Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:03 PM CET - Mar,05 2003
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- IBM Recalls 5-Year-Old Monitor - IBM, in conjunction with the
Consumer Products Safety Commission, is issuing
a
recall of some 56,000 15-inch CRT monitors sold between June and September
of 1997. According to IBM officials, the G51 monitors contain a component that
can overheat, produce smoke and create a potential safety and fire hazard. IBM
is also separately recalling an additional 117,000 G51's sold outside the
U.S.. Consumers and companies that own the monitors (matching these part
numbers: 6541-02N, 6541-02E, 6541-02S, 6541-Q0N, 6541-Q0E, and 6541-Q0S) can
contact IBM. The company will supply a shipping crate and label, replace the
faulty component at their facilities and return the monitor free of charge.
- Critical Hole Found in Flash Player - Macromedia warned Monday of
what it called
a critical security flaw in the latest version of its Flash animation
player and advised users to install a new version that it released on the Web
to fix the problem. The vulnerability affects the integrity of the player's
"sandbox," which is supposed to act as a cordoned-off area where Flash code
retrieved from the Web can be run safely, without access to a user's files.
The flaw could allow a malicious hacker to run native code on a user's
computer, outside the sandbox, possibly without the user's knowledge,
according to information on the company's Web site. (updated/fixed
player)
- Randon" Threatens Port 445! -
"Randon" spreads via IRC channels and local area networks and infects
computers running Windows 2000 and Windows XP. To penetrate computer systems
the worm registers itself in the IRC server (or local area network), scans for
all present users and connects to victim computers via port 445 and attempts
to gain access by using a fixed list of the most commonly used passwords. When
"Randon" manages to successfully break-in it proceeds to transmit to this
system the Trojan program "Apher", which then, from a remote web site, loads
worm's remaining components (a total of 13 files, including a full-fledged
mIRC client for work with IRC channels).
- Sun pushes biometric security to banks - Sun Microsystems is aiming
its high-security
log-on system, combining biometrics with smartcard technology, at banks
and healthcare. The product provides user login authentication in line with
the FBI's National Institute of Standards and Technology criteria. It combines
the company's Sun Ray Solaris clients with AC Technology's BiObex software and
Cross Match Technologies' Verifier fingerprint scanning device.
- U.S., software maker craft Arabic tool - Basis Technology, a
privately held company based in Cambridge, Mass., that has been working with
U.S. intelligence agencies, said Tuesday that it is launching
an "Arabic language analyzer," which lets users create programs that can
search, analyze and decode Arabic text. Since virtually all U.S. government
systems are designed to work with Latin and English-language characters, users
who want to work with Arabic had few options, the company said.
- Telerobotic surgery a first - Surgeons in Hamilton and North Bay,
Ont., announced Tuesday they had successfully collaborated on an operation to
correct a patient's acid reflux disease
using telerobotic 'arms' - a procedure they claim is the first of its kind
in Canada. In Friday's operation, Dr. Mehran Anvari of St. Joseph's Healthcare
Hamilton used Computer Motion's ZEUS Surgical System. ZEUS used sensors to
take information from Dr. Anvari's hand, wrist and finger during the surgery,
and sent it to robotic instruments controlled by Dr. Craig McKinley of North
Bay General Hospital via Bell Canada's Virtual Private Network Enterprise
(VPNe)system. Bell's VPNe uses Cisco Multiprotocol Label Switching technology
to allow private networks to be created out of Bell's national IP structure.
- Beaming Video at Speed of Light - On the large television
screen, a Kiwi singer strummed a guitar and sang an old country favorite.
Looking away from the monitor, the audience could barely pick out a tiny red
light in the tall building 1.4 kilometers -- a little less than a mile -- away
It was this light that brought the singer's performance to the 100 or so in
the audience this week in what is believed to be the first live broadcast of
high-quality television images over visible light spectrum. (btw: you ever
heard about Czech project
RONJA?)
- Sony Ericsson unveils new phones - The new phones include the T610
(~$710), which has a built-in camera, a flash to brighten photos and
Quickshare, new photo sharing software.
The T310, which will sell for about $355, is the handset maker's answer
for Nokia's n-Gage wireless gaming device.
- ATI Announces Technology Development Agreement with Nintendo -ATI
Technologies announced today that it has entered into a
technology development agreement with Nintendo Co., Ltd. Under the
agreement, ATI and Nintendo are developing technologies for use in Nintendo
products. No other details regarding the nature of this agreement are being
made available at this time.
- Athlon Platforms Compared - Up till now, there has been four
generations of Athlons; the fifth, called Barton, has just begun. Equally
important, however, is the platform: there's a total of 11 chipsets, from
KT133 to nForce2, which have contributed much to the success of Socket A
Athlon.
Tom'sHardware put these chipsets in a side-by-side comparison in order to
take a look at the progress made with regard to the platform.
- KT400A Benchmarks - GZeasy has posted
preliminary scores for KT400A chipset from VIA (3DMark2001, Quake III,
Winstone). It slightly outperforms NVIDIA's nForce2.
- GeForce vs. Radeon - Competition in the graphics chip market is
expected to be pushed to a new high of intensity in the second quarter as
Nvidia and ATI Technologies plan to
roll out a total of 12 products. After debuting its long-awaited GeForce
FX (NV30) chip at the 2002 Comdex Fall show, Nvidia has scheduled to introduce
a series of NV30-based chip products at the Game Developers Conference (GDC)
in San Jose from March 4-8. In addition to the top-end GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
and GeForce FX 5800, Nvidia will showcase two other lower-end lines, the
GeForce FX 5600 and 5200 (each with Ultra and non-Ultra versions), in its
"Cinematic Gaming Era" launch conference. Together, the six chip products will
replace Nvidia's current GeForce4 Ti and GeForce4 MX series of chips.
- Nvidia Bringing GeForce FX To Low-End Markets - Huang notes that
his company has
begun producing 0.15-micron versions of current GeForce FX GPUs (NV30)
geared towards the low-end market, and aims to have "millions" of these ready
for shipping. On the topic of GeForce FX, he also expects the GPU to make a
bigger splash in the industry once the cards based on them hit $99 (US
dollars, we presume).
- Second Episode of The Animatrix - The second episode of
Antimatrix is now available.
- Lottery To Launch PC Game - The Connecticut Lottery Corp.'s new
animated computer game is drawing fire from critics who call it a ploy to lure
in children - and from the state attorney general, who says it may violate
Internet gambling laws. In the new game, Treasure Tower, players may use their
computer mouse to lead a cartoon character from ancient Babylonia through "a
fantastic and humorous universe" of exotic Middle Eastern passageways, palaces
and hidden doors in search of cash prizes. There is a one-in-260,000 chance of
winning $25,000 in the game, which goes on sale Thursday.
- Codename Longhorn build 4008 Tweak Guide -
This guide is much more extensive than the previous guides.
- FrontLook Screen Capture for FrontPage and Office -
FrontLook Screen Capture makes it easy for users of Microsoft FrontPage
and Office to capture screen shots with a click of a button. FrontLook Screen
Capture is compatible with FrontPage 2000 and FrontPage version 2002.
- Ad-aware 6 ReferenceFile Updated -
This update includes
updated signatures for Lop, Moneytree, Keytrap, Webdialer, Ukvideo 2 and
Coulomb "Dialler", newly added signatures for BlazeSoft Perfectkeylogger
(Basic + commercial) and several unclassified dialers.
- KaZaA Lite Toolbar 1.8.1 -
KaZaA Lite
Toolbar is a customizable toolbar and web address bar integrated to KaZaA
Lite interface. It's useful to open favorite web pages, web email, shared
folder or external tools (like Antivirus, Windows Media Player, AVI Preview,
Sig2Dat, etc.) directly from KaZaA Lite. Also works with KaZaA Media Desktop.
The toolbar also includes a file organizer that classify the downloaded files
in separate folders based on the file extension.
- Macromedia Flash Player 6.0.79.0 - Macromedia released
an
updated Macromedia Flash Player 6.0.79.0 on March 3, 2003. This update
contains release 79 for all platforms.
- Microsoft DirectX 9.0 "March Update" - This is Microsoft's DirectX
9.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) Update - "March 2003 Preview"
(4.09.000.0900). This preview release only contains
updated D3DX associated files (headers, libs, and D3DX debug dll),
High-Level Shader Language Manual, and additional animations for Tiny. The
next pre-release will include the
Full DirectX 9.0 SDK Update files.
- Microsoft Windows XP Embedded with SP1 component update -
This update (download)
addresses a potential problem when using MUI language packs on Windows XP
Embedded with Service Pack 1 runtimes, where extra files are copied as part of
the Service Pack 1 MUI language pack build process. These extra files
contribute to larger footprints and in rare cases can cause functional
problems on the runtime.
- Nero 5.5.10.15a - Nero
(mirror1 ~
mirror2 ~
mirror3) is a flexible,
reliable, and easy-to-use application designed to write both data and CD audio
to CD-R and CD-RW discs. It supports ISO 9660 images as well as ISO mode 1 and
XA mode 2, and allows for on-the-fly disc recording in addition to overburning
(if supported by hardware).
- Nero Win9x/ME problems - The official Ahead.de website has a note
that they have replaced the web version 5.5.10.15 with version 5.5.10.15a due
to a problem with one driver. If you have downloaded the web version 5.5.10.15
before and you are using Windows 95, 98 or ME, please
download this file
(nerocd95.zip) and extract it to Windows Installation Folder
"SYSTEMIOSUBSYS"
- WinAMP 3.0d - Nullsoft has silently released
this
updated version of WinAMP3.
- nForce 1/2 Audio Driver v2922 -
The
driver version is 5.10.2922.0 which makes it the latest available nForce
audio driver at the moment.
- Creative Jukebox 2/3 And Zen Drivers - Creative Asia has released
new
WHQL certified drivers for its Jukebox series including the latest
addition Zen. The new drivers are version 1.20.04 and support all Windows
Operating Systems.
- Nvidia Detonator 42.92 WHQL Candidate - TerraTec.de FTP has
latest known drivers of the 42.xx series (Win2k/XP
~
Win9x/ME).
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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