SECURITY...

• Antipiracy flub for Microsoft (update) - Microsoft's efforts to curtail counterfeiting hit a snag when hackers discovered a new way to bypass its Windows Genuine Advantage, only days after the antipiracy software's official debut. Microsoft is investing the new claims and will take appropriate actions, a company representative said.
• IE7 Defends Against Phishing Sites - Although the Phishing Filter is not in Vista Beta 1 (it will be incorporated into future releases), it is in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 for Windows XP. When your web browser navigates to an address, IE7 will (just as normally) connect to the web server and download the page. While IE7 is downloading the page, it generates an asynchronous call to a special database of phishing sites. If the database has the website marked as a phishing site, it will display a warning page instead of the actual page with options to close the window or continue to the page.
• Virus writer gets bitchy - Lebreat-D is a combination worm that can be spread either by opening an attachment or via an improperly patched browser. Once in place the worm can attempt to launch a denial of service attack against the websites run by security companies Symantec and McAfee, and prevent the user accessing a list of antivirus websites. The Lebreat-D worm creates a JPEG image file called xsas.jpg which contains an image of Jaschan with the word 'bitch' superimposed. The code of the virus contains a lengthy message from its author which criticises the research done by antivirus companies, and complains that security vendors are not calling the worms by the author's preferred name of 'Breatle'.
• Security Hole in Cisco's IOS Discovered - A bug discovered in an operating system that runs the majority of the world's computer networks would, if exploited, allow an attacker to bring down the nation's critical infrastructure, a computer security researcher said Wednesday against threat of a lawsuit. Now the FBI is investigating him for criminal conduct after he revealed that critical routers supporting the internet and many networks have a serious software flaw that could allow someone to crash or take control of them.
• FBI holds eight on piracy charge - The eight men were charged with copyright infringement in Charlotte, North Carolina, following two FBI investigations known as Operation FastLink and Operation Site Down. The Justice Department alleged the defendants were leading members in the illegal online trade of copyrighted material known as the "warez scene".
• PGP author demos VoIP encryption - Zimmermann took the stage at the Black Hat Briefings get-together for network security professionals in Las Vegas to show his session-based Zfone encryption tool. Zfone lets two users on a Session Initiation Protocol-based VoIP connection verify each other's identity to avoid snooping.
• Windows XP SP3 Fixes and Features preview - check it out!

OFFTOPIC...

• New Super Magnet Weighs More Than 15 Tons - This definitely ain't no refrigerator magnet. The new super magnet at The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory weighs more than 15 tons and has a magnetic field 420,000 times that of the Earth's - strong enough to pull a metal object out of a person's hand and send it flying - if people were allowed to get close enough.
• Zach Snyder to unleash the dawn of the 300 by Frank Miller? - Well, it looks like Zach Snyder... director of the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD is all signed up to direct Frank Miller's brilliant graphic novel, 300. Not only that - but he plans to shoot it, like Robert Rodriguez as a near shot for panel recreation of the book.
•  My Own Private Zoo - My picture collection of strange animals people found inside their PCs: mice, ants and even hornets. Really amazing!

TECHNOLOGY...

• Windows Vista Release Pushed Back? - Microsoft had previously slated the release of the next client version of its Windows operating system for the second half of 2006. But at the Microsoft Financial Analyst Conference in Redmond, Washington, Thursday, Will Poole, senior vice president of the client division of Microsoft, said the OS would not be available until the 2006 "holiday" time frame in the U.S.
• More Vista screenshots - Bink.nu has posted some more screenshots for everyone to see.
• Virtual Folders: A Windows Vista Technology Showcase - Paul Thurrott SuperSite for Windows published an article on the Virtual Folders feature of Windows Vista
• IE7 beta 1 Bugs and Reviews - Here are some impressions of IE7 beta 1. Another review can be found on FlexBeta.
• Version of Windows Vista will include Virtual PC - According to a TechNet article about deploying Windows Vista in enterprise environments, there will be a version of Windows Vista released that is bundled with Microsoft's Virtual PC application that can be used for application compatibility.
• Microsoft: Low-cost Windows gaining ground - Microsoft said it has sold 100,000 copies of its Windows XP Starter Edition, the first indication of the popularity of the low-cost operating system.
• PS3 to Launch in 2007 if Xbox 360 Fails - According to analysts at Wedbush Morgan, seemingly still unable to lay off the crack pipe, the PlayStation 3 will ship in 2007 if the Xbox 360 fails to ignite the hardware market: "We expect Sony to defer a decision regarding PS3 launch until it is able to assess the likely success of the Xbox 360, and anticipate that Sony will make its decision shortly after the Xbox 360 launch. We do not expect the PS3 until mid 2006, at the earliest, and should Microsoft fail to garner sufficient software support to gain an insurmountable lead, we think that there is a possibility that the PS3 launch will slip into early 2007."
• Gunning for game dollars - With young men--the group advertisers most lust after--watching less and less television, a growing number of marketers are turning to video games as a way to reach the lucrative demographic. In-game ads are taking many shapes. Most commonly, they're simple billboards for things such as movies, soda, cars and the like embedded in stand-alone titles. But now there are also interactive ads placed in online games.
• Philips flickers backlight to reduce LCD ghosting - Philips is working on an interesting new technology for LCD TVs that aims to eliminate ghosting and streaking by flashing a screen's backlight.

HARDWARE... 

• Samsung X50 HWM 760 laptop - Inside the X50 is a 2GHz Pentium M, which is only one step down from the top of the range Pentium M. The CPU is backed up by 512MB of PC3200 DDRII memory, while the 80GB hard disk should provide enough storage for even the most space hungry user. Grpahics come courtesy of ATI in the shape of a Mobility Radeon X600 chipset.
• DDR2 Shoot-Out - Corsair vs. Kingston - Both kits are rated for operation at 675MHz with SPD settings of 4-4-4-12. Corsair has placed the label 'UL' on this new set, short for Ultra-Low Latency, and they may be the first DDR2 modules we have seen that are expected to run stable at 3-2-2-4. Kingston, on the other hand, have upped the speed ante, as the "6000" in the product name stands for PC6000, or DDR750.
• OCZ EL DDR PC-3500 Gold GX Memory - If your motherboard can supply 3.0+ Volts to the memory, what every modern enthusiast board should be able to do, you will love this memory. Its aggressive timings make it a great performer, no matter at which clock speed. If you dare to pump 3.4V through your memory you should be able to hit 250 MHz at timings of 2-2-2-5.
• Nforce4 SLI for Intel - Bit-Tech take a look at two retail Intel SLI boards, one from Gigabyte and one from MSI. How do they rank up next to the 955 and 925?
• Crucial RADEON X850 XT 256MB - There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Crucial's ATI RADEON X850 XT 256MB PCI-Express card; it's reference all the way. The killer is the price.
• Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GTX Video Card - The performance gains offered by the Gigabyte 7800 GTX over the excellent 6800 GT make it worth every penny to hard core gamers. Even with just a single 7800 GTX, you can play games at detail levels that were previously unplayable (unless you like slide shows).
• MSI GeForce 7800 GTX - This chip officially runs at 430 MHz with 256 MB 256-bit GDDR3 memory running at 1.2 GHz, but MSI model has a feature called D.O.T. (Dynamic Overclocking Technology) that allows you to easily overclock this card by simply checking a box on the video driver properties
• Combo-hit Modular PSU Roundup - MadShrimps take a look at three samples of mod-PSU's.
• VisionTek Xtasy Theater 550 Pro - Needing an all-in-one multimedia solution for TV broadcast and personal video capturing and editing?
• LG L1980Q Flatron Slim 19" Monitor - The LG1980Q is an absolutely gorgeous looking monitor. On the exterior, the shiny silver is sleek looking, and the white rear of the monitor seems to contrast perfectly. The screen itself is extremely thin, and very versatile. The monitor output looked wonderful while gaming with no ghosting noticed to cramp the experience.
• Epson PictureMate 500 Photo Printer - This convenient printer is around the size of a small ghetto blaster and comes with a handy carrying handle, though the rechargeable battery pack giving it full portability is an optional extra. If you can have a ‘traditional' layout on a type of printer which has only been around for a couple of years, the PictureMate 500 follows it.
• Toshiba Gigabeat F20 Portable Audio Player - Where Toshiba gets it unequivocally right is with sound quality. The Gigabeat just sounds fantastic. I ripped Madonna's Music CD directly to the player using Gigaroom, using the maximum 192kbps WMA setting. It sounded, what I believe the kids describe as, 'Phat'. Bass was fully extended and deep, treble was clear and there was plenty in the middle too. Sound quality wise then, it really put my third generation iPod to shame.

GUIDES...

• NVIDIA's SLI anti-aliasing investigated - Elitebastards informed us that they have completed their investigation of NVIDIA's SLI anti-aliasing technology, which was introduced in their latest Beta ForceWare 77.76 driver set. They have taken a look at performance and image quality, as well as investigating the performance hit suffered by SLI AA modes and why this occurs.
• Overclocking guide - This is a basic guide to overclocking both the processor and memory.
• A Guide To All The Wireless Security - Have you been wondering what the difference between WEP, WPA, 80211i, Layers or Security, CKIP, TKIP, VPN, IDS, etc. means? We look at all the current wireless security protocols and explain it to you in an easy to understand fashion.
• HEXUS.guides Launched - Installing Windows XP / RAID explained / DDR and DDR2 Explained / What is RSS? / Port Forwarding
• Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" bypass - A simple hack has been found that disables the check. Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter: javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all'). In related news, here's a guide how to Bypass Windows Genuine Advantage check in IE7 (beta).
• 200 Anti-Spyware Tips to Help Increase Security and Privacy - Computer help website MalekTips today announced the expansion of its adware and spyware removal tips, now numbering over 200. The collection includes spyware terminology definitions, a description of problems adware and spyware can cause, tips on installing and using various anti-spyware applications, prevention advice, and more.

SOFTWARE...

• Internet Explorer 7 beta 1 download - This 10MB big download will install Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 beta 1 on your PC. Beware! You need a genuine Windows version. If your key is illegal or invalid it will not install!
• Update for Windows (KB903234) - This update adds support for the End User Recovery feature in the Data Protection Manager. After installation, the updated Timewarp client will be able to recover data from a Data Protection Manager server, if present. After you install this update, you may have to restart your computer.
• Update for Windows (KB901105) - Install this update to resolve an issue in Windows-based systems equipped with HD audio devices that prevents the HD Audio devices from playing audio properly.
• Windows XP SP3 Fixes and Features preview - check it out!
• TweakVista 0.50 - The TweakVista website (download) has released it's tweak for Beta 1, allowing testers to use unsupported cards.
• AbiWord 2.2.9 - AbiWord (download) is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth.
• Opera 8.02 - I've mentioned this version yesterday, but here's a direct download link. This new version solves download dialog spoofing issue, fixes image dragging issue and prevented link hijacking issue. They have also released Opera 8.10 Preview 2.
• Yahoo! Toolbar 1.0 for Mozilla Firefox - download
• AIM Ad Hack 4.10 - With this small file (download) you can effectively remove all the ads from AIM you must be using.
• FileZilla Server 0.9.9 - This update is highly recommended due to security vulnerability in used zlib library.
• GMail Drive v1.0.6 - GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
• Unlocker 1.6.7 - This application unlocks in-use files, allowing functions to be performed on theme.
• Computer Cleaner v1.8 - Computer Cleaner is one of the fastest and effective cleaners on the net. It cleans out many programs log files, unneeded windows files that slow down the computer and many other things in very short time.
• Fresh Diagnose 7.05  - Fresh Diagnose is an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, hard disk performance, video system information, mainboard information, and many more.
• ZoneAlarm 6.0.631.003 - Just days after releasing 6.0.631.002, Zone Labs posts a minor update
• Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Benchmark - The HardwareOC Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes video card benchmarking fast and easy. You can select different resolutions, detail levels and much much more by one click
• Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver v3.75 - Realtek released version 3.75 driver (download) for their ALC AC97 audio chipsets.
• ATI Catalyst Drivers for Windows Vista Beta 1 - This unified driver has been further enhanced to provide the highest level of power, performance, and reliability. The ATI CATALYST software suite is the ultimate in performance and stability.
• ForceWare 77.77 for Windows XP 64-bit - Here's a new set of Forceware Drivers - dated: 2005-7-29.
• NVIDIA ForceWare 77.52 Windows Vista - Windows Vista Beta drivers (32-bit) 77.52 distributed with the unreleased Windows Vista (codename Longhorn). Windows 2000/XP compatible also.
• NVIDIA Forceware 75.03 Windows Vista 32-bit Beta 1 - NVIDIA has made available the following alpha drivers for Windows Vista Beta 1. The current ForceWare alpha driver is a preview release that will enable you to test the basic features and capabilities of the new operating system. This alpha driver has no performance optimizations included and has received limited stability testing.
• ForceWare 77.74 Win2000/XP WHQL BETA -  They are compatible with all current GeForce and Quadro graphics cards from NVIDIA making this a very interesting release.