Google Health will be use to study the impact of mobile phones on our mental health
01/06/2022Spaniards spend an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes a day connected to the mobile. This time multiplied from Monday to Sunday is the same as more than 25 hours a week, according to the Digital Consumer by Generation report. To analyze the impact of all this time of digital consumption on our mental health, a group of researchers from the University of Oregon (United States) has just announced that they will use the Google Health app to analyze how users use their smartphones and discuss how in the future, digitals products and devides can make people happier, without falling into dependency. In their work, they will measure factors such as sleep or physical activity, for which they will also use the data collected by Fitbit, the activity bracelets owned by Google. One of the researchers, Dr. Nicholas Allen, stressed that "some studies similar to the one that we are going to start, usually condem the technology based on their conviction that it must be bad for mental health and well-being." . For this reason, he believes that is not positive to focuses only on the potentially harmful effects of the use of the devices, and also is important to takes into account the benefits that they offer.
[ ... ]
Cisco
CiscoCisco creates powerful connections and high-end protection systems throughout the world. Founded by computer specialists in 1984 at the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation located on the campus of Stanford University, its first achievement was to connect computers between the different departments of the University itself, creating the first efficient and practical connectivity network. Today, it is one of the leading companies in Internet communications, enabling people to establish powerful connections in business, education, research, and creative sectors. It is headquartered in San Jose, California, with subsidiaries around the world.
[ ... ]
Video calling apps listen when the microphone is off, according to a study
25/04/2022A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) has determined that video conferencing applications can continue accessing audio data even if the user has disabled the microphone. To demonstrate this, they have studied the most popular video conferencing applications and have analyzed the behavior of the mute button until they has determined that all the applications that they has tested whether the microphone was open or closed, occasionally collected raw data and delivered it to the servers of their services. In their research they have worked with binary analysis tools to see how the audio was transferred from the application to the audio drivers of the computers and then to the network. They aslo have created, through machine learning models ( 'machine learning'), a classifier of daily activities that, with 82% accuracy, has determined which activities users were doing while their microphones were, theoretically, silenced. In relation to this, the authors of this work recall that beyond muting the microphone, you can turn off the microphone of a device through the settings menu, a safer option to limit access to confidential information and sensitive data. All the conclusions of this study will be known next July in the Privacy Improvement Technologies Symposium.
[ ... ]
Startech
StartechThe Canadian company StarTech was founded in 1985 by two former university classmates. It seems like a cliché in the world of technology and IT companies, but it is a fact that studying one of these disciplines helps you form productive friendships, as evidenced by the creation of countless successful companies around the world. StarTech has always worked to make it easy to identify, find, obtain and use the connectivity pieces that any professional needs to enable technology solutions in their home or business.
[ ... ]
New Wifi technology to accurately count seated people
27/09/2021Small natural gestures such crossing your legs, checking your mobile, or scratching your nose are enough to count the number of people sitting in certain space. A group of researchers from the University of California have developed a system that overcomes the precision problems that the lack of movement during most of the time in seated people caused in this type of counting operations. This new system also allows those seated behind a wall to be counted. The new technology that is suitable for Wi-Fi devices is based on a mathematical model that, in a similar way to how the queue management theory works, relates the total number of gestures to the number of people sitting in the same space. Accuracy is 96.3, based on tests performed during the study. In addition, the researchers say, the system offers an accuracy of almost 90%, in the detection of people behind the walls or dividing columns of any space.
[ ... ]
Makeup causes failures in facial recognition systems
22/09/2021A research from the Ben-Gurion University of Israel has concluded that makeup reduces the effectiveness of facial recognition mechanisms. During the tests, the researchers used the ArcFace facial detection system, and they determined an effectiveness of 47,6% in people who did not use make up and 33,7% in those who did. They also confirm that applying makeup in specific face areas that algorithms analyze, the effectiveness of the facial recognition system is significantly altered and only 1.22% persons were recognized. In addition, the researchers from the Israeli university also did the test digitally, making up some photographs of the volunteers and the result was that the system was not able to recognize any of the faces. According to all these results, the researchers believe that the current level of development of facial detection systems is still below the realistic threshold.
[ ... ]