SAN FRANCISCO — For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.
After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in.
The timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business dealings.
Security experts hired by The Times to detect and block the computer attacks gathered digital evidence that Chinese hackers, using methods that some consultants have associated with the Chinese military in the past, breached The Times’s network. They broke into the e-mail accounts of its Shanghai bureau chief, David Barboza, who wrote the reports on Mr. Wen’s relatives, and Jim Yardley, The Times’s South Asia bureau chief in India, who previously worked as bureau chief in Beijing.
In 2012, we saw the tipping point for 3D television, tablets outgrowing the demand of laptops and the continued rise of the maker movement with Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard and Arduino giving more opportunity to experiment, explore and develop with electronics.
Most techies like me go straight from one holiday wish list to pencil in what would feature in the next one, as many announcements make big waves in the early part of the year at CES in Las Vegas and then the embedded industry's crown jewel, Embedded World.
So, here is the technology news and developments I am most looking forward to in 2013.
Forest Park metal artist and homeschooling mom, Elaine Luther, is no stranger to power tools. After all, she's got a 20-ton drill press and a blowtorch on her porch. But she's really excited about microprocessors.
"Basically an Arduino is this small circuit board doo-hickey that includes a computer chip and some places where you can connect things to it," she writes on a blog for parents of gifted children.
Even though Luther admits she doesn't have the technical vocabulary to explain computer programming and microprocessors, what she does have is organizing experience.
Which technology tools — whether Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, text messaging or anything else — play the biggest role in your life, and in the lives of your friends?
How do you use these tools? What makes them especially relevant to you?
How do these services and apps shape your daily life and relationships — for better or worse?
Have they changed how you work, play, read, think or interact with others? How?
GO, GIZMO, GO! Gizmosphere, a joint venture between AMD and Sage Electronic Engineering, has just announced its entry into the embeddable computer market with the Gizmo Board. At $199, it's a steep price to pay, especially considering that the most expensive version of the Raspberry Piis only $35. However, the Gizmo boasts more raw horsepower, SATA connectivity, uses the OpenCL API for GPU processing--all while retaining the kind of micro controller functionality that makes the Arduino popular. It does have one important thing in common with the Raspberry Pi though: both are sold out for the time being.
The main idea of this simple DIY Arduino project is to be able to determine the amount of time you spend inside and outside of your own premises. The device can be attached on your waist all day without obstructing your regular daily activity. This device will record your location history all day long, with a detailed report of the time spent indoors or outdoors.
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Arduinos are fun to tinker with, but there's one problem. Once you've built something cool, you pretty much have to tear it down to use your board for another project. Sure, you can always buy multiple Arduino boards or proto shields, but what if you want to turn your creation into something a bit more permanent and a lot more compact? Say hello to Permaduino, a small battery-powered Arduino prototype board that just launched on Indiegogo.
Don’t you hate it when you’re building the arc reactor for your Iron Man costume, but theArduino powered circuit board you’re using is just too big? Well friend, it sounds like you could use the Adafruit Gemma! It packs most of the wearable computing power you love about Adafruit’s larger Flora model into to a one-inch disc. Perfect for all your arc reactor needs. Sure, the Adafruit Gemma could probably be used for a lot of different projects, but if I had one, I’d totally use it to build an arc reactor.
