SECURITY...

• F-Secure patches antivirus software - Antivirus software vendor F-Secure Corp. issued a patch for a wide range of its products Thursday after a security researcher in Luxembourg reported vulnerabilities to the company. A flaw in the way F-Secure software handled ZIP and RAR format data compression archives could allow an attacker to execute remote code on users' systems and to bypass F-Secure's antivirus-scanning capabilities, according to Thierry Zoller, the security engineer and penetration tester who reported the vulnerability to F-Secure. F-Secure called the vulnerability "critical."
• SysInternals Debunks WMF Backdoor Claim - Mark Russinovich from SysInternals - who you'll recall set the match to the whole Sony rootkit bonfire - takes a look at Steve Gibson's recent claims that the WMF vulnerability was a secret backdoor, and comes away unconvinced. At the tail end of his technical investigation Russinovich concludes: "The bottom line is that I'm convinced that this behavior, while intentional, is not a secret backdoor."
• WMF download() (Exploit) - A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the Graphics Rendering Engine due to the way it handles Windows Metafile (WMF) images.

CRIME/LAW...

• Federal Government Wants Google Search Records - Google has not complied with a White House subpoena that was issued over the summer, which has led to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order that would force Google to turn over search records. The Associated Press has reported that the federal government has asked for two specific things: The first thing requested is that Google turns over a sample of a million random web site addresses found in the Google search engine index. The second request is for records of Google search queries over any week.
• Computer crime costs $67.2 billion, FBI says - Dealing with viruses, spyware, PC theft and other computer-related crimes costs US businesses a staggering $67.2 billion a year, according to the FBI.
• Mistakes found in 98% of US patents - Almost every US patent contains at least one mistake, according to new research. The vast majority are trivial errors, most of them the fault of the USPTO; but two per cent of the patents examined were found to contain serious mistakes that weakened the core claims.

OFF-TOPIC

• Doctors Claim Suspended Animation Success -  Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that US doctors have developed a process to induce hypothermia in trauma patients, shutting down their bodily functions for up to three hours.
• NASA launches Pluto probe successfully - NASA successfully launched the unmanned probe, New Horizons, on Thursday afternoon, on a mission to study Pluto, the smallest and the most remote planet in the solar system.
• Water will 'walk' uphill under its own steam - Liquid droplets have been made to traverse horizontal surfaces, and even move uphill - such liquids could one day be used to cool microprocessors.
• No raised cancer risk from mobile phones, study says - Using a mobile phone does not increase the risk of developing the most common type of brain tumor, according to a study released yesterday.
• Demystifying the eBay Selling Experience - check it out

TECHNOLOGY...

• Intel abandons x86 support on Itanium - Circuitry to let Itanium run software for x86 chips, such as Pentium and Xeon chips, is not present in the forthcoming "Montecito" processor, according to the 176-page reference manual for the chip published this week. Instead, anyone wishing to run programs for x86 chips on Montecito must use Intel emulation software called IA-32 Execution Layer, or IA-32 EL, that was first released in 2004.
• 5MB L2 cache coming from AMD? - EE Times has details on AMD getting a license for Innovative Silicon's SOI memory. Are we looking at embedded Z-RAM on next generation CPUs from AMD? Z-RAM promises 5 times the density of SRAM so could we see dual core chips with 5MB of L2 per core?
• AMD set to cut, raise dual-core prices - The Inquirer is reporting that AMD will cut prices on its Athlon 64 X2 processors next week. Those price cuts will apparently be accompanied by price increases for some members of the 939-pin Opteron line. On the Athlon X2 front, the 3800+ will drop from $322 to $295, the 4200+ from $400 to $355, the 4400+ from $497 to $458, and the 4800+ from $787 to $630. The FX55 will stay at $811, while the FX57 will drop from $1,011 to $811. The $1,011 chip will be the FX60. The Opteron 165 939 will rise from $295 to $325, the 170 from $384 to $394, the 175 from $490 to $504. But the Opteron 180 939 pin CPU will drop by a fairly large percentage - from $811 to $693.
• IEEE approves 802.11n Wi-Fi draft  -The proposed IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard will enable high-performance, next-generation wireless local area networking (WLAN) products. The draft supports speeds of up to 600 Mbps, a significant leap over today's Wi-Fi networks which promise speeds of up to 108Mbps, and will enable wireless systems to deliver greater range.
• Blu-ray Disc Drive Coming Soon? - TechWeb News is reporting that it may not be too long and a Blu-ray PC drive will become available for those early adopters out there
• Pioneer predicts 4-7m PlayStation 3's to ship by end of 2006 - According to an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, an estimate of 1 million PS3 consoles will become available for a launch of the PlayStation 3 this summer in Japan followed by a further 1 million units for a US November launch.
• AACS to support forced down-converting on analog outputs - It's now clear that AACS, the copy protection system both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are going to use, will support a function called ICT (Image Constraint Token). This is bad news if you have an HDTV without an HDMI input (or a DVI input with HDCP support) because if the ICT flag is set on a disc the player needs to down-convert the high definition video to max 960x540p when sending the signal to the analog outputs. That means that you will only get a quarter of the original resolution if it's 1920x1080p.
• Is 3DMark Really the "Gamers Benchmark" ? - The program's authors, Futuremark, refer to it as "The gamers' benchmark". However, there is a dark side to this innocuous little app. 3DMark uses various game tests which help to decide your score, and all of these game tests are based on the DirectX9 platform. The question remaining on the silent majority's lips is "Where are the OpenGL game tests?"

HARDWARE... 

• CPU - AMD Athlon 64 FX60 (1) | AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 (2) / Intel Pentium-D 900 Series / AMD vs. Intel - The Gloves Come Off
• Motherboard - DFI LanParty UT RDX200 CF-DR / EPoX EP-5LDA+GLI 945P / MSI K8N Diamond Plus
• Memory - OCZ EL DDR3500 Gold GX XTC
• Storage - Western Digital Raptor WD1500 and Raptor X || Thecus YES Box N2100 / Vantec NexStar3 HDD enclosure / Vantec NexStar 3 HDD enclosure (video-review) / X-Micro mini DisGo 20gb Flash Drive || Swissbit Cirrus WHITE USB 512mb USB Drive
• Video - ATI All-in-Wonder X1800XL / ATI X1800 CrossFire / ATI Radeon X1300 PRO and X1600 XT / EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GT CO / GeForce 6800GS vs. ATI Radeon X800XL / Gigabyte GeForce 6800GS / Leadtek PX6800 GS / NVIDIA 7300 GS (1) / GeForce 7300 GS (2) / GeForce 6800 GS 256MB AGP / Sapphire X1800 XT
• Monitor/TV - Eizo S2110W-K Monitor
• Cooling - Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 VGA Cooler / Evercool STC-01 thermal interface / Noctua NH-U9 AMD Athlon 64, Intel Pentium 4 Heatsink / Scythe Ninja CPU Cooler
• WaterCooling - TITAN Robela watercooling case (1) / Titan Robela WaterCase (TWC-A88-AS) (2)
• Case - I-Star Nitro AX tower case / Lian Li PC-V2000B Plus Full Tower ATX Case / XClio 3060 Plus Mid-Tower & 250mm Fan Side Panel
• Modding - ASUS A8R MVP voltage mod
• PSU - Antec Phantom 500 500W Silent PSU / picoPSU-120 12V DC-DC ATX Power Supply / RAIDMAX Aurora RX-580F PSU / Sansun Arctic 450W PSU / Thermaltake ThoughPower 550W PSU (in German) / Ultra X-Finity 600W Power Supply w/ FlexForce Modular Cables (video-review)
• Sound - 180s Tek Fleece by JVC Ear Buds / Logitech Z4 2.1 Speakers / Sennheiser PC 160 Gaming Headset
• Peripheral - Ergodex DX1 Input System / Creative Notebook WebCam Live / Logitech G5 Gaming Mouse / Logitech V200 Laptop Mouse / Saitek Eclipse Illuminated & Backlit Keyboard Special Red Edition || Maxtill Mouse Pad Roundup
• Miscelanous - Naturalpoint Track IR 4 PRO (3D view control in video games and simulations just by moving your head)
• Printer/Scanner - personal laser printers roundup (monochrome printing) || Lexmark X2350 Multi-Function Printer / Samsung ML 2010 Laser Printer
• Networking - Thecus YES Box N2100
• Camera, MP3/DVD players/recorders - Creative Zen Vision: M Digital Media Player / iRiver U10 Digital Media Player / Sony Walkman NW-A1000
• Phone/PDA - Samsung i300 Windows Mobile Smartphone

GUIDES...

• All Sempron Models - A series of quick reference tables containing the main specs of all Sempron processors released to date.
• How To Prevent Laptop Computer Theft - Think about it - What other piece of equipment or personal possession do we routinely carry around that is worth over a thousand dollars, by itself, and may be worth thousands more in data? Why wouldn't that be attractive to thieves?
• Keeping Windows Clean - Protecting Windows and keeping it clean from malware (malicious programs) is a full time job these days.
• ATI Catalyst 6.1 Performance Analysis - @ Tweaktown / @ NeoSeeker ~ Doom 3 and Far Cry showed a noticeable increase in FPS, which will help ATI considerably in the Open GL market. Fill Rate has also increased, as shown by the results in 3DMark 05. Pixel and Vertex Shaders had no increase in performance. Call of Duty 2 has shown improved scores using 4X AA and 8X AF, mostly in the lower resolutions.

SOFTWARE...

• Total Commander v6.54 Public Beta 2 - New (beta)version of the best file manager has been just released.
• Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Updated - Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Known spyware on your PC can be detected and removed.
• Internet Explorer 7 Build 5299 -  The build number is 5299 and it is labelled "Beta 2 Preview". Unfortunately, the downloads links were removed :]
• First Page 2006 (free) - The latest version includes hundreds of new features and bug fixes. First Page 2006 now includes full support for HTML, XHTML, PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion, Javascript, CSS, SSI and Perl.
• Regex Coach 0.8.3 - The Regex Coach is a graphical application for Windows and Linux/x86 which can be used to experiment with (Perl-compatible) regular expressions interactively.
• Look@LAN 2.50 Build 35 - It is an advanced network monitor (download), that is easy to use and automatically detects and analyzes your network nodes, including operating system. The program can monitor the nodes and alert you of any changes (new nodes, offline nodes etc)
• Skype 2.0.0.73 - Skype (download / release notes) is the next phenomenon from the people who brought you KaZaA. Just like KaZaA, Skype uses P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you to other users – not to share files this time, but to talk for free with your friends.
• Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility - The Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility helps you determine if an MPEG-2 video decoder (also called a DVD decoder) is installed on your Windows XP computer and whether or not the decoder is compatible with Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP Media Center Edition.
• Win32Whois 0.9.10 - 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.
• AutoHotkey 1.0.41.00 - This program can remap keys and buttons, and make almost any key, joystick button, mouse button, or combination into a hotkey.
• YamiPod for Windows 0.91 - YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
• nVHardPage SE v3.2 - nVHardPage nVidia videocard tweaker is tweaking utility for nVidia display adapters running under Windows 98 (SE) / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. With this tweak utility you can enable/disabe hidden features in nVidia control panel, tweak nVidia Direct3D and OpenGL settings and overclock your nVidia display adapter.
• ForceWare 85.05 and 86.70 For Laptop and Desktop GPUs - Here's two new set of Forceware Drivers in the shape of 85.05 and 86.70 for Windows Vista! Your going to need a modified .inf file if your card is not listed!
• Omega Catalyst 3.8.205  - These drivers are based on ATI's catalyst drivers 5.12 and they include a customized version of ATI Tray Tools instead of Radlinker. These drivers offer exellent performance versus great image quality and are known by their great reputation.