Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:30 AM CEST - Sep,13 2003
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- Limited Office 2003 release set for Monday - Select Microsoft
Corp. customers will get early access to several of the vendor's
new Office System products on Monday, the company said. Volume
buyers who bought Microsoft's Software Assurance maintenance plan and
subscribers to the Microsoft Developer Network service will be able to
download the Office 2003 suite applications, the OneNote note-taking tool and
several other applications starting Sept. 15, Microsoft said in a statement
sent via e-mail. Microsoft originally planned to offer the products online
Oct. 1, but the company said it moved the release forward because customers
are eager to start evaluating the new products.
- Microsoft to Issue Security-Fix Rollup - Microsoft has been
wavering as to its Windows XP service-pack plans. But now it appears that the
Redmond software maker is, indeed, going to issue a service pack prior XP
Service Pack 2, which is expected around the third quarter of next year.
Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows XP consists of 22 previously
released critical and security updates for Windows XP rolled into one
convenient package," say Microsoft on its BetaPlace beta-testing site.
"Installing this item provides you the same results as installing the
individual updates." Rumors of such an interim security rollout have been
circulating for about a month. On an online chat on Blaster, held August 18,
Microsoft officials gave conflicting information as to whether the company
planned such a security rollup.
- How to Steal $65 Billion - What we do know is that
there is somewhere between 250,000 and 750,000 identity theft victims every
year. While many cases are small, the U.S. Secret Service reported in one
year investigating more than 7,000 cases with an average cost to victims and
financial institutions of $217,000 or a total cost of about $1.5 billion. The
American Banking Association reports identity fraud losses to its members of
around $1 billion per year and the credit card companies absorb around $1.5
billion per year in such fraud losses.
- Microsoft goes to Hollywood - This week, the Redmond, Wash.-based
company sent in
its underlying video-compression code for vetting by the Society of Motion
Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE)--a first for Microsoft and a marked
departure from the company's longtime commitment to keeping its technology
proprietary. In doing so, Microsoft is aiming to provide a viable successor to
MPEG-2, a compression standard that is the foundation of satellite, cable,
video-editing systems and DVDs.
- Mandrakesoft plan to sell Ads In v9.2 - Mandrakesoft has
decided to sell ads in the free version of their upcoming 9.2 release.
- Want 50Mb per second? Forget fibre - Finnish company Teleste, a
European supplier of network kit for cable operators, has signed
a
co-operation agreement with the second biggest Dutch cable operator Essent
Kabelcom to develop and deploy a fast IP-based data access technology
called Ethernet to the Home (ETTH). ETTH offers speeds up to 10 Mb/s
data speed to residential customers without the need of active consumer
premise equipment, and up to 50Mb/s symmetrical data connectivity to business
customers.
- USB adds support for streaming devices - The USB Implementers
Forum released on its Web site
the USB Video Device Class Specification Revision 1.0, which is designed
to make it easier for hardware makers, specifically streaming-media makers, to
have their devices plug into and be recognized by personal computers.
- off-topic: Coolest thing in the Universe revealed -
The coolest thing in the Universe is now a cloud of sodium atoms in a
laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Physicists from the MIT-Harvard Centre
for Ultra-Cold atoms have chilled 2500 sodium atoms to within half a billionth
of a degree of absolute zero, the temperature at which atomic oscillation
slows to a standstill.
- off-topic: Bug beat on CD - The bizarre innovation --
an "optical biocomputer" if you must know -- is the brainchild of an
Australian scientist, Cameron Jones, who as well as being a mathematician with
a record of published research also owns a nightclub and bar in Melbourne, New
Scientist reports. Jones' pet area of research is how signals can be
transmitted through biological cells, which grow in a so-called "fractal" way,
like tree branches.
- Sharp to sell 3D laptop -
The Mebius PC-RD3D, billed by Sharp as the world's first 3D laptop, goes
on sale Oct. 27 in Japan and is planned for release later this year in the
United States. The computer display produces 3D images by sending a slightly
different image to the right eye and the left eye at once by bending them in
different angles, according to Sharp. The special screen has applications in
architecture, medicine, science and gaming. The $3,000 (U.S.) laptop switches
back and forth between its 3-D feature and a regular display by a push of a
button. The company hopes to sell 1,000 of the laptops a month, she said.
Sales plans for Europe are still undecided.
- Canon Unveils Colorful Elph - Canon USA has introduced the
PowerShot Digital Elph SD10, a 4-megapixel digital camera that comes in
four art deco/tech colors. The new model is scheduled to ship in mid-October
at a suggested retail price of $449. The camera will be available in a choice
of colors that Canon calls grand piano black, iridescent white, satin bronze
patina, and platinum silver. It measures 3.6 by 1.9 by 0.7 inches and weighs
3.5 ounces. Except for its color scheme, the new model has many of the same
features as other units in Canon's well-regarded Elph line of digicams.
- CineFX (NV30) Inside - I've missed
this article a couple days ago, but it's definitely worth reading. If you
will find the first three pages of the article to be too technical and
complicated, still be sure to have a look at page 4. You will find an easy to
understand performance analysis of the CineFX architecture and a comparison to
the ATi's R3x0 part.
- A Colorful BlackBerry - BlackBerry fans will be happy to
welcome the
RIM BlackBerry 7230 handheld ($400 plus monthly service charges), the
first RIM model with a color display and 900-, 1,800-, and 1,900-MHz tri-band
GSM/GPRS coverage for international use. You can use the 7230 for voice calls,
Internet browsing and enterprise e-mail, and two-way SMS. Rudimentary contact,
task, and scheduling tools keep the 7230 out of the running as a PDA, but
that's the idea: The 7230 is being marketed as a data viewer and a
wide-coverage phone for mobile professionals.
- HP Ipaq H2210/H2215 review -
The H2210 is the first in the 2000 series and marks the end of the Ipaq
3000 family. Based on a new Xscale PXA255 processor and Microsoft's new PDA
operating system, Windows Mobile 2003, HP claims this model offers more power
and longer battery life. But many PDA makers have made similar boasts.
- Gigabyte K8NNXP nForce3 150 Mainboard Review - Powered by nForce3
platform processors,
GA-K8NNXP supports the brand new 8th generation AMD AthlonTM64 processor
to deliver a high performance platform with dual support for 32-bit
applications and increasing 64-bit computing needs.
- Beginners guide to backing up a DVD movie - Welcome to this
beginners
guide to backing up a DVD movie. This is intended for people totally
unfamiliar with the process and will try and not get technical so everything
remains easy to understand.
- MySQL 4.0.15 -
MySQL 4.0.15 (changelog
~
download) has been released.
- NVIDIA Detonator 51.75 Performance Comparison -
AMDMB has published a quick performance comparison of the newly released
51.75 Detonator FX drivers that were sent to the press. From these quick
tests, it is clear that the new release 50 Detonator drivers from NVIDIA
aren't going to offer big performance gains for the current generations of
video games. The purpose of this driver release is twofold: to improve DirectX
9 performance, and to make NVIDIA more competitive against ATI. Whether this
driver accomplishes that in games like Half-Life 2 remains to be seen.
In addition, Guru3D has posted
some Detonator 51.75 & AquaMark 3 Results.
- Complete Audio Converter Lite/Pro 3.1 -
Complete Audio Converter Lite/Pro (download)
is a utility to convert or fast batch convert audio files from one to another
format. The supported audio formats are MP3 (including VBR), WMA, WAV, ADPCM,
GSM, DSP, MP2, PCM (uncompressed Wave), OGG Vorbis, G721, G723, G726, A-LAW,
U-LAW and RAW; you can even make your own formats. All of the format
parameters like frequency, bitrate, channels, etc. can be configured.
- ICQ Pro 2003b Alpha -
The last 2003a version was
released long time ago. Now you can download
an updated "b" release.
- Trillian Pro 2.0 Final -
Trillian Pro 2.0 Final (download)
has now been released to members. They have finally added Jabber support.
- TVTool 8.3 -
TVTool (download)
that enables your video card TV-Output. The TVTool context menu function,
which is one of the most popular features, has been improved significantly in
version 8.3. Now this function has its own tab, which allows the configuration
of 5 movie players. Also the 768x576 mode was added for the SAA7102 and 7108,
and the TV detection can be forced now.
- Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 5.02.1003 (Official) -
The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility installs to the target
system the Windows* INF files that outline to the operating system how the
chipset components will be configured.
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Updated:10:31 PM CEST Jun,20
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