Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:01 AM CET - Mar,21 2002
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- Pioneer drops price on new DVD drive - The drives, which are
included in many new PCs, will cost $150 less and run faster than the current model.
- All-in-one firewall/DSL modem planned - Business users get the first combined unit
from Swiss company Lightning, but one will follow that is aimed at wires-only DSL users at
home.
- RealNetworks Goes Global With Game-Distribution Platform -
RealNetworks said today it is making its RealArcade platform for computer games
distribution more attractive internationally, announcing
partnerships with Internet service providers (ISPs) on three continents who will help
promote the software in six languages.
- Hackers Deface Thousands Of Domains Parked At Verisign -
Attackers compromised a system that hosted thousands of
"parked" domains that had been registered through Network Solutions and were
still under construction, according to a Verisign representative. According to its
Web server banner, the system was running Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) on
Windows 2000.
- North Magnetic Pole could be leaving Canada - The magnetic pole,
which has steadily drifted for decades, has picked up its pace in recent years and could
exit Canadian territory as soon as 2004, said Larry Newitt of the Geological Survey of
Canada.
- Instant message, cracker tricks - That's according to an alert by
security clearing CERT issued yesterday. This warns that script kiddies are tricking gullible
users into downloading and executing malicious software using the services. These
risks are well known but CERT's comment that "tens of thousands of systems have
recently been compromised in this way" makes the warning more timely.
- Virtual Keyboard - A full-size fully functional virtual keyboard that can be projected and touched on
any surface is shown by Siemens Procurement Logistics Services at the CeBIT fair in
Hanover, northern Germany, on Monday, March 18, 2002. The virtual interface from Developer
VKB Inc. from Jerusalem in Israel can be integrated in mobile phones, laptops, tablet PCs,
or clean, sterile and medical environments and could be a revolution for the data entry of
any mini computer. The mini projector that detects user interaction with the surface also
simulates a mousepad.
- Serial ATA, A New Standard - Serial
Advanced Technology Attachment is an evolutionary high-speed serial link replacement
for the parallel ATA attachment of internal storage devices. It connects hard disks, DVDs,
CD-R/Ws, zip drives and all other ATA and ATAPI devices to the motherboard in desktop and
mobile PCs, servers and network storage.
- PCI Version 2.3 Specification released - Revision
2.3 is an evolutionary change to the PCI Local Bus Specification. Revision 2.3 makes a
significant step in migrating the PCI bus from the original 5.0 volt signaling, to a 3.3
volt signaling bus. Revision 2.3 supports the 5V and 3.3V keyed system board connectors
(as did revision 2.2) but revision 2.3 supports only the 3.3V and Universal keyed add-in
cards. The 5V keyed add-in card is not supported in revision 2.3. PCI 66, PCI-X, Mini PCI,
and Low Profile PCI support only 3.3 volt signaling on 3.3V keyed system board connectors
and 3.3V and Universal keyed add-in cards.
- Creative Inspire 5700 5.1 Digital Speakers Review - The decoder
is capable of decoding Dolby Pro Logic, Pro Logic 2, Dolby Digital, and DTS (Digital
Theatre System) surround signals. But that's not all it can do, feed a stereo signal in
and it is capable of mixing the signal across all 5 satellite speakers via its CMSS
options, but more on those a bit later. As you can see, the decoder features seperate
controls for master volume, subwoofer volume, centre speaker volume and surround speaker
volumes.
- Intensor Gaming Chair Flashback - After we played Unreal
Tournament for about 1/2 hour we heard a loud static charge like sound emitted through
the speakers. This was kinda scary since we had the chair cranked up when it happened.
Thank god we didn't toast any of the speakers! Well we turned it down and started to try
and figure out what caused it. The only thing we could guess was causing the sound was the
connection that plugs into the base of the chair from the power supply. The only way to
get a good look was to tear the puppy apart and get a look for ourselves.
- Twelve 19 CRT Monitors Comparison - Choosing
a monitor is no easy matter because typically the mere mortal is unable to distinguish
between the various technologies. We have all heard terms like Shadow Mask, Trinitron,
DiamondTron, Chromaclear or EDP, but what do they mean? Each of them has a different way
of deflecting the electron beams to the screen, or rather, to the mask that they must
penetrate before they reach the screen. Each technology has its advantages and drawbacks
in terms of cost and image quality.
- SiS 645DX Chipset Review - As we mentioned earlier, the 645DX is
basically the 645 chipset supporting 133MHz FSB for the Pentium 4. Thus, there aren't
many new features on this chipset- think of it as an A version of a VIA chipset which
tweaks performance. We did find a couple of new things in the BIOS. Firstly, the BIOS
supports DDR-400 as there is an option to configure your memory to DDR-400. However, if
you do so, the memory timing are set to lowest such as CAS 2.5 etc
- VisionTek GeForce 4 MX440 - In the first of our GeForce 4
reviews nvmax.com tests the Visiontek GeForce 4 MX440, a product using the NVIDIA NV17 chipset.
But the MX440 has strong competition, not from another vendor but from the VisionTek
GeForce 3 TI200, available at the same price.
- NVchess beta - 3Dwin have posted a NVchess beta (demo from CeBIT). It's a completely 3D rendered
game that show the newest technology.
- Free Monitor Diagnosis & Adjustment for CRT/LCD - MonitorsDirect is
housing an online tool to adjust and test your CRT or LCD monitors. Featured tests
include: Focus - Convergence - Color Purity, Geometric Distortion - Brightness &
Contrast, Ghosting and Streaking .
- DVD Decrypter 3.0.0.14 - DVD Decrypter contains UDF
parsing and lets you copy DVD content to your harddrive. This new version has improved
multiangle processing allowing you to select which angle to keep (in the settings screen),
brute force CSS cracking for people with RPC-2 drives wanting to rip a disc of a different
region, adds a "check for update" function, the drive detection routines have
been partly rewritten, ISO mode can now split files at 4GB when writing on a FAT partition
and there are some minor GUI chagnes and some bugfixes.
- BootXP 1.85a - A new version of Boot XP has been released.
- F-Prot 3.12 - I almost forgot this cool antivirus which I liked
a couple years ago. Surprisingly this antivirus still exists and has been updated already
to version 3.12.
- Official RADEON Drivers - ATi has officially released a new
nonbeta driver set for their RADEON series: ATi RADEON WinXP
Drivers 6.13.10.6037, ATi RADEON Win2k
Drivers 5.13.01.6037, ATi RADEON Win98/ME
Drivers 4.13.9016.
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Updated:03:22 PM CEST Jun,21
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