SECURITY...

• Java flaw could lead to Windows, Linux attacks - A flaw in Sun Microsystems' plug-in for running Java on a variety of browsers and operating systems could allow a virus to spread through Microsoft Windows and Linux PCs.  The vulnerability, found by Finnish security researcher Jouko Pynnonen in June, was patched last month by Sun, but its details were not made public until Tuesday. Security information provider Secunia posted information about the flaw in an advisory that rated it a "highly critical" threat.
• Microsoft to fix "download warning" flaw - Microsoft has said it will take "appropriate action" to fix a problem in Internet Explorer and Windows XP SP2 that allows a malicious Web site to bypass the browser's warnings when downloading potentially harmful content
• Tasin worms ate my Windows files - Security experts have issued a warning over the newly intercepted A, B and C variants of the Tasin worm, which have begun to spread rapidly by email. The malicious worms use social engineering tricks to distract users while they are sent out from infected computers before deleting a large number of system files. Tasin.A was first detected a few days ago. It has not been the centre of any explosive propagation, but has gradually crept up the rankings of the viruses most frequently detected by IT security firm Panda Software.
• Google sues website over click fraud - Google filed a lawsuit last week in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California against Auctions Expert International LLC. The search giant is accusing Auctions Expert of abusing the Google AdSense program, in which Web publishers display Google's pay-per-click ads and receive a share of the revenue.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Halo 2 Easter Eggs - So, if all of us are going slap down $50.00 per game we want ALL of the game (including the hidden stuff we can't get to from the main menu).
• Best game graphics bug ever? - check it out!
• Virgin Mary sandwich sold for L15,000 - 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary has been sold for l15,000.
• VHS Format Dies at 26 - The first VCR to go on sale at Dixons was the HR-3300EK, a piano key operated top-loader with a red LED digital clock/timer. It hit the shelves in 1978 (weighing in at more than 13 lbs) and cost L798.75 - which is L2,021 in today's money, enough to buy 40 VCRs.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Software to hunt down faked masterpieces - Using high-resolution digital images and complex mathematical formulas, associate professor Hany Farid of Dartmouth College analyzed works by Renaissance artists to determine their authenticity. His computer program was able to accurately separate eight drawings by 16th century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder from five drawings by imitators. It also found that portions of a painting by Italian artist Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, known as Perugino, were probably done by Perugino's apprentices.
• How wide are 14-inch widescreen notebooks? - To date, only three notebooks have been released with a 14-inch widescreen display, and they all use a 14.0-inch screen with 1280×768 pixels (15:9 aspect ratio). However, the coordinators of one of the bodies involved in defining standards for the industry is proposing the standard should be a 14.1-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio (at resolutions of 1280×800, 1440×900 pixel, 1680×1050 and 1920×1200), and sources suggest that notebooks adopting this size should be available soon.
• Superslim CRT TVs to compete with Flat Panel and Tube TVs - Now thinner CRT displays have been developed and are expected to begin shipping next year. They have a much thinner depth than a regular CRT TV, although still a fair bit deeper than other screen technologies such as Plasma. LG and Royal Philips Electronics are expected to offer their joint brand version next year. Samsung will also start offering super-slim CRT sets initially in Korea in the beginning of 2005 and then the US by mid 2005. Samsung's 30" super-slim CRT TV will be ~16" deep, which is about the depth of the stand on a typical flat panel of the same size.

HARDWARE...

• AMD announces Sempron for Notebooks - AMD is bringing its value Sempron processor to thin and light notebooks. The Sempron 3000+ boasts PowerNow! power management technology and support for the NX bit, which AMD has taken to calling Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP).
• Seagate starts shipping 15K Cheetah drives - Seagate said it has started shipping its Cheetah 15K.4 drives worldwide, through its distributor and dealer channel. The drives some in 36GB, 73GB and 146GB capacities with suggested pricing of $329, $659 and $1,315.
• ATI X800XL picture - Here is a picture of a card that artfully reminds me of Abit's X700 card. Its cooler definitely reminds me of the X700 cards. It's very easy to notice that this card doesn’t have any power connector which means that it has to operate under 75W. It comes with TV out, DVI and S-video out. It uses UHE architecture and we don’t know what that actually means. We forget to say that X800XL comes with 256 MB memory, 16 pipelines at $349 while X800 plan comes with 128 MB and its 12 pipelines for $249.
• Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1 - Considering that the NW-HD1 is a 20GB hard disk based player, it's incredibly light, weighing only 112g compared to an iPod at 158g. Add to this tiny dimensions of 89 x 62.1 x 13.8mm (WxHxD), and you've got a high-capacity device that's unbelievably portable in every respect.
• Samsung SCD305 digital camcorder - The SCD305 from Samsung has shown adequate performance throughout our testing. The LCD size is sufficient to make one feel comfortable taking photos and recording movie clips. Though it is essentially a vertical type camcorder, those users who are accustomed to shooting type camcorders will not feel awkward with the SCD305, since its design is actually a unique blend of both varieties.
• Pentax Optio MX4 - The Pentax Optio MX4 uses SD cards as its storage medium. Video can be taken at a resolution up to 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second (fps), and it can also take still images at a decent resolution of four Megapixels, up from the 3.2 Megapixels offered by the first Optio MX.
• Intel Pentium4 Prescott / 925XE Chipset - In LC's original review of Intel's 925XE chipset they showed that the original 925X chipset when paired with a Prescott CPU delivered substantially higher performance in memory-intensive benchmarks than the nominally more capable 925XE chipset paired with an ExtremeEdition CPU. Despite the lack of lower multiplier settings, they took a Prescott CPU, set it to 14x for a total clock speed of 3.73 GHz, and achieved benchmark results that blew away everything they had seen so far.
• OCZ EL DDR PC-4200 Dual Channel Platinum Memory - OCZ's Platinum line of ram is primarily aimed at hardcore overclockers and their PC4200 is no exception. With a default bus speed of 200 MHz, today's AMD systems require their buses overclocked by at least 33% to even reach the advertised speeds of the ram. The advantage to buying such high speed ram is that when overclocking you are eliminating one more component that can hold you back from maximizing your systems speed.
• Corsair TwinX1024 PC4400 CAS 2.5 Memory -  As the name implies, this is a 1GB TWINX kit rated at PC4400, but unlike their previous kit (3-4-4-8 timings), these new modules are rated at 2.5-4-4-8.
• Mushkin Dual Chan 1GB CL4 PC2-4200 DDR2 Memory - As you can see from benchmark, the RAM performed best at 562MHz with CL4. However, the ram performed better at 422MHz with CL3 than at the stock 533MHz with CL4. From an overclocking perspective, it might actually make more sense to run the highest clock speed you can manage at CL3.
• NVIDIA's nForce4 Ultra chipset - The nForce's performance in our gaming tests with audio (Far Cry, UT2004) is a step or two behind those without sound (Doom 3, 3DMark05), and frame rates take an especially big dip in UT2004 when we rely on NVIDIA's drivers to provide "hardware" 3D positional audio. Our RightMark audio tests confirm the problem, showing the nForce4 to have higher CPU utilization than any of the other solutions, even when doing straight DirectSound2D audio. Another nForcer4 reviews can be found on AMDZone
• ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition 256-MB - The GeForce 6800 GPU runs at the default 350 MHz clock speed, and initially at least, the ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition 256-MB looks like a basic GeForce 6800 card. The first clue that we're looking at something a bit more lies in the name, and the card sports a full 256-MB of 256-bit GDDR3 running at 1.0 GHz. This is basically the same onboard memory architecture as the enthusiast-level GeForce 6800 GT 256-MB, and not far from the 1.1 GHz of the GeForce 6800 Ultra card.
• XFX's GeForce 6800 GT PCI Express - Fans of nVidia and Intel can finally put together a truly high performance gaming / workstation system using PCI Express components, now that cards like this are hitting the market. As nVidia's GeForce 6800 GT is undoubtedly the most popular of today's generation of high-end graphics cards (due to an excellent price / performance ratio), we have little doubt that the 6800 GT PCI Express card will be any less popular. The formula is proven to work, nothing has drastically changed between the AGP and PCIe version, the only variable in the equation is if nVidia can get these cards out in significant quantities.
• Albatron Trinity GeForce PCX5750 PCI Express - With only 128megs of onboard memory and a 128bit memory interface, this card out of the box will not be a screamer for the Half Life and Doom 3 FPS game lovers, but may be a viable alternative for the average everyday computer user with a taste for older and less power dependent games.
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT AGP - The reference board features dual DVI ports, which are powered by dual 400MHz RAMDACs - this is good news for the TFT lovers out there. Many board partners may or may not choose to follow this design - the reference PCI-Express 6600GT had a DVI and VGA output configuration, while some board partners opted for a dual DVI output on their retail boards.
• MSI RX800 XT - The RX800 is an incredible video card and one that should last for quite some time. The software package included with the RX800 is second-to-none and simply the best on the market. You will not be disappointed spending the premium price for this PCI-Express video card.
• GeForce 6600 GT vs Radeon X700XT - The performance between these two graphics cards was extremely competitive and the overall results turned into a 50/50 scenario.
• Gigabyte Radeon X800 Pro - Unlike the rest of the X800s available, Gigabyte provides their own solution for GPU cooling. It looks very much like the ATI reference but is just a little bigger. The extended length and width provides cooling to the graphic memory, but only on one side.
• ATI Radeon X600XT Shoot-out - TweakTown take a look at three different cards from HIS, ABIT and GeCube.
• Asus eXtreme EAX600XT - The layout of the Asus EAX600XT is very similar to that of several other X600XT videocards to cross PCstats test bench, but differs with the addition of the special black HDTV connector where an analog monitor cable would typically go. This connector hooks up to 6' long component cable that will reach to near-by HDTV compatible displays.
• LG GSA-4160B 16x Super-Multi DVD±RW/RAM - While otherwise very similar to its predecesso (GSA-4120B)r, the GSA-4160B ups the ante with 16x DVD+R writing speeds. At this speed, LG's new drive took less than 6 minutes to write 4GB of data. While this wasn't enough to top some of the CAV enabled writers we've tested, it was a good 45 seconds faster than ASUS's new 16x DVD±RW. The GSA-4160B also turned in some very good writing times with both DVD+RW and DVD-RW media. However, its 8x DVD-R and 2.4x DVD+R DL writing speeds did put it at a slight disadvantage in some of our tests.
• Ultra Products Mini Portable Disk External HD Enclosure - Ultra includes everything you need to install this enclosure: one USB 2.0 cable, one FireWire cable, a driver disc, the enclosure itself, integrated fan, AC power supply, instructions manual, and the screws necessary to install the hard drive. Notice for the features it mentions the enclosure is "hot-swappable" but on the packaging it does not.
• Swissbit Twist Pro 2GB USB2 - Whether our daily life requires us to move music files, documents or even backup our data the Swissbit Twist Pro 2GB will surely come in useful. If to take into account the $240 or so asking price it is perhaps not cheap but the low weight and higher durability than compact discs makes it all that more appealing.
• Verbatim Store 'n' Go Pro USB Drive - Performance wise there's nothing much to comment on; clearly Verbatim's Store 'n' Go Pro series performs above par than it's previous generation predecessor, Store 'n' Go. As suspected, the performance between the two USB 2.0 compliant flash drives is minimal.
• Gigabyte PCU22-SE 3D Rocket Cooler Heatsink review - The Gigabyte PCU22-SE is configured to work on the socket 462/A AthlonXP, socket 478 & 775 Pentium 4, and socket 754/940/939 Athlon64 processors. That level of versatility inherently dictates some sacrifices are made to accommodate the different thermal requirements, and differently size CPU cores and heatspreaders. .
• VBox DTA-151 ATSC HDTV Tuner review - The DTA-151 is a PCI based card and doesn't have a lot that is flashy to it. No gimmicks, no compromises, it is just a tuner card with s-video in. There is some basic software that can be had for it that will allow you to use it outside of MCE but I had little success getting it to work since I had already installed the MCE BDA drivers for it (the software doesn't play well with the BDA drivers). Which is all right by me as it works great in MCE 2005 and that is all that matters for this review.
• Asetek 5 1-4 Hard Drive Waterblock - The waterchill harddrive cooler are basically two copper blocks attached to the harddrive connected with each other using two elbow connectors. These blocks resembles quality and precision. Look at those plexi tops, as thick as my hand!
• Clever Power SPS-400 & SPS-500 Power Supplies - For being a new face in the computer power supply market, Clever Power certainly has delivered quite a compelling product. Although the product may not have a clear casing, LED studded lights, or other fancy frills, it still looks sharp and feels solid.
• Logitech MX1000 Mouse - It not only handles itself very well under normal use but it accurate and responsive enough for gaming and graphic arts applications. The extra buttons can get in the way from time to time but if used appropriately will be effective time-savers. The design of the MX1000 is top-notch, from its ergonomic contours to its great button action to its industry-leading mouse wheel.
• ViewSonic ViewMate KP102 Keyboard & MC201 Optical Mouse - The MC201 optical mouse is very basic. Left click, wheel/button, right click. It doesn't curve in any particular direction, so you can use it with either hand. It actually looks like two mice in one; the upper clear shell surrounds the inner black shell. The back side has four feet which although slick, don't glide as well as Logitech's. As for the drivers on the floppy, since this is a basic optical mouse in every sense of the word you're better off letting Windows detect it as a generic device.
• MonsterGecko PistolMouse FPS - What's so special about the PistolMouse FPS? The most obvious is that it resembles a Sig Sauer P228. A nice little piece of heat, but not very much stopping power. It would have been much more cool to model it after a Mark XIX .50AE Desert Eagle, but I imagine that they were working within a size constraint. The button layout is very obvious; there is the trigger for basic action control (left click), a second trigger under the finger guard for secondary action control (right click) which is a tad too easy to accidentally press, and a scroll wheel above the pistol grip that can be used for any number of things. I used it for scrolling through weapons.
• Logisys SP6002CL - 2.1 + 1 Multimedia Speaker System - Like any good sub-woofer, this system requires the placement of the unit to be on the floor or a shelf to achieve the maximum base response possible. The Sub-woofer is held slightly off the floor by four small legs which help keep the the unit in place.
• Altec Lansing AHP712 Headphones w- Active Noise Reduction - The incorporation of Active Noise Reduction is undoubtedly the premiere highlight of these headphones. This useful feature should most certainly appeal to the frequent flyer weary of the constant white-noise assault inherent to airline travels.
• BenQ FP71E+ 17-inch 8ms TFT LCD - The modest outlook of the BenQ FP71E+ belies its speedy nature. With the lower response time of 8ms, it edges out the 12ms LCDs, albeit slightly. To the casual eye, there will be no noticeable flicker or ghosting at all in either DVD playback or fast paced gaming. You would most probably be able to see a difference only when directly comparing to a standard CRT. Using LCDs as a base of comparison however, the FP71E+ is currently unchallenged.
• NVIDIA SLI Upgrade Guide - Thinking about upgrading to a gaming rig powered by NVIDIA's Scalable Link Interface? This article expains what you need to know by showing you what type of gaming experience you can expect in Half Life 2, DOOM 3, and FarCry with focus on where your SLI upgrade path will lead you in terms of image quality. Another article can be found on AnandTech.
• How to use an Xbox Controller as a USB PC Gamepad - OCModShop has posted a guide about how to use an Xbox Controller as a USB PC Gamepad
• The Ultimate Techie Christmas Gift Guide - What do you give the techie who has everything? That's the ultimate question. If you have an impossible person to buy for, then this is the list for you. Want to spend a huge amount of money? Do it here!

SOFTWARE...

• KaZaA Media Desktop 3.0 - The KaZaa Media Desktop (download) is a second-generation peer-to-peer file-sharing service with which you can search and download media files from other KaZaa users.
• BrowseAmp 2.10 - BrowseAmp (download) is a plug-in for your favourite music player like Winamp or QCD. With BrowseAmp you can control Winamp or QCD with any webbrowser over a LAN or other network. BrowseAmp provides a free customizable web frontend from where you have full control over Winamp or QCD.
• Realtek ALC AC97 Audio Driver 3.66 - This driver supports all ALC series audio chipsets from ALC100 up to ALC850. It is used as onboard sound on many motherboards.
• ForceWare 67.42 Win2K/XP - Originally found at Dell and intended for Laptops (Force4 4200 Go, GeForce FX Go5650, Quadro FX Go700, GeForce FX Go5200 and Quadro FX Go1000), these are ForceWare 67.42 drivers.