Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 11:24 PM CET - Mar,01 2003
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- Nuclear bunker busters come under scrutiny -
The controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) programme has
been awarded $15 million development funding in 2002, with the same amount
likely in 2003. But a new clause attached to the funding calls for the US
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to investigate what effect any use of the
weapon would have. The RNEP would be designed to plunge 30 metres or more into
the ground before detonating a nuclear warhead. This would make it far more
effective against buried targets, say advocates, who claim that it will
produce less fallout than airburst nuclear weapons.
- China gets a look through Windows - Software giant
Microsoft has agreed to show China's government the underlying source code
for its Windows software in an attempt to assuage official concerns about the
integrity of its computer operating systems. The announcement was made
Friday during a visit to Beijing by company Chairman Bill Gates, who said
Microsoft was intent on providing the "maximum level of cooperation" in
assuring governments of network security.
- ISONEWS Returns After Piracy Crackdown - A public Internet site
that offered information on the underground software piracy scene
was back online Thursday, only days after it was "seized" by the Department of
Justice. Now, the ISONews.com site has reappeared at a new domain,
stolemy.com, registered
to a Tim Dorr. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
- Samsung Shrinks Optical Drives - Samsung Electronics has developed
an
optical disc drive for notebook computers that is 25 percent thinner than
existing drives, and also lighter and more efficient, according to the
company. The new drive, which is now available to notebook PC makers, is .3
inches high compared to .5 inches in most current notebook computer drives.
Samsung said it weighs 5.1 ounces, roughly 35 percent less than most current
drives and also features a power-saving mode that can cut power consumption by
around 20 percent over current drives.
- Casio Unveils Better Cell Phone Security - Casio Computer and Alps
Electric have
developed a small fingerprint scanner built into a short, thin cylinder
for use in cellular telephones and other portable devices. The cylinder, 0.2
inches in diameter and 0.6 inches long, contains a sensor, light, and lens.
When users roll their fingers over the device, it can produce an 8-level
monochrome fingerprint image at 600 dots per inch resolution, the two
companies said in a joint statement. To demonstrate the device, the companies
built it into a prototype cellular telephone handset.
- IDC Finds that Broadband Adoption Will Drive Internet Traffic Growth -
IDC predicts that the volume of Internet traffic generated by end users
worldwide will nearly double annually over the next five years, increasing
from 180 petabits per day in 2002 to 5,175 petabits per day by the end of
2007. To put these figures into perspective, the entire printed collection of
the Library of Congress amounts to only 10 terabytes of information. By 2007,
IDC expects Internet users will access, download, and share the information
equivalent of the entire Library of Congress more than 64,000 times over,
every day.
- NTL customers not 'tech' enough to grasp BB cap - NTL
decided not to inform its customers about its decision to cap its
broadband service because it didn't think they were "'tech' enough to
understand". You can visit
Don't
Pay NTL to find more info about it :) This is kinda old news but that
doesn't matter. (thanks Gary Di Girolamo)
- EU sets jail terms for hackers - Computer hackers and virus
spreaders
could be jailed for five years in serious cases under new laws approved by
European Union justice ministers Friday. The new law seeks to harmonize
existing national rules in the 15-nation European Union, where there are vast
gaps in laws.
- Win2k3 RTM postponed to March 19 - Windows Server 2003 Build 3778,
built last week and originally intended for Escrow and RTM, did not make it. A
small flaw was found and the Microsoft development team together with JDP's
decided to give it all a few more days (builds). Current build to be targeted
for Escrow is build 3780, finished this morning. (thanks
WinXP.Bink.Nu).
- Game Controller Roundup -
The
keyboard is also not the most ergonomic of devices and in games there are
certain positions your hand has to make that aren't really ideal. In a perfect
world it would be nice to have a smaller device which can perform a range of
functions without having to move your hands around much and have all the
buttons easily accessible. This brings me neatly to the reasoning behind this
article, to compare and evaluate 3 controllers that aim to do this from
Belkin, Thrustmaster and Ferraro.
- XFree86 4.3.0 - The latest version of
XFree86,
4.3.0, has been released. The XFree86 Project, Inc is the organization
which produces XFree86t, a freely redistributable open-source implementation
of the X Window System. XFree86 runs primarily on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like
operating systems such as Linux, all of the BSD variants, Sun Solaris x86, Mac
OS X (via Darwin), as well as other platforms like OS/2 and Cygwin.
- UltraEdit 10.00a -
UltraEdit is a text editor with support for unlimited file sizes, a spell
checker, drag and drop, full HEX editing capabilities, user configurable
syntax highlighting, column editing, sorting, and a configurable toolbar.
- Maxon CineBench 2003 -
CINEBENCH
2003 is a free benchmarking tool for Windows and Mac OS based on the
powerful 3D software CINEMA 4D R8. The tool is set to deliver accurate
benchmarks by testing not only a computer's raw processing speed but also all
other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL, multithreading,
multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology.
- TVTool 6.8.4.4 -
A new version
6.8.4.4 of TV Tool (download)
has been released. The tool helps with the TV ouput of Nvidia graphic cards.
The main problem is the black borders around the picture on the TV screen.
They are very annoying for most applications like e.G. DVD-playback.
- Fresh UI 5.40 -
Fresh UI is a fresh
solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of
useful hidden settings this software covers the customizing and optimizing
techniques that you'll be glad to know.
- Nero 5.5.10.15 - Nero
(Mirror1 ~
Mirror2 ~
Mirror3) is a flexible,
reliable, and easy-to-use application designed to write both data and CD audio
to CD-R and CD-RW discs. It supports ISO 9660 images as well as ISO mode 1 and
XA mode 2, and allows for on-the-fly disc recording in addition to overburning
(if supported by hardware).
- PNY's NVIDIA Detonator Drivers 43.00 - The Detonator 43.00 (Win9x/ME
~
Win2k/XP ~
WinNT4) - is a reference driver set that supports all Nvidia cards
to date. It is a multilanguage release, includes a setup routine and is dated
February 13th, 2003.
- Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Drivers - Creative is pleased to
announce the availability
of the latest Sound Blaster Live! Driver update. This update contains
optimized support for Windows 2000 and XP, and is designed for use with all
versions of the Sound Blaster Live!
- Philips Sonic Edge 5.1 / Dynamic Edge 4.1 Drivers - Philips has
released
new
drivers for their Sonic and Dynamic Edge soundcards.
- Matrox drivers 5.88.061 - Matrox released PowerDesk drivers package
version 5.88.061 for Windows 2000/XP for the following graphic cards:
G550, G450 MMS, G450, G400, G200 MMS, G200 MMS with TV Tuner, Millennium G200,
Mystique G200.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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