 When we talk about computers connecting directly to your brain to interpret your thoughts and act on them, it evokes images of the Borg in Star Trek, but Microsoft is developing just such a technology, but for a very humanitarian reason. Satya Nadella told attendees at Microsoft’s eighth Ability Summit in Redmond that Microsoft is developing brain reading technology to assist people with locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that only allows people to communicate by eye movement. “How do you give them a language, because of just basically the ability to detect brain activity,” said Nadella. Microsoft has in recent years been brought a number of products designed to improve accessibility to market, including a Seeing Eye app which uses AI to describe scenes to those with visual difficulties and a new Xbox Adaptive Controller, which offers a cheap way for those with disabilities to connect adaptive controllers to their gaming console. “To me, being able to sort of really take that and channel it, see things like at one week where you have these thousands of folks across the company come together and invent these new technologies has been eye-opening for me,” he said. “In fact, I’m just getting ready to even host a dinner with some of the researchers that are working on the brain — you know, human-brain interface.” Learn more on OUR FORUM.  USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the organization which promotes USB technology, today announced a USB HID (Human Interface Device) standard for braille displays. This new standard will make it easier for the blind community to use a braille display across operating systems and different types of hardware. It will also enable easy development of braille devices as custom software and drivers created for a particular OS or screen reader is no longer needed. Microsoft collaborated with Apple and industry organizations to develop this new standard. “We see the opportunity that advancements in technology can create for people with disabilities and have a responsibility as an industry to develop new ways of empowering everyone to achieve more,” said Jeff Petty, Windows accessibility program manager lead at Microsoft. “Developing an HID standard for braille displays is one example of how we can work together, across the industry, to advance technology in a way that benefits society and ultimately improve the unemployment rate for people with disabilities.”“Technology should be accessible to everyone and Apple designs all products with that in mind,” said Sarah Herrlinger, director of Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives at Apple. Further details can be found on OUR FORUM.  After it was reported that the VPNFilter botnet consisting of over 500,000 routers and NAS devices was taken over by the US government, the FBI issued an advisory stating that users should reboot their routers in order to disrupt the malware. Unfortunately, as shown by the five phone calls I received today, many people heard the reboot part but did not read the rest of the recommendations of turning off remote administration, changing passwords, and upgrading to the latest firmware. One step that was not mentioned is the fact that the only way to truly remove VPNFilter is to reset the router to factory defaults. Due to this, people are just resetting their routers but leaving part of the malware still present after it is rebooted. With that said, I have put together a guide on VPNFilter, what the FBI advisory is about, and the steps you should perform to clean and secure your router. VPNFilter is malware that targets routers and NAS devices in order to steal files, information, and examine network traffic as it flows through the device. When the malware is installed, it will consist of three different stages, with each stage performing specific functions. There's plenty more on OUR FORUM. |
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