Nuts and Volts - January 2017

10 January 2017

Killer on the Loose

It’s becoming painfully evident that we all need to be careful about what gets plugged into our USB ports. For example, Australian police have been investigating a number of cases in which people found nicely packaged thumb drives in their mailboxes and assumed that they must be some kind of free sample or clever advertisement. After plugging them in, what looked like a promotional offer from a streaming service like Netflix appeared, but in reality, the drives were loaded with ransomware.

More recently, a company in Hong Kong has been selling a potentially nasty product called USB Kill (www. usbkill.com). Ostensibly a piece of equipment designed for testing a device’s resistance to power surges, it draws power from a USB port, uses that power to charge some capacitors, and then discharges 240V back into the port. These spikes continue at a rate of several per second until: (a) you are satisfied that the device is sufficiently surge resistant; or (b) the device is fried.

The company has revealed that more than 95 percent of the tested devices were in some way affected, and “almost all consumer-level hardware fails when tested against USB Kill.” It’s not difficult to imagine the mischief that can be created with one in both private and publicly accessible equipment. Plus, with a price tag of € 49.95 (about US $55), it’s within the budget of most pranksters.

Interestingly, the company is working both sides of the street and will also sell you its USB Protection Shield (€ 13.95/$15.50) which protects a connected device not only from power surges but also prevents “juice jacking.” This is where things like public charging stations can use the USB data connection to access stored data in your device or inject malware into it. Buy both at once, and you’ll receive a 50 percent discount on the shield plus free shipping. Such a deal! ▲

Small Energy Device Introduced

Quite a few Io T (Internet of Things) devices are designed to operate under power that they harvest from the surrounding environment, thus eliminating the need to change batteries periodically. To function properly, such devices need to incorporate a power source that is compact, yet high capacity; has a long maintenance-free life; and offers fast charging and discharging. With this in mind, Murata ( www.murata.com) has developed a lithium-ion electro-chemical system that is basically a modified phone battery.

The original product was dubbed the UMAC — a cylindrical device. To meet the demand for a thinner, larger capacity device, the company now has the UMAL laminate-type unit, offering a low profile of 2.0 mm, 12 mAh of capacity, low internal resistance (200 mΩ), and improved life cycle characteristics. The device is capable of continuous discharge at a C-rate of 10 (120 mA), and the charge recovery rate is 90 percent or better after 5,000 cycles. Murata plans to continue to expand its product lineup to meet future demand for even larger capacity. ▲

Shine a Light

In what is referred to as the μAFS project, a German research alliance headed up by OSRAM Licht AG ( www.osram.com; better known as Sylvania in North America) and working with functional requirements specified by Daimler AG (www. daimler.com), has developed a new automotive lighting system that promises to revolutionize road safety. In the system, each headlight contains three LED light sources, each with 1,024 individually controllable high-res light points. This means that the headlights can be adapted to provide optimal lighting to suit any traffic situation or light condition.

According to a press release, the lights “take account of every conceivable bend in the road so that there are no dark peripheral areas.” Sensors in the vehicle analyze the car’s surroundings to illuminate oncoming traffic without shining into the eyes of oncoming drivers, so it will no longer be necessary to flip over to dims.

The so-far unnamed system is still in the form of a demonstration model, but is highly likely to appear in vehicles reasonably soon. (A relatively primitive version is already used in Mercedes-Benz E-Class cars.) It looks like we’ve come a long way since the sealed-beam headlight was introduced in 1939. ▲