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The News
Adobe have released version six of their creative suite of software applications for Mac and PC. It’s available from Adobe’s website and approved resellers. However, Adobe have delayed the the launch of their Creative Cloud until 11th May.
With a recent Lion security update which was part of Mac OS X 10.7.3, Apple managed to roll out a debug file that—with some very specific configurations—can leave passwords stored in a log file in clear text. This affects those using Apple’s filevault feature.
A new wave of malware freezes a computer and demands payment to unlock it, this time falsely alleging victims have infringed copyright.
The samsung galaxy S3 was announced over the weekend. It will be available in Europe on 29th May 2012 and will have a 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED screen, Android Ice cream sandwich a 1.4GHz quad-core CPU and more.
Feature
If you’re not storing anything dangerous or illegal on your computer, then you have nothing to hide. That being said, we believe that you should be able to keep your private stuff private.
This is why we looked at TrueCrypt. A superb app for your desktop/laptop computer which allows you to do on-the-fly file encryption.
Essentially, truecrypt creates strongly encrypted disk images which you can store your data inside. for the purpose of the demo in the show, we used a Windows 7 PC which we use in our studio specifically for gaming. We have information on the machine which we need to keep secured and safe.
Once TrueCrypt has loaded, we will see a window load up as shown in the above screenshot. You will see a very empty window because we have not made any encrypted hard disk images. Click on the create volume button shown in the above picture, you will then get a wizard popping up which will guide you through the process of creating your own encrypted disk image. The first screen is shown below.
In our case, we decided to create an encrypted file container as shown above. For the purpose of this episode, we only made our file container 1GB in size. After this, the next step is to create a good password. Truecrypt advises you that you should make your password at least 20 characters long.
What we forgot to mention in the show, is that you would also have to choose the way you want the hard drive image to be encrypted.
With that out of the way, the final step was to format the hard drive image so that it was ready for use. At this stage, you are asked to move your mouse around the screen as randomly as possibly so that it can generate a strong encryption key. For security reasons, we have hidden the encryption key in the following screenshot.
Our encrypted hard drive image is ready to mount and use. It’s a case if finding the image we just made, selecting it, entering a password and the image will be seen by your computer as just another disk.
From here we can now store our personal information inside this virtual hard disk and protect it under lock and key. If you like using cloud storage services, simply upload your encrypted hard drive image to a service such as dropbox or box.net and then you are good to go from there.
TrueCrypt is available for Linux, Mac and PC and is a free, open-source application. You can get your copy from TrueCrypt.org.
The odd box
Researchers at Penn State University last year demonstrated micromachines capable of bringing drugs to certain areas of the body via the bloodstream.
The research drew parallels with 1980s science fiction film inner space in which a dennis quad is shrunk in order to get into the bloodstream of a rabbit for research pupose but ends up in martin short comedy inferno. This week this came one step closer. Tiny submarines that are 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair and that could be used to clean up oil spills, scientests have suggested. The microsubmarines are able to gather oil droplets and take them to collection facilities. Researchers from the University of California San Diego’s nano-engineering department said their tests showed “great promise”.
“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi you’re my only hope!” 3D holigrames became reality this week. A team at Kingston, Ontario’s Queen’s University is developing a device called a Telepod that replaces boring old video chat with 3D holograms. The system consists of a 1.8-meter-tall cylinder with six Microsoft Kinect cameras placed around the top, along with a 3D projector inside. While talking, each person stands in front of their own Telepod, which is able to capture and track their movements in three-dimensions — the result is a 3D holographic image projected inside of the cylinder that you can walk around and view from the back and side.
Review Corner
On today’s episode, we talked about BlueStacks. In essence it’s a hypervisor or a virtual machine manager. BlueStack app player for windows is where you can find and run your favourite Android apps on your Windows PC. Once you have finished installing the software a prompt will ask you if you have a android device , then enter your email and phone no then blue stacks sinks all your Android apps from your phone to your pc you will also need to download on your phone the bluestacks from the Android app market(AKA Google Play Store). In cloud connect simple tick the boxes of the apps you want to use on your pc and click sync says what it does on the tin. now in the program window on the pc click apps.
You can download any Android app and play games, use the kakao talk on the right side of the screen are new apps you might like to down load which are fast and simple. At the moment, it’s a free beta available from the bluestacks website. We think that it’s a very good piece of software, fast, simple and surprising not that buggy for a beta version and is essential for Android phone users running Windows on their PC.
Picks of the Week
Adi’s pick of the week was the arctic P311 wireless headphones. A pair of behind-the-neck bluetooth headphones with a built-in microphone. On the right ear piece, you have a button for answering and ending phone calls. You also have buttons to turn the volume up or down and to skip to the next track or go back to the previous one. On the sound quality side, these are really good for a pair of bluetooth headphones. Adi has thrown all kinds of audio content at them(even our own shows!) and they still sounded great. The call quality was also good as well. You can buy your own pair from Amazon for £30.
Chris pick of the week was The Magic Cube, an ultra-portable, full-sized projection keyboard. The Magic Cube is a projection keyboard and multi-touch mouse, all in one easy-to-use product. It connects easily to any Bluetooth HID device, including the latest iPhone, iPad and Android devices and you can use it with Windows and Mac OS devices via USB connection.
It fits easily in your pocket and it is perfect for on the move. Chris used it on the London Underground and had many a strange look from fellow passengers. It was simple to use and so cool! Fat fingers will never be a problem again! We gave it 4 out of 5 MHF stars. It will make a brilliant birthday present to any of your fellow geeks. You can get it for $169(£105) from Celluon
If you have any questions, comments or suggestion, then feel free to email us at mhftechnet@gmail.com . Get those emails in right now and who knows? We may read your emails on the show.
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Until next time watch those skies and back up your data, and remember: 21st century tech podcasting at its best.