Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:47 PM CET - Feb,08 2003
- Post a comment / read (6)
- Auto makers catch fuel-cell fever - Encouraged by the Bush
administration's pledge
to
spend $1.2 billion on fuel cell vehicle research, leading auto makers are
moving forward will plans for hydrogen-powered cars. "We're looking at putting
production vehicles on the street between 2010 and 2012," said an engineer at
one Big Three auto maker.
- French Police Seize Mobile Phone Guns - French police said on
Friday they had
seized two lethal mobile phones capable of shooting four bullets, with the
digital touchpads used as triggers. The black telephones, identical to normal
mobile phones on the outside, were discovered in a raid on a suspected
gangster's home on Tuesday in the northern town of Rouen. The fake phones come
apart in the middle to reveal a four-chamber secret compartment for .22
caliber bullets, which can be shot out of a protruding fake aerial.
- Nokia issues battery warning - Non-original mobile phone batteries
are popular with mobile phone users who seek to replace worn down original
batteries, since most of them promise to not only last longer but also cost
less than originals. According to Nokia, however, several incidents over the
course of the past few months have shown that
non-original batteries could overheat and cause damage both to the
batteries and the phone.
- IBM plans top-end "Armada" Unix server -
IBM plans to release a new top-end Unix server in 2004, a 64-processor
machine code-named Armada that will feature the company's coming Power5
processor, a senior Big Blue executive has confirmed. Armada, the
successor to the 32-processor p690 "Regatta" system that IBM introduced more
than a year ago, is a Unix server that will come closest so far to matching
the capabilities of the company's vaunted mainframe systems.
- Microsoft gives coders a bug finder - Web developers in need of
another set of eyes to check their code for security holes should soon be able
to add an application scanner to Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net. The software
giant plans to announce on Monday
that a
plug-in created by security firm Sanctum, scheduled for release in March,
will be the first to easily integrate with Microsoft's development platform
Visual Studio .Net. The tool, AppScan Developer Edition 1.5, can be run on Web
applications in real time to catch common programming flaws.
- Filesharing safe? Not anymore! -
MSFN
is reporting that their contributor has received very interesting
mail, containing a legal notice telling him that he has been monitored sharing
copyright protected files over the sharing program 'Direct Connect'. The
letter has been composed by the Director of Enforcement from Mediaforce in New
York. The Director of Enforcement wrote this letter on behalf of New Line
Cinema Corporation, a division of AOL Time Warner. IP, downloading time and
username were also included in the letter. This is one of the first real
evidences that big media companys like AOL Time Warner behalf divisions which
monitor the sharing networks for copyright violation.
- ATI's Ben Haim Interview - SharkyExtreme has conducted
an interview with Ben Bar Haim, ATI's Vice President of Software
Department, as he talks about drivers for the ATI cards.
- GeForceFX 5800 Ultra No More -
According to HardOCP,
the GeForceFX 5800 Ultra will never make it to retail. Those of you that
PreBuy the cards will still get an Ultra model with the FX Flow cooling unit.
Those who don't will have the opportunity to get the non-Ultra version
(400/800) off the retail shelves for a price of US$300.00. This information is
unconfirmed at this time, but has been what we have been told repeatedly by
different sources since Tuesday of this week.
- eMachines T2200SE Review -
The $999 (direct) eMachines T2200SE (Special Edition) marks the value-PC
company's entry into the gaming arena. The T2200SE, which is available online
only, is identical to the company's T2200 system, with one major difference-it
features one of the hottest video controllers around, the award-winning ATI
Radeon 9700 Pro.
- Linksys WSB24 Wireless Signal Booster - If you've been
struggling with dead spots and low throughput in your wireless LAN (and who
hasn't), Linksys may have come to your rescue.
Their WSB24 Wireless Signal Booster is supposed to improve the range and
performance of any 802.11b WLAN, but you'll have to read
this review to find out whether it really delivers the goods.
- AMD AthlonXP 2600+ 333 FSB Review - OC Addiction.com has posted
a
nice review of the Athlon XP 2600+.
- NVIDIA Quadro FX vs. ATI FireGL X1 -
X-bit labs has posted a comparison between the new rumored NVIDIA Quadro
FX based on the latest NV30 chip and the ATI FireGL X1 in one of the most
widely spread professional applications - 3ds max 5.
- Top Graphics Cards in 3ds Max 5 - X-bit labs also posted
a
roundup called "Today's Top Graphics Cards in 3ds Max 5".
- DVD Burner Test: Seven Times The Capacity - With the huge
amounts of information that now have to be stored, the CD-RW is beginning to
run out of steam. The DVD boosts storage capacity to 4.5GB, and, in addition
to data, can also record videos. So here is the
lowdown on what the market is offering.
- 2003 Gamers' Hardware Upgrade Guide - The basic concept of our
article is that,
starting from a slightly "old" configuration, we investigate which
upgrades give you the best return on your investment. This time our base
configuration is a 1.4 GHz Athlon Thunderbird, on a KT266A motherboard,
equipped with a Geforce 2 Ti 200.
- Formula 1: Ferrari 2003 Pictures - Oh yeah,
check it out!:)
- DVD X Copy v.1.3 Review - The Motion Picture Association of America
is currently fighting to ban DVD copying, fearing widespread piracy as DVD
burners become more commonplace, but
321 Studios keeps its package aimed at legitimate use. The software copies
video object (VOB) files, but provides no access to these files, which carry
the MPEG-2 stream as well as navigation and search information packets. So you
can't, for instance, step in to remove region protection, which would enable
playback on any drives sold anywhere in the world. Also, 321 Studios inserts a
DVD Backup warning screen on the final discs to remind those watching a copy
that it was never intended for resale or distribution.
- Updated Windows NT 4.0 Patch: Flaw in Windows WM_TIMER Message
Handling... - Microsoft has investigated this issue and is releasing
an updated patch for Windows NT 4.0.
The bulletin has been updated to include the new download links for the
NT 4.0 patch.
- jv16 PowerTools 1.3.0.188 RC2 -
jv16 PowerTools is a full set of tools to keep your computer up and
running. It has a lot of bug fixes and other small improvements, nothing
special. The main improvements are in the stability and performance of the
registry cleaner and the registry finder but there's also some other small bug
fixes.
- K-Lite Codec Pack 1.3 Final -
K-Lite Codec Pack 1.3 includes the following codecs: DivX 5.03
Professional, DivX ;) MPEG-4 Low and Fast motion, XviD (Koepi's build
04/10/2002), 3ivx, Microsoft MPEG-4 (modified version), Fraunhofer MPEG-2 A/V,
Elecard/Moonlight MPEG-2 A/V decoders, VOB directshow filters, MP3 audio, DivX
WMA Audio, Ogg Vorbis audio, AC3 audio, MPEG-2 Audio, DivX Anti-Freeze, FourCC
Code Changer.
- XviD Codec 2003-02-08 -
The XviD Codec is
needed to play movies encoded by XviD.
- ClonyXXL 2.0.1.3a -
ClonyXXL
is a copy protection detection scanner, which can show what kind of protection
is used on a disc. It will provide you with the right settings for CloneCD, so
you can make a working copy of the disc.
- Hercules Sound Card Drivers v6.09a - Hercules US has released new
unified drivers (with
DLS sb ~
without DLS sb) for their sound card series based on Crystal chipsets
(Fortissimo II series, GTXP series, Fortissimo III 7.1, Digifire 7.1).
- SpeedTouch 2.0.1 Drivers - Alcatel have released new
SpeedTouch
2.0.1 Drivers for their DSL modems.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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