Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 05:18 PM CET - Mar,08 2003
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- Dawn of the Airborne Laser - The Air Force is readying
the first airborne laser weapon, which could be used to intercept Scud
missiles. Lasers have long been used to cut tile, correct vision, weld with
extreme precision and, yes, point to things on chalkboards; except in Star
Wars or Star Trek, however, no laser has ever been successfully fired in
anger. But when all the components of the ABL are installed in a 747 later
this year, it could become the world's first functional laser weapon-at a time
when the need for such a weapon couldn't be more urgent.
- Dinosaur-Killer" Asteroid Crater Imaged for First Time - A
high-resolution map from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM),
released yesterday, has provided the
most telling visible evidence to date of a 112-mile (180-kilometer) wide,
3,000-foot (900-meter) deep impact crater, the result of a collision with a
giant comet or asteroid on one of Earth's all-time worst days.
- Microsoft speaks, site goes dark - In an uncommonly harsh
application of a widely used Internet enforcement tool, a Windows news site
was taken offline for nearly 24 hours this week
after Microsoft accused the site of infringing its copyrights.
Neowin was shut down late Thursday and came back online Friday afternoon.
Microsoft's Internet investigator sent a takedown notice on Tuesday, alleging
the site was infringing the company's copyrights relating to its recently
released Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Software Development Kit (SDK), apparently
due to a message posted by a reader in an online feedback forum. And here is
some info directly from Neowin: "IF YOU WONDER where your post count has
gone or why half of our hacks on the boards or site are still not working or
even why Neowin has been warped back to Feb 13th you might want to ask Andrew
G. Tereschenko ([email protected]) at TAG Software Research Lab, Odessa,
Ukraine. He seems to be mass mailing websites claiming a personal victory
against Neowin for reporting us for breaking NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)
that we haven't signed. It seems Microsofts contracted Anti-Piracy team did
find something they could email our Server provider for what followed was
icing on the cake for Andrew G. Tereschenko."
- Games anti piracy bot fingers ZX Spectrum archive site - The
Interactive Digital Software Association last month
sent a "Berne Convention - Demand for Immediate Take Down - Notice of
Infringing Activity" to
World of Spectrum,
which is home of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum archive and also describes itself
(maybe carelessly, considering how some phrases set robots' juices going) as
"the largest on-line gaming center on the Internet."
- Intel to boost Xeon chips next week - The Santa Clara, Calif.,
chipmaker is expected to
launch the new chips, running at clock speeds of 3GHz and 3.06GHz, on
Monday. Though they've yet to be officially unveiled, the new Xeon chips first
appeared in workstations in early February.
- Samsung develops ear bud microphone - The device, according to
Samsung, is the first
earbud
headset to contain both a transmitter and a microphone. It picks up the
sound of speaking directly via the user's head, filtering out some 90 percent
of the background noise. The Korea-based manufacturer explained--in
promotional material released ahead of the world's largest ICT show--that
"when we speak, our heads act as natural resonance chambers. That's why, for
example, singers use earplugs: so they can hear their own voice better when on
stage."
- MiTAC unveils Smartphone 2002-based Mio 8380 - Taiwan-based MiTAC
has after a brief flood of rumours now introduced its
Mio
8380 smartphone, based on Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 platform. Joining
HTC and Samsung as manufacturers using this platform, MiTAC delivers the most
fully featured device based on Smartphone 2002 thus far, with the clamshell
8380 sporting tri-band GSM/GPRS, J2ME, MMS, MPEG4 playback and even an
integrated digital camera. As a phone, the GPRS Class B, Class 10-compliant
Mio 8380 supports 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz cellular networks, as well as SMS
and MMS out of the box. Powering the device is a 200 MHz Intel XScale
processor, joined by 16 MB of internal RAM and 32 MB of ROM.
- Mobile phone Java games ported to the GBA - aJile Systems has
developed a way for companies that develop Java Games for mobile phones to
also sell them for use in the Nintendo Game Boy Advance players. aJile's JAMiD
game development kit is also the first platform to use Sun's latest MIDP 2.0
technology, which offers advanced audio and graphics features to Java mobile
game developers.
- Logitech Revelaed New USB Keyboard And Optical Mouse Designed For PS2 -
Logitech today
announced that its USB Keyboard and Optical Mouse designed for the PlayStation
2 computer entertainment system are scheduled to arrive on retail shelves
in the U.S. and at www.logitech.com later this month. The USB Keyboard has a
suggested retail price of $29.95 USD and the Optical Mouse has a suggested
retail price of $19.95 USD.
- Microsoft Promises End to 'DLL hell' -
ZDNet is
reporting that Microsoft is attempting to do away with DLL version
conflicts in its next version of Windows with a technology it calls 'Strong
Binding'. When new programs attempt to overwrite old versions of DLL's, the
Strong Binding will index the DLL's and allow the programs to reference them
by a unique ID, rather than by file name.
- Windows XP Patch: Application Compatability -
This update addresses the "Some Application Compatability Fixes Stop
Working After You Install the 328310 Update" issue in Windows XP. Download now
to update Application Compatability Fixes. For more information about this
issue, read Microsoft Knowledge Base
Article:
814995.
- WinBoost 4.15 -
WinBoost 4 (download)
is a special utility designed to boost Windows XP/2000/Millennium Edition
(ME)/98 Second Edition/98/95 performance and productivity.
- Media Player Classic 6.4.3.1 -
Media Player
Classic (download)
is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to
minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for
capture.
- VCool 2.0 Alpha 1 -
VCool 2.0 will cool
your Athlon/Duron processor on any VIA KT133 or KX133(A) (VT8363, VT8361,
VT82C691/693A/694 or VT8371 +VT82C686x) chipsets during idle.
- ATi's Radeon9800 Tech-demos - ATi Technologies released
two
technical demos (MPEG/EXE format) for their RADEON 9800 graphical card.
Both demos require DirectXR9.0 and latest
CATALYST 3.1 display drivers.
- NVidia releases GeforceFX demo executables - Nvidia official
website has been updated with
some GeForceFX demos (Dawn,
Ogre,
Time Machine, and
Toys)
- check it out.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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