SECURITY...

• Multiple flaws in Mozilla - There are a few conflicts related to the running of Java components at a certain security level. The result is the modification of settings so that the javascript can change all by itself the application and the result can be the computer's destabilization or even the revealing of personal information. Among the nine flaws, three of them are in FireFox, and two of them in Mozilla. One of these bugs is refers to execution scripts of the UI code, assigning incorrect privileges. The scripts from a certain page can overwrite the properties and modes of the DOM components. Mozilla Foundation wont' give any other details until April 25. The other problems rated as non-critical might also compromise your system, like allowed execution of the Javascript and cross-site scripting.
• Vulnerabilities in TCP/IP Allow Remote Code Execution/DoS (exploit code) - Number of networking related vulnerabilities fixed by MS05-019 security update were reported by Microsoft. Those vulnerabilities are: IP Validation, ICMP Connection Reset, ICMP Path MTU, TCP Connection Reset and Spoofed Connection Request. The following exploit code can be used to test the denial of service vulnerability.
• Malware Evolution: January - March 2005 - Kaspersky Lab presents its quarterly report on malware evolution by Alexander Gostev, Senior Virus Analyst. The report addresses questions such as why email worms no longer seem to be causing epidemics, the increase in worms targeting instant messenger applications, what effect the release of SP2 for Windows XP has had on security, and why adware and spyware are the latest buzzwords in the field of IT security.
• U.S. Military's Hackers - The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.
• "Final Fantasy XI" under attack - Square Enix's PlayOnline service has been under a distributed denial-of-service attack since April 9, the company said today. Last Friday, the attacks caused all servers for "Final Fantasy XI" to shut down for approximately three hours. While Square Enix is currently investigating the source of the attacks and attempting to mitigate damages, servers are still being adversely affected at regular intervals.

OFFTOPIC...

• Flying Cars Ready To Take Off - CBS News has an article, images, and a free streaming video clip of Elwood (Woody) Norris' invention of a working flying machine, AirScooter. He asked one of his test pilots to demonstrate it for 60 Minutes on a hilltop outside San Diego, California. It can fly for 2 hours at 55 mph, and go up to 10,000 feet above sea level.
• Near-Earth Asteroid 2004 MN4 Reaches Highest Score To Date On Hazard Scale - A recently rediscovered 400-meter Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is predicted to pass near the Earth on 13 April 2029. The flyby distance is uncertain and an Earth impact cannot yet be ruled out. The odds of impact, presently around 1 in 300, are unusual enough to merit special monitoring by astronomers, but should not be of public concern. These odds are likely to change on a day-to-day basis as new data are received. In all likelihood, the possibility of impact will eventually be eliminated as the asteroid continues to be tracked by astronomers around the world.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Adobe to buy Macromedia - Desktop publishing specialist Adobe Systems is buying multimedia applications maker Macromedia in a $3.4 billion deal geared toward building a software powerhouse.
• Microsoft Windows XP Codenames: "Eiger" and "Monch" - Microsoft is developing 2 new "Server Centric Computing Clients" these clients are based on Windows XP, so these will be "thin" clients for Terminal server purposes.
• Finnish Firm Claims Fake P2P Hash Technology - Finnish company known as Viralg Oy claim to have developed software that can create a junk file with the same hash as a genuine p2p download. This, according to the company, can altogether stop the sharing of copywritten files by flooding p2p networks with corrupt/junk data, which then spreads through the network, causing less and less of the original file to be available.
• Warner Bros. Studios and Microsoft To Release HD-DVD Titles - Today at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, NAB2005, Warner Bros. Studios and Microsoft Corp. announced their plans to collaborate on the release of a broad range of next-generation HD DVD discs using Windows Media Video 9, Microsoft's implementation of VC-1, the proposed Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) standard approved by the DVD Forum for HD DVD. Warner Home Video currently plans to release titles in the fourth quarter of 2005. HD DVD represents the first major push to deliver high-definition content to consumers on optical media in the U.S.
• New services as Skype hits 100 million users - IP telephony firm Skype today claimed that its software has been downloaded by over 100 million computer users. To mark the occasion the company has launched two premium services.
• Toshiba squeezes 3D images onto flat display - Toshiba today claimed an imaging breakthrough with the development of technology that allows 3-D images to be viewed on a flatbed display without the need for special glasses .Viewing the display from an angle allows the viewer to experience 3-D images that appear to stand out several centimetres from the surface of the display.
• New 512MB/1GB MP3 players with FM Tuner from MSI - The Inquirer has information that MSI plans to introduce 2 new MP3 players, of the Mega Stick Series. They will be shipped in two versions, one with 512MB and another with 1GB, both of them featuring an FM Tuner (with 15 FM presets).

HARDWARE... 

• Intel Launches Game-Oriented Duel Core Processors - Intel has officially launched its new Intel Pentium processor Extreme Edition featuring the PC chip company's first duel core processor. This first release is being targeted specifically for PC gaming enthusists.
• Long-range Internet Chip from Intel - Renowned chip manufacturer Intel on Monday launched a chip for a long-range wireless Internet service, WiMAX. The chip is powerful enough to send a signal several miles, Intel claimed. The new Intel chip can be used to receive and transmit a wireless broadband signal. It will also facilitate delivery of broadband Internet access to remote areas not currently served by DSL or cable.
• Seagate announces new notebook drives - Seagate has announced a new line of Momentus hard drives that bring higher capacities and support for NCQ to notebooks. . The Momentus 7200.1 and 5400.2 are available in SATA and with capacities up to 100 and 120GB, respectively. Seagate also announced the Momentus 4200.2, which is available in capacities up to 120GB but is ATA-only and lacks NCQ support
• ATI RS482 and RC410 to arrive in June - ATI will release its RS482 and RC410 next-generation integrated PCI Express (PCIe) chipsets for the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel platforms this June. The company will also debut its new southbridge, the SB450, which will include high-definition audio.The chips will be built using a 0.11-micron process and ATI plans to price them below US$30, the motherboard makers stated.
• Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 with GeForce Go 6800 Ultra - Basically, the Dell Inspiron XPS utilized a desktop Pentium 4 CPU with an Intel 865PE chipset. The Dell Inspiron XPS had the option of either a 128MB ATI Mobility RADEON 9700 or a 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON 9800.
• AMD's Sempron 3300+: 90nm Budget Computing - If you're debating between a Sempron 3100+ and a 3300+, the two often times perform identically to one another. Some applications will favor the Sempron 3100+'s larger L2 cache, while others will favor the higher clock speed of the 3300+. We generally prefer the 3300+, thanks to its cooler running 90nm process, but the two do perform very similarly and are hard to tell apart in real world usage. Compared to Intel's Celeron D, the Sempron continues to be the better buy and overall, the better performer. According to Intel's roadmaps, a 3.2GHz Celeron D is due out soon, but until then, the Sempron manages to hang on to the budget CPU throne.
• Turtle Beach Video Advantage USB - The Video Advantage USB is a pocket sized black box which acts as a go between for your analog video devices and your computer. It sports a multi-pin connector port on one end, which hooks to an A/V cable (with included S-Video support), and a USB 2.0 connector on the other. Its main function, working in conjunction with a software suite installed upon your computer, is to capture the analog video as it plays from your VCR or camcorder and convert the signal to a digital format such as AVI, DV or MPEG.

GUIDES... 

• Choosing a Portable MP3 Player - MP3 players are everywhere! It seems that the number of makes and models in this market is growing daily, with features and capabilities intended to appeal to just about anyone shopping for one of these devices.
• Ultimate Testing of Recordable DVD Media Discs - What are the major criteria for your decision when you shop for blank recordable DVD discs? Is it the brand name of the manufacturer? Or the maximum claimed write speed? Or the price per piece? The chaps over at X-Bit Labs have decided to check out over 40 different discs available in the market today to see how good they are.
• Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide v1.9.3 -  This guide will help you improve your overall system performance. I avoid using or recommending "all-in-one" Windows XP Tweak programs since many blindly adjust settings that have no affect on performance and can cause future problems. Windows Update KB893066 (4/12/05) breaks the old SP2 TCP Slowdown Fix, if you had the old one installed or recently installed KB893066, you will need to download this new one and repatch.

SOFTWARE...

• Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services with Service Pack 1 - Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) 1.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, a security service for Windows Server 2003, is information protection that works with RMS-enabled applications to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use – both online and offline, inside and outside of the firewall.
• Visual Studio Beta 2 released - Visual Studio Beta 2 released, it is available on MSDN subscriber Downloads.
• Apache 2.0.54 - Apache 2.0 (download) offers numerous enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 codebase. The most visible and noteworthy addition is the ability to run Apache in a hybrid thread/process mode on any platform that supports both threads and processes.
• Opera 8.0 final released (Build 7561) - Opera (download final w/o Java / another mirror) is the most full-featured browser on the market. It includes tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, integrated searches, password manager, E-mail program, IRC chat, and much more.
• Anti-Spyware Blocker 4.81 - Anti-Spyware Blocker can detect and eliminate spyware, Trojans, keyloggers, adware programs, browser hijackers, cookies, spybots, trackware, and other malware, even new and unknown ones, on your PC.
• KoolMoves 4.7.1 - KoolMoves (download) is web animation software that creates Flash movies and frames for animated gifs.
• iuVCR 4.9.4.364 - iuVCR is a Windows XP/2000 (Windows 98 and Windows ME also supported but not recommended) intended universal video recording program supporting the new DirectShow standard for multimedia.
• Zoom Player v4.50 beta 4 - This new beta adds two new interesting features. The first being the new Advanced Play List control interface and the second is the Magnetic Hard Docking feature (little magnet buttons on the Play List Editor and Equalizer user interfaces).
• DVDIdle 5.83 - DVDIdle is a unique tool that extends life of DVD-ROM 2-8 times.
• Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.12 - This new version (download / US mirror) added the LightScribe icon to the Nero toolbar and fixed some bugs: Data DVD writing on a DVD-R DL medium was not working in some cases, Nero did not remember renamed ISO9660 Level 2 names, Nero terminated if the path to a source file was too long, Improved the handling for the label creator when the text style did not fit the template.
• NiBiTor v2.1 - This tool allows users to tune and edit the NVIDIA GeForce BIOS. This to gain some extra performance and stability on the NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.
• ATI Tray Tools 1.0.2.600 - ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings.
• SpeedFan 4.23 - SpeedFan (download) monitors temperatures, through available hardware monitor chips which expose their temperature sensors connected to different places inside your computer, and, according to your setup, does its best to keep those temperatures at your desired value.
• Installation Utility 6.3.0.1008 - The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility installs to the target system the Windows* INF files that outline to the operating system how the chipset components will be configured.