Smarter TV: CrestaTech Grabs $13M To Bring Region-Free TV Reception To Any Device

Broadcast TV, set top boxes, IPTVs, DVRs and PVRs are going the way of the Dodo, and today's connected TVs have to be able to take advantage of the same smart processors and dynamic OS tech that powers smart consumer mobile devices today. This is the thinking being employed by a Silicon Valley-based startup called CrestaTech, which has been quietly designing a portfolio of programmable hardware and software technologies that enable universal TV reception for all manners of smart devices, TVs, tablets, and PCs. The vision is a big one, and today CrestaTech received further financial validation for its endeavor, announcing that it has closed a $13 million series B round of investment.

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Got Your Number: Skype Investigates IP Discovery Flaw

Skype is investigating a tool published recently on Pastebin that captures the last-known IP address of the VoIP service's users. "This is an ongoing, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies," said Adrian Asher, Skype's director of product security. "We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are taking measures to help protect them."

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PFT: Judge won't dismiss Favre texting lawsuit

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A week ago, the Twitterverse got better acquainted with the marital troubles of Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders, thanks to the fact that he decided to tweet about it.

Since then, his estranged wife, Pilar, has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault.? Deion has been cited, but not arrested, for assault.

Over the weekend, a piano teacher who witnessed part of the interaction told WFAA-TV that Deion, not Pilar, seemed to be the aggressor.

?I heard glass breaking, and Deion was shouting at the top of his lungs, over and over again, ?Get out of my house, get out of my house!?? Lisa Thomas told WFAA (via Robert Littal of BlackSportsOnline.com).

Thomas, who was there to give a piano lesson to one of Deion?s children, left as the police arrived.? She believed that the police were aggressive with Pilar.

?That?s what I found strange,? Thomas said.? ?They hadn?t even interviewed them, and they were pushing her out like she was some criminal, and they said, ?You stay outside,? and just said, ?Do not come back in this house.??

Thomas was surprised to learn that Pilar, not Deion, was arrested.? ?I was flabbergasted,? Thomas said. ?This can not be right. It?s not right.? It?s so wrong.? Now way she deserved to go to jail.?

The authorities did not take a statement from Thomas, and the Prosper, Texas police department did not respond to a request from WFAA for an explanation.

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Robot sensing and smartphones help blind navigate

ROBOTS need help navigating their surroundings and sophisticated location systems to keep track of their position. Now the same technologies are being adapted to help blind people navigate indoor and outdoor spaces independently.

One such system, being developed by Edwige Pissaloux and colleagues at the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France, consists of a pair of glasses equipped with cameras and sensors like those used in robot exploration. The system, unveiled at a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this month, produces a 3D map of the wearer's environment and their position within it that is constantly updated and displayed in a simplified form on a handheld electronic Braille device. It could eventually allow blind people to make their way, unaided, wherever they want to go, says Pissaloux. "Navigation for me means not only being able to move around by avoiding nearby obstacles, but also to understand how the space is socially organised - for example, where you are in relation to the pharmacy, library or intersection," she says.

Two cameras on either side of the glasses generate a 3D image of the scene. A processor analyses the image, picking out the edges of walls or objects, which it uses to create a 3D map. The system's collection of accelerometers and gyroscopes - like those used in robots to monitor their position - keeps track of the user's location and speed. This information is combined with the image to determine the user's position in relation to other objects.

The system generates almost 10 maps per second which are transmitted to the handheld Braille device to be displayed as a dynamic tactile map. The Braille pad consists of an 8-centimetre-square grid of 64 taxels - pins with a shape memory alloy spring in the middle. When heat is applied to the springs, they expand, raising the pins to represent boundaries. The Braille version of the map is updated fast enough for a visually-impaired wearer to pass through an area at walking speed, says Pissaloux. Seth Teller, who develops assistive technologies at MIT, calls the work exciting and ambitious.

This is not the only robotics project to be re-purposed. Software that predicts how far a robot has travelled based on information from its on-board sensors is being modified to track a person's movements based on their stride length. The low-cost system, being developed by Eelke Folmer and Kostas Bekris at the University of Nevada in Reno would help blind people navigate around buildings using just a smartphone.

The new system uses freely available 2D digital indoor maps and the smartphone's built-in accelerometer and compass. Directions are provided using synthetic speech. To help the smartphone calibrate and adjust to a user's individual stride length, the user must initially use touch to detect the landmarks in their environment, such as corridor intersections, doors and elevators. The system will be presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St Paul, Minnesota, in May.

David Ross at the Atlanta Vision Loss Center in Decatur, Georgia, says that the sensing problems faced by robots and blind people are similar but there are big differences. "Sensing systems developed for mobile robots may have some application, but must be adapted considerably to suit a wide variety of human needs and situations," he says.

The all-seeing ring

A virtual assistant can help blind people explore their surroundings. Developed by Suranga Nanayakkara at the MIT's Media Lab, EyeRing consists of a ring equipped with a camera, and headphones. The user points the ring at an object they are holding and uses voice commands to say what they need to know - the colour of an item of clothing, say, or the denomination of paper money. The ring takes a picture of the object, which is transmitted wirelessly to a cellphone, where software analyses the image. The required information is then read out by a synthesised voice. It is being presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas, in May.

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Thick fog, smoke expected on I-75, other roads in north Florida (tbo)

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Hypocritical Window-Dressing or Brave New Corporate World ...

AA short time after the term ?corporate social responsibility? (CSR) first emerged in the late 1960s, the concept quickly became the target of scorn and sharp criticism among hard-line free enterprise thinkers. In a 1970 article in The New York Times Magazine, economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman referred to CSR as ?hypocritical window-dressing.?

Nevertheless, CSR has come a long way since then, and it has evolved into something the originators of the concept probably could not have imagined back in 1970. That is not to say that CSR in its current guise is without its detractors ? there are still many.? But their criticism is generally specific and highly focused, and few now question the basic idea that business should act responsibly toward the physical and social environments in which it operates. Despite the fact that the fundamental concept of CSR is seldom disputed, there are wide-ranging and often diverging opinions on the subject. Next to the political and economic ideologies we espouse, the most important factor influencing how we perceive CSR may be the physical, geographical and economic perspective from which we view the corporate world. We will tend to think differently of CSR whether we are a CEO under pressure to reduce current year expenditures or a peasant in a developing country whose land and livelihood are threatened by industrial development or a young outdoor enthusiast concerned about environmental degradation or a stock market investor focused on short-term returns or another investor who analyses long-term risk management in companies. With such diverse understandings, needs, and ideals among various stakeholders, does the future of CSR lie in ?window-dressing? and ?greenwashing,? or in bringing about a truly ?greener? and more equitable world? A look at the evolution of workplace safety in the 20th century may give us some valuable clues. Recently, while looking at photographs of the 1930-31 construction of the Empire State Building, I was struck by the almost complete absence of safety equipment at the site. In Lewis Wickes Hine?s photographs, the construction workers are shown standing on steel beams over 300 metres above street level without any guard rails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems such as body harnesses and ropes. Items of basic personal protective equipment such as hard hats and goggles are also noticeably absent. The only protective equipment visible in the photos consists of the gloves worn by most workers. At that time the industry estimate for construction fatalities on skyscrapers was one death per floor, although only between 5 and 14 workers died (the number varies depending on the source) during the construction of the 102-floor Empire State Building. That fact seems nothing short of miraculous when looking at Hine?s photographs.

The egregious lack of workplace safety one observes in these historical photos is unimaginable in developed countries today. But in 1930 the safety of construction workers was not the employer?s responsibility. Things have changed much since then. The cost of workplace safety is now as much an integral part of doing business as is the payment of wages. It is unavoidable and no longer even put into question. However, the mainstreaming of workplace safety into modern business practice was slow and difficult. For a long time companies refused to accept any responsibility for the health and safety of their workers, claiming that, as some prominent economists have expressed, business is responsible only to its shareholders, and therefore should solely be focused on increasing its profits. A number of factors early in the 20th century contributed to eventually making safety the unquestioned business concern it is today in the developed world. Arguably the most important factor was the adoption of workers? compensation laws beginning late in the 19th century. Following Germany?s lead, other governments in Europe, North America and Australasia passed laws which guaranteed automatic financial compensation for all workplace injuries at a pre-determined and fixed rate. This system was welcomed by business and workers alike. For companies the shared costs were more stable and predictable, while for workers the advantage was greater and more certain benefits. However, it still took many years for companies to become genuinely committed to workplace safety. When they finally did, it was the result of a sharp rise in accident costs (even with workers? compensation systems in place) and the adoption of legislation that broadened employers? liability. In other words, business became concerned with safety when it started making economic sense to do so?when implementing measures to reduce workplace accidents and deaths became a better financial proposition than paying the increasingly high compensation costs. This last fact is very telling, and an important one to keep in mind as we turn our attention back to CSR. Two very important differences between workplace safety and CSR are worth noting here: workplace safety affects a company?s employees and their families, and legally it is a local issue under the jurisdiction of a provincial, state, or national government where the workplace is situated. CSR, on the other hand, seeks to address issues that affect people who may not have any direct relationship with the company, and focuses on aspects of a company?s activities which, more often than not, take place in many different countries, each with its own distinct and specific laws and regulations. (This last was an important factor in the emergence of CSR, which, not surprisingly, happened at a time when many multinational corporations were formed). Just as the idea of a government-mandated workers? compensation system may have been ahead of the curve in 1900, so was the idea of CSR in 1970. Somehow the world has a way of catching up with these maverick ideas, and, as was the case with workplace safety, it may be the increasing cost of not practicing CSR that eventually convinces companies to assume their responsibilities on social and environmental issues. A few cases that recently made the news underline this point. In June of this year the Peruvian government revoked a decree granting approval to a Canadian company for mining silver at Santa Ana, near lake Titicaca, after a highway linking Peru and Bolivia was shut down for 21 days by protesters, and after some 5,000 protesters descended on Puno, the provincial capital, to demand an end to the mining project. Four months earlier, an Ecuadorian court held Chevron liable for almost $18 billion for oil spills that Texaco (since merged with Chevron) failed to clean up in the 1970s. In June 2010, BP agreed to set up a $20 billion fund for damage claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and suspended dividend payments to its shareholders. As one would expect, Chevron is appealing the Ecuadorian court?s decision, and the Canadian mining company stated it will sue the Peruvian government. However, successful appeals and lawsuits cannot obliterate the impact of these types of cases. The legal costs alone can be sizeable, and so can damage to reputation. In the end companies still often end up paying huge sums in settlements.

CSR aims to avoid these types of problems by prescribing such practices as the obtainment of free, prior and informed consent from affected populations, and the conducting of full environmental and social impact assessments (the results of which must be disclosed to the public) prior to project development. As the above cases and so many others demonstrate, CSR can and should be an important part of a company?s effective risk management system. The newsworthy cases may make the economic benefits of CSR obvious, but what has greatly accelerated the adoption of CSR policies and mechanisms in recent years is the fact they are likely to be required for project financing. At present there are 72 financial institutions in 27 countries that have adopted the Equator Principles (EPs), a risk management framework for determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in project financing. These 72 institutions currently cover over 70 percent of all international project financing in emerging markets. The EPs are largely based on the International Finance Corporation?s Policy and Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability (IFC is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group). The IFC Standards and the EPs contain clear requirements for implementation and outcomes, and require clients to fully integrate social and environmental risks management systems into their overall operations and business model. Compliance with the Standards and EPs is assessed regularly, and failure to comply may be considered an event of default and can result in disinvestment by the financial institution. In the past twelve years a number of other international instruments with goals similar to the EPs and the IFC?s Performance Standards have emerged. They were developed by the UN, multinational corporations, governments, and NGO?s. Will these efforts reduce environmental destruction and human rights violations resulting from business activities? If workplace safety is any indication, they will. After business embraced workplace safety, the rate of fatal occupational injuries fell dramatically. In both the USA and the EU it has dropped by well over 40% since 1980. These are substantial results, not mere window-dressing, and we should expect the same type of changes following the widespread implementation of CSR practices in business.

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Feds: San Diego man forgotten in cell for 5 days (Providence Journal)

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