• No let-up in warez crackdown? -  Federal agents have not arrested any members of the "DrinkOrDie" piracy ring, but roughly 30 people, including an executive of a major company, have retained lawyers to negotiate settlements with the government, said Allan Doody, who is overseeing the anti-piracy effort. There is an another article at CNET.
• 2600 Magazine Seeks Another Opinion In N.Y. DeCSS Case - Lawyers for the New York-based "hacker quarterly" 2600 magazine have asked that the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reconsider a decision by three of its judges to uphold a ban on publishing software code that can unlock encrypted video on DVDs.
• Worm poses as Microsoft update - A new worm masquerading as a software update from Microsoft is capable of deleting all files on the hard drive of an infected computer but has so far spread very slowly.
• Details On Severe IE Hole Posted Online - Instructions on how to exploit a critical security hole discovered last month in Microsoft's latest Web browser were posted today on the Internet, raising concerns that malicious code may soon appear that takes advantage of the flaw (some explots: local files, JS Pop-Up DoS, and more).
• Has Ericsson Got Nokia in a Color Bind? - The world's largest mobile phone maker is so shocked by how successful rival Ericsson's recent launch of its tiny T68 has been, say published reports, that it is planning its own color-screen handset.
• ATI R300 details out - According to TheInquirer.co.uk, the card is an NV25 killer while ATI's lower market model the RV 250 which many assumed to be an NV17 killer now has large speed advantages over Nvidia's offering.While clock speeds are still under waraps, the RV250 will be spawned from the R200, currently branded as the Radeon 8500.
• GeForce3 Production Stopped? - Nope :P Xbit-Labs have  received an e-mail from Andrew Humber, NVIDIA European PR Manager, who told us that the information about the discontinuance of GeForce3 chips production taken from the Ukranian web-site was incorrect. At the same time, Mr. Humber didn't deny that the GeForce4 based graphics cards will start shipping right after the chips announcement on February 5, 2002.
• A Comparison Of 13 LCD Monitors - Tom's Hardware Guide has posted a comparison of 13 LCD monitors.
• ATI RADEON 8500 Extreme Overclocking Experience - XBit-Labs managed to find 7 individual regulators on ATI RADEON 8500: 5 of them were responsible for powering the graphics core and memory.. In comparison with NVIDIA GeForce3 based cards, which are usually equipped with only 2 regulator chips, increasing Vcore and Vmem on RADEON 8500 seems a really difficult task. But as they found out later, it will be no obstacle for a true overclocker :) 
• Microsoft releases new Office tools - Instead fixing holes in MSIE, Microsoft launched new tools for linking its Office desktop software into its growing .Net Web services plan :P
• Network_Sucks - connections monitor - Network_Sucks is a as the name says, a network packet sniffer. The program runs under Windows 2000, NT and Windows XP and it has many features: Filtering rules,  Interface selection,   Auto DNS,  DNS caching, Advanced log system, Decoding ability, Advanced protocol description, Editable protocol list,  .DLL support.
• Clean LimeWire - Clean LimeWire is the parasite free version of LimeWire that hit the Net in its official release version on January 5th. A file trader on Zeropaid described it accurately when he said "basically they take the source code from Limewire.org, strip out any adware/spyware/banner ad/trojan/anythingelseyoucanthinkof, and then recompile it".
• Eraser v5.3 - Freeware Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windoze), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
• XMovie v1.9.5 - XMovie is a reference movie player for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MP3 audio, MP2 audio, WAV, AIFF, AC3 audio, Quicktime and DVD's on Linux boxes.
• Opera 6.01 beta (build 1022) - This beta features: Clear visited links in the Delete private data dialog will now also clear the visited date in bookmarks,  Merged in HTML-banner support changes from main-branch,  fixed crasher in ouniansi.dll initialization,  Fixed find in page, now searches backwards and finds multiple matches in the same textblock,  Tuned the behavior of the font switcher, and many more...
• Fantom CD 1.1.8 build v1314 - Fantom CD is a software for reading CDs and running CD programs without a CD by creating a virtual CD-ROM drive on the hard disk using software methods.
• Windows Commander 5 RC1 - Windows Commander is a file manager program for Windows. It offers multiple language support, search, file comparison, directory synchronization, quick view panel with bitmap display, ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE archive handling plus plugins, built-in FTP client with FXP, HTTP proxy support, and more.
• Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility v4.0 - The Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility was developed by Intel Corporation to enable consumers the ability to identify and, in some circumstances, determine if their Intel processor is operating at the correct and rated frequency intended by Intel Corporation.
• Gainward ExperTool v2.81 - Gainward have released a new version of their ExperTool v2.81.

• Gigger worm can format Windows PCs - Gigger, a new JavaScript-based virus, has escaped into the wild. It attempts to delete files from a computer and format user's disk drive on restart and antivirus vendors are characterising it as high-risk.  Gigger, which uses a combination of Microsoft Outlook and mIRC to spread, is not spreading widely, but its destructive potential has prompted Symantec to issue a strongly worded warning about the worm.
• AMD Set To Release Duron 1.3GHz - According to the Inquirer, AMD looks set to release a Duron 1.3GHz before the end of January.
• GeForce 4 Specs - GeForce 4 Ti600 - GPU Speed: 300Mhz, Memory Speed: 600Mhz 3.3ns Hynix 128Mb, Pipelines: More -> That's all NVIDIA said to Burton Boy.  Basically it's a pumped up NV2A XBox GPU.
• Four Speaker Sets Compared - Altec Lansing's 4100 system looks great. Creative's FPS1600 system's dirt cheap. Creative's Inspire Digital 5700 has a huge feature list and what looks like a huge bass driver - but isn't. Logitech's Z-560 actually _has_ a huge bass driver (by computer speaker standards), but it also seems to have some misleading specifications, which become apparent once you pull it to bits. Read more.
• ATA/133 Controllers Comparison - X-Bit Labs compared the performance of three today's ATA/133 controllers available. Namely, they took a closer look at Promise Ultra133, HighPoint HPT372 integrated into the mainboard and the M1535D+ South Bridge of ALi MAGiK 1 chipset. Find out which one is the best so far!
• Build Your Own Mini-PC For The Office - Tom's Hardware Guide has written an article howto about building your own mini-PC.
• PHP-Nuke 5.4 Beta - PHPnuke.org has released a new beta version of its PHP-Nuke web portal system.
• pcAnywhere 10.5.1 Beta - pcAnywhere is the world's leading remote control software. This new beta features
  improved Windows XP support.
• AVP Update - The latest Kaspersky anti-virus Cumulative Database Update has been released.
• BearShare v2.4.0 -  BearShare is designed to let you share files with everyone on the Internet, and download files that other people are sharing.
• Napster 3.1.2.7 Leaked - The new Napster pay service has been leaked and Ibelite.com got it :). This is the Napster pay service but it is free while in beta stages. It has a whole new interface, which is clean and easy on the eyes, a major improvement from before. But finding those music files you want to listen to is going to be a lot harder on this new version, everyone check it out and let us know what you think.
• IM Chat Talker v3.00 - This program enhances instant messaging by providing text-to-speech capabilities. It's designed to be used with the world's most popular IM software. IM Chat Talker works with AOL 7.0 Client, AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger Service, Yahoo! Messenger, Netscape Messenger, ICQ, and now Odigo.
• Athlon XP 2000+/ P4 2.2GHz Reviews: Athlon XP 2000+:PC PowerZone, Firing Squad,  Hexus,   SimHQ, Athlon XP 2000+ vs P4 2.2GHz: Tech-Report,  Ace's Hardware, Extreme Hardware, AnandTech, X-Bit Labs,  P4 2.2GHz: Hot Hardwares, Digit-Life, Tech Hard, SimHQ, Hexus.
• Promise Raid Performance Patch for VIA chipsets - VIA Arena has posted a Promise Raid Performance Patch for VIA chipsets.
• USB 2.0 Support for Win2k - LittleWhiteDog.com informed us that they posted an updated driver (though it's still BETA) which adds USB 2.0 support to Windows 2000. (mirrors)
• Radeon Omega Drivers - Omegacorner.com have released new Radeon Omega drivers (1.1.11a). These candies are compatible with all ATI Radeon Cards (All In Wonder Radeon, All In Wonder Radeon 8500, Radeon 7000/VE, Radeon 7200,  Radeon 7500/LE, Radeon 8500 Mobility Radeon)
• Abit KR7A BIOS 6N - Abit has released a new BIOS for the KR7A series.

XBitLabs.com have managed to find some interesting info on the features of the new chipsets from NVIDIA, which are due in the beginning of next year. We are talking about NV17 and NV25, of course The rumors say that there will be two models in the GeForce4 family and three models in the GeForce4 MX family:

• GeForce4 Ti 1000. This is the fastest graphics cards built on GeForce4 chip working at about 300MHz frequency. The card will have AGP 8x interface and 128MB DDR SDRAM memory working at 700MHz.
• GeForce4 Ti 500. This is a bit slower solution with around 275MHz chip frequency and 600MHz memory frequency. Although it will have AGP 4x interface, the card will still come with 128MB graphics memory.
• GeForce4 MX 460. This is the eldest representative of the GeForce4 MX family. It will probably have 4 rendering pipelines and DirectX 8-compliant T&L unit. The amount of DDR graphics memory used (with 128bit bus) will be cut down to 64MB, and its working frequency will be reduced down to 550MHz. The core will work at 300MHz.
• GeForce4 MX 440. These cards will go with 64MB DDR SDRAM with 128bit access bus. The memory working frequency will be 400MHz and the core frequency – 275MHz.
• GeForce4 MX 420. According to the available data, this GeForce4 MX version will be targeted for the Low-End market that is why the cards built on it will have 64MB SDR SDRAM memory working at 166MHz. The core will work at 250MHz. Besides, It looks as if there were only two rendering pipelines in this modification.