Technogaze

17 May 2014

Heartbleed continues, Budget woes, Spy planes & drones, Bitcoin goes to University and iOS8 beside itself

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The beautiful Autumn weather didn’t stop Raena , Mark & Michael from gazing into the world of consumer electronics, gadgets, technology.

Heartbleed continues to draw blood as some companies have SSL certificates reissued with the same key as their previously compromised certificate, negating the benefit of changing the certificate. The recent budget ,although positive for medical research, was detrimental for a number of other industries – in particular gaming. Luke Miller joined us on the phone to talk about the impact on the local gaming industry.

The U2 spy plane has caused a ripple yet again, this time in US airspace as LAX and other airport flights were shut down for a number of hours over air traffic control issues. Flying at a much lower altitude, the latest lightweight drone from French manufacturer Parrot sports a high resolution stabilised camera and an extended wifi coverage of 2km, albeit with a 12 minute battery life. This new drone is controllable by an Oculus Rift VR headset.

The Norwegian Army is also testingthe Oculus Rift to control armored vehicles to provide enhanced visibility for those times when the hatches are battened down.

Bitcoin goes to University – a new MIT research project is providing MIT students with $100 in bitcoin to see how the peer-to-peer electronic payment system can be used in the University ecosystem where all members have easy access to it. Researchers are hoping that new and innovative payment practices may emerge that can be applied to other currencies or as a way to make bitcoin more readily accepted.

Apple iOS 8 is expected to be unveiled at WWDC 2014 later this year and rumor has it that side-by-side apps will be supported on iPad. Microsoft Surface and Samsung Android already support this feature and Apple may finally catch up on this front. Larger screen iPhones with higher resolution are also on the cards.

If you sometimes feel inundated with meaningless tweets, then Twitter’s latest feature roll out may be for you. This allows you to mute or turnoff tweets (anonymously) from people you have followed, but your tweets will still reach them.

Nostalgia reigned supreme for children of the mid-eighties when we looked at a new Acorn BBC Micro emulator from developer Matt Godbolt