SECURITY...

• Hacker penetrates T-Mobile systems - Securityfocus is reporting that a hacker known by the alias "Ethics" successfully penetrated T-Mobile's systems for at least a year. Twenty-one year-old Nicolas Jacobsen was charged last October after an elaborate sting between a Secret Service informant and IRC chatrooms. Jacobsen obtained U.S. Secret Service e-mail, customers' passwords and Social Security numbers, and downloaded candid photos taken by Sidekick users, including Hollywood celebrities like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton. Jacobsen could access information on any of the Bellevue, Washington-based company's 16.3 million customers, including many customers' Social Security numbers and dates of birth, according to government filings in the case. He could also obtain voicemail PINs, and the passwords providing customers with Web access to their T-Mobile e-mail accounts. He did not have access to credit card numbers.
• Bawdy holiday worm preys on prurience - The virus, dubbed by Sophos as Wurmark-D worm (or W32/Wurmark-D), is being distributed via a mass e-mail campaign which offers a New Year's message in the form of an attached photograph of naked bodies. Labeled as an "amusing file," the attachment carries the destructive worm along with a graphic image of naked men and women whose bodies have been aligned to form the words "Happy New Year."
• Hackers use DRM to plant spyware - According to anti-virus vendor Panda Software, two new trojan horses -- dubbed WmvDownloader.a and WmvDownloader.b -- had been planted in video files seeded to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like eMule and KaZaA. The trojans took advantage of a new anti-piracy features in Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP SP2 to trick users, said Panda. Another article can be found here.
• Windows ANI File Parsing Proof Of Concept - This document demostrate an exploit of vulnerability in USER32.DLL's handling of Windows animated cursor (.ani) files that will allow a remote attacker to reliably overwrite the stack with arbitrary data and execute arbitrary code.
• Gmail glitch yields access to messages - The programmers, part of a community site dedicated to the Unix-like FreeBSD operating system, found that an improperly formatted address allowed Gmail users to retrieve the message body of the last HTML-formatted e-mail processed by the server.
• Finding bugs in software will get you jail - French security researcher who published exploit codes that could take advantage of bugs in an anti-virus application, could be imprisoned for violation of copyright laws.
• The US Army is mad, and gunning for you - A filing on a forum from Phil DeLuca at America's Army game project indicates that the US Army is not at all happy at people s0dding about with its code. DeLuca said that the US Army is very unhappy with hackers and others breaching its licence agreements, and it knows who these people are. He said: "When you tamper with the [America's Army] game not only are you breaking the EULA, you're misusing Army property, and worse, you're misusing US Army computer programs and equipment".
• Microsoft Turns to External Patch Testers - Looking to improve and possibly speed up the creation and release of software security patches, Microsoft Corp. is implementing a closed beta program for external testing teams. The formalization of Redmond's new Security Update Validation Program clears the way for external patch testers to get "limited and controlled access" to security updates ahead of public release.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Robots will win the World Cup by 2050 - Japanese robotic boffins think that by 2050 they will be able to create a team of robots who could beat any international football side.
• NASA craft to study comet - A NASA spacecraft blasted off Wednesday on a six-month trip to smash a hole in a comet and give scientists a glimpse of the frozen primordial ingredients of the solar system. The craft, Deep Impact, should end its 268-million-mile journey to Comet Tempel 1 on July 4. Some hours after takeoff, the spacecraft placed itself in a protective sleep mode because of an unknown problem, and flight controllers were reviewing sensor data, NASA said. The comet will be more than 80 million miles from Earth when the collision takes place -- on the sunlit side of the comet, NASA hopes, in order to ensure good viewing by spacecraft cameras and observatories. The resulting crater is expected to be two to 14 stories deep, and perhaps 300 feet in diameter.
• Early universe bears imprint of Big Bang's echo - The early universe rang with the sound of countless cosmic bells, which filled the primordial darkness with ripples like the surface of a pond pounded by stones. The wave fronts later served as spawning grounds for galaxies, astronomers announced Tuesday.
• First ever earthquake movie created - A pioneering technique using data from GPS receivers has been used to make the first movie of an earthquake. The animation shows the Earth's surface deforming during a magnitude 8.3 quake in September 2003 off the coast of Hokkaido in Japan.

TECHNOLOGY...

• CES 2005 coverage - @ TechReport, @TGH, Photo Report @ HotHardware, @ AnandTech (chipsets, motherboards, and memory), DDR & DDR2 plans, Prototype Blu-ray Disc, HD-DVD player
• First details on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2006? - According to AnandTech the next version of the software is definitely going to add support for CableCard, which means you'll be able to plug digital cable directly into the box and natively record HDTV programming. Windows Media Center XP 2005 did add support for HDTV tuner cards, but they're only able to record over the air HDTV broadcasts.
• Multi-chip packages to power Sony PlayStation Portable - Samsung Electronics today unveiled multi-chip package (MCP) technology which will be incorporated into Sony Corporation's PlayStation Portable (PSP) game system and and next generation consumer devices. With a MCP processing rate of 1.3GB per second, the MCP devices supplied for the Sony PSP have a capacity of 64 megabytes and consist of 256 Mb NAND flash memory and high-speed mobile DDR (double-data-rate) DRAM memory.
• Samsung developed new digital TV receiver chip - Samsung Electronics announced developed a new digital TV receiver chip, that enables digital TV receivers to acquire and track signals in harsh environments such as multi-path channel conditions, dynamic conditions with multiple signal variations and where the overall receiving capability is weak.
• Digital Cameras: How Low Can You Go? - For less than $100, you can expect to get a digital camera with very limited features. The lens is likely to be fixed-focus, which means that it tries to keep the entire universe in focus at the same time but can't do justice to any one part of it, resulting in poor-quality (andr potentially grainy or blurry) pictures. Most sub-$100 cameras lack an LCD, too, forcing you to rely on an optical or electronic viewfinder to frame shots.

HARDWARE... 

• NVIDIA adds AGP, PCI-E graphics card variations - NVIDIA has added new AGP and PCI Express graphics products to its lineup. For budget-minded gamers, the GeForce 6600 AGP will face off against the Radeon 9600 XT in the $149-$199 price range. The 6600 AGP carries a core clock of 300MHz and memory clocked between 250 and 275MHz, depending on board manufacturer discretion.  For PCI-E, NVIDIA has introduced the GeForce 6800 LE PCI Express. Cards will be priced between $229 and $279, right between ATI's new Radeon X800 and X800XL. The 6800 LE PCI-E is clocked at 325MHz core and 300MHz memory and comes with a 256-bit memory bus and full SLI support.
• Cinego D-1000 instant theater DLP projector with DVD player - This is an all-in-one, plug and play portabe DLP projection system. It features an integral DVD player, speakers and even a detached subwoofer. This would be ideal if you are just living in an apartment or are even in a dorm room, whatever, you can just whip this puppy out and in minutes, you are watching your movies on the big screen.
• Mesh Elite 560 DVI-Xtreme PC - The core of the Elite 560 DVI-Xtreme is quite easy to guess, as the model name refers to the CPU, a Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz processor. To accompany the processor, Mesh has included a generous complement of RAM - 2GB of Samsung PC4200 533MHz DDR2 memory in a four by 512MB module configuration. The only downside to this is that there are no free memory slots, but 2GB of memory should be good enough for a fair while.
• Corsair XMS Xpert Preview - Hexus.net take a brief look at a sample of the evolution of the XMS line, in the form of the XMS Xpert range. Final speeds and latencies haven't yet been decided for these products but, to be honest, that isn't what makes these memory modules unique...
• EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra Mainboard - EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra is going to be an interesting product due to the chipset used and the efforts of the EPoX engineers invested into its development. Combining a lot of useful features with excellent overclockability, this mainboard is going to make a good buy (we think its price won't be very high).
• Abit v Epox - Socket 939 - Bit-Tech have 2 motherboards sporting AMD's Socket 939. The first, Abit's AV8 3rd Eye, uses Via's K8T800Pro chipset. The second, Epox's 9NDA3+, uses the Nvidia Nforce 3 Ultra. They are pitting these two together to see which works out the better - whilst both Via and Nvidia have announced successors to the chipsets we're working with here, you'll still be hard pressed to actually buy them
• NVIDIA GeForce 6200 - Beyond3D takes a look at NVIDIA's NV43 based (non-TurboCache) GeForce 6200. Another review can be found on Digit-Life,
• XFX GeForce 6600GT PCIe -  In VRZone tests without Anti-Aliasing turned on, the GeForce 6600GT is clearly the fastest card, running every game tested from Doom 3 to Unreal Tournament 2004 faster than the ATI Radeon X700 Pro. However, when Catalyst A.I. is turned on and combined with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering in high resolution gaming tests, the benchmark results flip towards ATI's corner. This happens in every game we tested except for in Doom 3, where the GeForce 6600GT runs .7 FPS faster than the Radeon X700 Pro with AA and AF turned on at 1600x1200x32.
• Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PE - Just to recap briefly, the X850 XT PE, codenamed R480, is a 16 pixel-pipeline and six vertex pipeline VPU, backed up by 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Unlike the recent X800 XL, which has been shrunk to 0.11 Micron process, this part is still based on TSMC 0.13 Micron process. However, experience has enabled ATI and TSMC to optimise the process enabling higher clock speeds to be achieved. The core is running at a new high for ATI of 540MHz, while the memory is up to 590MHz or 1.18GHz effective.
• LG GSA-4163B DVD recorder - LG GSA-4163B DVD is excellent DVD±R/RW/+R9 DL and CD-R recorder, which also support the DVD-RAM format.
• Seagate ST650211USB HDD - The release of this pocket storage device from Seagate into the market offers users a much broader choice of solutions like that, because there haven't been that many of the in the market so far.
• Corsair Flash Voyager USB 2.0 Drive - Corsair has done a good job with the Flash Voyager drives. They are the fastest USB Flash drives I have looked at. The software security feature is nice since it does let you look at both the secure and unsecure partitions at the same time. The rubber covering of the drive provides the drive with a protective cover that keeps the device from damage from water and being banged around.
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro - 3DVelocity has posted a review of the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro sound card.
• SilenX 400w 0dBA Luxurae PSU - The SilenX website says that this power supply can to operate for 100K Hours @ 25C MTBF (mean time between failures) which basically means the average time before the device fails. The lifespan of this system will be lower in most situations since your temperature is normally going to be higher than 25C. Some features added to protect your system include: Short-Circuit Protection on Outputs, Over Voltage Protection (3.3V/4V 5V/6V 12V/14V), and Over Power Protection (105%~150% of max load). Along with these nice features this power supply uses a passive PFC (Power Factor Control).
• Thermaltake PurePower 680W Power Supply - From my experience, the Thermaltake PurePower 680W seems like a very solid power supply. It offers more than enough connectors, a great finish, colorfully sleeved cables, and plenty of stable power. In addition, it features three +12V rails that provide 38A of power. An SLI system would require a lot of power, and the PurePower 680W might just fit the bill nicely in the right case.  
• ATake Pipe VGA For Dual Heat-Pipe VGA Cooling Kit - BigBruin.Com has posted a review of the ATake Pipe VGA For Dual Heat-Pipe VGA Cooling Kit.
• MSI SW8G 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch - PC Stats has posted a review of a MSI SW8G 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch.
• Altec Lansing MX-5021 speaker system - These speakers are a 2.1 channel, THX certified set of speakers designed for high quality audio listening and even a bit of gaming.
• I-Rocks X-slim Keyboard - Small, clean and generally understated in appearance; this keyboard will look equally at home on a desk in your office or in front of a tricked out gaming system.

GUIDES...

• Understanding audio compression: MP3, WMA, Ogg, and more - A digital copy, however, is not a "curvy line". Instead, it's similar to a bar graph, or "connect the dots" depending on how you choose to display the end result. There is a series of singular points of data, with only certain available values for both. The scale along the bottom follows regular intervals, depending on the sampling rate.
• RAID 0 - good or bad for games? - RAID arrays still has dominance when it comes to professional multimedia applications. It offers *much* faster I/O performance then a stand alone drive. The advent of SATA could be a herald of some technology breakthrough looming in the not-too-distant future. When you add Native Command Queuing into the mix the performance only increases.
• 5 Reasons to Update Windows XP to Service Pack 2 - BigBruin.Com has posted 5 Reasons to Update Windows XP to Service Pack 2.
  Windows XP Tweaking Companion - Version 1.02 Update - The Windows XP Tweaking Companion (XPTC) has been updated to Version 1.02. The changes in this version are minor, mainly improvements in formatting and some minor tweak revisions and clarifications.
• Doom 3 Performance results - OnlyNewZ selected in total 32 different cards, 14 NVIDIA cards and 18 ATI cards. 23 cards are AGP and 9 cards are PCI-Express.
• NVIDIA Forceware Comparison (61.77 - 66.93 - 67.03 - 67.50) - NVIDIA Forceware Comparison (61.77 - 66.93 - 67.03 - 67.50) NVIDIA released some new drivers lately on NVIDIA nZone and ofcourse the latest official 66.93 WHQL drivers. The drivers have new features, performance improvements and ofcourse several bugfixes for games and more. Also a good brief description of known issues associated with the official released drivers is included to inform the users about bugs that could appear with different configurations in certain applications.
• Basic Applied Cryptography - The Tech Zone has posted a guide on Basic Applied Cryptography.

SOFTWARE...

• Windows XP Professional X64 Edition RC1 review - Unfortunately, there is still the lingering matter of driver and software incompatibility issues. Much like there were compatibility issues when moving from 16-bit Windows to 32-bit Windows variants, we will also see some when moving to 64-bit. Microsoft's WoW64 system does an incredible job of letting you run 32-bit software at full speed in a 64-bit environment, but there are still edge case scenarios where 32-bit software won't work off the bat. The 64-bit driver situation is looking pretty good so far, and most platforms will have necessary 64-bit driver support when the OS is released.
• Update for Windows XP (KB890831) - After you install Windows XP SP2 and then try to run MSN Messenger, the input method editor (IME) may not respond or run as expected. Dowload patch.
• Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter Update - This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail. This update was released in January 2005.
• OpenOffice.org for Windows 2.0 (Snapshot Build 1.9.m69) - OpenOffice.org is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems is releasing the technology for the popular StarOffice productivity suite. It is an international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format. It establishes the necessary facilities to make this open source technology available to the developer community.
• CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 Updates - CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 Service Pack 1 (download) || CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 Full/Upgrade EPS Fix (Multi-lingual) (download)
• The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities (Updated) - There are a lot of great freeware programs out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives.
• Win32Whois 0.9.2 - Win32Whois (download) is a small and efficient Whois client. It is able to retrieve domain information for most of the common TLDs (top level domains). It has it is internal list of servers that it connects to in order to provide a detailed report on a requested domain.
• Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool - The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (download) checks Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 computers for and helps remove infections by specific, prevalent malicious software - including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed
• HyperSnap-DX 5.62.02 (shw) - HyperSnap-DX 5 (download) is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games. HyperSnap-DX 5 can capture frames from many software DVD players and other video playing software
• XP-Antispy 3.93 - XP-AntiSpy (download ~ mirror) is a little utility that let's you disable some built-in update and authetication "features" in WindowsXP. For example, there's a service running in the background wich is called "Automatic Updates". I don't know what this service transfers from my machine to other machines on the internet, especially the MS ones.
• Winamp software updated to v5.08c - According to the changelog this version, 5.08c, fixes a critical security bug (download full ~ lite) so users of Winamp 5 are recommended to upgrade.
• DVD Region+CSS Free 5.62 - This new version now also supports the new type of the Sony ARccOS copy protection which was found on movies like Resident Evil - Apocalypse.
• CloneDVD updated to version 2.6.1.3 - Elby has updated its CloneDVD software to version 2.6.1.3 (download). Besides some sound additions and other improvements brings this new version support for 4.85GB Extreme Extended DVD-R.
• VirtualDub 1.6.3 - VirtualDub (download ~ Intel / AMD64 version) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
• Vstudios Xtreme G 67.65 - This is the Valance Studios Xtreme G driver which includes many performance and Image Quality tweaks. These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers for Windows 2000 & XP
• DNA-Force 1.0.7124 - These are modified NVIDIA ForceWare drivers based on the ForceWare 71.24 release.
• ATITool 0.0.23 - ATITool is an overclocking utility designed for ATI video cards. Design target is to write a light-weight application for the enthusiast - so no questionable registry tweaks.