Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:46 AM CET - Feb,11 2003
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- Europe plans its own NSA to "boost cyber-security" -
Europe is to get its own NSA - almost. The European Commission today
unveiled plans for a European Network and Information Security Agency, to
"serve as a centre of competence where both Member States and EU Institutions
can seek advice on matters relating to cyber security."
- NASA requests extra Russian spacecraft to service space station -
The U S space agency
NASA today asked Russia to build an extra unmanned cargo ship to service
the International Space Station (ISS) after the Columbia shuttle disaster, a
senior official said in Moscow. The supply vehicle costs 700 million roubles
(around 22 million dollars) to build and launch, according to Rosaviakosmos.
It will supplement three Progress missions scheduled for this year.
- Microsoft moves ahead on Xdocs - Microsoft on Monday
plans to unveil more details on XDocs, its controversial electronic forms
software.
The software giant is set to announce at a conference in San Diego that XDocs
will officially be called InfoPath. Last year, Microsoft unveiled XDocs
as a planned addition to Office 11, the forthcoming update to the company's
market-dominating, cash-cow productivity suite. Office 11 will rely heavily on
Extensible Markup Language (XML), the lingua franca of Web services, to record
and display data more flexibly.
- Motorola reveals networking chips -
Motorola announced two new additions to its roster of processors for the
networking and telecommunications industry that consume less power at faster
clock speeds than previous generations of Motorola processors, the company
said Monday. The MPC7457 and MPC7447 use the PowerPC instruction set,
first developed by IBM. The two chips are available at clock speeds up to
1.3GHz, an improvement over the older 7455 chips that ran at 1GHz, said Glenn
Beck, marketing manager for the computing products systems division of
Motorola Semiconductor.
- Fuel cells design to replace batteries - A start-up company says it
has developed
a way to
make fuel cells out of silicon, a change that potentially could increase
the performance of cells and make them easier to manufacture. As
far-fetched as it might sound, fuel cells for cell phones or notebooks will
likely emerge in the market next year and grow in popularity. Unlike
microprocessors, hard drives or memory, batteries are not continuing to
improve at a rapid, predictable rate. This is forcing tech companies to seek
alternatives or products that will complement batteries.
- CDMA2000 reaches 30 million users -
The
CDMA Development Group (CDG) today reported that the CDMA2000 subscriber
base surpassed 30 million in January 2003, after having seen major expansion
of the technology throughout 2002 when 27 operators launched CDMA2000
networks, increasing the number of commercial systems to 37 on five
continents. In addition, three operators took advantage of 2002 to
introduce CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, capable of delivering data at rates of up to 2.4
Mbps, early. In comparison with CDMA2000 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO is over 16 times as
fast as the 144 Kbps theoretical throughput of 1xRTT networks
- LG VX4400 is 4th Get It Now color phone -
Color
is key with the VX4400, which offers a 16-bit STN color internal LCD
display, blue backlit keypad and LG's signature color-personalized caller ID
with up to 10 different colors. Using color-personalized caller IDs, VX4400
users will be able to choose which color they would like to assign to
different contacts, such as red for a spouse, blue for friends and green for
co-workers.
- AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Released - AMD today introduced the
AMD Athlon XP processor 3000+ - the world's highest performing desktop PC
processor. Featuring increased cache memory for greater performance, the AMD
Athlon XP processor 3000+ outperforms competing desktop PC processors by up to
17 percent on a variety of industry standard software benchmarks. The AMD
Athlon XP processor 3000+ features 640KB of total on-chip cache memory - an
increase of nearly 70 percent over previous AMD Athlon XP processors and the
highest amount of on-chip cache memory of any desktop PC processor. The AMD
Athlon XP processor 3000+ is priced at $588 in 1,000-unit quantities.
- AMD Athlon XP Processor 3000+ Reviews -
Tom'sHardware |
HardOCP
| X-bit
labs |
AnandTech |
Hexus
|
TechReport |
Ace's Hardware |
SimHQ |
DeviantPC |
Sudhian
|
HotHW ~ "The model number of AMD's new top model seems pretty
aggressive - the Athlon XP 3000+. Even in comparison to the `old' Athlon XP
2800+, based on the T-Bred core, this new top dog is often left behind (10 out
of 18 tests). Overclockers may be in for a treat, but what about the average
user and AMD enthusiast?"
- The 12" Powerbook Review -
The
12" Powerbook is a slick machine. It is really a beautifully constructed
computer. It gives the feeling that is more natural and more solid than the
iBook or the plastic PC laptops. The Apple logo on the back of the LCD screen
is lit by the LCD's backlight and it looks at least cool, especially at night.
- Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual III Review -
The Minolta DiMage Scan Dual III ($299 list) is an inexpensive,
easy-to-use film scanner. Despite its no-frills construction, the Scan Dual
III offers enough goodies to delight neophytes and serious film aficionados,
while producing very good scans.
- TweakHounds Super XP Tweaking Guide Updated - TweakHound has
released their Super XP Tweaking Guide -
check it out!
- WinXP Tweaking: From Relax to Righteous - This highly anticipated
second XP guide picks up where the first one left off by bringing together
a range of XP tips and tweaks which address commonly encountered problems,
provide visual enhancement and customization, and all the little niceties and
shortcuts which make XP quicker and easier to use. This guide applies to
Windows XP Home and Professional, and is compatible with XP SP1 (or SP1a).
- 3DMark on Tuesday evening - Matthias sent us some news to the
specific graphics-benchmarks, which will be integrated in
3DMark2003 (~181 MB),
which is supposed to be released on Tuesday. Again there will be four single
tests, based und different DirecX-Versions. There will be one DX 7, two DX 8
an one DX 9 tests included, to ensure reliable test even for older cards. The
first one is called "Wings of Fury", simulating a kind of airbattle, the
second one is showing a battle between spaceships and is called "Battle of
Proxycon". The second DX 8 test "Troll´s Lair" is showing a scene of a
role-game. Last but not least there will be the successor of the known
"Nature" test which is called "Mother Nature" and is definitively gonna stress
your whole machine :-). (Thanks Matthias)
- kX Project Drivers 5.00.3529 Alpha -
The kX Audio
Driver is an independent WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver for all EMU10K1
and EMU10K2-based soundcards manufactured by Creative Technology Ltd. and/or
E-mu Sytems Inc., including the SoundBlaster Live! series, the E-mu Audio
Production Studio (APS) card, and the Audigy series of cards.
- CPUCooL 7.1.9 -
CPUCooL (download)
is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed, and voltages for many
motherboards.
- Coding Workshop Ringtone Convertor 4.0.1 -
The Ringtone Converter (download)
is a software program for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac systems that
allows you to add new ringtones to your mobile phone without the need for
cables or expensive premium rate SMS services.
- IE++ 2.1 beta 1 - IE++
is a set of additional functions for Internet Explorer which improve the
usability of your browser and make your web-surfing more comfortable. It is
integrated into the browser as toolbar. Try IE++ if you want to use native
Internet Explorer, but need of extra features.
- ATI Catalyst Drivers v3.1 - ATI today posted another CATALYST
update as
CATALYST version 3.1 (download
page ~ direct link for
WinXP/2k,
Win9x/ME) This time the unified driver gets updated with even more
features, performance and stability. CATALYST drivers are still the only
DirectX9 fully compatible and certified 3D acceleration drivers out there.
- 3DFX drivers version 1.09 beta 9 -
This new beta
contains some fixes for Glide and OpenGL issues encountered by some users.
- Creative Labs Drivers Mania - Creative
have released
some new drivers: Creative Surround Mixer version 3.00.57, Audigy 2
DriverPack WDM Drivers AUD2DRVL11030205, Creative Speaker Settings version
1.00.56, Creative DVD-Audio Player version 1.00.60, and Creative MediaSource
version 1.00.57.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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