Friday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 11:58 PM CEST - Apr,11 2003
- Post a comment / read (1)
- Ethics and Video Game Reviews - Online Journalism has poted
an
interesting article on video game reviewers and the ethics of such a
position.
- Smart credit on UK cards. Will it cut fraud? - UK banks, building
societies and retailers are to introduce a more secure method of authorising
credit card payments. Designed to combat fraud, the Chip and PIN Programme
will see
the magnetic stripes on credit and debit cards replaced with smart chips.
The huge project will see more than 850,000 retailer terminals, 122 million
cards and 40,000 cash machines upgraded by 2005. To help combat credit card
fraud in the future, consumers will verify their purchases by keying in a
four-digit PIN (Personal Identification Number) - rather than signing a
receipt.
- VIA unveils KM400 chipset for AMD platform - VIA Technologies on
April 10 introduced its
latest chipset, the KM400, for the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) platform
market.
- Western Digital announces 250Gb USB/FireWire hard drive -
Western Digital
has again pleased users by releasing a special model of its external
FireWire/USB2.0 hard drives - 250Gb in capacity. Similar to the previous 200Gb
model, this one features 8Mb cache and 7200rpm speed. Besides, the drive is
encased into a stylish body.
- Intel to announce Canterwood on April 15 - According to
InfoWorld, Intel might
officially announce i875 chipset (Canterwood) next week. So, the company
scheduled a conference in Taipei to April 15 to announce the chipset alongside
3GHz Pentium4 with 800MHz FSB. So, 875 will be the first chipset to
support 800MHz FSB. The second, Springdale, should be announced in May.
Besides 800MHz FSB Springdale will feature 1Gbps Ethernet adapter.
Intel Speeds Ultra Wideband - Intel demonstrated
a prototype Ultra Wideband radio system transmitting data at over 220 megabits
per second on Friday, and claimed a world-first for the speed. The
prototype was demonstrated by Kevin Kahn, head of Intel's communications and
interconnect technology laboratory, as part of his keynote speech at the Intel
Developer Forum Japan event, which ended Friday at Maihama just outside Tokyo.
The transmitter and receiver pair, which Kahn said were just out of the
laboratory, achieved a sustained data rate of around 220 Mbps over a distance
of about one meter for approximately 2 hours while on display on the IDF Japan
stage.
- Video Capture & Editing -
This
extreme guide will cover mostly everything from video capture to encoding
in your favorite format. We will share with you some of the best hardware
capture devices and software tools available today.
- Gainward FX Powerpack Ultra/1000 Golden Sample (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800
Ultra) & Gainward FX Powerpack Pro/660 TV/DVI (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200) Video
Cards Review - Today we are
testing two cards: the top solution in the GeForce FX line - 5800 Ultra,
and the lowest one - 5200. The former is meant for $350+ niche while the
latter is positioned for the sub-$100 market sector. Both accelerators differ
only in the speed characteristics (GeForce FX 5200 has only one restriction in
AA - 4xS, in contrast to 8xS of 5800).
- cd3o c300 Network MP3 Player Review - Six months ago, cd3o's media
hub would have been a breathtaking product with a couple of quirks. Now, the
cd3o c300 Network MP3 Player ($249 direct), which transports MP3, WMA, and
WAV files from your PC to your stereo receiver, may get lost in the buzz about
products from better-known names like Hewlett-Packard.
- DVD Shrink 1.03 -
DVD Shrink is software
to backup DVD disks. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning
software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disk.
- Official Logitech MouseWare Advanced Utility -
This
utility is designed to work with MouseWare 9.76 or above. Please verify
you are using MouseWare 9.76 before downloading and using this utility.
- Intel Hyperthreading Readiness Tool 1.2 -
MSI
Computer is offering an Intel tool that tests your computer hardware
including CPU, motherboard, RAM and PCI devices for Hyperthreading support. It
reads PCI registers as well as BIOS and CPU ID's and compare's them to Intel
HT specifications.
- TVTool Beta 7.0.2 -
TVTool
was developed to replace the poor support video card manufacturers had for
TV-Out.
- DivX Pro 5.0.4 Schizo Beta 4 -
The DivX
Schizo beta (download)
release is a bug fix release for DivX 5.0.3, and includes the first version of
the EKG (Electrokompressiongraph) application, a new gadget from the R&D labs
of DARC. The EKG enables an advanced video compressionist to reallocate data
to specific scenes within a video clip. This new beta fixes K6-2 CPU related
crash, and many other bugs.
- ACDSee 5.01 Leaked? -
ACDSee 5.01 (direct
link) digital camera software makes it easy to get, view, organize, print,
enhance and share your digital photos super fast. Whether you're a digital
photography beginner or a graphics professional, the picture viewer of choice
for millions of people will make your digital photography experience more
rewarding. The official
ACDSee website still offers only 5.0.
- Tweak-XP Pro 2.09 -
Tweak-XP Pro bundles more than 42 different utilities in one: it was
developed to combine both tweaking and optimizing features to increase the
speed of your WindowsR XP system.
- WinXP Hotfix for LapTops - The Processor Performance State Is Not
Restored - The processor performance state may not be restored to the
maximum state if the CPU runs at 100 percent. This problem occurs if the
computer is 100 percent busy when the power policy changes. This problem may
occur if the power policy changes because of an AC/DC transition while the
computer is using the "Max Battery" power scheme. When the computer is running
at 100 percent CPU usage, the computer never enters the idle loop in which the
speed of the CPU is dynamically adjusted based on demand and current policy
values.
The fix is to set the timer so that Windows changes the speed of the CPU
when the timer expires.
- Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (VM) 5.00.3810 - Fixes a security
vulnerability that affects the ByteCode Verifier component of the Microsoft
VM.
This VM build includes all previously released security fixes, as well as
fixing a newly reported security vulnerability that affects the ByteCode
Verifier and could allow an attacker to run code of his or her choice on a
user's system.
|
Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
(new)
