Tag: detection
Microsoft Defender is lacking in offline detection capabilities, says AV-Comparatives
AV-Comparatives, a leading organization in security software testing, recently released its latest Malware Protection Test for consumer antivirus software. The test compared major antivirus products with a defined set of malware samples, collecting logs and results about the software capabilities to detect and protect users against infection.
How to disable Crash Detection on your iPhone or Apple Watch
If you’re an Apple user who loves amusement parks, you might want to disable Crash Detection. That’s because there have been several reports of the emergency feature being triggered on rollercoasters.
Aside from this unintended use case, Crash Detection, which is available on the new iPhone 14 line, as well as the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, has already been proven to work. And it could very well be a lifesaver in the event of a car accident, so you might not want to disable it.
Nonetheless, there is a way to turn it off. Here’s how.
1. Go to settings
Open Settings on your Apple Watch Series 8/Ultra or iPhone 14 device. Scroll down and tap “Emergency SOS.”
2. Scroll down and disable “Crash Detection”
In the “Emergency SOS” section, you’ll find several settings related to emergency settings. Find the setting called “Crash Detection” and toggle it off.
Credit: Apple
3. Confirm Crash Detection is disabled
Next, you’ll be prompted with a disclaimer explaining that turning off the feature will prevent your device from automatically making an emergency call. Tap “Turn Off.”
Credit: Apple
And that’s it. Just remember to turn Crash Detection back on when your amusement park joy ride’s over.
So, how exactly does Apple’s crash detection work?
Earlier this fall, Apple announced a new feature called Crash Detection for the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8. And we already know it works as advertised… even sometimes when it’s not supposed to, like when you’re on a rollercoaster.
But how exactly does Crash Detection work? And why would a rollercoaster ride trigger it?
Apple execs Ron Huang, vice president of sensing and connectivity, and Kaiann Drance, vice president of worldwide iPhone marketing, spoke to tech blog TechCrunch to pull back the curtain on what went into making the new features.
Here’s what we learned.
1. G-Forces aren’t just for ‘Top Gun’
Crash Detection is made possible because of new advancements to the gyroscope and accelerometer — sensors within the iPhone and Apple Watch that detect motion and speed.
“It’s mostly the G-Force detection,” Drance told TechCrunch. “It’s able to detect G-Force up to 256 Gs. That was one of the key differences for the new accelerometers that the new watches and phones have.”
For context, the highest G-Force survived by a human was the 214 Gs Indycar driver Kenny Brack experienced when he crashed his racecar, which was going 220 mph at the time, at the Texas Motor Speedway. Serious car accidents are around 100 Gs or higher.
Suffice to say, Crash Detection has got you covered in the G-Force department.
2. A symphony of sensors
But G-Force sensors aren’t the only technologies that determine whether a crash has taken place. Crash Detection also takes multiple factors into account. That includes GPS to infer high speeds, microphone activity for the sounds of a crash, a barometer to detect pressure if the airbags are deployed, and even Bluetooth and CarPlay to inform your device that you’re in a car.
Apple also worked extensively with crash labs to simulate crashes and gather data. The tech company even gathered historical data from the Department of Transportation and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to understand injury-likely crashes. This was all to ensure that the feature would be hard to trigger and wouldn’t accidentally go off if you dropped your phone.
3. “It’s not a straight equation.”
Crash Detection needs to factor in all of these data points to determine if there’s been a crash — it’s not just one overruling data point or specific calculation that triggers it. It’s about how the sensors tell the whole story.
Given that the factors involved in a car accident are varied and unique, Crash Detection is designed to analyze the data for the sum of its parts. Huang said that a car’s speed, impact, pressure change, and even sound level all help to determine whether the feature is triggered.
“It’s all a pretty dynamic algorithm.”
4. Emergency SOS to the rescue
Ironically, crashing your car in a remote area is when you need help the most and are least likely to get it. But Apple thought of that.
If this happens, your iPhone or Apple Watch will first try and call 911 through your regular carrier network. Barring that, it will then try and route to any other carrier. And if there’s no cell service around, Huang said the iPhone will make an emergency SOS call via satellite connectivity.
5. Apple Watch works the same just differently
According to Huang, Crash Detection on the iPhone and the Apple Watch both have the same level of accuracy but each works slightly differently.
“Watch is on your wrist, and the kind of impact you see on your wrist during a crash will be very different,” he said. “…But, for example, [the] barometer is very similar with the iPhone and Watch. So there are differences based on how the devices are used, placed, or worn.”
Apple’s already confirmed that it plans to fine tune Crash Detection over time. But for now, if you’re an amusement park lover who doesn’t want the cops showing up every time you ride a rollercoaster, you can just disable the feature.
Otherwise, maybe leave your iPhone or Apple Watch with that one friend who hates rollercoasters and is happy to watch the rides from solid ground.
iPhone 14’s Car Crash Detection Feature is Calling 911 About Roller Coaster Rides
This was quite the read over the weekend: the Wall Street Journal reported that the car crash detection feature built into the new iPhone 14/14 Pro and Apple Watches is sensitive enough to be set off by a roller coaster.
Apple Executives Offer Closer Look at iPhone 14’s Crash Detection
During the interview with TechCrunch‘s Brian Heater, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPhone product marketing, Kaiann Drance, and the company’s vice president of sensing and connectivity, Ron Huang, shed some light on the technical aspects of how the latest iPhone and Apple Watch models actually detect a car crash.
The latest devices include updated sensors that can detect sudden changes in motion and pressure, along with other data types from the iPhone, to trigger an alert. The updated accelerometer in the latest iPhone models can measure G-force measurements of up to 256Gs. As Apple was developing the feature, it required a “fundamental understanding of what is experienced during a crash,” said Huang in the interview. “In these crashes, you see impact forces over 100Gs. We started around 256Gs. Any time you try to increase that range, there are trade-offs, in terms of precision at the higher range and the power costs. It took the team a lot of work to build the sensors in this way.”
Alongside data from the gyroscope and accelerometer, the iPhone uses multiple other variables to understand if a user is moving in a car and if they’ve been involved in an accident. “There’s no silver bullet, in terms of activating crash detection,” said Huang, adding that there is no set number of factors that must be present before Crash Detection is triggered and emergency services are contacted.
It’s hard to say how many of these things have to trigger, because it’s not a straight equation. Depending how fast the traveling speed was earlier, determines what signals we have to see later on, as well. Your speed change, combined with the impact force, combined with the pressure change, combined with the sound level, it’s all a pretty dynamic algorithm.
There are some car accidents in which the iPhone 14 or newer Apple Watch models may deliberately not contact emergency services. “I actually had a rear-end fender bender when I was in New York earlier. My crash detection did not go off,” Drance said. “It’s just one of those minor things where you just get out of your car and keep going. That’s part of the sensor fusion and accuracy, because we don’t want to be doing a lot of false calls to 9-1-1 when they’re not necessary.”
Despite Apple’s efforts to reduce false calls to emergency services, reports have emerged that iPhone 14 devices are calling emergency services when users are riding a roller coaster. The false alarm calls are likely a result of the iPhone 14’s sensors falsely interpreting the sudden braking and movement of the ride as a collision with another vehicle. Other factors the iPhone uses include noise, such as engine or road noise, as well as Wi-Fi routers near an iPhone rapidly changing as a result of being in a moving vehicle.
Huang also touched on how Apple tested Crash Detection, noting the company placed the iPhone in many places around a car, equipped with cameras to analyze the impact. Apple also looked at data from the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to understand what types of accidents are the leading causes of injuries.
We put iPhones in many different places throughout the car — on the dummies and the car itself and mounts and so forth. And then we collect all of the raw sensor data coming from these devices during such a crash. We put cameras inside and outside the cars, as well, so from the footage, you can time the actual impact, what the pressure sensors see when the airbag goes off in slow motion. We’re able to look at data in high fidelity. We also look at DATA from the Department of Transportation or the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to understand what kinds of crashes are the leading causes of injuries.
Crash Detection is available on the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch Ultra.
This article, “Apple Executives Offer Closer Look at iPhone 14’s Crash Detection” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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The iPhone 14’s ‘Crash Detection’ Keeps Calling 911 on Rollercoasters
“It dials 911 on rollercoasters.”
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the feature has had law enforcement sent to amusement parks on numerous occasions after mistaking a thrill ride’s twists, turns, and hard braking for a real emergency….
If the sensors detect that you’ve been in an accident, your iPhone will display an alert and call emergency services if you don’t dismiss it within 20 seconds. When it calls law enforcement, it will play an audio message that alerts authorities you’ve been in a crash, and also provides them with your location….
[WSJ reporter Joanna Stern] says Warren County, where Kings Island is located, received six emergency calls triggered by park rides since the iPhone 14’s release. She also points out that other users have experienced similar issues in amusement parks across the country.
“My time on the crash-detection beat has proven that the feature can absolutely save a life,” Stern acknowledged on Twitter. “There’s already proof of it helping in real crashes. But there are situations where it works and it shouldn’t and others where it doesn’t work and it should.
“Such is the story of technology!”
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Responds to Video Testing Crash Detection Feature With Junkyard Vehicles
Stern recruited Michael Barabe to crash his demolition derby car with a heavy-duty steel frame into two unoccupied vehicles parked in a junkyard — a 2003 Ford Taurus and a 2008 Dodge Caravan. The results were mixed, with the iPhone and Apple Watch only detecting some of the crashes, which Apple said was the result of the testing conditions in the junkyard failing to provide enough “signals” to trigger the feature every time.
When I contacted Apple with the results, a company spokesman said that the testing conditions in the junkyard didn’t provide enough signals to the iPhone to trigger the feature in the stopped cars. It wasn’t connected to Bluetooth or CarPlay, which would have indicated the car was in use, and the vehicles might not have traveled enough distance prior to the crash to indicate driving. Had the iPhone received those extra indicators—and had its GPS shown the cars were on a real road—the likelihood of an alert would have been greater, he said.
Apple says its crash detection feature relies on “advanced Apple-designed motion algorithms trained with over a million hours of real-world driving and crash record data.” Stern outlined the various hardware sensors and software algorithms that assist with detecting a crash on supported iPhone and Apple Watch models:
• Motion sensors: All the devices have a three-axis gyroscope and high-g force accelerometer, which samples motion more than 3,000 times a second. It means the devices can detect the exact moment of impact and any change in motion or trajectory of the vehicle.
• Microphones: The mics are used to detect loud sound levels that might indicate a crash. The microphones are only turned on when driving is detected, and no actual sound is recorded, Apple says.
• Barometer: If the air bags deploy when the windows are closed, the barometer can detect a change in air pressure.
• GPS: Readings can be used to detect speeds prior to a crash and any sudden lack of movement, as well as inform the device that it’s traveling on a road.
• CarPlay and Bluetooth: When connected, these give the algorithms another signal that the phone is on board a car, so it knows to look out for a crash.
Crash detection is enabled by default on the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 8, second-generation Apple Watch SE, and Apple Watch Ultra. The feature can be found in the Settings app under Emergency SOS → Call After Severe Crash and is not available on older iPhone and Apple Watch models.
Apple’s website says that the crash detection feature is designed to detect “severe” car crashes, such as “front-impact, side-impact, and rear-end collisions, and rollovers” involving “sedans, minivans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and other passenger cars.” Apple warns that the feature “cannot detect all car crashes,” so it is not failproof.
When a severe car crash is detected, a supported iPhone or Apple Watch displays an alert and sounds an alarm, according to Apple. If a user is able, they can call emergency services by swiping the Emergency Call slider on the iPhone or Apple Watch, or dismiss the alert. If they do not respond to the alert after 10 seconds, the device begins another 10-second countdown. If they still haven’t responded, the device calls emergency services.
Apple says if a severe car crash is detected, users will interact with the Apple Watch if they are wearing one. Otherwise, users interact with the iPhone.
All in all, while Stern said her test was not exactly scientific, it is reassuring that the feature detected some of the crashes. However, tests involving stationary vehicles in a controlled environment can never truly replicate an on-street collision.
This article, “Apple Responds to Video Testing Crash Detection Feature With Junkyard Vehicles” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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The iPhone 14’s car crash detection might be a little too good
NTSB Wants Alcohol Detection Systems Installed In All New Cars In US
Under a US law enacted last year, the NHTSA is already required to examine whether it can issue this type of rule. While drunk driving is a longstanding problem that has caused many deaths, the NTSB said its recommendation was spurred by its investigation into one crash that killed nine people — including seven children — in January 2021 on State Route 33 near Avenal, California. On that two-lane highway with a speed limit of 55 mph, an SUV driver leaving a New Year’s Day gathering “was driving at a speed between 88 and 98 mph,” the NTSB report said. […]
Section 24220 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure LawSection 30111 of Title 49 in US law, it can delay issuing a rule for three years and submit annual reports to Congress describing the reasons for not issuing the rule. Each annual report would also have to contain an update on “the deployment of advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology in vehicles.” In writing the law, Congress noted that “in 2019, there were 10,142 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in the United States involving drivers with a blood alcohol concentration level of .08 or higher, and 68 percent of the crashes that resulted in those fatalities involved a driver with a blood alcohol concentration level of .15 or higher.” Congress also cited a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimating that “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology can prevent more than 9,400 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities annually.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.