During a two-month hackathon in September and October 2015, security researchers from Bitdefender found vulnerabilities in four new IoT devices, of which only one has been partially fixed after the developer was notified. Researchers found the first issue in the WeMo Switch, an Internet-accessible switch that lets users turn electronic devices in their home on and off. This device was (and still is) using an insecure communications channel between the switch and the smartphone app that features no authentication. Everything is transmitted in cleartext, except for the device's password, which is encrypted with an easily breakable 128-bit AES algorithm, using …

Dyson shot to fame for its bagless vacuum cleaners more than two decades ago, and in the intervening years the U.K. company has launched everything from hand-dryers and heaters to washing machines and air multipliers. Exactly a year ago today, Dyson launched its first ever air purifier — the device launched only in China at first, a country long plagued by pollution, with more than one million premature deaths attributed to bad air, according to some studies. Today, Dyson is introducing a brand new version of the air purifier to the U.S. and other markets around the world. The $500 Dyson Pure Cool Link is …

Volvo's North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker's semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show. "It can't find the lane markings!" Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. "You need to paint the bloody roads here!" Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps …