Soton boffins embed electronic components into optical fibres

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Rather than trying to merge flat chips with round optical fibres, the team of scientists used high-pressure chemistry techniques to deposit semiconducting materials layer by layer directly into tiny holes in optical fibres. This bypasses the need to integrate fibre-optics onto a chip, and means that the data signal never has to leave the fibre.

via Soton boffins embed electronic components into optical fibres – Techworld.com.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced in Novemebr that they had developed photonic chips that use light beams rather than electrons. The arrival of photonic computers could help speed traffic across fibre optic networks by eliminating a conversion process, the researchers said.

Pinterest online bulletin board soars as social media darling

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Pinterest went unnoticed for almost a year. Then it caught fire.

By December 2011, the number of U.S. unique visitors to Pinterest soared to 7.5 million, up from 418,000 in May, according to comScore Inc., a Chicago-based Internet research firm. That is a steeper ascent in traffic than the early days of Facebook, Twitter or MySpace, said comScore analyst Andrew Lipsman.

via Pinterest online bulletin board soars as social media darling – chicagotribune.com.

Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with DNSChanger Trojan

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Rasmussen said there are still millions of PCs infected with DNSChanger. “At this rate, a lot of users are going to see their Internet break on March 8.”

via Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with DNSChanger Trojan — Krebs on Security.

Given the Conficker Working Group’s experience, shutting down the surrogate DNS network on March 8 may actually be a faster — albeit more painful — way to clean up the problem.

List of open source captive portal software and network access control (NAC)

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List of open source captive portal software and network access control (NAC) « Mohamed Thalib’s Blog.

I have listed here some open source captive portal software and network access control (NAC) systems.

1. ChilliSpot – http://www.chillispot.info
2. Wifidog – http://dev.wifidog.org
3. PacketFence – http://www.packetfence.org
4. HotSpotPA – http://www.hotspotpa.com
5. NoCat – http://nocat.net
6. CoovaChilli – http://coova.org
7. Utangle – http://www.untangle.com
8. pfSense – http://www.pfsense.org
9. PepperSpot – http://pepperspot.sourceforge.net
10.Zeroshell – http://www.zeroshell.net/eng/
11. m0n0wall – http://m0n0.ch

Four telescope link-up creates world’s largest mirror

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The process that links separate telescopes together is known as interferometry.

In this mode, the VLT becomes the biggest ground-based optical telescope on earth.

Besides creating a gigantic virtual mirror, interferometry also greatly improves the telescope’s spatial resolution and zooming capabilities.

via BBC News – Four telescope link-up creates world’s largest mirror.

Making a WiFi Hotspot / Access Point using Linux & wifi lan card/USB adapter

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If you have a wifi LAN card / USB adapter, then you can use it as an access point so that other machines can connect to the internet via your machine using Wifi. The process is fairly simple, but requires you to have a compatible set of drivers which allow a wifi lan card to come into “Master” mode.

via Making a WiFi Hotspot / Access Point using Linux & wifi lan card/USB adapter « Vivek’s blog.

Pyramid Linux

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pyramidlinux – Pyramid Linux – Google Project Hosting.

Pyramid is binary linux distro for use on x86 embedded platforms. It is primarily focused on wireless applications however people have found many great uses for it. We primarily develop and test Pyramid for Metrix Kits, but it works well on other x86 based hardware as well. Check the WorkingHardware page for more info or add to it if you find hardware not listed that works with Pyramid.

‘Anonymous’ hackers intercept conversation between FBI and Scotland Yard on how to deal with hackers

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The recording, which was posted on Youtube, refers to the on-going court case against Ryan Cleary, arrested last June for his alleged role in the group LulzSec, and reveals legally sensitive information.

via ‘Anonymous’ hackers intercept conversation between FBI and Scotland Yard on how to deal with hackers – Telegraph.

I’d like to hear more as to how this was done.

MQTT: MQ Telemetry Transport

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MQTT stands for MQ Telemetry Transport. It is a publish/subscribe, extremely simple and lightweight messaging protocol, designed for constrained devices and low-bandwidth, high-latency or unreliable networks. The design principles are to minimise network bandwidth and device resource requirements whilst also attempting to ensure reliability and some degree of assurance of delivery. These principles also turn out to make the protocol ideal of the emerging “machine-to-machine” (M2M) or “Internet of Things” world of connected devices, and for mobile applications where bandwidth and battery power are at a premium.

via FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions | MQTT: MQ Telemetry Transport.

I see RIM phones using this.

Are there standard ports for MQTT to use?

Yes. TCP/IP port 1883 is reserved with IANA for use with MQTT. TCP/IP port 8883 is also registered, for using MQTT over SSL.