Walyou

SesameTouch Portable Vault Stores Passwords, Verifies Payments

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 01:31 PM PDT

Sesame Touch Password Vault Payment Authenticator 01

Having a gadget in your pocket that can handle both passwords and payments seems to be the very definition of convenience in the digital age. SesameTouch manages to do that and more.

The same way PayPal prevents you from disclosing your credit card or bank account information when making payments, SesameTouch does so on the go, but proves to be far more versatile. This digital life companion, as Trust Designer – its Lille, France developer – has called it, doubles as a password vault, works with both online (computer, tablet, smartphone) and offline (POS, validator) services, and is able to find your keys and help you pay for your transport.

Taking on the likes of Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay is not easy, yet the developers of SesameTouch think they can pull this one off:

“Imagine you could get logged to your bank account and pay online without entering your login, your card number, or your pin code. Imagine you could replace all your passwords and logins by a simple gesture. Imagine you could manage all your very personal data by storing them in a safe place only you can access. Imagine you could realize all those transactions not only with your smartphone but with any internet-connected device. SesameTouch is the next small thing that will make everything possible. With this connected companion you can pay without disclosing your bank number, you can get logged without using several logins and passwords. SesameTouch will make your digital life a safer and easier place.”

Trust Designer is looking to raise €100,000 (or $111,871) on Kickstarter, in order to turn SesameTouch into a reality. Backers can help the company achieve that by pledging a minimum of €49 ($55) as an early bird (sorry, folks, the very early bird spots are long gone), or €69 ($77) as a regular backer, within the next 31 days. Silver, Gold and Platinum versions would be available, with additional storage for encrypted files, but at a premium. Should the campaign prove successful, Trust Designer estimates that it would start shipping SesameTouch in March 2016. The only major drawback of this gadget is that if you lose it, you need to buy another one. As for the passwords or payment details stored on the lost one, those aren’t at risk, as they would continue to by protected by your fingerprint.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Mionix NAOS QG biometric mouse for quantified gaming, or the world’s first biometric credit card, made by MasterCard and Zwipe.

Via: Geeky Gadgets

3D-Printed Ice House Wins NASA’s Mars Habitat Design Challenge

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 12:36 PM PDT

Ice House NASA 3D Printed Habitat Design Challenge 01

NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge Design Competition kicked off back in May, when the presence of water on the Red Planet was only speculated. Now that scientists have confirmed there’s water on Mars, the development of 3D printed ice shelters makes even more sense.

Ice House, as the winner of the design competition is called, is the joined effort of Team Space Exploration Architecture and Clouds Architecture Office. Considering that NASA had to pick one out of 165 submission, Ice House must have impressed the panel very much. One of the key elements that must have contributed to the success of this ice shelter is that it uses readily-available resources (in this case water in a frozen state) to build a habitable structure, much like WASP’s BigDelta, currently the largest house 3D printer in the world, is supposed to operate.

“The creativity and depth of the designs we’ve seen have impressed us,” explained NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program Manager Monsi Roman. “These teams were not only imaginative and artistic with their entries, but they also really took into account the life-dependent functionality our future space explorers will need in an off-Earth habitat.”

Salty liquid water, the type that has been discovered on Mars this week, typically doesn’t freeze, and that would normally be a problem for a 3D printed project that relies precisely on that.

However, salty water freezes at temperatures below -21 degrees Celsius, and given Mars’ climate, there shouldn’t be any problems there.

A system of inflatable windows filled with radiation shielding gas could be implemented in the areas where the ice shell is thinner.

The Ice House would include two sections, with the interstitial one being habitable. Of course, isolating this section thermally would be necessary for the well-being of humans.

Semi-autonomous robotic printers would gather and deposit water ice in order to complete the construction of the Ice House.

Team Gamma, who won the second place in this competition, proposes large diggers that would excavate a 1.5m deep crater for the foundation of the shelter.

That foundation, or the core of the structure, would be made out of inflatable modules.

There would be overlapping private and shared spaces.

Transporter robots would cover the core in regolith. Afterwards, it is the job of melter robots to design a protective skin.

Team Gamma’s 3D-printed Mars shelter is supposed to have an area of 93 sq m.

That should be more than enough for four astronauts, as Team Gamma suggests.

Team LavaHive, who won the third place, took a different approach and suggested using construction rovers with inflatable attachment sections.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about NASA’s Swarmie robots that will mine asteroids like ants, or Google’s Project Tango smartphone that will empower NASA’s robots aboard the ISS.

Via: GizMag