Entry 2: Amazon's Alexa

Who is Alexa?

As technology continues to advance, companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon are continuing to compete to come out with the next best thing to improve our daily lives. This past year, Amazon came out with the first sophisticated home based virtual assistant, called "Alexa." While smart phones are the most convenient personal assistant while on the go, they are not convenient when someone is working at home. The Amazon Echo and now the Amazon Dot house the Internet-connected, Alexa-powered speaker that answers questions and runs apps.  When prompted through voice commands Alexa can play music through multiple different applications, check the weather in your set location, check for traffic, set timers, and even order goods off of your Amazon.com account. These are just a few of the countless functions that Alexa can perform. Through this technology, Amazon is building an invisible operating system for running a broad range of aspects of daily life. Once of main advantage's of Amazon's Alexa over other products put out by Google or Apple is that, "Amazon isn't partial to any particular platform the way Google may be with Android or Apple with iOS, allowing Alexa to offer the same experience with little influence based on the other devices a user may own."


How Alexa Works

What makes this product unique is that the Echo and Alexa are not one in the same. Alexa is the voice assistant while Echo is simply Alexa's "first customer." Amazon is using a typical operating system to control the home. First, the company created a simple “Skills” framework that allowed smart devices to connect to Alexa and be controlled through a relatively strict verbal framework.

While I do not see the absolute necessity for owning an Amazon Echo, I have used the tool in multiple situations and can attest that it is a highly intelligent piece of technology and is pretty fun to use.

References 

• http://time.com/4624067/amazon-echo-alexa-ces-2017/
• https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-operating-system/

Entry 1: Biometric Security

Human Biometrics

Biometrics are the measurable parameters related to human characteristics that make each human being unique. These metrics include finger prints, palm prints, retinal scans, facial recognition and DNA. The analysis and comparison of these metrics are now being used by computer scientists for security purposes.  Because biometric identifiers are unique to each individual it tightens security by making identity verification more reliable than a passport or drivers license that can easily be forged. The most common form of Biometric Security that we see today is Apple's use of the fingerprint to unlock the latest models of the iPhone. Each person has a unique fingerprint that they input into the iPhone's memory and when the correct fingerprint is scanned and recognized, the iPhone becomes unlocked. Due to the uniqueness of biometric identifiers they are difficult to forge, but if forged a person's entire identity is compromised.

Woodrow Hartzog, an Associate Professor of Law at Samford University stated, "[Biometrics] can be great because they are really secure. It’s hard to fake someone’s ear, eye, gait, or other things that make an individual uniquely identifiable. But if a biometric is compromised, you’re done. You can’t get another ear.”

Biometric Security and Computer Science

Computer science is crucial for the success of biometric identification. "Biometric identification refers to any technology that does one of two things: identifies you or authenticates your identity. For identification, an image is run against a database of images. For authentication, an image has to be accessed from the device to confirm a match. The latter is typically used for unlocking computers, phones, and applications." In this case the data are a human's unique biometric characteristics. While this technology has rapidly expanded since Apple's introduction of the fingerprint scanner in 2013,  police have been using fingerprints to identify suspects since the 1980s.

References

• https://www.wired.com/2016/03/biometrics-coming-along-serious-security-concerns/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics
• http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/biometrics.html
• http://www.inquisitr.com/846786/thermal-imaging-next-big-thing-in-biometric-security/
• http://www.sgssystems.com/security-systems-west-midlands/biometric-security-systems/