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Author: Peter

ARM, Globalfoundries outline 28-nanometer plans

ARM, Globalfoundries outline 28-nanometer plans

“The companies revealed the details Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Their system-on-a-chip platform is based on ARM’s Cortex-A9 processor and Globalfoundries’ 28-nanometer manufacturing process. The platform will be used in smartphones, tablets, and smartbooks.” Full story at News.com. So it looks like we will have devices that consume less power purely on a per-clock-cycle basis.  I’m guessing the new process won’t trickle down to actual commercial mobile implementation until at least 2013.

Microsoft urges laws to boost trust in the cloud

Microsoft urges laws to boost trust in the cloud

From CNET: In a speech Wednesday, Microsoft general counsel and senior vice president Brad Smith called on government and business to shore up confidence in cloud computing by tackling issues of privacy and security–two major concerns that have been voiced about the cloud. Full article.

Waiting For A Nexus One Worldphone

Waiting For A Nexus One Worldphone

So Google finally announced its 3G phone for HSPDA back on Jan 5, 2010. Unfortunately, for those of us in the US, the GSM camp does not have a wide enough of 3G data coverage that folks over in Asia and Europe enjoy. I was pretty excited when Google said they would release a version of Nexus One that works on the Verizon network in the Spring of 2010. After all, my contract with Sprint doesn’t expire until May. Since…

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IEDM 2009: IMEC’s piezoelectric energy harvester, plastic transponder circuit

IEDM 2009: IMEC’s piezoelectric energy harvester, plastic transponder circuit

December 14, 2009 – At this year’s International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), IMEC and partners TNO (a Netherlands-based research group) and the Holst Center (IMEC-TNO joint center set up in 2005), disclosed their latest work in creating a MEMS-based piezoelectric energy harvesting device with record power generation, and a “world-first” organic transponder circuit with bit rate of 50kbits/s, nearing requirements for Electronic Product Coding (EPC) standards. Full article.

A5/1 Cipher Cracked

A5/1 Cipher Cracked

German researcher Karsten Nohl has cracked the encryption used for GSM.  His team has made information and tools needed to replicate the attack with a somewhat modest set up.    The A5/1’s 64-bit encryption key used in GSM is simply too short for the kind of computing power widely available today.  Considering that the technology is over 20 years old, however, it’s robustness is still remarkable. Here’s the A5/1 Cracking Project’s website.

Iraqi insurgents hack US drones with $26 software

Iraqi insurgents hack US drones with $26 software

A report from The Register said that hours of unencrypted surveillance video feeds were intercepted by the Iraqi insurgents.  A laptop containing the video feeds were discovered late 2008, but it’s not clear from the report when those feeds were intercepted. Why were those video feeds unencrypted?  Granted even the strongest encryption scheme to date isn’t unbreakable, given enough technical know-how, processing power, and time.  My guess is that the contractor or subcontractor supplying the camera or the transceiver forgot…

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Google Code booted JSMin-PHP Because It’s Not Allowed to “Do Evil”

Google Code booted JSMin-PHP Because It’s Not Allowed to “Do Evil”

An interesting report by CNET News.  How do you define evil?  I suppose one way to not do evil is to write the code so that it consumes less resources, either in terms of CPU cycles or memory (or both if you can!), thus reducing the power dissipated in millions or billions of CMOS Flip-Flops.  Just think about the implications of wasted charges/discharges and unnecessarily-spent batteries.  Wait, maybe I’m getting off topic…

Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider!

Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider!

This is a post forwarded to me by a fellow Linkedin user: “To those prospective law students applying to law school as a fallback in a bad economy, or because you want three more years to figure out what to do with your life: please save yourself time, money, and a huge amount of stress…” Aaron Street.

China Defends Rule On ‘Indigenous’ Tech

China Defends Rule On ‘Indigenous’ Tech

An article forwarded to me by Rachel Hamilton, Senior Industry Consultant at American Conference Institute. “At stake in the spat over the rules is the multibillion-dollar market for tech products — including office equipment, computers, software and new energy products — procured by Chinese government agencies. The value of contracts that would be covered by the new rules isn’t clear, but according to the Ministry of Finance, purchases through public procurement, including nontech goods, totaled about $88 billion in 2008.”…

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