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Self-destructing book gives you 24 hours to finish reading
Think you're pretty good at speed-reading? You now have a chance to prove it. As part of a publicity stunt, author James Patterson is giving away 1,000 self-destructing digital advance copies of his latest novel, Private Vegas. If you score one, you have 24 hours to finish the entire book before the text vanishes forever. And if that's just not risky enough, Patterson is selling a real self-destructing copy (for a whopping $294,038) that includes a dedicated bomb squad, among other creature comforts. There are likely much better ways to spend six digits in record time, but it'll probably be the most exciting reading experience you ever have -- no matter how good the story might be.
Printer for self-destructing photos brings Snapchat to real life
Normally, you print things out to get a permanent copy. Not with Diego Trujillo Pisanty's new printer, however. His This Tape Will Self-Destruct art project coats its printouts (in this case, Cold War pictures) with glycerol and potassium salt, triggering an exothermic reaction that burns the paper within moments after you read it. Think of it as a real-world Snapchat where photos literally disappear in a puff of smoke.
Paranoid? You can destroy this SSD simply by texting it
In the age of Snowden and the NSA, no method of data protection is apparently too kooky for consideration. Exhibit 'A' is a new SSD drive from a company called SecureDrives (after the break). It has features like you'd expect like 256-bit hardware level encryption and 2-factor authentication, but that's just a warm-up. The pièce de resistance is the ability to erase the GSM-enabled drive by sending a text, causing the NAND flash storage to fragment in an unrecoverable way. The self-destruct process can also be triggered if someone tries to block the drive's GSM signal, tamper with it, remove it from your computer or try the pin code too many times. All of that should keep your Bitcoin stash safe, but first you'll need to part with a lot of them -- the top-end Autothysis128t drive runs £1,027, or about $1,650.
Digify helps you protect your data by sending self-destructing files
It's understandable if you're nervous about sharing files in this era of widespread surveillance. Can you really trust that a document is safe once it's out of your hands? Digify might just ease your mind now that it has launched Android and iOS apps for sharing self-destructing files. Rather than give people a direct download, the software only allows a peek at a given file for a set amount of time; once the Mission Impossible-style countdown hits zero, the content is gone for good. There are also safeguards against cleverer attempts to steal files. Anything you share is converted to a special format on Digify's servers, for one thing. Recipients can't take screenshots without alerting you (and losing access), and you can revoke access at will if you ever make a mistake.
More unfinished business: Cavanagh's vectorized tongues and the RPG that doesn't exist
This is the second half of a two-part series chronicling the unfinished works of seasoned indie developer Terry Cavanagh. For the first half, click all up on this. Terry Cavanagh's next confessionary Vine of unfinished projects started with a psychedelic look at his most recently abandoned idea, a first-person exploration game. "The idea was that'd be some way to manipulate your position in the game and access areas that were outside the game world; procedurally generated noise places of some sort," Cavanagh told us. "I liked the idea of randomly filling a world with information and abilities and letting the player figure it out by just poking around in areas I hadn't specifically designed for them – making a genuine playable minus world. Anyway, I was working on this before GDC, and when I was there I saw another game that was basically doing the same thing but better, so I scrapped my game. It happens, no big deal."
Victorinox Secure Pro USB drive is 'un-hackable,' can file your nails
This isn't the first USB drive / Swiss army knife we've seen from Victorinox, but the company's new Secure Pro drive is the first that is supposedly "un-hackable." To put that claim to the test, Victorinox actually offered a £100,000 prize to a team of "professional hackers" if they could crack the drive during the company's launch event -- they were unable to do so. That un-hackableness apparently comes primarily from the drive's combination of AES256 technology and fingerprint security, which is paired with (get this) a self-destruct mechanism that irrevocably burns the CPU and memory chip if there's any attempt to force the drive open. All that and a pair of scissors -- how can you go wrong? No word on a release over here just yet, but the drive is now available in the UK in capacities from 8GB to 32GB for between £50 and £180 (or about $75 to $270). [Thanks, Nikolas R]
Virtuity's Backstopp destroys data if laptop leaves DMZ
Though Virtuity's Backstopp technology won't make your laptop self destruct per se, it will keep whatever organized crime unit that's after you from attempting to jack your machine twice -- if you live to have such an opportunity, that is. Nevertheless, said software keeps a constant eye on the location of one's laptop, and if it's moved from a predetermined safe zone, a signal is activated that can inform the rig to vaporize sensitive data. Reportedly, lappies can be monitored with a variety of wireless technologies (WiFi and RFID are mentioned in particular), but considering that such a service will run you £10 ($19.54) per month, you better be one wanted individual to make it worthwhile.[Via Pocket-lint]
