·March 2, 2023·2 min read

Emerging Technology – February 2023

911 EMERGENCY SOS VIA SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS

In Nov 2022 Apple and Globalstar partnership started the Emergency SOS via Satellite service.
iPhone 14 will try to route 911 calls to our provider and to other networks, if not available you can tap Emergency Text via Satellite to send and emergency text message via satellite to 911.
Use Emergency SOS via satellite on your iPhone 14 – Apple Support

AUTOMOTIVE SECURITY & KILL SWITCH TO BE ADDED TO NEW VEHICLES IN 2026

Deep within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by President Joe Biden is a passage that requires automakers to begin including a “vehicle kill switch” within the operating software of new cars. How it relates to infrastructure, investment, or jobs is a good question. But could this be used for other purposes other than intended? Could a hacker or foreign enemy gain access and take control over our vehicles? Automotive people have already hacked vehicle smog systems, why not the Kill Switches. With this being the case why can’t enemies hack into our vehicles to shut down our transportation system. Who is responsible for any kidnaping, death or an injury resulting from the illegal activation of the system?
Biden Infrastructure Bill Mandates Vehicle Kill Switches By 2026 (musclecarsandtrucks.com)
Automotive Cybersecurity Community of Interest (COI) Webinar | CSRC (nist.gov)

SMOKE FIRE AND RF SIGNALS

They say where there is smoke there is fire. But you can also say where there is smoke there is also RF attenuation of radio waves. There’s been studies conducted, but more is needed as attenuation varies depending on density of the smoke and which way the wind is blowing in a fire. They say the loss is between 0.03 to 0.05db/meter at 150MHz, but information did not address the density of the smoke or address the type of smoke. Should this be the case then attenuation levels at 0.5Km or 0.31 miles could be as much as -25db, which is a significant RF signal loss not normally accounted for in a study. IEEE December 2022 Antennas and Propagation Magazine had an interesting article Level Variability of Radio Signals Propagating through Fire.

Stanford University Battery Breakthrough for next generation of Lithium Batteries

Scientists at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory claim to have resolved this mystery about short circuiting cells. Cause is mechanical stress during recharging and nanoscopic fissures in materials.
Stanford Breakthrough Paves Way Next-Generation Lithium Metal Batteries That Charge Very Quickly (scitechdaily.com)

NIST High Performance computing security workshop March 15-16 in MD

Must be registered in advance to gain entry to campus.

3rd High-Performance Computing Security Workshop | NIST

The 17century Dodo Bird and Woolly Mammoth to live again?

The Billion-dollar Colossal Biosciences startup company proposes to bring back the dodo bird and Woolly Mammoth. This is the latest attempt to revive extinct animal species. The dodo bird has been extinct since the 17century. Scientists can’t recreate life from scratch, so they will have to figure out a way to put the dodo-specific genes into the embryo of a living animal.