013, according to the campaign page. Those interested in getting some Stick-N-Finds for themselves can visit Indiegogo to support the project and advance-order stickers.

The Stick-N-Find app's settings include a "radar" feature that shows how far away sticker-tagged objects are from the phone. The app isn't able to determine direction, however, so users will have to wander a bit, watching the screen to see if they're getting "warmer" or "colder" to the remote control, purse or pet they want to find.

Other settings automatically alert users when they're close to an object or when an object wanders away. The designers suggest users put Stick-N-Find stickers on their luggage during airplane trips, so that their phones will alert them when their bags come around on the carousel at baggage claim.

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The stickers work from about 100 feet (30 meters) away, according to the Stick-N-Find Indiegogo page. They use watch batteries that should last about a year with 30 minutes of use a day. They should work withn ewer Apple and Android smartphones and tablets that have Bluetooth 4.0 or Bluetooth Low Energy, the designers say. 

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Tech Jobs for 2013 with Rising Salaries

Chad Brooks, BusinessNewsDaily Contributor

A study from staffing firm Robert Half Technology predicts mobile-app developer jobs will be the hottest for technology and design professionals in 2013. Credit: Corbis

Information technology professionals looking for a salary boost next year should think about finding a job as a mobile application developer, new research shows.

A study from staffing firm Robert Half Technology predicts mobile-app developer jobs will be the hottest for technology and design professionals in 2013. The average starting salary for these developers is expected to rise 9 percent, with overall compensation ranging from $92,750 to $133,500.

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The research shows that as companies enhance their digital presence and boost investments in IT infrastructure, a number of other technology jobs will also likely see above-average salary gains in the coming year.

"Salaries are rising for candidates who can help organizations leverage new technologies to increase efficiencies, gain business insights and produce superior customer experiences," said John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group. "In some cases, there's a shortage of individuals available to fill these highly specialized positions, which is driving up starting compensation levels."

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Other positions expected to be in demand in 2013 are:

• Business intelligence analysts: They assist firms in making critical business decisions by gathering and analyzing data. These professionals should see a salary gain of 7.3 percent, with starting pay ranging from $94,250 to$132,500.
• Network architects: They provide the backbone of a company's communication infrastructure by assessing business and applications requirements for corporate data and voice networks. Network architectsare forecasted to receive a 7-percent starting salary boost, raising their incomes to between $102,250 and$146,500, on average.
• Interactive creative directors: As companies of all sizes add interactive roles, businesses seek professionals with superb leadership skills and digital expertise to manage these growing teams. Interactive creative directors can anticipate a 4.9 percent bump in base compensation, with average starting salaries ranging from $95,500 to$160,000.
• Interaction designers: These professionals understand the connections among people and products and are able to step into the shoes of a company's customers to help maximize users' online experiences. Designers with one to five years of experience should see salary gains of 4.9 percent, raising their incomes to between $52,250 and$77,500.
• User experience (UX) designers: Since so much customer interaction happens online, companies are looking for workers who can create positive digital experiences. UX designers can expect a 4.8 percent salary increase, with starting compensation ranging between $73,750 and$110,500.

Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @cbrooks76 or BusinessNewsDaily @BNDarticles. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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Credit: Templer/Corbis

Indianapolis Colts Trot Out the Tech

The Indianapolis Colts already have Luck on their side, but now they're getting a leg up on other NFL teams by making some rather tech-forward strides.

Chief among them is the franchise's decision to do away with bulky playbooks in favor of iPads. A traditional NFL playbook is a hulking binder of on-field hieroglyphics that can swell to upwards of 800 pages. Considering the average NFL team has around 50 players and 20 coaches, that's a lot of extra baggage to be carrying around.

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So the Colts decided to trim some fat. They bought 120 iPads and started using a digital playbook made by Global Apptitude. The new tablet features the ability to draw and write on the playbook. Those marks can then be shared with teammates and coaches.

Players aren't the only ones on the receiving end of these tech blitzes. Fans are too. Spectators in the stands of Wi-Fi-equipped Lucas Oil Stadium can access instant replays on their smartphones five seconds after plays take place. That's largely due to the stadiums bandwidth, which can accommodate 23,000 fans at a time.

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You arm-chair quarterbacks may "scream your necks off" yelling "Go Horse," so if you do, at least the stadium's techie traits are a game-winning back up.

via dvice

Credit: Tom Croke/Icon SMI/Corbis

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Spherical Panoramas from a Phone

It's crazy to think how panoramic photography has advanced in this century -- from pasting together photos in a scrapbook, to fiddling with open-source panorama-stitching software, to getting simpler software from camera vendors, to having cameras assemble a panorama automatically from a series of shots, to having the camera take those photos for you when you sweep it in one direction.

Now, a new option in Google's Android 4.2 software adds an extra dimension to this art form with "photo spheres" -- interactive panoramas that you can pan around, and not just from side to side but up and down.

And creating them involves little more work than taking a standard panorama. Select photo sphere from the camera app's mode menu, and the software will prompt you to hold the phone straight and level by lining up a circle indicating your aim around a blue dot that represents the vanishing point.

With that first image recorded, the app will display four blue dots around it. Slightly turn the phone to center that circle over one of them, and the software captures the next photo.

Move the phone again, and you'll see another blue dot to aim for; keep doing this until you've got the scene captured, at which point tapping a button at the bottom of the screen stores and fuses the photos.

It took 41 photos to generate a photo sphere of Lafayette Square in Washington using a Galaxy Nexus phone. The only hard part was the degree of contortion required to take photos of the scenery directly behind me without moving my feet (changing places breaks this process).

The results look great, with only a few awkward seams where one constituent image didn't line up with another. That could have been the product of operator error; a blurry image of my fingertip definitely was.

But the non-interactive image above, a screengrab of that sphere as posted to my Google+ profile, should suggest how few ways you have to share spheres. You can let friends play with them in your phone's Gallery app, you can upload them to Google+ (try searching for "#photosphere"), and you can submit them to Google Maps, where they will augment the Street View panoramas that gave Android developers the idea for this. That last option requires Google to approve your sphere; to judge from the total of five shared from Washington, fewer people may be trying it.

That's it -- everywhere else, even your own computer, a photo sphere appears as a static photograph. Apple's abandoned QuickTime VR format may have required specialized composition software when it debuted in the mid 1990s, but you could post these spherical panoramas anywhere online, with Apple's QuickTime software needed to interact with them.

A spherical-panorama tool for iOS that I haven't tried yet, Pixeet, allows a slightly wider range of outlets, including Facebook and Twitter and free hosting at that French company's own site.

(Update, 11/25/2012: I should have noted Microsoft's Photosynth--not least since I wrote about it when it launched in a different form back in 2008--as another way to generate spherical panoramas. But that software's hopefully-soon-fixed requirement that viewers install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in imposes its own compatibility issues.)

So while photo spheres rank as a neat addition to the panorama mode Google added to Android with last year's Ice Cream Sandwich release, the fact that you can't post a sphere on your own blog may hold it back.

So will the restriction of this to Android 4.2--like all new Android releases, it will only reach most Android phones with extra support from the manufacturers and carriers involved. And most of this year's phones have yet to get an update to the 4.1 version that Google shipped back in June.

Credit: Rob Pegoraro/Discovery

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