Jerry Newberry | World Tech Today

All-Electric Truck: Green Power Takes to the Off-Road

Jul 28, 2017 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

Bollinger Motors, a US-based company headquartered in New York State has unveiled its new prototype all-electric sport utility truck during a media event at the Classic Car Club of Manhattan, and you may be surprised at its features.

Using lightweight aluminum architecture, the Bollinger B1 is the world’s very first fully functional prototype of an all-electric sport utility vehicle, and sports a dual-motor powertrain that provides full-time all-wheel drive.

According to a press release, the B1 employs an advanced chassis structure, constructed with high-strength aluminum and weighing in at a mere 295 pounds, to house its battery system, while not sacrificing structural or torsional rigidity.

“We are so thrilled to be able to finally take the wraps off of our Bollinger B1 SUT,” offered the company’s founder and CEO, Robert Bollinger. “This is the culmination of what has been a 40-year-long boyhood dream of mine and I couldn’t be more pleased with the vehicle and the incredible team who worked so hard to create it.”

As a result of instantaneous torque provided by the electric drivetrain, the B1 boasts a 0-60 acceleration time of just 4.5 seconds and a top speed of 127 miles per hour. The prototype vehicle weighs in at 3,900 pounds, with a payload capacity of 6,100 pounds and a gross vehicle weight of just over 10,000 lbs.

The B1 will offer an option of two lithium battery packs when entered into production, rated at 60kWh or 100 kWh. This will allow for travel of up to 120 miles with the smaller or up to 200 miles with the larger pack.

The B1 features a minimalist interior, but is not lacking in comfort, with heating and air conditioning, prominent gauges and warning signals, and a battery level indicator, all with black backgrounds with white lettering, and chrome bezels, making for a clean and classic look. The production model will sport a Bluetooth-enabled waterproof AM/FM receiver, with inputs for iPod/MP3 players and SD/USB readers.

Saying the firm plans to announce pricing details later this year, they expect to target delivery of the vehicles within 19 months. Bollinger added, “When you factor in this vehicle’s superiority over the other choices on today’s market, we think we have a winning combination.”

Startup bags $11.7 M in Series A Funding to Bring Garbage Collection to Cell Phones

Jul 27, 2017 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

A two-year old startup business in New York wants to bring waste management into high-tech, by offering on-demand garbage pickup services through the use of a phone app. And they recently announced they are receiving funding to the tune of $11.7M to make it happen.

Recycle Track Systems (RTS) is hoping to capitalize on the market for waste management and disposal by using a fleet of trucks, independently owned and operated by others, to tap into the waste industry, estimated at between $45 billion and $65 billion, and an industry without a lot of high tech interest.

Customers such as WeWork, Whole Foods and SoulCycle have already signed contracts covering multi-year deals that use the company’s app to alert them when the trucks arrive as well as providing information as to where the company is taking their waste for disposal and treatment.

Co-founder and CEO of RTS, Gregory Lettieri, was quoted in an article on techcrunch.com as saying the company is already operating in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, but the founders see New York as an opportunity to launch the Uber-type service. Lettieri offered the service was important to high-sustainability customers because they can see their efforts to sort organic food waste from ordinary waste are not being wasted, so to speak.

The service will allow such customers to monitor where their organic waste was taken, to farms or waste energy facilities for example, and give them actual numbers instead of estimated data. Lettieri added that because they have the ability to track the contents of each truck, they can also tap into the secondary waste market, which is estimated at around $90 billion.

By identifying the waste content on the trailers, they can deliver to brokers who purchase certain types of waste materials, such as electronic recycling and construction materials, with facilities designed for such recycling. The company says that is not a big slice of their business at this time, but they see the market expanding in the future.

The firm plans to offer yearly contracts for pickups, based on the amount of garbage that must be processed over a period of time.

Investors seem to be on board as well. The Series A funding comes from a Boston-based equity firm, Volition Capital, which also provided capital to Chewy, a pet supply firm that was bought by PetSmart earlier this year.

Trump meets with tech leaders, and no one pulled the plug

Dec 15, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

As we reported yesterday, a great deal of apprehension surrounded the meeting called by President-elect Donald Trump and leaders of the tech industry at Trump Tower in New York, but from all reports, everything went well.

In fact, despite predictions that Trump was going to be anti-tech, he told the group “I’m here to help,” according to an article in The New York Times.

Most of the executives left the meeting without commenting, but inside sources said Trump discussed items on his political agenda, such as vocational education and trade agreements with China and other nations. Reportedly, the president-elect asked the industry leaders if they could use their resources to help the administration identify and rid the governmental agencies of wasteful spending as well.

The meeting, which lasted for over 90 minutes, also included Peter Thiel of Trump’s transition team, along with family members, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. To the delight of the crowd, Trump said he wouldn’t say how many others had asked to attend the meeting.

There was a great deal of concern throughout the tech sector after Trump won the November election, and some argued the industry executives should boycott the meeting in protest of Trump’s values, but others saw it as an opportunity to express their own values and opinions to the incoming President.

Still others have resigned themselves to the fact that Trump will be the President for at least the next four years, and they will have to make the best of it, hoping to compromise and still maintain their core values.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon released a statement later calling the meeting “very productive,” and added, “I shared the view that the administration should make innovation one of its key pillars, which would create a huge number of jobs across the whole country, in all sectors, not just tech — agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing — everywhere.”

It appears also there will be quarterly meetings, organized by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of his advisers, that will bring together smaller groups of tech professionals, focusing primarily on immigration and education issues.

Tech industry leaders to meet with President-Elect Trump

Dec 14, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, the Republican candidate Donald Trump had a good many harsh words to say about the tech industry, and in turn, not many of the tech industry’s top officers supported Mr. Trump in his bid to become President.

But, as he is about to be inaugurated, Trump and a Who’s Who of the US tech industry are about to sit down for a face-to-face at Trump Tower in New York, a meeting that could give some indication of the Trump administration’s plans and strategies for his make America great again initiative.

The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, will be moderated by billionaire tech invester Peter Theil and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. It is expected the focus of the meeting will be job creation and governmental efficiency, two of Trump’s campaign promises.

But, it will be surprising if some of the discussion doesn’t include Trump’s plans on re-working trade agreements and strengthening immigration laws that could limit the industry’s hiring of foreign employees.

Invitees include Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Elon Musk, and Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., among other leaders of the tech sector.

The tech industry enjoyed tremendous growth and record profits under the Obama administration, and it is likely they will lobby for maintaining a similar working relationship with the incoming president.

Still, the President-Elect has his own ideas about how the system should work, but the election-winning Trump so far seems to be more receptive to listening to advisers than the campaign Trump. He has softened his stance on several issues and looks to be trying to reconcile with some of his harshest critics.

So it remains to be seen if the industry can get along with the new administration, but maybe this first meeting will go a long way towards defining expectations from both sides.

Germany fears Russian hacker influence in upcoming election

Dec 12, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

High-ranking party officials in German politics are concerned about Russian hackers spreading misinformation to influence the outcome of the 2017 election, according to the BBC.

The concerns are heightened by reports that Russians may have tried to influence the United States Presidential election in November, by hacking into the Democratic Party’s database and documents that were damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign bid.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a senior MP in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) party was quoted in a German newspaper as saying there was a “general danger” for the upcoming election for the Bundestag, Germany’s lower parliament, next year. He added there could be “influence-peddling via targeted infiltration from outside, with the goal of manipulating facts or opinions.”

Bosbach made his comments while discussing the concerns that the US has over possible Russian assistance for Donald Trump. Russian officials have denied any interference in the US elections and downplayed warnings from other Western states.

Rolf Muetzenich, a foreign affairs spokesman for the Social Democrat party (SDU) agreed, offering, “unfortunately we cannot exclude such activities in Germany, either.”

Officials from Germany’s intelligence agency, BfV, admits increasingly aggressive cyber-espionage, and add the indications of attempts to influence the elections are on the rise. Their sources say a hacker group, known to them as “Fancy Bear” or APT28 which the believe is controlled by the Russian state, is particularly active.

German intelligence also believes a set of secret files from the Bundestag committee that was investigating US National Security Agency spying on German politicians were obtained by Russian sources. Those files, from 2014-15, were released by Wikileaks earlier this year.

The American CIA suspects that Russian hackers were involved in attacks on US politics, but has not yet provided any concrete evidence. Meanwhile, members of both houses of Congress are calling for hearings and an internal investigation on the attempted break-ins.

The weakest link in Fed cybersecurity may not be technology

Dec 8, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

Among all the recent focus on upgrading cybersecurity within the federal government, and the billions of dollars pledged to be invested in new technology, what some consider to be the weakest link in the chain is the tech operators.

And that really doesn’t come as a surprise for those tasked with improving the situation, according to a report on federalnewsradio.com. And training the employees to follow rules and guidelines set down by the security experts only goes so far.

The acting deputy chief information officer for the Commerce Department, Ron Turk, said as much at an event in Washington recently.

“When you talk about anti-phishing, for example,” commented Turk, “2 to 3 percent of the people within your organization are going to click on that email, even after they’ve just been trained in cybersecurity and anti-phishing. They just can’t help themselves, I’m sorry, they can’t.”

The article continued to say that Pentagon officials believe 80 percent of breaches to cybersecurity are caused by poor user behavior and failure to apply updated software patches. Officials say they are now attempting to identify those employees that don’t follow office procedures and take appropriate actions.

The Defense Department initiated a new program last year, called the DoD Cyberecurity Culture and Compliance Initiative, hoping to shore up the agency’s defenses against cyber attacks. The justification for the program is based on the idea that every dollar spent on preventing attacks up front saves seven dollars in costs of repairing the breach after the fact.

The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity agrees as well, recommending the government set up a new agency, or re-assign an existing one, to spend all of its resources on defending federal networks and national infrastructure from cyber attacks. The commission also recommends making the new agency responsible for developing new standards and protocols that IT systems must implement in order to connect to federal systems.

Turk, while agreeing with the recommendations also added that the coding should be done early in the process, instead of adding in later. Those add-ons could lead to confusion by users and lead to the program not being used to its maximum efficiency.

Fitbit picks up a Pebble, deal announced

Dec 7, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

Fitbit, the digital and fitness-tracker, has announced the company has purchased key assets of Pebble, the smartwatch startup first launched back in 2012 in Redwood City, California, after reports last week that the two companies were close to making the deal.

In a release, James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit, said the company “sees an opportunity to build on our strengths and extend our leadership position in the wearables category. With this acquisition, we’re well positioned to accelerate the expansion of our platform and ecosystem to make Fitbit a vital part of daily life for a wider set of consumers.”

Reports speculate the purchase price was less than $40 million, and say Fitbit plans to offer jobs to most of the current software engineers at Pebble, although founder and current CEO, Eric Migicovsky will no longer remain with then firm after the transition, according to theverge.com.

The present market for smartwatches is being viewed as weak, although Apple just announced its best week ever for the Apple Watch, even while others are saying the shipments of Apple Watches are down over 70 percent from the previous year.

Fitbit themselves lowered their forecast for the upcoming holiday quarter, citing in third-quarter earnings calls the industry is beginning to slow or soften. Some major tech companies have decided to not release new smartwatches this year in response to the market.

Pebble launched as a successful crowdfunded project, and won over many tech fans with their devices, as well as intriguing app developers who wanted to build apps for the open-sourced smartwatches.

Pebble, toyed with the Core, a display-free device that offered GPS tracking and offline music listening capabilities, but generally focused on its health and fitness tracking products.

In an announcement on the company’s website, Pebble said they were no longer able to operate as an independent entity, and had made the decision to close the company. Their newest products, Pebble Time 2 and Core have been cancelled, according to the site, and refunds are expected to be sent out in the next four to eight weeks.

Current owners of Pebble smartwatches can expect their devices to work, but future functionality will be reduced because of a lack of support for the software.

Air Force ups cybersecurity game, signs $19 million pact

Dec 7, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

According to an article on fortune.com, the United States Air Force has committed to spend $18.8 million on cybersecurtity, inking a contract with Endgame to provide digital defense software to the branch of the military.

Recent reports from the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board, made up of a committee of tech experts under the direction of the Secretary of Defense, warned of pockets of vulnerability in the infrastructure of the military, that could lead to hacking and computer-based attacks.

This purchase seems to reflect the Air Force is prepared to take action to protect its systems, and to equip their forces with the latest available technologies to defend its assets. The branch announced last year they had committed $1.5 million to a program to test Endgame’s products, and now they are saying they plan to deploy the product across thousands of internal computers.

These computers, used by cyber protection teams, will monitor hacking and offensive activity and participate in exercises within the organization to test their ability to thwart attacks, using hackers to attempt a break-in.

The article described the deal as “potentially the largest of the year” in the segment of the market that involves “endpoint detection and response,” a part of the overall cybersecurity industry that is estimated at $74 billion.

Saying the government is often seen as falling behind in technology, CEO of Endgame, Nate Flick, himself a former Marine captain with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, added, “But in the case of cybersecurity, parts of the Department of Defense and military are the leading edge of adopters in the world.”

Flick took over as CEO in 2012 and began to focus the company’s efforts on defensive tools, attracting security professionals who were seeking to actively eliminate adversaries from their Information Technology systems. Since the company’s founding in 2008, the firm has maintained a close relationship with the military and intelligence communities of the government.

Apple responds to claims of battery problems with iPhone 6s

Nov 21, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

Claims that the iPhone 6s is shutting down unexpectedly with a fair amount of battery left on the device has prompted Apple to announce they have found the issue and will replace the batteries on a certain number of phones, according to an article on fortune.com.

The Chinese consumer-protection agency, China Consumers Association, has called on the tech giant to respond to a number of Chinese users reporting the problems with the 6s model of the iPhone, continued the article.

The agency released an open letter last week saying, “In view that Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s series cellphones in China have a considerable number of users, and the number of people who’ve reported this problem is rather many, China Consumer Association has already made a query with Apple.”

Apple responded quickly that they had identified the problem and it would not be a safety hazard to the phone’s users. The company confirmed there were only a small number of devices affected, and they pledged to replace the batteries for free at one of its retail stores, or through an Authorized Service Provider.

The phones in the program were purchased between the months of September and October of 2015, and the company says they fall within a range of serial numbers, but did not immediately identify the range of numbers.

On the company’s support web page, they caution that any damage to the phones must be corrected before the batteries would be replaced.

“If your iPhone 6s has any damage such as a cracked screen which impairs the replacement of the battery, that issue will need to be resolved prior to the battery replacement. In some cases, there may be a cost associated with the repair,” according to the company.

Apple also announced that wireless carriers would not be participating in the battery replacement program.

Uber Feed may be cool, but will anyone use it?

Nov 3, 2016 by Jerry Newberry Leave a Comment

Over the next few weeks, Uber plans to implement a major re-design of its smartphone app to make it work faster, be easier to use, and be more transparent about costs and travel times, but a new added feature is getting a lot of conversation.

Uber Feed, according to an article on wired.com, kicks in after you have been picked up and features a set of cards at the bottom of your screen with suggestions for services you may be interested in or that you may find to be useful while killing the time on the way to your destination.

Things like finding a restaurant near your destination, or browsing through their menus as you ride along. You may also see an app that allows you to chat with a party you are planning to meet to give them an update on your estimated arrival time, or to let them know your plans have changed. The company expects other third-party apps to join in as the service moves forward.

At least the company hopes that is what you will do. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said, “Having a set of experiences and information that are catered to you while you’re in the car can make the trip better and make you more informed about your destination.”

Sounds good, but in reality, you can already do all of this, just not inside the Uber app itself. The big question is will users see not having to switch apps to find a restaurant or chat with your appointment as a worthy advantage, or will they stick with the apps they are familiar with and continue to use them?

One of the hurdles the app must surmount is do people really want to spend the ride time doing things like pouring over a menu, and, if so, how often will Uber’s suggestions be important to the riders?

Still, the suggestion cards will likely be an improvement over the map showing the progress of the trip currently on the screen. It remains to be seen if the re-design will be seen as beneficial to the service and its users.