Developing smart services in the cloud

More and more manufacturing companies are looking to build on their success by expanding their core business to include services. Particularly promising are smart services, which provide intelligent ways of connecting people, things and data. As part of an EU-funded project entitled Manufacturing Service Ecosystem (MSEE), a total of 19 partners had a hand in designing a cloud-based software platform that helps companies develop smart services.

In a future shaped by Industry 4.0, smart services will open up new ways for manufacturing companies to involve customers and simplify how machines and devices are operated. The idea of smart services includes digital services that use the Internet to connect to internal or external value chains and so support data- and services-based business models such as sharing services.
Service lifecycle management for smart services
As part of the MSEE project, Fraunhofer IAO has created a service lifecycle management software tool that helps develop and offer services -- from the initial idea through to implementation. It's possible, for instance, to provide details of a particular service idea in a web portal and have customers give their feedback using their smartphones. The conceptual design phase begins with technology-independent business process modeling and ends with the technology-dependent modeling and implementation of mobile apps for cell phones or tablets.
Two companies have provided examples of how the service lifecycle management tool can be used: Belgian shirt manufacturer Bivolino used it to develop a tablet app that customers can use to design and order made-to-measure men's shirts. And Dutch service provider TPVision put together an app that tailors what the Ambilight system of your Philips television does when you're watching a soccer match: The system reacts to what is going on in the match, which brings a captivating, stadium-like atmosphere into your very own living room.
Smart services -- key components of Industry 4.0
For manufacturing companies, smart services are a key component in expanding connectivity among products and services, which in turn enables them to offer services that are tailored even better to individual target groups. What's more, the cloud-based platform makes it easier to develop, produce and monitor their services.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation IAO. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Lab-in-a-box takes aim at doctors' computer activity

The Lab-in-a-Box complete data collection infrastructure can be easily transported on site and set up in minutes, including sensing and recording components that need to be set up for data collection. Highlighted in red is the Microsoft Kinect sensor; in green, the SMI eye tracker; in yellow, the cables connecting to the Epiphan frame grabber and to the physician's workstation; and in blue, the main power outlet to power up the Lab-in-a-Box.

Credit: UC San Diego/VA

They call it "the Lab-in-a-Box." According to Nadir Weibel, a research scientist in the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department at the University of California, San Diego, inside the box are assorted sensors and software designed to monitor a doctor's office, particularly during consultations with patients. The goal is to analyze the physician's behavior and better understand the dynamics of the interactions of the doctor with the electronic medical records and the patients in front of them. The eventual goal is to provide useful input on how to run the medical practice more efficiently.

Very often physicians pay attention to information on a computer screen, rather than looking directly at the patient. "With the heavy demand that current medical records put on the physician, doctors look at the screen instead of looking at their patients," says Weibel. "Important clues such as facial expression, and direct eye-contact between patient and physician are therefore lost."
The first findings from the project are just-published in the February 2015 edition of the journal, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing and have been highlighted by the New Scientist magazine. The Lab-in-a-Box solution could capture multimodal activity in many real-world settings, but the researchers focused initially on medical offices and the problem of the increasing burden on physician introduced by digital patient records.
The Lab-in-a-Box has been developed as part of Quantifying Electronic Medical Record Usability to Improve Clinical Workflow (QUICK), a running study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and directed by Zia Agha, MD. The system is currently being deployed at the UC San Diego Medical Center, and the San Diego Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center.
The compact suitcase contains a set of tools to record activity in the office. A depth camera from a Microsoft Kinect device records body and head movements. An eye tracker follows where the doctor is looking. A special 360-degree microphone records audio in the room. The Lab-in-a-Box is also linked to the doctor's computer, so it can keep track of keyboard strokes, movements of the mouse, and pop-up menus that may divert the doctor's attention.
The greatest value of the Lab-in-a-Box, however, is in the software designed to merge, synchronize and segment data streams from the various sensors -- assessing the extent to which a certain confluence of activity may lead to distraction on the part of the physician. For example, says Weibel, lots of head and eye movement would suggest that the doctor is multitasking between the computer and the patient.
Weibel and the UC San Diego/VA team will compare data from different settings and different types of medical practice to pinpoint those factors that lead to distraction across the board, or that affect only specific medical specialties. Their findings could help software developers write less-disruptive medical software. The researchers envision also deploying the Lab-in-a-Box permanently in a doctor's office to provide real-time prompts to warn the physician that he or she is not paying enough attention to a patient. "In order to intervene effectively, we need to first understand the complex system composed by patients, doctors, and electronic medical record in depth, and this is what our study will finally yield." says Weibel. Ultimately, as Weibel and his co-authors state in their original Personal and Ubiquitous Computing article, the Lab-in-a-Box "has the potential to uncover important insights and inform the next generation of Health IT systems."

Security: Protecting customers charging electric vehicles on smart electricity grids

As electricity grids become more sophisticated, grid administrators can collect instantaneous data on consumer and supplier behavior. The 'smart grid' then learns to improve the reliability, costs and sustainability of electricity distribution. However, smart grids present new security challenges, especially for mobile systems such as electric vehicles (EVs), which can be attacked both electronically and physically.

Now, Jianying Zhou and Aldar Chan at the A*STAR Institute of Infocomm Research have developed the first automatic security system that protects EVs from combined cyber-physical attacks [1].
"Most existing authentication systems merely apply cybersecurity schemes directly to the smart grid, leaving gaps in the protection," explains Zhou. "The problem is especially serious for EVs, because the charging infrastructure is publicly open. Anyone could plug in an EV, even if it is stolen."
A particular danger is the so-called substitution attack, whereby a criminal can 'digitally imitate' an EV, plugging in their own device while the EV owner pays for the electricity. Chan and Zhou demonstrated a successful substitution attack on an existing EV charging station. "We plugged in kettles and hair dryers; it could be anything that draws current," says Zhou.
After proving that this security loophole existed, the researchers worked to improve the classic 'challenge-response' protocol for online security. "Instead of using a single challenge -- which is a random number used to test if a user really is who he claims to be -- we used one challenge sent through the wireless cyber path and another challenge through a physical path or the charging cable," says Zhou. "This ensures that the EV is connected physically to the right spot in the power grid, and that it is a real EV meeting existing EV standards."
Perhaps inevitably, Chan and Zhou found they could not achieve physical authentication using software alone. They had to design a new onboard hardware mechanism that binds an EV to its digital identity. However, they discovered a way to embed the challenge number in one of the signaling lines of the charging cable, so that existing charging stations will not need to be modified.
The researchers believe that their new security system could protect other components in the power grid, such as relays and transformers, as well as cardless ATMs. "With more research we could devise systems to ensure that the person withdrawing cash actually has digital authorization," says Zhou.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Ensuring security for networks of the future

Company networks are inflexible -- they are made up of many components that require a good deal of effort to be connected together. That's why networks of the future will be controlled by a central unit. However, this makes them a target for hackers. At CeBIT, Fraunhofer researchers will demonstrate how to protect these future networks.

Today's company networks comprise hundreds of devices: routers for directing data packets to the right receiver, firewall components for protecting internal networks from the outside world, and network switches. Such networks are extremely inflexible because every component, every router and every switch can carry out only the task it was manufactured for. If the network has to be expanded, the company has to integrate new routers, firewalls or switches and then program them by hand. That's why experts worldwide have been working on flexible networks of the future for the last five years or so, developing what is known as software-defined networking (SDN). It presents one disadvantage, however; it is susceptible to hacker attacks.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC in Garching, near Munich, will be showing how to make SDN secure at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, March 16-20. A demonstrator at the Fraunhofer exhibition stand (Hall 9, Booth E40) will show how SDN and all related components can be monitored. One of these components is visualization software, which displays the network's individual components and depicts in real time how the various applications are communicating with the controller. "We can show how software influences the behavior of different components using the controller, or, in the case of an attack, how it disrupts them," says Christian Banse, a security expert at AISEC.
But how exactly does SDN work, and why is it so vulnerable to attack? "In the future, the plan is for a central control unit to tell the many network components what to do. To put it simply, routers, firewalls and switches lose their individual intelligence -- they only follow orders from the controller," says Banse. This makes a network much more flexible, because the controller can allocate completely new tasks to a router or switch that were not intended when the component was manufactured. Plus, the tedious task of manually configuring components during installation is eliminated because components no longer need to be assigned to a specific place in the network -- the controller simply uses them as needed at the moment.
The controller is a popular target for hackers
Manufacturers have begun offering the first routers and switches that are SDN-compatible and have the necessary flexibility. "With all the hype surrounding the new adaptability made possible by a central control unit, SDN security has been neglected," warns Banse. "That's why we're developing solutions to make SDN more secure from the outset, before such systems become firmly established." In the future, networks will be controlled solely by a central controller -- Banse sees this as a problem, because it might provide the perfect loophole for attackers to access the entire network. "On top of that, a whole set of new applications are being developed for SDN -- for instance for firewall components or routing," says Banse. "We have make sure that these applications are reliable." It would be disastrous if, for example, outsiders were able to gain access to the company network using software installed accessing the controller.
That's why Banse and his colleagues started off by analyzing the interaction of all SDN components to identify vulnerabilities. "You have to precisely define how deep into the network a new application is allowed to go, for example. Otherwise the stability and security of the network is not guaranteed." So far, there are no sufficient security standards for communication among individual SDN components, but AISEC researchers are lobbying hard for an international standard. In addition to their visualization solution, at CeBIT Banse and his team will also present technical means for preventing unauthorized applications or malware from gaining access to SDN systems. They are developing ways to monitor if an app really carries out only the task for which it was intended. If it performs unplanned or undesirable activities, i.e. malware, it is rejected and blocked by the system.

World’s first compact rotary 3-D printer-scanner

With production funded by crowdsourcing, the first unit will be delivered to the United States in March.

Nanyang Technological University's (NTU Singapore) start-up Blacksmith Group today launched the world's first compact 3D printer that can also scan items into digitised models.
Named the Blacksmith Genesis, this user-friendly device allows users without much knowledge of 3D software to scan any item, then edit the digitised model on the computer and print it out in 3D.
The all-in-one 3D printer and scanner whose production was financed through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. com, was unveiled today at the American Association Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in San Jose, California.
The first batch is now ready to be shipped out in March to early adopters who supported Blacksmith Group's crowdfunding campaign.
Innovative design with several firsts
Housed in a black aluminium casing, the high-tech device weighing 6 kilograms features a 2-inch LCD display, Wi-Fi, an integrated SD-card reader and a USB connection for instant printing.
Blacksmith Genesis uses an innovative rotary platform for its printing and scanning, unlike other commercial 3D printers. This patent-pending revolving platform allows for true 360-degrees scanning, and can print items up to 6,650 cm3 (about 6.5 litres), twice the size of those printed by other similar-sized 3D printers in the market.
With a fine resolution of 50 micrometres, the reproductions will be twice as detailed compared to other compact 3D printers. Likewise, scanning of objects with its 5 megapixel camera takes only 6 minutes, twice as fast as other 3D scanners in the market.
Blacksmith Genesis is also the first to feature remote live monitoring and automatic error detection thanks to its in-built camera. This allows users to monitor and control the printing process on their smartphone from anywhere in the world through the Internet.
The device is the brainchild of Blacksmith Group's founders, NTU engineering graduate Dr Alex Pui Tze Sian and Mr Fang Kok Boon. Mr Fang, CEO of Blacksmith Group, said their aim is to make 3D printing easy and accessible to the average consumers.
"We designed Blacksmith Genesis with the average hobbyist in mind. Most 3D printers sold on the market now are not really user-friendly as their 3D models and blueprints usually have to be designed from scratch on the computer.
"However, with our device, 3D printing will be fuss-free as users won't need to design an original work from scratch as they can just use our Blacksmith Sorcerer 3D software. By scanning any physical item, they can immediately copy and print the item or use the digitised object as a base to form their own 3D object."
Start-up mentored by top scientist in 3D printing 
"3D printing is a disruptive innovation that has revolutionised the manufacturing and biomedical industries," Prof Chua said. "While low-cost 3D printers are available, they are still very hard to programme and assemble. Having an affordable, high-quality 3D printer that is easy to use is what the market is missing and this is where Blacksmith Group will bridge the gap," he added.
"Blacksmith Genesis with its unique rotary platform design is a great example of how scientists can bring innovations from the lab to the industry and in this case, all the way into consumers' homes. It has always been my wish that 3D printers will be as common as the inkjet and laser printers now found in many homes and offices."
The start-up had successfully completed their crowdsourcing campaign last August, raising over US$80,000. It is funded by the Interactive Digital Media (IDM) Jump-start and Mentor programme (i.JAM), and the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister's Office, Singapore.
The Blacksmith Genesis is now available for pre-order online at the price of US $2,200, with a flat rate of US $150 for shipping to 70 countries worldwide.

Reading speed harnessed to automatically control text display rates

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Computer scientists in Saarbrücken have developed a software system that recognizes how fast a text is being read and then allows the text to scroll forward line by line at the right speed.

Credit: Oliver Dietze

[Click to enlarge image]

Reading a text is something that each of us does at our own individual pace. This simple fact has been exploited by computer scientists in Saarbrücken who have developed a software system that recognizes how fast a text on a display screen is being read and then allows the text to scroll forward line by line at the right speed. The technology makes use of commercially available eye-tracking glasses, which are able to capture the motion of the user's eyes and convert this into a reading speed. Potential future areas of applications include electronic books or the large-scale displays used in railway stations and shopping centres. The research team will be showcasing its project from March 16th to March 20th at the Cebit computer expo in Hanover.

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Average readers manage about 200 words per minute. Once they reach the end of a page in a book, they turn the page. Things are somewhat different when reading a text on a display. In this case, the reader might use the mouse to pull up the next section of text to be read. This is something the team of computer scientists from Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) would like to change. Their solution is based on the movement of the reader's eyes. The system analyses the reading speed and uses the result to automatically adjust the speed at which the text is displayed on the screen. 'We use commercially available eye-tracking glasses,' explains Christian Lander, a doctoral research student who works at the DFKI's Innovative Retail Laboratory and is supervised by Professor Antonio Krüger.
The glasses are equipped with two cameras: a small infrared camera that faces the user and tracks the movement of the pupil in the user's right eye. The other camera faces forward and records the image that the user is looking at. The software combines the images from the two cameras and is thus able to precisely determine the direction of eye gaze. 'We have combined the image capture technology with a computational procedure that we developed in the media informatics research seminar,' says Lander. 'It computes the average speed at which a paragraph is read. The method involves registering how quickly the reader's eye travels from left to right along a line of text and then downward to the next line.' The system recognizes any change in the reader's reading speed and adjusts the text scrolling speed accordingly.
The system currently allows three readers to simultaneously read the same text on a single display. 'Each reader has their own small window in which they can read the text at their preferred speed,' explains Lander. It is conceivable that in a few years' time this technology will be used on the sorts of large displays found in railway stations or shopping centres. At the moment, tracking glasses are needed in order to register the wearer's gaze. However, the system could be installed in future in other more user-friendly wearable devices such as Google Glass. The method can also be adapted for use on smaller displays or with electronic books.
Christian Lander is one of 370 doctoral research students currently studying at the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science.

Security in a smart world

More stable power grids and quicker accident care: When used properly, digital data may be of high benefit. However, electronic processing also facilitates data abuse. For this reason, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the FZI Research Center for Information Technology develop holistic approaches to enhancing intrinsic security. Latest concepts will be presented at the CeBIT next week.

NurseEye: Digital Fall Detection in Compliance with Data Protection Legislation
It happens quickly: A patient at the hospital or nursing home falls on the corridor, no help is in sight. In such cases, the "NurseEye" video monitoring system might help. The system makes recordings of outdoor areas, corridors, or staircases and evaluates the images. If a fall is detected, NurseEye automatically issues an alarm to the nearest medical staff member, who then looks at the situation on the smartphone, communicates with the patient via the video system, and takes the correct measures. During normal operation, data protection is ensured: Only those images are stored, on which the software detects a fall. All other video data are deleted immediately. NurseEye was developed at the Competence Center for Applied Security Technology (KASTEL) by the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies, and Image Exploitation (IOSB) and KIT. The prototype will be presented at CeBIT.
Privacy-respecting Smart Meters
Smart meters supply information about electricity consumption in a quick and detailed manner. These data are required to secure electricity supply in decentralized power grids. However, they might also disclose the everyday life of the electricity consumer. By means of special communication protocols designed by KIT, the advantages of smart metering can be used while maintaining privacy. Before they are sent, the measured data are cooperatively concealed in a self-organized manner using randomly generated masking data, and they are summarized over several households. The grid operator can no longer draw any conclusions with respect to the original household data. But the total consumption of the group of consumers needed for grid control can be derived. The new communication concept can be implemented in a simple peer-to-peer mechanism with a small computation and cost expenditure only. No additional infrastructure is needed. At the CeBIT, privacy-respecting smart metering will be illustrated by a large-format demonstrator.
Automatic Simultaneous Translation
Language barriers often prevent free exchange of information. Spoken contents in particular, such as lectures, speeches, or internet videos, require a minimum knowledge of the respective foreign language. At KIT, the first automatic computer-based simultaneous translation service worldwide has been applied in selected lectures for two years now. The lecture translator automatically records the words spoken by the lecturer, transcribes the text into a written version, and translates it into English in real time. Students can follow the lecture via their PC or mobile phone. Due to its grammar, German has been considered a big challenge for a long time. The prototype system developed by KIT masters this challenge reliably now and can be operated regularly during the lecture. At the KIT booth (hall 9, booth D13), the lecture translator will be presented live during the whole CeBIT week. In addition, other new technologies for oral and text translations will be presented by the KIT-coordinated EU project EU-BRIDGE on March 17, 2015, at the Convention Center.
KASTEL: Research and Higher Education Relating to IT Security
The Competence Center for Applied Security Technology (KASTEL) at KIT pools activities in the areas of computer science, economics, and law for the joint development of secure IT applications. KASTEL cooperates with industry for the joint development of IT products with reliable and reproducible security guarantees. An example is the software security method Blurry Box. It was recently granted the German IT Security Prize. KASTEL and the KIT Department of Informatics offer students the opportunity to pass a comprehensive studies program and to specialize in IT security. This qualification is comparable to a specialized master's degree and opens up interesting perspectives on the labor market.
easierLife: Safe at Home without Emergency Button
An assistance system that is not only easy to install and to operate, but also brings certainty that older relatives and friends are doing well. With this objective, four young scientists developed the easierLife system. The sensors replacing the conventional emergency button have already been tested successfully at about 100 households by the FZI Research Center for Information Technology and its partners in the healthcare sector. With easierLife, the four researchers involved started their own business.
The wireless sensors of the easierLife system detect movements and habits at home. If something is wrong, they automatically issue a message or an emergency call. With this information, relatives and nursing staff can prevent critical situations. The persons receiving the information and the type of information authorized persons are to see can be adjusted in detail. The data are protected against unauthorized read-out by encoding using the SSL standard applied in online banking and access protection.
Software Security for Industry Automation: Measures against Counterfeiting of Merchandise and Sabotage
Industry 4.0 among others means the combination of robotics and software control of production systems. For this, additional security measures are required. Enhanced use of IT and the higher degree of networking make systems more susceptible to manipulation. In addition, the intellectual property contained in the systems has to be protected.
The CeBIT demonstrator will illustrate security of a robot control system. A manipulation-proof USB dongle supplies the cryptographic mechanisms needed for the security method. The protected control only works together with the dongle. If the dongle is lacking, the software is useless and the complete system as well as all components involved in the process are deactivated. Attackers cannot copy the software or analyze its internal functioning. Manipulations and sabotage are made more difficult.
Model-based Security Engineering
Security-critical systems and infrastructures are increasingly operated in open, worldwide networks and in connection with the internet. However, methodological security development support has not yet been established for the early concept phases in particular. At the CeBIT, a scientific prototype for support relating to structured security development will be presented. By means of the model-based approach, various requirements and framework conditions, standards, system architectures, and attack scenarios can be considered. This makes the development process transparent and reproducible. Solution alternatives can be analyzed and evaluated from various perspectives. Graphics and the required documentations are supported directly by the model. The model-based approach is aimed at enhancing efficiency and quality, managing complexity, identifying weaknesses and difficulties at an early stage, and ensuring a high level of security.