Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:37 AM CEST - Sep,10 2002
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- Microsoft wants to hire Xbox hacker - The software giant is
seeking an engineer charged with "collecting, evaluating and conducting
analysis of modification chips" as part of security research on Xbox hardware
and software.
- Greek geeks fight gaming ban - Greek gamers are
preparing to
fight legislation banning them from playing any electronic game in public.
New laws barring PC and console games in places like internet cafes came into
force at the beginning of August, as part of a policy to clamp down on illegal
gambling in the country. The first case of its kind will come before the Greek
courts next week following the arrest of two people who allowed users to play
the popular online game, Counter-Strike. They face fines of L95,000 and up to
a year in jail.
- Sony takes sides in DVD war--both - Battling formats are keeping
rewritable DVDs from taking off, but
Sony's new drive offers a simple answer: When asked if it prefers this
format or that, the drive replies "yes."
- Kodak Recalls 75,000 Digital Cameras - Kodak has recalled some
75,000 heavy-duty digital cameras worldwide to repair a manufacturing
defect that can result in users suffering an electrical shock, the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Monday. Kodak's DC5000 Zoom Digital
Camera, a rugged model geared to users in fields such as real estate,
construction and insurance, can shock users changing the batteries, installing
or removing the memory card, or connecting a computer cable, the agency said.
- Scientists Develop Computer Mouse for the Blind - Scientists
looking for ways
to help blind people get more out of computers have developed a mouse that
goes bump and combined it with sound representations of graphs that would
otherwise be inaccessible. Mike Burton of Glasgow University told reporters at
the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual festival the
mouse vibrated every time it met a line on a graph, giving a blind operator a
tactile tip-off.
- The hidden data in your driver's license - It seems not too long
ago that the highest tech device that a bouncer may have had was a flashlight
to check out a driver's license. But these days, more and more bars and night
clubs, convenience stores and liquor stores
are using high-tech ID scanners in order to look at the information that's
actually embedded in many driver's licenses.
- MS "solves" cause of hacking spree - MS
"solves"
cause of hacking spree Microsoft claims new information in a mysterious
mass hack shows the problem isn't faulty Windows 2000 server software--it's
your bad passwords.
- VIA debuts two Media Player 9-supporting audio chips - VIA
Technologies on September 5 launched two new audio controller chips, the VIA
Envy24 and VIA Envy24HT, which support the Windows Media Audio 9 technology
used in Microsoft's latest Windows Media Player 9 program.
- AMD K8-core Opteron shows up in China - Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD) displayed samples of K8-core processors
at the recent CeBIT Shanghai exhibition. It reportedly unveiled server-use
SledgeHammer and workstation-use ClawHammer processors. The processors, part
of the Opteron-brand family, will not officially hit the market until January
or sometime later in 2003. K8 Athlon-brand desktop versions should be released
in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to AMD's roadmap.
- P4 With 3.6 GHz And 3.33 GHz - The test comparisons show the
performance values of
the P4 processors that won't become officially available until the middle of
2003. The improvement on the P4/2800 is somewhere between 7% and 29%,
depending on the application used. .
- Samsung ML-1440 Laser Printer Review - Imagine, you are a
university student, working on your 500 page thesis to graduate at Harvard and
all you need to do is print it. You have two options, the inkjet that prints
at about 4ppm and prints it in about 2 hours and runs out of ink half way
through, or
upgrading to a laser printer and have the same document done in half an
hour with sharper text. I think the choice is pretty clear.
- GF4 Ti 4200 Shootout - As newer games like Unreal Tournament: 2003
and Doom 3, that use upwards of 80MB of textures in some scenes ship, the
extra memory on
the 128MB cards will yield higher performance, making them the better
choice if you plan to get any mileage out of your investment. The X-Micro card
in particular was less expensive than VisionTek's offering, shipped with DVD
playback software and a full version game. The MSI 128MB G4Ti4200 overclocked
better than the Impact T4200, but was lacking ViVo capabilities. In the end
though, whatever is more important to you is what is important. If you're
going to use the Video In on the Impact T4200, go for it, but if you'd rather
have the three full version games, MSI's card is the better choice.
- SiS Xabre 400 Review -
The
Xabre in all it's (non) glory. Am I disappointed? A little. I was hoping
this would be the card to get SIS in the graphics ballgame... I hoped the same
thing for the 315. Is this card an improvement from the 315? Hell ya. At least
hardware-wise. Driver-wise there are still a *few* (many...ahem) issues to be
worked out. The drivers desperately need an option to disable the Turbo
Texture mode, without demanding that the user mess around with the registry.
- Radeon 9700 Review - Now let's draw a conclusion on the performance
in general. Before testing on the new platform and with the old NVIDIA's
driver 30.82 we wrote: According to our previous tests the
RADEON 9700 Pro outscores the GeForce4 Ti 4600 without AA by 24.2%, with
AA by 105%, with anisotropy by 103%, and with AA and anisotropy by 108%. Well,
the average price difference of 37% is overlapped by the performance boost.
The new results are: the RADEON 9700 Pro outperforms the GeForce4 Ti 4600
without AA or anisotropy by 15.8% ON AVERAGE, with AA by 94.2%, with
anisotropy by 62.8%, with AA and anisotropy by 64.4%. Although the gap is
smaller, the figures still look astounding. Again the average price difference
of 37% between the RADEON 9700 Pro and the GeForce4 Ti 4600 (on the US market)
is made up for by the might of the ATI's card. Moreover, we still don't know
what new ATI's drivers are going to offer us.
- Microsoft Offers Major Update to Windows XP
-
Service Pack 1, Microsoft's first major update to Windows XP since the
launch of its "trustworthy computing" initiative and consent decree with the
U.S. Justice Department, is now available on the software giant's Web site /(Windows
XP Service Pack 1 Express /
Windows XP Service Pack 1 Full (133MB)/
or on a CD that can be ordered for $9.95.
- Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 Released -
MSIE 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available for WinXP, WinME,
Win2k, Win98 and WinNT 4.0 SP6a. This critical update includes a well-tested
collection of updates that focuses on a variety of customer-reported concerns
with Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 6 SP1 includes all prior patches
and updates as well as enhancements to security and reliability. This is not
needed for XP users who have installed the Windows XP SP1. IE 6.0 SP1 in
included
- EPoX 8K3A/+ 2829 Beta BIOS - EPoX Tech UK has posted a
new beta version of the BIOS for the popular EpoX 8KA/+ motherboards.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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