Shirqat, Iraq (CNN)"Shut up and stay still," the woman in black fatigues and a black headscarf snapped over her shoulder at the armed men behind her as she sat down for an interview.
Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he'd been called to attention.
This is a woman who commands respect, I thought. She keeps a Beretta 9-millimeter pistol in a holster under her left arm. The area around the trigger was silver where the paint had worn off.
The woman in question, 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed -- better known as Um Hanadi -- leads a force of around 70 men in the area of Shirqat, a town 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Mosul, Iraq.
She and her men, part of a tribal militia, recently helped government forces drive ISIS out of the town.
In the man's world that is rural Iraq, female fighters are a rarity.
'More wanted than the Prime Minister'
Um Hanadi is not new to this.
"I began fighting the terrorists in 2004, working with Iraqi security forces and the coalition," she says. As a result, she attracted the wrath of what eventually became al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which later morphed into ISIS.
"I received threats from the top leadership of ISIS, including from Abu Bakr (al-Baghdadi) himself," she says, referring to ISIS's self-declared caliph.
"But I refused."
"I'm at the top of their most wanted list," she brags, "even more than the Prime Minister."
Um Hanadi ticks off the times they planted car bombs outside her home. "2006, 2009, 2010, three car bombs in 2013 and in 2014."
Wahida Mohamed seen her in Shirqat, Iraq on Sept. 27, 2016.
Along the way, her first husband was killed in action. She remarried, but ISIS killed her second husband earlier this year. ISIS also killed her father and three brothers. They also killed, she added, her sheep, her dogs and her birds.
She narrowly escaped death as well.
"Six times they tried to assassinate me," she says. "I have shrapnel in my head and legs, and my ribs were broken."
She pulled back her headscarf to show her scars.
"But all that didn't stop me from fighting," she said.
Um Hanadi claims to have led her men in multiple battles against ISIS. General Jamaa Anad, the commander of ground forces in her native Salahuddin province, told me they had provided her group with vehicles and weapons.
General Anad, a short, compact, no-nonsense man of few words, simply says: "She lost her brothers and husbands as martyrs."
A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.
'Check out my Facebook page'
After listing all the attacks against her, and all the loved ones lost to ISIS, Um Hanadi said: "I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies."
She made no excuses, nor attempted to rationalize this. It was delivered as a boast, not a confession.
"This is all documented," she said. "You can see it on my Facebook page."
A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.
So we checked. Among many pictures of her with her dead husbands, fighters and generals, there was a photo of her in the same black combat fatigues and headscarf holding what appeared to be a freshly severed head. Another showed two severed heads in a cooking pot. In a third photograph, she is standing among partially-burned corpses. It's impossible to verify whether the photos are authentic or Photoshopped, but we got the point.
A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.
Um Hanadi describes herself as a "rabat manzal" -- a housewife. She denied media reports she was a hairdresser, although a photo on her Facebook page shows her without a headscarf, in what appears to be a hair salon. She has two daughters, aged 22 and 20. They are trained and ready to fight, she says, but are busy at the moment taking care of their children.
When we finished the interview, Um Hanadi's entourage prepared to board their pickup trucks. I walked up to one of the trucks, where three men sat in the front seat. One pulled out a hand grenade.
"This is for Daesh," he said, using the derogatory term for ISIS.
A man shows a machete to CNN's Ben Wedeman.
"And so is this -- to cut off their heads," said the driver, pulling a long machete off the dashboard and brandishing it uncomfortably close to my face.
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El Cajon, California (CNN) For a second consecutive night, protesters gathered Wednesday in El Cajon, California, holding signs and demanding accountability following an officer-involved shooting of an unarmed black man.
Alfred Okwera Olango, 38, pulled a vape smoking device from his pocket and pointed it at police before one officer fatally shot him and another discharged a Taser, police in El Cajon, California, said.
His death set off demonstrations in the San Diego suburb as activists demanded that authorities release video of the shooting. They also want a federal probe into Olango's death.
Some protesters threw water bottles at police while others gathered in the street and parking lot where the shooting happened. Many held signs saying "black lives matter" as police wearing helmets with shields looked on.
Police have released little information except for a still photograph showing Olango in what authorities described as a "shooting stance," facing off with the two officers in a parking lot.
By Wednesday evening, police identified the object as a the vaping device. The identity of one of the officers was revealed as Richard Gonsalves, a 21-year veteran of the force.
In a news conference, Mayor Bill Wells did not identify the second officer, except to say he was also a 21-year veteran of the force.
Wells said he understood the frustration of demonstrators, who blocked a freeway exit for a period of time on Wednesday.
Location
The protests were "angry and loud" but peaceful, he said.
"It's their First Amendment right," he said. "I understand that they don't feel heard. I understand that they're wanting more information."
Wells said he had seen the video and that it pained him. But he called for patience as the investigation runs its course.
"I saw a man who was distraught, a man who was acting in ways that looked like he was in great pain, and I saw him get gunned down and killed and it broke my heart," he said. "If it was my son, I would be devastated."
Not acting like himself
On Tuesday afternoon, El Cajon police responded to a 911 call reporting an black man in his 30s who was behaving "erratically" behind a restaurant at the Broadway Village Shopping Center, Lt. Rob Ransweiler said.
According to the call, the man was "not acting like himself" and had been walking in traffic, endangering himself and motorists, Davis said.
The woman calling 911 claimed to be the man's sister and told the dispatcher that he was mentally ill and unarmed, Davis said. Investigators have not been able to confirm whether the caller was the man's sister, he said.
"We tried to get her to talk to us. As you can understand, she was upset. She was not cooperating with us," the chief said, asking the woman to come forward to speak with investigators.
Officers did not respond to the first 911 call for 50 minutes because "it did take us that long to clear officers to get out there," Davis said.
Once they arrived, the man kept his hands concealed in his pockets while pacing back and forth. As a second officer prepared a Taser, the man "rapidly drew an object," placed both hands on it "like you would be holding a firearm."
One officer fired his gun at the man, while a second officer discharged his Taser, he said. Both are on three-day administrative leave.
The El Cajon Police Department's homicide unit will investigate the shooting, and the district attorney's office will review it, Davis said. Asked if he should consult an outside agency to investigate the incident, the police chief said, "I trust my investigators. I trust the system. I trust the protocol, the district attorney's office and the FBI."
No trust in prosecutors to investigate police
Such assurances have done little assure the community.
The Rev. Shane Harris, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Action Network, called releasing the photo "cowardly." Harris, who said he had spoken to the dead man's family, was one of several speakers addressing reporters in front of the El Cajon Police Department.
In a photo from police, officers engage a man they say was acting "erratically."
"We do not trust local prosecutors to investigate local police," he said, explaining the family's desire for a federal investigation.
Harris questioned how police could release such a seemingly damning photo while purporting to pursue all the facts and refusing to release video from witnesses and those at a nearby restaurant.
Added Bishop Cornelius Bowser of Charity Apostolic Church, "We don't want to see a still picture of him pointing something that is not gun. ... The best way to move forward right now is through transparency."
Citing a countywide protocol pertaining to officer-involved shootings, Police Chief Jeff Davis said Tuesday he was merely following guidelines in not making the video public. His department released the photo to counter "disinformation," he said.
Source CNN
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The global banking system is (still) under attack.
Image Banks urged to tighten security as hacks continue
SWIFT, the messaging network that connects the world's banks, says it has identified new hacks targeting its members, and it is warning them to beef up security in the face of "ongoing attacks." It did not name the banks affected.
The warning follows cyberattacks on banks in Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and Ecuador in which malware was used to circumvent local security systems, and in some cases, steal money.
An attack on Bangladesh's central bank yielded $101 million. Ecuador's Banco del Austro was hit for $12 million.
The message from SWIFT, which was first reported by Reuters, urges banks to protect themselves against the "persistent, adaptive and sophisticated" attacks, which use a similar method to crack their local security systems.
"These weaknesses have been identified and exploited by the attackers, enabling them to compromise the customers' local environments and input the fraudulent messages," SWIFT said.
SWIFT did not say how many new attacks had been discovered. The company says that its network and core messaging services have not been compromised by the attacks.
In each documented case, the criminals followed the same basic pattern:
Attackers used malware to circumvent a bank's local security systems.
They gained access to the SWIFT messaging network.
Fraudulent messages were sent via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.
SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt warned in May that more attacks could have occurred.
"The Bangladesh fraud is not an isolated incident: we are aware of at least two, but possibly more, other cases where fraudsters used the same modus operandi, albeit without the spectacular amounts," he said.
Leibbrandt said the method of attack is much more serious than a typical data breach or theft of customer information. Instead, the loss of control over payment channels could bring down a bank.
"In the recent cases, thieves were able to move just some of those banks' overseas assets," he said. "As a result, for the banks concerned, the events haven't been existential. The point is that they could have been."
SWIFT is taking extra measures to secure client banks, including sharing more information, supporting security audits and introducing tougher requirements for local bank computer networks.
Cybersecurity researchers have suggested that a hacking team known as "Lazarus" is responsible for the attacks. In May, U.S. law enforcement officials told CNNMoney that the attackers may be linked to North Korea.
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Fatalities on U.S. roads rose alarmingly last year and so far 2016 is on track to be even worse.
In the week before much of the nation hits the road for the long Labor Day weekend, the federal government issuedwhat it termed an unprecedented call to action to determine what's gone wrong.
In 2015, deaths on U.S. roads jumped to 35,092 -- up 7.2% from 2014. That was the largest increase since 1966. And the National Safety Council said last week that fatalities were up 9% in the first half of 2016.
But traffic safety experts said there was no single culprit for the surge in motor vehicle deaths. Smartphone use, cheaper gas prices, climate change and a strong economy all play a role.
"It's a very complex system," said Ken Kolosh, the director of statistical reporting at the National Safety Council. "You can never say emphatically it's these two or three things."
Cheap gas prices -- driven in part by more fracking -- has led more people to spend time (and rack up more miles) on the roads, increasing the chances of getting into a crash.
And now that the U.S. economy has recovered from the recession andunemployment has dropped, more people are driving to work. More commercial vehicles on the roads increases the likelihood of collisions between hulking trucks and cars.
In stronger economic times, teenagers -- who are high-risk drivers -- are also more likely to be driving to jobs.
Not surprisingly, smartphone use has increased the prevalence of distracted driving.
For example, the NSC found a 34% increase in deaths in Georgia. The state is seeing more single vehicle crashes, lane departures, over-corrections and striking of fixed objects.
"These are characteristics of distraction, and we believe texting to be the primary [cause]," said Harris Blackwood, the director of Georgia's highway safety office.
Highway safety officials in Illinois -- which is among the top states to see a large jump in deaths -- said a milder winter was also to blame for increasing the death toll on roads.
The U.S. experienced its warmest winter ever in 2015 - 2016. With better weather, people are more likely to spend time outside on motorcycles and bicycles. Pedestrians are also more inclined to be outside during nice weather, creating more chances to be injured.
"Bad winter weather actually saves lives. While it's tough to drive in winter weather, drivers know that and avoid it," said Kolosh.
In 2015 traffic related deaths were at their lowest in February when 2,380 people were killed, and spiked in August with 3,680 deaths, according to the NSC.
Source CNN
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Tesla will roll out "major improvements" to its so-called Autopilot software with new versions of the software that will soon be downloaded to owners' Model S and Model X electric vehicles, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday on Twitter.
The new operating software for the vehicles, version 8.0, will go into "wide release in a few weeks," Musk tweeted. Details of the improvements will be announced in a blog post that will be published later on Wednesday, Musk said.
Critics have been calling for changes to Autopilot since a series of highly publicized crashes, including one fatal one, involving drivers using the feature.
The new software improvements will involve "advanced processing of radar signals," Musk said. Autopilot's various features rely on a combination of radar and cameras.
Tesla's Autopilot is a suite of different technologies including automatic lane-keeping assistance, automatic emergency braking, and advanced cruise control which automatically maintains a safe distance behind cars ahead on the highway.
Many other car companies offer these features, but Tesla's system is different in some ways. For instance, Autopilot allows drivers to keep their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time while most other such systems require the driver to at least touch the steering wheel most of the time.
Musk has said that the Autopilot name is appropriate since, on an airplane, a human pilot must still attentively oversee the system just as in the car.
Tesla owner's manuals contain multiple warnings that drivers should always pay close attention while Autopilot is in use and be ready to take over driving at any time. The manual also states that the system is only to be used on limited access highways and not in complex urban driving situations.
The new software updates will be delivered "over the air" while the vehicles are parked. Owners will not have to visit a service station to get the updates.
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It's time to brush up on your photo editing skills. Instagram is rolling out a feature that will let people get a closer, more intimate look at your pictures.
Appropriately called Zoom, the new addition will let people zoom in on photos and videos in their feeds.
The move is a welcomed one for avid Instagram users; one that feels intuitive for those used to zooming in on mobile photos. Up until now, photos posted on Instagram have stayed in their static squares. The only way to inspect pictures was to take a screenshot of an Instagram post and zoom in outside of the photo-sharing platform.
The feature will be available for iOS users starting Wednesday. It will come to Android in the upcoming weeks.
"Finally my mom's stalking dreams have come true! I don't have to worry about her double tapping friends ancient grams anymore," tweeted one woman.
"I can FINALLY stop *accidentally* liking awkward photos in my misguided attempts to zoom in on Insta," tweeted another.
The feature rolls out on Wednesday to iOS users and will arrive on Android devices in the coming weeks.
The news comes on the heels of a series of updates intended to make the app stickier for users. The company recently introduced Instagram Stories earlier this month, a clone of Snapchat Stories that lets people post photos and video to a stream that disappears after 24 hours.
Other changes to Instagram over the past year include freshening up its logo and rolling out Boomberang, a short video feature that loops videos forwards then backwards.
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Samsung is recalling millions of new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones worldwide after reports that the devices can catch fire while charging.
The massive recall of one of Samsung's flagship devices is an embarrassing setback for the world's biggest selling smartphone maker. The Note 7 was unveiled just a month ago, and big rival Apple(AAPL, Tech30) is expected to show off its new smartphone next week.
Samsung(SSNLF) said Friday it had found a problem with the battery in some of the phones and was halting sales in 10 countries, including South Korea and the U.S. It will offer customers a new product for free in the coming weeks to replace the 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s that have been sold.
Samsung said devices in China don't appear to be affected because it used another battery supplier. But it was unclear if models sold in China would nonetheless be recalled.
The company originally said it would take about two weeks to prepare the recall, but later announced Note 7 users in the U.S. can exchange their device for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge, starting next week. It will also refund the cost of Note 7-specific accessories.
Samsung is giving Note 7 users a $25 gift card or bill credit for the inconvenience.
More details about how the recall program will work will be announced shortly, the company said. In the meantime, people worried about their batteries should contact their nearest Samsung service center.
Target and Amazon said Friday that it has stopped selling the phone and is working with Samsung to replace the devices already sold in stores and online. Amazon and Best Buy have also said they are no longer selling the Note 7. Best Buy customers can return or exchange the phone if they already bought one.
U.S. mobile carriers AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint have suspended sales. Meanwhile, Sprint is offering up similar devices for customers to use during the recall process.
South Korean news agency Yonhap had previously reported that there have been five claims around the world of Note 7s catching fire while charging. Unverified photos posted on social media showed charred devices.
A Galaxy Note 7 owner in South Korea, who asked that he not be identified, told CNNMoney he was awoken in the middle of the night when he "smelled something burning." His phone had melted and he used his older model Samsung, Galaxy Note 2, to take photos that he posted online.
"I saw small flames on the phone where it was melted," he told CNNMoney. "It disappeared soon after."
Samsung, a giant South Korean company, said it had been alerted to 35 claims of faulty phones worldwide. It said it had so far found 24 devices with problems for every million sold.
U.S. mobile networks sell the Galaxy Note 7 for at least $850. At a news conference, company executives declined to comment on exactly how much replacing all the devices would cost.
"It is a big amount that is heartbreaking," said Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile communications business.
Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile communications business, bows at the press conference
Samsung had the biggest share (22%) of the global smartphone market in the three-month period ending June 30, according to research firm IDC. By comparison, Apple held 12%.
Samsung benefited from the popularity of the Galaxy S7, IDC said, and the Galaxy Note 7 was expected to keep that momentum going into the second half of the year.
The phone was well received by reviewers, drawing attention for several unique features such as an iris scanner, which allows users to unlock the phone with their eyes.
-- Felicia Wong, Hope King and Julia Horowitz contributed to this report. Source CNN Do not forget to click on an ad on our blog, for the progress of this blog we say thank you
It's the beginning of the new year, which means that CES 2016 is underway.
The world's innovators have gathered in Las Vegas once again for the premiere technology expo.
This year, 3,600 presenters are exhibiting gadgets, software, services and innovations that they believe will take off in a big way in 2016.
Like every CES, there will be a mix of amazing, intriguing and downright ridiculous technology.
Here, you can check out the highlights -- and low-lights -- as CNNMoney catalogs CES 2016.
Blend your TV into your decor
Now you see it, now you don't.
Transparent TV technology has been around for a few years, but Panasonic's prototype caught our attention this year because of the way it can fit into your decor.
The wood frame around the TV shoots micro LEDs onto the glass when in use. When the screen is off, the glass becomes transparent.
TVs take up a lot of wall space, so it would make sense to have a display that could disappear when you're not using one.
Control BB-8 by using the force
Sphero's BB-8 Star Wars toy has been on the market for a few months, but until now you could only control it with a smartphone or tablet.
Now you can control it with the force. Well, with gestures that are picked up by a wearable wrist band that connects wirelessly to the robotic toy.
Wearing Sphero's Force Band, which will go on sale in the fall, you can send the Droid moving in a particular direction with a wave of your hand.
Intel built a drone that won't crash
Using its new Real Sense camera technology, Intel demonstrated a drone that automatically avoids obstacles in its flight path.
The drone can adjust to an obstacle in nine milliseconds -- faster than your reflexes could signal the drone to move.
With airlines frequently complaining about drone strikes, equipping drones with Real Sense technology could save a lot of headaches -- for airplane and drone pilots alike.
Panono lent me its amazing 360-degree camera, and I snapped a panoramic photo at Sony's impressive booth.
I know absolutely nothing about photography, so you can believe that Panono made it dead-simple to take stunning panoramic photos. For a photo to come out that clear and crisp on my first try is really something.
LG's washing machine does two loads at once
For all of LG's crazy ideas for the future -- roll-up TVs, robotic vacuums, TVs with back to back screens -- I was most impressed with its Twin washing machine, which does two loads at the same time.
You put your biggest load of dirty laundry into the main washer, and below there's a separate, smaller washer that pulls out like a drawer for the second load. That way, you could do your delicates at the same time as your regular wash, and you wouldn't have to wait for multiple loads to finish.
If you wear these, you can still operate heavy machinery
People who need to wear ear protection at work typically perform repetitive tasks that can lead to boredom. Unfortunately, you can't wear headphones and ear protection at the same time.
Plugfones represent the first solution that serves both purposes -- they're certified to reduce noise by 25 dB, and they're Bluetooth earbuds.
I could have used a pair of these when I lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and drunken NYU students were screaming at each other at 3 in the morning.
Poor RCA
Remember when RCA was among the hottest tech companies on the planet? There were about four people in its booth when I took this photo.
How the mighty have fallen.
A creepy robot sensor that watches you sleep
Mother is a peanut-shaped robotic sensor hub that watches over you and your family. It measures how well you brush your teeth, it knows how much you drink and it watches you when you sleep.
The idea behind Mother is that you can have everything in your home constantly monitored. Affix a sensor to your door, and it's a door alarm. Put a sensor on your grandmother's pills, and it will tell you if grandma is taking her medications. Put it under your pillow, and your sleep habits get tracked.
That may or may not be something you're interested in. But man, is it creepy-looking.
It's an ergonomic keyboard-mouse all-in-one!
The aptly named KeyMouse is a split keyboard that fits your hands perfectly. Move around the two keyboard halves, and it becomes a mouse.
The KeyMouse folks thought of everything. It has a mouse button at your thumbs. There's a NumLock button on the left that lets you convert the letters to numbers on the right hand. There are a bunch of programmable buttons that pretty much do whatever you want them to do.
You pretty much never have to lift your fingers off the home keys using KeyMouse. But using it was a little tricky. The keys aren't exactly where you'd expect them to be, and my first few attempts at "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" came back a bit garbled.
KeyMouse founder Heber Allred said it takes about a week to get used to the $399 keyboard. But once you do, your typing speed improves dramatically.
A connected collar for dog maniacs
If you've been wondering where you could get a Wi-Fi-powered, bowtie-shaped monitoring device that tracks your dog's activity, sleep and even doggie dreams, then the WonderWoof is obviously for you.
You can even meet other dog-obsessed people in your area with the associated app.
Bow-wow!
This robot folds your laundry
We have machines to wash and dry our clothes, so why not one that folds them?
The Laundroid does just that. Throw in an article of clothing, and Laundroid analyzes it, then folds it accordingly.
From a demonstration video, it looks like it takes Laundroid takes about five minutes to fold a single item ... and it needs to be loaded with each item of clothing individually. So the future isn't quite here just yet.
But the idea is that Laundroid will one day double as a closet or chest of drawers. Just dump your laundry in, walk away, and come back a half hour later to perfectly folded clothes.
Does this remind you of anything?
Guys, Google Glass was so three years ago.
Copying Google's design and calling it "Telepathy" still isn't going to get anyone to wear it.
A Bluetooth-connected pregnancy test
Pregnancy tests are stressful. They take a few minutes to give you an answer and you could be devastated by the result.
FirstResponse developed a Bluetooth-connected pregnancy test that it believes will take some of the stress out of the process.
The connected app first asks you if you want to be pregnant or not. It will tailor the manner in which it issues a response based on your answer. As the results are coming in, the app will educate you, entertain you or even calm you down, depending on how you'd like to pass the time.
When the result comes in, the pregnancy test will guide you through potential next steps.
It's not reusable, but at $15 to $25 it's not drastically more expensive than other pregnancy tests on the market.
LIght up your cooler for game-day
Sometimes, you want your cooler's ice to be lit up with a certain color.
That's when you need CoolerBrightz, apparently, which retail for $10.
Why get a manicure when you can get your nails printed?
Manicures have always been more art than science ... until now. Vinail will print a pre-programmed design right onto your nails.
Just stick your fingers into the printer. It glows purple for a few minutes, and then you have white nails with a red dragon printed on them -- or whatever floats your boat.
Polaroid just got even more old-school
Polaroid's new turntable
Polaroid has been able to make a decent comeback by tapping into Gen Xers' nostalgia and updating its famous instant film cameras for the digital world.
But the company also licenses its brand to a host of manufacturers, which make everything from Polaroid earbuds to Polaroid turntables.
Polaroid's take on the turntable will transfer your records into digital music and connect to your phone via Bluetooth.
Limited Too is back, now selling phone accessories to tweens
Limited Too is back!
Remember '90s clothing store Limited Too? It's back, but it's not just selling sparkly clothes for tween girls anymore.
Now it's also selling sparkly phone chargers, cases and LED makeup mirrors.
Samsung's new "Quantum Dot" TV is insanely good
Samsung's older lineup of TVs (bottom) show reds that appear more orange than the newer Quantum Dot TVs (above).
With a whole bunch of physics that are hard to contemplate, Samsung has designed a TV that really impresses with its amazingly true-to-life colors.
The "Quantum Dot" technology replicates real-life colors, so blacks are more black, reds are more red, and greens are more green. In older versions of Samsung TVs, reds appeared orange, and greens appeared blueish by comparison.
The new Quantum Dot TVs will debut later this year.
Corning's insane car concept
How'd you like this display in your car?
Screens in cars are becoming standard, now that backup cameras are mandatory. But glass-maker Corning envisions a future where screens aren't just part of your dashboard -- instead, your entire dashboard will be a screen.
Corning's futuristic plan also includes putting Gorilla Glass on your windshield. That's the same screen that's on your phone. It's lighter and more durable than your current windshield, helping to increase fuel efficiency and clarity.
It also showed off an impressively bright "heads up display" that was projected onto the windshield, showing turn-by-turn navigation and your current speed. Cars are becoming more like smartphones on wheels, but Corning is taking that idea to the extreme.
So Bonnasse developed DietSensor, essentially a massive database of food components that won a coveted innovation award at this year's CES. The corresponding app helps you measure your daily intake of food, making recommendations about what to eat -- and not to eat -- throughout the day, based on your particular health profile.
DietSensor really becomes impressive when it's paired with Consumer Physics' $249 pocket-sized "Scio" infrared scanner and a Bluetooth connected scale. Put your plate on the scale, and hold the scanner to each food item on your plate. The scanner instantly measures how much fat, protein and carbohydrates are in your food, and the connected app figures out how much of each component you consume as you eat, in real time, as it leaves the scale (and enters your mouth).
DietSensor has preset plans for individuals who are overweight, diabetic, have high cholesterol or heat disease. You can also enter your own daily consumption goals, based on your dietician's recommendations.
Super-fast Internet is coming over your phone line
Today, you have a choice between cable broadband Internet, which is expensive, or DSL Internet over your phone line, which is slow.
But soon, a new technology will be coming to your home that will offer Google Fiber-like speeds right over your phone line. It's called G.Fast, and Israeli chipmaker Sckipio is showing off the powerful technology at CES this year.
In a demonstration for CNNMoney, Sckipio showed off download speeds of nearly 750 megabits per second traveling over a standard phone line. That's 50 times faster than the broadband that you probably have coming into your home right now.
The promise of G.Fast is to offer an alternative to your broadband company. The technology will give your telephone provider the ability to offer even faster speeds than cable -- and they won't have to dig up holes in your yard to do it.
Sckipio says the G.Fast technology will debut in the United States later this year.
AT&T Mobility CEO: 'Not just about offering the cheapest service'
In a dig at T-Mobile(TMUS), AT&T Mobility CEO Glenn Lurie told CNNMoney that being the best wireless carrier is about more than having the lowest price.
"From the time you get up to time you go to bed, you'll get an integrated experience with AT&T," Lurie said. "Your videos will work seamlessly with your phone, car or at work. All these inanimate objects around you will start to take care of you."
AT&T(T, Tech30) is investing heavily in building up its Internet of Things offerings by partnering with the governments of Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas to make their infrastructure wireless. One day, Lurie says AT&T will let people in those cities know where traffic congestion is happening, where the nearest parking spaces are, when there is an emergency, and even whether their water is safe to drink.
With AT&T powering DirecTV, wireless connections in cars and millions of smartphones, the company is developing massive scale that it says separates it from the competition.
"It's not just about offering the cheapest service," Lurie said. "The others we're competing with are single-play players." Source CNN Do not forget to click on an ad on our blog, for the progress of this blog we say
