Mobile Banking, a security issue?

Roughly one of every five Americans used their mobile phone for some sort of banking activity last year, and about the same proportion say they will probably use mobile banking in the future, a recent survey from the Federal Reserve found.

But many consumers still don’t see the need for mobile banking, and many also are skeptical of the level of security around banking with their phone, the survey found. Among users of mobile phones who haven’t yet adopted mobile banking, about half said they were “concerned” about security, the survey found.

“Specifically, consumers expressed concerns about hackers gaining access to their phones and exposing their personal financial information,” Sandra F. Braunstein, director of the Fed’s division of consumer and community affairs, told the Senate banking committee last month, according to testimony posted on the Fed’s Web site. She referred to the survey in her report.

Roughly one-third of all mobile phone users reported that they did not know how secure mobile banking technology was, while an additional third rated the technology unsafe, she said. Those concerns must be addressed, Ms. Braunstein said, if more consumers are to feel confident adopting the new technology.

The most common use of mobile banking is checking balances or recent transactions, along with transferring money between accounts, the report found.

Mobile payments — actually paying a bill with a phone — isn’t as prevalent yet, with one in eight survey participants reporting that they made a mobile payment in the previous 12 months — usually, paying a bill online using their phone. Users of mobile payments are disproportionately under 45, and Hispanic.

Is anything stopping you from using mobile banking?

Your mobile phones know where you are, and so do the authorities.

Remember that iPhone prototype that was left at the bar? Analysis those happenings has been done and at the heart of the situation is technology that affects most of us. That prototype was traced to a bar and then to a private home, proving that the device was tracking every move it (and the person carrying it) made. This isn’t a special feature of the prototype, it is something that all smartphones and tablets are doing all the time.

Location-based services are a cool use of mobile technology, as they can add benefits to the user not otherwise possible. You see that every time you run a search on your smartphone and have pertinent local information returned. This is possible due to the fact that your mobile device, smartphone or tablet, is tracking your whereabouts all the time.

There are three levels of tracking that take place: devices with GPS can pinpoint your location with great accuracy; cellular-equipped devices can use the carrier’s signal towers to locate you with decent accuracy; Wi-Fi devices can use hotspot information to locate you, although you must be actively connected to be located. Any one of these methods are sufficient for those wishing to see where you are, especially without you knowing they are watching.

Government watchdogs have been quietly using this method of surveillance for years, and have been called out by privacy organizations for it. The U. S. Justice Department and local law enforcement agencies have been able to get judges to order carriers to turn over location information about parties of interest, without probable cause of any kind. It is a way to mark a party’s every movement without a search warrant.

A recent court ruling may be turning off the easy tap that authorities have come to use for surveillance. Authorities have been able to use this easy access to location information without warrants because courts have previously ruled that agencies do not need to disclose what data is being obtained nor what was done with it. That may stop with this ruling that says authorities must reveal what data was used against those convicted of a crime.

This ruling is the result of the ACLU pushing the courts for clarification of how location data is obtained and used. Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case, sums up the situation:

“I highly doubt that the 90 percent of Americans who carry cell phones thought that when they got cellphone service they were giving up their privacy in their movements.”

Cell phones are only one piece of the mobile tracking puzzle, with some laptops and most tablets like the iPad also using location as a feature. Those concerned about the information being tracked can turn off location features in the settings for most phones and tablets. Be aware that carriers still track that information if they are involved, as they are with phones and tablets with 3G/4G service.

In-air cell phone communication?

Mobile use is currently prohibited on planes because there is evidence that they interfere with onboard communication and navigation systems. 


The proposed system utilises an on-board base station in the plane which communicates with passengers' own handsets. The base station - called a pico cell - is low power and creates a network area big enough to encompass the cabin of the plane. 


The base station routes phone traffic to a satellite, which is in turn connected to mobile networks on the ground. 


A network control unit on the plane is used to ensure that mobiles in the plane do not connect to any base stations on the ground. It blocks the signal from the ground so that phones cannot connect and remain in an idle state. 


Calls will be billed through passengers' mobile networks. 

Classrooms moving beyong the whiteboard

Some schools are already in the process of moving on from the technologically advanced interactive whiteboards that can be found in multiple classrooms today.


Science lessons for the girls at the Abbey School in Reading have never been so exciting since Kathryn Macaulay, director of ICT, introduced 3D projectors and glasses into the school.
Now learning about how the heart works can be done in a far more hands-on way as body parts almost literally jump out of the screen.
"It is one of the most successful pilots of IT we have had for a long time," said Ms Macaulay.
The projector looks very like the standard ones found in most schools other than the fact that it contains a 3D chip from DLP, a division of Texas Instruments.


Pupils involved in the 3D programme saw a 35% jump in their grades, according to the study.
For those schools who cannot afford to invest in new 3D projectors, mobile can do a similar job said Kieron Kirkland, a researcher at Futurelab, a not-for-profit organisation which creates tools for 21st century learning.


Tim Rylands is a good example of a leading edge teacher. He now advises schools about their use of technology and warned against getting too excited about what technology can achieve.
"Teachers have laptops that are straining to do their job while others have whiteboards that they can only use in the months of December and January when the sun has gone down," he said.
For those teachers, like Mr Rylands, who have developed great technology resources there has not been any good way to share them with others.


Here, lessons can be learned from Apple and the phenomenal success of its apps store, thinks Mr Wainewright.
"I think we will see educational app stores for teachers to share resources and make a bit of money for their efforts," he said.


Whatever shapes the school of the future will take it would be a disaster if it became all about the technology, said Mr Wainewright
"I would hate to see a school where technology was all people did. There has to be a balance between using technology and picking up a paintbrush.

The Technology Dossier: Apple's iBook Initiative to Revolutionize Technolo...

Check out this interesting article I came across regarding the revolutionary iBook.


The Technology Dossier: Apple's iBook Initiative to Revolutionize Technolo...: The core focus of business is to address a problem. And the problem in education when it comes to the digital space isn’t a lack of conten...

"Accordion" Solar Towers Give 20 Times the Power

Harnessing the power of sunlight can mean more than just laying solar panels on rooftops or putting them on motorized swivels to track the sun across the sky. MIT researchers have built solar panel towers and cubes capable of generating as much as 20 times more power compared with fixed, flat panels with the same base area. 





Although these solar panels cost more compared to the ordinary flat panels, they can create higher energy output for a given size physical footprint. The solar towers also collect much more sunlight during the mornings, evenings and winters - regardless of clouds or shadows, making it more reliable source for the power grid. 

"I think this concept could become an important part of the future of photovoltaics," said Jeffrey Grossman, a professor of power engineering at MIT. 


Their efforts led to power boosts ranging from double the usual energy output to 20 times the energy output of fixed, flat solar panels. The biggest power boosts came in scenarios such as locations far from the equator, in winter months and on cloudier days. 

News, the good and the bad...

The Pew Research Center’s latest accounting of the news industry:
The good news - big audiences hungry for more news and information.
The bad news - less revenue to pay for news production.


In the group's ninth annual State of the news media report on Monday morning, they find that most sectors of the news media experienced a decline in total revenue in 2011, with newspapers and their Web sites affected most acutely. The network television, magazine and local TV sectors also had drops in revenue.


“In sum, the news industry is not much closer to a new revenue model than a year earlier and has lost more ground to rivals in the technology industry,” the report states. “But growing evidence also suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives. That, in the end, could prove a saving factor for the future of journalism.”


The report says that mobile devices, in particular, may be “leading to a deeper experience with news than on the desktop/laptop computer.”


Digital platforms not surprisingly grew in popularity in 2011, but so did network television news, “whose audiences grew for the first time in a decade,” according to Pew. The morning and late evening newscasts on local TV also enjoyed an overall uptick in popularity for the first time in five years.


The gains can be attributed in part to an unusually active news cycle. News magazine circulation was basically flat while newspaper circulation was down about 4 percent on weekdays and 1 percent on Sundays versus the previous year.


Pew predicts that more news organizations will introduce flexible digital subscriptions in 2012, following the lead of The New York Times and others.


It is a matter of survival, the report states: “Over the last five years, an average of 15 papers, or just about 1 percent of the industry, has vanished each year. A growing number of executives predict that in five years many newspapers will offer a print home-delivered newspaper only on Sunday, and perhaps one or two other days a week that account for most print ad revenue.”

Bypassing the Password?

Can you imagine going on your personal computer without having to enter in your password?


This is a vision that the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the Defense Departnment wants to turn into a reality. This company will distribute research funds to develop a softweare that allows you to access your computer without having to type your password; just by the way you type, it will identify that you are indeed the person that you say you are.


According to the Defense Department, a strong password that meets their requirements is something like, "6tFcVbNh^TfCvBn". However, this type of password does not meet human requirements and we are not built to understand and memorize random combinations of numbers and letters.

“What I’d like to do,” Mr. Guidorizzi said, “is move to a world where you sit down at a console, you identify yourself, and you just start working, and the authentication happens in the background, invisible to you, while you continue to do your work without interruptions.”

No biometric sensors, like thumbprint or iris scanners, would be used. Instead, he is seeking technology that relies solely on an individual’s distinct behavioral characteristics, which he calls the cognitive fingerprint.

Academic experts are trying several approaches to determine users’ identities solely through their computer behavior.

Pharmacy on a Chip

Researchers at MIT have developed what they're hoping will be something of a pharmacy on a chip. These are wirelessly controlled and programmable microchips that can be implanted into the human body to deliver medicine, potentially replacing daily drug injections, according to MIT.


"You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip," said MIT professor Robert Langer, who worked on the project with fellow MIT professor Michael Cima. "You can do remote control delivery, you can do pulsatile drug delivery, and you can deliver multiple drugs."


The university reported that the wireless chips were tested delivering on an osteoporosis drug called Teriparatide to seven women between the ages of 65 and 70. The test reportedly showed that the chips delivered dosages comparable to injections with no adverse side effects. The chips were reportedly implanted in the patients in a doctor's office using a local anesthetic and left in the patients for four months.
The university researchers worked with scientists at MicroCHIPS Inc., a medical product company based in Waltham, Mass. 

Riskiest online cities in Canada?

Recently, Canada's riskiest cities have been ranked in terms of online security.The goal was to create a "subjective" ranking of cities that have the highest number of "potential risk factors for cybercrime," said a news release from Symantec.


Burlington, Ontario has been ranked the riskiest online city in Canada for the second time in a row. Three out of the top four cities are present in British Columbia, including Vancouver at the third position.


The overall rankings considered cities to be 'riskier' if they had:

• Higher rates of cybercrime in the form of web attacks, malware attempts, spamming IP addresses and bot attacks.
• A larger number of Wi-Fi hotspots per 100,000 residents.
• Higher annual household expenditures on computers, internet and smartphones.
• Higher rates of online shopping, email and banking.
• Higher rates of social networking use.

Not surprisingly, out of the top 10 least riskiest online cities in Canada, seven of them are found in the province of Quebec including Gatineau, Sherbrooke, and Quebec City. Apparently the Quebecers are "less technologically sophisticated" according to Norton, the internet security software company.

Why your computer is becoming more like your phone.

The trend is clear: the desktop operating system will merge with the mobile OS in the coming years. However, the main question is: why?


We have already been beginning to see this trend with the major technology tycoon, Apple Inc.


The three S's listed below are a few reasons as to why consumers may be looking for more mobile use rather than the conventional computer that we have seen throughout the past decade.


Simplicity
The main reason Apple wants to make Macs work like the iPhone and iPad can be described by just one word: simplicity. Despite years of innovation and the invention of the graphical user interface, computer operating systems remain too confusing and complex for the majority of people.


Security
Mobile operating systems could potentially be more secure than their desktop counterparts. In particular, if Apple makes the App Store the only way to download apps to your Mac, it would become more difficult for users to install malware because of the approval required through Apple.
What's more, mobile features like tracking the location of your devices or wiping them remotely will make consumer desktops more secure.


Syncing
Unity; perhaps the most obvious benefit of making desktops work more like phones between all your devices.With a similar (or single) operating system on all your gadgets, syncing apps, contacts and calendars between them all becomes effortless.


So there you have it: your desktop computer is becoming more and more like your phone. Do not be surprised to see the line between the two systems disappear one day.

Hello internet!

On this new blog, I will be discussing various aspects regarding Information Technology in the Global Society. This blog will be regularly updated with current events/news issues related to the IT world.
I am looking forward to your insightful views and/or opinions regarding the IT issues that I will be introducing.