Software that gives users more control of a camera could revolutionize photography. Camera-phone owners can use new software to reprogram these devices–and capture images that would previously have been impossible to get.

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New Focus for Digital Photography

Tools that find serious bugs automatically could lead to safer, more stable software. Several talks at the Black Hat security conference this week in Las Vegas will focus on tools that could make software safer by automatically searching for bugs–and pinpointing the ones that could be most dangerous.

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So Many Bugs, So Little Time

Creators introduced the programming languages that they hope will revolutionize computing. Creators of two dozen new programming languages–some designed to enable powerful new Web applications and mobile devices–presented their work last week in Portland, OR. The reason for the gathering was the first Emerging Languages Camp at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention.

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New Languages, and Why We Need Them

A new approach does away with the need for long string of letters and numbers. Researchers at Microsoft have come up with a way to create easy-to-remember passwords without making a system more vulnerable to hackers.

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Passwords that are Simple–and Safe

Fibers that carry light and sense pressure could be used for medical imaging and structural monitoring. Researchers at MIT have developed optical fibers that not only carry and modulate light, but also generate and sense pressure changes. The multifunctional fibers could be used to make various types of sensors. The fibers can also be squeezed in a way that modulates an optical signal, making them promising for “smart” textiles.

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Fabricating a Multifunctional Fiber

Nanotube circuits that combine speed and low power might drive flexible displays. Using carbon nanotubes and a new insulating material, researchers have made flexible electronics with the best performance yet for printed devices. Integrated circuits printed from these materials could be used to drive simple displays and drug-delivery patches, and the flexible nanotube arrays might also be used as light emitters in telecommunications.

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Record Performance for Printed Electronics

A depth-sensing camera and palm-top projector turn an ordinary work surface into interactive one. When Ryder Ziola places a bell pepper on the kitchen work surface in front of him, the tabletop springs to life, suggesting recipes and other information. He can also use the work surface like a touch screen, selecting options with a finger–to see, for example, what ingredients might go well with his pepper. Ziola, a graduate student at the University of Washington, developed the system, dubbed Oasis, with researchers at Intel Labs Seattle led by senior scientist Beverly Harrison . Ziola is demonstrating Oasis at the ninth annual Intel Research Day, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

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A Kitchen Countertop with a Brain

SleepServer creates a virtual copy of a dozing machine. Software that lets desktop computers continue to function in sleep mode could reduce the energy consumption of office networks by around 60 percent.

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PCs that Work While They Sleep

Device drivers account for most crashes and even introduce security problems; a new testing tool could provide an early warning. Computers often need to be connected to printers, cameras, and USB flash drives and other hardware, but the small pieces of software that enable communications with these peripherals, known as “device drivers,” have a bad reputation. Experts believe that device driver failures are responsible for about 85 percent of crashes on Windows machines, and poorly written device drivers can also introduce security holes on an otherwise protected computer. Part of the problem is that a device driver can’t easily be examined by anyone outside the company that created it.

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The Achilles’ Heel of Your Computer

Intel unveils a circuit that can pump out truly random numbers at high speed. It might sound like the last thing you need in a precise piece of hardware, but engineers at Intel are pretty pleased to have found a way to build a circuit capable of random behavior into computer processors.

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Nanoscale Random Number Circuit to Secure Future Chips