SECURITY...

• Koei challenges, beats pirates in China - The Nikkei Business Express is reporting that Koei has successfully litigated a legal complaint against a Beijing-based company, Polystar Digital. Koei had accused Polystar of selling pirated copies of Sangokushi IX for the PC in Taiwan.
• Email worm poses as Osama videogram - Emails claiming to contain video clips of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden are likely to be example of a new computer worm. The Famus-F worm normally arrives in the form of a bilingual English and Spanish email, with the subject line "More terrorism this year". The message body states: "Last speech from Bin Laden. Please forwards this video to everybody." and includes a password - "cnn".
• Security glitch discovered on internet bank Cahoot - A security glitch that allowed customers to access other people's accounts by just entering a username and no password has been uncovered at internet bank Cahoot. According to the BBC, the bank's site was shutdown for about ten hours yesterday to carry out an emergency system upgrade to resolve the issue. Head of Cahoot Tim Sawyer says the problem was caused during a system upgrade 12 days ago, but insisted that no customer's money was at risk, as the glitch only allowed anyone that breached an account to view account information, not transfer any money.
• BSA offers L20,000 bounty to stop software thieves - Business Software Alliance (BSA) is now offering up to L20,000 to people that report pirated software that's being used in an organisation.
• Alleged DDoS kingpin joins most wanted list - The fugitive Massachusetts businessman charged in the first criminal case to arise from an alleged DDoS-for-hire scheme has appeared on an FBI most wanted list, while the five men accused of carrying out his will are headed for federal court.
• BitTorrent filesharing - swarming just under the radar - A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the Internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice. Even as lawsuits from music companies have driven people away from peer-to-peer programs like KaZaa, BitTorrent has thus far avoided the ire of groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America. But as BitTorrent's popularity grows, the service could become a target for copyright lawsuits.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Brain teasers help Google recruit workers - As its rapidly growing business creates hundreds of new jobs, Google is trying to lure premier talent with offbeat tactics, including a computer-coding competition and a brain-twisting aptitude test that mixes geek humor with a daunting mathematical workout. The 21-question test includes such geek brain twisters like, "How many different ways can you color an icosahedron with one of three colors on each face?" and "On an infinite, two-dimensional rectangular lattice of 1-ohm resistors, what is the resistance between two nodes that are a knight's move away?"
• "Shrek 2" DVD Debuts as "Incredibles" Hits Cinemas - Tales of a family of superheroes and a green ogre are expected to dominate U.S. entertainment this week with the Friday releases of "Shrek 2" on DVD and video and "The Incredibles" in theaters. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. said there was no battle between Shrek and Pixar Animation Studio Inc's, and investors recently have boosted shares in both companies on anticipation they would be blockbusters. DreamWorks set its "Shrek 2" DVD release for a Friday rather than a customary Tuesday to avoid being overshadowed by another national drama -- the presidential election, a spokeswoman for the studio said.
• Air Force report calls for $7.5M to study psychic teleportation - The Air Force Research Lab's August "Teleportation Physics Report," posted earlier this week on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Web site, struck a raw nerve with physicists and critics of wasteful military spending. In the report, author Eric Davis says psychic teleportation, moving yourself from location to location through mind powers, is "quite real and can be controlled." The 88-page report also reviews a range of teleportation concepts and experiments: Quantum teleportation, Wormholes, Psychokinesis.
• First Grader Brings Crack to Class - An Orange County first grader who brought to school more than $1,000 worth of crack cocaine has been suspended and her mother is under investigation. Sheriff's deputies say the 6-year-old girl said she found the bag of more than a dozen pieces of crack at home. But her mother said she must have gotten it trick-or-treating. (thanks NeoNSX)
• F-16 Fire Damaged School Building - The target was an object on the ground well within the confines of the Warren Grove  firing range, a 2,400-acre scrub pine expanse used by the military to train pilots in bombing and strafing. But when the heavy gun in the left wing of an Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet fired Wednesday night, it sent 25 rounds of 20mm ammunition smashing through the roof and zinging off the asphalt parking lot of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School 31/2 miles from the range. (thanks NeoNSX)
• Newborn babies feed on themselves - Babies survive the period immediately after birth by feeding on the content of their own cells, research suggests.
  Right after birth babies face sudden and severe starvation as they have lost their nutrient supply from the placenta, but have yet to drink milk. It appears they bridge the gap by breaking down cells, and releasing essential nutrients.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Supercomputer breaks speed record - The US is poised to push Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine. It is being assembled for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, a US Department of Energy lab (DOE).  DOE test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops. The current top machine, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, clocks up 35.86. Due next week, the Top 500 list officially charts the fastest computers in the world.
• Graphics patent holder sues Sony, MS, Nintendo - The massive programme of legal action against alleged infringers of a series of patents covering graphics and other computing techniques has been extended to console hardware vendors Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The news follows yesterday's revelation that 18 PC hardware companies had also been targeted, alongside 12 games software publishers.
• Microsoft Windows XP64 still slated for end Q1 2005 -  People getting their hopes up for an early release of Windows XP for 64 bit chips can relax a bit longer, they'll probably not be surprised to learn. According to sources at Intel Taiwan, the earliest we can expect to see such an operating system is at the end of the first quarter of next year. But, the same source added, Microsoft does not talk in terms of quarters of a year, but halves. So it's entirely possible that the launch of such an operating system could slip right up to the 31st of May next year.
• DualDisc Technology Has Multiple Problems - check it out.
• ATI Preps Multi-VPU Technology - Sources close to ATI Technologies said the company was preparing a technology that is similar to NVIDIA's Multi-GPU Scalable Link Interface, but offers additional flexibility and enhancements not presently available on NVIDIA's approach to graphics multiprocessing.
• AMD to Follow Intel Corp. with SSE3 in 2005 - Future AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices that are scheduled for release in early 2005 will support SSE3 technology, a capability that is now available only on Intel Pentium 4 processors.
• Microsoft's Certification Puts Graphics Innovations Under Fire - At least some NVIDIA's ForceWare drivers cannot pass certain WHQL tests as Microsoft's Display Compatibility Test does not pass pixel shaders 3.0 along with some other pixel shaders tests on the drivers version 66.81. Earlier this year Microsoft's test rejected another important technology - Geometry Instancing, but on ATI's CATALYST drivers.

HARDWARE...

• Blu-ray Disc Goes Home - At present you won't find any HD-DVD machines in stores, but a trip to Japan will reveal two Blu-ray Disc recorders are already available: the Sony BDZ-S77 (released in April 2003) and the Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) DMR-E700BD (released in July 2004). Both models write to BD-RE media (the Panasonic system uses single and dual-layer discs, while the Sony accepts single layer only). Each model also supports playback of existing optical formats--DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW, DVD-RAM (Panasonic only), and audio CDs. And both machines are leaving a widescreen-sized hole in the wallet of adventurous early buyers in Japan. The going price for either model is about $2700.
• Motorola dreaming of a 3G Christmas - Motorola has teamed up with UK video mobile operator 3 to push three of its latest multimedia 3G handsets for the Christmas market. 3 promised to offer the Motorola A1000, E1000 and C975 from November. The USB and Bluetooth-enabled A1000 device features a touch screen, GPS, 24MB of user memory, a 1.2 megapixel camera and the Picsel Document Viewer (supporting Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint). The Motorola E1000 multimedia device ships with a 1.2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, video playback and twin 3D stereo speakers. It's 260k colour display is designed to support video streaming and P2P video. The mass market 'Candy bar' Motorola C975 handset has a 1.9in colour display.
• Motorola HS850 Bluetooth Headset review - The HS850 is a great looking headset, finished in subtle black with silver detail. It's also very small and light, and will easily slip into your pocket unobtrusively when you're not using it. One of the reasons that the HS850 appears so small, is that the boom microphone flips open and closed, so when you're not using the device it's very compact.
• Creative Nomad MuVo 4GB - As a compact MP3 player with bags of storage capacity, you're on to a winner with the MuVo 4GB of storage space in such a small device can't be bad, Hitachi's MicroDrive 1" format the genius behind the implementation. Battery life is good, comparable to its chief rivals and the software is simple to use.
• HP rolls out Digital Entertainment Center, Media Center Extender - It may look like an ordinary DVD player, but HP's z545 Digital Entertainment Center is actually a full-featured multimedia PC packaged to look great in a home theater or family room. The z545 -- which boasts a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 200 GB internal hard drive, built-in DVD writer, dual RF TV tuners, and a long list of interfaces ports and audio/video features -- is meant to serve as a central repository for all of a household's digital media, including music, movies, TV, and photos.
• BenQ's Joybook 5100U PM Notebook review - Given that physical size inhibits mobility as much as weight I'm not sure I fully agree with BenQ's description of the 5100U PM as ultra portable (image), although we may have just seen the world's first fat and light. That said, considering that true ultra portable notebooks weigh less than 1kg, maybe it's not that light either.
• Pentium 4 3.8GHz coming soon - News.com.com has confirmed a launch date of November 15 for Intel's next iteration of the Pentium 4, the model 570. 
• Soltek SL-K8TPro-939 Motherboard review - The Soltek SL-K8TPro-939 met our expectations and delivered an experience indicative of our past experiences of Solteks' products. The price to performance ratio of these boards just can not be beat. At the same price point most of the other boards lack SATA Raid, while this may not be used by everyone it is a feature that some may grow into.
• ASUS P4S800D-E Deluxe review -  In apps that are memory bound, the 655TX appears to be faster than Canterwood. The Springdale-PE on the DFI, backed up by a capable PAT BIOS means that we were emulating Canterwood. It has lower memory access latency, measured by Sciencemark, and it appears to have a touch more available bandwidth too. It's not much, but it's enough. With Canterwood the performance champion for P4, it appears we have a new champion when your app is memory bound in any way. Raw CPU performance is identical; 655TX ran the 3.2GHz Northwood without issue.
• NVIDIA PCI-Express GeForce 6800 GT review - There are no major differences between the PCI-Express version of the 6800 GT and its AGP brother besides the interface. Just like its AGP brother, though, I do expect the PCI-Express 6800 GT to be a good overclocker, reaching Ultra speeds with little effort. Read on to see just how a PCI-Express 6800 GT performs and to get an idea of how a PCI-Express 6800 Ultra might perform.
• ABIT Radeon 9600 XT 256MB review - In summary, ABIT's done a decent enough job with its 9600 XT card. It's quiet, efficient, benchmarks well for a midrange card and carries basic VIV0 functionality. Compared to other cards running similar GPUs, and I'm thinking of other 9600 XTs, FX5700 / Ultras, it's not a bad buy.
• HCT NC-760 Noise-Canceling Earphones review - CoolTechZone takes a look at the HCT NC-760 Noise-Canceling Earphones.
• Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 GPU Cooler review - Adrian's Rojak Pot has posted a review of Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 GPU Cooler.
• Overclocking the Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz to 3.57GHz - TechReport's Geoff Gasior has got an extra 770MHz out of his Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz, which is quite comfortable running at 3.57GHz with stock air cooling—not bad for a chip that costs less than $160!

SOFTWARE...

• Brennig's 1.4 - Brennig's (BGS) (download trial) is a powerful yet easy to use software to completely manage, view and present your digital Image, Video and Audio files. You can create Presentations and burn them on CD-ROM, print Contact Sheets or create Photo Albums for the Web. The only disadvantage of the program is its 45 days trail period. But fortunately, after this 45 days trail period remains functional. The only bad thing is the remaining screen about the trail period. (thanks SavageNews)
• Maxthon (MyIE2) v1.1.061 - Maxthon (download combo ~ lite) is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine (your most likely current web browser) which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features.
• NetCaptor 7.5.3 - NetCaptor 7.5.3 includes new security features enabled by Windows XP SP2, including the native XP popup blocker, as well as additional features and fixes.
• GMail Drive v1.0.3 - Google recently changed their login procedures again, which broke the tool's ability to connect to GMail. Version 1.0.3 once again allows you to access GMail. 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
• Fresh UI v7.22 - Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows operating system. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/NT4/98/ 95/Me, it covers the customizing and optimizing techniques that you'll be glad to know.
• VideoLAN 0.8.0  - VideoLAN is an excellent multimedia player with it's own plugins for playing different formats, so it doesn't need any codecs to be installed. It works great for previewing partially downloaded files too. It can also be used as a server to stream on a (wired or wireless) high-bandwidth IP (Internet Protocol) version 4 or 6 network in multicast or unicast.
• DivX Player Lite 1.0.5 -  Player Lite is a free and easy to use video player that contains the software you need to watch and create videos in today's most popular video formats.
• Real Alternative 1.29 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer or RealOne Player. Supported are: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt), ReadPix (.rp). This version includes an updated RealMedia codecs to version 6.0.12.1056.
• QuickTime Alternative 1.39 - QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player.
• Advanced X Video Converter 3.9 - Advanced X VideoConverter is a comprehensive Windows video tool that makes it easy to convert, join, and split movies among AVI, MPEG (MPEG1, MPEG2), WMV, ASF, VCD (DAT), SVCD, DVD formats. It can also extract audio track and images from any movie.
• K-Lite Codec Pack 2.34 -  K-Lite Codec Pack 2.34 includes the following changes: added/updated an option to boost the AC3 volume, Ogg Vorbis DLLs 1.1.0, Matroska DirectShow muxer 1.0.0.9, DivX Pro Decoding to 5.2.1., XviD Decoding/Encoding to 1.0.2 build 2004-08-29, Windows Media to 10.0.0.3646, Ogg Vorbis DirectShow decoder (CoreVorbis) to 1.0, LAME MP3 ACM to 3.96.1., Matroska DirectShow splitter to 1.0.2.4, GSpot Codec Information Appliance to 2.52 beta 1 build 2004-09-15. and more.
• ATI Tray Tools build 1.0.1.400 - This new version adds  TV Out support (test mode). Look in Display->Settings. You can adjust all properties for TV Out including Contrast, Color Saturation, Screen Position, Flicker Removal, TV Format and much more. Also added support for Theater Modes. All these can be included in profiles.
• BIOS updates - TCMagazine have the latest BIOS updates for Epox, Asus, Asrock, Shuttle, Abit, Gigabyte, Albatron and MSI boards.
• Plextor PX-716A firmware v1.01 - Plextor America has released a new firmware v1.01 for PX-716A. This new firmware improves write quality on both DVD+R and DVD-R media.