Back in 1999, Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon introduced me to the idea of Van Eck phreaking—intercepting the weak electromagnetic radiation from a computer monitor to recreate what the person is seeing on the screen. Now security researchers have come up with an exploit that uses an even simpler form of radiation: heat.
Passwords are a pain. They're incredibly important for the security of our data, and yet they're hard to remember and keep track of. Plus, it seems like we constantly have to change them as the result of some new hack or security breach. But the password's days may be numbered: the FIDO Alliance—a non-profit composed of heavyweights like Microsoft, Google, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, and more—has published its final specification for a system to kill the password, hopefully for good.
A group of scientists in India have developed a way to recycle discarded lithium-ion laptop batteries into easily charged sources of light and power. Researchers in Bangalore developed prototype devices that can be used to provide hours of light to people who don't have access to the electrical grid.
Google apparently wants to try its hand at making its own quantum computing hardware. The company announced in its research blog that it's launching a project to make quantum processors that use superconductors.
The latest and greatest test of a quantum computing device has found it doesn't solve problems faster than a classical computer. But don't give up hope yet. The researchers who performed the test still think it's likely quantum computers have advantages over classical ones, at least for solving certain problems. Among other things, testers think they just have to find the right problems.
Synaptics makes touchpads for the likes of Lenovo, Dell, and HP, and their touch technology lives inside smartphones made by Samsung and Nokia. So they know a thing or two about touch. But rather than resting on their success, they’re here at CES showing off a keyboard technology, called ThinTouch, which replaces the switches under the keys with magnets that pop the keys back up.