SECURITY...

• Internet Explorer IFRAME Buffer Overflow Vulnerability - A highly critical vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Internet Explorer and an exploit has already been seen on a public mailing list. According to Secunia, the flaw can be exploited remotely and an attacker could execute arbitrary code on a victim's machine.The flaw is caused by a boundary error in the way IE handles certain attributes in the IFRAME HTML tag.
• Medium Risk Vulnerability in WinRAR - Peter Winter-Smith of NGSSoftware has discovered a medium risk vulnerability within the 'Repair Archive' feature in WinRAR. WinRAR versions 3.40 and older are vulnerable to this issue. This vulnerability has now been fixed by RARLabs in WinRAR version 3.41,and a fix can be downloaded from the official WinRAR website.
• Nintendo's Late 2004 Piracy Crackdown - The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has issued a temporary restraining order against the import and sale of systems containing versions of Nintendo games being sold at various shopping malls. In response to the court order, U.S. marshals will seize the systems at shopping mall kiosks in the western Washington area. Nintendo is also supporting numerous federal criminal investigations and U.S. Customs has seized tens of thousands of the devices upon their entry into the country.
• Anti-Spyware Vendor Takes Heat Over Adware Deal - The presidential election has nothing on the debates in the anti-spyware industry. An announcement last week from adware vendor WhenU and anti-spyware company Aluria Software has raised red flags in the anti-spyware community.
   

OFF-TOPIC...

• FDA Warns on Impotence "Dietary Supplements" - The Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers not to purchase or to consume Actra-Rx or Yilishen, two products promoted and offered for sale on Web sites as ''dietary supplements'' for treating erectile dysfunction and enhancing sexual performance for men. These products in fact contain an active prescription drug ingredient. FDA has also issued an Import Alert instructing FDA field personnel to stop the importation of ''Actra-Rx'' and ''Yilishen.''
• Mice Brains Can Fix Themselves - Researchers have found a way to help the brain replace damaged neurons in mice. The work could lead to therapies for spinal cord injury as well as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. By Kristen Philipkoski.
• Arctic warming at twice global rate - Global warming in the Arctic is happening now, warns the most comprehensive scientific report to date. The reports concludes that the northern ice cap is warming at twice the global rate and that this will lead to serious consequences for the planet. The Arctic will lose 50% to 60% of its ice distribution by 2100, according to the average of five climate models run by the scientists. One of the five models predicts that by 2070, the Artic will be so warm it will no longer have any ice in the summer.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Several Publishers Sued for Infringing 3D Patent - According to a story on GameDaily, law firm McKool Smith is suing several publishers for infringing their patent on a "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Planning", filed in 1988
• PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 to use the same IBM CPU? - It's possible that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 could use what will end up the same IBM CPU. According to insider Alex Albrecht, an unnamed source told him that IBM is selling the same processor to both companies.
• IBM Smart Card OS On A 1MB Smart Card - IBM has ported/developed their Javacard smart card operating system for Sharp's 1MB smart card.
• One Chip MSX1 to be introduced in March 2005 - It seems that the legendary MSX computer system, of which millions were sold on the 1980's, is going to be re-introduced in a compact, low budget form. The Japanese companies ASCII (who, together with Microsoft, introduced the MSX standard in 1982) and MSX Association (the owner of the MSX trademarks and copyrights) demonstrated the One Chip MSX1 at Altera's PLD World 2004.

HARDWARE...

• Intel to cut 915 chipset prices in December - Intel plans to cut prices for its complete lineup of 915 core-logic chipsets on December 26, with the goal of boosting sales of the PCIe-enabled chipsets in the channel, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers. The price cuts will narrow the price differential between the 915G and the 865G integrated graphics chipsets from US$4 to US$2, indicating Intel's efforts to promote PCIe-supporting chipsets, said the sources.
• ATI takes on Via, Nvidia on chipsets - According to TheInqurer, ATI's future chipset will compete with Nforce 4 standard and Ultra and Via's K8T890 chipset. Radeon Xpress 200 G and non G will support all socket Athlon 64/FX and Opteron CPUs, dual channel memory, PCIe 16X + four PCIe 1X slots, PCI slots, eight USB ports, AC 97 audio, four S-ATA drives, two parallel ports and Raid 0 and 1. As you notice, it doesn't have any LAN support even though Nvidia and Via do support this feature.
• Microsoft launches the Project PC - Today, Microsoft launched the first ever PC designed specifically for project managers. The Microsoft Project PC system specifications are as follows: Hoojum Mini Chassis 2 x 17" Iiyama TFT (DVI+Speakers), Intel P4 2.8Ghz CPU - Socket LGA775 2nd Monitor option avaliable, Corsair Value Select 1GB Microsoft IntelliMouse leather feel, 160G Seagate SATA HDD Microsoft internet keyboard, 128Mb XFX PCI-E GF6600 graphics card Microsoft Windows XP Pro, Slot loading DVD + & - writer 4x Microsoft Project 2003 Standard.
• Samsung unveils 128MB mobile phone Sim - The Sim card integrated circuit, which incorporates System-in-Package technology with 128MB Nand flash memory, is designed to satisfy the increasing data storage requirements of next-generation mobile data services.
• NEC's Slick Wi-Fi Projector First Look - NEC's LT265 wireless-ready digital DLP projector has a smooth, egg-shell-white veneer that immediately makes it an attention-getter. I found much to like about this unit, but also a few drawbacks--including an overly complex wireless setup. With the $2495 projector's native XGA (1024 by 768) resolution, text and graphics were crystal clear and sharp. Also impressive was the projector's long list of features: a brightness rating of 2500 lumens; software that lets you control your PC remotely via the projector (or broadcast images from one laptop to multiple projectors); and a USB port that recognizes flash memory drives.
• Corsair 1GByte DDR2 Twin2X Matched Memory review  - Corsair's 1GBye DDR2 Twin2X pack debuts in at a blistering DDR533 speed. Just in case it sounds slow, that's high-end, premium DDR territory. What's more, Corsair is already marketing DDR2 that runs at, wait for it, an effective speed of 667MHz.
• 10 DVD Burners: 16x and Dual-Layer - or Nothing! -The NEC took 6 minutes and 7 seconds for DVD+R and 6:35 for DVD-R (at 12x), which means that it's also very fast working in single-layer. It was also among the fastest units for rewritable. Only its reading performance was disappointing. On the other hand, if dual-layer leaves you cold, the Lite-On SOHW-1633S or the Samsung TS-H522B are excellent choices. They showed very consistent results for reading and for writing.
• MSI RX800 PCI-E card review - MSI, who happens to produce cards based on both competing GPUs, has recently released its RX800 PCI-E card which uses ATI's X800XT chip. It's clocked at a lofty 500MHz has 256MB of GDDR3 memory and features a full 16 pixel pipelines that offer some of the fastest Shader Model 2.0 performance to be found today.
• Crucial Radeon X800 PRO 256MB review - HEXUS.net has posted a review of Crucial's Radeon X800 PRO 256MB video card.
• Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse review -  The MX510 is a lot more comfortable than any mouse I've used to date, but as far as tracking goes it's no different in practice than the cheaper MX310. It just feels a lot more natural. The only downside is the slightly louder clicking of the main two buttons, possibly attributed the fact that it's all one piece that requires bending in order to register as clicks.
• Logitech MX-1000 cordless laser mouse review - Normally, wireless mice have either batteries that you need to replace or static chargeable batteries, both of which leave you guessing as to the state of charge. This mouse however shows the charge that is left in the battery at any given time, which is really useful.
• Samsung SCD 105 Digital Camcorder - The SCD-105 is a sleek looking camcorder that's fairly light and compact. The battery included is a 7.4v 1100mAh Lithium Ion battery pack which will give you about 1.5 hours when using the LCD screen and a total of about 2 hours when only using the eyepiece. It uses mini DV tapes for recording and you can buy either 60 minute or 90 minute cassettes.
• hp iPAQ h6340 Pocket PC review - If you look at the base specs of the h6340, you might become a little concerned. For a start, the CPU that drives it is a Texas Instruments chip running at a very conservative 168MHz. Considering that the last Pocket PC we looked at (the Dell Axim X30) was based on a CPU running at 624MHz, you might worry about the h6340's horse power. However, I can't say that I found the h6340 to be particularly sluggish, and I'd rather have a slower processor with more supporting functionality anyway.
• TechIMO's processor water cooling guide - check it out
• Contemporary LCD Monitor Parameters and Characteristics Explained - This guide is offering you a detailed description of various LCD monitor parameters, which are essential for comparative analysis, as well as the measuring techniques used for each of them. Besides, since the majority of LCD monitor parameters are determined by the type of the matrix the monitor is based on, we will also introduce to you the major four types of contemporary matrices. They are: TN+Film, S-IPS, MVA and PVA.

SOFTWARE...

• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.7.9 - This guide is designed to be performed top to bottom, in sequence since some steps are required to be performed before others. Before using this guide make sure your system meets Microsoft's Official: Windows XP System Requirements. This guide is not designed to be used in combination with other Windows tweaking guides or other Windows tweaking software.
• Part 2 of the Virtual Memory Optimization Guide Rev. 4.0 - Adrian's Rojak Pot has posted Part 2 of his definitive Virtual Memory Optimization Guide Rev. 4.0.
• Spyware Block List File - The best part of this process is that we can pull this off without *any* programs running on your PC, without even having to run a program to install the block list! All you need to down is download the -small- registry file below (Right-Click, choose "Save As...") and then double click it to enter it into the registry and activate the protection.
• Update for Internet Explorer 6 for XP Service Pack 2 (KB885932) - This update addresses an issue when you view a Web page that can render vector graphics on screen in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Internet Explorer may stop responding or crash and you receive an access violation in Vgx.dll.
• Spybot Search and Destroy 1.32b Final - Spybot Search and Destroy searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; that is, little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. Many of these modules also transmit information, including your surfing behavior on the Internet. If it finds such modules, it can remove them. In most cases the host still runs fine after removing the spyware/adware.
• CCleaner 1.15.078 - CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimisation tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space.
• Mp3tag 2.26 Final - Mp3tag can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists, and more.
• FarCry Benchmarking Utility v1.4 - The HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes Far Cry video card benchmarking fast and easy. This new version adds support for the official v1.3 patch.
• Safe XP 1.4.11.1 - Safe XP is a free software to allow users to quickly tweak various security and privacy related settings in XP. The options include Media Player settings, Services settings (error reporting, time synch, remote registry etc.), as well as and option to remove items from the Start menu, network security settings and more.
• ObjectDock 1.05 - ObjectDock is a free program that allows you to have a nice animated launchbar/taskbar on your screen that reacts to your mouse when you mouse over it.
• Tray Helper 4.5 - Tray Helper it's freeware, award winning application with many features (f/e: email checker, auto mail responder, anti-spam, popup-killer, event reminder and more).
• WinRAR 3.41 Final - WinRAR (download version for win32 ~ dos ~ linux) is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

• Logitech QuickCam 8.4.1 build 1092d WHQL - There are drivers for the QuickCam Pro 3000, QuickCam Web, QuickCam Express, QuickCam Home, and QuickCam Pro Cameras.

• Evolution Drivers v1.0 - Radeonthetop has posted a new alternative drivers for Radeon cards. These drivers are based on official Catalyst 4.10. Evolution Drivers are the evolution of the Spirit Drivers, another alternative drivers for Radeon Cards.
• VIA IDE, RAID & SATA Driver Update 4.10a - The drivers of the IDE, RAID & SATA RAID VT8237, VT6410, VT6420 and VT6421 controllers are updated to 4.10a. If you are not sure what South Bridge chip is on your board then please view your manual. The VT6410, VT6420 and VT6421 Serial RAID controllers use the same drivers. You can download the drivers from the link below.