Monday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:35 AM CEST - Mar,30 2004
- Post a comment / read (4)
- NetSky variant a greater threat than thought -
NetSky.Q was upgraded from a level 2 to level 3 threat on the security
firm's five-point rating system. The company said it has received 379 reports
of the worm since its discovery Sunday.
- Cisco Security Notice: Exploit for Multiple Cisco Vulnerabilities -
Proof-of-concept code has been publicly released that exploits multiple
previous vulnerabilities in various Cisco products.
The following list of vulnerabilities taken verbatim from the exploit code
are affected. Included after each is a URL which may be referenced for more
information regarding each vulnerability where Cisco has previously released a
security advisory or response to address the issue. Customers should take
steps to ensure that they have addressed each of these either via a software
upgrade or workarounds in place as appropriate in order to mitigate any risk
from this new exploit code.
- Bush promises universal broadband access -
George Bush wants all US citizens to have broadband Internet access by
2007. Speaking in Albuquerque on Friday, 26 March, the American president gave
no details as to how this would be achieved. But he did say consumers need
more choice.
- Off-topic: NASA jet flies at seven times speed of sound -
An unmanned supersonic jet shattered the speed record for plane flight by
flying at more than seven times the speed of sound on Saturday. NASA's X-43A
plane flew high above the Pacific for 11 seconds using an engine which expels
hot exhausts to propel it forward like a rocket, before gliding for several
minutes and plunging into the ocean. It was the first successful demonstration
of acceleration by a supersonic combustion ramjet or "scramjet" engine.
- Xbox Price $149.99 On Tuesday - Microsoft sent over
a press release officially announcing that beginning on Tuesday the price
of their Xbox console will drop from $179.99 to $149.99 (US, Canada,
Australia) Now, will Sony follow suit on the PS2?
- Indian 'Simputer' to bridge digital divide - In a nation where only
nine in 1,000 people own a computer, a long-awaited device has finally been
launched to bring the poor into the information age.
The so-called Simputer, a device which has been discussed and hyped for
three years, was finally launched last week in India with a price tag of
slightly less than INR10,000 (187 Euro). The Simputer is a bare-bones handheld
computer that is designed to allow poorer Indians to access the Web, email and
other basic computer functions.
- What Is Bill Gates Thinking? - Gates granted eWEEK
an exclusive interview at the VSLive conference in San Francisco last
week, where he keynoted on his vision of Seamless Computing.
- Bill Gates: Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years -
Hardware costs will fall sharply within a decade to the point where
widespread computing with speech and handwriting won't be limited by expensive
technology, Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates said on Monday. "Ten
years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware
as being free -- I'm not saying it will be absolutely free -- but in terms of
the power of the servers, the power of the network will not be a limiting
factor," Gates said, referring to networked computers and advances in the
speed of the Internet.
- Macromedia flexes Flash muscle - Macromedia released on Monday a
new server product intended to expand the use of its Flash format for
presenting Web applications.
Flex, formerly code-named Royale, allows developers to create scripts in
common languages such as Java and .Net and to run them on top of Web
applications. Flex breaks them down into a Macromedia dialect of extensible
markup language (XML) that can be read by the Flash Player, the widespread
Flash client commonly used to spice up Web pages.
- MS to preview WinCE 5.0 - Microsoft is set to release
on Monday a beta version of an update to its Windows CE operating system
for handheld devices, set-top boxes and other limited-function computing
devices. The Technology Preview Kit for Windows CE 5.0, formerly code-named
Macallan, will be provided to developers attending the Embedded Systems
Conference in San Francisco. Microsoft plans to make it available for download
later in the week through its Microsoft Developer Network site for embedded
developers.
- Nano work chases self-cooled chips -
Future chips may be self-ventilating, thanks to added microfluidic-like
layers that pump heat-laden air off-chip using a classic "corona wind" effect.
Purdue University has patented the technique at the nanoscale, and two team
members have co-founded a company to commercialize aspects of the cooling
system.
Intel likely to delay 90nm LGA775 processors to June - Despite the
appearance at CeBIT of motherboards supporting the LGA775 socket T Pentium 4
processors, sources at Taiwan’s PC makers are claiming that
the new 90nm chips will be generally available in June, rather than as
originally scheduled in May.
- Kodak Camera Focuses on Images -
The nifty little 4-megapixel Kodak EasyShare LS743 packs almost everything
a point-and-shoot user could want into a stylish, exceptionally easy-to-use
device. The 6-ounce LS743 has a nice, solid feel. The 1.8-inch LCD is sharp
but doesn't automatically adjust when the scene is very dark or light, making
it difficult to set up shots in those conditions. The unit can accommodate
optional SD/MMC cards, and comes with 16MB of built-in memory.
- BFG OC Cards Announced -
BFG Technologies
announced today that their two newest cards, BFG GeForce FX 5900XT OC and BFG
GeForce FX 5500 OC will be faster than standard cards with the same chipset
due to BFG's custom "out-of-the-box" overclocking. For example,
BFG GeForceFX
5900XT OC ($229.99) features 128 MB DDR memory, 430 MHz core clock (vs.
390 MHz standard), 735 MHz effective memory clock, 23.5 GB memory bandwidth.
- Lite-On LVW-5005 'All Write' DVD Recorder review - If you're
someone that liked the LVW-5001,
you're going to love the LVW-5005. With their new DVD recorder, Lite-On
has raised the bar for the rest of the industry. Thanks to their new "All
Write" technology, the LVW-5005 is the ultimate in versatility. It can write
to both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW media and is the first stand alone DVD writer on
the market with the ability to record audio and video directly to CD. While
this feature might not appeal to everyone, using a CD rather than an entire
DVD just to record a 30 minute TV show is much easier on the wallet.
- OpenOffice 1.1.1 Stable -
OpenOffice.org
(download
Win32 ~
Linux) is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems is
releasing the technology for the popular StarOffice productivity suite. It is
an international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide
access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an
XML-based file format.
- Adobe Reader Speed-Up 1.16 -
Adobe Reader Speed-Up significantly decreases the amount of time required
for Adobe Reader 6.0 to start by disabling most of the least used plugins.
Plugins can be freely enabled and disabled, if required. Currently supports
free and full versions of Adobe Acrobat v3.0, v4.0, v4.0.5, v5.0, v5.0 CE,
v5.1, v5.5, and Adobe Reader v6.0 and v6.0.1.
- TZ Connection Booster 2.6.0.0 -
Connection Booster Wizzard can configure any modem, ADSL, Cable, DSL & LAN
connections for maximum performance & faster web surfing, playing online
games, downloading files.
- ICQ Lite Edition with Xtras 4.0 Beta - A new beta version of
ICQ Lite is available
for
download.
- K-MP3 v5.6 update - KC Softwares (Ignition, VideoToolbox...) has
just released an
update of the popular Masstagger + Toolkit for audio files (MP", OGG,
MPC,...) called K-MP3.This update is HIGHLY recommended to ALL users because
it fixes major bugs in ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags encoding.More details on the
official web page
- CPUCooL 7.2.11 -
CPUCooL (download)
is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed, and voltages for many
motherboards. It provides Cpu cooling under Win9x/2000/XP/NT, allows
FrontSideBus changing, optimizes your memory and CPU.
- Hitachi Feature Tool 1.94 -
The Feature Tool (download)
allows you to control some of the features in our newer Deskstar and
Travelstar high performance ATA hard disk drives. This version adds support
for our latest drives (including 48-bit addressing for capacities beyond
128GB).
- Pioneer DVR-A07XL and DVR-107D firmware v1.12 - Here are the
download links for
the DVR-107D and
the DVR-A07XL.
- EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD Driver Patch Update for Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and
Audigy 2 ZS -
This update (download)
contains additional features and fixes to improve the performance of your
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 or Audigy 2 ZS series audio card. This update
requires you to have drivers already installed.
|
Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
(new)
