SECURITY...

• [MS patch] Vulnerability in Web View Could Allow Remote Code Execution - This update resolves a newly-discovered, public vulnerability. A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that Web View in Windows Explorer handles certain HTML characters in preview fields. By persuading a user to preview a malicious file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the logged on user.
• [MS patch] Default Setting in Windows Media Player Digital Rights Management Could Allow a User to Open a Web Page Without Requesting Permission - This issue does not automatically cause malicious software to run on a user's computer. However, as a result of the malicious attacker's actions, users may be persuaded to install malicious software if they are redirected to a malicious web page when acquiring a license. An update to the Windows Media Player is available that allows users to modify the functionality involving automatic license acquisition in order to help prevent such attacks.
• Mozilla Firefox Arbitrary Code Execution (Exploit) - This proof of concept involve exploiting two flaws: 1) Tricking Firefox into thinking a software installation is being triggered by a whitelisted site, using history stored trusted URL. 2) Software installation trigger not sufficiently checking image URLs containing JavaScript code. More details can be found here.
• Cisco: Dude, who stole my IOS? - Cisco Systems has recently announced the Swedish authorities have detained a person accused of stealing the source code and instructions which regulate the world wide Internet traffic. The company based in San Jose, California, has announced it encourages through every available means the case's inquiry. The Times announces the accused has been identified in the person of a 16 year old teenager from Uppsala, Sweden, and the FBI confirmed this information. For now, it is unknown if the teenager will be convicted for violating American laws
• Serious holes in antivirus software - What if the bad guys found ways to infiltrate your computer through the very antivirus software that you thought was protecting you? Recent discoveries suggest that this scenario isn't so far-fetched. If you have the latest antivirus definitions, aren't you protected? Not necessarily. Most programs have an automatic update feature that's turned on by default, but the tool may update only the definitions, not other software modules such as the scanning engine. The good news: Several antivirus software companies have patched their programs to fix this vulnerability.

OFFTOPIC...

• Centrifugal weapon could deliver stealth firepower - A gun that spits out ball bearings after spinning them to extreme speeds is being developed by a US inventor. The novel design has already caught the imagination of some defence industry experts. The gun consists of a mounted circular chamber that spins the metal ball bearings to high speed. A release mechanism on one side spits the balls out one behind the other, a handful at a time. St George says the projectiles travel at around 300 metres per second upon release from the weapon, about the same speed as a handgun round. He claims a fully developed DREAD gun would be quieter than a conventional gun, less prone to malfunction, and could contain more ammunition. DREAD also releases its balls in extremely rapid succession, which allows it to unleash formidable firepower against a target. Promotional material for DREAD states: "Due to its extraordinary high rate of fire capability, it delivers its bullets 8.5 millimetres apart, thereby delivering more mass to the target than any other weapon."
• Solar sail completes first crucial tests - A lightweight solar sail that could one day allow spacecraft to be propelled by the power of the Sun has passed its first crucial test. The sail, made by NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK), was successfully deployed and its orientation controlled in the world's largest vacuum chamber - which mimics the space environment - it was announced on Tuesday.
• Self-cloning robots are a chip off the old block - The first scalable robot to have built an exact copy of itself could herald a fundamental rethink of how robots may be used to explore other planets. Hod Lipson and colleagues at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, built their self-replicating device using small mechanical building blocks that can swivel, and also attach themselves to one another using electromagnets. (Ed.note: Do you remember replicators from Star Gate series?....)

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft, HP unveil new high-def video disc formats - While a compromise standard for high-definition DVDs is being negotiated in Japan between backers of the HD-DVD and rival Blu-Ray discs, two rogue high-def video disc formats may have a chance to sneak in the back door. Both came to light at the recent Home Entertainment Show in New York. A Microsoft executive, Ed Bland, let on that his company's forthcoming second-generation game console - now expected to be called Xbox 360 - will deliver high-definition content using a conventional red laser pickup and the DVD-ROM discs found in current game consoles, computer drives and video disc players. By contrast, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats require finer-focusing blue lasers, as well as new breeds of higher-capacity discs.
• Toshiba expands HD-DVD capacity to 45GB - Toshiba Corp. has developed a prototype HD-DVD disc that increases the format's storage capacity by 50 percent and brings it much closer to that of the rival Blu-ray Disc, the company said Tuesday. The new disc has a capacity of 45GB, which is just under the 50GB offered by a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, and will give content producers additional space to store longer high-definition movies or extras such as trailers, out-takes or interactive features. Toshiba accomplished the capacity jump by adding an extra data storage layer to the disc. Each HD-DVD layer has a capacity of 15GB and the new disc packs three such layers. Toshiba will take the wraps off the new DVDs at the Media-Tech Expo 2005 in Las Vegas. In related news, Toshiba yesterday admitted there are still major stumbling blocks to efforts to create a single format for the next generation of DVDs.
• Gates confirms Office 12 will release in 2006 - Microsoft will release a new version of Office next year, Bill Gates said yesterday. The last major version arrived in late 2003. Microsoft officials have been coy about the next release, but Gates released some new details including that it will include improvement in workflow capabilities, rights management, advanced scheduling, document sharing and business intelligence.
• Microsoft Releases Windows Mobile 5.0 - Microsoft has released Windows Mobile 5.0 (fact sheet). Word is "this new version of the Windows Mobile software platform delivers on partner requests, including more platform flexibility to customize devices and solutions; productivity enhancements that include updated Microsoft Office software and persistent memory storage for more efficient data management; and a powerful multimedia experience with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile and support for hard drives. "
• Blue Screen of Death, Move Over - As if the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" that plagues users of existing Windows variants weren't enough, some beta testers are reporting that they've encountered a new "Red Screen of Death" in early versions of Longhorn. The first Red Screen of Death (RSOD) reports surfaced this past weekend on various Weblogs, including one written by a Microsoft employee.
• Google launches mini search-in-a-box  - Google has launched the Google Mini, a scaled-down version of its enterprise search appliance, to the UK. The small, blue box is designed to provide a search function for the intranets or public websites of small to medium businesses. The box is capable of searching and indexing 100,000 documents and it recognises over 220 different file types, including HTML, PDF and Word, provided they are web enabled.
• MS IE7 screenshots - According to a screenshot making its rounds on some forums, Microsoft's answer to Mozilla's Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, might be in its alpha stage. The about IE shows a build of 0719, and another screenshot shows what appears to be tabbed browsing.

HARDWARE... 

• Via Plans Sub-$250 PCs - The designs are part of a Via project called Terra PC and will be unveiled at the Via Technology Forum (VTF), scheduled for the first week of June in Taiwan, says Richard Brown, the company's associate vice president of marketing. VTF will be held alongside the Computex exhibition in Taipei. The Terra PC range includes a fully featured PC, priced at $250, including a hard drive and a monitor, Brown says. It also comes with a flash memory-based Media Station and a $100 Communication Station, that uses flash memory and is designed for broadband Internet applications, such as VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), he says.   Additional details about the Terra PC effort will be announced in June.
• Sony announces VAIO T-Series with Cingular EDGE Built-in - The new Sony VAIO VGN-T350P/L and VGN-T-350/L have now built-in SmartWi, that lets users switch from Wi-Fi connectivity to Cingular EDGE connectivity. The Pentium M powered Sonys feature also Bluetooth, DVD writer, 60GB HDD, 512MB RAM and a 10.6" WXGA screen with XBRITE. The difference between the Sony VAIO VGN-T350P/L and Sony VAIO VGN-T-350/L seems only to be that the P/L has Windows XP Professional installed and the /L only the Home edition.
• NVIDIA integrated graphics chipset on the way - The C51-series will have two versions, with the C51PV supporting Socket 939 K8-compatible motherboards, and the C51 supporting Socket 754 motherboards, the makers stated. Sources at the makers stated that the two chips will have different graphic cores, but declined to provide more details. In addition, Nvidia plans to reduce the prices on its current line of SLI chipsets, with the FOB (free on board) price of SLI-based motherboards expected to fall from US$110-120 at present to US$90, the motherboard makers expect.
• Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 - Open up the XPS and things just get better - you're instantly greeted by a 17in widescreen display, with a high contrast gloss coating. The coating makes both games and movies look so much better, and although you do have to put up with a more reflective screen, I find that a small price to pay. But it's not just the size and the coating that make this screen so impressive, it's also the resolution. The 17in display in the XPS sports a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 - this gives you an amazing amount of desktop real estate and makes working at the XPS almost as enjoyable as gaming.
• Pentium Extreme Edition 840 - Does a dual-core, single-die CPU make much difference in the performance of your PC? If you are looking to utilize your computer for calculation heavy tasks such as 3D animation, CAD and vector calculations, then yes. If you're looking for a CPU to use in a video or audio editing workstation, then yes, there is a benefit. However, when you look at how small the performance increase is, you might be questioning the expenditure. Also, the issue of using HyperThreading Technology is something to pay attention to.
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 - The key things to take from today's look at the 4800+ is that it's generally no slower, but generally no faster either, than an FX-53 in single-threaded tests, yet it'll cost you a fair bit more. I hope it's obvious that a dual-core processors benefits lie elsewhere, with multi-threaded applications and real-world operating system usage. Think HyperThreading. Another reviews can be found on TechWareLabs and X-bit Labs.
• AMD Vesus Intel Battle of the Dual-Core CPUs at Motherboards - Although both Intel and AMD have entered the Dual-Core CPU arena, it was the AMD 4800+ CPU, which showed the best results here in the lab
• DDR2 Memory Roundup Q2 2005 - Results:  1) Overall Mushkin did very well in this roundup and given the recent changes made over at Mushkin in R&D and customer service I highly recommend looking into their entire product line. 2) Corsair took a firm second, and while it's somewhat more costly the ergonomics and reliability can't be beat. 3) Crucial has done some amazing things with their Ballistix line, and was the only company to spec double sided DDR2. All the brands represented here today have their strengths and looking over the results I was simply amazed at the performance consistency comparitively.
• ATI Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory performance comparison -  Looking back at the series of tests we ran, the majority of the tests leaned in favor of the GeForce 6200 TurboCache 128. Final Fantasy, 3DMark05, Halo and Doom 3 were all dominated by the 6200 with its higher clock rates. Half-Life 2 was the tightest race between the two cards, but still, the 6200 prevailed. The only time the X300 SE came out on top was with Far Cry, where we saw the X300 SE HyperMemory 128 hold a slight lead over the generally faster GF 6200 TC128.
• Western Digital Essential 120GB USB 2.0 external hard drive - Unsurprisingly, the external drive is some way slower than its internal cousins, although it does manage to match the 250GB Serial ATA offering when it comes to access times. The use of a USB 2.0 interface means that CPU utilisation is much higher, although not disastrously so in all honesty, and indeed this figure will vary dependant on motherboard chipset and the like. Read and burst speeds are clearly limited by the USB interface, staying around a steady 18MB/second.
• 23" and 24" LCD Monitors Roundup - The Dell PVA panel provides nicer colors but has a lower reactivity. It compensates with a reasonable price and astonishing ergonomics. (there is no point in listing once more all the details ).  ViewSonic and HP IPS panels provide a less deep dark, the color quality (for a professional or a player looking for high contrast ratio in order to see the dark areas' details) is slightly less good, and the liquid crystals' reactivity still doesn't allow the possibility of playing FPS games without afterglow effects.
• Samsung Yepp YP-MT6Z 1GB MP3 Player  - The Yepp YP-MT6Z's retails for around $230CDN ($180USD), a remarkably affordable price compared to just a year or two ago, given its 1GB of internal flash memory. Furthermore, in a rare move of consumer friendly design, the Yepp YP-MT6Z is powered by a single AA battery that will last for upwards of 42 hours (straight playback). Long battery life and inexpensive AA batteries are probably one of the greatest attributes of this MP3 player; heck a AA battery is even included!
• Optek Fretlight USB/LED Guitar - TrustedReviews take a look at the Optek Fretlight USB/LED Guitar which is a guitar for beginners that teaches you how to play with the help of built in LED lights.

GUIDES... 

• Upgrading A Motherboard Without Reinstalling - PC Stats has posted a beginners guide about upgrading a motherboard without reinstalling.
• SATA-II 3 Gb/s RAID Performance Guide - HardCoreWare has posted a SATA-II 3 Gb/s RAID Performance Guide.
• How to Cool your PC with Dry Ice - A complete guide on working with Dry Ice so you can reach sub zero temperatures with your CPU and graphics card. Details on building containers, where to buy Dry Ice and important tips and tricks.
• Windows XP Pro x64 performance analysis - Within the scope of SimHQ's benchmark suite, game performance on Windows XP Pro x64 is a bit of a mixed bag. Out of the eight games we installed and tested, seven were compatible (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory refused to run), and of those those working titles four gave benchmark results within a few percentage points to those generated on the 32-bit version of the operating system.
• HardOCP covers Far Cry 64-bit patch - Overall, we can safely say the RADEON X850 XT-PE currently offers the best gameplay image quality in 64-bit FarCry. The GeForce 6800 Ultra has an annoying lighting, shadow, and fog bug that highly distracts from gameplay. The RADEON X850 XT-PE does not have these issues and it is faster allowing a higher level of quality settings.
• More x64 Upgrade Information & Issues- check it out
• Basic System Buyer's Guide - May 2005 - MikhailTech has posted its recommendations for this month's sub-$400 budget system.
• How To Get Great Portraits From Your Digital Camera - The Tech Zone has posted a guide on getting great portraits from your digital camera.

SOFTWARE...

• May 2005 Update for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB894384) - This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail. This update was released in May 2005.
• Attachment Options 1.8.17 - Attachment Options (download) is a COM add-in for Outlook 2000 SP3 or higher, Outlook 2002, and Outlook 2003 that provides a user interface for changing which file types are restricted as Level 1 attachments. Level 1 attachments are hidden by Outlook, and cannot be seen, saved or opened from Outlook items. Moving an attachment extension to Level 2 enables the user to see the attachment and to save it to the file system. The attachment saved to the file system can later be opened by the user.
• Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8 SP1 - Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8 SP1 contains core Data Access components such as the Microsoft SQL Server™ OLE DB provider and ODBC driver. This redistributable installer for the MDAC 2.8 SP1 release installs the same Data Access components as Microsoft Windows XP SP2. This release does not include Microsoft Jet, the Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider or ODBC driver, the Desktop Database ODBC Drivers, or the Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver.
• Internet Information Services 6.0 Migration Tool - The Internet Information Services 6.0 Migration Tool is a command line tool that automates several of the steps needed to move a Web application from IIS 4.0, IIS 5.0 or IIS 6.0 to a clean installation of Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. The tool transfers configuration data, Web site content, and application settings to a new IIS 6.0 server.
• Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool 1.4 - This tool checks your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps to remove the infection if it is found. Microsoft will release an updated version of this tool on the second Tuesday of each month
• phpMyAdmin 2.6.2-pl1 - phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.
• Win32Whois 0.9.6 - Win32Whois (download) is a small and efficient Whois client. It is able to retrieve domain information for most of the common TLDs (top level domains). It has it is internal list of servers that it connects to in order to provide a detailed report on a requested domain.
• [!] Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 RC - Firefox 1.0.4 (download RC) includes security fixes for the two security flaws that can lead to arbitrary code being executed. See our article about the arbitrary code execution exploit and yesterday's report with details of the two vulnerabilities for more information.
• Firemonger 1.04 CD - Firemonger 1.04 has been released. Firemonger offers a downloadable Windows CD image of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 packaged with some popular plugins, extensions and themes
• Google Toolbar 3.0.123.2 Beta - The Google Toolbar (download Win2k/XP / Win98/ME) increases your ability to find information from anywhere on the web and takes only seconds to install
• DustBuster 2.8.1 - DustBuster (download) is a free garbage file removing utility for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It searches for junk files and temp files that are of no use and are just taking space on your hard drive. Based on a "common sense" scanning technology, DustBuster cleans over 1500 different types of useless temp files and directories in a single click, detecting and deleting all these unneeded files automatically.
• AIM Ad Hack 4.04 - With this small file (download) you can effectively remove all the ads from AIM you must be using.
• Gaim 1.3.0 - Gaim (download) is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.
• Apple iTunes 4.8 - This new version includes new Music Store features and support for transferring contacts and calendars from your computer to your iPod (requires Mac OS X version 10.4 on your computer).
• GIMP 2.2.7 - The GIMP (download) is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
• WinRAR 3.50 Beta 4 - WinRAR (download) 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.
• TaskInfo 6.1.0.140 Beta - TaskInfo (download) is combination of Task Manager and System Information Utility, It visually monitors different types of System information in Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
• RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.5 - The test suite performs various tests of electroacoustical performance of sound cards and other real-time audio devices. Testing is accomplished by playing the test signals and recording them after they pass through the testing chain.
• PSPad 4.3.3 Beta Build 2072 - PSPad editor (download) is freeware programmer editor.
• New Sony PSP Firmware 1.51 - Playstation Japan have released an updated firmware v1.51, that fixes a few security bugs. Try at your own risk!
• nForce 6.56 64-bit Beta - This nForce WinXP 64-bit driver package contains the below components: Audio driver version 4.60 (WHQL), Audio utility version 4.51, Ethernet NRM driver version 4.75 (WHQL), Network management tools version 4.80, SMBus driver version 4.48 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files Installer version 4.64,WinXP IDE driver version 5.24 with updated uninstaller files, WinXP RAIDTOOL application version 4.82.
• Radeon Omega v2.6.25a (2000/XP) - OmegaDrivers has released their modified Drivers of the Official ATI Catalyst 5.4 Drivers. These drivers always deliver exellent performance and image quality.