Hawking to ‘speak’ faster with device

World renowned scientist Stephen Hawking will be able to better communicate his ideas about fundamental physics after the technology that interprets his speech was upgraded with a new device.

World renowned scientist Stephen Hawking will be able to better communicate his ideas about fundamental physics after the technology that interprets his speech was upgraded with a new device.

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A worsening of the degenerative disease affecting the 71-year-old physicist had recently reduced him to composing sentences at a rate of one word a minute.

But now a team from computer hardware firm Intel have created a device they believe will give the professor the ability to compose five words a minute — and even increase it to ten. PTI

Google may phase out passwords
London: Search giant Google is set to kill off passwords and is experimenting with USB keys, mobile phones and even jewellery that can act as a physical ‘key’ to give users access to their account.

The firm’s security experts including an Indian are set to publish their findings next month, the Daily Mail reported.

In the upcoming issue of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine, Google vice president of security Eric Grosse and engineer Mayank Upadhyay will detail what is basically a physical key with a ‘smart chip’ embedded inside it.

“Along with many in the industry, we feel passwords and simple bearer tokens such as cookies are no longer sufficient to keep users safe,” the pair write in their paper, according to Wired.

To log, users simply place the tiny Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive into their computer. PTI