The Best BitTorrent Client for Linux [Linux App Directory]

The Best BitTorrent Client for Linux [Linux App Directory]:

Linux has a few pretty great BitTorrent clients available, but our favorite would have to be the feature-filled, easy-to-use Deluge. More »

How to Create a Personal Encryption Scheme to Easily Hide Your Data in Plain Sight [Security]

How to Create a Personal Encryption Scheme to Easily Hide Your Data in Plain Sight [Security]:

Towing the line between keeping your private information secure and still conveniently accessible is always a challenge, but you can make it a little easier—and fun—by coming up with your own simple encryption schemes that you can decode easily in your head. Here's a look at how it's done and why you'd want to do it. More »

Developer Week in Review: The hijacking of an insulin pump

Developer Week in Review: The hijacking of an insulin pump:

It was a great week at the Turner household! Although we love our house, we've frequently said to each other, "You know what we could really use? A 25-foot-long tree limb wrapped in power lines blocking our driveway." Well, this weekend mother nature decided to help us fill this void in our landscaping, and threw in some ornamental cherry firewood as well (chainsawing not included). Thankfully, I spent the extra bucks on Saturday to get our LPG tank topped off, so I've got generator power for 10-14 days. Given we're on day four with no power in sight, that was a good decision.

It could have been worse, of course. For example ...

A scene from an upcoming technothriller

Plucky researcher Ann McManna walked across the room toward the podium, ready to reveal the details of the fiendish plot she had uncovered to the waiting reporters. Now the world would know about the conspiracy to corner the world supply of macadamia nuts. Her heart pounded with excitement, her mouth was dry and she perspired, in spite of the air conditioning that was making the room practically an ice box. As she approached the stage, she bumped against a table, stumbling and suddenly having trouble seeing her path through blurry eyes. Something was wrong, but she couldn't focus, couldn't identify what was happening to her, even as she collapsed to the ground. Minutes later, the paramedics would close the eyelids of her corpse.

Some fanciful invention of Tom Clancy or Robin Cook? Not anymore, thanks to research by McAfee's Barnaby Jack, presented at this year's Hacker Halted conference. Using some custom software and a special antenna, Jack was able to control Medtronic insulin pumps as far as 300 feet from the controller. He was able to disable the tones that warn a user that insulin is being pumped, and trigger a 25-unit bolus of insulin. In some circumstances, this could kill a victim.

As networked computers appear in more life-critical items, this is a good reminder that security should be job No. 1, not something to think about if you have time. Too many proprietary device manufacturers seem to depend on security through obscurity, rather than security in depth.

Strata 2012 — The 2012 Strata Conference, being held Feb. 28-March 1 in Santa Clara, Calif., will offer three full days of hands-on data training and information-rich sessions. Strata brings together the people, tools, and technologies you need to make data work.



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The first taste is free, but you'll be back

One of the perils of depending on public APIs from for-profit companies is that they may get turned into a profit center down the road. Users of the Google Maps API learned that lesson recently, as Google announced that high-volume users will no longer have free access to the APIs starting next year. Before you start panicking, the definition of high-volume will be more than 25,000 calls a day (2,500 if you use the custom styling features), and the rate over 25,000 is $4/1,000 calls. Google claims that less than 1% of all users will run up against this limit.

The problem with using beta or "free" services in your products is that, unless the terms of use specifically say that it will be free forever, you have no contractual agreement to lean on, and the provider is able at any point to change how (or even if) the service is provided.

Linus Torvalds vs. C++

Linux progenitor Linus Torvalds has a reputation for diplomacy and fence building — that's practically the only way to herd the stampede of cats that is the Linux developer community. But when he gets upset, the results can peel the paint off the walls.

We got a good example this week, as Torvalds responded to a complaint about the fact that the git source control system was written in pure C, rather than C++. In a nutshell, Torvalds called C++ a lousy language that attracts substandard programmers and leads to sloppy, unmaintainable code. In general, I tend to take any blanket condemnation of a programming language as hyperbole, but Torvalds seems to genuinely loathe C++. We'll have to see if his anger against the language alienates any of the kernel developer base, or if people will just shrug it off as Linus being Linus.

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The Best BitTorrent Client for Windows [Lifehacker]

The Best BitTorrent Client for Windows [Lifehacker]:

While you have a few choices of BitTorrent client on Windows, uTorrent is hands down the best we've ever used: it's feature-filled, very lightweight, and completely free. More »

NASA Considers Tractor Beams for Future Rovers

NASA Considers Tractor Beams for Future Rovers:

NASA is exploring ways to use tractor beams in future robotic probe missions. The agency has recently awarded a team of engineers $100,000 to study three experimental techniques for trapping small particles with lasers.

Spacecraft flying by comets and asteroids or rovers landing on Mars could use the methods to continuously sample their target.

While such technology has been used in biological and surgical applications for years, there has been little work on using it for remote sensing in space, said Paul Stysley, a NASA engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who leads the group studying the techniques.

The idea of using tractor beams on space missions caught the attention of members of NASA’s Mars rover project.

“At first they thought we were a little crazy, but luckily that group is supportive of crazy ideas,” said Stysley.

Current rover missions use drills, which can take a long time to get a sample. But a future probe could quickly zap rocks with a laser and then use a tractor beam to collect some of the resulting vapor. A beam pointed at the atmosphere could also monitor how gases change in response to day-night cycles on Mars.

Though the three technologies will require further investigation and may take up to a decade to develop for space-based missions, much of the work is already being done here on Earth.

The first technique, optical tweezers, is already common in biology laboratories. This method uses a pair of lasers with beams that travel in opposite directions. Changing the intensity of one beam heats air around trapped particles and can cause them to travel toward a probe, essentially creating an optical conveyor belt. But this technology can only be used when an atmosphere is present, so while it could work on some planets, it won’t work in the vacuum of space.

Alternatively, the team is investigating a Bessel beam, which creates a ring of light around small molecules to generate electric and magnetic fields to move samples. This method, which as yet only exists on paper, would work in space but would be more limited to close-in observations.

The final technique uses optical solenoid beams, where the laser’s intensity forms a corkscrew shape that can be used to nudge samples into a trap. Theoretically, this technology can be used in a vacuum and also has the advantage of being able to draw in material from far away, which would be useful for satellites orbiting high above a comet or asteroid.

Image: Paul Stysley

Video: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Conceptual Image Lab

Building your own hand-held game console with, Netduino, C# and the PIX-6T4 project

Building your own hand-held game console with, Netduino, C# and the PIX-6T4 project:

Gaming = fun, right? Writing games with C# = fun, right? Writing games with C# that runs on Netduino hardware = run, right? Wrap all that into a hand-held package and we’re talking some serious fun. Funny enough, coming to us via Fabien’s Bit Bucket and his PIX-6T4 posts, that’s what today’s project is all about.