Now “Sight” For Blinds through New Smartphone App

A new computer programs have been getting lots accolades as it has been able to give life changing sight experience to the blind people. This new program has been named as KNFB Reader app. Through this app the user will be able to listen to an audio read-back of the printed materials. As per the blind people they life will become much easier with this app. It will have a contribution from reading the menus to study text, etc.

Jonathan Mosen, who has been blind from birth, is now able to spend his evening snapping photos of his son’s report card, mail, books and magazines. Within seconds he was able to hear the audio of the printed word that was captured by the camera. This is due to the new app available on Apple Inc iPhone.

Mosen, who is an assistive technology consultant from New Zealand couldn’t believe the accuracy given by the app. This application has been able to receive rave reviews since the first day it was made available and has been tagged as the life-changer for them. According to blind people KNFB Reader app will be able to provide them a completely new level of engagement in their life.

This app has been currently priced at $99, but it's the outcome of the hard work put forth by Ray Kurzweil, who is a well-known artificial-intelligence scientist and senior Google employee and National Federation of the Blind.

This team has a 4 decade long relationship. As per their website, the technical development of this app is due to the Sensotec NV, a Belgium-based company and K-NFB Reading Technology Inc. Kurzweil not only demonstrated the app usage but also stated that it can very much replace the sighted advisors.

How the app works? 

This app takes the advantage of the image processing and pattern recognition technology as well as the latest smart phone hardware and allows its user to use the camera and it will read the printed material. People who have the refreshable Braille display will be able to take the picture of the documents and gets the same displayed in Braille.

Users of this app have given positive reviews about the new app. Among all the reviews one of the first users Gordon Luke stated that he used to this app to read the information to Scottish Referendum polling.

According to Kurzweil Android users should be expecting this app on the platform as well and they might try out this app for Google glass as well. For them it makes more sense as one will be able to direct the camera with their head.

The KNFB Reader app has been released at a time when there is serious crisis in the technology industry. At the moments critics are worried that most of the companies are involved in developing software programs for adding additional features in gaming, video and photos but failing to address some of the serious issues which have been covered through this new app.

There are people who feel that there was time when they really needed a app like KNPB but now that they have got what they wanted, it will only have a positive impact on the industry.

Google's New Tech Will Enable Website Loading Offline Mode

Search engine giant, “Google”, is currently working on different techniques and ideas which will allow the users to load the websites even when they are offline. This will come useful when the user is in an area not under network coverage. The name of this new technology has been given as “Service Workers”. This new technology is a browser standard which will allow the data to get stored locally and the user will be able to render web content, even when they are offline.

Service Workers: 

This new technology and its importance can be well explained through a simple example. Think of a time when you have tried accessing any website while being inside the lift and you are humbly greeted by the 404 error. But not anymore, through this new Google tech, user will be served with an older version of the same website which got saved when you would have last visited the same. This new innovation has been the bridge the gap between the websites and apps. This is based on the similar concept as that of apps wherein the pages and content get cached.

According to software engineer, Alex Russell, at Google, through the service workers the company is aiming for loading some content instead of nothing to the users. He also stated that a user might be able to access website if the Wi-Fi is available at that location but as soon as they leave that spot, the website will fail to load. This puts the user in a fix situation. The technology will come out as a key differentiator.

Main Goal: 

Although the ultimate goal of the company is to ensure that a user is able to access websites even when there is network coverage issues, one of the other pros is the high speed browsing the users can expect.

This can be due to the fact that the data is already stored in the user device, hence loading and browsing is quicker.

So want to know how it works?

Even though the browser will be working on loading the updated contents of the website requested, the already stored interface and data will show up almost immediately. Say for example, the user doesn’t have to wait for a long time till large image gets loaded on the website, they will be able to use website and interact with it as well. This technology will speed up the interaction by 600 milliseconds/second of web interaction.

However Service Workers is still in its infancy stage and still in development and it may be a long wait till Google is able to implement the technology in all the browsers. This is like developing an app with web like experience.

During the O'Reilly Velocity conference in New York, Alex Russell stated that this new technology is a new browser and will allow documents saving like any other app. With this new technology, Google is aiming to enhance the offline browsing experience of the users and take their technology to a completely new level.

Taking Images Of Building Structures

Taking images of building structures will show a stress strain that has developed in the building over time. Many people do not realize what is happening behind the walls of the building, and they must remember that they should work with the imaging company to figure out how to fix the building. The images can be shared with anybody, and the people that see these images can decide what the best repair course is for the home or building.

In The Frame

The houses that are built on wooden frames are going to experience these strains when they have been standing for a long time. Earthquakes, storms and wind can all cause problems with the frame, and the owner of the house needs to be able to see what is happening to their frame. A contractor can use these images to figure out how to fix the frame in the future. The contractor can go right to the problem, and they will not have to take their whole home apart to get to the problem.

In The Office Building

When people are trying to take care of an office building, they need to get images that show them how the frame of the building is reacting to weather and atmospheric conditions. The images that are taken of the building can show which parts of the building are experiencing the most strain, and the owner of the building can take steps to repair the building.

The Images

The images can be created easily when the survey team is on site. They will be able to create these images quickly, and they can review them to give a report to the building owner. The best way for someone to get an idea of the state of their building is to schedule an imaging report.

There are many people who need to make sure that their houses and buildings are in good condition. Most of these images are helpful to contractors, and the houses or buildings can be fixed quickly. The images are a public service that can help people protect the building they have invested in.

Cloudflare Attempts Lost SSL Key Risk with Keyless SSL

With the increasing number of organizations worrying about and wanting the optimal security protection, San Francisco-based CloudFlare has announced new software which is specifically targeting this requirement.

According to CloudFlare, An SSL key is the data though which the organizations will be able to establish a highly secure connection with the customer they are trying to connect with. This data will enable the organizations to establish their own identity. Here comes the despair. If someone has the organization private SSL key, then they can authenticate as if you were the organization. One can spoof the identity as well as intercept the traffic.

According to Matthew Prince, CEO, what can be considered as a bay day is when a media organization loses an SSL key but a nightmare is reached when a financial institution loses the SSL Key. According to the senior writer at InfoWorld, Serdar Yegulalp, In a conventional SSL system, the private key that is used for login in all sessions is held in the same public-facing server as that of server used for fulfilling Web traffic. The potential risks of this system were depicted by the Heartbleed bug, wherein the private key information can be leaked out easily.

The Key is the Key (SSL): 

CloudFlare announced their new software called Keyless SSL, with the aim of targeting the organizations looking for a defending tool for themselves against the service attacks on their websites without them turning towards their private encryption keys. The organization will be utilizing the 28 data centers of CloudFlare around the world. Through this software companies will be able to use the cloud while controlling and maintaining their SSL. As per Sean Gallagher from Ars Technica, Keyless SSL will be able to break the encryption 'handshake' at the very start of the TLS (Transport Layer Security) web session, through this it will pass part of data to the data center of the company for further encryption.

Security: 

According to world’s renowned security experts Phil Zimmermann and Jon Callas “To limit the access is the one of the core feature of principles of computer security to restrict the access for cryptographic keys and now Keyless is best to implement this feature”

Enterprise: 

Davi Ottenheimer, a senior director of EMC Corporation, believes that Keyless SSL will be the fundamental innovation in the world of cyber security and everyone should concern about the risks of handing their private keys, when they give it to service providers.

The CloudFlare team was working on different means through which the banks can hold on to their private keys with the system being in development for years. This started over two years ago, post the call Prince received from Chief Information Security Officer of one of the world's largest banks. According to the CISO, they need assistance from Prince and his team on a certain issue.

According to John Clark, this new software will increase its importance among the banks that are at high risk from cyberattacks. By using the Keyless SSL, CloudFlare will be putting the servers in a completely lees secure data centers, wherein whenever the server is rebooted it leads to complete disappearance of data from the remote data centers. Through this the master encryption keys are never under any risk.

Tumor Pressure Transmitted Through Wireless Pressure Sensors

The interstitial pressure present inside the tumor is most often higher than the normal tissues in comparison. This pressure becomes a hindrance in the release of chemotherapeutic agents apart from the decreasing the effectiveness expected from the radiation therapy.

There are medications existing to reduce the tumor pressure which allows an optimal window for diagnosis and start treatment but when the pressure is less, the medications becomes a test. Along with NIBIB support, Purdue University researchers have been able to develop sensors which can wirelessly transmit pressure readings from within a tumor.

Contents which will under pressure: 

Tumors just like other healthy living tissues needs oxygen and nutrients to stay alive. The tissues surrounding the tumors grow into the tumor to accommodate the high demands of the growing tumor. But when compared to the other healthy issues, these new tissues are highly disorganized and leaky. It has been attributed to the high pressure inside the tumor which makes these tissues highly abnormal and puts enough pressure to make the blood vessel leak fluids between the tumor cells (interstitial space).

While in a healthy normal tissue, regulated pressures pulls the nutrients and proteins out of tissues and send them to the interstitial space, which is at the end used up by cells. Medications travelling through the body also depend on these pressures, but when the pressure increases in the body just like in tumor, the medications are unable to leave the blood vessels.

Due to this reason, people suffering from tumor are often given less than the required chemotherapy dose or any other anti-cancer medicines. Radiation therapy needs oxygen to be effective but high interstitial pressure can reduce the oxygen level inside tumors.

Scope: 

Some of the recent clinical trials on animals have suggested that angiogenesis inhibitors (anti-cancer drugs) can actually reduce the interstitial pressure and contribute towards increasing the efficiency of the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Angiogenesis inhibitors not only help in preventing the growth of new blood vessels but also stop the growth of tumor. According to some of the recent study, there is a window for complete normalization wherein the drugs are moving from blood to the tumors. However what comes as a challenge is the lack of methods that can be used for measuring interstitial tumor pressure, which is determine the optimal time to start the treatments.

Wireless Pressure Sensor: 

According to Babak Ziaie, director of the Biomedical Micro devices Laboratory at Purdue University, they consulted with many oncologists and determine that we need to work on creating a sensor for tumor pressure. It was a challenge as no one has though of working or was working on any concept related to this fact.

Now the team has been able to create a novel sensor which can implanted into a tumor and will be used for wirelessly transmitting interstitial fluid pressure readings. This sensor is adopted from Guyton capsule, a 1950 technology.

This device was tested by the team by implanting it in pancreatic tumors in mice and they were able to reduce the interstitial tumor pressure after which the angiogenic inhibitor was administered to the mice.
According to Tiffani Lash, program director for sensor technologies at NIBIB, it’s all about create and generating a novel technology to treat the disease.