Wednesday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 05:39 PM CEST - Sep,22 2004
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- Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, Epiphany: New releases fix
vulnerabilities -
New releases of Mozilla, Epiphany, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mozilla Firefox
fix several vulnerabilities, including the remote execution of arbitrary code.
- Fraudsters take advantage of chip-and-PIN rollout - Fraud from new
credit cards being sent to customers in the mail and intercepted by fraudsters
soared 51 per
cent over the last year, as criminals took advantage of the high volume of
chip-and-PIN cards being mailed out to consumers.
- Exploit posted for Microsoft JPEG flaw -
The code was published late last week (link1
/ link2),
only days after Microsoft on Tuesday revealed the "critical" vulnerability and
made available patches to fix the problem. Any application that processes JPEG
images could be vulnerable. A wide range of Microsoft software, including
versions of its Windows and Office products, are vulnerable.
- Unofficial fix for Call of Duty - The 15th September 2004 has been
officially released the expansion pack called United Offensive. It is an
expansion pack but uses a new executable that unfortunally has not been fixed
for the shutdown bug I reported to the developers the 1st July 2004. To note
that the executable (CoDUOMP.exe version 1.41) has been compiled the 23th
August 2004 so when the developers were aware of the bug from over 8 weeks.
Here is
an
unofficial fix (download)
for that.
- Lords of the Realm III versions 1.01 vulnerability - Lords of the
Realm III versions 1.01 and below suffer from a denial of service attack when
an overly long string is supplied as the user's nickname.
- Ireland blocks 13 countries after net scams - The republic of
Ireland is
to block direct dial telephone calls to 13 countries in an effort to crack
down on growing internet scams. Watchdog, the Commission for Communications
Regulation (ComReg) has instructed internet service providers (ISPs) and
telecommunications operators to implement the blocking by October 4. Calls are
to be blocked to Norfolk Island, Sao Tome and Principe, Cook Islands, Tokelau,
Diego Garcia, Wallis and Futuna, Nauru, Tuvalu, Comoros, Kiribati, Solomon
Islands, Mauritiana and French Polynesia. Direct dial access to the countries
can only be unbarred at the request of a subscriber and following verification
that the requested number is a voice only service.
- Off-topic: Neither Gates Nor Ballmer Is Microsoft's Highest Paid Exec -
According to documents filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC), Microsoft's highest paid executive in the 2004 fiscal year
was neither its CEO Steve Ballmer nor its Chairman and Chief Software
Architect Bill Gates, but the exec responsible for Microsoft Office products -
who
received $962,500 in bonus and base pay. FYI, Bill Gates,
earned $901,667 in Microsoft's 2004 fiscal year, up 4.4 percent from a
year ago. Steve Ballmer earned the same amount and got the same raise in the
fiscal year ended June 30.
- Off-topic: Germans develop bad breath-detecting mobe - The Siemens'
team in Munich
is developing a mobe with a miniature chip which can detect when it's time
to uncap the mouth wash. A spokeswoman for presumably fragrant German outfit
told Reuters: "It examines the air in the immediate vicinity for anything from
bad breath and alcohol to atmospheric gas levels."
- Off-topic: US sends plutonium to France - Under heavy security and
amidst much opposition, enough plutonium for 40 nuclear bombs is being taken
by sea from the US to France for processing. The US and French authorities see
the shipment as the first step in a new "atoms for peace" programme
to convert 34 tonnes of plutonium from "surplus" US weapons into fuel for
power stations.
- Sony reveals redesigned PS2, plans November 1st launch - The wraps
have been taken off
Sony's redesigned PlayStation 2 hardware, previously referred to as PStwo,
with SCEE this morning revealing that the significantly smaller console will
launch in the USA and Europe on November 1st. The new hardware, designated
SCPH-70000CB, follows the same design lines as the original PlayStation 2, but
is only 2.8cm thick, compared with 7.8cm on the current console, and reduces
the internal volume by 75 per cent. As expected, the system has the PS2
network adapter built in.
- PlayStation 3 will use Blu-Ray discs - confirmed - Sony has
officially
confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will use the Blu-Ray disc technology, an
evolution of the DVD format which provides six times more storage space than
conventional DVD discs. A single-sided, dual layer Blu-Ray (BD-ROM) disc can
hold 54Gb of data, compared with just over 9Gb on a standard DVD-ROM, and the
use of up-to-date video compression standards on BD-ROM discs allows the
playback of high definition encoded video.
- PSP hardware is finished -
Sony has finished work on PlayStation Portable hardware and still intends
to ship the console this year, Sony COO Ken Kutaragi told a press briefing in
Japan yesterday, although the company has yet to announce pricing or release
date details and Kutaragi declined to say whether or not the unit would cost
more than the Nintendo DS ($149).
- Xbox team joins Virtual PC development - Feeling pressure from both
Apple and G5 customers, Microsoft this summer cut several key enhancements
from its Virtual PC 7.0 Windows emulation software in order to deliver a G5
compatible solution without further delays. One of the features reportedly
shelved until a future release was native graphics card support. But precisely
what is delaying this feature remains a mystery to even some members of the
Virtual PC team, as they are not the ones responsible for the implementation.
According to sources,
Virtual PC's native graphics card support is being handled exclusively by
Microsoft's Xbox team. Though not expected for several months, the feature
will reportedly demand a graphics card that meets the same level of graphics
sophistication required for Apple's Core Image and Video technology.
- First game arrives for AMD 64-bit chip -
Atari has released a 64-bit version of "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury,"
according to AMD and Atari. Chips that allow 64-bit addressing can handle far
more memory than the 32-bit chips found in desktops today, a situation that
should lead to graphics that are more dense and realistic.
- Sony Eyes 200GB Blu-ray Discs - Sony will announce next month that
it developed
an 8-layer version of the Blu-ray Disc that is capable of storing 200GB of
data, according to a company spokesperson. The announcement will be made at
the International Symposium on Optical Memory 2004, which takes from October
11 to October 15, in Jeju Island, South Korea, according to Sony. The company
further plans to commercialize a 4-layer 100GB version in 2007, says Sony
spokesperson Taro Takamine.
- Five graphics-card makers to form alliance to strengthen
competitiveness - Five Taiwan companies, consisting of graphics card
makers and second-tier motherboard manufacturers,
plan to form a strategic alliance to strengthen their bargaining power for
the purchase of graphics chipsets and to improve their competitiveness through
the division of product lines, according to sources at the makers. The five
companies are Albatron Technology, Tul, Chaintech Computer, Prolink
Microsystems and Gainward.
- Samsung Demos 8GB Flash Memory Chip - Korean electronics giant
unveiled
an 8-gigabit flash memory chip Monday based on the 60-nanometer process,
as well as a 2-gigabit DDR DRAM chip based on the 80-nanometer process.
- ABIT AA8 DuraMAX Motherboard (Intel 925X) - Upgrading to a new
925X-based board is quite an expensive endeavor when you consider the fact
that on top of a new processor, you'll need to buy a PCI-Express video card
and DDR2 memory. If you plan this expensive upgrade path though,
the AA8
DuraMAX should go on your short list of considerations. On top of its nice
feature set and flexibility, it has proven to be a very solid board as far as
stability and performance are concerned
- More ATI Radeon X700 previews - Another ATI Radeon X700 previews
can be found on
X-bit Labs,
Gamers-Depot,
PC Perspective,
DriverHeaven,
Beyond3D,
HotHardware.
- Socket 775 -
THG tests the latest models, including the Biostar P4TAW Extreme, the new
LANParty boards from DFI and the EP-5EGA+ from Epox. See if these mobos offer
graphics, networking and other value-add interface capabilities that make the
Socket 775 world a more interesting place.
- Albatron Trinity 6800 GT review - The Guru3D has
reviewed the Albatron Trinity 6800 GT.
- Mainstream PCI express card roundup -
This article will compare all seven graphics cards purely on a performance
basis to determine which product offers the best value. The low-end
(mainstream) products are the Radeon X300 SE, Radeon X300 and NVIDIA GeForce
PCX 5300. These three graphics cards share similar specifications, including
clock speeds. In fact, the only difference between the Radeon X300 and Radeon
X300 SE is the crippled memory bus of the latter. The Radeon X300 SE features
a 64-bit memory bus; this is a cut down from the 128-bit bus of the Radeon
X300.
- Maxtor's Atlas 10K V SCSI hard drive -
Maxtor's new Atlas 10K V is packed with 73.5GB platters and available in
capacities up to 300GB. With a 10K-RPM spindle speed, seek times between 4.0
and 4.9ms, and a maximum sustained transfer rate of 89MB/sec, the Atlas 10K V
should be no slouch when it comes to performance, either. Read on for more on
what the Atlas 10K V offers and how its performance compares to a handful of
10K and 15K-RPM SCSI drives, plus a couple of Serial ATA Raptors.
- Lite-On SOHW-1633S 16x DVD+-RW Double Layer Writer review -
Featuring 16x DVD+R writing and support for double layer media,
this
drive supersedes their already highly popular SOHW-832S thanks to the
higher read/write support. Unlike a majority of other drives on the market,
Lite-On drives usually offer higher media compatibility.
- NEC ND-3500A 16x DVD+/-R DVD review - Luckily, the ND-3500A arrived
on the same day that I received a package of 16-speed DVD+R media from
Verbatim. This meant that I could test the drive properly, rather than just
assuming that it would be fast writing DVD+R discs. As it turned out though,
the ND-3500A wasn't any faster writing at 16-speed than the Plextor PX-712A
was writing at 12-speed.
In fact, burning 4.3GB of digital images at 16-speed took over a minute longer
than it did on the Plextor at 12-speed.
- Asus WL-330g Pocket Wireless Access Point review - The TechZone has
posted a review
of the world's smallest wirless router - Asus WL-330g Pocket Wireless Access
Point.
- Vantec EZ-grip molex connector kit - Have you ever thought of
changing those ugly white molex connectors for nicer black ones or UV reactive
ones? Well Vantec has put together an EZ grip molex connector kit with a
removing tool and ten black UV reactive molex connectors. Well how does this
work then? Is it easy to use? Will it look good and work good?
- Professional Mouse Pad Comparison 2004 - The Golden Chainsaw award
goes to
the Kryptec X-board V2. The surface of the pad performs very well and it's
very comfortable to use. In the end the interesting style of the pad inched it
ahead of the competition, plus the pad is reasonably priced so I think it's
the best choice here.
- Vodafone Mobile Connect - 3G Data Card review -
The Mobile Connect, as the full name suggests, is a 3G data card that
slips into the PC Card slot of a notebook, and enables it to connect to the
Internet over Vodafone's growing 3G network. The card also supports GPRS, so
if there's no 3G coverage where you happen to be, the Mobile Connect will drop
down to the slower GPRS standard to keep you connected.
- Cable Organizer Electrical Round-Up - Cable Organizer, a company
that always manages to amaze the staff here at Phoronix due the wide variety
of products they carry ranging from reflective wire looms to torches, recently
provided us with several different pieces of equipment to assist in the
testing of electrical appliances.
Phoronix take a look at the Triplett Sniff-It, Triplett Plug-Bug, DT92
Advanced Series digital multimeter, and the M83 digital multimeter.
- Panasonic D-Snap SV-AS3 - Panasonic (Matsushita) announces along
with
the Panasonic AV-AS30 a new thin digital camera line. The Panasonic D-Snap
SV-AS3 is a 3.2 Mega-pixel camera that comes in four bright colors.
Technically the SV-AS30 and the SV-AS3 are very similar. The difference is in
the size of the digital camera body. The SV-AS3 is thicker and heavier. the
SV-AS3 measures 52.5x88.7x21.2mm and weighs 75.1g. As with the SV-AS30 the
SV-AS3 can record MPEG4 video with 30 frames/sec. The new D-Snap can play also
AAC/WMA/MP3 music with a play-time of 36 hours.
- OpenOffice.org For Windows 1.1.3 RC -
OpenOffice.org is the
open source project through which Sun Microsystems is releasing the technology
for the popular StarOffice productivity suite.
- Adobe beta tests Acrobat Reader 7.0 - Adobe has released
a new beta version of its Acrobat Reader, the program to view the
universal file format PDF. Acrobat Reader 7.0 - not publicly available yet -
is likely to appear with a major update of the Acrobat document management
software, dubbed "Acrobat X", by the end of the year. The 18MB program
contains a couple of new features: you now can fill in forms, sign documents,
participate in email and browser-based document reviews, and attach other PDF
and non PDF files to a PDF document. Acrobat Reader 7.0 will also
automatically download updates in the background.
- [!] ATI CATALYST A.I.feature explained/tested - From the Catalyst
4.10 drivers on, a new panel will appear in ATI's Catalyst Control Center:
Catalyst AI. It's here that the application specific optimisations can be
turned on or off. Whenever Catalyst AI is enabled any application specific
optimisations that are present in the drivers are automatically enabled - when
the "Disable Catalyst AI" checkbox is selected ATI says this turns of all
optimisations, be it generic or application specific.
Beyond3D put
this to the test on an X800 to see if the generic texture filtering
optimisations ATI are currently using would be disabled when Catalyst AI was
disabled. Another coverage of this feature can also be found on
TweakTown,
TechReport,
DriverHeaven.
- Adware T.V. Media Removal Tool from Microsoft 1.1 -
This tool will help to remove the adware T.V. Media from affected
computers. This adware interferes with successful installation of Windows XP
Service Pack 2. T.V. Media is bundled with certain advertisement-supported
applications such as Speed Blaster and Memory Meter. Users should uninstall
these applications before running this tool and before installing Windows XP
SP2.
- iRider version 2.2 final - The final release of
iRider version 2.20, the
advanced multi-page web browser, is available for
download.
This update includes several feature enhancements and bug fixes. Wymea Bay has
announced the final release of iRider version 2.2.
- DiscJuggler 4.10.1150 -
DiscJuggler (demo)
can simultaneously drive multiple CD recorders and replicate virtually any
standard CD. It features direct digital-to-digital CD duplication from a
CD-ROM drive to multiple CD-R drives, audio CD duplication with support for PQ
and R-W subcodes, and on-the-fly audio stream resynchronization, and
on-the-fly software regeneration of ECC/EDC and scrambling.
- Fraps 2.3.2 - Fraps
(download) is designed as a
generic tool for DirectX and OpenGL games. In its current form Fraps performs
many tasks and can best be described as: Benchmarking Software, Screen Capture
Software and Realtime Video Capture Software. This new version fixes blurred
playback of 1024x768 movies on ATI cards, video capture automatically
restarting after recording stopped, crash when Record Sound enabled on a
machine with no sound card and autodetection of best Sound Device with
multiple sound cards under XP.
- Driver Cleaner 3.3 -
Driver
Cleaner is a program which helps you to remove parts of drivers that are
left after uninstalling the old drivers. The program is for ATI and nVidia
drivers.
- UXTheme Multi-Patcher 2.5 -
With this little program you can you can use 3rd-party visual styles in
Windows XP with SP1 and/or SP2 and Windows 2003 without having to worry about
any bugs or errors. In other words, to patch uxtheme.dll protection.
- UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 1 1.6.2 -
It contains all Windows98
SE updates from Windows Update site and more. It is a self-extracting and
self-installing pack like Microsoft's update files. Thus, you cannot choice
files individually. However, the pack installs only required fixes for your
system. Uninstallation is possible from Add-Remove Programs.
- CPU-Z 1.24 -
CPU-Z is
a diagnostic tool that provides information on your CPU, including: processor
name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and
external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, etc.
- Latest Bios updates - TCMagazine has posted
the latest bios updates listed by brand, ASUS has 9 bios updates, GIGABYTE
has 15 bios updates, MSI has 10 bios updates, ABIT has 3 updates and EPOX has
3 bios updates!
- Radeon Omega Drivers v2.5.76 (Cat 4.9) -
The Omega Drivers
for Windows 2k/XP based on the Catalyst 4.9 are ready, go get them in the ATI
Radeon section.
- ATI Radeon BIOS Tuner (RaBiT) 1.5 - Russian guru called Jaz has
created a new BIOS
editor ATI Radeon BIOS Tuner (RaBiT) with real ability to control Memory
Timings (RAS-to-CAS, tRP, RAS#, CAS#, tRbs). It also can change Device ID,
core/mem clocks, memory bus width 32/64/128/256 bit and memory type SDR/DDR.
|
Updated:12:51 PM CEST Apr,27
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