SECURITY...

• Serious Game Engine UDP DoS Vulnerability - The Serious engine is a well known game engine developed by Croteam and used by various games. A denial of service is possible against a server written with Serious and using the UDP protocol for multi-player connectivity.
• Lycos Europe halts anti-spam counterattacks - The company says it's canceling the program because it was always meant to be temporary and has done its job of sparking discussion about fighting spam. About 100-thousand people downloaded the free screensaver but the programs can no longer send the bogus traffic.
• IT security sheriffs to police the web - The government today unveiled plans for UK IT security special constables to police the web. The proposals came from Eurim, the parliamentary working group that examines the use of IT in society.
• An Invisible Technology May Slow Piracy - Invisible technology could soon point the finger toward the camcorder-wielding pirates responsible for that bootleg copy of "The Incredibles" hawked on the street or posted on the Internet. Hollywood is considering whether the technology, developed by a New Jersey company, could help reduce video piracy, which the major studios contend is costing them more than $3 billion in worldwide revenue. The secret code imprinted on a movie would not stop film pirates from spreading their grainy counterfeits on the Internet, but it would reveal the identity of the last legitimate user to industry sleuths. The developers claim their method will improve on existing techniques to create such a code, known as a "watermark" after printing, that can only be seen under certain conditions.

OFF-TOPIC...

• How Global Warming Can Lead to a Big Chill - Global warming could lead to a big chill in the North Atlantic, at least if history is anything to go by, researchers reported on Friday. They published evidence to support a popular theory that rising temperatures caused a big melt of polar ice 8,200 years ago, causing a freshwater flood into the salty North Atlantic. This would have changed the flow of the balmy Gulf Stream and in just a few years, average temperatures plummeted, ushering in a deep freeze that lasted a century or more, researchers have proposed.
• Your Old Inkjet Printer Could Aid Burn Victims - Looking for a place to toss your old inkjet printers? A team of scientists working to create human tissue may have a good use for them. Inkjets that are ten years old, they say, are perfectly suited to create sheets of human skin and other tissue that one day may help burn victims and even manufacture organs.
• Sex patch decision could slow research - In a move that could chill excitement about experimental drugs to treat female sexual dysfunction, federal advisers refused to endorse a new testosterone patch for women. Procter & Gamble sought to market the Intrinsa patch to women with impaired libido due to surgical removal of their ovaries. The company told a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel that the drug had not raised significant safety concerns in clinical trials.
• Make Your Own Cluster Balloon - Like hot-air balloons, cluster balloons are flown in the very early morning, when winds are calm. In some areas, it is also possible to fly in the evening, in the hour or two before sunset. Preparations for a morning flight flight start before dawn. The balloons range in size from four to seven feet; depending on the mix of sizes, anywhere from 50 to 150 balloons may be needed. It takes a crew of fiften to twenty people about an hour and a half to inflate the balloons. Special hoses and manifolds are used to inflate the balloons to the desired size, based on the volume of the helium tanks. The inflated balloons are sealed using tape and cable ties, and are tied with nylon twine.
• References to Hell edited out of Doom movie - The movie project, based on the ubiquitous video game, is currently being filmed in Prague. Eastern Europe has become a hot-bed of low budget horror movie making in recent years, due to the activities of the SciFi channel, who have their Saturday night monster-flicks filmed there.
• US Army calls up robo-warriors - The US Army will be going into battle with armed robots from next year. The Talon series machines are currently used for reconnaissance in dangerous areas, but are due to be fitted with M240 or M249 machine guns or Barrett 50-calibre rifles. The army is also testing versions armed with rocket and grenade launchers. The robots, built by American manufacturer Foster-Miller, have a range of about 20 miles and can move at up to four miles an hour. They are not independent, but are wirelessly controlled by human operators.

TECHNOLOGY...

• IBM Reported to Put Its PC Business Up for Sale - IBM is reportedly in talks to sell its personal computer business in a deal that could be worth up to $2 billion and would cap a gradual withdrawal from the business it helped to pioneer in 1981.
• VIA formally announces QSound support - VIA Technologies has announced a license agreement with QSound Labs for their leading edge audio technologies to further enhance VIA Vinyl Audio solutions. QSound enhancements that compliment VIA audio hardware are featured in VIA audio driver sets, already available for your downloading pleasure on VIA Arena.
• Unified 802.11n Wi-Fi Standard to Emerge in Mid-2006 - Engineers working on the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard say that new products that support a fully defined and unified specification won't be appear on the market until mid-2006.
• Napster founder basks in funding, label support - With $10 million in venture funding and the backing of at least one major record label, Napster founder Shawn Fanning will officially unveil his new peer-to-peer music company on Monday.
• PlayStation 3 chip goes easy on developers - H. Peter Hofstee, a researcher in IBM's Systems and Technology division, said the Cell will benefit game developers not only by giving them a stable and easily approachable foundation for games to run on, but by powering the workstations they use to produce games. The upshot is that developers should be spending a lot less time waiting for their equipment to render the animation they create.
• MS Rolls Out Second Interim Beta of SQL Server 2005 - Redmond releases its second Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2005 as well as a new, free management tool.
• Windows NT 4 support to come at price in '05 - The company has decided to expand the for-free program to cover more security issues. Microsoft is now pledging to offer fixes for vulnerabilities rated either as "critical" or "important." Previously, the software maker had only committed to fixing critical flaws. Those fixes will be available only to those that take part in the paid custom-support program, though Microsoft has said it would offer a patch publicly were there to be another virus on the order of Blaster.

HARDWARE...

• Intel to bundle Nvidia-based graphics cards with PCIe-enabled motherboards - Intel and Nvidia have jointly launched a marketing campaign to promote Intel's own-brand PCIe-enabled motherboards and Nvidia-based graphics cards in the channel, according to sources at Taiwan graphics card makers. The campaign will last until December 31. Under the plan, an Nvidia GeForce 6600GT-based graphics card will be bundled with an Intel D925XCV/BC, D925XECV2/BV2 or D915PBL/CY/CM motherboard. The bundled products are available at Intel's licensed channel distributors, the sources said.
• Oakley MP3 Sunglasses - The sunglasses come with 128MB of memory ($400) (pic) or with 256MB memory ($495). The device has low power consumption and USB 2.0 to ensure fast data transfer to your goggles.
• Yamada Beatbox MP3 Player - The Yamada Beatbox is not along the same lines as the iPod MP3 players (and clones), as the capacity is a much smaller 512 Megs - which can store around 8 hours of music. Firstly, this unit is about 60% the size of a standard iPod and 75% than the iPod mini. Secondly, this unit features an inverted LCD colour backlight which can display many different colours of text during playback. The final distinguishing feature is the build-in speaker pair, which is a new feature for a mobile player.
• Sonnet Technologies PodFreq - The PodFreq is not just only limited to your home, but it's also useful when one's travelling long distances in the car. It can easily integrate yor iPod into your car stereo system, giving you more music choices. As this device utilizes radiowaves to transmit audio to your car stereo, it doesn't require any costly installation to your car's audio system. This makes it really versatile as it can be used in any situation (such as rental cars or cabs), as long as there's a radio system present.
• Dell XPS Gen3 vs. Compaq GX5000z shootout - Looking over our benchmarks, it's easy to see where Compaq's strengths are - in games, especially OpenGL games like Doom 3 and Call of Duty: United Offensive. This is due to the fact that NVIDIA cards have always held better OpenGL performance than ATI solutions. That said, even in the DirectX titles, the Compaq system held its own.
• Crucial PC-4000 Ballistix Tracer Memory w/LEDs (video-review) - The Crucial PC-4000 Ballistix Tracer Memory has a fantastic default speed of 250MHz or 500MHz DDR. At this speed the timings are 2.5-4-4-8, which is speedy but can be overclocked even higher. This memory is stable, reliable, & has blistering performance! Let's not forget the "bling bling" factor; 16 active (8 Red, 8 Green) LEDs & 8 Blue ground effect LEDs.
• ATI RADEON X850XT PE 256MB PCI-E - The most important conclusion: we shouldn't expect anything cardinally new from ATI now! In the first place the company is concerned with market saturation and the shortage of video cards based on R420 (with 16 pipelines). That's why today's attack on the market is intended to capture more various niches. R480/430 chips contain nothing cardinally new from the architectural point of view.
• X-bit labs tests 16 hard disk drives with 200GB+ storage capacity - X-bit labs take a closer look at the solutions from Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital. The Hitachi HDS722525VLAT80 drives of 200GB and 250GB capacities and the Seagate ST3200822AS are the best in the IOMeter tests that emulate the disk subsystem of servers. Thus, these drives are going to be a good choice if you’re building a simple server. The Hitachi team, the SATA model from Seagate and two drives from Western Digital, WD2000PB and WD2000BB, were the best in the patterns that emulate the disk subsystem of a desktop computer.
• Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 Available Capacities - The Cheetah 10K.7 retains the line's signature 4-platter construction and pushes density to 75 GB/platter for a 300 GB flagship capacity. When contrasted with the 10K.6, however, other specs remain similar- a 4.7 millisecond access time and an eight-megabyte buffer.
• 200GB External Hard Drive with easy pushbutton backup solution -  Extreme Computing take a look at Seagate's offering in the high capacity sector of the external market.
• Thermaltake Silent 775 heatsink - The heatsink looks to be cleverly designed, offering one of the quickest and easiest non-standard installation processes seen to date. The Swiftech LGA775 installation is far too time consuming and difficult to be realistic.
• Raidmax Samurai 908 "Spirit of War" case - The last year has revolutionized the way Gamers view their cases. From windows to neon, hard core gamers have constantly looked for a way to stand out from the beige box crowd. This Christmas wouldn't a new Raidmax Samurai 908 look good under the tree?
• Micro WLAN 11g Turbo Mode Broadband Router and PCMCIA card - For sometime now, users have been trucking along at 11 Mbps and 54 Mbps using 802.11b and 802.11g components such as routers, PCI cards, etc. But, as with everything else built into, installed on, or just connected to a PC, there's always room for improvement, and this usually means doing something faster. That's what X-Micro intends to do with today's showcase on the X-Micro WLAN 11g Turbo Mode Broadband Router and PCMCIA Card. Both of these components use a Turbo Mode, that is supposed to bring transfer speeds up as high as 108 Mbps, all the while staying within the standard 2.4GHz frequency band that is commonly being used today.
• Diamondback Precision Gaming Mouse - "I tested the Diamondback playing Half-Life 2 and after using the Razer Viper for quite some time it was obvious this was a different machine. I would compare it like going from a 2 barrel carburetor to a 4 barrel on a car. It took me almost an hour before I became comfortable with it but when I did it was just like using the Viper except faster and more accurate."
• MonsterGecko's PistolMouse - The MonsterGecko PistolMouse FPS is a unique input device. It is something that takes a bit of getting used to, and it also takes up a large footprint on a regular-sized mouse pad. However, don't write it off because of the size of your pad.

GUIDES...

• December Video Card Price Guide - This follows the same basic pattern as our CPU price guide, starting off with individual lists for both NVIDIA and ATI, then separating them into the various entry-level, mainstream and high-end market segments, and finishing up with a sorted price list combining all the cards.
• Rojak Pot on a notebook purchasing fiasco - You would think that buying a notebook would be easy. Why should it be otherwise? You do your research, determine what you need beforehand and choose a notebook that meets your requirements. Then, you eyeball it to examine its build quality, make a decision, pay and that's it! Right?
• Fiona's PC Tips. 8 easy steps to upgrade, replace or add a ROM drive - It can't be that hard right? Well no, not if you understand configuring IDE drives and the basic is of what plugs in where. How can you improve the performance of writing from one CD to another?
• Web Services Enhancements 2.0 Hands On Lab - Security - Learn how to secure Web services without writing code, how to author security policies, and how to leverage the WSE programming model to secure your Web services. The labs now include both a Visual Basic and a C# version.

SOFTWARE...

• XMark 2005 1.0  (for Linux and Windows) - XMark 2005 allows users to benchmark their CPU and publish results into our custom designed LRB (Logic Result Browser)
• DVDFab Gold 2.55 (shw) - DVDFab lets you make perfect quality DVD movie backups the smart way! Backup your entire DVD - including menus, trailers, and special features - on one or multiple discs.
• Cryptainer LE 5.0.3 - Cryptainer LE, a free disk encryption software, creates multiple 20 MB of encrypted and password protected drives/containers.
• Symantec LiveUpdate 2.6.13 - LiveUpdate (download) is the Symantec technology that permits an installed Symantec product to connect to a Symantec server over the Internet to check for program and other updates such as virus definitions and URL lists.
• Opera 7.60 Preview 4 - A new preview version of Opera is available for download.
• Gmail for Trillian 1.0 RC3 - This plugin was tested on Windows XP Professional (SP2).
• Nero 6 Reloaded version 6.6.0.3 - Ahead software has released Nero 6 Reloaded version 6.6.0.3. (Nero 6.6.0.3 / mirror2 |  Nero Media Player 1.4.0.26 | Nero Vision Express 3.0.1.14 | NeroMIX 1.4.0.26) As usual, they have not provided any changelog to this update so far.
• Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.97 (4.12 beta) - Omega released a new version of his popular modified Radeon drivers based on the beta 4.12, make sure you see the readme for the new changes and fixes. These are my "optimized" drivers for the ATI Radeon family of video cards. They work with ANY RADEON VIDEO CARD built/powered by ATI, including all Mobility chipsets (M6 and up).
• ATI Optimized driver 1.8 - This driver is created by ATI and modified by TechConnect Magazine, they designed this driver to provide the maximum performance and Quality. Main features:Based on Catalyst Beta 4.12b2, added ATI Catalyst Control Center (Optional), added Softmods!, two OpenGL drivers for your selection, added ATITool to the package, added OpenGL driver switcher
• IBM - Hitachi Feature Tool 1.95 - The Feature Tool  (download) allows you to control some of the features in our newer Deskstar and Travelstar high performance ATA hard disk drives.
• LiteON, TDK and Sony firmwares - Here are some new firmwares:  DVD Dual Firmware: Lite-On SOHW-1633S, Lite-On LDW-851S, Lite-On LDW-451S, Lite-On SOHW-832SX, Lite-On LDW-851SX | Sony DRU-710A | TDK 1612DLB (unofficial) | LDW-451S | LDW-851S | LTR-52327S // CD-RW Firmware: Lite-On SOHR-5238S, Lite-On LTR-52327S, Lite-On LTR-52327SX // COMBO Drives Firmware: Lite-On SOHC-5235K, Lite-On SOHC-5232K, Lite-On SOHC-5232KX.