Hasta La Gadget!

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books dealing with the subject of technology that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.

Stuxnet’s Secret Twin (4,176 words)
by Ralph Langner, Foreign Policy
Pocket

Stuxnet is a pretty nasty nasty customer, especially if you happen to be a centrifuge used in the enrichment of uranium. Amazingly, the story of the first publicly acknowledged cyber weapon keeps getting more and more interesting. Ralph Langner has spent the last several years poring over code and other details of Stuxnet’s history and discovered there was an earlier version of the virus, that was even more destructive than the one unleashed on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Instead of putting the centrifuge’s motors in overdrive, it over pressurized them by closing valves designed to allow gas out. It sounds like a perfectly logical avenue of attack, until you realize that the potential for truly catastrophic failure would have quickly blown Stuxnet’s cover.

Filed under: Misc, Science, Internet

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Beware, Pocket and Instapaper: the folks at Facebook HQ are testing a feature that encroaches upon your “save-for-later” territory. This new function currently appears for some mobile users as an iBook bookmark-esque button next to status updates with links, although it actually saves the content of the link itself. You can access every saved link via a new menu (with a telltale name) under the Apps section. Before you get too excited for the feature, know that this is the second time Facebook’s given it a spin — the first iteration tested last year, however, archived status updates instead. If the save-for-later function does mak e it to everyone’s accounts, though, we wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook addicts remain even more glued to their screens.

Filed under: Misc, Facebook

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AllThingsD

Source: MyTechSkool

With the Battlefield 4 Premium add-on, EA’s letting you score a dozen goodie-laden golden battlepacks for about $50 without, you know, earning them. But any plebe can do that, right Sedgwick? What you really need to flaunt your gamer cachet is a limited edition BF4 battlepack print from purveyors Cook & Becker priced at a mere $2,500. It was created from a high-res render by EA DICE studio artists and made with 24-carat gold leaf and gold paint in a tiny run of 10 copies. Outrageous? Sure, but at least you’d be going in with eyes wide open.

Filed under: Misc, Gaming

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Via: Ubergizmo

Source: Cook & Becker

Thank you, PowerUp. Apparently the last time we had the opportunity to write about paper airplanes was back in 2011, when a Seattle doctor built a tiny one using a da Vinci surgical robot. This time out, it’s a Kickstarter project that brings smartphone control to the notoriously staid word of paper airplanes. The gadget’s setup is pretty simple, all said. At the front is a Bluetooth module and battery, while the back contains the propeller and rudder. Build a paper airplane, attach the PowerUp up and boom, you’ve got RC aircraft you can control with your smartphone. Creator Shai Goitein has taken the project to Kickstarter in an attempt to score $50,000 in funding. A pledge of $30 will get one of these little fliers in your hands, come May of next year. That’s plenty of time to practice your folding skills.

Filed under: Misc

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Kickstarter

Qualcomm’s Toq smarter-than-most watch is expected to debut the first week of December, and you can set one aside for yourself starting today. The company has announced that it’s now taking pre-orders for the newfangled Toq smartwatch, which, unlike many competing wearables, bases its display features on Mirasol technology. Those looking to order need to be prepared to shell out a good amount of cash — because, as you may have heard, you’ll have to pay a cool $350 to own one of these.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Wearables

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Source: Qualcomm