Monday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 12:22 AM CET - Nov,18 2003
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- Attack code surfaces for latest Windows holes -
Two examples of "exploit" code for a buffer overrun in the Windows
Workstation Service were posted to security-related Internet discussion groups
on Friday and Saturday. Both exploits have been tested and work, according to
Dan Ingevaldson, director of X-Force at Internet Security Systems Inc. (ISS).
The Workstation Service vulnerability was disclosed by Microsoft Corp. in
Security Bulletin MS03-049, which was released on November 11. The service is
turned "on" by default in Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems and allows
computers on a network to connect to file servers and network printers,
Microsoft said.
- Gates gets serious about spam, security - For the 20th year,
Gates, chairman and chief software architect of the Seattle-based software
company, presented the keynote address at Comdex. He told an audience of
about 7,000 in Las Vegas that development has started on the next generation
of Windows, code named "Longhorn." "We're not even giving you a
time-frame. In fact, a lot of people who got the prototype code said, 'Hey
this looks pretty good. Gee, you must be close to getting this done.' Because
of all the integration and the extreme high level of quality, there's still
quite a bit to be done."
Gates also said both technology and legal efforts may help curb spam, the
unsolicited e-mails that clog inboxes and create headaches for Information
Technology departments. He said Microsoft is using a tool called Smart
Screen to determine the difference between legitimate mail and spam.
- Australia To Ban Project Gotham Racing 2? -
Road safety authorities are trying to pull the plug on a new computer game
that encourages players to hoon through the streets of Sydney. "Burn up a
storm past famous landmarks such as the Opera House and Sydney Harbour
Bridge," says the promotional material for Project Gotham Racing 2, by Xbox.
The game is "the ultimate test of racing skill, style and daring, rewarding
drivers not only for how fast they drive but for how they drive fast," it
says. "Drivers will earn kudos and gain recognition for cornering on two
wheels around the Sears Tower in Chicago, or power sliding through the ancient
streets of Florence, Italy." State Labor MP Paul Gibson, chairman of the
Staysafe Committee, intends to take the matter up with the Office of Film and
Literature Classification, which approves such games for sale in Australia,
and which issued a G rating to Project Gotham Racing 2.
- Kasparov Wins Game 3 Against X3D Fritz -
Garry
Kasparov was in a must-win situation and he pulled it off with a dominating
victory. X3D Fritz was confused in a closed position and the world number
one squeezed it convincingly. The match is now tied 1.5-1.5 with the final
game coming Tuesday. Honestly I admire this guy!
- Sprint PCS Launches Walkie-Talkie Service -
Sprint PCS on Monday launched walkie-talkie services, its latest effort to
lure new customers and challenge rivals for market share. Sprint PCS
said it will offer its PCS Ready Link "push-to-talk" service so customers can
connect with colleagues or friends across the country at the push of a button,
instead of dialing a number and waiting for the call to be completed.
- Microsoft Spot watches delayed - Microsoft's
information-by-radio
Spot watch technology will now not hit the market until early next year
rather than this week. And some of the software giant's hardware partners may
not even ship product then. Citizen, for one, may decided not to offer a
Spot-compatible watch after all, ExtremeTech reports, citing company
executives. Spot (Smart Personal Object Technology) was announced by
Microsoft last January, backed by watchmakers Citizen and Fossil. The
MSN-branded system uses FM radio signals to broadcast weather, traffic and
other information to $10-a-month subscribers' watches. The signals are
broadcast from sites in 100 US and Canadian cities and can reach 80 per cent
of the North America, Microsoft has said.
- Off-topic: Keep Your Brain From Going to Pot - When the brain is
injured in a fall or car accident, the damage does not stop after the impact.
When cells in the brain die, they send signals to nearby cells to die also,
causing continued, uncontrollable injury. Researchers have been trying to find
a way to stop this domino effect for decades, but nothing has worked well yet.
Researchers at Pharmos, a pharmaceutical company in Iselin, New Jersey, are
seeing
promising results with their injectable synthetic cannabis drug. While
pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Bayer have failed at developing
emergency treatments for head trauma, Pharmos scientists say theirs will be
the one to succeed.
- Off-topic: - new particle is double trouble for physicists -
A mysterious sub-atomic particle has been revealed that does not to fit
any of the models currently used by physicists. The discovery either suggests
that a new family of molecule-like sub-atomic particles exists, or that
theorists must substantially re-think their theory of the masses of sub-atomic
particles.
- Watch TV Anywhere and Anytime On Home PCs With ATI's EAZYSHARE -
EAZYSHARE software from ATI Technologies Inc. enables users to share TV -
live or recorded - from a PC equipped with ATI's ALL-IN-WONDER card with any
other PC on their home network, as long as it has a "Built By ATI" RADEON
graphics card.
- AMD Introduces New Opteront Processors: 148, 248 and 848 - AMD
today announced
new additions to the AMD Opteron processor family - Models 148, 248 and
848 - enabling servers and workstations to simultaneously provide cutting-edge
32-bit performance and 64-bit capability.
- Intel sets prices for delayed Dothan, to debut new processors in
February - Sources at Taiwan’s notebook makers have confirmed that Intel
will debut three models of its next-generation Pentium M processor,
codenamed Dothan, on February 4. To accelerate the transition to the new
processors, Intel has decided to launch a 1.6GHz model. Originally, Intel had
planned to start the Dothan processors, manufactured on a 90nm process, at
1.8GHz and later add a 1.7GHz model, the sources said. The introduction of the
relatively low-priced 1.6GHz model will help increase the proportion of Dothan
processors in overall Centrino CPU sales, said the sources.
- Diamond Multimedia Ships Stealth Graphics Cards - The list of parts
shipping includes Diamond Stealth S90, Diamond Stealth S80, Diamond Stealth
S70 and Diamond Stealth S60 graphics cards. The family includes products
for entry-level market priced from $49.99 to $99.99.
- Pentax *ist D First Look -
The Pentax *ist D ($1,599 list), the smallest and lightest digital SLR
prosumer camera, is also one of the easiest to use. The *ist D incorporates
Sony's 6.3-megapixel CCD (6.1 effective megapixels), yielding resolutions of
3,008-by-2,008, 2,400-by-1,600, and 1,536-by-1,024 pixels. By using Custom
Functions in the menu rather than the Analog Quality button, you can also
select 1,152-by-768 and 960-by-640. There are three JPEG compression levels
plus TIFF and RAW.
- Four boards for AMD's Athlon 64 FX Comparison -
THG tested Athlon 64-bit boards from the big three that have taken the
plunge: Asus, Gigabyte and MSI.
- Creative 3D Blaster 5 FX5900 review -
The
performance of the 3D Blaster 5 FX 5900 is mostly good, showing healthy
frame rates in situations where the pixel pipelines are not weighed down by
shaders. Synthetic testing and Tomb Raider benchmarks though suggest that the
use of PS2.0 and/or complex effects do the card no favours, particularly when
AF or AA is enabled. Given that this is to be the future of 3D games, it does
raise some questions over the longevity of the product.
- ASUS Radeon 9800 XT review -
You can't take ASUS Radeon 9800XT for anything else ... but for ASUS
FX5900Ultra :-) The light beige PCB with a copper two-fanned cooling system
looks fantastic and takes up only one slot, although this fact can't be
noticed at once. One more thing - an ATI Rage Theater chip installed.
Normally, low-end video cards are equipped with it. It's not much of a
gameable stuff, but lets you handle home digital video. This practice was
unnerving for the nervous, but the trend seems to have been overcome.
- Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 XT 256MB review -
The Hercules RADEON 9800 XT graphics card is the fastest accelerator today
provided that all such cards have the clock speed of 445 MHz (i.e. not only
this sample). If you are ready to pay $500 for a 3D accelerator the Hercules
3D Prophet 9800 XT can become the best choice (provided that the price is not
too higher compared to other 9800 XT based cards).
- Crucial Radeon 9800 Pro Video Card review - Techjuice has posted
a review of Crucial Radeon 9800 Pro video card.
- GeForce FX Go5700 preview - It is inevitable that in the near
future notebooks will be replacing our high-end desktop PCs. It's only a
matter of time, since this particular sector does not slow down.
NVIDIA's flagship Go5700 GPU is definitely a good competitor for ATI's M10
part -- feature wise and performance wise. However, it will be interesting
to see which will be chosen by the majority. Will customers go for longer
battery life or 3D performance? In the end, any GeForce FX Go solution is
perfect, it all depends on preferences and tastes.
- Samsung SyncMaster 173T review - Of the listed specs the main
points of interest lay within its 270 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast, and
25ms response time. All of these results tie in within this monitors price
range, about $490 ~ $550 USD. Though the brightness level and contrast ratio
are acceptable, the
25ms response time wouldn’t be my first choice when it comes to high speed FPS
gaming.
- Philips DVDR824P DVD+RW review -
The Philips DVDR824P price is not currently available in the market., The
upcoming 8x writers from Pioneer, NEC, Memorex and Sanyo are expected to rise
the competition and drop prices to even lower levels. We are sure that Philips
will resolve some minor issues that the drive has. Ending DVDR824P is very
good recorder and will cover most of the needs of the majority of the users.
- Crucial Hi-Speed USB 7-in-1 Card Reader - The biggest strength of
the
Crucial Hi-Speed USB 7-in-1 Card Reader is the convenience of having one
card reader, rather than up to seven. Compared to the USB1.1 reader, this one
is a heck of a lot faster.
- Terratec Aureon 7.1 Space Surround Souncard -
The Aureon
series sound cards from Terratec are based off of VIA's ICEnsemble chipset
bringing stunning surround sound in both 5.1 and 7.1 format. The card we are
taking a look at today is Terratec's first shot at 7.1 technology, coming in
the form of The Aureon 7.1 Space. The 7.1 space is the ideal surround solution
for a gamer/audiophile who is looking for an upper mid-range soundcard. It
doesn't quite compare to the newest SoundBlaster Audigy cards, but it's up
there.
- Thermaltake Xaser III Lanfire (VM2000A) -
The Lanfire does come packed with features, and for barely over $100 at
newegg.com, it seems like pretty good deal. The Lanfire is almost all
aluminum, with the most notable exception being the ABS plastic front panel. I
am sure Thermaltake did this to help keep the price down on this case, since
the mid-tower case market has become highly competitive as of late. The
Lanfire also features the Hardcano fan controller, the EL Fireball, front USB
2.0 and FireWire, an X-shaped side panel window, and four fans.
- Antec True Blue 480 -
This power supply not only delivers 480 Watt (duh) but also uses a blue
led on the fan to make it a bit 'cooler'. Antec was kind enough to not only
supply me with a review unit but also throw in a few Blue 80mm fans to make
the case even nicer.
- Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse review - Hardware Extreme has
posted
a review of Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse.
- Logitech's Kindler and Gentler Xbox Controller review -
Logitech's latest Xbox controller
is small, wired and affordable. The device is a welcome addition to the
Xbox peripheral product line, which is not exactly awash in quality
controllers.
- Microsoft Word Document ML Schemas Published - On Monday the 17th
November
the
xml schemas for Microsoft Office Word 2003 (WordprocessingML) along with
documentation, was uploaded to the Infostructurebase (ISB).
- 3D Performance with Call of Duty -
Benchmarking with Call of Duty is similar to Quake 3; in fact many of the
same console commands are present in both games (timedemo 1 is used to invoke
CoD’s benchmarking mode).
- First Annual Parents' Game Guide - Happy Puppy let us know they
have launched their
"First Annual Game Guide for Mom and Dad" ( ~10secs delay) The guide gives
parents recommendations of this year's best-suited holiday season games for
children ages 9 -16 in terms of gameplay and quality.
- Problems With Microsoft's Latest Patches - The
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer, which addresses numerous
security flaws in Internet Explorer 6, introduces bugs involving the
scrollbar. After the patch is applied, the page scrolls up or down twice when
the user clicks once in the empty areas of the scrollbar. Clicking on the
scrollbar arrows or dragging the scrollbar thumb works correctly. (thanks
Bink.nu)
- Software Mod For Turning Your Radeon 9500 Non-Pro Into A 9700 - The
Software Mod For Turning Your Radeon 9500 Non-Pro Into A 9700 , 9800SE and
9800 PRO
guide has been updated for combination with the Catalyst 3.9 drivers.
- AntiVir Personal Edition 6.22.08.08 -
The AntiVir Personal Edition
(download)
offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual
and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy
operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
- DVDIdentifier 3.2 -
DVD Identifier
retrieves and interprets the pre-recorded information that is present on all
DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW media. This information contains a variety of
parameters such as disc manufacturing information and supported write speeds.
Even though this information is usually printed on the packaging, the brand
name may differ from the actual manufacturer or there may even be no label at
all. 'DVD Identifier' offers a reliable method to identify the disc,
regardless of the label information.
- Avant Browser 8.02 Build 117 -
Avant Browser (download)
is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile web browser. Avant Browser is a
multi-window browser which features with many functions such as Pop-up
Stopper, Built-in Google Searching, Safe Recovery, Integrated Cleaner and
Advanced Browsing Options.
- WinRAR 3.30 beta 1 -
WinRAR is a powerful
archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments,
decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new
archives in RAR and ZIP file format.
This beta 1 adds new
"Scan archive for viruses", "Generate report","Benchmark and hardware test",
"Print file" commands
- AMD Athlon 64 Processor Driver For WinXP v1.1.0.0 -
This driver (download)
supports processor performance control via the processor objects defined in
the ACPI 2.0 specification.
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Updated:03:22 PM CEST Jun,21
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