Sunday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:50 PM CET - Dec,28 2003
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- Scam Targets Visa Customers - Security experts are warning of
a new Internet scam that preys on Visa credit card holders, using e-mail
and a specially designed Web site to harvest customer account numbers and
personal identification numbers. The ruse is the latest example of "phisher"
scams and comes as one e-mail security company reports a jump in such scams.
Such hoaxes typically use decoy Web pages and spam e-mail messages to trick
unsuspecting users into divulging sensitive information.
- In chasing movie pirates, Hollywood treads lightly - When Tim Davis
got caught trading songs, it made him semifamous. Davis, an artist who teaches
photography at Yale, was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America
last September and was featured in news articles around the world. Since
then,
he has made his plight a public cause to help recoup the $10,000 he spent on
his legal defense and to settle the lawsuit. He sold "Free Timmy" T-shirts
and held a fund-raising party at his studio. Visitors to his Web site,
davistim.com, can leave a donation in an online "tip jar." The lawsuit, he
said, is "an insane kind of disproportionate response" to his musical sins.
- Microsoft aims to make spammers pay - "The basic idea is that we
are trying to shift the equation to make it possible
and necessary for a sender to 'pay' for e-mail," explained Ted Wobber of
the Microsoft Research group (MSR). The payment is not made in the currency of
money, but in the memory and the computer power required to work out
cryptographic puzzles. "For any piece of e-mail I send, it will take a small
amount computing power of about 10 to 20 seconds."
- Saudi Arrests Five After Seizing Bomb-Making CDs - Saudi
authorities, facing a wave of militant attacks, have arrested five people
after raiding computer
shops selling compact disks containing hidden bomb-making instructions, a
local newspaper reported on Thursday. Police were questioning four owners of
computer shops in the southern Jazan region and a fifth person believed to
have supplied the CDs to the shops, Al-Watan newspaper said. Officials were
not immediately available for comment. The daily said some of the shop owners
might not have known about the bomb-making tutorial files hidden on the CDs.
- Domain Names Once Again Fetch Top Dollar - One more sign the
technology sector is rebounding: An Internet domain name is again commanding
seven figures. Last week, a Florida man
sold men.com for $1.3 million, a healthy profit over the $15,000 he paid
for it in 1997. The buyers, largely entertainment industry folks who have
opted to remain anonymous behind the acquiring company, men.com LLC, want to
create a portal for men.
- Largan Precision to produce 1.3-megapixel mobile phone camera lenses -
Largan Precision, one of Taiwan’s top three makers of optical lenses, has
received orders for lenses for 1.3-megapixel mobile phone cameras and will
begin production in early 2004, according to company president Scot Y Lin.
- Intel Confirms and Denies x86-64 Processors - The worlds No.1
chipmaker this week
reportedly confirmed existence of its own 64-bit x86 microprocessor, but then
denied the reality of any Intel's x86-64 CPU, when asked for
clarification. Investor's Business Daily on Wednesday published an article
quoting Intel public relations' officers saying that the Santa Clara,
California-based chipmaker has a working prototype of a 64-bit x86 design that
it could bring to market "when customers request it." When asked for
clarification, an Intel’s spokespersons said: "the Intel PR person was
misquoted... So we have not confirmed a CPU or prototype or whatever IBD
claimed." "The report is an error. Intel has not confirmed or commented on the
existence of an x86 64-bit CPU," another one official from Intel commented.
This is not the first indication of a 64-bit x86 design from Intel, though,
this time all information comes from Intel's official PR people, not analysts
or sources close to the company.
- Gigabyte intros ATI-based Pentium 4 board - Taiwanese mobo firm
Gigabyte said yesterday it has released the Pentium 4-based Titan 8TRS300M.
The board
uses the ATI RS300 integrated graphics chipset, and includes support for
800MHz front side buses, hypethreading and DDR 400.
- ATI PCI-Express Photo - Bi-Tech have posted
the first photos for ATI's Radeon 9600 showing of the new PCI-Express bus.
- Dell Inspiron 8600 review -
The Insipron 8600 is based on Intel's Centrino platform, which means that
under the bonnet you'll find a Pentium M processor, the Intel 855PM chipset
and Intel 802.11b wireless networking. The Pentium-M processor in this review
model is the 1.7GHz version, but the Inspiron 8600 is available with
processors from 1.4GHz up.
- PSX Review - A couple days ago, Lik-Sang has posted
a review of
the new PSX, a high-end electronics device designed to run PS2 and
PlayStation games, connect to broadband and record both DVDs and television.
The unit is also be capable of receiving analogue television broadcasts to an
included TV tuner. Two versions were released on Saturday the 13th December in
Japan, one with 160GB hard drive (PSX DESR-5000), and one with 250GB hard
drive (PSX DESR-7000).
- Eumax 5-in-1 MP3 Player -
The Eumax
5-in-1 Player is compact and has dimensions of 2.25" (W) x 2.25" (L) x
0.75" (D). The unit has 128 MB of built in memory so you can store around
38-40 songs.(depends on size of the mp3). The unit supports MP3/WMA Digital
music format playback. Transfer to the unit is fast thanks to the convenient
USB 2.0 interface.
- Albatron’s GeForceFX 5950 Ultra -
The GeForceFX 5950 Ultra now utilizes a 475MHz core frequency, which is
exactly 25MHz faster than its predecessor, the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra. Similar
frequency alterations have been made to the memory, boosting it from the
425MHz (850MHz DDR) speed of the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra, to 475MHz (950MHz DDR)
for the GeForceFX 5950 Ultra. These high numbers give the GeForceFX 5950 Ultra
an impressive memory bandwidth of 30GB/s. This is almost 3GB/s more than the
GeForceFX 5900 Ultra.
- ASUS Radeon 9600XT/TVD 128MB review - Hexus let us know they have
posted
a review of ASUS Radeon 9600XT/TVD 128MB.
- OCZ EL DDR PC-3700 Gold Edition Dual Channel Rev.2 review - OCZ
delivers
an impressive dual memory set with their PC3700 Gold series. This memory
can handle tight timings at ~200Mhz speeds, while at the same time it will
soar higher then its rated speed, reaching 250Mhz (PC4000) at good timings.
This memory will allow you to find the sweet spot for your P4 system. The
added advantage of being able to use 2.9v on these sticks while still keeping
your lifetime warranty make this memory set a very interesting deal for those
seeking to increase their memory bandwidth.
- SilverStone B032FW Enclosure -
If you’re wanting an aluminum enclosure that won't make you look like a
total newb at your next LAN event, or even if you just want to make your home
system more stylish, there are several options. If you want all this plus
expensive features AND an affordable price, the number of choices become few.
At the top of that small list I would place SilverStone. With a tool-free
design and features you don’t normally see on lower-priced enclosures, you
just can't go wrong.
- Logitech Cordless MX Duo - TheTechLounge has posted a quite
positive
review of Logitech Cordless MX Duo.
- Preventing Data Theft from a Stolen Laptop - In this article,
PCStats take a look at methods to reduce the risk. First, they cover
physical security methods that can help prevent laptop theft in the first
place, then they go step-by-step through some essential data securing
techniques that can drastically reduce the chance of your data being stolen
along with your laptop if the worst does happen.
- The MOSFET Heat Sink Guide - In voltage regulators with fewer
phases, the MOSFETs can get very hot, especially when the voltage regulator
needs to supply a lot of power to the processor. Hence,
the use of heat sinks on such MOSFETs.
- CuteFTP Pro 3.3 Build 12.22.2003 (expensive SHW) -
CuteFTP Pro
integrates state-of-the-art security standards including SSL via FTP and HTTP,
SSH2 and advanced S/KEY password encryption to ensure that confidential
business data stays that way. You can maximize bandwidth throughput, download
from multiple sites while uploading or browsing, automatically update Web
content and customize data management processes all in one cost-effective
application. Since CuteFTP costs a lot of money, I recommend you to try
WinSCP (download
English version 3.4.2) which is free.
- AVG Free Edition 6.0 Build 556 - A free registration is required to
run AVG. You will be emailed a registration code and can not install it
without it.
The
installer does provide a link during installation to get your code.
- Avant Browser 8.02 Build 210 -
Avant Browser (download)
is an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable,
user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser.
- Zoom Player Standard (Beta) 3.30 RC1 -
Zoom Player (download
~
changelog) is a robust Media and DVD Front-End Player.
Jet-Audio 6.0.0.3224 -
Jet-Audio (download)
features an impressive home audio system interface, including independent A/V
components for Digital Signal Processor, Audio CD Player, Digital Audio (MP3,
RA, etc.), MIDI (MID, MOD etc.), and Digital Video (AVI, MPG, MOV, etc.),
along with a Mixer and a Remote Controller.
TVTool 9.5.5.3 (SHW) -
TVTool (download)
is a control center for the TV output of nVidia graphics cards. With this tool
it is possible to adapt the TV output perfectly to your needs and to control
the TV mode in a comfortable way. TVTool accesses the hardware directly and is
able to offer a significant greater functionality and picture quality than
most standard graphics card driver.
Safe XP 1.03.12.27 -
Safe XP improves your system performance and makes Windows to run faster,
more secure and more stable.
OPN-462 v0.8.20 - The Socket A AMD Processor Identifier -
OPN-462 (download)
is an intelligent program designed specifically to translate the three codes
found on, or around the core of all Socket-A, AMD CPU's.
DVD Decrypter 3.1.8.0 -
DVD Decrypter (download)
allows you to copy the whole contents of your DVDs to harddisk circumventing
the CSS protection.
XviD-1.0-Beta3 - A new beta Xvid is available for download
from the official
website (changelog
~
download). This new beta fixes a couple of bugs, supports display aspect
ratio settings, contains some SSE2 optimizations and is generally quite a bit
faster.
NEC1300 modified firmware - Herrie and BronKowTech45 have released
a
modified firmware for the NEC1300 DVD burner (download).
Beside the usual "region free", the patch also allows changing the booktype
setting.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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