• Microsoft Revises Anti-Spam Standard -  Microsoft on Monday said it had revised its proposal to weed out "spam" e-mail to win over skeptical Internet engineers who have been reluctant to adopt technology owned by the dominant software company. Microsoft officials said they have revised their SenderID protocol to work better with an existing standard and have narrowed their patent application to make sure it does not cover other proposals.
• Fake RedHat - Fedora Security Patch / Trojan Source Code & Analysis - Emails that pretend to come from the Red Hat Security Team are circulating in the wild. These emails tell users to download and install malicious updates. These trojan updates contain malicious code designed to compromise the systems they are run on.
• EBay virus "start of worrying trend" - Security experts have intercepted a virus which claims to have been sent from eBay.com and uses a packer previously unseen in email virus distribution. The use of the uncommon packer in the W32/Myfip virus could make it more difficult for antivirus software vendors to identify and protect against the malicious code within, signalling "the start of a worrying trend", MessageLabs warned today.
• Cisco adds scrambler to IP telephony - Cisco is beefing up the security of IP telephony kit with an upgrade to its software available from today. A new version of the network giant's IP PBX software, Cisco CallManager 4.1, comes with new enhanced encryption facilities, including Voice over Virtual Private Network (V3PN) functionality. Encryption features had previously only been available on Cisco's high-end phones - such as the 7960G - but the vendor is now making the technology more mainstream. The majority (2.5m out of 3.5m) of the IP phones Cisco has shipped thus far will be able to use the enhanced scrambling technology after users upgrade their software.
• Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA? - Over at ZDNet Declan McCullagh asks, "Would John Kerry defang the DMCA?" Kerry's response: "open to examining" whether to change current law "to ensure that a person who lawfully obtains or receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes". It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is"
• U.S. moves closer to e-passports - The State Department plans to produce more than 1 million e-passports by the end of 2005 and, by 2006, it expects all new passports to feature the special microchips, according to Angela Aggeler, a spokeswoman for the agency’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft's Worst Nightmare - Blake Ross is lounging at his parents' Florida Keys condo, thinking ahead to his first day back at Stanford. His goal for his sophomore year: nothing less than to "take back the Web" from Microsoft.You might think the shy 19-year-old is outmatched. Think again. Ross, a software prodigy who interned at Netscape at age 14, is the lead architect behind Mozilla's Firefox -- a revolutionary new browser that's catching on the way Mosaic did in 1993. In beta for the past four months, Firefox version 1.0 is set to be released in November. With that, Ross will issue the first truly formidable challenge to Internet Explorer that the world has seen in seven years. "We're hoping for 10 million downloads in 10 days," Ross says proudly.
• Peeping Tom filter lets phones see through bikinis - A developer in Tokyo has created an add-on for Vodafone handsets that's meant to be used as a night filter to let people take pictures with their phones in the dark. Unfortunately, the night vision camera has an unexpected side effect, according to Japanese developer Yamada Denshi. In the right circumstances, it allows users to see a lot more than they bargained for. As well as taking snaps in the dark, the Yamada Denshi infrared filter apparently sees through people's clothes. The problem arises because the filter uses the distribution of heat to create its pictures. When attached to a high-end camera, the filter can see though certain kinds of clothing and is reportedly particularly effective on dark bikinis
• [R.I.P.] - Xbox writer, web founder taken off life support - Short Media said that Keith "Mortin" Whitsitt was taken off life support in a Gainesville Florida hospital. He had suffered massive brain damage following a gunshot wound, the site said. Keith started website Icrontic.com and wrote many articles about the Xbox.
• UF scientist: "Brain" in a dish acts as autopilot, living computer - University of Florida scientist has grown a living "brain" that can fly a simulated plane, giving scientists a novel way to observe how brain cells function as a network. The "brain" -- a collection of 25,000 living neurons, or nerve cells, taken from a rat's brain and cultured inside a glass dish -- gives scientists a unique real-time window into the brain at the cellular level. By watching the brain cells interact, scientists hope to understand what causes neural disorders such as epilepsy and to determine noninvasive ways to intervene. As living computers, they may someday be used to fly small unmanned airplanes or handle tasks that are dangerous for humans, such as search-and-rescue missions or bomb damage assessments.
• Adobe, Yahoo to Integrate Products - Adobe and Yahoo on Monday said they have signed a deal to combine Adobe services, like its widely used document-sharing program, with Yahoo's Web search functions. The joint product allows a user to search for information in Adobe Portable Document Format, or PDF, documents -- the primary standard for sharing electronic files -- posted on the Web.
• Intel Prepares for the Next 20 Years -  Intel is drawing the curtain on some of its future research projects to continue making transistors smaller, faster, and less power-hungry out as far as 2020. In a recent briefing for reporters and analysts at the company's headquarters here, Intel researchers discussed exotic materials such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires as well as novel techniques to take the transistor down to the atomic level.
• Low-power screens boost notebook battery life - The Mobile PC Extended Battery Life Working Group (EBL-WG) today claimed to have reached "a major milestone" in its initiative to promote low-power display panel technology. According to the group, more than six million low-power 12.1/14.1/15.0 XGA display panels with a power consumption of 3 Watts or less will ship globally in 2004. It said these units accounted for about 12 per cent of total estimated global notebook shipments.

HARDWARE...

• Sony launches music players with MP3 support - As expected, the company announced the release in Europe of two flash-memory-based devices, the Walkman NW-E99 and NW-E95, which can natively play songs in MP3 and Sony's own Atrac file format. The move, discussed by the company on Monday, diverges from its previous position of not supporting MP3 because of its lack of security measures and susceptibility to easy file sharing.
• Sony Ericsson introduces new quad-band EDGE/Wi-Fi PC card - The GC89 PC Card combines global EDGE coverage with the WiFi technology in a single card which is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh computers. The GC89 card delivers connectivity through EDGE, GPRS, CSD, SMS over the GSM 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 bands world-wide. And, for those areas covered by wireless local networks (homes, offices, and hotspot locations such as airport lounges, coffee shops and hotels) the GC89 provides 802.11b and g connectivity with speed potential in excess of 50 Megabits per second.
• AMD's Personal Internet Communicator revealed - The folks at AMDboard.com have a news and info roundup on AMD's Personal Internet Communicator, complete with pictures of the device. The computer is about the size of a tissue box and runs on a 366 MHz AMD Geode GX 500 processor that uses 1 watt of power.
• Alienware debuts gaming system with NVIDIA SLI - Alienware is taking orders for Area-51 ALX gaming systems featuring NVIDIA SLI technology. The water-cooled systems are decked out with dual GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics cards, but saddled with Nocona-core Xeon processors. With an estimated shipping date of December 1, ALX systems could be the first commercially-available NVIDIA SLI platforms. However, with nForce4 SLI on the way and the Athlon 64 trashing the Pentium 4 in games, more appropriate and affordable SLI platforms may be available before long.
• Nvidia reacts to lack of Nforce4 Soundstorm - TheInquirer has managed to get an official response from top Nvidia chipset man Drew Henry about the lack of support for Sound Storm in its forthcoming Nforce 4 chipsets.
• NV41 to quietly replace 6800 standard - From the beginning, Nvidia wanted to make some kind of cheaper to produce 6800 standard card and that's what NV41 is all about. There is a slight change of interface as NV41 is PCI Express. It will use exactly the same clock speeds as the 6800 Standard AGP card. NV41 based cards will be branded as Geforce 6800 PCIe and will come as PCIe cards only.
• ATI Radeon X700 XT / PRO review - Ostensibly Radeon X700 is designed as a mainstream part, with the remit of bringing last years high end performance to mainstream prices, however rather than just taking onboard a Radeon 9800 configuration, X700 has only a 128-bit memory bus, 8 fragment / pixel pipelines, and 6 vertex shaders. In this review we take a closer look at the architecture, and put both a reference ATI X700 XT platform and a retail Sapphire Hybrid X700 PRO board to the test.
• GALAXY GeForce 6600 256MB review -  GALAXY's card comes in at the upper end of that scale, thanks to a healthy 256MB of onboard RAM. Looking at Hexus.net's benchmark numbers that include a few older titles, it's apparent that NV43 performance makes looking at previous generation's midrange cards.. What's more, GALAXY's PCI-Express 6600 card doesn't require auxillary power and the GPU's fan is pretty damn quiet, although a few sacrifices have to be made for the cheaper NV43 part, as there's no SLI capability and a distinct lack of memory bandwidth from the 128-bit interface."
• BenQ DW1620 16x DVD+-RW Double Layer Writer review - Not to be confused with the DW1610, the new DW1620 offers the same capabilities but adds support for double layer writing. While not a 4x double layer writer, this drive is set to compete against the Lite-On SOHW-1633s and LG GSA-4160B.
• Water Cooler Roundup - To help you make the plunge, TrustedReviews have decided to take a closer look at three different approaches to water-cooling, each theoretically suited to a different level of experience.

SOFTWARE...

• Multilingual User Interface Packs for WMP 10 - Windows Media Player Multilingual User Interface Packs are available for download for 25 non-English language versions of Windows XP. Individual language versions of the User Interface Packs are available for download, and users are able to choose the specific target language version of the language that they want to enable.
• Coding Workshop Polyphonic Wizard 3.7.1 - The Coding Workshop Polyphonic Wizard (download) is a software program for your PC that allows you to add new ringtones and pictures to your polyphonic phone without the need for cables or sms (text) services. All you need is your phone and this software to add new polyphonic ringtones! All the technical details are taken care of. All you need to do is pick a midi file, use the trim tool to select the part you want, then send it to your phone.
• Coding Workshop Ringtone Convertor 5.2.3  - The Ringtone Converter (download) is a software program for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac systems that allows you to add new ringtones to your mobile phone without the need for cables or expensive premium rate SMS services. The Ringtone Converter supports most makes and models of phone including Audiovox, Alcatel, Ericsson, HTC, Kyocera, Motorola, Nokia, NEC, Panasonic, Philips, Sagem, Samsung, Sony, Sendo, Sharp and Siemens handsets, with more added every month.
• MAME v0.88 -  MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and currently runs 1800+ classic (and even some not so classic) arcade games.
• Maxthon Combo 1.1.050 -  Maxthon (formerly MyIE2) (download)  is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features like Tabbed Browsing Interface; Mouse Gestures; Super Drag&Drop; Privacy Protection; AD Hunter; Google Bar Support; External Utility Bar; and Skinning.
• CloneCD v5.0.4.2 - SlySoft has released an update of their CloneCD (download) software. According to the changelog this update fixes a problem with the Plextor DVD recorders.
• XP-AntiSpy 3.92 - XP-AntiSpy (download) is a small program that let's you disable some built-in update and authetication features in Windows XP. This new version adds Profile/Userdefined profiles, online help, connection limit now works on build 2505 and build 1208 of the tcpip.sys files, and much more.
• Nero 6 Reloaded 6.6.0.1 - Nero (download ~ mirror1, mirror2) 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). There's also a new Nero Media Player v1.4.0.25, Nero Vision Express 3.0.1.4, and NeroMIX 1.4.0.25.
• NVIDIA Forceware 70.41 Beta - Techconnect Magazine let us know they have a new Forceware 70.41 beta driver online. This one comes from a test at OSNN and features new improvements and other enhanced thing.
• ATI Optimized Driver v1.6a - These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers based on the offical Catalyst 4.11beta (8.07b2). The drivers have been optimized with two things in mind, better Image Quality and more/stable frames per second when compared to the official Catalyst drivers from ATI.