How to boost your WiFi speed by choosing the right channel

How to boost your WiFi speed by choosing the right channel

• By Jamie Lendino on March 26, 2015 at 2:18 pm
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Wireless networks have come a long way in the past 15 years. And yet, sustained WiFi speeds are still a vexing problem in a lot of situations. A number of things can come into play, such as the way your router is set up, whether there’s nearby interference, if you live in an apartment building or a separate house, and how far apart your devices are from the router. Fortunately, there’s always a way to fix slow transfer speeds.
If you’ve ever messed around with your WiFi router’s settings, you’ve probably seen the word channel. Most routers have the channel set to Auto, but I’m sure many of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. Well, it turns out some channels are indeed much faster — but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and change them just yet. Read on to find out more about 802.11 channels, interference, and the massive difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi.

Channels 1, 6, and 11

First of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because as of the start of 2015, almost all WiFi installations still use the 2.4GHz band. 802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz — but thanks to backwards compatibility and dual-radio routers and devices, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.

All of the versions of WiFi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 2400 and 2500MHz. These paltry 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. As you’ve probably worked out, 14 lots of 20MHz is a lot more than 100MHz — and as a result, every 2.4GHz channel overlaps with at least two (but usually four) other channels (see diagram above). As you can probably imagine, using overlapping channels is bad — in fact, it’s the primary reason for awful throughput on your wireless network.
Fortunately, channels 1, 6, and 11 are spaced far enough apart that they don’t overlap. On a non-MIMO setup (i.e. 802.11 a, b, or g) you should always try to use channel 1, 6, or 11. If you use 802.11n with 20MHz channels, stick to channels 1, 6, and 11 — if you want to use 40MHz channels, be aware that the airwaves might be very congested, unless you live in a detached house in the middle of nowhere.

What channel should you use in a built-up area?

If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choice — but depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a much better choice than the others.
For example, if you’re using channel 1, but someone next door is annoyingly using channel 2, then your throughput will plummet. In that situation, you would have to change to channel 11 to completely avoid the interference (though 6 would be pretty good as well). It might be tempting to use a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 — but remember that you will then be the cause of interference (and everyone on 1, 6, and 11 will stomp on your throughput, anyway).
In an ideal world, you would talk to your neighbors and get every router to use channels 1, 6, or 11. Bear in mind that interior walls do a pretty good job of attenuating (weakening) a signal. If there’s a brick wall between you and a neighbor, you could probably both use channel 1 without interfering with each other. But if it’s a thin wall (or there’s lots of windows), you should use different channels.
There are tools that can help you find the clearest channel, such as Vistumbler, but it’s probably easier to just switch between channels 1, 6, and 11 until you find one that works well. (If you have two laptops, you can copy a file between them to test the throughput of each channel.)

But what about 5GHz?

Get ready for lots of antennas.

The great thing about 5GHz (802.11n and 802.11ac), because there’s much more free space at the higher frequencies, is that it offers 23 non-overlapping 20MHz channels!
It’s also worth pointing out that, starting with 802.11n, wireless technology in general is a lot more advanced than the olden days of 802.11b and g. If you own a modern 802.11n router (i.e. if you bought a router in the last couple of years), it likely has some fancy hardware inside that chooses the right channel and modifies the output power to maximize throughput and minimize interference.
If you’re using the 5GHz band, and your walls aren’t paper-thin, then attenuation and the general lack of 5GHz devices should mean there’s very little interference in your apartment — possibly even allowing you to use the fatter 40, 80, and 160MHz channels if you feel like it.
Eventually, as everyone upgrades to newer hardware and moves towards 5GHz, picking the right channel will mostly become a thing of the past. There may still be some cases where it makes sense to fine-tune your router’s channel selection. But when you’re dealing with MIMO setups (up to eight in 802.11ac), it’s generally a better idea to let your router do its own thing. Eventually, of course, 5GHz will fill up as well — but hopefully by then, we’ll have worked out how to use even higher frequencies (60GHz WiGig) or entirely new antenna designs (pCells, infinite capacity vortex beams) to cope with our wireless networking demands.
Sebastian Anthony contributed to this report.

Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi review

Where Chi stands for compromise

• By Dan Seifert
• on March 23, 2015 12:00 am
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• @dcseifert

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Take a look at the side profile of your laptop. Chances are, it's anywhere from a half an inch to an inch thick, replete with a handful of USB ports, a power plug, headphone jack, and maybe an SD card slot. I can all but guarantee that it's thicker than the laptop I'm currently using to write this article, Asus' Transformer Book T300 Chi. The $699 T300 Chi ($899 as tested) is a sliver of a computer, closer in size to the average tablet than a full-blown laptop.
In fact, the T300 has a lot more in common with an iPad than an ultrabook. As with many Windows 8.1 machines, it's a convertible laptop, with a detachable keyboard and full touchscreen. But unlike many other convertibles, the T300's tablet portion is only 7.6mm thick and it doesn't have any full-size USB ports, HDMI ports, or SD card slots. Like Microsoft's Surface Pro 3, all of the T300's major components are crammed into the tablet area, including its 12.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel IPS display, Core M processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD. The Core M processor lets the T300 do away with the fans (just like Apple's upcoming new MacBook) and gives it that tablet-like profile. When attached to its Bluetooth keyboard, the T300 is still only 16.5mm thick, though the combined 3.14lbs of the two parts is more laptop-like than tablet-like.

In place of the standard ports you might expect to find on a laptop, the T300 has one Micro USB port, one Micro HDMI port, and a microSD slot hidden on its bottom edge. That means connecting any peripherals requires the use of adaptors, whether you just want to plug in a standard thumb drive, output video to an external display, or use a wired mouse. Those are the compromises that come with such a thin computer, and Apple's upcoming MacBook will require jumping through many of the same hoops.

But there are other compromises with the T300 that make it tough to use as a daily machine. The Bluetooth keyboard (which is included and matches the main computer's attractive, but fingerprint prone sapphire blue finish) offers a large layout, but the keys are shallow and don't have backlighting. The deck below the keyboard is very short and isn't enough to support my hands for long periods of time. And the trackpad, while responsive to both single and multi-touch gestures, is very small and tedious to use. The two halves of the T300 connect with magnets, but unlike the Surface Pro 3, they don't talk to each other through the attachment point. The keyboard communicates with the main tablet part strictly via Bluetooth, which means there is often an annoying delay as the keyboard wakes up and pairs with the tablet when I open the computer and type in my password. Further, the T300 Chi has a slight wobble when it's on a flat surface and the screen is tilted all the way back (which isn't very far).
The T300 Chi is a study in compromises Like so many other Windows 8.1 convertibles, the T300 is also rather awkward to use as a tablet. It's over one and a half pounds without the keyboard, and its large display combined with fat bezels make it much more clumsy to use than an iPad Air 2. The 12.5-inch, 16:9 screen works best in landscape mode, and while it has lots of resolution and wide viewing angles, there is uneven backlighting that's distracting and hard to ignore. Combined with the fact that Windows 8.1 is better suited for desktop environments than as a tablet interface, the T300 is best thought of as a laptop that can work as a tablet in a pinch, not the other way around.

The Core M processor in my review unit is clocked at 1.2GHz and combined with the 8GB of RAM on tap, has no trouble handling most basic computing tasks. It surely won't play any modern 3D games, but working in Chrome, Word, and other Windows 8.1 apps is no issue. I'm able to have as many tabs open in Chrome as I need without the system grinding to a halt, and switching between apps is quick and painless. I often forgot that I was using a computer that was more tablet than laptop, though the heat from the back of the T300 was enough to remind me that this is a full-blown Windows 8.1 machine and not a crippled charlatan faking the role.

The T300 has more heat and less battery life than the average tablet

In addition to the heat, the speed and power in the T300 Chi come with less battery life than you'd expect from a tablet or even a modern ultrabook. The T300 lasted for 6 hours and 38 minutes in our rundown test, and in normal usage of browsing the web in Chrome, chatting with coworkers in Slack, and typing in Microsoft Word, the battery would kick the bucket in about five hours. That's a lot less than the iPad Air 2 musters, and it's far behind what you can get with the Surface Pro 3, which might be the T300's closest analogue in terms of performance and design (if not price). The T300 could be the ultimate road warrior's computer, but its average battery life make it hard to go all day away from an outlet.

Many have looked at Apple's upcoming MacBook as the future of laptop computers, even if it's too forward-thinking for where we are today. The T300 Chi is very similar to the MacBook in many respects: it's incredibly thin, solidly built, and attractive to look at. It also comes with many of the same compromises as the MacBook, namely a lack of port options. But the T300 does things differently than the MacBook will, and its attempt to be both a laptop and tablet at the same time don't do it any favors.
I'd love to have a Windows ultrabook that's as thin and powerful as the T300, but doesn't pretend to be anything else. Give me a full laptop chassis in place of the detachable keyboard, longer battery life, and a slightly better display with the bezels of Dell's XPS 13 and I'd have a machine that I could easily use all day. The T300 is close, and as a taste of the future, it's pretty cool, but it's not quite there yet.

Facebook Invites App Devs to Join in Messenger Family Planning

By John P. Mello Jr.
03/27/15 12:39 PM PT

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week told an audience at the F8 conference for Facebook developers that the company's future lies in its family of apps and in giving the network's members the ability to share what they want, where they want.

"We're building this family so we can offer unique, world-class experiences for all of the ways that people want to share," Zuckerberg told some 2,000 developers attending the forum in San Francisco.
That shift from a single service to a family of applications is a significant one, he added. "Moving from just being a single service to a family of world-class apps for helping people share in different ways is the biggest shift that we've made in our strategy of helping to connect people in many years."

New Platform

A key part of Facebook's future strategy will be its new Messenger Platform.
"As Messenger has grown, we think this service has the potential to help people express themselves in new ways, to connect hundreds of millions of new people, and to become a really important communication tool for the world," Zuckerberg said.
In the past, only Facebook could add new features to Messenger. That's changing with Messenger Platform, which allows developers to create apps that hook into Messenger, he explained.
In addition, the platform can be used by businesses to communicate directly with their customers through Messenger.
"Helping people communicate more naturally with businesses is going to improve, I think, almost every person's life," Zuckerberg said.
With Messenger Platform, it almost seems Facebook is creating another mobile operating system, noted Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.
"It's seems to be building an operating system on top of the existing operating systems," he told TechNewsWorld.
The platform will improve the workflow between apps by making it easier to share data among them. "Consumers will have a richer experience," Dawson said.

Competitive Pressure

Expanding Messenger's capabilities may be a market necessity.
"They had to do something to make Messenger more relevant compared to the other solutions out there that people have adopted and are more flexible," said Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst with Tirias Research.
"They're trying to give Messenger all the features the other messenger apps have and doing more by reaching out to e-commerce. It's an aggressive goal -- especially when you're trying to pull e-commerce into it -- but Facebook is an aggressive company," he told TechNewsWorld.
"They're going to need a lot of support for this," he added, "because they're not just asking consumers to use this, but they want businesses to use it. That's a huge challenge."
Messaging is a popular worldwide phenomenon that Facebook wants to fully exploit.
"It's trying to make Messenger a more vital, broader tool," said Greg Sterling, vice president of strategy and insight for the Local Search Association.
Although Zuckerberg touted the "family of apps" approach as the best way to meet all Facebook followers' needs, it may be a way to cope with future uncertainties in the market.
"They're hedging, to some degree, for the future," Sterling told TechNewsWorld.
"These apps have different fan bases, so it's a diversification strategy," he explained. "If they absorbed the apps into the Facebook app, it would have destroyed a lot of their value."

Embedded Video

In addition to announcing Messenger Platform, Facebook unveiled new ways to embed video into outside websites. That's an especially attractive feature for professional publishers on Facebook.
"If you're a publisher and you've got great video on Facebook, you want the most distribution you can get," said Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo.
"As long as you're happy seeing that video shared everywhere, you'll be happy to embed that video on third-party sites where you can get additional consumption," he told TechNewsWorld. "The best part of embedded content is you still have control of it, so if you want to expire that content or remove it, you can do that through the Facebook platform."
Facebook also released a software development kit for its Parse platform for the Internet of Things.
With that step, Facebook is showing it's ready to compete with other big players, like Apple, Samsung and Google, who already are preparing for an explosion of IoT devices in the coming years.

CAPTCHAs May Do More Harm Than Good

CAPTCHAs -- those misshapen funhouse mirror letters you have to decipher in order to gain access to various online tools -- are so annoying to some people that they'd rather turn their back on a website than fiddle with them. Worse yet, CAPTCHAs don't always work. "CAPTCHAs can stop most bots, but the worst bots know how to get past CAPTCHA," said Distil Networks CEO Rami Essaid.

By John P. Mello Jr.
03/26/15 11:08 AM PT

If an annoyance contest were held between passwords and CAPTCHAs, passwords would probably win, but not by much.

CAPTCHA -- Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart -- was created to foil bots attempting to mass-create accounts at websites. Once created, those accounts could be exploited by online lowlifes for malicious ends, such as spewing spam. However there are signs that the technology that uses distressed letters to weed out machines from humans may have outlived its usefulness.
When users are presented with a CAPTCHA, they are 12 percent less likely, on average, to continue with what they came to do at the website, according to a Distil Networks study released earlier this month.
That number is even worse for mobile users, who abandon their intended activity 27 percent of the time they're confronted with a CAPTCHA, the study suggests.
"If it causes too much friction for a checkout or a transaction, it could cost a website real dollars and cents or users," Distil CEO and cofounder Rami Essaid told TechNewsWorld.

Better Bots

Distil got the idea for the CAPTCHA study from one of its customers.
"They were trying to solve a fraud problem," Essaid said. "When they put in their CAPTCHA, it dramatically decreased their conversions by over 20 percent."
So Distil decided to study the problem.
"We wanted to see if that was unique to that company or if people were annoyed by CAPTCHAs to the point that they abandon any interaction that they're doing," Essaid said. "The results shocked me. I didn't think they'd be as dramatic as they were."
The wide gap between desktop and mobile abandonment is largely a usability issue, he said.
"CAPTCHAs were created for desktops. We've never seen one fully designed for mobile, and that impacts users much more," Essaid explained.
The kicker to CAPTCHAs is that their purpose -- to block bots -- has become problematic.
"Bots have evolved to a point where they can solve the CAPTCHAs," Essaid pointed out. "CAPTCHAs can stop most bots, but the worst bots know how to get past CAPTCHA."

Bad Cert

Microsoft issued a security advisory last week alerting Windows users that a rogue certificate had been issued that could be used to spoof the company's Live services.
"Microsoft is aware of an improperly issued SSL certificate for the domain 'live.fi' that could be used in attempts to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks," the advisory reads.
"It cannot be used to issue other certificates, impersonate other domains, or sign code," it continues. "This issue affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is not currently aware of attacks related to this issue."
Certificates increasingly have become targets for cybercriminals, noted Kevin Bocek, vice president for security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi.
"Bad guys are not only trying to steal certificates, but use fraud to obtain them, too," he told TechNewsWorld.
"There are over 200 public Certificate Authorities trusted around the world," he explained, "and at any one time, any could be attacked to obtain a valid certificate."
Microsoft has taken actions to thwart anyone trying to use the illicit cert, but those measures only work on its products. Since the cert will work in other products, it's up to maker of those products to update them to block recognition of the cert.

Mobile FREAK-out

Earlier this month, researchers discovered a vulnerability in SSL implementations called "FREAK." It allows an attacker to force SSL to stop using 128-bit encryption and start using 40-bit encryption, which can be cracked in a matter of hours using commodity computers or readily available cloud computing resources.
Most of the attention on FREAK has been focused on its impact on browser communication, but last week, researchers at FireEye found a substantial number of mobile apps are vulnerable to the SSL flaw.
After scanning 10,985 popular Google Play Android apps with more than 1 million downloads each, the researchers found 11.2 percent of them vulnerable to a FREAK attack.
A similar analysis of 14,079 iOS apps revealed that 5.5 percent of them vulnerable to FREAK.
"This is a problem of a client or server being able to say, 'I don't want to do this really secure thing, let's do something less secure,'" said Jared DeMott, principal security researcher at Bromium.
While that sounds serious, exploiting the flaw isn't a piece of cake. "You need to be in a position to sit on the traffic, and you still have to decrypt the downloaded encryption, even if it isn't very good," he told TechNewsWorld.
"That's the kind of thing you'd expect to see organized players doing -- a nation state or big crime ring," he said. "I don't know if it's going to have a big impact on individual consumers."

Breach Diary

• March 17. Premera Blue Cross of Mountlake Terrace, Washington, reveals a data breach has placed at risk personal information of some 11 million customers. Intrusion took place on May 5, 2015, but was not discovered until Jan. 29 of this year.
• March 17. Advantage Dental, of Redmond, Washington, reports that information on more than 151,000 patients is at risk after a data breach lasting three days in February. An employee's credentials were compromised and used for unauthorized access to a membership database.
• March 17. FireEye researchers Yulong Zhang, Hui Xue, Tao Wei and Zhaofeng Chen report 11.2 percent of popular Android apps and 5.5 percent of popular iOS apps are vulnerable to a FREAK attack, in which HTTPS traffic can be forced to use a weak form of encryption.
• March 17. Microsoft warns that a certificate for the live.fi domain has been improperly issued and can be used for malicious purposes such as website spoofing and hijacking Internet traffic.
• March 17. American Federation of Teachers demands Pearson Education come clean about its monitoring of students' social media to protect the integrity of its testing materials. Pearson says it is contractually obligated by the states it does business with to monitor social media posts to make sure students do not disclose test questions.
• March 17. Microsoft announces Windows 10 will include Hello, which allows a user to log into a computer or other device through biometric authentication such as facial, iris or fingerprint recognition.
• March 19. Federal Judge Paul A. Magnuson grants preliminary approval of US$10 million settlement of data breach class action lawsuit against Target. In 2013, data thieves stole payment card and personal information of some 101 million Target customers.
• March 19. Security researcher Laxman Muthiyah posts blog item describing vulnerability in Facebook's mobile app that can be exploited to steal photos stored in the software.

Upcoming Security Events

• March 30. New Account Fraud -- Understanding Fraudsters Behavioral Prints. 2 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by BioCatch. Free with registration.
• March 31. Monitoring for Network Security. 1 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by ThousandEyes. Free with registration.
• April 1. SecureWorld Kansas City. Kansas City Convention Center, 301 West 13th Street #100, Kansas City, Missouri. Registration: open sessions pass, $25; conference pass, $75; SecureWorld plus training, $545.
• April 11. B-Sides Nashville. Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee. Fee: $10.
• April 11-12. B-Sides Charm. Howard Community College, Gateway Building, Charles I. Ecker Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, Columbia, Maryland. Fee: TBD.
• April 11-12. B-Sides Orlando. University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, Fla. Fee: $20.
• April 17-18. B-Sides Algiers. Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique, Oued Smar, Algiers, Algeria. Free.
• April 18. B-Sides Oklahoma. Hard Rock Casino, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa, Oklahoma. Free.
• April 19-20. B-Sides San Francisco. 135 Bluxome St., San Francisco. Registration: $20, plus $2.09 fee.
• April 20-24. RSA USA 2015. Moscone Center, San Francisco. Registration: before March 21, $1,895; after March 20, $2,295; after April 17, $2,595.
• April 25. B-Sides Rochester. German House, 315 Gregory St., Rochester, New York. Free.
• April 29. Dark Reading's Security Crash Course. Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: through March 20, $899; March 21-April 24, $999; April 25-29, $1,099.
• May 6-7. Suits and Spooks London. techUK, 10 Saint Bride St., London. Registration: government/military, $305; members, $486; industry, $571.
• June 8-10. SIA Government summit 2015. W Hotel, Washington, D.C. Meeting Fees: members, $595; nonmember, $795.
• June 8-11. Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit. Gaylord National, 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Maryland. Registration: before April 11, $2,795; after April 10, standard $2,995, public sector $2,595.
• June 16-17. Black Hat Mobile Security Summit. ExCel London, London, UK. Registration: before April 11, Pounds 400; before June 16, Pounds 500; after June 15, Pounds 600.
• August 1-6. Black Hat USA. Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: before June 6, $1,795; before July 25, $2,195; after July 24, $2,595.
• Sept. 28-Oct. 01. ASIS 2015. Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California. Registration: through May 31--member, $895; non-member, $1,150; government, $945; student, $300; June 1-August 31--$995, $1,250, $1,045, $350; Sept. 1-Oct. 1--$1,095, $1,350, $1,145, $400.

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone? Read These 12 Sentences to Find Out

Dr. James Roberts, Baylor UniversityFebruary 13, 2015

It’s hard to imagine life without smartphones. For many Americans, it’s the first thing they see after waking and the last thing they check before falling asleep.

Sixty-eight percent of adult Americans sleep with their cellphones next to their beds. A majority text or talk while driving. A Harris Interactive poll shows that a third check their phones during movies. Twenty percent do this during church. Nearly 10 percent have admitted to checking their phones during intimate moments. Some take selfies with the dearly departed at funerals. And a new trend of taking a selfie while on the toilet, aka the “poopie,” has emerged.

So is there such a thing as cellphone addiction?

Yes.

Cellphone addiction is in the same family as other technology addictions, such as computers and gaming, which are all part of a larger family of behavioral addictions (to gambling, exercise, sex, etc.). Anything that can produce pleasure in your brain has the potential of becoming addictive. Loss of control is the essential element of any addiction.

Research has identified the “six signs” of any type of substance or behavioral addiction. Those six signs – salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse – apply to cellphone addiction as well.

Are you addicted?

Let’s see.

Read the definitions of each of the six signs below and then agree or disagree with the following statements. By the time you’ve completed this task, you will have a better idea of whether you’ve reached your tipping point when it comes to your cellphone use.

*

Salience

A behavior becomes salient when it is deeply integrated into your daily routine.

1. The first thing I reach for after waking in the morning is my cellphone.

2. I would turn around and go back home on the way to work if I had left my cellphone at home.

Euphoria

Who knows what the beep, buzz, whistle, or stylized ringtone might have in store for you? The feeling of anticipation or excitement that precedes and/or follows the use of your cellphone is a mood modification that can result in euphoria.

3. I often use my cellphone when I am bored.

4. I have pretended to take calls to avoid awkward social situations.

Tolerance

As in the case of drug and alcohol abuse, tolerance addresses the need for an ever-increasing “dose” of the behavior to achieve the desired “high.”

5. I find myself spending more and more time on my cellphone.

6. I spend more time than I should on my cellphone.

Withdrawal symptoms

The feelings of irritability, stress, anxiousness, desperation, and even panic that often occur when you are separated from your cellphone are good examples of withdrawal symptoms.

7. I become agitated or irritable when my cellphone is out of sight.

8. I have gone into a panic when I thought I had lost my cellphone.

Conflict

A common outcome of cellphone addiction is conflict. Do your spouse or children complain that you are always on your phone? Do you allow texts, calls, and e-mails to spoil your vacations and personal time? Are your work activities interrupted by playing games, visiting Facebook, and countless other forms of entertainment offered on your cellphone?

9. I have argued with my spouse, friends, or family about my cellphone use.

10. I use my cellphone while driving my car.

Relapse

When we acknowledge that our cellphone use may be undermining our well-being, we attempt to stop. But then we slip back. We relapse.

11. I have tried to curb my cellphone use, but the effort didn’t last very long.

12. I need to reduce my cellphone use, but am afraid I can’t do it.

Are you addicted?

It’s time to see if you have crossed the tipping point from reasonable cellphone use to a potentially addictive habit. To calculate your score, simply add up the number of “agree” responses to each of the 12 statements and check the results.

8 + “Agrees”

You need a reservation at the Betty Ford Clinic for habitual cellphone users.

5-7 “Agrees”

You have crossed the tipping point and are moving quickly to full-blown cellphone addiction.

3-4 “Agrees”

You have not yet reached your tipping point, but need to carefully assess how your cellphone is influencing your life.

0-2 “Agrees”

You are either living in a monastery or have the patience and self-restraint of a monk. Alternatively, technology simply scares you.

*

Since cellphones (in some form) are likely here to stay, we all need to reach some kind of digital détente as how best to relate with the 21st-century equivalent of the security blanket. I am not so bold as to suggest that you go “cold turkey,” but we must all set aside times where we unplug from our digital devices and plug into what really matters – friends, family, and being in the moment.

Try it. You might like it.

James Roberts is the Ben H. Williams professor of marketing at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business. He has spent much of his professional career studying the “dark side” of consumer behavior, including widely publicized research on cellphone addiction. Roberts’s book “Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy,” was published in 2011.

Can Hackers Really Take Over Your Car?

Daniel HowleyTechnology ReporterFebruary 13, 2015

(ThinkStock)

It’s a dystopian scenario: You are driving down a mountain road, listening to Spotify through your car’s Bluetooth connection, when suddenly, your brakes fail and your car goes careening off the road. Your car has been hacked, and you didn’t even know it was happening.

That’s the nightmare hinted at in a scary report from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, which was picked up by many news outlets. A segment on “60 Minutes” recently showed how effective and frightening car hacking could be. It featured reporter Lesley Stahl losing control over her car’s horn and brakes as a hacker clicked away on a nearby laptop.

Could it happen to you? Today, it is extraordinarily unlikely. Though automobile hacking is possible, it requires deep technical knowledge possessed only by a handful of academics and researchers. According to experts, the chances of your car being hacked while it sits in your garage, or while you’re driving it, is very, very low. 

What is car hacking?

Your average new car is a rolling network of high-powered computers. It has a number of processors and wireless systems that allows it to do everything from getting you directions to your aunt’s house, to streaming music from your smartphone via Bluetooth, to making sure you don’t rear-end the car in front of you when it brakes suddenly.

(ThinkStock)

Like any network, cars are vulnerable to hacking: an intrusion from an outside source. That intrusion can be through something physically connected to the vehicle, or (more scary), a remote, wireless connection, over cellular, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.

What can someone do if they hack into a car?

As the recent “60 Minutes” report demonstrated, a dedicated hacker was able to manipulate a vehicle’s braking system, control the windshield wipers, and honk the horn by wirelessly hacking into a vehicle via its cellular connection.

There are also privacy concerns: A hacker could access a vehicle’s location information, allowing a criminal to determine where you have traveled and where your car is currently located.

How do these hacks work?

Let’s use the “60 Minutes” report as an example. That hack used the same methods employed by the University of Washington computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno and his co-researchers at the University of California, San Diego in 2010. 

(60 Minutes)

Android Malware Can Spy on You Even After Your Phone Is 'Shut Off'

Daniel BeanEditorial AssistantFebruary 20, 2015

It looks like a breakthrough in nefarious mobile device software: a newly discovered spyware program can actually track you after you’ve shut down your phone.

Well, after you think you’ve shut down your phone, anyway.

As spotted by the AVG anti-virus software company, the malware (which affects Android phones, and which does not yet have a catchy nickname) tricks phone owners into thinking that they’ve shut down their devices. Pressing the power button on an infected phone calls up a fake Power Off button onto the screen. When tapped, only the phone’s screen, sound alerts, and notification lights are actually powered off.

While in this state, the spyware can reportedly make calls, take pictures, and send and receive messages.

Yikes.

The malware is hidden inside some apps found on Chinese app markets. So, if you’re not downloading apps from third-party Chinese app markets, you’re probably safe.

We’ve heard reports of hackers, and even the government, looking through computer and smartphone cameras remotely without owners being any the wiser. But those types of hacks had to be performed while owners were aware their devices were powered on. The introduction of this new malware looks to ruin any piece of mind that you may have once gained after allegedly “shutting off” your phone.

The good news is that this creepy spyware isn’t something that has been, or probably ever will be, found in Google Play apps. Android has gone to great lengths to clamp down on fraudulent and malicious apps in its market, now scanning them both before and after you’ve installed them to your Galaxy, HTC One, Moto X, or whatever. So if you stick with the official Google app store, you should be safe from any of the above scariness.

And obviously, if that isn’t enough assurance for you, you can always resort to pulling your phone’s battery out anytime you want privacy. We’re pretty sure there will be no malware workaround coming down the pipe for that trick. (Please, hackers, do not prove us wrong.)

Android 5.1 Starts Hitting Google Nexus Devices

Lance Whitney, CNETMarch 11, 2015

Android 5.1 Lollipop is now flavoring certain Nexus devices. (Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Owners of certain Nexus mobile devices should be on the lookout for Android 5.1.

Announced by Google on Monday, the latest flavor of the Android Lollipop operating system is already out for the Nexus 4 smartphone, Nexus 5 smartphone and 2013 Nexus 7 tablet via T-Mobile. The carrier’s page for the Nexus 4 shows the 5.1 update available as an over-the-air (OTA) installation via Wi-Fi as of Monday. The page for the Nexus 5 and the one for the 2013 Nexus 7 show the same information. Both pages say the update will be available via a cellular connection at a later date.

A Sprint support page says that Android 5.1 is available for the Nexus 6 phablet as of Wednesday via an OTA update. The page cautions that such updates may be released in stages, so Nexus 6 owners on Sprint may not see the update arrive for several days. A Sprint spokesman told CNET that the new flavor of Android is also rolling out OTA for Nexus 5.

What’s different about Android 5.1? The latest update to Google’s mobile OS fixes several issues in 5.0 and also throws in a few new features. Google’s official blog on the update touts unspecified performance and stability improvements.

One feature new to Android 5.1 is tighter security for lost or stolen devices. Even if the device is reset back to factory conditions, a user will still need to sign in with the original Google account. The new security feature will be available on the Nexus 6 phablet and Nexus 9 tablet for starters but will pop up on other devices that come shipped with Android 5.1.

Another new feature lets you connect to a Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device more easily via the Quick Settings menu. Users of phones with multiple SIM card slots will be able to switch between the cards without having to physically swap them out. And phone calls should be clearer thanks to the new high-definition voice calling available between Android 5.1 devices.

Nexus owners who don’t want to wait for their carrier to roll out Android 5.1 can “flash” their devices with factory images available directly from Google. But be forewarned that this process is much more complex than simply installing the OTA update. The process also wipes your device clean, which means you lose any personal data. So if you’re in no hurry, you’re better off waiting for your carrier’s update, even if it may take awhile.

T-Mobile did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.

The Upcoming USB C Cable Is About to Make Your Life Way Easier

Daniel HowleyTechnology ReporterMarch 12, 2015

(Apple’s new MacBook)

Apple’s new MacBook is turning a lot of heads, thanks to its superslim design and reimagined keyboard. But the real story, for Mac and PC owners alike, is the inclusion of a new kind of USB port, USB Type-C.

OK, it might not be the sexiest topic –– USB C could use a rebranding, for sure –– but hear me out. This humble port, which you can already try out on Google’s recently released Chromebook Pixel, is going to change the way we use everything from smartphones and tablets to laptops and desktop computers. 

You know that rat’s nest of tangled wires you keep bundled in your bag or your desk drawer? A single USB C cable could replace all of them.

Yeah: One cable to rule them all. 

Now you’re interested, right? Here’s how it works.

A new kind of standard

You use USB ports every day. Whether it’s connecting your mouse to your desktop or charging your smartphone, USB is everywhere. 

The most common form is the USB Type-A standard, the large-size connector on the side of your laptop or desktop. Then there’s the microUSB Type-B standard, which is what you find on most smartphones and tablets. And while those are convenient, they could certainly be faster, smaller, and easier to use.

USB Type-C, or just Type-C, is a new standard that’s completely different from the cables and connectors you’ve previously used. 

According to the USB Implementers Forum, the group in charge of setting USB standards, Type-C can not only transfer small amounts of data and charge phones and tablets like current USB standards do, Type-C can also be used to charge something as large as a laptop and even stream video. 

It can also transfer huge amounts of data at a mind-blowing 10 gigabits per second; that’s twice as fast as the older USB 3.0 standard on your laptop or the microUSB your smartphone uses. 

That’s why Apple is able to use Type-C as the only connector on its new MacBook: It can do everything all of those older ports on your current computer can do. And it’s really small, too: about as thin as a standard microUSB connector.

Charging ahead

But it’s Type-C’s ability to charge a wide array of devices that is truly impressive. 

While most smartphones and tablets use microUSB connectors for charging and transferring data, the iPhone and iPad use Apple’s specially made Lightning connector.  

Laptops, however, use a wide variety of chargers. That means, if you’re going on a business trip, you need to bring a charger for your phone and tablet and another for your laptop. 

(Google)

Type-C, however, has been designed so that it can power smartphones, tablets, and laptops. That means if you buy a laptop that is USB C compatible, you’ll need just one charger for all of your devices.

Techies out there might be wondering how a charger designed for a laptop can also charge a smartphone without blowing out its battery. The answer is that your phone, or any other Type-C device, can talk to the charger to determine how much power it needs. The charger then sends the correct amount of power to the device without damaging it.

You’ll even be able to charge your MacBook using the charger that comes with your smartphone, albeit at a much slower rate.

That’s an incredible benefit to both companies and consumers. Companies win out by having a single charger and cable for all of their devices, cutting down on packaging and materials. Consumers win by only having to carry a single charger for everything. And if you lose your laptop charger, you can just go to the store to pick up a new one, rather than having to get one sent to you by the manufacturer or taking your chances on some third-party charger.

Type-C also offers something called bidirectional charging. Have you ever had 100 percent battery life on your tablet and 0 percent on your phone, and wished you could just transfer battery power from the tablet to the phone? With Type C, you’ll be able to do just that. You’ll not only be able to charge your laptop, smartphone, or tablet from the wall, you’ll be able to charge it from other devices, too. So you could use one laptop to charge another, or a phone to charge a tablet, or an MP3 player to charge a toaster (if it can get charged via Type-C). That’s pretty sweet.

Flip’n good

(Google’s Chromebook Pixel)