The recent news that Microsoft has taken out an ARM architectural license has caused a lot of speculation about just what this might mean. There are several quite well reasoned ideas around the web, and I have one idea of my own: sixty-four bits.
Month: July 2010
Worm Attacking Industrial Control Systems
There is a very interesting worm going around the world right now which is specifically targeting industrial control systems. According to Business Week, the worm is targeting a Siemens plant control system, probably with the intent to steal production secrets and maybe even information useful to create counterfeit products. This is the first instance I have seen of malware targeting the area of embedded systems. However, the actual systems targeted are not really embedded systems, but rather regular PCs running supervision and control software.
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Product Holes: Greatest Hits break iPod Cover Flow
Following on my previous posts about broken phone browsers, phones, and cars, here is another case of “why didn’t they catch this in testing?”
We recently got ourselves an iPod Touch, to entertain our oldest child on long trips. It is a brilliant device in many ways, I can understand why people love their iPhones (even though I am very happy with the very different style of the Blackberry phone that I was given by my employer). However, I have found one weird behavior in the music player that leaves me wondering how it got through into the shipping product.
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Product Holes: Tesla Roadster & iPhone 4
Continuing on the thread from my previous post about the testing of products that fail to find problems that become obvious to (some) users after a very short time, I just read an article (in Swedish) about how the famed Tesla roadster cars behaved when they were confronted with Scandinavian winters.
Off-Topic: Voxel Graphics at Legoland
Legoland is full of cool and interesting Lego models, built from millions and millions of Lego bricks. The creations don’t have too much in common with the standard Lego kits sold in stores. Rather, they are advanced uses of Lego bricks that look like something from the real world — especially at a distance. Up close, they are very blocky and not as smooth and polished as regular Lego models.
Essentially, they are voxel graphic representations that must be very hard to plan and execute. The standard single-stud 1×1 Lego brick is their smallest unit, or maybe its 1/3 height flat version. Here are some examples that I photographed in Legoland during my visit this Summer.
Off-Topic: Lalandia Billund (Vacation)
Another Summer vacation has come around, and as usual that causes a blog post or two on Summer tips and comments on places where I have been. This year, we went down to Denmark to visit the city of Billund, home to Legoland and Lalandia. Lalandia is an interesting mix of indoors activity center and camping village. We rented a house there for our vacation, and are overall very pleased with the place.