Knowledge@Computing

Sometime between 2019 and 2020, a curious phenomenon began surfacing on Signal, FaceTime, and four other mobile messaging applications: someone could ring a person up and listen in to the audio of their surroundings — all without the receiving party picking up the call.

Roughly a decade ago, there was a big shake-up to the startup world. Entrepreneurs looking to fund their latest business venture no longer had to seek seed capital from traditional sources such as angel investors or wealthy individuals. Instead, a markedly different financing option was now trending: crowdfunding.

NUS Computing Assoc Prof Prateek Saxena, Asst Prof Trevor Carlson and PhD student Jason Zhijingcheng Yu delve deeper into CAPSTONE, an exciting new technology with the potential to make our computers much more secure.

One day in May 2014, law enforcement officials swooped down on a warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area. There they found a mini laboratory, pill press machines, and barrels filled to the brim with tiny tablets — marks of a counterfeit drug-making operation. Six men were arrested, including ringleader 35-year-old Jeremy Donagal, nicknamed the ‘Xanax King.’

All across the developed world, people are living increasingly sedentary lives. The average adult spends more than half their day sitting down — nearly six hours for those in Singapore, versus 7.7 hours and 8.3 hours for Americans and South Koreans, respectively.

In late 2017, two friends were struggling to make rent in San Francisco, a city known for its notoriously high cost of living. As they brainstormed ideas for how they could “make a few bucks,” the pair spied an opportunity: a big design conference was taking place in town and hotels were hard to come by. What if they bought a few air mattresses for their loft apartment and rented them out? The friends created a simple website to advertise their service, naming it Air Bed and Breakfast. Their idea was a hit, and soon Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, along with a third friend Nathan Blecharczyk, were looking for investors to grow their company.