Month: September 2016

The Linux kernel today faces an unprecedented safety crisis. Much like when Ralph Nader famously told the American public that their cars were "unsafe at any speed" back in 1965, numerous security developers told the 2016 Linux Security Summit in Toronto that the operating system needs a total rethink to keep it fit for purpose.

No longer the niche concern of years past, Linux today underpins the server farms that run the cloud, more than a billion Android phones, and not to mention the coming tsunami of grossly insecure devices that will be hitched to the Internet of Things. Today's world runs on Linux, and the security of its kernel is a single point of failure that will affect the safety and well-being of almost every human being on the planet in one way or another.

"Cars were designed to run but not to fail," Kees Cook, head of the Linux Kernel Self Protection Project, and a Google employee working on the future of IoT security, said at the summit. "Very comfortable while you're going down the road, but as soon as you crashed, everybody died."

Enlarge / The start of the WEC 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas. (credit: Photo©AdrenalMedia.com)

AUSTIN, TEXAS—The World Endurance Championship's annual visit to the US is one of the hottest events in racing—figuratively and literally, given the sweltering heat and humidity that afflicts Austin in mid-September. We at Ars have made it to every Lone Star Le Mans weekend, and 2016 was no exception.

You can check out stunning images of the IMSA WeatherTech race elsewhere on the site (the first of the two double-bill headliners), but now it's time to talk prototypes. Specifically, the 1,000hp (745kW) hybrids that compete in the Le Mans Prototype 1 class. Audi, Porsche, and Toyota each enter two-car teams which compete around the world, most often over the course of six hours, although at Le Mans in June the race is obviously four times that.

For our money, nothing else in the world of racing pushes so many buttons. The LMP1 hybrids are breathtakingly fast. Sure, a Formula 1 car is faster on the same FIA Grade 1 circuits; comparing fastest qualifying and racing laps at Spa for both series' visits in 2016 shows the former to be between eight and nine seconds faster over the same 4.3 miles (7km). But the LMP1s weigh an extra 381 lbs (172 kg), and adding 2.2 lbs (1 kg) to an F1 car is commonly held to add 0.1 seconds to a lap.

Did you enjoy Firewatch? Our Kyle Orland did, too—and the Unity development engine made it possible. (video link)

These days, one tool has essentially unlocked the world of game development for the masses.

Since it was introduced in 2005, Unity has tried to make creating video games possible for everyone regardless of technical know-how or budget. It was first announced at Apple’s 2006 Worldwide Developer’s Conference and showcased as the first fully powered game engine—a platform with basic graphics capabilities, physics calculations, and some game behaviors already coded in but extensible—for the iPhone. Unity stood largely uncontested on that platform for a couple of years and quickly became a well-known tool among developers.