UniversityOfMassachusettsLowell
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Researchers crack iPad PINs by tracking the fingers that enter them
What's the easiest way to find out someone's password? Watch them enter it, of course, using the simple hacking technique known as shoulder surfing. Cameras and software have successfully been used by researchers to automate and improve the accuracy of snooping on smartphone users with such observational methods, but they require a direct line-of-sight to work. Now, as Wired reports, a group at the University of Massachusetts Lowell has developed a way to capture iPad passcodes without needing any kind of on-screen cue. A camera is still required, but because the position of the lockscreen keypad is static, their software references finger movement against tablet orientation to estimate the PIN by the way it's entered.
Microsoft Surface-controlled robots to boldly go where rescuers have gone before (video)
Ready to get hands-on in the danger zone -- from afar? That's precisely what an enterprising team of University of Massachusetts Lowell researchers are working to achieve with a little Redmond-supplied assistance. The Robotics Lab project, dubbed the Dynamically Resizing Ergonomic and Multi-touch (DREAM) Controller, makes use of Microsoft's Surface and Robotics Developer Studio to deploy and coordinate gesture-controlled search-and-rescue bots for potentially hazardous emergency response situations. Developed by Prof. Holly Yanco and Mark Micire, the tech's Natural User Interface maps a virtual joystick to a user's fingertips, delegating movement control to one hand and vision to the other -- much like an Xbox controller. The project's been under development for some time, having already aided rescue efforts during Hurricane Katrina, and with future refinements, could sufficiently lower the element of risk for first responders. Head past the break for a video demonstration of this life-saving research.
