News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
The linked article gives a (slightly) technical history of the Ethernet protocol, which these days is almost ubiquitous for wired LANs. It also explains how Ethernet works compared to other networking strategies. Somehow, fast transfer speeds arise out of seemingly total chaos. If you’re technically inclined, I think you’ll enjoy reading this article.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
There are well-defined procedures for permanently erasing data from a traditional hard drive. But for solid-state drives (SSDs), which use Flash memory instead of magnetic platters, things are quite different. The problem stems from two peculiarities of SSDs: “they can only erase data in larger chunks than they can write it, and their storage cells can only be written a certain number of times (10,000 is standard) before they start to fail.” Because of these, SSD firmware does a lot of behind-the-scenes manipulations when writing data to the drive.
Researchers at UCSD have determined the following:
That being said, law enforcement agencies are finding that it’s hard to do forensics on SSDs because the drive automatically wipes a significant percentage of deleted data without any intervention by the user. This may seem like a direct contradiction to what the UCSD team determined, but the difficulty there was with the purposeful sanitization of data as well as with the erasure of individual files. So while it’s difficult to wipe everything, it’s also hard to prevent some amount of deleted data from being wiped automatically.
The Ars Technica article (link #3 below) briefly discusses the article in link #1, and then goes on to mention other erasure techniques that are coming down the pipeline. For right now, however, they suggest encrypting the drive as a good way to keep private data secure.
Link #1: http://www.usenix.org/…
(via Slashdot)
Link #2: http://news.techworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Link #3: http://arstechnica.com/…
The Chromebook is a “nothing but the web” laptop that runs Google’s Chrome browser on top of Google Chrome OS. It has the capability to upload and download files to a thumb drive but has almost no local storage. Any programs you run on it must be web applications that can be executed within a browser. With the increasing popularity of the cloud, however, it’s not too difficult to work within these constraints. Note that Chromebooks are manufactured by several different companies, and that Google itself is not one of them.
The linked article explains garbage collection in solid-state drives (SSDs), including what it is, why it’s needed, and and why you should consider it when purchasing an SSD. The author also discusses the SSD “trim” function: what it does, when it’s necessary, and which OS versions support it.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
IBM’s “Watson” computer wiped out the human competition in the first match of Jeopardy (aired on Tuesday, Feb. 14th). Watson scored $35,734 compared to Ken Jennings at $4,800 and Brad Rutter at $10,400. Keep in mind that Jennings won the most consecutive games, staying in for 74 matches, and Rutter is the all-time money winner at more than $3 million. Long the stuff of science fiction, Watson is a significant step on the road to computers that can respond to natural speech.
Link: http://dailycaller.com/…
If you’ve recently purchased a computer or motherboard that uses an Intel Sandy Bridge processor, your system may have been recalled. The problem is not with the CPU; rather, it’s with the motherboard chipset that provides connectivity to the CPU. The chipset in question is the 6 Series, also known as Cougar Point. The recalled chipset will cause SATA performance to degrade over time.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Back in November, Microsoft filed a patent for touch screen technology that creates texture. From the linked article: “a display that uses technical tricks to convince users they are actually touching the ridges, bumps and textures of a displayed image.” Other companies are trying to do something similar, but the difference with Microsoft’s system is that the bumps are real, whereas their competitors only create an illusion of texture. This could be big, really big, if they manage to make it cost-effective.
Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Lenovo has released a new Thinkpad, the W701ds, which has a retractable, 10.6″ display augmenting the main 17″ screen. It’s good to see that the Thinkpad line is still a source of innovation after the move from IBM to Lenovo, and I can envision this feature becoming popular.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link: http://shop.lenovo.com/…
Modern-day BIOS, the computer code allowing low-level access to your PC’s hardware, is architecturally quite similar to the original BIOS created 25 years ago for the first IBM Personal Computer. But 25 years is a long time in the technology world, and the inadequacies of BIOS are becoming significant enough that it’s time for a replacement. The heir apparent is Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). With the exception of a faster boot time, most of the benefits are technical in nature and should be invisible to the standard user. In fact, you may already have a UEFI system and not know it. Another advantage is that system administrators will find it easier to remotely manage large computer networks. I think the real benefit, however, will come in the future when new interfaces (think USB) or hardware types become available and PC designers won’t have to jump through hoops to get them to work.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/…
(via Kim Komando)
Given the massive parallel processing power available in today’s video cards, a 7-character password is “hopelessly inadequate,” and even an 8-character password can be cracked in a couple hours. This is regardless of the the mix of letters, numbers, symbols, upper/lower case, etc. So the recommended minimum length for passwords is now 12 characters. But don’t think you’re completely safe with a longer password—you also need to make sure it’s not susceptible to a dictionary attack.
Link #1: http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/…
Link #2: http://www.theregister.co.uk/…
(via engadget)
Link #3: http://dailycaller.com/…
Back in 1962, researchers at Corning developed a very strong glass that’s hard to break, scratch, or dent. The product didn’t gain acceptance, and Corning gave up trying to sell it—until recently, that is. “Gorilla Glass” is now being used for consumer electronics such as smartphones and netbooks, and is poised to enter the television market. Corning is making some serious money from this invention that couldn’t find a buyer 50 years ago.
Link #1: http://www.google.com/…
(via engadget)
Link #2: http://www.corning.com/…
Apparently, vibrations can have a significant effect on hard drive performance, even if you just shout at the drive. In one study, the researcher found that “Performance improvements for random reads ranged from 56% to 246% while improvements for random writes ranged from 34% to 88% for a defined set of industry benchmarks.”
Link #1: http://www.zdnet.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Link #2: http://storagemojo.com/…
