Personal Computers Of Iranian Nuclear Plant Employees Infected By Stuxnet Worm

"An electronic war has been launched against Iran", Mahmoud Liayi, head of the information technology council at the ministry of industries, told the state-run Iran Daily newspaper. This, in response to reports that a sophisticated computer worm had infected the personal computers of staff at the country's first nuclear power station, the Bushehr plant, due to come on line in the coming weeks. Officials claim that the operating system at the plant has been unaffected by the Stuxnet worm, so sophisticated that it is believed to be the work of "a nation state".

Stuxnet targets systems made by the German company Siemens, these systems are typically used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other utilities. The Iranians claim that computers operating on some 30,000 IP addresses within the country have been infected.

Western nations fears Iran's goal is to build nuclear weapons while Iranian officials says its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use.

Source: BBC

Da Vinci Inspired Flying Machine Sets Flight Record

University of Toronto  PhD candidate, Todd Reichert built a human powered flying machine inspired by sketches made by Leonardo da Vinci in 1485. Reichert then flew the machine on August 2nd at Tottenham, Ontario with an official from from the world-governing body for air sports and aeronautical world in attendance. The governing body is anticipated to confirm Reichert's world record some time in October. The machine, with a wing span of 32 metres, about the same length as that of a Boeing 737 sustained altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds. Check out the video, it truly is the most graceful flying machine that I've ever laid eyes on! Well done Todd! Kudos to Leonardo as well.

HPO Flight from U of T Engineering on Vimeo.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/09/22/human-powered-plane-toronto.html?ref=rss#ixzz10LPGnjNC

Welcome Back Banner Ads

Google wants the world to know that it's not only about search ads anymore. The company is in the midst of a campaign called "Watch This Space" to let advertisers and investors know that it is also in the display ad business, erecting an interactive digital billboard in the center of Manhattan to get the message out. Display ads take many forms online including ads of different sizes that combine images, text, audio, video and animation. (Google also includes text ads that appear on Web sites other than search results pages as display ads.)

With it's share value down a reported 17% this year, the company is trying to convince investors that the ever more competitive search ad market is not it's only revenue generator. “One of the ways we could express our confidence in the space is to run what is primarily a display advertising campaign around our investment in the business and what our potential is,” said Neal Mohan, the vice president of product management responsible for Google’s display advertising products.

Source: NY Times

Google To Institute Two-Factor Authentication

According to this article in TechCrunch, Google is planning on rolling out an optional two-factor authentication to it's Google Apps Premiere, Education, and Government edition customers and then to the rest of us in the coming months. Two-factor authentication requires not only a password but also a six digit verification code that you've created when turning the extended security feature on. Many large business already employ such measures, usually relying on hardware dongles to generate and display random temporary codes, Google's system won't require the additional hardware and will be particularly handy if you access the companies services (gmail, docs, etc.) from your mobile device.

TechCrunch also says "Google has built a ‘Google Authenticator’ application for Android, the iPhone, and Blackberry — fire up the application, and it will give you the six digit verification code that you enter back into your browser (the system can also send you a SMS message or give you the code via voice call)."

Makes sense that we would want such authentication now that we are moving more and more into the cloud, and accessing our account via multiple devices via hot spots and various other networks. I think I like it!

Arrrr... It Be Talk Like A Pirate Day

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! It's a little anti climactic this year as she falls on a Sunday and most of me time be spent at home were the family has little appreciation for the sea fairing kind. When I visited the official site I was a little disheartened to find that we in Canada just don't seem to embrace the event like our neighbors to the South. My count is 11 parties taking place and none in my current port of call, we'll have to do something about that next year! 

View International Talk Like A Pirate Day 2010 in a map

Cutting The Wire On Photo Uploads

After first writing about it in December of 2007, I finally got a hold of an Eye-Fi card, and now I'm not sure why I hadn't worked harder to get one of these little gems sooner. In my defense they are not readily available in Canada and I really dislike paying the duty that comes with purchasing such things online from outside of the country. I have however very recently obtained an Eye-Fi Connect X2, 4GB+Wi-Fi and there is no turning back... awesome is all I can say. It's very easy to use and the endless memory mode means you never have to worry about running out of memory on your card as it intelligently makes space once your content is safely delivered. The card can be configured to recognize up to 32 Wi-Fi networks and upload content  to 25 different photo and video sharing sites.

Not all went smoothly with the installation on my Windows 7 machine, and I understand that my friend and coworker encountered a similar issue on his Mac. The documentation that comes in the package is sparse, to say the least, but luckily the support forum was easy to navigate and assisted in getting me over the hurdles. It seems as though we both had issues with the "helper" application that analyzes your network and firewall settings. Once resolved the Eye-Fi has performed flawlessly and is my new favorite gadget. 

Adobe's 64-bit Flash Player Unleashed

Adobe has released an early version of it's new 64-bit Flash player code named Square. According to this article on cnet, the download is available via Adobe Labs but note however that if you install Square, you'll have to manually update it on your own.

It's an important move for Adobe as it fights competition from emerging technology such as html 5. Hardware manufacturers have been gradually moving away from 32-bit technology in favour of the speedier 64-bit architecture but software has lagged behind in leveraging the technology. Square is said to take advantage of a computer's graphics chip power, in particular when paired with Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 9 (beta) promising a faster and more responsive user experience with Flash-based content.

Twitter Unveils A New Look

By mid day yesterday it was clear that something was up at Twitter, tweets and blog posts pointed to the excitement amongst employees but nobody on the inside was spilling the beans. Turns out the buzz was all about a new look and user experience that Twitter will roll out gradually over the coming weeks. (I still have the old version of the site as of this posting)

“We’ve made it pretty clear that we are going to create the best experiences we can with all our clients,” says co-founder and CEO Ev Williams “We made it clear to developers that it’s great for everyone if we make it as good as possible, because that will create more successful Twitter users.”

While I've not yet had a glimpse of the new site, I'm hopeful by it's description that Twitter is offering a more flipboard like experience where you get a sense of what's behind those tiny urls before you click through. The NY Times describes it as follows: "The redesigned site, which will be available to all users in the next few weeks, makes it simpler to see information about the authors of Twitter posts, conversations among Twitter users, and the photos and videos that posts link to." so it sounds promising. 

The Android Tablet Cometh

Hold on to your hat Apple a slue of android powered tablets are set to rock the market place to it's core, well maybe. While there have been a few cheap attempts at displacing the iPad, no serious competitor has made it to the market yet but just in time for Christmas are offerings from  Samsung, Toshiba, ViewSonic and Archos with screens ranging from 7 to 10 inches in size and some boasting 1080p resolution, usb interfaces, and of course adobe flash support. The android tablets are set to debut at anywhere from $299 for the Archos 101 Internet Tablet to arround $1000 for the Galaxy Tab by Samsung putting them all around the $499 and up offers for the various iPad models.

It will be interesting to see if the iPad will continue to dominate or if the trend being felt in the smartphone market will carry over into tablets. My prediction is that the lower priced Archos will be a winner, I'd love to see the Galaxy Tab do well but the price point may be a sticking point unless it is subsidized by carriers on a contract. All in all, the android operating system is gaining favour and could propel android powered tablets into compelling alternative status.

Internet TV Comes To Canada

After announcing the acquisition of CTV last week, Bell Canada's Kevin Crull said today that his company was going to roll out Fibe TV an internet television network featuring with over 70 international and 100 HD chanels.

"We went from black and white to colour and then to high-definition," Crull said. "And you think of the size of each of those leaps, and now going to FibeTV is an equally large leap for the product, and it's just going to continue to evolve. It's the platform, very much, of the future of this industry."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/09/13/bell-fibe-tv.html?ef=rss#ixzz0zRxSToPC