The Computer Game That Helps Therapists Chat to Adolescents With Mental Health Problems

Adolescents with mental health problems are particularly hard for therapists to engage. But a new computer game is providing a healthy conduit for effective communication between them

One of the fundamental principles of modern psychology is that its success must be based on effective communication and a strong therapeutic relationship between the patient and therapist.
That’s particularly hard to achieve when adolescents are involved. Young people experiencing mental health problems can often react confrontationally, or not at all, to a therapist. So finding effective ways of engaging adolescents is an important goal.

Motorola’s Moto X: Interface Innovation with a Learning Curve

Several days with the Moto X reveal some ingenious new features and a few shortcomings.

• By Tim Carmody on August 6, 2013

Why It Matters

Mobile devices are pervasive, but they could be easier and more intuitive to use.

Smarter phone: The Moto X responds to new kinds of voice and gesture commands.

The Moto X, Motorola’s first phone conceived and designed since the company’s acquisition by Google, doesn’t boast as many main processor cores or camera megapixels as its rivals at the higher end of the smartphone spectrum. It does, however, allow its users lots of control via voice and gesture commands, which speed up and simplify common tasks like taking pictures, placing calls, or getting directions (see “Motorola Reveals First Google-Era Phone, the Moto X”).

Galileo’s Secret Telescope Technology Revealed

Galileo could not have built the world’s first astronomical telescope without a revolutionary new theory of optics that he must have kept secret, argue historians of science

The Renaissance physicist, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer Galileo Galilei is perhaps best known for his work on gravity, relative motion and the discovery of numerous astronomical objects such as Jupiter’s four largest moons, the phases of Venus and so on.

But just as remarkable is Galileo’s work as an optical engineer on the design of the telescope. Galileo didn’t invent the telescope but he did adapt the design of the spyglass for astronomical purposes.

Romancing The Phone

Love and sex in the age of social media and mobile communication.

By C. J. Pascoe

Boy meets girl; they grow up and fall in love. But technology interferes and threatens to destroy their blissful coupledom. The destructive potential of communication technologies is at the heart of Stephanie Jones’s self-published romance novel Dreams and Misunderstandings. Two childhood sweethearts, Rick and Jessie, use text messages, phone calls, and e-mail to manage the distance between them as Jessie attends college on the East Coast of the United States and Rick moves between Great Britain and the American West. Shortly before a summer reunion, their technological ties fail when Jessie is hospitalized after a traumatic attack. During her recovery, she loses access to her mobile phone, computer, and e-mail account.

Chinese Hacking Team Caught Taking Over Decoy Water Plant

A hacking group accused of being operated by the Chinese army now seems to be going after industrial control systems.

• By Tom Simonite on August 2, 2013

Why It Matters

Although security vulnerabilities in industrial systems have been well documented, evidence that people are actively trying to exploit them has been scarce.

A Chinese hacking group accused this February of being tied to the Chinese army was caught last December infiltrating a decoy water control system for a U.S. municipality, a researcher revealed on Wednesday.

The group, known as APT1, was caught by a research project that provides the most significant proof yet that people are actively trying to exploit the vulnerabilities in industrial control systems. Many of these systems are connected to the Internet to allow remote access (see “Hacking Industrial Systems Turns Out to Be Easy”). APT1, also known as Comment Crew, was lured by a dummy control system set up by Kyle Wilhoit, a researcher with security company Trend Micro, who gave a talk on his findings at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

Math Advances Raise the Prospect of an Internet Security Crisis

Academic advances suggest that the encryption systems that secure online communications could be undermined in just a few years.

• By Tom Simonite on August 2, 2013

Why It Matters

Cryptographic schemes protect vast quantities of financial and personal information.

The encryption systems used to secure online bank accounts and keep critical communications private could be undone in just a few years, security researchers warned at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas yesterday. Breakthroughs in math research made in the past six months could underpin practical, fast ways to decode encrypted data that’s considered unbreakable today.

Alex Stamos, chief technology officer of the online security company Artemis, led a presentation describing how he and three other security researchers studied recent publications from the insular world of academic cryptopgraphy research, which covers trends in attacking common encryption schemes.

Military Considers Sharing Radar Frequencies with Wireless Networks

If the Pentagon eases its grip on wireless frequencies used for radar, wider use of 4G networks could become possible.

• By David Talbot on August 2, 2013

Why It Matters

Releasing bandwidth held by the military could ease congestion and allow for private LTE networks.

Sharing spectrum: Wallops Island, off the coast of Virginia, is where the Navy and wireless researchers will test whether civilian wireless networks can use frequencies now confined to radar systems.

While commercial wireless networks are congested, frequencies set aside for military purposes are lightly used. Now wireless researchers and the U.S. Navy will get a chance to see whether some of those airwaves can be shared, which could lead to innovative new services.

In a test on Monday, the Navy will fire up an AN/SPY 1 radar—a powerful system that normally scans for incoming missiles and bombers—on an island off Virginia’s eastern shore. At the same time, visiting academic and corporate researchers will tune portable wireless transmitters to the same frequency to see what happens.

The Electric Car Is Here To Stay

The history of electric cars is long and full of false starts. But it looks as if the latest wave won’t be turned back.

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/graphiti/515326/the-electric-car-is-here-to-stay/

 

Web Ads Used to Launch Online Attacks

Researchers show how easy it is to hide code in online ads that can turn people into an online attack squad.

• By Tom Simonite on August 1, 2013

Why It Matters

Denial of service attacks are a costly and challenging problem for many websites.

Online advertising networks could be used to enlist millions of unsuspecting Web surfers in attacks on other websites, a demonstration at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas showed on Wednesday.

Researchers Jeremiah Grossman and Matt Johansen of WhiteHat Security staged an attack on a test Web server simply by paying two online ad networks to display treacherous advertisements on pages visited by hundreds of thousands of people. The ads included simple JavaScript code that makes a browser that loads the ad also repeatedly access an image on the test Web server.