Previously known for providing tech in a variety of military applications, Flir is branching out now and putting its precision thermal imaging capabilities in the hands of your average smartphone user. The Flir One thermal imager is an amazing device that transforms your smartphone into a thermal camera.
They ditch the case design from previous versions for a device that attaches to your smartphone’s charging port. There is a lightning connector version for iOS devices and a Micro USB version for Android devices. Just turn on the Flir One, plug it into your smartphone, and launch the app. Now you can see the heat signatures objects give off, and you have a whole range of options to capture and share what you see from timelapses to video recording.
You might be thinking that a thermal camera is just a novelty. Sure, at $250 it’s not an accessory for everyone, but for homeowners looking to locate the sources of heat loss and improve their overall home heating efficiency, this device might save them money in the long run. Other uses could be to help locate fire hazards or to see if plugged in yet unused appliances are generating heat. Though if you’re not handy around the house, it’s still just fun to point the Flir One at stuff see the world from a different perspective.
Inside the companion app you get camera features that allow for photo, video, panorama and time lapse recording. It also gives a fairly accurate reading of the temperature on a specific point.
The Flir One is self powered with an onboard rechargeable battery, and unfortunately run time is only about 30 minutes.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.