hacking

EETimes report that a cheap electronic replica of the Olympic torch is the centre of controversy.Originally commissioned by the Beijing Games organisers, the gadgets were to be sold at all Olympic venues. A capacity crowd at any of them waving the torches would be an impressive sight - when the torches are waved, movement sensors coordinate flashing LEDs to spell out "Hello" in English or "China" in Chinese. A phone with a similar feature launched in 2004.But according to EETimes' sources, Chinese officials are concerned the devices could be hacked to display an unapproved message.

More here: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2329.en.html

Haven't got $10,000 to buy a Microsoft Surface?

Here's a video that's been doing the rounds on the web recently. Lux is an open-source framework developed by Christian Moore that brings full multitouch interaction to Apple's OSX operating system.But how useful is this sort of interface really going to be? I can't remember ever being particularly vexed that my computer was incapable of making nice swirly patterns, similar to those that open this video. Certainly resizing photos by stretching them with your hands is excellent, but vertical typing might also become something of a drag.I notice that the magic of a multitouch virtual keyboard - see 3:35 in the clip - is somewhat redundant when you are poking the keys with just your index fingers.Colin Barras, online technology reporter

UPDATED Thursday 1500: The BBC now says it has issued a fix for the iPlayer hack mentioned below, but the post still stands as a cautionary tale...

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Such is the desperation of the BBC to grab a pinch of Apple fairy dust that the corporation has hurriedly released a version of its TV-streaming iPlayer that gives away its programmes without copy protection.

Researchers in the US have developed a way to kill people with radio waves - but this is no secret Pentagon project.

They're computer scientists demonstrating that pacemakers and other implants can be hacked. Their latest demonstration showed that using radio signals they could shut down a pacemaker made by US firm Medtronic, or have it deliver jolts of electricity could be fatal.

Whenever a laptop containing lots of private data is lost, there are calls for 'disk encryption' that encodes all of a computer's data to become standard practice. But a dramatic new result by security researchers at Princeton suggests it is no panacea.

They've shown that a computer's RAM - short term memory - can give it away.

RAM needs power to hold data; but the researchers have found that information can persist for up to minutes after the power is cut. That's long enough to extract the key needed to unscramble the encrypted disk, which is always kept in a computer's RAM.

An accessible video (below or here) explains the team's findings in more detail. And you can read more at a website set up to explain the work.