Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:25 AM CEST - May,02 2002
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- eMac price tag stuns students - The reason for the shock is twofold.
First of all, the less expensive of the two models was not initially available for college
students, although Apple says it will be available by the end of the week. Second, the
price for college students is $50 more than the pricing announced Monday.The eMac, which
Apple introduced Monday, is similar to the original iMac, but is built around a 17-inch
monitor and sold only in the education market to schools, teachers and college students.
Because it uses a flat-screen version of the traditional monitor, the eMac takes up
roughly the same amount of space as the 15-inch iMac.
- Melissa virus creator gets 20 months - The creator of the
Melissa computer virus, which hobbled computer systems across the United States three
years ago, was sentenced Wednesday to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay $5,000
in fines.
- Scientists create remote-controlled rats - By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created
remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate
piles of rubble -- and maybe someday, with the rats outfitted with tiny video cameras, use
to search for disaster survivors.
- USB Port Devices Pose Security Threat - Firewalls and virus
checkers are no
defense against the latest form of computer attack that comes via open USB ports. Not
only can viruses, worms and Trojans get into the corporate network this way, but valuable
data can leave the company in huge quantities, according to security experts.
- Netscape flaw exposes hard drives - An Israeli software firm has
discovered a flaw in
Netscape and Mozilla software that allows code hidden in a Web page to read files from
the user's PC. The bug is a more serious variant of one patched in Microsoft's Internet
Explorer in February.
- Quantum3D/NVIDIA technology: Military Applications - While we
have enjoyed our 3D graphics technology for entertainment over the last few years, NVIDIA
and its partner Quantum3D have also been developing embedded graphics technology in the
same way ELSA has been producing workstation products. Embedded graphics technology has
many applications, including industrial and medical imaging, but perhaps one of the most
interesting products are those being developed for the United States’ Department of
Defense. We’re not talking about the use of NVIDIA GPUs to run team-building
games such as Rogue Spear, but the use of actual NVIDIA/Quantum3D hardware in the
field that helps our armed forces “place steel on target” effectively. This
partnership is called FARSIGHT nV and the first design win is a Quadro2 Go in the cockpit
display of the F-22 Raptor
air dominance fighter.
- Unofficial Details on New AMD's CPUs - They were showcasing two servers
built with Sledgehammer processors (Opteron) and two workstations connected to them
built on ClawHammer processors. They used 64bit Windows Server OS version for both and
were running IIS and Terminal Server software. On the client systems they were running
64bit Internet Explorer. Also AMD demonstrated how well these systems coped with 32bit
applications.
- Nvidia NV30 In August - According to this
article at CNewst, Jen-Hsun Huang CEO of Nvidia stated today that the company will
launch a fundamentally new architecture in August.
- Samsung 24X10X40 CDRW Review - In order to burn at higher speeds
Samsung choose to
implement Zone CLV technology. What this does is divide the CD in 3 Zones. The First
zone is burned at 16x, then the drive speeds up to 20x to burn the second zone, and
finally speeds up to 24x until the end of the CD. On the SW-224B the first zone ends at 2
min. from the lead in area, and the second zone ends at 12 min. During the zone
transitions super-link is used to prevent you from making a coaster.
- MSI G4MX440-T Review - As the name suggests, this card is based on
the GeForce4 MX440 graphics solution and is targeted at those who are looking for a
good 3D card but are on an even more constrained budget. The MSI card will run you just
under $100, and is easier on your wallet than a Ti4400 or Ti4600 card. But what about
performance? Will it keep you happy, and is it worth your money?
- ASUS A7V333 KT333 Review - This board
we have in our labs comes equipped with ATA133 RAID, Firewire. The board also incorporates
USB 2.0 and CMEDIA 6 ch audio. Something unique on this board are some ASUS features e.g.
ASUS POST Reporter which is a voice diagnostic feature.
- AMD vs Intel - The lack
of any thermal protection is another disadvantage AMD has against Intel. Athlons run
hot, and if your cooling isn't up to spec, your CPU will die. The Athlon XP has an
internal diode to prevent this, but no manufacturers has a shipping motherboard that makes
use of this feature. Asus does have their C.O.P. (CPU Overheat Prevention) feature, but
don't expect a working CPU if you forgot to reinstall your heatsink. Intel CPUs on the
other hand can slow down on the fly (throttling), and actually shut down (i.e. lock up)
before any serious damage is done.
- Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Soon - Betatesters just recieved this
message: "The DirectX team would like to thank you for your patience as we
prepare to release DirectX 9.0 Beta 1. We are currently working on the final stages of
Beta 1 for DirectX 9.0 and plan to release it to you for testing very soon. When the beta
has released, you will be sent email with further instructions. We appreciate your
willingness to test DirectX and look forward to working with you." (thanks NeoWin.net)
- How to send and receive secure e-mail - One solution is to subscribe to
one of the services that protect e-mail in transit. Mailsafe, SecureNym,
KeptPrivate, and Swissmail, for example, will protect
the conversation between your computer and their servers using SSL (the same encryption
technology used by e-commerce Web sites to protect customers' credit card numbers over the
Internet). As long as you and your correspondents select the same SSL-based service, your
e-mail exchanges are readable only on your computer, your correspondents', and the
service's e-mail server.
- Nvidia Brushed Metal Demo - This effect demonstrates a
brushed metal effect using DirectX8 pixel shaders. This demo requires the
NVEffectsBrowser to run.
- WinDVD 4 Premium Shots - The new
version will support all the recent audio technologies such as DTS-ES, Dolby EX and
Dolby Dynamic Range Compression. It will also support playback from hard disk, advanced
TV-out properties and a new feature called Video Desktop that will allow you to set your
wallpaper to act as the DVD screen
- OpenOffice 1.0 - OpenOffice is based on StarOffice code released by Sun and it's major
highlights are that it is platform independent and supporting a broad variety of
languages.
- FlashFXP 1.4.4 Beta Build 849 - FlashFXP is a powerful and
popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market. What's
New:"Fixed bug where changing the application password with multiple instances of
FlashFXP open resulted in serious issues. New toolbar buttons windows XP style. Created by
Christof By default the compare folder button is now hidden, to enable it right click on
the toolbar and select it from the pop up menu. Added 3 new buttons. Edit File / View
File, and Transfer Mode to the FTP only view."
- HSmonitor 4.0.4.2 - This program has been developed as a light-weight alternative for
Intel LANDesk Client Manager. It takes much less memory and monitors only parameters that
are collected by several types of sensor chips, installed on modern motherboards.
- HyperSnap-DX 4.50.01 - HyperSnap-DX 4
is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from
standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and
Glide mode games. This new version adds new function Color/Substitute Colors, allows you
to define custom color lists to be replaced on an image, like "replace all green
pixels with red" etc.
- BSPlayer v0.85 build 484 - BSPlayer
is a Windows player for playing back avi/asf/wmv/mpeg video files or any other file for
which you have a codec.
- Audiotools v4.00 - Audiotools
is a direct-to-disk recording tool with the facility to automatically split a recording
into tracks to the hard disk without having to use much memory.
- Winamp v2.80a - Nullsoft have released a new
version v2.80a of WinAmp, their free mediaplayer.
- NVRefreshTool 0.6b - There is a new re-designed version - download.
- Sonique2 Alpha 2.1.4.30 - An updated build of the second
alpha of Sonique2 (MP3 player) has been released.
- Jetway ATI BIOS - Jetway have released a new set of ATI BIOS
files: ATi RV200A1d (RADEON 7500) Flash BIOS / ATi RV200LE (RADEON 7500LE) Flash BIOS.
- Nvidia Detonator 29.11 (Win2K/XP) Leaked - A new Detonator
driver has been leaked - download.
- Creative Labs Audigy & Live Update - Compaq has offers a masssive
377MB package (it's probably a beta) for download. The package is for Windows XP
only and includes: Playcenter: 3.01.57, Creative Recorder: 2.00.24, Surround Mixer:
2.00.26 and Creative Task Bar: 1.00.26.
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Updated:02:02 PM CEST Jun,21
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