BMW and Baidu will have a self-driving car in China “before the year is out”

BMW, like most major car manufacturers, is getting to the point where it has mature semi-autonomous driving technology—lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, self parking—and is now looking towards fully autonomous solutions. The new 2016 BMW 7 Series, unveiled just a couple of days ago, has features such as “speed limit obedience,” which uses a forward-facing camera to look for new speed limits; and self-parking with the driver outside of the car: just push a button on the key fob and marvel as the car parks itself (pictured top).As for BMW’s fully self-driving aspirations, however, the company is keeping its cards much closer to its chest than Google, which already has a fleet of autonomous cars driving the streets of California. Established car makers like BMW and Mercedes seem content to forge ahead with semi-autonomous features, while upstarts like Google test the fully autonomous waters. Google gets all the positive PR and column inches, of course—but it also gets to deal with all the legislative roadblocks that need to be defeated before driverless cars are a reality.

Read on, source: BMW and Baidu will have a self-driving car in China “before the year is out” | Ars Technica

OpenSesame: Hacked kids’ toy could open garage doors

Garage doors may be vulnerable to being opened remotely by hackers using little more than a childrens’ toy, a security researcher has proven this week.The repurposed tool has been branded OpenSesame by its creator Samy Kamkar, who built it out of a discontinued Mattel toy called IN-ME, adding an antennae and an open-source hardware add-on. Although no longer available, Softpedia notes that the toy is a pocket computer that allows kids to chat to eachother, and can still be found on eBay for as little as $12.The proof-of-concept attack affects basic, fixed code garage door security, for which the most advanced would leave 4,096 possible combinations. Kamkar claims that it would take around 29 minutes to breach the lock by brute-force if the details of the system were known to the hacker.

Read on, source: OpenSesame: Hacked kids’ toy could open garage doors

IT security budgets will continue to rise, finds Dell report

Around 19% of IT security leaders said that budgets will significantly increase over the next two years, with an additional 31% saying budgets will increase, according to a new report by Dell SecureWorks.The study by Dell surveyed 1,825 IT security leaders and their staff, based in 42 countries including North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The aim of the report was to identify the key influencers on decisions which affect security budgets and technology purchases.Of the remaining survey respondents, nearly all said that budgets will remain flat (46%), while a few (4%) said their organizations could actually decrease security spending. This is largely the same growth picture as the last two years, with the same group of experts witnessing the same increase (31%) and a similar significant increase (15%) during the period.

Read on, source: IT security budgets will continue to rise, finds Dell report

Top Gear: BBC in multimillion-pound James May and Richard Hammond bid

The BBC has made a multimillion-pound bid to keep James May and Richard Hammond on Top Gear following the axing of Jeremy Clarkson.BBC2 chiefs are understood to want May and Hammond to remain on the show alongside a different guest presenter each week.Such a move would scupper the three presenters reuniting on a rival motoring show on another channel, but could pave the way for Clarkson to return as a presenter on a future series.

Read on, source: Top Gear: BBC in multimillion-pound James May and Richard Hammond bid | Media | The Guardian