In this new feature, TechCentral’s editors curate 10 of the most interesting technology pieces from around the Web they’ve read in the past week.
How Russian hackers stole the Nasdaq
In October 2010, a Federal Bureau of Investigation system monitoring US Internet traffic picked up an alert. The signal was coming from the Nasdaq. It looked like malware had snuck into the company’s central servers. There were indications that the intruder was not a kid somewhere, but the intelligence agency of another country. More troubling still: when the US experts got a better look at the malware, they realised it was attack code, designed to cause damage. Read more…
Chrome is killing your laptop battery
There is a problem with Google Chrome on Microsoft Windows that is potentially very bad news for laptop users. It can drastically affect battery life, and even slow down your computer. Read more…
No signal? This gadget works anywhere
For all of our dependency on mobile phones, there are still quite a few places in this world you can’t get a wireless signal. A New York City radio hardware start-up called goTenna has an interesting new gadget that will keep your phone connected when there’s no cellular or Wi-Fi signal to be found. Read more…
Ex-Googlers building cloud software that’s almost impossible to take down
A team of open-source developers wants to make it easier for just about any company to build the sort of resilient cloud computing systems that run online empires like Google. They call their project CockroachDB, billing it as a database with some serious staying power. Read more…
Amazon’s smartphone ambitions go beyond making shopping easier
Like all of Amazon’s hardware devices since the first Kindle e-reader, the new Amazon Fire smartphone that was introduced on Wednesday is very much about making it easier and more tempting to buy stuff from Amazon. But it would be a mistake to assume that there’s nothing more going on here than creating another mobile shopping cart for the giant e-retailer. Read more…
In 20 years, most new cars won’t have steering wheels or pedals
By 2030, most new cars will be made without rearview mirrors, horns, or emergency brakes. By 2035, they won’t have steering wheels or acceleration and brake pedals. They won’t need any of these things because they will be driving themselves. Read more…
And now for the 8TB hard drive
Seagate says it has delivered 8TB hard drives to customers for cloud storage and other applications. The implication is that we may see shipping volumes of 8TB drives for enterprise applications by 2015. Read more…
The moral hazards and legal conundrums of our robot-filled future
Progress in robotics and related fields like artificial intelligence is raising new ethical quandaries and challenging legal codes that were created for a world in which a sharp line separates man from machine. Read more…
Pirate Bay traffic doubles despite blockades
The Pirate Bay is without doubt one of the most censored websites on the Internet. Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site and this list continues to expand. But the site hasn’t stopped growing at all. On the contrary, visitor numbers have doubled since 2011. Read more…
Microsoft’s top lawyer is the tech world’s envoy
Bradford Smith has become the elder statesman of Microsoft and a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large. As Microsoft’s chief representative on public policy matters, including privacy — an issue under close scrutiny around the world — Smith plays a significant role in many of the most critical decisions affecting the company’s fortunes. Read more…
AND THIS WEEK’S PICKS FROM TECHCENTRAL
Meet the man behind SA’s riot-control drone
Pretoria-based Desert Wolf made international headlines last month after it emerged that it had developed a drone capable of showering pepper spray on rioting crowds and claiming the technology could be used in “preventing another Marikana”, in reference to the violent protest in August 2012 where 34 striking mineworkers were gunned down by police. Read more…
SABC saga: SA deserves far better
The saga of Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s appointment as the permanent chief operating officer of the SABC, after an unacceptably long and controversial tenure acting in the same position, has united South African political parties — including the ANC — in ways no issue has in recent times. Read more…
And now for the data democracy
Among the many changes we have experienced during our 20 years as a democracy, one of the most fundamental has been the relatively sudden and widespread release of information. Read more…
