SECURITY...

• Microsoft Fesses Up To 19 Vulnerabilities, MSBlast-Level Worm Likely  - The company released its largest group of security patches in nearly a year, posting 12 security bulletins encompassing 19 vulnerabilities, 14 of which it marked "Critical." Among them is a vulnerability that one security vendor claims will likely lead to the biggest, baddest worm since mid-2003." ~ MS05-011 (SMB fix) / MS05-009 (WMP9 fix) / MS05-012 (COM structured storage files) / MS05-014 (IE Flaws), etc. 
• First Trojan To Directly Target Microsoft Anti-Spyware - The Register is reporting that the first trojan to specifically affect Microsoft's Anti-Spyware program has been released. Called BankAsh-A, the trojan steals credit card and other info, turns off anti-virus programs (and disables the beta Microsoft anti-spyware software), deletes files on the computer and downloads code from the internet as well as installing more malware on the computer. The trojan runs a key logger on infected computers, which captures all kinds of personal information. BankAsh-A is distributed via spam email. Sophos reports that users banking with Barclays, Cahoot, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide, NatWest, Smile and others are affected. Sophos are reporting that so far, the trojans has seen limited distribution.
• Symantec Products Hit By Major Security Bug - The flaw affects as many as 30 Symantec products, almost all of the company's software. The company said that users of the most recent versions of its software, like Norton Antivirus 2005, were un-affected. The company added that "The DEC2EXE engine is no longer required to parse compressed files" and that "Symantec had planned the DEC2EXE engine removal from all affected Symantec product versions during upcoming maintenance update. However, it advised all users to ensure they were fully patched. The company is also distributing patches to users via its automated Live Update feature.
• Microsoft to Acquire Enterprise Anti-Virus - Sybari Software - Microsoft announced today that it has signed agreements to acquire Sybari Software Inc. Sybari Software provide security products for more than 10,000 businesses worldwide. Microsoft plans to provide its enterprise customers with significant virus and spam protection.

OFF-TOPIC...

• What's next: a Ph.D. in video gaming? - Video gaming reached official academic status Tuesday when Electronic Arts endowed a chair at the University of Southern California for the study of interactive entertainment. Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Electronic Arts (Research), was named the first holder of the Electronic Arts endowed faculty chair at the USC School of Cinema-Television, according to a statement from the company, the biggest video game publisher.
• "Quantum well" transistor promises lean computing - A transistor that uses one-tenth of the energy of existing components could lead to more powerful, less power-hungry computers within the next decade. Researchers at US microchip company Intel and UK research firm Qinetiq developed the transistor using a novel semiconducting material - indium antimonide. Transistors act as switches or amplifiers in electronic circuits to process information. Indium antimonide allows electrons to speed through faster than conventional silicon-based transistors due to its highly active and greater number of "charge-carriers" - which help relay the electrons quickly.
• Inglorious Bastards (aka Quentin Tarantino WW2 Project) - Quentin Tarantino is working on a World War II guys on a mission flick, like Dirty Dozen or Guns of Navarone. Presumably, the characters will not be simple cardboard figure action heroes, but will also take on some typical Tarantino anti-hero attributes. There is a role written for Adam Sandler, and others possibly for guys named Stallone and Willis.
• Sci-Fi Channel Renews Battlestar Galactica - The Sci-Fi Channel has just announced the renewal of Battlestar Galactica for a second season. The creator of the show has announced that the second season will delve into the religious issues surrounding the Cylons in addition to opening up their society more. The latest episode had 3.2 million viewers, almost twice as many as watched the latest episode of Star Trek Enterprise.
• First Screenshots from Next-Gen Console - French website jeux-france.com has posted the first screenshots from a Next-Gen Console!

TECHNOLOGY...

• Google Launch Google Maps - Google have launched a new, "in-house" designed, map tool for web searchers called Google Maps.
• Yahoo Fires Up Toolbar for Firefox Users - Yahoo released a beta version of its Web browser toolbar for users of the Mozilla Firefox browser on Thursday, offering bookmarks, newsfeeds, and search and translation tools. The beta version of the toolbar requires Firefox 1.0 for Windows and is available as a free download. It also includes features such as the ability to search a site, Yahoo Mail notifications and alerts, and buttons for access to the Internet company's games, finance, news, and sports sites, among others.
• TDK introduces new, photo quality printable DVDs - Printing on the disc is easy - just place it in a disc-printable printer, select your image, press the print button and in just a couple of minutes you'll have a fully customised DVD that looks like a professionally manufactured disc. Designed for ease of use, TDK's Photo Quality Printable DVDs are compatible with all leading brands of disc-printable inkjet printers.
• MGM loses class action suit for 325 defective DVD movies - Specifically, if you purchased one or more of the eligible movies between December 1, 1998 to September 8, 2003, certain MGM widescreen DVDs (DVDs for films shot in the aspect ratio of 1.85 to 1 or 1.66 to 1) will bring you a new movie or $7.10US. A sales receipt is not needed.

HARDWARE... 

• NVIDIA's Forthcoming Intel Pentium 4 Chipset Passes Certification - NVIDIA Corp.'s upcoming core-logic for Intel Pentium 4 processors code-named Crush 19, or C19, has already been certified by PCI Special Interest Group and is currently in the PCI-SIG's Integrator's List, according to the organization's web-site.  The Crush 19 chipset from NVIDIA is currently expected to support various Intel processors, including the most powerful and innovative in LGA775 form-factor with 1066MHz processor system bus as well as EM64T, XD and EIST technologies.
• 1GB OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum and PC3700 Gold dual channel kits - OCZ's latest revision of their PC3200 EL Platinum DDR - The EL term stands for "Enhanced Latency" and the stated 2-2-2-5 memory timings are extremely low for PC3200. Better still, in our testing on nForce3 Ultra, i875P, and K8T800 Pro motherboards, each initialized the memory at these timings using just the SPD setting. This is unprecedented, since even our reference Corsair PC3200LL (2-2-2-5) memory needs a bit of manual tweaking on certain platforms. These timings are rated at a memory voltage of 2.75V, but at stock 400 MHz speeds, the OCZ PC3200 EL was also able to reach the 2-2-2-5 level using our standard 2.6V reference setting.
• 1GB Mushkin DDR2 PC2-4200 CL3-2-2 kit - The PC2-4200 CL 3-2-2 looks almost identical to the PC2-4200 CL 4-4-4 offering. Don't let that suprise you, this ram is new from center up! Don't forget this is DDR2 memory and while physically the same size, DDR2 DIMMs have more pins (240 vs 184 for DDR) and run on a lower voltage (around 1.8-2.0V vs 2.5V for DDR). Mushkin's DDR2 memory is designed for use in the latest generation motherboards.
• MSI K8N Diamond - SLi Motherboard - What really makes the K8N Diamond stand out from the crowd is the onboard SoundBlaster Live! 24bit 7.1-channel audio chip. This is the first time since the SoundBlaster PCI 128 that I have seen a Creative chip on a motherboard. Buying a SoundBlaster Live! 24bit 7.1 card would set you back in the region of L30, so this is not a top of the range solution. However, no other motherboard manufacturer can currently offer a better onboard audio solution.
• BFGTech GeForce 6600 GT OC AGP & PCI-E SLI - BFGTech has put together two very solid video cards based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT GPU. So far, these are the fastest GeForce 6600 GT-based video cards we have tested in a stock configuration. BFGTech wasn't kidding when they said these cards were "OC" video cards. Both the AGP and PCI-Express versions have a faster GPU and memory frequency than a standard GeForce 6600 GT, and the benchmark results show it.
• Leadtek WinFast PVR 2000 - The Winfast PVR 2000, although trying to turn your computer into a true entertainment machihe, suffers from some problems, the main of which being the high usage of system resources; Unless the card is installed in a dedicated HTPC computer, it will simply consume too many resources and will not allow the user to do any work in the background.
• Chaintech GeForce 6200 TurboCache 32MB PCI-Express (passive cooling) - The Chaintech GeForce 6200 TurboCache is the most budget and good performance that suitable for the low end users. The performance of the GeForce 6200 TurboCache is perform very well in all the benchmarking compare to the ATI X300. But, it lose in Far Cry Benchmark especially in the resolution setting of 1600X1200. For the overclocking, the Chaintech GeForce 6200 TurboCache have an increment of 121MHz for the core and 162MHz for the memory. It brings up from the default at 350/700MHz to 471/862MHz. The only bad thing is the poor bundle, anyway who cares as long as the performance of the graphic card is performing good. The onboard memory of 32MB, it able to sharing the system memory and assign up to 128MB for the graphic usage.
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro - If you own any card of the Audigy series it however is not necessary to upgrade at all. The differences are so minor that from a consumers point of view you will not hear the difference. If you are in the market as a professional user and preferably need to record in high quality, well that might make a difference.
• Samsung TS-H552B 16X DVD-R/RW  - VerumMedia has posted a review of Samsung's TS-H552B 16X DVD-R/RW drive.
• Gigabyte 3D Cooler Ultra GT - After spending some time with Gigabyte's 3D Cooler Ultra GT, it's hard (name aside perhaps) to fault it. The manual is good, the bundle contains everything you need, installation is easy with all of the retaining clips easily labelled, and most of all its performance under high load is most impressive. Add to that the nifty looks and addition of an LED, and you have a real winner on your hands.
• Terratec Aureon 7.1 FireWire - The Aureon 7.1 Firewire seems to fall between stools. The sturdy construction indicates that Terratec is aiming at delivering quality and while it succeeds in part, the product as a whole suffers from a lack of focus. Whilst it performs well, it doesn’t offer either enough features for the musician or enough for the gamer to make it a compelling purchase.
• Klipsch ProMedia GMX A-2.1 - HEXUS has posted a review of the Klipsch ProMedia GMX A-2.1 speakers.
• AL Tech AnyDrive Car MP3 FM Transmitter -  Basically it's a USB-driven radio that lets you tune your car stereo to a specified station to listen to music stored on a USB device. It's pretty robust in its abilities (you can also have it transmit audio to a home audio system or PC speakers via FM or direct connection), but those require more accessories.
• 1GB Lexar High-Speed 32X SD memory card - If you purchased a digital camera, chances are the memory card was of low capacity. You will no doubt discover this is simply not enough memory to do any serious shooting. This is where the Lexar 1GB High-Speed 32X comes in.
• Creative Zen Micro 5GB - Creative Zen Micro 5GB - With a removable 12-hour battery pack, 5GB hard drive, FM radio, voice recorder, organizer, DRM 10 compatibility, and ten colors to choose from, the micro-Zen is aimed to compete with Apple iPod Mini

GUIDES... 

• Ars System Guide: HTPC edition - Windows (MCE) 2005 offers an attractive, easy-to-use interface combined with hardware support that makes it easier to build an HTPC that is a true media box: TV recording with time shifting and channel guide, streaming audio, DVD-recording and DVD-playback, radio, web browsing, along with all the functions of a standard PC.

SOFTWARE...

• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 RC2 - Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate 2 (RC2) enhances security infrastructure by providing new security tools such as Security Configuration Wizard, which secures your server for role based operations, improved defense-in-depth with Data Execution Protection, and a safe and secure first boot scenario with Post-Setup Security Update Wizard.
• TweakNow RegCleaner 2.0.7 - After a long period, after installing and uninstalling a lot number of applications, your Windows registry will contain a large number of obsolete entries. This will significantly increase the registry size and thus will slowdown your computer, because Windows will need more time to load, search, and read data from registry. To keep your computer in top performance, it is recommended to periodically clean your Windows registry.
• eXeem Public Beta version 0.21 - eXeem drops Cydoor and will no longer use 3rd party software - eXeem Public Beta version 0.21 has been released. Most of the bug fixes were done to the network system (nodes). They have also fixed the search crash bug. They added a stop function to new files and they are testing out html type of ads in the program. In this release you will not get any mandatory third party software installed with eXeem.
• HyperSnap-DX 5.62.04 - 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.
• ICQ Lite 5.02 Build #2309 Final - release notes ~ download
• Philips DVDR885P and DVDRW416 firmware - Download new firmware for Philips DVDR885P / Philips DVDRW416K/30. More details can be found on CDFreaks.
• ATI Tray Tools - ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings.
• ATi Catalyst AMD64 beta 4 - Next to the release of Catalyst 5.2 drivers ATI also released new AMD64 drivers. Now read this carefully, you need to have a 64-bit (unreleased) Windows XP operating system for this.