Embedded Computing: October 2007 Archives
Hadi Nahari and Jim Ready have written an excellent article which outlines an approach for securing an embedded Linux platform. It came as a surpise to learn that 70% of new semiconductor devices are Linux-enabled; this high growth rate is accompanied by inevitable security risks, hence the requirement for hardware-based trusted and secure computing environments. Their article offers practical guidelines.
Robert Seacord has an informative article on embedded.com. This article which outlines the Systems Quality Engineering process that should be adopted for writing secure c/c++ code for your embedded design.
How to write secure C/C++ application code for your embedded design:
Cluster Computing which allows parallel processing of data is a skill that I had to learn as part of my PhD research. Google and IBM are advocating this practice as both companies exploit this technology. Academia however does not have the substantial resources that are needed to examine this topic in great detail.
A solution being pioneered by Google and IBM is to allow internet access to a new dedicated computer cluster. This will allow students to test their parallel programming course projects.
The two companies have already dedicated several hundred computers to the initiative — a mixture of Google's gear, IBM BladeCenter and System x servers. They plan to expand this to 1600 processors.
The Beta testing group are the University of Washington, Carnegie-Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Maryland.
The Register - Google and IBM push cluster computing on colleges
The 2007 Nobel prize for physics was awarded to Albert Fert of France and Peter Grunberg of Germany. Their research was lauded as being both practical and relevant to industry.
Their discovery powers devices such as mp3 players. The phenomenon is called "giant magnetoresistance", in which weak magnetic changes give rise to big differences in electrical resistance.
The knowledge has allowed industry to develop sensitive reading tools to pull data off hard drives in computers, iPods and other digital devices.
The discovery was initially made in the 1980s and allows large amounts of data to be read and written to hard drives.
Maplin in Limerick are stocking a shiny black media centre case with 3.3 Ghz processor and PSU. It has an integrated NIC and 4 usb ports as well as 2 PCI slots. The form factor is nice and the build quality seems good. The addition of RAM, Hard Drive, DVD Writer and TV card would mean that you could install Linux and Myth TV and record and watch your favourite programmes.
