Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:31 AM CET - Jan,30 2003
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- Scientists Uncover How Brain Perceives Color - Scientists have
discovered
how the brain perceives color in a finding that could one day help people
who have lost their sight. By studying macaque monkeys, researchers at the
University of Texas-Houston Medical School have shown how modules of cells
called "thin stripes" in a particular region of the brain are arranged and
perceive colors.
- FBI Skeptical on Internet Attack Source -
Leading experts on Internet security are skeptical that the FBI and other
investigators will be able to track down whoever was responsible for last
weekend's attack on the Internet. These experts, including many who provide
technical advice to the FBI and other U.S. agencies, said exhaustive reviews
of the blueprints for the attacking software are yielding few clues to its
origin or the author's identity. The likelihood of being able to track down
the specific source of this is very unlikely," said Ken Dunham, an analyst at
iDefense Inc., an online security firm. "We don't have the smoking gun."
- Microsoft eyeing Vivendi unit? - Reports mounted Wednesday
that
Microsoft is negotiating to buy video game assets of financially troubled
French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal. The New York Times, citing
unnamed sources, said the two companies are negotiating a buyout of some
Vivendi game divisions. Investment bank Investec, citing unnamed Vivendi
executives, painted a similar picture in a report released late last week,
saying Microsoft could pay as much as $2 billion for all of Vivendi's
game-related businesses.
- New Nvidia chip neck-and-neck with Radeon - A preview of an
add-in card based on Nvidia's upcoming high-end Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
chip found that, surprisingly,
the chip did not offer a substantial performance gain over rival ATI's
high-end offering, the Radeon 9700 Pro. Radeon 9700 Pro cards have been
available for several months, while Nvidia's offering will not appear until
late February or early March, because of the difficulties of switching to a
new manufacturing process
- Pentium 4 desktop speeds in graphics - By Q4 Intel will be
ready to start making
the
Prescott 90 nanometer which will have 1MB cache and an 800MHz front side
bus. By Q1 of 2004, Intel thinks it can up that to 3.60GHz. In Q4 and Q1 of
next year, therefore, there will be some overlapping between the current,
Northwood core, and the Prescott core, which includes CSA (communications
streaming architecture).
- Intel Develops New XScale Chip For Handhelds - Intel
Wednesday confirmed that has released
a new XScale chip designed to help handheld devices run longer on battery
power. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant said its XScale PXA255
is the latest upgrade of its PXA series. The chips are built for mobile
devices that run intensive applications like MP3 audio decode, MPEG4 video
decode, speech and handwriting recognition, and Java interpretation.
- SiS Xabre II in March? - SiS announced a while back that their
upcoming
GPU called Xabre II (second generation Xabre) would be launched in the 1st
quarter of 2003. Xabre II would fully support AGP8x and use the .13 micron
technology already used with the Xabre 600. The most interesting part is that
the Xabre II would feature support for the pixel and vertex shaders version
2.0 supported by Microsoft's DirectX 9.0 API. Kim said the part will include 8
pixel pipelines, a technology the company is already calling "OctaPipe".
- Top Linux Games - "We're proud to present the results of what might
be the first ever
attempt by Linux gamers to honor their favorite games. In this first
iteration of the Happypenguin Awards, 4417 votes were cast for 281 games and
libraries in 25 different categories. The voting forum was visted 39479 times.
Below are the 25 winners selected by you, the Linux gaming community"
- Windows Media Player 7.1: Patch for Cache Disclosure - Microsoft
has released
a patch that eliminates three security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows
Mediat Player 7.1. One is a Cache Disclosure vulnerability via Windows
Media Player. The second is a Privilege Elevation vulnerability through
Windows Media Device Manager Service. The third is a Media Playback Script
Invocation vulnerability.
- Windows 2000 Patch: "Stop 0x0000006b" or Setup Stops Responding -
This update addresses the ""Stop 0x0000006b" or Setup Stops Responding at
"Setup is Starting Windows" When You Install a Windows XP SP1 Client Image
from a Windows 2000 RIS Server" issue in Windows 2000.
- Messenger Helper 2.00 Build 30124 -
Messenger Helper (download)
is designed to add functionalities to the Instant Chat program from Microsoft
called MSN Messenger. This program is absolutely free to use so give it a try!
- DVD2SVCD v1.1.1 build 1 -
Freeware DVD2SVCD is
a completely automated frontend for converting DVD, PVA and AVI files to SVCD.
- VIA Audio drivers v3.40b - VIA Tech has released
new drivers for the internal AC97 sound in their chipsets i.e. south
bridges VT686A, VT686B, VT8231, VT8233, VT8233A, VT8233C and VT8235.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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