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How to force drones to the ground
With multiple airport closures recently, we looked at methods to keep drones under control
With multiple airport closures recently, we looked at methods to keep drones under control
Airports have all kinds of security and safety challenges. Amongst the latest are drones. Around the world, we have seen disruptions at airports in the last year, because someone was flying drones in the restricted airspace. That is reckless and highly dangerous, and while the amount of incidents seems to be indicating that someone is disrupting the airspace on purpose, experts say that most of them are simply “idiots” who don’t know the rules.
The worst impact so far was an annoying and expensive airport shutdown in Gatwick during last year’s Christmas travels. Should a plane ever hit a drone, though, it might end up in a catastrophe. We spoke to a few experts to figure out which approaches there could be to stop drones. Because, as a policeman said after the Gatwick incident: “We could try to shoot them down with a rifle or a shotgun if they come close enough, but these are not very effective methods.” There are other methods on the market, including nets or ballistics, but here we are looking at methods to stop drones without destroying them.
“Drones are an amazing problem”, says Vitaly Mzokov, who heads Kaspersky’s innovation hub which recently launched an Anti-Drone solution. “They have so many benefits, but they have become so inexpensive that you now find lots of inexperienced drone pilots using them.” He agrees that in most cases these interruptions happen not out of malicious intent, but rather because of ignorance. “Often, it’s just a matter of having fun, without thinking how their actions could negatively influence other people.”
Matt Wixey, who leads the Ethical Hacking team at PwC, used ultrasound to stop drones. “Many drones have an ultrasonic altimeter, the same thing as used in submarines and by bats and dolphins. It sends down a pulse that hits an obstacle, bounces back up, and the drone can work out how far away it is from the ground.” Their approach: echo-location jamming. “We kind of blast the drone with sound of the same frequency and it totally messes up the drones navigation system.” So, the drone would either think that it is on the ground or at maximum height and start going up or down. And it becomes completely unresponsive to commands.”
And that is where the weakness of that approach comes in – and why it is not something that can be used in practice. “The issue is that it is really hard to predict whether the drone is going up or going down. You have to be really precise where you interrupt the echolocation – down to microseconds.”
Mzokov’s team is also jamming drones, but they use concentrated radio waves. “The first step is to detect and identify the drones on long distance. If our system figures out that an object is a drone and not a bird, we then create radio noise. That noise disconnects it from the remote control or the GPS signal.” The effect on standard civil drones: they will descend to the ground or stay in the position they were, as that is the safety mechanism when they lose connection. “There are multiple ways to stop drones, but we believe we use the easiest method: confusing the drone to force it out of the danger zone.”
There are other vectors to interfere with drones. “The drone we looked at previously, was basically just a flying Wifi access point”, Matt Wixey recalls. “In the case of drones, even sending legitimate commands is enough to hijack them”, says Eyal Itkin, a Security vulnerability researcher at Check Point Software. “I don’t need to find vulnerabilities; I just need to connect to it. That’s easy for an attacker.”
Every day, amazing people create incredible new things. Who would have thought five years ago, that 3D-printing could have a medical dimension and sooner or later we would be able to print internal organs? Some people obviously did. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have become real.
Most pioneers don’t wake up one day and think “I will now change the world!”. They are people like you and me that had the right thought at the perfect moment. This section is portraying those people. Those who woke up wrote down an idea and have changed the world. And those who created a business and are still struggling to make their idea work, but have shown a potential to create a better planet.
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Technology-led progress means a frantic pace that can stop us learning from technology’s past. Tomorrow Unlocked’s new audio series Fast Forward examines forces shaping technology by looking at the recent past. It distills practical learnings that might have been missed in the flurry of forward momentum.
Written and presented by BBC radio broadcaster, author and cultural theorist Ken Hollings, the 6-part series includes insightful interviews with industry, media and academic tech experts who have an eye on the future, against a backdrop of original music and immersive sound design. If you’re an innovator, a futurist or a thinker, listen to Fast Forward.
Hear more about the themes in the series and why trash is a goldmine for the internet in this episode of Unlocked, in conversation with Ken Hollings.
Subscribe to future episodes on these audio streaming services:
Spotify
Apple
Google Podcasts
Amazon music
Podbean
How we can get our data priorities right in the age of The Cloud, with guests Prehistory of the Cloud author and Associate Professor Tung-Hui Hu of University of Michigan and Tanya Basu, senior reporter for MIT Technology.
Carting listeners through the supermarket aisles to see how interactive experience and augmented reality are shaping shopping, with design researcher Benjamin Parry and Professor of Urban Technologies and Planning at MIT Senseable City Lab, Carlo Ratti.
Out June 16 2021
While COVID-19 ushered in a new era of ‘digital suburbs,’ Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Shoshanna Saxe (University of Toronto) outlines how future cities should adapt to technology. Architect and filmmaker Sarah Akigbogun (Women in Architecture) talks about how suburbia reinforced inequalities technology may be about to help break down.
Out June 23 2021
Set in the haunted Victorian parlor, we look at a famous test for machine intelligence from that era and its implications today, with artist Shardcore and AI tech author James Bridle.
Out June 30 2021
100 years after Karel Čapek’s play coined the term ‘robot,’ we explore the automated workspace and ask why machines should look and behave like us, with Dr. Beth Singler of University of Cambridge and Professor Alan Winfield of Bristol Robotics Lab.
Out July 7 2021
The final episode considers new space missions like the lunar space station, mining on the Moon and crewed missions to Mars. With Professor Chris Welch of International Space University, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, Deputy Director of International Institute of Air and Space Law and Space engineer Vinita Marwaha Madill, founder of Rocket Women.
Out July 14 2021
Welcome to Taiwan!
hacker:HUNTER Cashing In, Episode Two
The Carbanak Group attacks a bank in Taiwan and sends 22 money mules into the country. What they didn’t anticipate: within a few hours the Taiwanese police publish surveillance pictures of all the money mules. The hunt begins.
Taylor Rees is one of the most exciting filmmakers around, making documentaries from forgotten volcanic archipelagos to red-hot reflections on the American civil war. Who is Taylor Rees and what other documentaries has she made that you must see?
Director. Adventurer. Photographer. Environmental documentary filmmaker. The list goes on, but this description gives you an idea of her versatility and talent.
Taylor Rees’ work focuses on environmental and humanitarian issues, exploring stories beneath the surface with insatiable curiosity, deepening public understanding of natural resource conflicts, climate change and human rights. Her middle name is Freesolo: No moniker but a lasting reminder of her parents’ love of free climbing.
Her career dates back to a Masters’s degree from Yale in environmental management and anthropology. This is the foundation for her stories, giving them a rigorous scientific and social justice approach.
Stylistically, Taylor’s work uses the power of landscape – skies, mountain ranges and large expanses. She also looks at a landscape’s story – the intricacies of its beauty, connection and how life interacts within different places. For storytellers out there, her TED talk is a must.
Taylor Rees said in a recent interview with culture and adventure journalist Simon Schreyer, “The love of what’s beautiful to me is deeply personal and it gives me a lot of intention, desire and drive to find aspects of beauty within a human life, or in a landscape, or in a way to incorporate that beauty in my own life. It’s like an indescribable phenomenon, that we don’t even know how to talk about rationally.”
Her first film Down To Nothing follows a five-person team who set out on an ambitious trek to find out whether Burmese peak Hkakabo Razi is really Southeast Asia’s highest point.
Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is a climber’s dream. When director Taylor Rees and climbers Renan Ozturk and Alex Honnold choose a specific route to the top, unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the weather puts a swift stop to their expectations. What follows is remarkable.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Life Coach
Is there room for glamour in the testosterone-filled world of ski mountaineering? Taylor and her team ask big questions as they follow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson in a stunning depiction of masculinity and femininity in sport.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Mentors: Hilaree Nelson
Both Black history and US history, Ashes to Ashes is one of Taylor Rees’ more poignant and at times horrific explorations of humanity. She follows Winfred Rembert, an artist and rare survivor of a Jim Crow-era attempted lynching, as he explains a dark past.
When the guardian of an almost unreachable archipelago in the Far East of Russia hitched a ride with Taylor and her team, no one expected the result. From Kurils With Love’s team includes Rees’ spouse and fellow filmmaker Renan Ozturk. They set out to make a classic adventure story but what they got was something far more powerful.
Taylor’s most recent work is set on Mount Everest and narrated by Renan Ozturk. The big question: Who was the first to reach the summit? Rees directs this gripping and sometimes strained look at the history of Everest expeditions, the fraught relationship between indigenous guides and the commercialization of a sacred mountain.
If her previous work is anything to go by, the future is bright. To make sure you don’t miss her next project, keep up to date with Taylor’s adventures on her Instagram or the Taylor Freesolo Rees website.
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Can we compete against climate change with solar power?
Watch this unlikely thought experiment and find out if energy generation technologies might be the solution to global warming.
Watch this unlikely thought experiment and find out if energy generation technologies might be the solution to global warming.
Taylor Rees is one of the most exciting filmmakers around, making documentaries from forgotten volcanic archipelagos to red-hot reflections on the American civil war. Who is Taylor Rees and what other documentaries has she made that you must see?
Director. Adventurer. Photographer. Environmental documentary filmmaker. The list goes on, but this description gives you an idea of her versatility and talent.
Taylor Rees’ work focuses on environmental and humanitarian issues, exploring stories beneath the surface with insatiable curiosity, deepening public understanding of natural resource conflicts, climate change and human rights. Her middle name is Freesolo: No moniker but a lasting reminder of her parents’ love of free climbing.
Her career dates back to a Masters’s degree from Yale in environmental management and anthropology. This is the foundation for her stories, giving them a rigorous scientific and social justice approach.
Stylistically, Taylor’s work uses the power of landscape – skies, mountain ranges and large expanses. She also looks at a landscape’s story – the intricacies of its beauty, connection and how life interacts within different places. For storytellers out there, her TED talk is a must.
Taylor Rees said in a recent interview with culture and adventure journalist Simon Schreyer, “The love of what’s beautiful to me is deeply personal and it gives me a lot of intention, desire and drive to find aspects of beauty within a human life, or in a landscape, or in a way to incorporate that beauty in my own life. It’s like an indescribable phenomenon, that we don’t even know how to talk about rationally.”
Her first film Down To Nothing follows a five-person team who set out on an ambitious trek to find out whether Burmese peak Hkakabo Razi is really Southeast Asia’s highest point.
Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is a climber’s dream. When director Taylor Rees and climbers Renan Ozturk and Alex Honnold choose a specific route to the top, unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the weather puts a swift stop to their expectations. What follows is remarkable.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Life Coach
Is there room for glamour in the testosterone-filled world of ski mountaineering? Taylor and her team ask big questions as they follow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson in a stunning depiction of masculinity and femininity in sport.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Mentors: Hilaree Nelson
Both Black history and US history, Ashes to Ashes is one of Taylor Rees’ more poignant and at times horrific explorations of humanity. She follows Winfred Rembert, an artist and rare survivor of a Jim Crow-era attempted lynching, as he explains a dark past.
When the guardian of an almost unreachable archipelago in the Far East of Russia hitched a ride with Taylor and her team, no one expected the result. From Kurils With Love’s team includes Rees’ spouse and fellow filmmaker Renan Ozturk. They set out to make a classic adventure story but what they got was something far more powerful.
Taylor’s most recent work is set on Mount Everest and narrated by Renan Ozturk. The big question: Who was the first to reach the summit? Rees directs this gripping and sometimes strained look at the history of Everest expeditions, the fraught relationship between indigenous guides and the commercialization of a sacred mountain.
If her previous work is anything to go by, the future is bright. To make sure you don’t miss her next project, keep up to date with Taylor’s adventures on her Instagram or the Taylor Freesolo Rees website.
Show Less
Topic:
SpaceX's Transporter-1-Mission makes history
Watch the Falcon 9 rocket send a record-breaking 143 satellites and spacecraft into space.
Watch the Falcon 9 rocket send a record-breaking 143 satellites and spacecraft into space.
Taylor Rees is one of the most exciting filmmakers around, making documentaries from forgotten volcanic archipelagos to red-hot reflections on the American civil war. Who is Taylor Rees and what other documentaries has she made that you must see?
Director. Adventurer. Photographer. Environmental documentary filmmaker. The list goes on, but this description gives you an idea of her versatility and talent.
Taylor Rees’ work focuses on environmental and humanitarian issues, exploring stories beneath the surface with insatiable curiosity, deepening public understanding of natural resource conflicts, climate change and human rights. Her middle name is Freesolo: No moniker but a lasting reminder of her parents’ love of free climbing.
Her career dates back to a Masters’s degree from Yale in environmental management and anthropology. This is the foundation for her stories, giving them a rigorous scientific and social justice approach.
Stylistically, Taylor’s work uses the power of landscape – skies, mountain ranges and large expanses. She also looks at a landscape’s story – the intricacies of its beauty, connection and how life interacts within different places. For storytellers out there, her TED talk is a must.
Taylor Rees said in a recent interview with culture and adventure journalist Simon Schreyer, “The love of what’s beautiful to me is deeply personal and it gives me a lot of intention, desire and drive to find aspects of beauty within a human life, or in a landscape, or in a way to incorporate that beauty in my own life. It’s like an indescribable phenomenon, that we don’t even know how to talk about rationally.”
Her first film Down To Nothing follows a five-person team who set out on an ambitious trek to find out whether Burmese peak Hkakabo Razi is really Southeast Asia’s highest point.
Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is a climber’s dream. When director Taylor Rees and climbers Renan Ozturk and Alex Honnold choose a specific route to the top, unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the weather puts a swift stop to their expectations. What follows is remarkable.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Life Coach
Is there room for glamour in the testosterone-filled world of ski mountaineering? Taylor and her team ask big questions as they follow ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson in a stunning depiction of masculinity and femininity in sport.
Watch Taylor Rees’ film Mentors: Hilaree Nelson
Both Black history and US history, Ashes to Ashes is one of Taylor Rees’ more poignant and at times horrific explorations of humanity. She follows Winfred Rembert, an artist and rare survivor of a Jim Crow-era attempted lynching, as he explains a dark past.
When the guardian of an almost unreachable archipelago in the Far East of Russia hitched a ride with Taylor and her team, no one expected the result. From Kurils With Love’s team includes Rees’ spouse and fellow filmmaker Renan Ozturk. They set out to make a classic adventure story but what they got was something far more powerful.
Taylor’s most recent work is set on Mount Everest and narrated by Renan Ozturk. The big question: Who was the first to reach the summit? Rees directs this gripping and sometimes strained look at the history of Everest expeditions, the fraught relationship between indigenous guides and the commercialization of a sacred mountain.
If her previous work is anything to go by, the future is bright. To make sure you don’t miss her next project, keep up to date with Taylor’s adventures on her Instagram or the Taylor Freesolo Rees website.
Show Less
Topic:
Women in tech – start your career now
“Recently, a young woman approached me during my daughter´s cheerleading practice. She asked me what I do for a living. She’d been thinking about her future and had overheard me talking about cybersecurity. We spent some time talking about my role and my passion. At age 17, she was already concerned that being a woman in the industry might be hard.” – Daniela Alvarez de Lugo, General Manager at Kaspersky.
What would you have advised her if you were in this situation?
This year for International Women’s Day, people around the world are talking about how we can improve equality, so the next generation of girls can achieve whatever they want in their life and career. So, we asked women in tech business: How can we get there faster
Luckily, we do not live in the 1960s anymore, where it was very unusual and nearly impossible for a woman to work in the tech or science branches. But even back then we do find success stories, like the example of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson shows.
No doubt – the share of women working in tech is still sadly small. According to a research from Adeva, the ratio of women in computing jobs is around 25 percent and only 3 percent of female students would consider a career in technology as their first choice.
“Ten years ago, I would’ve warned her that in tech, she’d have to work harder than male colleagues. I would have said, ‘Hide your emotions and adopt a chilled image.’ But instead, I told her, ‘Choose a career that makes you want to go for more every day. Your intelligence, hard work, passion and honesty will make you stand out.”, says Daniela Alvarez de Lugo.
Daniela Alvarez de Lugo, General Manager at Kaspersky
Indeed, girls and young professionals should not be afraid of the numbers above, in contrary, they should encourage women to be part of the change. All they need is to hear about the career’s opportunities and advantages.
“I believe gender equality will benefit all industries. Men and women have different needs, ideas and visions. Diversity is a way to improve and expand.” – Vicky Piria, Racing Driver.
Vicky Piria, Racing Driver
Our society is getting more and more digital every day and we can’t imagine living without technologies like our smartphone or computer. Accordingly, there are many tech companies worldwide and a lot of them are counting to the most successful organizations.
But in the cybersecurity sector, for instance, it can be hard for young professionals to enter, according to Noushin Shabab, security researcher at Kaspersky. “Many organizations recruit only experts. This leaves few opportunities for graduates and other newcomers who want to start their cyber security career. We need to create more internships and jobs for recent grads. But more important than hiring the same number of men and women is building a culture that lets women and men work and grow in a balanced, healthy and safe environment. If we love where we work, we enjoy and achieve more.”
Noushin Shabab, Security Researcher at Kaspersky
Luckily, there have been organizations already, which have the mission to empower and support women with the access and community they need to succeed in tech business:
Those working in tech, and particularly cybersecurity, know the importance of anticipating what’s next and getting ahead of it. It may seem like we’ve been trying to solve the same problem forever, but the progress is there for all to see.
The task now is to see it through. Let’s all play our part to promise today’s children who are starting school that when they begin their careers in a few decades, the world will be a place where there are no limits on their ambitions. Please share this article over your social media, if you want to make an impact and empower the talents of tomorrow. You may reach the girl who will stop the cyber virus, which endangers the whole world in 2030?
Smartening up vaginal infection diagnosis with high-tech underwear
Anyone who has a vagina, whether they’re a woman, girl, non-binary or trans person, may experience the discomfort of a vaginal infection at some point in their life. Until now, there’s been little or no innovation to help identify these conditions.
Enter: ALMA. It’s smart underwear that can empower accurate home diagnosis without an awkward trip to a clinic. How does it work?
From thinking fridges to talking watches, ‘smart’ tech (also known as the internet of things) has exploded in recent years. But there’s nothing like this intelligent underwear. Created by four friends as part of the Re-FREAM research project, ALMA is a non-invasive wearable device that monitors vaginal discharge to help those who suffer from vaginal infections to identify the problem earlier.
Vaginal infections – such as bacterial vaginosis and candidal vulvovaginitis (vaginal thrush) – are a common problem. Stigma or the inconvenience of making an appointment with a health professional often prevents sufferers seeking early diagnosis. But fast treatment can reduce the infection duration and severity of the symptoms. That’s where ALMA aims to help – the low-cost, reusable undergarment gathers data to monitor vaginal health.
How did lockdown affect creativity? TWELVE stories
Snapshots on creativity during the year that changed everything.
Snapshots on creativity during the year that changed everything.
What does a pandemic do to our creativity? 2020 was a year of uncertainty and isolation, but many used life behind closed doors to create in new ways. From yoga-fusion to quarantine imaginations, TWELVE captures one-minute intimate stories from lockdowns around the world.
Many things helped us through lockdown, but creativity was high on the list. In the wake of COVID-19, millions took to writing, singing, painting and other forms of expression to make the most of the time. If we couldn’t be creative in our normal lives, how would it be behind closed doors?
In partnership with The Community Creatives, TWELVE captures creatives’ lives during the COVID crisis. These one-minute, insightful short films are all about creation, connection and change.
Keen to get involved? Sign up to make sure you hear about our next callout.
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