Delta's JFK terminal now home to 200 iPads, a few more enticing eateries originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 19:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading O-Bow repurposes a mouse sensor for artificial bow tracking
O-Bow repurposes a mouse sensor for artificial bow tracking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Microvision's PicoP-based SHOWWX+ projector: twice as bright, zero percent larger
Microvision's PicoP-based SHOWWX+ projector: twice as bright, zero percent larger originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The camera works by incorporating complex computer algorithms with blasts from a femtosecond laser that issues ultra-short bursts of light lasting just one quadrillionth of a second. Those intense light bursts charge forward and illuminate a scene – even a scene around the corner from the source – sending photons bouncing around the area. Some of those photons make it back to the camera, which uses aforementioned complex computer mathematics to rebuild the scene around the corner, pixel by pixel.
Professor Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture group at MIT's Media Lab, equates the technology to X-ray vision, but instead of going through an obstacle the camera uses light to go around it. That could have some seriously handy applications in the arenas of defense, search and rescue, or machine vision. Rescuers could use the technology to map collapsed buildings to search for survivors or determine the safety situation inside, and robot cars could quickly map the area directly around a corner before it begins a turn to ensure it charts the proper path.
There's a bit more information via the Media Lab, but for more serious details check out this paper on transient imaging by one of the grad students involved with the project.
We already knew Stuxnet was unprecedented, but it's what is unknown about it that makes it so unsettling. The code can enter systems undetected, steal information or alter processes, and basically live there causing a mess of things while the system appears to security software to be working properly. But authorities don't know where the Stuxnet worm came from, or what it was specifically designed to attack, McGurk told Senators.
That last part is debatable. While there is still a degree of uncertainty about Stuxnet's aims, cybersecurity firm Symantec released a report Friday saying that all evidence points to Iran as the target of the worm. "Stuxnet is a threat targeting a specific industrial control system likely in Iran, such as a gas pipeline or power plant," the report reads. "The ultimate goal of Stuxnet is to sabotage that facility by reprogramming programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to operate as the attackers intend them to, most likely out of their specified boundaries."
Symantec researchers were able to deduce this from the fact that Stuxnet requires specific industrial control systems from very specific vendors (one in Finalnd, the other in Tehran) to work, and more than 60 percent of infections have been reported in Iran (there have been approximately 44,000 unique infections reported; just 1,600 are in the United States). That has led to speculation that Stuxnet was designed to sabotage Tehran's controversial uranium enrichment program.
Still, global security experts appear co closer to pinpointing a source of the attack, which is a serious threat to systems that control infrastructure like power grids and pipelines around the globe. That's more than a little unsettling in a wired world. According to one cybersecuiry expert quoted by CNN, "we're not only susceptible, but we're not very well prepared."
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