Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:14 AM CEST - Oct,10 2002
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- Satellite systems hackable - study - Critical commercial satellite
systems relied upon by federal agencies, civilians and the
Pentagon are potentially vulnerable to a variety of sophisticated hack attacks
that could cause service disruptions, or even send a satellite spinning out of
control, according to a new report by the General Accounting Office, the
investigative arm of Congress.
- Robotic Model Monster Truck Pushes Boundaries Of Computer Technology
- Computer scientists at OHSU's OGI School of Science and Engineering have
stripped down a radio-controlled monster truck and turned it into a robotic
vehicle that's helping them perfect the latest generation of computer
software. The "Timbot" is equipped with its own computer system, a video
camera, and other sensors. On a very basic level, it can "decide" where it
needs to go, using its sensors and an onboard computer, and, at the same time,
transmit live video images across the Internet so that a remote viewer can see
what Timbot is looking at. The Timbot is one part of Project Timber (Time as a
basis for embedded real-time systems) in the Pacific Software Research Center.
- Russian TV Show to Offer Space Station Visit as Prize - Russia's
ORT television channel and the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos signed an
agreement in Moscow Tuesday to televise
a contest whose winner will fly to the International Space Station.
The first flight is planned for the fall of next year.
- Fossil sparks fight over human origins -
A fossil claimed to be modern humans' most ancient ancestor has sparked a
bitter squabble, with a team of anthropologists declaring the find is making a
monkey out of the human family tree. According to its discoverers,
Toumai, found in the Djurab desert of northern Chad and triumphantly presented
to the world last July, was a man-like creature, or hominid, about the size of
a chimpanzee, which lived 7 million years ago. Their claim is that Toumai will
overturn the conventional view of mankind, because the evolutionary split
between apes and humans clearly occurred far earlier than molecular studies
suggest.
- DVD and Video Game Theft Reduced by Red Tag Security Device - The
Tag Company has launched the
Red Tag
DVD and Game Security System to home entertainment retailers throughout
the UK and Europe. Red TagR has been developed to enable retailers to more
openly display DVDs and Games, without the threat of unacceptable levels of
theft. Red Tag is easily and simply inserted into the disc box, locking the
disc to the box and locking the box shut securing an EAS (Electronic Article
Surveillance) label inside. Illicit tampering of Red Tag-protected DVD's and
games leads to substantial damage to the box or the disc, preventing thieves
from acquiring pristine product and packaging for resale.
- Software piracy 'out of control' -
Microsoft has
uncovered evidence that internet software piracy is spiralling out of
control. The research, published at the annual East Asia Economic Summit,
shows that there are more than two million web pages offering either illegal
software or links to pirate sites. Microsoft's report claims the number of
offending websites has surged 100 per cent over the past year, and 2,000 per
cent in the last three.
- Hackers send Sendmail a message -
The
apparent attack on Sendmail didn't leave a back door in the popular
open-source e-mail software package, as previously believed, but compromised
the download software on the Sendmail consortium's primary server so that
every tenth request for source code would receive a modified copy in reply.
The problem apparently only affects source code for version 8.12.6 of Sendmail
downloaded between Sept. 28 and Oct. 6, according to an advisory posted by the
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordination Center on Tuesday.
- Microsoft ''XDocs'' -
"XDocs," a code name for the newest member of the Microsoft Office family,
streamlines the process of gathering information by enabling teams and
organizations to easily create and work with rich, dynamic forms. The
information collected can be integrated with a broad range of business
processes because XDocs supports any customer-defined XML schema and
integrates with XML Web services. As a result, XDocs helps to connect
information workers directly to organizational information and gives them the
ability to act on it, which leads to greater business impact.
- AGP 3.0 Tutorial - AGP
3.0 is the third generation of accelerated graphics for the
Intel-compatible computers and will be officially introduced on 11/12/02. In
contrast to AGP 2.0 the AGP 3.0 specification isn't just a derivation of an
existing standard. AGP 3.0 is incompatible to AGP 2.0 - in theory. However,
compatibility can be forced by implementing the "Universal AGP 3.0
Motherboard" standard.
- Ultra High Mode in UT 2003 - If
you look in the
diagram options of Unreal Tournament 2003, then the detail degree "high"
will only encounter as top. The "Ultra High detail" mode, like it the
developers ensure, would be on current cards a call for Choppy-orgies and are
not implemented therefore in the game - not yet. According to Epic´s Mark Rein
the mode will come with a patch delivered subsequently as soon as Nvidia's new
NV30 appears.
- KDE 3.0.4 -
The KDE
project just released KDE 3.0.4 for Mandrake (8.2, 9.0 and Cooker),
Debian, SuSE (7.3, 8.0 and 8.1), Slackware (under the contribution dir) and
TurboLinux.
- Windows Media Player v9.0 Beta Build 2903 - There's
another leaked build of WMP 9.0.
- jv16 PowerTools 1.1.0.148 RC1 -
jv16
PowerTools is the next generation of RegCleaner. A full set of tools to
keep your computer and your LAN up and running. jv16 PowerTools is basicly the
tool to control your computer.
- NeroMIX v1.3.0.39 - NeroMIX
creates or copies anything you throw at it, in the slickest possible way. Just
grab any data and burn it
- mp3PRO Winamp Plugin v1.2 -
Playback mp3PRO files and streams on your Winamp player.
- n.player v0.9.2.000 RC3 -
Freeware n.player is
a versatile media player that plays DVD, audio CDs, MP3, WMA, AVI, DiVX, or
any media with the preisntalled DirectShow decoder. It also supports enhanced
features for playing video and audio.
- Hero Video Convert 1.0 -
Exclusive screensaver technology developed by Herosoft helps you transform
movies into screensavers. It is easily to convert DVD to standard VCD format
and play it in VCD player or to copy the whole disk, paragraphs or files in
DVD to hard disk
- Windows XP Prefetch Clean And Control 1.0.0 -
Free Tool for flushing the Prefetch log and controlling the Prefetch
Parameters.
- SIS IDE drivers 2.02.02 WHQL - Release
2.01.03
WHQL and
2.02.02 package containing the new IDE driver for Win2K and XP plus a
small utility for Win9x enabling DMA and reporting correct HDD model name and
DMA/UDMA speed used.
- Nvidia BIOS Editor v1.0 RC3 Build 322 -
New v1.0 RC3 build 322 release - this program will support all BIOSes from
TNT2 and up to Ti 4600. Except TNT and TNT2 with old version of Control Block
(less than version 3)
- Official SiS AGP 1.11 Chipset Drivers - Seems to be the
first driver to
support AGP8x transfer rate for SIS chipsets. Works with all SiS chipsets
from 630 and higher and might work with all previous SiS AGP chipsets . There
is a newer AGP 1.12 floating around but seems to be more beta (SiS648 ,
SiS645DX , SiS645 , SiS651 , SiS650 , SiS745 , SiS740 , SiS735 , SiS733 ,
SiS635 , SiS633 , SiS730 , SiS630).
- SIS Xabre Drivers 3.06.55 - SIS released new
Xabre
performance drivers 3.06.55 (download).
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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