The Connectivity Standards Alliance and its members that include Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and other smart home manufacturers, today announced the official launch of the Matter 1.0 smart home accessory standard. MacRumors reports: Companies that have agreed to support Matter now have all of the resources that they need to begin implementing Matter into their platforms, so we could see Apple integrating Matter into HomeKit very soon. In fact, iOS 16.1 is already laying the groundwork for Matter, so Matter could be announced with the launch of the update. With the Matter 1.0 launch, authorized test labs are now available for product certification, tools are available, and the open-source reference design SDK is complete. Alliance members with devices that have already been deployed and with plans to update their products with Matter support can do so as soon as their products are certified. The Connectivity Standards Alliance says that the first release of Matter will support a variety of smart home products such as lighting, HVAC controls, window coverings, safety and security sensors, door locks, media devices, controllers, and bridges. "What started as a mission to unravel the complexities of connectivity has resulted in Matter, a single, global IP-based protocol that will fundamentally change the IoT," said Tobin Richardson, President and CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance. "This release is the first step on a journey our community and the industry are taking to make the IoT more simple, secure, and valuable no matter who you are or where you live. With global support from companies large and small, today's Matter 1.0 release is more than a milestone for our organization and our members; it is a celebration of what is possible."

Further reading:
Google Explains Why It's All In On Matter, the First True Smart Home Standard
Amazon Promises Most Echo Speakers Will Support the Matter Smart Home Platform

With Stadia coming to an abrupt halt, gamers want Google to issue a software update for the controllers that unlocks Bluetooth to allow them to work wirelessly with other game systems. It would also "avoid a lot of plastic and circuit board trash," adds Ars. From the report: Stadia's controllers were custom-made to connect directly to the Internet, reducing lag and allowing for instant firmware updates and (sometimes painful) connections to smart TVs. There's Bluetooth inside the Stadia controller, but it's only used when you're setting up Stadia, either with a TV, a computer with the Chrome browser, or a Chromecast Ultra. The Google Store's page for the Stadia controller states in a footnote: "Product contains Bluetooth Classic radio. No Bluetooth Classic functionality is enabled at this time. Bluetooth Classic may be implemented at a later date." (Bluetooth Classic is a more traditional version of Bluetooth than modern low-energy or mesh versions.) That potential later date can't get much later for fans of the Stadia controller. Many cite the controller's hand feel and claim it as their favorite. They'd like to see Google unlock Bluetooth to make their favorite something more than a USB-only controller and avoid a lot of plastic and circuit board trash.

"Now if you'd just enable Bluetooth on the controller, we could help the environment by not letting them become electronic waste," writes Roadrunner571 on one of many controller-related threads on the r/Stadia subreddit. "They created trash and they at least owe it to me to do their best within reason to prevent millions of otherwise perfectly good controllers from filling landfills," another wrote. Many have called for Google, if they're not going to push a firmware update themselves to unlock the functionality, to open up access to the devices themselves, so the community can do it for them. That's often a tricky scenario for large companies relying on a series of sub-contracted manufacturers to produce hardware. Some have suggested that the full refunds give Google more leeway to ignore the limited function of their devices post-shutdown. It's worth noting that you can still plug a Stadia controller into the USB port on a Smart TV, computer, or gaming console and use it as a controller through a standard HID (Human Interface Device) connection. But, currently, it's not possible to connect the controllers wirelessly, unless you go through a lot of effort.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google Fiber is touting a test that delivered 20Gbps download speeds to a house in Kansas City, calling it a milestone on the path to offering 100Gbps symmetrical Internet. The company said it will also offer new multi-gigabit tiers in the near future. "We used to get asked, 'who needs a gig?' Today it's no longer a question," Google Fiber CEO Dinni Jain wrote in a blog post yesterday. "Every major provider in the US seems to have now gotten the gigabit memo, and it's only going up from there -- some providers are already offering 2, 5, 8, even 10 Gig products."

The Alphabet division recently began selling 2Gbps download speeds with 1Gbps uploads for $100, alongside its longstanding offer of symmetrical 1Gbps speeds for $70 a month. "In the coming months, we'll have announcements to dramatically expand our multi-gigabit tiers. These will be critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical Internet," Jain wrote. Google Fiber is "closer than you might think" to that goal, Jain wrote. "This month, we took our testing out of the lab and into the home, starting with our first trusted tester, Nick Saporito, the Head of Commercial Strategy for GFiber." Jain provided a screenshot from a test at Saporito's home in Kansas City showing 20.2Gbps download speeds. [...] The screenshot doesn't show upload speeds. The municipal broadband provider EPB in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recently launched a symmetrical 25Gbps service, notes Ars, but its costs "$1,500 per month for residential customers and $12,500 a month for business customers."

The Federal Communications Commission approved a long-delayed proposal to crack down on spam texts Friday night after Axios asked agency members why it hadn't moved on the issue. From a report: The number of spam text messages -- which can include links or other tricks designed to steal money or personal information -- has exploded, with the volume now exceeding that of robocalls.The proposal, which passed on a 4-0 vote, seeks comment on requiring cellphone companies to block texts from numbers known to be illegal or fraudulent. It had been awaiting a vote at the FCC for nearly a year.

The FCC will review feedback on the proposal before writing final rules, a process that can take months. The measure also seeks comment on whether carriers should use third-party analytics providers to inform blocking efforts, and whether the agency should push the wireless industry to authenticate text messages like it does for phone calls to deter robocalls, a senior FCC official told Axios. "The American people are fed up with scam texts, and we need to use every tool we have to do something about it," chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, told Axios ahead of the agency's vote.

A public interest group has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to look at whether the wireless industry's voluntary phone unlocking commitments are even effective, claiming the practice harms competition. From a report: The advocacy group, Public Knowledge, met with FCC staffers last week and filed the comment shortly afterwards, arguing the practice of locking phones to a network makes it "more difficult for consumers to change carriers," reduces the number of devices available on the secondary market, and hurts smaller players on the scene. The nonprofit filed the request as part of an ongoing investigation by the FCC into the State of Competition in the Communications Marketplace, conducted biennially by the agency. The group is hoping the agency will throw its weight behind policy efforts to change this.

Americans can unlock their handsets from the services of the carrier that sold it to them, but the procedure can be a headache. The fact that consumers can unlock them free of charge came about in 2015, when carriers were told to give customers a "penalty-free" way to unlock them under the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act. The Act allows "circumvention (unlocking) to be initiated by the owner" but only "when such connection is authorized by the operator of such network" -- after their service contracts expire. Public Knowledge added that the practice of locking phones disadvantages low-income customers and places a "burden on smaller carriers, new entrants, and MVNOs in particular... due to a lack of handset availability," compounded "by the competitive disadvantages caused by agreements between the handset manufacturers and the larger service provides like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, which smaller carriers may not be able to negotiate."

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Comcast were hit with copyright lawsuits accusing them of turning a blind eye to customers who illegally distribute and download pirated films. The production companies seek to force the internet providers to implement policies that provide for the termination of accounts held by repeat offenders and to block certain piracy websites. Hollywood Reporter: The trio of complaints filed throughout September, with the most recent filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania federal court, come from Voltage Pictures, After Productions and Ammo Entertainment, among others. Two law firms, Dovel & Luner and Culpepper IP, are representing the production labels. The internet providers knowingly contributed to copyright infringement by their customers, the lawsuits claim. Plaintiffs say they sent Verizon, AT&T and Comcast hundreds of thousands of notices about specific instances of infringement. They claim, for example, to have sent over 100,000 notices to Comcast concerning the illegal downloading of I Feel Pretty using its services. The lawsuit seeks to hold the internet providers liable for failing to investigate.

"Comcast did not take meaningful action to prevent ongoing infringements by these Comcast users," states the complaint. "Comcast failed to terminate the accounts associated with these IP addresses or otherwise take any meaningful action in response to these Notices. Comcast often failed to even forward the Notices to its internet service customers or otherwise inform them about the Notice or its contents." The internet providers, therefore, vicariously infringed on plaintiffs' movies since they had the right to terminate the accounts of customers who violate copyright law, the suit alleges. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1988, criminalizes services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It provides protection from liability for services providers. But the production companies argue the internet providers don't have safe harbor under the law since it only shields companies if they've adopted and implemented policies that provide for the termination of accounts held by repeat offenders.

SpaceX wants to show the world its Starlink satellite system can deliver Netflix and YouTube at 30,000 feet. So it recently held a demo for the media aboard a jet operated by its first airline customer, regional carrier JSX. From a report: The short jaunt from Burbank to San Jose, California marks the start of Elon Musk's bid to seize in-flight business from satellite providers Intelsat and Viasat that already serve thousands of aircraft. It won't be easy, even for a serial market disrupter such as Musk.

"Are they a serious competitor? Yes," said Jeff Sare, president of commercial aviation for Intelsat, a leading provider of wireless service on airlines. Still, Sare said, "We don't believe there's anybody that can beat us." Starlink, part of Musk's Space Exploration Technologies, delivers broadband from a constellation of low-flying small satellites. Lower satellites circle the planet in 90 to 120 minutes. That's a departure from the established practice of using a few powerful spacecraft in higher and slower orbits. An upside for Starlink is its signals arrive sooner.

Apple today announced that all iPhone 14 models sold in the U.S. do not have a built-in SIM card tray and instead rely entirely on eSIM technology. MacRumors reports: Tech specs on Apple's website confirm the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max are not compatible with physical SIM cards and instead have dual eSIM support, allowing for multiple cellular plans to be activated on a single device. An eSIM is a digital SIM that allows users to activate a cellular plan without having to use a physical nano-SIM card. eSIM availability is rapidly expanding, but the technology is still not available in all countries, which explains why iPhone 14 models will remain available with a SIM card tray outside of the U.S. for now. Apple's website has a list of carriers that support eSIM technology around the world. In the U.S., this includes AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, Xfinity Mobile, Boost Mobile, H2O Wireless, Straight Talk, C Spire, and some others.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: In a new study, published Monday in the journal npj Flexible Electronics, an international team of researchers revealed it has engineered a system to remotely control the legs of cockroaches from afar. The system, which is basically a cockroach backpack wired into the creature's nervous system, has a power output about 50 times higher than previous devices and is built with an ultrathin and flexible solar cell that doesn't hinder the roach's movement. Pressing a button sends a shock to the backpack that tricks the roach into moving a certain direction.

Cockroach cyborgs are not a new idea. Back in 2012, researchers at North Carolina State University were experimenting with Madagascar hissing cockroaches and wireless backpacks, showing the critters could be remotely controlled to walk along a track. The way scientists do this is by attaching the backpack and connecting wires to a cockroach's "cerci," two appendages at the end of the abdomen that are basically sensory nerves. One on the left, one on the right. Previous studies have shown electrical impulses to either side can stimulate the roach into moving in that direction, giving researchers some control over locomotion. But to send and receive signals, you need to power the backpack. You might be able to use a battery but, eventually, a battery will run out of power and the cyborg cockroach will be free to disappear into the leaf litter.

The team at Riken crafted the system to be solar-powered and rechargeable. They attached a battery and stimulation module to the cockroach's thorax (the upper segment of its body). That was the first step. The second step was to make sure the solar cell module would adhere to the cockroach's abdomen, the segmented lower section of its body. [T]he Riken team tested a number of thin electronic films, subjecting their roaches to a bunch of experiments and watching how the roaches moved depending on the thickness of the film. This helped them decide on a module about 17 times thinner than a human hair. It adhered to the abdomen without greatly limiting the degree of freedom the roaches had and also stuck around for about a month, greatly outlasting previous systems. "The current system only has a wireless locomotion control system, so it's not enough to prepare an application such as urban rescue," said Kenjiro Fukuda, an expert in flexible electronics at Japan's Riken. "By integrating other required devices such as sensors and cameras, we can use our cyborg insects for such purposes."

Fukuda notes the design of the ultrathin solar cell could be applied to other insects, like beetles and cicadas.

T-Mobile won the lion's share of spectrum licenses in the latest Federal Communications Commission auction, helping it fill rural network gaps that evoked comparisons to Swiss cheese. T-Mobile's winning bids totaled $304.3 million, letting it obtain 7,156 licenses out of 7,872 that were sold, the FCC announced yesterday. From a report: T-Mobile's licenses are spread across 2,724 counties (out of 3,143 total in the US). The second-highest bidder in dollar terms was PTI Pacifica, which spent $17.7 million on nine licenses in five counties. "With most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band located in rural areas, this auction provides vital spectrum resources to support wireless services in rural communities," the FCC said. The auction provided up to three blocks of spectrum, totaling 117.5MHz in each county. In terms of the number of licenses won, the second-place finisher was the North American Catholic Educational Programming Fund. Its winning bids totaled $7.8 million and cover 107 licenses in 84 counties. There were 63 winning bidders overall, and the auction raised $427.8 million. Small entities and rural service providers were given discounts on the license costs. The 2.5 GHz spectrum was originally set aside for educational institutions but has been repurposed for commercial service.

Traditional business cards -- dropping off for years -- might finally be folding given the Covid-19 pandemic, as many professionals worked from home, switched jobs and attended conferences and meetings virtually. From a report: Even now, with in-person schmoozing on the rise, many networkers are in no mood to return to what they see as the germ-swapping, environmentally unfriendly and laborious tradition of exchanging physical cards, only to manually input the fine print into phones later. Instead, they are turning to hybrid or fully virtual solutions: physical cards with QR codes, scannable digital cards or chips embedded in physical items that allow people to share contact details with a tap. Mr. Peterson [technology chief at Boingo Wireless; anecdote in the story] got his card from Dangerous Things, a human implant technology company whose chip can be inserted with a syringe -- the company suggests body piercers and other pros for the task. Mr. Peterson asked a neighbor with a medical degree. If, say, a phone number changes, the chip can be updated online. But the post-paper world is hardly friction-free. Atlas Vernier rejected paper business cards in favor of wearing an NFC ring with a chip inside. Once scanned, the 21-year-old's information pops up in the recipient's phone.

Mx. Vernier, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, described often having to slightly move the ring around in search of the "sweet spot" of a phone's NFC reader. "That's the way technology works -- it always works until someone's looking." When an attendee at a recent racial-equity conference asked Robert F. Smith for his contact information, the private-equity billionaire furnished a white plastic card with a gold QR code printed on it. The guest held her phone above the card to scan it. Nothing happened. For the next minute or so, she positioned her phone at various distances from the card while Mr. Smith, the chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, tried different grips and angles. When that didn't work, Mr. Smith pulled out a different card with a black QR code. Success. Mr. Smith was unbowed. "I appreciate good sense tech solutions," he said in a written statement later. "I don't miss paper cards at all."

SmartDry, a small sensor that could be mounted inside a dryer to tell you when your clothes were dry, is losing access to the servers necessary for it to continue working. "In other words, SmartDry will become a tiny brick inside your dryer unless you're willing to procure a little ESP32 development board, load some code onto it, plug it in near your dryer, and set up your own alerts in your Home Assistant server," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The problem is that SmartDry alerted you to dry clothing by connecting to your home's Wi-Fi; the device sent a message to parent company Connected Life's servers and then relayed that message to your smartphone. But Connected Life Labs is closing, discontinuing SmartDry, and shutting down its servers on September 30. After that, "cloud services will cease operations and the product apps will no longer be supported."

Smart home devices bricked by cloud closures aren't new, but SmartDry was a particularly useful, low-key device made by a firm that didn't seem to be expanding too fast. Connected Life was originally a three-person team prototyping units in New Jersey, and the device remained made in the US. A co-founder told Reviewed in late 2021 that a version for the washing machine was being tested and was expected to see release in summer 2022.

ArsTechnica reports: In mid-August, the Federal Communications Commission succeeded in its long-held plan to reallocate a portion of the spectrum from car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communication (known as V2X) to Wi-Fi instead. However, the FCC didn't reassign that entire region of bandwidth -- 30 MHz remains set aside for "intelligent transportation systems." And the FCC should grant automakers a waiver to allow them to start deploying cellular-based V2X (C-V2X) safety systems, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a letter it sent the FCC on Monday. The saga of V2X is a long-running one. The FCC originally saved the spectrum around 5.9 GHz for use with V2X in 1999, but despite keen interest from some automakers and industry groups like the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), the technology still has not been deployed.

Seeing that failure, the FCC decided in 2020 to reallocate some of the bandwidth to Wi-Fi, leaving the frequencies between 5.895 and 5.925 GHz for V2X. ITS America and AASHTO sued the FCC to prevent this, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the FCC in August, allowing the commission to go through with its plan. This has dismayed the NTSB, which has written to the FCC as part of the commission's public comment period as it considers a waiver requested by automakers to deploy C-V2X technology. Conceptually, C-V2X works the same as the older V2X -- direct vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication but using cellular radio protocols instead of the dedicated short-range radio communication protocol. The FCC should grant this waiver, said the NTSB, which notes in its letter that it has recommended that the nation adopt wireless-based collision-avoidance technology since 1995. Connected vehicle technology would reduce the ever-escalating carnage on US roads, said the NTSB, and the agency also urged the FCC to make sure that Wi-Fi devices don't encroach on the remaining 30 MHz of intelligent transportation system frequencies.

U.S wireless carrier T-Mobile will use Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's Starlink satellites to provide mobile users with network access in parts of the United States, the companies announced on Thursday, outlining plans to connect users' mobile phones directly to satellites in orbit. From a report: The new plans, which would exist alongside T-mobile's existing cellular services, would cut out the need for cell towers and offer service for sending texts and images where cell coverage does not currently exist, key for emergency situations in remote areas, Musk said at a flashy event on Thursday at his company's south Texas rocket facility. Starlink's satellites will use T-Mobile's mid-band spectrum to create a new network. Most phones used by the company's customers will be compatible with the new service, which will start with texting services in a beta phase beginning by the end of next year.

Continuing the focus on delivering the world's fastest internet speeds that led Chattanooga's municipal utility to launch America's first comprehensively available Gig-speed internet service (2010) and the first 10-Gig internet service (2015), EPB has launched the nation's first community-wide 25 gigabits per second (25,000 Mbps) internet service. Chattanoogan reports: It is set to be available to all residential and commercial customers over a 100 percent fiber optic network with symmetrical upload and download speeds. Through a partnership with Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Convention Center is EPB's first 25 Gig customer, making it the first convention center worldwide to offer such blazingly fast speeds over a broadband network. With this technology, the Convention Center will be able to simultaneously provide high bandwidth connectivity to thousands of smart devices to draw business conferences, e-gaming competitions, live streaming events and more.

Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga have each dedicated $151,000 in infrastructure funding for a total of $302,000 to cover the cost of installing new networking equipment and Wi-Fi access points throughout the convention center as well as much of the cost of providing multi-gig connectivity for the next five years. Once the new equipment is installed, visitors will be able to benefit from high-speed connectivity throughout the facility.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld the FCC's decision to reallocate part of the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use -- rather than the dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) it was originally allocated for. "This is part of the spectrum that in 1999 was set aside exclusively for the auto industry to use for DSCR to improve auto safety," notes Fierce Wireless. "At that time, the full amount set aside was 75 megahertz." From the report: After about 20 years, nothing ever really came of DSRC, and in 2020, the FCC divvied up the 75 megahertz, making 45 megahertz available for unlicensed use with the remaining 30 megahertz designated for auto safety. Specifically, the auto safety spectrum was reallocated for Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, a more modern tech than DSRC. The Intelligent Transportation Society of America and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials didn't like the FCC's decision and appealed, arguing that it violated the Transportation Equity Act. They also said the FCC unlawfully revoked or modified FCC licenses. But Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker said it did not violate the act and said the court disagreed with the transportation officials' arguments "on all fronts."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA), a new federal privacy bill that has actually a chance of becoming law, is designed to introduce new privacy protections for Americans. But it may also have the side effect of wiping out $200 million worth of fines proposed against some of the country's biggest telecommunications companies as part of a major location-data selling scandal in which the firms sold customer data that ended up in the hands of bounty hunters and other parties. The issue centers around the ADPPA's shift of enforcement for privacy related matters from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which proposed the fines, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The news highlights the complex push and pulls when developing privacy legislation, and some of the pitfalls along the way.

The FCC proposed the $200 million fines in February 2020. The fines came after Motherboard revealed that the carriers sold phone location data to a complex supply chain of companies which then provided it to hundreds of bounty hunters and other third parties, including someone that allowed Motherboard to track a phone for just $300. The fines also came after The New York Times and the office of Sen. Ron Wyden found that the carriers sold location data in a similar method to a company called Securus, which allowed law enforcement officials to track the location of phones without a warrant. A former sheriff abused the tool to spy on judges and other officials. The offending telecoms -- AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon -- said they stopped the sale of location data at varying points in time in response to the investigations. The FCC then found that the carriers broke the law by selling such data.

FCC Press Secretary Paloma Perez told Motherboard in an emailed statement that "our real-time location information is some of the most sensitive data there is about us, and it deserves the highest level of privacy protection. That is why the FCC has proposed more than $200 million in fines against the nation's largest wireless carriers for selling their customers' location data. Through our continued oversight we have ensured that these carriers are no longer monetizing their consumers' real-time location in this way, and we are continuing our investigation into these practices and expect to reach a conclusion very soon." In July FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to a host of U.S. telecommunications, tech, and retail companies to ask about their use of location data.

Matt Edmondson, a hacker and digital forensics expert, built a Raspberry Pi-powered anti-tracking tool that "scans for nearby devices and alerts you if the same phone is detected multiple times within the past 20 minutes," reports Wired. The device, which can be carried around or placed in a car, consists of parts that cost around $200 in total. From the report: The homemade system works by scanning for wireless devices around it and then checking its logs to see whether they also were present within the past 20 minutes. It was designed to be used while people are on the move rather than sitting in, say, a coffee shop, where it would pick up too many false readings. The anti-tracking tool, which can sit inside a shoebox-sized case, is made up of a few components. A Raspberry Pi 3 runs its software, a Wi-Fi card looks for nearby devices, a small waterproof case protects it, and a portable charger powers the system. A touchscreen shows the alerts the device produces. Each alert may be a sign that you are being tailed. The device runs Kismet, which is a wireless network detector, and is able to detect smartphones and tablets around it that are looking for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections. The phones we use are constantly looking for wireless networks around them, including networks they've connected to before as well as new networks.

Edmondson says Kismet makes a record of the first time it sees a device and then the most recent time it was detected. But to make the anti-tracking system work, he had to write code in Python to create lists of what Kismet detects over time. There are lists for devices spotted in the past five to 10 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes, and 15 to 20 minutes. If a device appears twice, an alert flashes up on the screen. The system can show a phone's MAC address, although this is not much use if it's been randomized. It can also record the names of Wi-Fi networks that devices around it are looking for -- a phone that's trying to connect to a Wi-Fi network called Langley may give some clues about its owner. "If you have a device on you, I should see it," he says. In an example, he showed WIRED that a device was looking for a network called SAMSUNGSMART.

To stop the system from detecting your own phone or those of other people traveling with you, it has an "ignore" list. By tapping one of the device's onscreen buttons, it's possible to "ignore everything that it has already seen." Edmondson says that in the future, the device could be modified to send a text alert instead of showing them on the screen. He is also interested in adding the capability to detect tire-pressure monitoring systems that could show recurring nearby vehicles. A GPS unit could also be added so you can see where you were when you were being tracked, he says. [...] Edmondson has no plans to make the device into a commercial product, but he says the design could easily be copied and reused by anyone with some technical knowledge. Many of the parts involved are easy to obtain or may be lying around the homes of people in tech communities. For those interested, Edmondson open-sourced its underlying code and plans to present the research project at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week.

On Wednesday, Meta announced that the Portal Plus Gen 2 and Portal Go now support Duet Display, an app that can turn a display into a secondary monitor for Macs and PCs. Ars Technica reports: The Portal Plus is the same size as some of the best portable monitors, so it makes sense to repurpose it for that function. Because it's built for video image quality, it has a decent resolution for a portable display -- 2160x1440. Duet Display doesn't require a display to be connected to a computer via a cable, so specific Portals are now portable wireless monitors, too.

At a time when webcams are integrated into many laptops, and USB webcams are easier to find again, many consumers don't need a display dedicated primarily to web calls. But an extra monitor? That's more widely appealing. With the addition of Duet Display, Portal owners have further reason to think about their Portal when they're not on a video call. Meta also gave all Portals with a touchscreen -- namely, the Portal Go, Portal Plus, Portal, and Portal Mini -- a Meta Portal Companion app for macOS. The app enables screen sharing during video calls and provides quick access to video call features, like mute and link sharing in Zoom, Workplace, and BlueJeans.

True 5G wireless data, with its ultrafast speeds and enhanced security protections, has been slow to roll out around the world. As the mobile technology proliferates -- combining expanded speed and bandwidth with low-latency connections -- one of its most touted features is starting to come in to focus. But the upgrade comes with its own raft of potential security exposures. From a report: A massive new population of 5G-capable devices, from smart-city sensors to agriculture robots and beyond, are gaining the ability to connect to the internet in places where Wi-Fi isn't practical or available. Individuals may even elect to trade their fiber-optic internet connection for a home 5G receiver. But the interfaces that carriers have set up to manage internet-of-things data are riddled with security vulnerabilities, according to research that will be presented on Wednesday at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. And those vulnerabilities could dog the industry long-term. After years of examining potential security and privacy issues in mobile-data radio frequency standards, Technical University of Berlin researcher Altaf Shaik says he was curious to investigate the application programming interfaces (APIs) that carriers are offering to make IoT data accessible to developers.

These are the conduits that applications can use to pull, say, real-time bus-tracking data or information about stock in a warehouse. Such APIs are ubiquitous in web services, but Shaik points out that they haven't been widely used in core telecommunications offerings. Looking at the 5G IoT APIs of 10 mobile carriers around the world, Shaik and his colleague Shinjo Park found common, but serious API vulnerabilities in all of them, and some could be exploited to gain authorized access to data or even direct access to IoT devices on the network. "There's a big knowledge gap. This is the beginning of a new type of attack in telecom," Shaik told WIRED ahead of his presentation. "There's a whole platform where you get access to the APIs, there's documentation, everything, and it's called something like 'IoT service platform.' Every operator in every country is going to be selling them if they're not already, and there are virtual operators and subcontracts, too, so there will be a ton of companies offering this kind of platform."