Archive for November 15, 2017

ecobee Brings Voice Home To Canada With Launch Of ecobee4 Smart Thermostat

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 15, 2017 by itnerd

Toronto-based ecobee Inc. today launched its next-generation smart thermostat ecobee4 in Canada in conjunction with Amazon’s rollout of Alexa Voice Service north of the border. ecobee4 adds Amazon Alexa voice service and far-field voice recognition to an already packed list of smart thermostat features including ecobee’s pioneering room sensor technology.

ecobee4 will be available for purchase on November 15, 2017. ecobee will continue to help lead the smart home category towards a whole-home-voice future with a voice-enabled smart light switch rolling out in early 2018. More than just a light switch, ecobee’s first venture beyond smart thermostats will come equipped with Amazon Alexa and borrow from ecobee’s signature room sensors by measuring occupancy and temperature to help deliver effortless comfort and control to the rooms that matter most.

With a built-in speaker and microphone, ecobee4 can be controlled through its sleek touch-screen, a smart phone or voice. Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service allows customers to ask their ecobee4 to adjust the temperature of their home, in addition to the growing list of Alexa capabilities such as setting a timer, helping plan your commute or playing the news. Thanks to far-field voice recognition, ecobee4 will conveniently respond to voice commands from anywhere in the room. ecobee4 is compatible with the company’s pioneering room sensor technology, which measures occupancy and temperature to deliver comfort when the customer is home and energy savings when they’re away.

Pricing, Availability and Compatibility
ecobee4 smart thermostat ($329 CAD) will be available online (ecobee.com, Amazon.ca, Lowes.ca and HomeDepot.ca) and in stores beginning November 15, 2017. The device comes with a wireless room sensor and supports up to 32 sensors. To ensure ecobee4 will work in your home, visit ecobee.com/compatibility. ecobee4 will be compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT.

Residents in over 100 Ontario communities including the Greater Toronto Area, along with residents of Alberta and Manitoba are also eligible for rebates available from Enbridge ($100), Energy Efficiency Alberta ($100) and Manitoba Hydro ($75), respectively. To find out more about rebates, incentives and special offers, please visit ecobee.com/rebates.

For more information on the ecobee’s whole-home voice experience visit: www.ecobee.com/voice.

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Amazon Echo (Gen 2), Echo Plus, & Echo Dot Arrive At Telus

Posted in Commentary with tags , on November 15, 2017 by itnerd

Telus is happy to welcome the Amazon Echo family of connected home hubs to Canada. Starting today Canadians can pre-order Amazon Echo (Gen 2) and Echo Plus online at telus.com. Telus customers will be able to purchase Amazon Echo (Gen 2), Echo Plus, and Echo Dot online and in-store on December 5.

Here’s how the Amazon Echo models stack up:

Amazon Echo Plus:

  • Connected home hub powered by the Alexa platform
  • Built-in hub to control smart home devices
  • Plays music on command and connects to other smart devices (Philips Hue, Nest)
  • Improved speakers with Dolby processing deliver crisp vocals and extended bass to fill the room with immersive, 360° audio (Dolby)
  • Seven microphones, beamforming technology, and noise cancellation

Pre-order offer: $169.99 ($199.99 after December 9)

Pre-order by December 4 and get one year of Amazon Prime on us.

                               

Amazon Echo (Gen 2):

  • Connected home hub powered by the Alexa platform
  • Includes powerful speaker
  • Plays music on command and connects to other smart devices (Philips Hue, Nest) – powered by Dolby
  • Same features as Gen 1 with smaller form factor

Pre-order offer: $99.99 ($129.99 after December 9)

Pre-order by December 4 and get one year of Amazon Prime on us.

 

Amazon Echo Dot:

  • Echo’s “Mini Me”
  • Designed to bring connectivity to any room in the home with a smaller, quieter speaker
  • 3.5mm output jack and Bluetooth connectivity allowing you to connect it to your current sound system

Offer: $49.99 ($69.99 after December 9)
Building on an already incredible voice experience and their customer service commitment the Telus team has worked with Amazon and their Alexa Skills kit to build a skill allowing Telus customers to call friends, check billing and data usage, and easily add new data or travel products. The Telus Skill will be available on the Skill store today.

 

 

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DHS Buys A 757 To Figure Out How Pwnable Aircraft Can Be

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 15, 2017 by itnerd

This story doesn’t exactly sit well with me seeing as later this week I will hopping on a 787 Dreamliner to fly to India for a week. But I’ll put that aside for a moment. Apparently the folks at DHS wanted to find out what kind of threat a hacker could pose to an aircraft. Could they pwn it and cause havoc to the flying public? To find out, they purchased a 757 and went to town on it. Here’s what happened next:

A team of government, industry and academic officials successfully demonstrated that a commercial aircraft could be remotely hacked in a non-laboratory setting last year, a DHS official said Wednesday at the 2017 CyberSat Summit in Tysons Corner, Virginia. “We got the airplane on Sept. 19, 2016. Two days later, I was successful in accomplishing a remote, non-cooperative, penetration. [Which] means I didn’t have anybody touching the airplane, I didn’t have an insider threat. I stood off using typical stuff that could get through security and we were able to establish a presence on the systems of the aircraft.” Hickey said the details of the hack and the work his team are doing are classified, but said they accessed the aircraft’s systems through radio frequency communications, adding that, based on the RF configuration of most aircraft, “you can come to grips pretty quickly where we went” on the aircraft. Patching avionics subsystem on every aircraft when a vulnerability is discovered is cost prohibitive, Hickey said. The cost to change one line of code on a piece of avionics equipment is $1 million, and it takes a year to implement. For Southwest Airlines, whose fleet is based on Boeing’s 737, it would “bankrupt” them. Hickey said newer models of 737s and other aircraft, like Boeing’s 787 and the Airbus Group A350, have been designed with security in mind, but that legacy aircraft, which make up more than 90% of the commercial planes in the sky, don’t have these protections.

So while I likely don’t have anything to worry about, a lot of people do quite clearly. Now that this is public, it will be interesting to see how airlines who run this older equipment along with companies like Airbus and Boeing deal with this. Because you can be sure that the bad guys will be looking at this too now that they know that this is possible.

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20% Of Consumers Would Knowingly Buy A Connected Device Vulnerable To Hacking: McAfee

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 15, 2017 by itnerd

McAfee Survey Reveals One in Five Consumers Would Knowingly Buy a Connected Device Vulnerable to Hackin 

Cybersecurity company McAfee has announced the results of its third annual Most Hackable Holiday Gifts survey. Not surprisingly, laptops, tablets and smartphones lead the list, followed by drones, digital assistants, connected toys, and connected appliances.

Most consumers (69%) said laptops, tablets and smartphones should be secured. But only 22 per cent thought connected toys needed security and just 29 percent believed drones should be protected.

 This Year’s Most Hackable Holiday Gifts Include:

  1. Laptops/Smartphones/Tablets – Laptops, smartphones, and tablets are traditional targets for cybercriminals, but if not properly secured, can get infected with malicious applications.
  2. Drones – Sales of drones are expected to top US$1 billion in 2017, but security hasn’t quite caught up. Consumers need to stay mindful of risks associated with drone jacking and fake Wi-Fi signals from rogue drones.
  3. Digital Assistants – These device-based assistants can help order household items, play music, provide answers to questions, and much more. However, with microphones that are always listening for a wake-up command, and many devices now equipped with cameras it’s vital to understand privacy implications.
  4. Connected Toys – Toys keep getting smarter, but unfortunately so do cybercriminals. For many manufacturers, security is an afterthought that can leave toys vulnerable to attack when hackers target built-in microphones and location-based services.
  5. Connected Appliances – A smart home appliance can make daily life easier, but be aware that these devices could be used as pawns in an online attack or leak information about you or your home.

Tips from McAfee for Consumers to Stay Protected This Holiday Season:

To help keep your family safe during the holidays, McAfee has the following tips:

  • Think before you click: One of the easiest ways for cybercriminals to compromise your device is through a malicious link. Be skeptical if you receive a link or other solicitation that you are not expecting.
  • Update your software: Whether it’s your PC, smartphone, digital assistant or even your drone, keep the software up to date. Manufacturers plug security holes with device updates so it’s important to always install the latest versions as soon as possible. Where applicable use up-to-date security software.
  • Beware of shady public Wi-Fi hotspots: Cybercriminals often deploy fake Wi-Fi hotspots that appear to be legitimate, but give them visibility into your browsing habits. If you have to use public Wi-Fi refrain from online shopping or banking. If you need to shop or bank on public Wi-Fi use a Virtual Private Network (VPN), like McAfee Safe Connect, to encrypt your network traffic.
  • Do your homework: Not all manufacturers take security seriously, especially when it comes to connected toys, so it’s important to research if there have been any reported security vulnerabilities before purchasing.
  • Protect your home network: Secure all of your connected devices and your home internet at its source with McAfee Secure Home Platform. This solution gives you insight into what devices are on your network, and protects all of your connected devices.

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