Although it isn’t very real-world practical, researchers at Cal Tech have produced a DNA-based programmable computer. Spectrum reports that the system executes programs using a set of instructions written in DNA using six bits. Like any programmable computer, this one can execute many programs, but so far they run 21 different programs. Using DNA for […]
You read about well-publicised security exploits, but they always seem to involve somebody with a deity’s grasp of whatever technology is being employed, as well as a pile of impossibly exotic equipment. Surely a mere mortal could never do that! Happily, that’s not always the case, and to prove it [Gonçalo Nespral] replicated an attack […]
Sometimes we are rebuilding a RAID array or replacing a BIOS chip and we wonder how ordinary people keep their computes running. Then we realize that most of them come to someone like us for help. But what if you don’t have a family member or friend who is computer savvy? No problem! Plenty of […]
If you are a certain age, you probably remember the promise of supersonic transports. The Concorde took less than 4 hours to go across the Atlantic, but it stopped flying in 2003 and ended commercial supersonic passenger flights But back in the 1970s, we thought the Concorde would give way not to older technology, but […]
We might not think of analog computers as having existed in the 1500s, but in fact the astrolabe first appeared around 220 BC. However, as you might expect only a few very old ones still exist. Early astrolabes were often wooden and were difficult to use aboard ships, however brass astrolabes with special features were […]
There was a time when owning a home computer was kind of a big deal. In the days before the popularization of the Internet, so-called “computer shows” were the best way to meet with others to swap advice, information, and hardware. Of course today, things are very different. The kind of people who are building […]
Researchers at Delft University of Technology have created a detector that enables the detection of a single photon’s worth of radio frequency energy. The chip is only 10 mm square and the team plans to use it to explore the relationship of mass and gravity to quantum theory. The chip has immediate applications in MRI […]
Today, Nvidia released their next generation of small but powerful modules for embedded AI. It’s the Nvidia Jetson Nano, and it’s smaller, cheaper, and more maker-friendly than anything they’ve put out before. The Jetson Nano follows the Jetson TX1, the TX2, and the Jetson AGX Xavier, all very capable platforms, but just out of reach […]
The White House’s proposed budget for 2020 is out, and with it comes cuts to NASA. The most important item of note in the proposed budget is a delay of the Space Launch System, the SLS, a super-heavy lifting launch vehicle designed for single use. The proposed delay would defer work on the enhanced version […]
Microsoft has released the code for the Calculator app. This move is the latest in Microsoft’s efforts to capitalize on the Open Source community. Previous efforts have been the Open Sourcing of an extremely old version of DOS, and shoehorning Linux into Windows somehow in a way that’s marginally more user-friendly than spinning up a […]