SECURITY...

• MPAA unleashes first wave of piracy lawsuits - The MPAA announced the federal court suits Tuesday, but did not say how many defendants were sued or where the lawsuits were filed. The group also did not immediately make available a copy of the complaint. One lawsuit, obtained by The Associated Press, targets 18 individuals and was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis. The lawsuits seek injunctions against the defendants. The copyright law also provides for penalties of up to $30,000 for each motion picture traded over the Internet, and up to $150,000 if such infringement is shown to be willful.
• Yahoo! Mail Now Using Domain Keys To Fight Spam - In addition to beefing up its storage (100MB -> 250MB), Yahoo! Mail has implemented Domain Keys to find spam. The idea is simple: give email providers a way to verify the domain and integrity of the messages sent.
• Hotmail Founder Takes Aim at Spam - Sabeer Bhatia is a man not short on ideas. The man who extracted $400 million from Microsoft by selling it Hotmail is planning to launch a new venture countering his creation's biggest curse to date--spam. Speaking to an audience of technology entrepreneurs in Sydney last week, Hotmail co-founder Bhatia revealed he will shortly unleash a new product to liberate in-boxes of unsolicited offers of sex, drugs, and scams.
• Flaws in SP2 security features, part II - One of the new security features is the restricted access to raw sockets in SP2. By restricting the ability to send handcrafted packets, Microsoft wants to "limit the ability of malicious code to create distributed denial-of-service attacks and limit the ability to send spoofed packets"  The implementation of those restrictions on raw sockets contains at least one bug which makes them close to useless. They are coupled in some
  mysterious way to the firewall service.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Workers told: computers could blind you  - Scientific research has confirmed that extensive daily use of computers is bad for your eyesight and, in extreme cases, could make users go blind. The results of new research have exposed a worrying trend that points to tens of thousands of people being in danger of developing glaucoma, a progressive eye disease which can lead to serious sight problems. The warning is not good for people who are short-sighted - the investigation by doctors in Japan pinpointed this group as being at the highest risk.
• Weather from Coldest Place on Earth to be Recorded for the First Time - Australia and China are cooperating in a project to install automatic weather stations in Antarctica. One of the stations will be installed at what is believed to be the coldest place on Earth - Dome A - where the temperature plummets to around minus 90 degrees Celsius located around 1200 kms inland from Australia's Davis station on the coast.
• Disney to Make Toy Story 3 Without Pixar - CNN is reporting that Disney has begun the process of setting up a new CGI studio with the goal of making Toy Story 3.
• Rocket plane breaks airspeed record - After a day's delay, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched an experimental rocket-powered airplane that smashed the previous airspeed record, reaching close to 7,000 miles per hour. The rocket plane was carried to its initial altitude of 40,000 feet under the wing of a B-52 bomber, and then released. A rocket carried the plane to its full height of 110,000 feet, where it separated and let the jet operate on its own power. The Mach 10 speed reached by the plane would be fast enough to travel from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles in about half an hour.

TECHNOLOGY...

• XP SP2 still causing costly IT headaches - Four months on from Microsoft's launch of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), network managers are still experiencing "costly headaches and lost productivity" as end users wreak havoc attempting to install the upgrade.
• Gates announces new Windows update tool - During a keynote speech at the company's IT Forum conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Gates outlined Microsoft's ambitious effort to trim the cost of managing corporate data centers, called the Dynamic Systems Initiative. Microsoft also announced systems management-related product updates, including the first public test release of an automatic Windows update service. Microsoft's DSI is a multiyear plan to wring greater productivity out of systems operators, who oversee company networks. With better management tools, administrators can handle more tasks, such as updating server patches, more quickly.
• Hollywood Screenwriter Sues Microsoft Over Unreleased Game - Academy Award-winning screenwriter Roger Avary has sued Microsoft Corp. in California court for stealing his idea for a virtual yoga studio. The two had met several times and Microsoft sought his advice for winning over women to videogames, Avary's attorney said on Tuesday. Avary seeks at least $30 million plus punitive damages and has asked a judge to stop Microsoft and co-defendant ResponDesign Inc., an Oregon game publisher, from selling the yoga game, called "Yourself! Fitness."
• Nokia demos first mobile IPv6 call - Nokia has demonstrated what it claims is the world's first mobile call made over the next-generation IPv6 internet protocol. The call, made using Nokia's CDMA Dual-Stack handset, combined real-time streaming video with a handoff between two CDMA access networks using Mobile IPv6.
• Micron to produce camera phone-use 2-megapixel CMOS sensors -  US-based Micron Technology announced yesterday that its 2-megapixel CMOS image sensors for camera-equipped mobile phones and PDAs have entered the design-in stage. Volume production is expected to start in the second quarter of 2005, the company said. Micron also announced the availabilities of two VGA CMOS image sensors for mobile phones, the MT9V012 and the MT9V112 system-on-chip (SoC). In addition, the company plans to unveil its 5-megapixel CMOS sensor for digital still cameras (DSCs) in the second quarter, according to the company.
• Sony announces new dual laser coupler with Blu-ray and DVD support - Merging their respective engineering strengths in laser diode technologies, Nichia and Sony have successfully co-developed a wholly integrated, dual wavelength laser coupler compatible with red and blue-violet lasers. Mass production of these coupling devices is scheduled to commence by the end of 2005.

HARDWARE...

• Canon PowerShot G6 - As with the other G-series models, Canon has kept the "flip-out and twist" LCD screen which allows you to comfortably take shots at waste height or at ground level, above the heads of people in a crowd or even your self portrait. The latter is possible because the live picture on the screen is flipped over when the screen is twisted around to face you. The G6's LCD is also bigger than the G5's measuring in at two inches in comparison to the G5's 1.8 inch screen.
• Intel 925XE Chipset with 1066FSB Support - TweakTowncompare the performance of the new 1066FSB system against an older 800FSB system with reference 925X motherboard. Is it worth the upgrade in such little time?
• 1000MHz HT Bus on Socket 754 Explored - Viperlair.com has reviewed ABIT KV8 Pro-3rd Eye mainboard. This mainboard is based on VIA K8T800 Pro chipset with support for 1000MHz HyperTransport bus and designed to run AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors in PGA754 package. Having a number of features orientated towards overclockers as well as typical end users this mainboard is a product to consider.
• Nvidia Geforce 6800GT PCI Express 256Meg - Tweaknews.net has posted a review of the Nvidia Geforce 6800GT PCI Express 256Meg Videocard.
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT AGP  - The mid-range market just before the new-year is NVIDIA's, should this AGP variant of 6600 GT make it to market in serious quantity. Priced at L150 in the UK and with 9800 Pro as its only real competition, those looking to upgrade for a new lease of life in Half Life 2, Doom3, NFSU2 et al, for less than L200, have a product to home in on.
• Gigabyte GO-M1600B Multimedia DVD Drive - HardwareZoom takes a look at the Gigabyte GO-M1600B Multimedia DVD Drive
• eDimensional AudioFX Force Feedback Headset- At first glance my impression on the AudioFX was a positive one. The headphones delivered good audio output and the built-in microphone worked well. eDimensional claims the set was built with voice recognition (for games) in mind, they also sell a piece of software called Voice Buddy (think of macros activated by voice); the Mic used on the AudioFX features noise cancellation.
• Half-Life 2 Graphical Performance Evaluation - TheTechLounge testing consists of running each timedemo three times at 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200 with No AA/No AF & 4xAA/8xAF. All in-game graphics were set to Highest. Each result shown in the graphs to follow are an average of three runs at each setting. Let's get to the benchmarks!
• First Half-Life 2 Benchmarks Revealed - These results were provided by ATI Technologies, as they are especially proud of their solutions' performance in this 3D shooter :-D

SOFTWARE...

• Virtual Memory Optimization Guide Rev. 4.0 - FINAL! - This is the final installment from Adrian's Rojak Pot regarding how you (yes you) can optimize your virtual swap file.
• 104 More Tech Tips for Windows XP - This guide brings you 104 ways to make using Windows XP faster, safer and more enjoyable. Combined with our first two tips articles,101 Tech Tips and 99 Performance Tweaks, PCstats now has over 300 of the best tips for Microsoft Windows XP assembled in one place!
• Firefox Extensions - Updated Every 12 Hours - check it out.
• InsaneWare Keyfinder 1.0.1 - The InsaneWare Keyfinder (download) is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. Compatible on systems with NT4, 2000, XP, Office 97, and Office XP.
• MSN Messenger 7.0 Build 425 Beta - Microsoft has released for download an updated version of its MSN Messenger.
• Messenger Plus! 3.40.109 Beta - Messenger Plus! Extension is a program that adds functionalities to the MSN Messenger chat program. Some of the added features are logging, personalized Away Messages, transparency effects, and a feature to minimize all MSN Messenger windows to the system tray.
• ObjectDock 1.05 Build 505 - ObjectDock is a program that allows you to have a nice animated launchbar/taskbar on your screen that reacts to your mouse when you mouse over it. In short, it's a task bar and program launcher that does it with style.
• TMPGEnc 2.524.63.181 - TMPGEnc (download) converts *.AVI file to MPEG1, the format which is used in VideoCD. Using variety of option in TMPGEnc, you can compress your video file in high quality. TMPGEnc enables us adjust bitrate, quantize matrix, GOP structure, Interlace and many other parameter so that you can create most appropriate movie file depends on your purpose.
• DVDAuthorGUI 0.995 - DVDAuthorgui is a very basic win32 frontend for the dvdauthor project. The gui is meant to be an easy means to create a basic DVD.
• nLite 0.99.4 Beta 2 - nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.
• ClamAV 0.80-6 - ClamAV For Windows (download) is a completely free and open source anti-virus software package. Unlike most antivirus products, ClamAV requires no yearly subscription fee, and is completely free with source code to anyone who wishes to use it.
• 3DMark 03 Patch (Build 3.5.0) - FutureMark's Nicklas Renqvist sends word that their 3DMark03 graphics benchmark has been updated to version 3.5.0.
• OPN64 v0.2.0 - The Socket A AMD Processor Identifier - OPN64 is an intelligent program designed specifically to translate the three OPN codes found on, or around the core of AMD processors.
• Pioneer 107 drives Firmware - Firmware updates for the 107 drives have been released and brings firmware to 1.21 on the 107.
• ASUS BIOSes - ASUS released new BIOSes for 
• ATI Radeon DNA-drivers 3.3.4.12b - New DNA drivers have been released. These are modified/hacked ATI Catalyst drivers, use them at your own risk. The drivers have been optimized with two things in mind, better Image Quality and more/stable frames per second when compared to the Beta Catalyst drivers from ATI.
• ForceWare 67.02 Win2000/XP - What a coincidense, on NZONe NVIDAI posted new Beta drivers on the exact day that Half-Life 2 is released !