Digital Binary

Nvidia New SLI Driver for Vista

2007-02-01T01:53:00.000-08:00

Nvidia has release yet another beta series driver, ForceWare version 100.54, this driver enabling the latent SLI support lacking in earlier drivers. Now, GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series cards will be able to have SLI support in Vista, though as a beta driver Nvidia is not giving any guaranty as to functionality.

ForceWare version 100.54 includes the following support in Vista:

DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
DirectX 9 and OpenGL NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be available on January 31, 2007 in a new driver from NVIDIA
DirectX 9 and OpenGL NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs and DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be available in a future driver

Motorola Confirmed MOTO RIZR Z8

2007-02-01T01:26:00.000-08:00

Motorola has plans for releasing a handful of new handsets in 2007. Those include MOTO RIZR Z8, MOTO KRZR K3, MOTO Q2 HSDPA, MOTO Q GSM/EDGE plus the budget W360, W205, w510, W395 mobiles. The new handset confirmed in a presentation that Ron Garriques, Executive Vice President of Motorola, gave to investors.

The long expected Motorola RIZR Z8 which is an updated version of the Motorola RIZR Z6, already officially announced but isn’t yet available. Its front camera most clearly reveals that we are dealing with a 3G handset here. The next mobile, MOTOKRZR K3, is again an updated version - this time of the Motorola KRZR K1 clamshell. It would also boast 3G functionality with video calls as the pictures reveal.

Intel Set Up A Digital Health Research Centre

2007-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

Intel is partnering with Irish universities to set up a $30m research hub digital health research centre that will investigate the challenges of independent living for the elderly.

"We have to invent a new way to care for our planet's aging population. Current healthcare systems are not equipped to face the epidemic of age-related illnesses and injuries that are coming," said Eric Dishman, general manager of Intel's Health Research and Innovation Group.

"Information and communication technologies offer us a means to prevent disease and injury, to detect problems earlier before they become catastrophes, to help older people better manage their own health conditions at home, and to personalise care to their unique needs and preferences. All of us will benefit from these kinds of technologies, first as caregivers for our own aging parents and, if we're lucky, for ourselves some day."

Intel Prepares Core 2 Extreme for Laptop

2007-01-31T07:12:00.000-08:00

Intel has prepared to launch Core 2 Extreme for Laptop. Codenamed Merom XE , the two 65nm parts will contain the usual 4MB of shared L2 cache and operate over an 800MHz frontside bus. The first of the two, the Core 2 Extreme X7800 will be clocked at 2.6GHz, it's claimed; the second, the X7900, will run at 2.8GHz.Pricing for the X7900 hasn't been set yet, though the X7800 is expected to go for around $795.

The Devious ATI: HDCP Secretly Removed

2006-02-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

ATI putting some sneaky scheme on his business practices. Apparently most products that are HDCP ready are silently removed from its HDCP features. Yet there were no press release or information regarding this.

According to the Microsoft specification, high-definition video content that is transported using a DVI signal must be encrypted with HDCP. If HDCP is not present, regardless of whether an attempt at copying is made or not, the video is scaled down to low resolution to deter copying. For a manufacturer that wishes to use HDCP technology on its products, a signup with Digital CP is required. Upon a signed agreement, the manufacturer must pay the committee an annual fee of $15,000 and a royalty fee of $0.005 per product sold. This allows a manufacturer to provide DVI/HDCP support, sufficient for high-resolution output. If a manufacturer wants to implement HDMI, a DVI-compatible connector, an additional $15,000 annual fee to HDMI is needed along with $0.04 per product. To actually implement HDCP protection, unique keys are required on a per product basis which is provided by the committee and requires implementation at the manufacturing level. According to NVIDIA, an extra chip is required that stores unique decoding keys.

Until now ATI still unreachable, Instead, ATI's website has been changing gradually to remove any previous mention of "HDCP-ready" and specifications have been replaced with a more generic "HDMI interoperable" spec.

Unfixed USB Bugs Will Drain Your Laptop Battery

2006-02-18T00:31:00.000-08:00

Again unfixed Windows XP Service Pack 2 confirmed by Microsoft. This time will drain your laptop battery when you plug a peripheral on USB slot. In a statement through its public relation firm, Waggener Edstrom Inc., Microsoft also admitted that the flaw, which lies in the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) driver of Windows XP SP 2, will remain without an easy-to-apply fix indefinitely. The ACPI is latest standard for USB peripheral ports on Laptop and part of the operating system's power management scheme for USB 2.0.

The bug will affect Intel-based Laptop. And the fix will still wait to be released to public since it required deep understanding of Operating System and there are also risk involved when apply the fix. Microsoft claim the fix is not for ordinary users because of the reason above.

"While there is a noticeable impact on battery life when USB 2.0 devices are plugged into some specific models of laptop computers, these systems are still fully functional and newer systems have significantly longer battery life than their predecessors, whether a USB 2.0 device is plugged in or not," Microsoft said in its statement.

Sony New Vaio Core Duo Laptop

2006-02-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

Sony plan to release Vaio Core Duo this month on Japan yet maybe will be available internationally on spring. The new Vaio SZ series replaces the S series and will come with a 945GM Express or GeForce Go 7400 graphics card and a 13.3" WXGA screen that uses LED's on the high end models. the casing is made out of Carbon Black or Premium Carbon. The CPU's clock range from a T2300 (1.66GHz) to a T2600 (2.16GHz).

Besides SZ series they also launched F TV series, as the name imply this will focus for TV uses. Don’t worry it will include remote for your pleasure. This will have T2300 at 1.66 GHz, a 160GB HDD, a DL burner and a 945GX Xpress graphics card that offers a 1280x800 resolution.

nVidia Preparing to Launch its GeForce 7600 plus 7900GT and 7900GTX on March

2006-02-17T05:44:00.000-08:00

nVidia already preparing to release its upcoming weapon to defeat its one and only contender. The 90nm GeForce 7900 both GT and GTX will be launch at March 9 according to Taiwan source. Beside those two, nVidia also preparing to release G73 or known as GeForce 7600 by the end of next month.

nVidia seems responding to market by reducing the pricing of GeForce 7900GT and 7900GTX and also said that have more competitive price than its competitor’s product Radeon X1900 that are roughly between $500-650. I wonder how much will it be.

Nvidia Geforce 7xxx GPUs
Series	GeForce 7800 GTX 512/GTX/GT/GS	GeForce 7300 GS/LE	GeForce 7900 GT/GTX*	GeForce 7600*
Core name	G70	G72	G71	G73
Memory	256/512MB DDR3	256/512MB DDR2	256/512MB DDR3	-
Manufacturing node	0.11-micron	90nm	90nm	90nm
Launch date	June 2005	January 2006	March 9	End March

Intel’s Averill Platform Revealed

2006-02-17T02:34:00.000-08:00

A new detail revealed regarding Intel’s plan to manufacture a Centrino-like PC platform with a codename ‘Averill’. It appears Averill will show up in two types, Pro and Fundamental. Both will be incorporate the upcoming Windows Vista and has been said that it will also integrate the future generation of Intel Active Management Technology plus LaGrande, a new security system that has been held up because of Windows Vista late release.

Averill Pro will be based on Intel's next-generation architecture desktop chip, the dual-core, 65nm 'Conroe' processor, due to ship in Q3. The specification will also include the upcoming Q965 'Broadwater' chipset. Averill Fundamental is based on the current generation Pentium D processor and the Q963 chipset. Both chipsets will support DDR 2 SDRAM, with the Q965 running memory clocked up to 800MHz, while the Q963 tops out at 667MHz. Both parts can host a 1066MHz frontside bus.

Sony Optimism to Ship 100 Million PlayStation 3 This Year

2006-02-17T01:42:00.000-08:00

Ok time for lil bit off topic stuff. Sony Corp. believes that they capable to ship over 100 million PS3 this time of year. According to Sony Corp. Executive Managing Director and Senior Vice President of Asia, Tetsuhiko Yasuda, Sony has not yet decided the specific launch date as well as the price. But he does say that not all regions will have same launch date.

Sony has shipped over 100 million PSX game consoles and similar amount of the PS2 game console, with Taiwan and Hong Kong accounting for 10% of its PS2 sales in Asia, Yasuda indicated. He also added Sony might work together with Microsoft to develop games together.

Personally I can’t imagine how games develop by both of them turns out… ouch... sorry to all fanboys out there.

AMD Prepare to Launch Power Efficient Processor

2006-02-16T22:03:00.001-08:00

On recent roadmap, AMD revealed its plan to release Energy Efficient Processor. The Energy Efficient Processors will have a slightly redesigned Sleep, Power and Suspend states. These states are controlled by the operating system, but will require BIOS updates. They also revealed launch date for each new chips including the not-Energy Efficient AM2 Socket Processor.

AMD will also soon unveil a new set of desktop Sempron and Athlon 64s specifically geared for HTPC and other low noise / low power devices. The goal is to build processors that do not need a lot of cooling -- specifically to reduce the noise of the overall system to the 27dBA range for idle and 30dBA under load. One of the upcoming Windows MCE requirements for CPUs is that the processor fan not exceed 30dBA for MCE certification.

AMD Energy Efficient Desktop Models
Processor	Socket	Core	Wattage	Launch Date
Athlon 64 4800+	AM2	Dual	65W	Q3'06
Athlon 64 4600+	AM2	Dual	65W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 4400+	939	Dual	65W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 4200+	AM2	Dual	65W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 4000+	AM2	Dual	65W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 3800+	AM2	Dual	35W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 3800+	AM2	Dual	65W	6/6/06
Athlon 64 3500+	AM2	Single	35W	6/6/06
Sempron 3500+	AM2	Single	35W	Q4'06
Sempron 3400+	AM2	Single	35W	6/6/06
Sempron 3200+	AM2	Single	35W	6/6/06
Sempron 3000+	AM2	Single	35W	6/6/06

ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard for Radeon Xpress 3200

2006-02-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

The new ATI RD580 chipset known as Radeon Xpress 3200 are still waiting to be launch. Yet ASUS already prepare new motherboard, A8R32-MVP Deluxe to facilitate the features within. Rumor has it this will be the best overclocking board available.

ASUS is still tweaking the board and we heard that the RD580 should be the most overclocked platform available. It will sure surpass the Nforce 4 SLI overclockability as we know that the reference RD580 can go at more than 300 MHz FSB easily, and even more than that. Nforce 4 SLI will win on features, but it is up to motherboard manufacturers to include all the nice features on the boards as you can use external chips to include support for all the nice features that are not part of the chipset. Crossfire is finally becoming a mature player.

The board features will be:

ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 (RD580)/ULi M1575
USB 2.0/Gb LAN/SATA II RAID
2x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x1, 3x PCI

DonaMon Fan : Multipurpose Laptop Cooler

2006-02-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Ever heard a laptop cooler with a 2.5" harddisk slot, USB hub and memory card reader? well this baby have it!. You just need one USB port to use all the features on this cooler. not bad huh? Equipped with 70x70x10 mm fan, the cooling capabilities should be sufficient . This cooler fit for almost Laptop from 10" to 17"

Specification
Maker / Model	DonaMon Fan
Dimension	315x240x28 mm (WxLxH)
Weight	1.15 Kg
Fan	70x70x10 (2600 RPM 26.0 dBA)
USB	USB 2.0 Hub (2x USB)
Memory	HDD 2.5" (9.5 mm) Slot CF/SD-MMC/MicroDrive/Memory Stick Reader 11 types of memory Card Supported
Power	DC 5V/2A 100-240 International

LG Launched L1770HQ and L1970HR LCD Monitor

2006-02-16T05:15:00.000-08:00

The FLATRON L1770HQ delivers not only superior performance, but also superior design. A shiny chrome base and thin bezel highlight the L1770HQ’s striking features for consumers looking for leading technology and high-end display amenities. The 17-inch L1770HQ features a 1,600:1 contrast ratio, 4ms response time, striking 300cd/m2 brightness and anti-glare panel to ensure the best possible picture. . Its unique construction and its dual-hinged stand allows this LCD to fold flat – a great feature for anyone on the go. Measuring only 65mm when completely folded, the 1770HQ is a unique package of high-end features at a reasonable price. The 19-inch L1970HR offers similar attributes as the 17-inch with an added, mind-blowing 2ms response time.

Corrent Announced New WiFi Protection, SR25

2006-02-16T04:52:00.000-08:00

Corrent Corp. has announced the release of its security appliance, Corrent SR25 with integrated WiFi for small businesses and branch offices. The firewall/VPN appliance is based on Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004, and provides protection for small business.

The SR25 desktop unit provides protection for wired and wireless networks with up to 100 users. An 802.11g router and access point are integral parts of the firewall, enabling protection for the wireless portion of a network through its own set of access rules. The Corrent SR25 also features a choice of WPA, WEP and IPsec-over-wireless encryption, while offers four 10/100 Ethernet ports for wired networks.

The SR25 will be available for shipment in the beginning of March, and offers a three-year hardware warranty and a year of software support in the purchase price. Uplifted and multi-year support contracts are also available. The product is distributed through Ingram Micro and is sold through a network of VARs worldwide.

LG Xnote S1 : Stylish Core Duo Laptop

2006-02-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

Beautiful design plus ultra thin laptop yet equip with Intel Core Duo processor. and With a 15.4 inch WSXGA (1680x1050) screen and excellent 5.1 surround sound, you have yourself a pretty powerful portable theatre on your lap.A very excellent choice if you want Intel Dual Core laptop. There’s even a dedicated “Direct Media Experience Button” that shoots you straight into an interface designed for DVD, CD, or MP3 playback. Gaming should be a lot of fun with the ATI Mobility Radeon X1K GPU for all your 3D graphical needs.

ATi Radeon X1900 XTX - Project World Record Underway @ NordicHardware

2006-02-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

Robert "Crotale" Kihlberg is the author of NordicHardware’s Radeon X1900 XTX review and has just before this he had been crowned Swedish Overclocking Champion, through his amazing world record with an astonishing 203% overclock as Crotale pushed his Intel Celeron Mobile 1.4GHz to fantastic 4.242GHz. Robert has also recently done some successful extreme overclocking attempts with Intel's flagship Pentium 955 Extreme Edition and to create a real "dynamic duo" we paired Crotale up with multiple 3Dmark world record holder Marcus "Kinc" Hultin. Kinc recently took home the 3DMark05 category in the Swedish Performance Championship.

This “dynamic duo” will attempt multiple world records, and now still underway. The first attempts way with Intel 955XE, Radeon X1900 XTX and 30 liters of liquid nitrogen. Ouch…the result pretty amazing also. I’ll put few summaries of these attempts

The test system they were using on this first attempt is:

Hardware
Motherboard : Asus P5WD2 - vcore, vdimm, vdroop
Processor : Intel 955XE 3.46GHz
Processor cooling : Mousepot + LN2 (-140C)
Video card : ATI Radeon X1900XTX
Video card cooling : Natrium Single Stage (-45C)
Memory : Corsair 5400UL
Power Supply : OCZ PowerStream 520W

Software
Operating system : Windows XP (SP2)
Drivers:

nForce 6.70
Catalyst 8.203

Benchmark program:

3DMark2001 SE (3.3.0)
3DMark03 (3.6.0)
3DMark05 (1.2.0)
3DMark06 (1.0.2)

The second attempts were be Athlon 64 FX-60 + Radeon X1900 XTX and more liquid nitrogen. Ouch… Well the test system used was:

Hardware
Motherboard : DFI NF4 SLI-DR Expert
Processor : AMD FX-60
Processor cooling : Mousepot + LN2 (-43C basetemp)
Video card : ATI Radeon X1900XTX
Video card cooling : Chefnr1 LN2-tub (-50 basetemp)
Memory : 2x512MB Corsair XMS 3200LL BH-5
Power supply : OCZ PowerStream 600W

Software
Operating system : Windows XP (SP1)
Drivers : Catalyst 6.2
Benchmark program:

3DMark2001 SE (3.3.0)
3DMark03 (3.6.0)
3DMark05 (1.2.0)
3DMark06 (1.0.2)

The results were amazing three world records:

3Dmark2001 SE:
World record with Intel's NetBurst architecture (955XE)
First over 50000 points with Intel's NetBurst architecture (955XE)
3Dmark05:
World record with Intel's NetBurst architecture (955XE)
First over 15000 points with Intel's NetBurst architecture (955XE)
World record with a single video card (FX60)
3Dmark06:
World record with a single video card (955XE)
The second attempts will be Athlon 64 FX-60 + Radeon X1900 XTX

The last attempt however is not yet being done. They said next week they will continue the project with two GPU to test out Crossfire capability. If you are an overclock enthusiast you must visit this!

AMD Prepare to Release AM2 Socket Processor on June 6

2006-02-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

AMD is expected to launch two dual-core CPUs for Socket AM2 on June 2006: Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and Athlon 64 FX-62. Both processors will be based on F core revision working at 2.6GHz and 2.8GHz respectively. This way, the new AMD core will not only acquire DDR2 memory support, but also will increase the frequency potential of the dual-core AMD processors without switching to new production technology. Just as the previous E core revision, the upcoming F core revision will still be manufactured with 90nm SOI process. Also it have been said that it will support DDR2 memory up to 800MHz.

The new die is of bigger size and features higher transistor count: the die size increased from 194 sq.mm to 220 sq.mm , while the transistor count grew from 233mln to 243mln (for the dual-core processors). Single-core CPUs have also grown bigger: the die size increased from 106 sq.mm to 126 sq.mm and the number of transistors – from 120mln to 129mln. Here we are talking about the Athlon 64 or Opteron with 1MB L2 cache.

It is important to point out that the L2 cache size has become slightly smaller: it used to be 82.8 sq.mm and now it is only 77.4 sq.mm . Since the cache memory capacity remained the same, I dare assume that AMD will be using more compact SRAM memory cells in the new processors, which will automatically result into higher density of the L2 cache. Now L2 cache takes 39% of the die, and in the new F revision it will only occupy 30%.

One of the most interesting things about the new processors is their heat dissipation. Dual-core CPUs with F core stepping and up to 2.6GHz frequency and 2x1MB L2 cache will boast maximum 89W TDP. The today’s processors with similar technical specifications demonstrate 110W TDP at 2.2-2.4GHz core clock rate. Although one of the recent Athlon 64 4400+ modifications with 2.2GHz clock speed boasts 89W TDP.

ATI All-In-Wonder X1900: Quiet a Match for 7800GT

2006-02-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

ATI finally released its new All-In-Wonder X1900. For one who doesn’t know what it is, the All-In Wonder GPU focuses on multimedia elements. All-In-Wonder capable to record and display TV signals, play a FM/AM radio, and several output of multimedia presentation plus you can play a game, well... maybe not a high-end game.

ATI All-In-Wonder X1900 has been tested on our favorite Anandtech’s lab. The result quiet nice, it can perform well against nVidia GeForce 7800GT. the All-In-Wonder X1900 has about the same clock speeds as the X1800 XL version of the All-In-Wonder, with just a slightly lower memory clock (960MHz vs 1GHz). What makes the All-In-Wonder X1900 much faster though is the 48 Pixel Pipelines as opposed to the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL's 16.

Where nVidia loses the most points is in the Film Cadence tests, as well as the Noise Reduction test. We can conclude then that these benchmarks show that ATI has a wider set of capabilities in their DVD decoding than nVidia does. Add to that the fact that ATI's DVD decoder is free to ATI customers while nVidia 's PureVideo decoder costs an extra $30 and ATI definitely has a winning solution on their hands.

On the test done by Anandtech, we can see how well ATI does with DVD processing, and the benchmarks show that ATI does a better job at this overall than NVIDIA. Here are the final HQV benchmark scores.

ATI: 111 NVIDIA: 68

Last word, This GPU is still pretty expensive so you might think twice before buying it.

MSN Giving Away Prizes for A Search.

2006-02-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

MSN.com which is Microsoft’s search engine now giving away prizes up to $1million for any user using the search facility. The company announced the three-month promotion Tuesday, inviting Web searchers to visit MSNSearchandWin.com to take their chances at winning a prize.

According to Nielsen-NetRatings, MSN's search engine ranks third, trailing Google and Yahoo. In December, MSN had 10.9 percent of Web searches, down from 14 percent in December 2004.

Ken Cassar, senior director of analytics for Nielsen-NetRatings, called MSN's move a "smart promotion," adding that he has tried each of the major search engines and isn't convinced that he could differentiate the results of one from another.

Digital marketing firm WebSideStory Inc. also has found that MSN Search has lost traction over the past year. "MSN's problem is that when people think of 'search,' they think of Google," Erik Bratt, the firm's spokesman, wrote in an e-mail.

This isn't the first time a company has handed out prizes or other incentives to attract Web searchers. Amazon.com, for example, already offers discounts to people who use its A9 search engine.

"We're hopeful that once people give it shot, they'll want to come back again and again," said Lisa Gurry, director of marketing at MSN Search.

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New Windows Flaws Discovered After the Patch

2006-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has warned of two "critical" security flaws that could allow attackers to use its media player or web browser to take control of a computer. Microsoft issued patches to fix the problems as part of its monthly security bulletin. It listed both as critical vulnerabilities.

One flaw in some versions of the Windows Media Player makes it possible for an attacker to use a malicious file that controls the appearance of the player to launch other programs on a computer. Another hole in some versions of Internet Explorer would make it possible for an attacker to take total control of a PC.

Apple Prepare to Ship MacBook Pro

2006-02-15T03:26:00.000-08:00

Apple Computer Inc. said Tuesday it will begin shipping this week the new MacBook Pro, the first laptop computer to feature an Intel Corp. microprocessor. Apple says the MacBook Pro delivers up to four times the performance of its former flagship laptop, the PowerBook G4, which uses PowerPC chips from IBM Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

Analysts expect the new Intel-based Macintosh products to boost Apple's perennially small share in the U.S. PC market, which increased slightly last year to more than 4 percent as the popularity of Apple's iPod media players drove consumers to give the Macs another look.

The 1.67 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen 1440 x 900 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
* 1.67 GHz Intel Core Duo processor;
* 512MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 2GB;
* 80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
* a slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
* PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
* DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
* built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
* built-in iSight video camera;
* Gigabit Ethernet port;
* built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
* two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 port;
* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
* scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
* the infrared Apple Remote;
* 60 Watt hour lithium polymer battery; and
* 85W AC power adapter with MagSafe magnetic power connector.

The 1.83 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen 1440 x 900 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
* 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor;
* 1GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 2GB;
* 100GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
* a slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
* PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
* DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
* built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
* built-in iSight video camera;
* Gigabit Ethernet port;
* built-in Airport Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
* two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 port;
* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
* scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
* the infrared Apple Remote;
* 60 Watt hour lithium polymer battery; and
* 85W AC power adapter with MagSafe magnetic power connector.

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Intel and GSMA Collaborated to Bring 3G into Every PC

2006-02-15T03:17:00.000-08:00

Intel and the GSMA has sign a deal on Tuesday and will be publishing guidelines for laptop manufacturers to encourage them to integrate modems capable of picking up various networks, including 3G, HSDPA or EDGE, in their products.

Craig Conway, CEO of the GSMA, said: "This is important because it means the PC has gone mobile. We see this in the most positive way," adding that mobile operators can expect to see new revenue streams as a result of the union.

Few Laptop Manufactures like Dell also put interest on 3G, they recently announced a deal with Vodafone to offer HSDPA modems as an optional add-on for its laptops, while Lenovo also announced its intention to include super 3G in its hardware. Several phone makers including BenQ and Samsung have debuted HSDPA enabled phones, though most European countries have yet to see HSDPA networks launched.

However, analysts remain skeptical that embedded 3G will be the best option for road warriors. A recent research note from analyst house Gartner said: "We recommend buying laptops and mobile connectivity separately. Certain applications will continue to require handheld devices with integrated 3G connectivity. But for most businesses, add-on cards are a better investment and provide much more flexibility than integrated systems.

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ATI R590 Will Be Release As ATI Radeon X1800 GTO

2006-02-15T03:02:00.000-08:00

The new ATI R590 will launch at the beginning of March for roughly $279. The R590 ASIC is effectively the Radeon X1900 core, but at a lower clock speed with some disabled features. This new GPU expected to be released as Radeon X1800 GTO with 256 MB memory.

A year ago, ATI used a very similar tactic by labeling R480 and R423 ASIC as Radeon X800 GTO video cards. Several clever users were able to use BIOS hacks to unlock the disabled pipelines on these cards. This may not be possible with the X1800 GTO as it uses a dedicated R590 ASIC spun specifically for these card models.

The same source also indicated that 80nm R600 would be available this October

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Mobile Operators Collaborate for IM Services

2006-02-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

The GSM Association and 15 of the world's largest mobile phone operators are teaming up to bring instant messaging (IM) services across networks that will build on the phenomenal success of text messaging. Including eight of the world's biggest operators-China Mobile, Orange, TelefÃ³nica MÃ³viles, TeliaSonera, TIM, T-Mobile, Turkcell and Vodafone-and the GSM operators in India-Aircel, Bharti, BSNL, Hutchison Essar, Idea, MTNL and Spice-with.

The group also hopes to cooperate with Internet-based IM service providers , such as America Online, Microsoft's MSN, and Yahoo, according to Arun Sarin, Vodafone's chief executive officer. "We want to extend this service and make it a bigger experience for users," he said.

"Thanks to this coordinated instant messaging campaign, more than 700 million mobile subscribers will eventually have access to an IM service that is intuitive, reliable, secure and will work across networks," commented Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association. "Crucially, users will only pay to send, not receive, messages, meaning they can easily control their spending and minimise spam."

"The GSMA is calling this approach to instant messaging Personal IM because it respects the personal nature of mobile devices and protects the trusted and secure environment surrounding mobile voice calls and text messaging," added Craig Ehrlich, Chairman of the GSMA.

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Gigabyte 8N-SLI Quad Royal : Concealed Potensial

2006-02-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

Gigabyte 8N-SLI Quad Royal is the first motherboard capable of Quad SLI. The layout of the expansion slots incorporates four PCI Express x16 slots, two PCI Express x1 slots and a single PCI slot. Unfortunately there were no official driver from nVidia yet and they seems also don’t have a plan to release it. So if you want Quad SLI maybe you can wait Dell’s Quad SLI new upcoming system, Dell XPS 600 Renegade. Ok, back to motherboard again.

The two black PCI Express x16 slots are electrically 1x unless the SLI paddle card is set to SLI mode. The two blue slots are electrically x16 speed until the SLI paddle card is set to SLI mode, at this point they are then routed to PCI Express x8 speed. If you plan to use only two graphics cards, you will need to place them into the blue slots and then use the bridge connector. If you want to use four cards, you group them in black and blue configurations with the SLI bridges on each group. While allowing Quad SLI there is also have another practical use - multiple monitor support. If you choose not to enable SLI, or if you use cards not based on nVidia technology (yes, ATI graphics cards can be used in this board to run more than four monitors) you can have up to eight monitors in a single setup, not bad huh?

The rear I/O panel gives you all the connectors you will need. At the back you get two PS/2, one Parallel, one Coaxial and one Toslink SPDIF Output, one Firewire-400 port, four USB ports, two Gigabit RJ-45 ports and 6 stereo audio analogue ports.

If you aren’t the type of user who wants Quad SLI but want more desktop room on the PC, then this motherboard with its eight monitor support is simply the way to go. With four graphics cards supporting two monitors each, it’s hard to go past this as the ultimate in 3D rendering and graphical presentation setup, and with the Hyper Threading and Dual core Pentium Extreme running the show, you can do almost everything at once on this board. Plus great overclocking features.

Even if you don’t want multi-monitor support, you’ve got plenty of room for expansion in the future for PCI Express devices such as high-speed LAN, RAID controllers and TV tuners which require higher bandwidth PCI Express slots.

See TweakTown for More Info

Specifications of the 8N-SLI Quad Royal
CPU

* Supports Intel Pentium 4 500 and 600 Series LGA775
* Supports Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition LGA774
* Supports Intel Pentium D 800 Series LGA775
* Supports Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 800 Series LGA775
* Supports Intel Celeron D 300 Series LGA775

Chipset

* nVidia nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition x16
* nVidia C19 Northbridge
* nVidia MCP804 Southbridge
* Hyper Transport

System Memory

* 4 DRR2 SDRAM 240pin DIMM Sockets
* Supports DDR2-400/533/667Mhz
* 64/128Bit Dual Channel
* Supports up to 8GB Total Memory (4x 2GB)

Bus Frequency

* 133/200/266MHz Internal
* 533/800/1066MHz External
* Netburst Micro Architecture

Expansion Slots

* 4 PCI Express x16
* 2 PCI Express x1
* 1 PCI

Connectivity

* 2 Parallel ATA port supporting 4 IDE Drives
* 4 Serial ATA ports
* 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports

Expansion Ports

* 1 PS2 Keyboard Port
* 1 PS2 Mouse Port
* 10 USB 2.0 Ports
* 1 Serial Ports
* 1 Parallel Port
* 6 Stereo Audio Ports
* 2 SPDIF Audio Ports
* 3 Firewire-400 Ports

Hacker Attack on Olympic Website Thwarted

2006-02-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

The organizing committee for the Olympic Winter Games (Torino Olympics Organizing Committee) threatens to be hacked by a man. However the threat was neutralized by Italian police before any damage was done. The man who made the threats was employed as a consultant for the group and was able to gain access to off limit parts of the site. The motive of the person is still unknown.

According to Italian News Agency ANSA, Toroc press office chief Giuseppe Gattino said that "there was no specific attack to our computer system. An individual had threatened to place out system in difficulty but never did so."

There are unconfirmed reports that the individual involved was in possession of a number of passwords to enter the Toroc computer system and could have been in a position to damage the system.

The 20th Olympic Winter Games is scheduled from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26.

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AOL Introduces Beta Test of Chinese Language AOL Portal

2006-02-14T05:53:00.000-08:00

AOL launched the first beta version of its new Chinese language Web portal tailored to serve the needs of the Chinese American and Chinese speaking community in the United States.International also welcomed to try.

Created in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, this site is available at here. The portal combines the features like Web search, web logs (Blogs) and e-mail features with news from North America, Europe and Asia. The portal will also offer as many as 20 hours of video content and programming at any given time, including free, full-length movies and episodes of popular TV shows from China, webcasts of sports events from China, and more.

"By creating this free language-specific portal, we can better serve the millions of people in the United States who want access features like e-mail, search, entertainment, and news in one place, in Chinese," said David Liu, Vice President and General Manager, AOL.com. "This launch represents another phase in the evolution of the U.S.AOL.com Web portal and extends our effort to efficiently leverage our Web products, content, communities and services in a context that brings the most value to different segments of our users who share common languages and cultural bonds." He added.

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Fujitsu Siemens Selected Nvidia for Their Workstation.

2006-02-14T01:08:00.000-08:00

Fujitsu Siemens Computers, the leading European computer company has chosen Nvidia Corp products for the Celcius V830 workstation as the leading provider of workstation graphics and AMD processor-based core-logic technology. Fujitsu Siemens chooses nForce Professional 2200 and 2050 Media Communications Processors (MCPs) and NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics.

The NVIDIA nForce Professional 2200 and 2050 MCPs are part of the NVIDIA family of professional single-chip MCPs. Designed for enterprise class customers who require stable, reliable, high-performance computing, NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs offer customers a scalable architecture for AMD Opteron multiprocessor servers and workstations. This includes a proven fifth-generation HyperTransport design, and a flexible PCI Express bus interface.

Workstation users demand products that provide enhanced value for applications such as MCAD, DCC, and film and video applications without compromising on providing enterprise class availability, said Manoj Gujral, general manager of the server and workstation MCP group at NVIDIA.

The key features of the NVIDIA nForce Professional 2200 and 2050 MCPs include:

A feature-rich architecture integrating support for PCI Express, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA 3Gb/s, USB 2.0, and remote management capabilities.
Scalable design enabling the creation of AMD Opteron-based systems from entry 1P workstations to high-end 8P+ servers using the same architecture.
Support for patented NVIDIA SLI technology: Supports the simultaneous use of two full x16 PCI Express workstation graphics cards based on NVIDIA Quadro technology.
ISV certifications: the long-standing relationship that NVIDIA has with industry-leading ISVs increases the likelihood that professional applications are tested and certified on NVIDIA solutions.
The NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) lowers total cost of ownership by providing a stable software image across multiple generations of hardware.

The new Fujitsu Siemens Computers Celsius V830 is available now in single and dual-core configurations in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

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Russia Urged Labeled as Worst Piracy by US Group.

2006-02-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

Russia's copyright piracy problem remains one of the world's most serious issues. Piracy rates for most sectors are estimated at around 70-80 percent in 2005 and losses continue to be overwhelming said the International Intellectual Property Alliance.

Due to this statement U.S. music, movie and software groups urged the US government on Monday to instantaneously suspend trade benefits for Russia in retribution for widespread piracy that annually costs American companies about $1.76 billion in lost sales.

"Repeated efforts by industry and the U.S. government over many years to convince the Russian government to provide meaningful and deterrent enforcement ... have yielded little progress in reducing these high piracy levels," the copyright industry groups said.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance also estimated global piracy losses at $30-$35 billion in 2005, including about $2.4 billion in China.

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AMD's Turion 64 ML-44 Against Intel's Pentium M 760

2006-02-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

The battle among mobile processor continues with the release of AMD's new mobile processor Turion 64 ML-44 and Intel's new mobile processor Pentium M 760. Both of the contenders are being tested by TechReport team to be proven which one is the true frontrunner.

The AMD Turion ML-44 is the latest addition to AMD's Turion line of mobile processors. On the surface, the Turion has much in common with Socket 754 Athlon 64 chips. It has an on-die memory controller capable of addressing a single channel of DDR400 memory, as well as the ability to run 64-bit code—not even the new Core Duo can do that. Depending on model, the Turion features either 512KB or 1MB of L2 cache. Turions also feature support for the NX bit, which can help prevent malicious exploits based on buffer overflows.

The Pentium M 760 is at the upper end of Intel's mobile line, and is an example of how the Pentium M has evolved over time. While the first Pentium M processors had 1MB of L2 cache and ran on a 400MHz bus, newer examples such as the 760 have a giant 2MB of L2 and a 533MHz front-side bus. Finally, like the Turion 64, the newer Pentium M chips add support for the NX bit.

From the test, on the whole the two processors seem evenly matched, as evidenced by the tie on the overall WorldBench score. It seems that every place where one chip should have an advantage, it's brought back into check by another deficit. The Turion 64's on-die memory controller is hampered by the single channel DDR400 limitation, while the Pentium M's high memory bandwidth is handicapped by its slow front-side bus.
From a power consumption perspective, the Turion 64 surprised me. Yes, our Turion 64 test system consumed a third again more power than the Pentium M system at 100% CPU load, but unless you're using your laptop to crunch that F@H work unit on the plane, maximum power consumption isn't usually all that important. For typical use, it seems likely the Turion 64 would be competitive with the Pentium M on the battery life front, as well.

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Intel Scheduled 13-50% Price Cut for Its Dual Core CPU

2006-02-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

Intel will lower prices for its 65nm Pentium D 9xx-series processors by 13-50% on April 23, sources at Taiwan motherboard makers indicated, noting that the price cuts are aimed to accelerate the migration to dual-core processors.

Intel is also scheduled to launch the Pentium D 960 CPU, which will be priced at US$530, on April 30, according to the sources. The new dual-core processor will feature a 3.6GHz clock speed.

Intel expects dual-core models to reach a 23% share of the business PC market by the middle of the year and 43% in the high-end consumer segment by the end of the year, the sources said.

I guess for them doing this is to improve their public image. The recent incident on Japan clearly shows Intel is playing dirty. However, it is still remain a mystery whether Intel playing dirty or not on others country. You also can see the price change in here.

Power6 Gets Second Silicon, IBM to Crank the Clock

2006-02-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

I found an article considering new IBM chip, Power6 that recently been tested. Timothy Prickett Morgan the writer revealed interesting story about Power6 that he is holding now. Check it out here.

All of this begs the question of what all of those extra transistors in Power6 are doing. I think there is probably a much larger L2 cache--and for all we know, each core has its own cache now instead of a shared cache--and the L3 cache memory controller has been moved on the chip. I also think that IBM has thrown in a very large number of features that will allow its z/OS operating system to run in some sort of hardware-assisted emulation mode on the Power6 processors. Whether IBM will admit this, or even turn it on in 2007, remains to be seen. But there has been far too much talk about Project ECLipz, the supposed consolidation of IBM's iSeries, pSeries, and zSeries servers onto the Power architecture that started in 2001, for it to be all hogwash. Remember, vendors may not outright lie, but they don't exactly always tell the truth, either, about future products. Intel would not talk about 64-bit memory extensions in the Pentium 4 and Xeon chips, and kept denying it was working on them, even though if you did the transistor counts, you knew something was going on starting with the "Prescott" Pentium 4s. IBM has an awful lot of transistors that are unaccounted for in the Power6, especially considering that it is using transistors more efficiently.

The important thing for IBM's pSeries and iSeries customers is that they will get Power6 machines that can do about twice the work of a Power5+ machine. IBM roughly doubled performance moving from the Power4 to the Power5 generation, so this is consistent. If a lot of those extra circuits are used to emulate zSeries instructions and allow z/OS applications to run in heavily degraded mode, so what? A 5 GHz Power6 chip running at one-third efficiency will deliver about the same MIPS as the current System z9 mainframes. Everybody wins--especially IBM, which can presumably make a more profitable mainframe this way. Consolidating the iSeries and the pSeries line has been a boon for IBM, and this will be too--if this is indeed IBM's plan.

Nvidia Analysis on ATI New GPU, Radeon X1900.

2006-02-13T05:33:00.000-08:00

After recent release of X1900, Nvidia come up with pretty harsh comment on ATI new GPU, X1900 performance. Yet this is not the first time Nvidia does it. Most of the reports show the failure of the new ATI GPU. However they seem forgot to put full hardware specs and price tag in there LoL. Remember ATI only have 16 pipelines in there yet can perform well against 24 lines. The fight is still on ^_^

Taken from techpowerup.com :

Intel Proved Guilty for Monopolizing Market in Japan

2006-02-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

Intel proved guilty in Japan for violating Japan’s anti-monopoly laws. The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) found that Intel push system maker into limiting or totally removes AMD processor in their products. However the penalty seems light. It may be that the JFTC knew that AMD would come along behind to inflict a more severe spanking in the form of a lawsuit.

AMD’s media releases on the AMD v Intel lawsuit in the US seek to steer public sentiment in AMD’s favour by portraying the case as one it’s fighting on behalf of the processor market. It’s not AMD’s job to fight that fight, and what’s more, it can’t — AMD v Intel isn’t the People v Intel. AMD is in court representing itself, looking for the kinds of specifically targeted redress that civil litigants can obtain through the courts, primarily damages.

AMD couldn’t require, for example, that Intel agree to reimburse OEMs for the higher prices they paid for components because Intel’s market control fixed those prices.

In effect, the processor market has no representation in AMD v Intel. AMD could walk away a winner and leave Intel humbled and out a little pocket change, but the market might learn nothing: nothing about how anti-competitive behaviour harms the market (not just AMD); nothing about civil process, nothing about how computer components are bought and sold; nothing about how their prices are determined; nothing about their impact on the economy; nothing about the special rules applied to the behaviour of companies that dominate their segment, and nothing about how companies protect themselves from malicious litigation.--ComputerWorld

Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT : Overclocker Choice

2006-02-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

Too bad no LED on this, overall Corsair never failed to impress me. With such amazing feat on default high FSB speed and its decent timing, I would recommend this to you. You should see the report on Pro-Clockers about this RAM.

The TWINX2048-4000PT is a pair of two 1028 MByte, two-bank, ultra-performance DDR SDRAM DIMMs screened specifically for gaming applications. This part delivers outstanding performance at very high clock speeds. It has been tested extensively in a variety of motherboards commonly used in gaming rigs. This memory has been verified to operate at 500MHz (3-4-4-8). This part is also available in single modules. Side-by-side comparison indicates that this is one of the fastest DDR modules available in the world.

Specifications:

Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT PC4000 DDR500 Memory Kit: Manufactured by Corsair

2 x 1028 Megabytes of Memory
Implemented using 64M x 8 DDR SDRAMs
Tested at JEDEC standard latency settings 3-4-4-8
Speed: DDR 500 (PC4000)
Timing: 3-8-4-4 1T
Voltage: 2.75V
ECC: None
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
100% Tested at 250 MHz in high performance motherboards
Benchmarked over multiple chip sets, processors and motherboards
Lengendary Corsair reliability and service
Lifetime warranty

Microsoft Anti Spyware Hate Norton Anti Virus

2006-02-12T04:06:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Anti-Spyware program is causing troubles for people who also use Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus software; apparently, a recent update to Microsoft's anti-spyware application flags Norton as a password-stealing program and prompts users to remove it.

According to several different support threads over at Microsoft's user groups forum, the latest definitions file from Microsoft "(version 5805, 5807) detects Symantec Antivirus files as PWS.Bancos.A (Password Stealer)."

Patch will be released soon to fix this problem. Microsoft will not responsible of any damage possible in any companies since it is still in beta test. Beta test should not to be deployed on production environment.

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MPAA : DRM Here To Save Consumer, Really?

2006-02-12T03:18:00.000-08:00

according to Dan Glickman, DRM is here to protect vulnerable consumers from themselves. "Content owners use DRMs because it provides casual, honest users with guidelines for using and consuming content based on the usage rights that were acquired. Without the use of DRMs, honest consumers would have no guidelines and might eventually come to totally disregard copyright and therefore become a pirate, resulting in great harm to content creators," he said.

It it this "holier than thou" attitude that angers consumers. How can the movie industry tell me DRM exists to stop me from doing something "wrong" when all it stops me from doing is transferring video to my iPod, or to my PSP, or creating a backup copy in case my original becomes badly scratched? Is it not my "right" to do these things? All DRM seems to be doing is forcing people to buy their content again on different formats, or buying the same DVD again to replace the damage your kids accidentally did to their Disney DVDs.

Save us or save yourself. Instead busy protecting the content why can’t they invent something that can identify between a pirate and an innocent legal person.

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New Upcoming Xeon Quad Core, Tigerton and Clovertown

2006-02-12T03:01:00.000-08:00

Intel was showing off its two new quad core 65nm Xeon processors last week at ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference). The chips, named Tigerton and Clovertown, are multi-core versions of Intel's upcoming Conroe and Merom architecture. Intel have already revealed Merom will feature a 4MB L2 cache, 14 stage 4-issue pipeline and operate on just under 45W for two cores. However Intel doesn’t mention of clock speed, or even if all four cores were functional on the CPUs, but the demonstration did include a PC running on the processors. As to why there are two codenames for quad core CPUs, Intel representatives hinted to us that the layouts of the cores are different between the two CPUs. Both of the chips will hit the market in early 2007. For more info on this chip check in here

AMD also announced that quad core Opteron processors will be available in 2007. AMD typically demonstrates new chipsets and processors during IDF offsite.

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XFX 7800GT XXX : Good Enough for SLI

2006-02-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I encounter another interesting GPU. However this good looking graphic card seems a little sluggish on single performance. From review by motherboard.org clearly this card made for SLI. The price is bit high also. Not really recommended for someone on tight budget and aim for single GPU.

The SLI performance pretty much impressing especially when tested on F.E.A.R. not so great, but enough. Added with its beautiful design I think you should add this baby into your list.

Overclocked, good looking and fast, that is my opinion of the new XXX 7800GT from XFX as it delivers what's promised right out of the box. Package content is above the average and at least gives you a few decent game titles to wet your gaming appetite with. The way the XFX logo lights up in your system looks really cool so those wanting a custom tailored system will be pleased with that and the jet-black PCB of the card. These cards are not aimed at the budget or mid-level market, but are aimed at the high-end of the spectrum and carry a price tag that although well within the price range of others is still a bit pricey for the dollar conscious individual. If you are a gamer, a media encoder or graphic artist this card is a serious candidate for your money. Good job XFX the XXX 7800GT is a solid card worthy of any serious user's attention.—motherboard.org

Brand	XFX
Model	7800GT XXX Edition
Graphics Chip	G70
Graphics Memory Type	DDR3
Memory (MB)	256
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	450
Memory Clock (MHz)	1050
Memory Speed (ns)	2.0
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	Dual 400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	Yes
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	DVI-I, DVI-I
Video In and Out	S-Video Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	Coolbits
Major Games	Far Cry X2 The Threat Moto GP2
Major Software	Tenomichi 3D Edit
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	None
Video Recording Software	None

Malware Causes Firms Lost $62B in 2005

2006-02-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

According to latest State of Spyware report issued today by Webroot Software, consumers, small businesses and enterprises across the globe all experienced a record number of infection rates for the worst types of spyware in 2005. Most alarming was the rise in the most malicious types of spyware - trojans and system monitors. For enterprises, between Q3 and Q4 of 2005, the number of trojan infections increased 9 percent. From Q2 to Q4 2005, the number of system monitors like keystroke loggers increased 50 percent consecutively each quarter.

"This past year was a boon for spyware criminals. Last month, Webroot surveyed U.S. businesses and found that over half of respondents reported a spyware-disruption that resulted in lost revenue, a statistic mirrored by a recent FBI study that surmised that computer-related crimes, such as spyware, cost U.S. business $62 billion. That is 10 percent more than all identity fraud and over 60 times the cost of telecommunications fraud," said David Moll, chief executive officer of Webroot Software. "This criminal enterprise we call spyware continues to advance in technology and sophistication. As long as the money and opportunities exist, so will spyware."

These past years tremendous growth of malware has been spotted. From rootkit keylogger driven by kernel-level drive and to infamous polymorphic type, yet some of us still not realize the danger of it. At least now anti-malware firm has begun its counter attack.

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Western Digital WD1500ADFD & WD1500AHFD : Much Faster and Bigger

2006-02-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

Western Digital seems trying to prove it self. The new Western Digital WD1500ADFD & WD1500AHFD really packed with power. They pretty much the same, only the covers different on both versions. Both of it can achieve amazing speed of 10,000 RPM, but with reasonable density that only 150GB. Really a great product for who are in multimedia industry. In fact, having this drive as the primary OS and game unit with a larger capacity drive for general storage would be another ideal combination.

Western Digital also adding few elements to overcome the shortcoming of its previous models (WD740) with the addition of a 16 MB buffer, NCQ (Native Command Queuing), and native SATA implementation wrapped in two different packages depending upon your tastes and budget. With the upcoming transition from the parallel SCSI Ultra320 interface to the new Serial Attached SCSI interface, the drive stands a very good chance at competing successfully in the entry-level enterprise market.

The SAS standard offers interoperability with the current SATA standards. In fact, both standards utilize the same physical connectors, while SAS host adapters can control SATA drives. This also offers the opportunity for the drive to become a standard in the workstation market where, historically, SCSI has competed well against SATA based upon performance to price ratios.

However from Anandtech testing report, they did witness performance decreases of up to 9% in certain benchmarks with NCQ activated.

We will further investigate the performance penalty of NCQ in the near future with our revised benchmark suite. At this time we recommend turning off NCQ if this drive will be utilized in a single-user environment.

Physical Specs

- Capacity 150GB
- Interface: SATA 150 MB/s
- Spindle Speed: 10,000 RPM
- Cache Buffer: 16MB
- Number Of Platters: 2
- Number Of Heads: 4
- Bytes Per Sector: 512
- Height 1.028 Inches
- Length 5.787 Inches
- Width 4.00 Inches
- Weight 1.81 Pounds

Performance Specs

Seek Times

- Read Seek Time 4.6 ms
- Write Seek Time 5.2 ms (average)
- Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.4 ms (average)
- Full Stroke Seek 10.2 ms (average)

Transfer Rates

- Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 1.5 Gb/s (Max)
- Buffer To Disk 84 MB/s (Sustained)

Acoustics

- Idle Mode 29 dBA (average)
- Seek Mode 0 36 dBA (average)

Power Dissipation

- Read/Write 10.02 Watts
- Idle 9.19 Watts
- Standby 2.66 Watts
- Sleep 2.48 Watts

Features

- Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
- RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER) — a feature unique to WD, prevents drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives.
- Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) — optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multidrive systems such as rack-mounted servers or network storage.
- FlexPower™ — connector technology that accepts power from either industry-standard or new SATA power supplies.

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AMD uses Sapphire Platform for 65nm chip testing

2006-02-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

AMD will choose Credence Systems Corporation’s Sapphire platform to test its next generation 65nm chip. From early partnership AMD with Credence resulted in an AMD Opteron processor-based workstation for Sapphire platform, and achieve up to 40% improvement in test efficiency.

Sapphire™ is the industry's first open architecture ATE. Engineered from every perspective to reduce cost-of-test, it is built on the all new NPower™ platform that offers 4-D Scalable™ performance at any level and combination of analog/digital capabilities, pin count, power and price-performance – enabling companies to easily tailor test systems for their unique test roadmaps. Sapphire runs on XTOS™ (eXtendable Test Operating System) software, putting state-of-the-art software tools at the engineer's fingertips. XTOS software uses the industry standards STIL, XML, and Java to provide the most powerful and yet easy-to-use test tools, from design & debug to production.--Credence

AMD claimed that the Sapphire system delivers configuration flexibility with test capabilities optimised from DC to multi-gigahertz, with fully encapsulated instruments that can be inserted into any slot in the test head.

"AMD has chosen to migrate all its next-generation 65nm testing requirements, from debug through high volume production test, to the Sapphire system," said Daryl Ostrander, senior vice president of logic technology and manufacturing at AMD.

"It is an extremely robust, flexible and scalable system that delivers the performance that we need at a very low cost."

AMD will use Credence's Sapphire platform for all its advanced processor testing requirements, from development and characterisation through to high-volume production testing.

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First View on 65nm Dual Core Sossaman, Xeon LV

2006-02-11T01:51:00.000-08:00

Intel preparing to release its new 65nm Core Duo “Sossaman” server processor with name Xeon LV. Along with its announcement, motherboard manufacture, Supermicro announced its latest product that will support the new chip and its 31W power envelope. The photo I got is from Japanese website; note that this product will be release on Japan first.

Supermicro's boards, the X6DLP-4G2 and the X6DLP-EG2, are pitched at "space-constrained cluster environments", the company said. They're based on Intel's E7520 chipset, aka 'Lindenhurst', and can take up to 16GB of ECC DDR 2 SDRAM. They have Gigabit Ethernet on board, and dual-mode "universal" PCI-X/PCI Express slots.

The boards take two processors, providing a four-way system. The 65nm Xeon LV is clocked at 2GHz and contains 2MB of L2 cache shared between its two cores. It incorporates Intel's Enhanced Speedstep Technology. Essentially, it's a 'Yonah' Core Duo/Pentium M validated for server use - indeed, with Supermicro boards turning up today in Japanese computer stores, according to a PCWatch report, a quick check reveals Windows system properties panel lists the part as a "Pentium M CPU 000 @ 2.00GHz".'

source

One of The Fastest P4 MotherBoard : Gigabyte GA-G1975X

2006-02-11T00:50:00.000-08:00

The GA-G1975X integrated hardware audio controller from Creative Sound Blaster Live 24-bit, delivers heart pounding 7.1 channel surround effects to deliver the most natural and engrossing multimedia entertainment experience possible from games, DVD movies, music, and TV. With DTS enabled functions - DTS-ES and DTS Neo:6, GA-G1975X brings you the ultimate entertainment experience to the PC world.

Impressive performance has been showed by this motherboard when being tested by guru3d crew. By the test result it is so obvious the motherboard has been designed for overclocking purpose. With new latest added C.R.S (CMOS Reload Switch) this motherboard more likely to be favorite among tweakers.

Unfortunately Nvidia SLI seems not working on Gigabyte GA-G1975X, only Crossfire work just fine. Though the bundle was include with SLI Bridge. Sad it is.

I was disappointing to see that NVIDIA SLI did not work where Crossfire will work absolute fine. Not exactly Gigabyte's fault .. but hey. The SLI bridge got me excited when I opened up that box for sure. Perhaps future ForceWare drivers will solve this ? As it is a driver issue. I believe not anytime soon though, I contacted NVIDIA and they where just as surprized about it as I was. Fact is, Intel stated that no licensing is required and all that is needed .. is NVIDIA's driver support. And since NVIDIA would like you to buy NFORCE4 mainboards .. they do not have a reason whatsoever to unlock that function.

The other things really get into my mind is only four SATA connector available in there, while K8NXP-SLI has eight. Pretty much disappointing since the price is so classy indeed. Besides these lack of features, this mainboard for sure, it's good, extremely feature-rich, highly tweakable, fast and most of all stable in many tweaked conditions. Note that no AGP on this motherboard so look other way if you still need AGP port.

Technical Information (mwave.com):

Processor

LGA775 Intel® Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 prcessor
Supports 1066/800/533MHz FSB

Chipset

Northbridge: Intel® 975X Express Chipset
Southbridge: Intel®ICH7R
T.I IEEE 1394 Controller
Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Creative Sound Blaster Live 24-bit Audio controller

Memory

Type: Dual channel DDR2 533/667-240pin
Max capacity: Up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots

Internal I/O Connectors

4 X Serial ATA 3Gb/s connectors
1 X UDMA ATA 100/66/33 connector
1 X FDD connector
1 X IEEE 1394 connector (support 2 ports)
3 X USB 2.0/1.1 connectors (support 6 ports)
1 X audio pin header (support 7.1-ch)
1 X S/PDIF In/Out pin header
3 X Cooling fan pin headers

Expansion Slots

2 x PCI Express X16 slot
2 x PCI Express X4 slots
2 x PCI slots

Rear Panel I/O

2 X USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 X RJ45 port
PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
Audio (1x Line-in/ 1x Line-out/ 1x Mic) connector

Form Factor

ATX form factor
305 x 244mm

H/W Monitoring

System health status auto-detect and report by BIOS
Hardware detecting and reporting for case open, CPU voltage, and fan speed BIOS
2 x 4Mb flash ROM, Award BIOS

Other Features

Multi-GPU support
C.R.S. (CMOS Reload Switch)
Norton Internet Security
Xpress™ Installation
Xpress™ Recovery 2
C.I.A. 2 (CPU Intelligent Accelerator 2)
M.I.B. 2 (Memory Intelligent Booster 2)
EasyTune™ 5
Download Center

Seven Patches Planned on Release by Microsoft

2006-02-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

Microsoft planned to release seven patches on next Tuesday, 14th February. From seven patches two will be rated “Critical” which according to Microsoft that can remotely exploit users system.

One of the critical patches will fixed security holes in Windows Media Player, said Microsoft, However, Microsoft offered no details on the bug. According to Danish-based vulnerability tracker Secunia, there are no critical flaws in Media Player outstanding, which might mean that the vulnerability is not known to hackers and so is not yet being exploited.

Four of the seven patches involve Windows; at least one is gauged "Critical" by Microsoft. Two other patches fixed flaw labeled as “Important” on Microsoft Office. One of it affects both Windows and MS Office. The last one update the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool to, at the least, account for the Kama Sutra/MyWife/Nyxem worm that caused a stir last week.

eEye Digital Security, a Aliso Viejo, California-based company well-known for spotting Microsoft flaws, currently has four open Windows issues listed on its research page. The oldest was reported to and acknowledged by Microsoft in early May 2005. Secunia, meanwhile, claims that 26 unpatched bugs exist in Windows XP alone.

source

ATI Release Catalyst 6.2 and Beta Driver For Vista

2006-02-10T08:16:00.000-08:00

ATI today released the second Catalyst driver update for 2006. Catalyst 6.2 fixes bug for games (BattleField 2, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft) and applications (AutoCAD, Windows XP MCE, HDTV). However, Catalyst 6.2 is also the first driver update to support ATI's latest graphic chip X1900 and graphic cards carrying the X1900 XT, XTX and Crossfire version of graphics processor.

Catalyst 6.2 is available for download in the Driver and Software section of ATI's website. Users, who testing beta version of Windows Vista, may also want to check out a new driver for the operating system. ATI just released its second Catalyst beta driver that is optimized for Windows Vista Build 5270.

Oxford, Harvard Law School, Joint Battle Against Malware

2006-02-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

Recent rising trend for malware has moved Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society to team up with Oxford University against it. Both has launch a website StopBadware.org in order to helping users fight back against malicious software. The site aims to eliminate spyware and other types of malware.

“Badware,” according to the website, is a broad category that encompasses adware, spyware, and other malicious programs. The site will collect individuals’ stories of their battles with the electronic nemesis.

“We hope this will be a neighborhood watch of badware,” said Executive Director of the Berkman Center John G. Palfrey, Jr., who is co-directing the project. “Based on what we hear, we’re going to design programs to combat the problem.”

Almost sixty million American adults have spyware on their computers, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

“You don’t know what’s running, you don’t know how to get rid of it, it’s confusing,” Palfrey said. As a result, “people trust the Internet much less than before.” “And even when you have a law, it’s hard to enforce because of cross-border problems.” Palfrey added.

source

Samsung Develops Fastest 1GB Micro Memory Card

2006-02-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd has developed new MMCmicro with 1GB density and capable of writing at 7.12 MB/s, about 3.5 times faster compare to other micro cards. Also reads at speed of 7.38 MB/s, compared with 7.10 megabytes per second for existing products. This card designed for mobile phone, digital cameras and MP3 players.

"The card is large enough to store 15 hours of mobile video and fast enough to download 90 minutes of video in less than two minutes," said Don Barnetson, associate director of flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor USA.
The card operates on 1.8 or 3.3 volts, with the lower voltage version consuming 82 percent less power than other micro-size cards, said Samsung. An adapter allows the card to plug into any multimedia card slot. Housing four NAND flash memories and a controller, the card measures 12 x 14 x 1.1 mm. It will be available the third quarter.

Semiconductor research firm Dataquest expects the global market for micro memory cards to grow at an 81 percent compound annual growth rate between 2005 and 2010, from 4 million to 77 million units.

source

ATI Radeon Xpress 300 Coming on Q2

2006-02-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

ATI RS485 IGP chipset will be release in Q2 2006 with official name ATI Radeon Xpress 300. The chip will be using new upcoming AMD socket M2 processors. But the integrated graphics core will still be X300 and no HyperMemory. However the core clock will be higher. It will be paired up with ATI SB600 southbridge to provide support for ATA 133, SATA II and HD Audio functions.

ATI RS485 (ATI Radeon Xpress 300)

Radeon 9600 gfx core
1 PCIe x16, PCIe Link to SB
No LFB option

source

Hacker and Cracker Shift Their Eyes on OS X

2006-02-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

Booming of Apple’s Mac OS X signals all the hacker to shift their eyes on them. Less security compared to current UNIX and the current transition plan into Intel architecture will just make it worse.

OS X platform are based on UNIX that are less vulnerable compared to windows platform. Yet OS X seems forgetting to put security measure that UNIX has done in twenty-years past and make it more vulnerable than UNIX these days.

"This is almost certainly the year of the OS X exploit," said Jay Beale, a senior security consultant for Intelguardians and an expert in hardening Linux and Mac OS X systems. "The OS X platform may be based on a Unix platform, but Apple seems to be making mistakes that Unix made, and corrected, long ago."

Apple also has been widely criticized for not talking about the details of its vulnerability-response process or how it manages security incidents. While Microsoft has the lion's share of security problems--and the Mac OS X hardly any--the Redmond, Wash., based software giant has received high marks from security researchers for its responsiveness, while Apple has often been the focus of complaints.

"On a good day, Apple doesn't even make it to Microsoft's level of security awareness," Beale said.

source

Nvidia New Chipset MCP55 Leaked

2006-02-09T01:57:00.000-08:00

An administrator forum from t-break revealed new upcoming Nvidia MCP55 chip full specs. Four types of chip revealed.

C51XE+MCP55PXE:
Features 2 x16 SLI slots (total 46 lanes, 9 links) and supports FX and Athlon series of M2 CPUs. Six SATA ports with RAID5, dual Gigabit LAN with ActiveArmor and UAA Audio. Very overclockable.

MCP55P SLI:
Features 2 x8 SLI slots (total 28 lanes, 6 links) and supports Athlon series of M2 CPUs. Six SATA ports with RAID5, Dual Gigabit LAN with ActiveArmor and UAA Audio

MCP55 Ultra:
Features 1 x16 slot (total 20 lanes, 5 links) and supports Athlon series of M2 CPUs. Six SATA ports with RAID5, Dual Gigabit LAN with Active Armor and UAA Audio.

There will also supposedly be MCP55S for the budget market supporting Sempron M2 CPUs with four SATA ports and one Gigabit LAN. No RAID5 or ActiveArmor on these but you should get UAA support.

The above line pretty much matches the current nVidia lineup where you have the X16 sitting on top and then the nF4 SLI followed by the nF4 Ultra and nForce4 chipsets.

source

Russian Cracker Stole EUR 1M From French Bank

2006-02-08T23:27:00.000-08:00

French bank customer was in shock after lost €40,000 due to Trojan on his computer. UK broadsheet The Guardian reports that Russian cracker have stolen more than EUR1m or about £680,000 from personal bank accounts in France by using rogue Trojan viruses to infect the computers of banking customers. Surprisingly this act has been done for as long eleven months.

The Trojan is embedded in e-mails or Web sites and remains dormant until the user contacts their bank online. When that happens, the bug becomes active and records passwords and bank codes which are then forwarded to the thieves.

A dozen Russian criminals, described by police as being typically aged between 20 and 30, and several Ukrainian masterminds of the scam have been arrested in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Russian crackers become major player in underground world in these few couples of years. It is such a shame to misuse such power.

source

Significant Increases on Malware Websites

2006-02-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

Malicious programs appear more dangerous than it used to be. The rootkit technology and uses of polymorphic code has made most of the malware invisible. Also the significant increase of this threat reported by Websense, Websense Master Database is the most accurate, up-to-date database in the industry detects 300% increases of malware websites.

The Websense Master Database is the most accurate, up-to-date database in the industry. Recent increases to the Master Database reflect the continual growth of the internet as an attack vector by today’s cyber-criminals. The Websense database reached 10 million sites in May 2005 and quickly grew to 15 million sites within approximately eight months. Today, the database includes more than 90 categories, such as spyware, phishing and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, which organizations can use to protect employees against malicious internet sites as well as set flexible filtering policies for employee web usage.

“Websense has more than 10 years of specialized internet mining expertise, and the growth that we have seen over the past year in malicious content has been astonishing,” said Patrick Swisher, director, database operations for Websense, Inc. “As our knowledge of the internet continues to increase, so does our ability to create more sophisticated processes to classify these types of high-risk sites and provide our customers with greater protection. Our award-winning software has the ability to proactively discover and immediately protect our customers against the most ominous web-based threats such as spyware, bots, phishing attacks, viruses and crimeware.”

During 2005, software vulnerabilities were increasingly exploited by malicious websites hosting malcode, and the Websense Master Database’s security-related categories reflect this growth. For example, since February 2005, spyware-related websites have increased from approximately 48,000 sites to more than 130,000 today — a 170 percent upsurge. In addition, during the same time period, phishing and other fraudulent websites have grown approximately 271 percent from 7,270 to more than 27,000 sites.

To maintain database accuracy, Websense purges dead website links from the database on a daily basis, and to date has removed nearly four million dead links. This is of particular importance for internet categories that represent web security risks, such as phishing or fraud-based websites, which have a short life span. Phishing websites are currently online for an average of less than six days and the underlying IP addresses associated with those websites change frequently. Source: PRWeb.

source

Sony Put A Price Tag on Blu-Ray

2006-02-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Sony has put a new price tag for Blu-Ray disc that become available in U.S stores this year. Fortunately the price is lower than I thought, hopefully the price continue to drop until PS3 release.

“Catalog Blu-ray Disc titles will wholesale for $17.95, about the same as DVDs when that format hit the market in 1997. New-release Blu-ray discs will wholesale for $23.45, a premium of 15%-20% over what suppliers were charging for new theatrical DVDs.”

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is a next-generation optical disc format meant for storage of high-definition video and high-density data. The Blu-ray standard was jointly developed by a group of consumer electronics and PC companies called the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). As compared to the HD DVD format, its main competitor, Blu-ray has more information capacity per layer, 25 instead of 15 gigabytes, but may initially be more expensive to produce.--wikipedia

source

Motorola Release New Thinnest Series of RAZR

2006-02-08T20:38:00.000-08:00

Motorola on Wednesday release new series of RAZR which is claimed to be the thinnest phone. The 14.8 millimeter thick slide-model codenamed Z was designed and developed in Korea.

“Gill Hyun-chang, chief executive at Motorola Korea said ‘This is the thinnest among many slider phones available here but it by no means lacks applications compared to other handsets’

The model is outfitted with a 2.2-inch screen, a mega-pixel digital camera and an MP3 player on top of highly customized user interfaces provided on a metal keypad.”

Currently the new RAZR Z planned to hit the local market with price of 500,000 won and 600,000 won. It is still unknown when it will distributed internationally

"My first impression was that the Z is fit for foreigner’s big hands, not for Korea’s smaller ones. Its size is almost similar to that of the RAZR. But, the latter is okay here since it is a clamshell-type phone but a slider is different," a Seoul analyst said.

source

DoubleSight DS-1900 Dual LCD

2006-02-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

DoubleSight DS-1900 Dual LCD is truly a creative product. Equip with two panels instead of one give maximum exposure for one who needs a wide working area also one who needs two working area at the same time. Instead buying two monitors you might want to try this.

The main features of the DoubleSight DS-1900 Dual LCD consist of 2 19" displays, with a viewing area of 30" horizontal by 12" tall, a maximum resolution of 2560x1024 (1280x1024 on each display), 16 million colors, a brightness of 300 cd/m2 typ and a contrast ratio of 700:1, highest contrast ratios available on current market. The two monitors put together weigh 44 pounds. Lighter compare to average CRT monitors.

The maximum resolution of the combined both DoubleSight DS-1900 Dual LCD panels are 2560x1024. Each display can do maximum of 1280x1024 resolutions independently of the other. One thing about the DS-1900 is its 8ms response time. This gives a maximum refresh rate of 125MHz. The maximum refresh rate of the DS-1900 is 80Hz.

Features

Panel Type 19" TFT monitor
Viewable Area: 752.64mm horizontal; 301.056mm vertical
Resolution: 2560 x 1024 max.
Colors: 16M max.
Brightness: 300 cd/m2 typ.
Contrast Ratio: 700:1 typ.
Pixel Pitch: 0.294mm
Viewing Angle: -85~+85° horizontal; -85~+85° vertical typ.
Tilt/Rotation: 0~+20° vertical; -45~+45° horizontal
Dimensions: 34.2in W x 19.1in H x 10.1in D (w/stand)
Weight: 44 lbs.
Warranty: Three year limited warranty (parts and labor)

DoubleSight

Toshiba and NEC Develops New MRAM

2006-02-08T03:05:00.000-08:00

Toshiba that recently announced its current development on new FeRAM technology now has join with NEC to develop new MRAM technology that achieves a 16Mb density and a read and write speed of 200Mb a second. Same speed as current FeRAM that are still under development by Toshiba.

“According to two companies, a major challenge of MRAM development has been the acceleration of read speeds: the current drive circuit used to generate the magnetic field for writing degrades read operation from memory cells. The new MRAM has an improved circuit design that divides the current paths for reading and writing, realizing a faster read speed. It also reduces equivalent resistance in wiring by approximately 38% by forking the write current. These innovations together achieve a read and write speed of 200MB/sec and a cycle time of 34ns -- both claimed to be the world's best performance for MRAM. This performance is underlined by a low operating voltage of only 1.8V, the ideal voltage for mobile digital products.”

MRAM is expected to be a next-generation non-volatile memory that retains data when powered off and that achieves fast random access speeds and unlimited endurance in operation.

Development of these new MRAM technologies was supported by grants from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

source

Sony Desktop VAIO VA1 Series Released

2006-02-07T23:45:00.000-08:00

Sony has released Desktop version of VAIO, VAIO VA1 Series. This desktop has strong emphasis on entertainment. The computer equipped with X-Black LCD Screen along with TV Tuner, 250GB HDD, 512x2 MB Memory and DVD Writer, wireless keyboard and mouse. The VA1 also comes with the latest version of Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition and combines this with a Pentium D Processor and a 128MB graphics chip.

For computer enthusiast maybe this one is not really on your list. But for average users may find it quite interesting. The specification offered also appealing. Unfortunately due to its compact design everything was built-in inside the VAIO case. I wonder if I can modify it quite a bit though.

source

Microsoft HTML Help Workshop Exploit Detected

2006-02-07T23:35:00.000-08:00

New exploit has been discovered on Microsoft HTML Help Workshop files (.hhp). This exploit execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the target user. The buffer overflow occurs when a long string is supplied as contents file.

“The advisory notes that the HTML Help Workshop software compresses HTML, graphic and other files into a relatively small compiled help (.chm) file. "An unchecked buffer in the way HTML Help Workshop processes .hhp files allows a remote user to take control over EIP, and thus execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the target user," the researcher said. "The buffer overflow occurs when a long string is supplied as contents file."

Fortunately this exploit will not affect machine who have not installed the HTML Help SDK. Until patches have been released it is recommended not to open suspicious .hpp files.

“Microsoft's initial investigation has revealed that customers who have not installed the HTML Help SDK on their systems are not affected, he said, adding, "By default, no other Microsoft applications or operating systems have the ability to open .hhp files."

source

Toshiba Develops Fastest Chip with Highest Density

2006-02-06T21:33:00.000-08:00

The Chip using new technology called FeRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) that capable swapping data 200MByte/s with capacity of 64 Mbit "the most advanced combination of performance and density yet achieved," the company said.

“The chip was developed to have such a high performance level due to the adoption of burst mode for high-speed data transfers, it said. FeRAM shares flash memory's ability to retain data even when not powered, and combines it with the fast operating characteristics of DRAM.

Toshiba will boost its research and development in FeRAM with an eye on its wider use, including high-performance mobile digital equipment and computers.”

source

AMD Socket 940 Unalike Twin, AM2

2006-02-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

The upcoming AM2 socket 940 that employ with technology to support low-latency DDR2 still debated by the expert due to impact of the higher latency Intel Netburst architecture.

“The new AMD technology refresh, now called AM2, will bring DDR2 memory to the Athlon64 on-processor memory controller. Many in the industry have speculated about the impact of this low latency memory controller on DDR2 performance, which to this point has suffered under the impact of the higher latency Intel Netburst architecture. We are looking forward to the opportunity to take a closer look at DDR2 performance on AM2 - which is everyone's big question.”

Though it is using the same socket as its older DDR technology twin, AMD reposition some pin so users do not mistakenly put the new AM2 on old DDR motherboard. You can see the pictures of it in here

“By flipping the current 940 socket photo and comparing pin-outs to the back of the AM2, you can clearly see the top 2 "lands", areas without pins, are identical in the current Socket 940 and the AM2 Socket 940. However, the bottom two lands are in different locations. The bottom right land is the same 2 pins up, but 7pins form the edge instead of the 5 in the current 940 design. The left land is also in the same row position as the current 940, but it is 6 pins from the left edge instead of 8 as in the current 940 design.”

Bad news if you think AM2 cage will be the same as socket 940. Apparently AMD also change the cage design that makes most of HSF (Heatsink/Fan) incompatible anymore. So you might consider buying new HSF in the future.

“It appears AM2 will change this ongoing HSF compatibility with a brand new, and mostly incompatible, heatsink cage design. The new AM2 design, if it makes it to final production, is a nice upgrade to the existing Athlon 64 HSF mounting design, but there are almost no current Athlon 64 HSFs that will fit the new design.”

source

IBM Aims for Russian Developers

2006-02-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

IBM recently offers free software and technical support to developers from Russia to help them build ground-breaking application based on open standards and open source. The company is giving their support to software developers, architects and students in Russia They have free access to software and hundreds of new tools and various sources.

“IBM said that providing free access to software and educational resources is part of its global initiative to help accelerate the development and adoption of open standards-based solutions in emerging markets, such as China, India, Russia and Brazil, as well as in established markets worldwide.”

They also seem aim for ability of young Russian developers that has been proved it’s excellently on coding. Also to help them deliver open standards-based solution to market faster.

“The launch of developerWorks Russia is the latest step in an effort to reach Russian developers. Russia has one of the largest, growing developer populations in the world, which is fueled by its large IT student population. In 2004, IBM announced an expansion of the IBM Innovation Center in Moscow, which has offered porting and testing services to more than 100 ISVs, helping them deliver open standards-based solutions to market faster.”

source

Overclocking X1900XTX and X1900 CrossFire @ NordicHardware

2006-02-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

Beware, Extreme OverClock ahead! NordicHardware OC guru Robert "Crotale" Kihlberg has been playing around with an X1900XTX together with 3DMark Champion Marcus "Kinc" Hultin and Swedish OC legend Peter "incido" Nilsson and managed to find a real sweet spot for the card. At the same time the wellknown forum member mmouse has been playing around with his X1900 CrossFire system and posted some very impressive results in the forum.

check full report here

Where to Upload Your Files!

2006-02-05T18:37:00.000-08:00

FileFront
File Size Limit: Unlimited
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unlimited
http://freespace.filefront.com/1

SendOver
File Size Limit: 2GB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 7 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 7 days)
URL: http://www.sendover.com/

FileFactory(1)
File Size Limit: 1.5GB
Download Limit: 25 Downloads
File Life: 7 Days
URL: http://www.filefactory.com

MegaShares
File Size Limit: 1.5GB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 25 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 25 days)
URL: http://www.megashares.com

SendSpace
File Size Limit: 1.2GB
Download Limit: download bandwidth limit of 100GB
File Life: 14 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 14 days
URL: http://www.sendspace.com

YouSendIt
File Size Limit: 1GB
Download Limit: 25 Downloads
File Life: 7 Days
URL: http://www.yousendit.com

TransferBigFiles
File Size Limit: 1GB
Download Limit: 20 Downloads
File Life: 5 Days
URL: http://www.transferbigfiles.com

zUpload
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.zupload.com

FileFactory(2)
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 15 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 15 days)
URL: http://www.filefactory.com

Spread-It
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 14 Days
URL: http://www.spread-it.com

mooload
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.mooload.com

CyberUpload
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 7 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 7 days)
URL: http://www.cyberupload.com

Uploading
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.uploading.com

Snaggys
File Size Limit: 500MB
Download Limit: 999 Downloads
File Life: 15 Days
URL: http://www.snaggys.com

Bigupload
File Size Limit: 300MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.bigupload.com

RapidUpload
File Size Limit: 300MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.rapidupload.com

ShareBigFile
File Size Limit: 300MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 21 Days
URL: http://www.sharebigfile.com

MegaUpload
File Size Limit: 250MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.megaupload.com

UpDownloadServer
File Size Limit: 250MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unlimited
URL: http://www.updownloadserver.de

XtraFile
File Size Limit: 250MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 15 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 15 days)
URL: http://www.xtrafile.com

bonpoo
File Size Limit: 250MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 10 Days
URL: http://www.bonpoo.com

FileCache
File Size Limit: 250MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 31 Days
URL: http://www.filecache.de/upload

Supload
File Size Limit: 200MB
Download Limit: 30 Downloads
File Life: 7 Days
URL: http://supload.com/sendfile

fileUPYOURS
File Size Limit: 200MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unlimited
URL: http://fileupyours.com/

RapidShare
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.rapidshare.de

myShareBox
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.mysharebox.com

TheUpload
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days
URL: http://www.theupload.com

zSHARE
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 10 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 10 days)
URL: http://zshare.net

Upload.Sc
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.upload.sc

Store and Serve
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://storeandserve.com

BIGfileupload
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unlimited
URL: http://bigfileupload.com

QuickDump
File Size Limit: 100MB
Download Limit: download bandwidth limit of 500MB per hour
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://quickdump.com

Easy-Sharing
File Size Limit: 75MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days
URL: http://www.easy-sharing.com

Turbo Upload
File Size Limit: 70MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.turboupload.com

SaveFile
File Size Limit: 60MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 14 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 14 days)
URL: http://www.savefile.com

FileHD
File Size Limit: 60MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.filehd.com

RapidSharing
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 60 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 60 days)
URL: http://www.rapidsharing.com

UploadSend
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.uploadsend.com

UploadFront
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.uploadfront.com

FreeUploader
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.freeuploader.com

Momoshare
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 15 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 15 days)
URL: http://www.momoshare.com

FriendlyShare
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.friendlyshare.de

orb-z
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: 200 Downloads
File Life: 15 Days
URL: http://www.orb-z.com

UploadHut
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days
URL: http://www.uploadhut.com

SupaShare
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 14 Days
URL: http://www.supashare.com

FileHost
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.filehost.ro

ushareit
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.ushareit.com

SceneWorld
File Size Limit: 50MB
Download Limit: 1000 Downloads
File Life: 50 Days
URL: http://www.sceneworld.net/up

MyTempDir
File Size Limit: 40MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 21 Days
URL: http://www.mytempdir.com

Send
FileFile Size Limit: 40MB
Download Limit: 10 Downloads
File Life: 10 Days
URL: http://www.send-file.co.uk

UltraShare
File Size Limit: 30MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.ultrashare.net

UploadTemple
File Size Limit: 30MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 21 Days
URL: http://www.uploadtemple.com

SendMeFile
File Size Limit: 30MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 14 Days
URL: http://www.sendmefile.com

Upload2
File Size Limit: 25MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 1 Year
URL: http://upload2.net

UploadTown
File Size Limit: 20MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 30 days)
URL: http://www.uploadtown.com

11MBIT.in
File Size Limit: 20MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://a1.11mbit.in

Refrozen
File Size Limit: 20MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://www.refrozen.com

Webfile.ru
File Size Limit: 20MB (max 20 files with total not exceed 50MB/IP Address)
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 7 days
URL: http://eng.webfile.ru/

KeepMyFile
File Size Limit: 15MB
Download Limit: Unknown
File Life: Unknown
URL: http://keepmyfile.com

Hyperupload
File Size Limit: 10MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: Unlimited
URL: http://www.hyperupload.com

WebFileHost
File Size Limit: 10MB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 30 Days
URL: http://www.webfilehost.com

----------

I will update this list often... please inform me if i miss something.

How Really Power Surges Destroy Your Computer and How to Avoid

2006-02-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

Power surge are one of the most feared incident on electronic devices. Same as computer, they are really susceptible to power surges. Even though surges usually last only milliseconds (and are somewhat filtered by the transformer in the power supply), that high voltage can exceed the withstand voltage of the insulating layers inside the integrated circuit chips and burned everything inside your computer.

The power delivered to your electronics devices and computer is stable and constant, in theory of course. In real life, it doesn’t work that way. Often power surge occurs when the normal flow of electricity is interrupted, and then started again, or there was an occurrence that something sends excess electrical energy into the system. Any number of events, from lightning strikes to power failures, can cause power surges. Even your own electrical devices and computer can cause them. Refrigerators and air conditioners, for example, have motors that turn on and off, diverting electricity to and from other appliances and producing low-level power surges. On computer, internal peripheral can cause small surges that can reduced your computer lifespan or even destroy it completely.

On computer a switching power supply is designed to convert AC into various DC voltages. The internal transformers on power supply that do this, the capacitors to bridge over dips in the line power, all these are rated to handle a certain amount of energy at any given time. If you go outside of range of that certain amount, you overload the parts. Maybe marginal parts fail and die. Maybe they let through more energy than they should. In some cases, maybe things catch on fire. Like things you saw on fried chips due to extreme overclock. Cheaper Power Supply Units will be using cheaper components - the upshot of this is the components have weaker tolerances, and don't handle going outside their tolerances as gracefully.

To prevent it you need a good UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to protect your computer and another electronic appliance. However no UPS can withstand power of nature. Even a good UPS cannot tolerate extreme power of lighting. During storm or rain situation you might want to consider turn off you computer and unplug it. Also unplug phone lines and another line like coaxial cables that are being used for cable TV and broadband connection, since they are susceptible to lighting strike. Power surges caused by lighting are seldom to happen though there are possibilities.

On computer you will face another problem. Internal surges that can’t be prevent from external UPS. This caused simply by turn it on and off your computer. So every time you turn on and off your computer, you actually decreased life span of your computer and adding possibility to destroy the component completely. And there is no way to avoid this matter for now. Since there is no data how it will affect your computer. I suggest that you scheduled your computer to be use as efficient as possible.

New 1.8" Adapter and Enclosure for Toshiba 1.8" Mini Drive

2006-02-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

Addonics release new adapter for 1.8” Toshiba’s mini hard drive that mostly used in iPod and small notebook computer. This adapter allows you to convert 1.8” drive into 2.5”. And with another 2.5” adapter you can convert it into 3.5” drive then you can plug it into any normal IDE cable. Pretty handy if you travels a lot.

Addonics also release new handy enclosure for 1.8” drive, Pocket ExDrive. you can connect the enclosure to USB, Firewire, SATA or CardBus/PCMCIA by attaching one of the Addonics USIB interface cables or use the enclosure like a tape cartridge with the Pocket ExDrive drive cradle in you desktop system. The Pocket ExDrive enclosure starts at $69.95.

source

FCC Approved Nokia N91 and E70

2006-02-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

US Federal Communications Commission has finally given its approval to two of Nokia’s high-end mobile handsets, the N91 and E70.

"Nokia's long-awaited hard drive-equipped N91 just got a step closer to a US release, with FCC approval. Among the confirmed features revealed in the phones manual are the abilities to use PlaysForSure DRM, function in mass storage mode, use songs as ringtones and download music directly from online music stores. The phone has a 4GB hard drive, a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, WiFi, UPnP support and runs on Symbian 9.1. The FCC also approved the E70, a business-oriented phone with a QWERTY keyboard. No word, of course, on when/if these will actually be released in the US. "

source

GeForce 7800 GS, Good Enough to Brought AGP Live Again?

2006-02-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Due to many high-end VGA card switch to PCI Express, AGP bus appears consequently silent. The technology it self so promising for PCIe, with maximum transfer bit of 4000MB/s completely kills AGP that capable maximum only 2133MB/s. Also with capability of supporting another device PCIe really adding its own impression on motherboard manufacture.

Recent release of Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS maybe can boost more VGA card manufacture to produces AGP based technology VGA card. But for users like me, i aim for performance (also the price!) so will it do? Let’s see.

Anandtech as usual provides valuable data to think about. They just recently test this VGA card. So let me summarize few of the test result. With same spec of course and note that GeForce 7800 GS used on this test is underclock to its factory setting. The test comprises game performance test. There are 5 games tested in here, Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R, Far Cry, Quake 4, Splinter Cell:CT. With its rival, ATI Radeon X850 XTPE

So when the test begins Nvidia seems not doing to well. But strangely to me, Nvidia seems to have good result on highly expected game like Battlefield 2 and Quake 4. ATI Radeon X850 XTPE seems doing so well that even beat Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT (PCIe) in few tests. Clearly ATI Radeon X850 XTPE are the winner in this AGP test.

But how about the price, Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS is roughly on $300 but ATI Radeon X850 XTPE is on roughly $400 each. I would much prefer Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS seems that PCIe VGA card seems to expensive to be bought. I don’t know about you. I do hope AGP VGA card will still exist for tight budget like me.

Spyware poses a significant threat on the Net, according to new study

2006-02-03T01:33:00.000-08:00

Spyware is alive and well on the Internet.

That's the overall message of a new study by University of Washington computer scientists who sampled more than 20 million Internet addresses, looking for the programs that covertly enter the computers of unwitting Web surfers to perform tasks ranging from advertising products to gathering personal information, redirecting Web browsers, or even using a victim's modem to call expensive toll numbers. They examined sites in a set of popular Web categories, such as game sites, news sites and celebrity-oriented sites. Within these, they found that:

* More than one in 20 executable files contained piggybacked spyware.
* On average, one in 62 Internet domains performed drive-by download attacks -- a method for forcing spyware on users who simply visit a Web site.
* Game and celebrity Web sites appeared to pose the greatest risk for piggybacked spyware, while sites that offer pirated software topped the list for drive-by attacks.
* The density of spyware seemed to drop from spring to fall of last year, but remained "substantial."

The research is being presented today as the opening paper for the 13th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, Calif.

"For unsuspecting users, spyware has become the most 'popular' download on the Internet," said Hank Levy, professor and holder of the Wissner/Slivka Chair in the UW's Department of Computer Science & Engineering and one of the study's authors. "We wanted to look at it from an Internet-wide perspective -- what proportion of Web sites out there are trying to infect people? If our numbers are even close to representative for Web areas frequented by users, then the spyware threat is extensive."

The consequences of a spyware infection run the gamut from annoying to catastrophic.

On the annoying end, where most spyware falls, the stealthy programs can inundate a victim with pop-up advertisements. More malicious programs steal passwords and financial information. Some types of spyware, called Trojan downloaders, can download and install other programs chosen by the attacker. In a worst-case scenario, spyware could render a victim's computer useless.

In conducting the study, the UW researchers -- Levy, associate professor Steven Gribble and graduate students Alexander Moshchuk and Tanya Bragin -- used a computer program called a Web crawler to scour the Internet, visiting sites to look for executable files with piggybacked spyware. The team conducted two searches, one in May and the other in October, examining more than 20 million Web address.

They also did additional "crawls" of 45,000 Web addresses in eight subject categories, looking for drive-by download attacks.

In the first two crawls, the researchers found that approximately one in 20 executable files contained piggybacked spyware. While most of those were relatively benign "adware" programs, about 14 percent of the spyware contained potentially malicious functions.

In terms of drive-by download attacks, the researchers found a 93 percent reduction between May and October -- a finding they say may in part be attributed to the wider adoption of anti-spyware tools, automated patch programs such as Windows Update and the recent spate of civil lawsuits brought against spyware distributors.

Despite that drop, the public should still be vigilant, they said.

"Plenty of software on the Web contains spyware, and many Web sites are infectious," Gribble said. "If your computer is unprotected, you're quite likely to encounter it."

There are a few steps that people should take to protect themselves, according to Gribble.

"First, everybody should install one or more anti-spyware programs," he said. "There are several high-quality free or commercial software packages available."

It's also important to keep those tools up-to-date so new threats can't get around one's cyber defenses.

Finally, Gribble said, people need to use common sense.

"You should download software only from reputable sources," he said. "And it's a good idea to avoid the more shady areas of the Web."

By Rob Harrill

Trojan Horse Delivered In Automatic Update

2006-02-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

Nice Articles, reminds me of sony spyware case.

Trojan Horse - One Mans "Worse Case Scenario" Prediction
---------------------
This is a fictional article about a Trojan Horse Virus, or you could say it is one mans prediction of a "worse case scenario". Because of the field I'm in, I maintain a personal list of my top 10 "worse case scenarios". Every time I perform a security assessment I run into something new or identify a situation that is ripe for a potential vulnerability. I think we could all agree that no respectable or ethical company would intentionally deliver a malicious piece of code as part of a helpful update solution. However, the reality is that human beings are behind technology and human beings are unpredictable and fallible.

Many major operating system vendors have automatic update services. Many hardware vendors and other software packages have followed this trend, incorporating automated update services into their products. In some cases, the services for automatic updates run as the local "system" account. This account has the ability to access and modify most of the operating system and application environment. When automatic updates were relative new, many people would perform the updates manually, however, as time has progressed, many now trust these services and allow the updates to proceed in a truly automated fashion.

The Final Step Before The Hammer Falls
---------------------
So let's expand upon our "worse case scenario". A new service pack is just about ready for release. The last step prior to public release is quality control / validation. The team of people performing this task includes a significantly disgruntled employee (Or may he/she is going through a horrible life crisis and has not much to lose). When people are in pain or distress it is not uncommon for them to project this same feeling onto others in any way they can. So, instead of performing their job in the normal fashion, they decide to incorporate a malicious payload into the forthcoming update.

The First Step For The Trojan Horse: Evasion
---------------------
This payload has some unique characteristic, three to be precise. First, it is constructed in such as way to not appear as something malicious. The anti-virus and anti-spyware programs currently on the market won't be able to detect it through anomalous detection techniques.

The Second Step For The Trojan Horse: Information Collection
---------------------
Secondly, it has been instructed to wait 12 hours to activate to start searching your computer an network for important files that may contain financial, healthcare, and other confidential information such as user accounts and passwords. It then sends this information to anonymous systems on the Internet. Because this "Trojan horse" has been incorporated into an automated update by someone with reasonable skills, it is instructed to only perform the collection of data for 12 hours. Given the number of global systems that allow automated updates, 12 hours should be more than enough. The person behind this realizes that someone will quickly identify that something malicious is going on and start to roll-out a defense solution to halt the process.

The Final Step: Incapacitate
---------------------
Finally, the Trojan Horse will cease it's data collection and deliver it's final blow. Because of the level of system privilege it is running at, it modifies the communication protocols and services on the system to prevent any type of external communication to its local peers and external (Internet) hosts. It does this in such as way that the only immediate method to recover from this is a system roll-back, system repair, or restore from near-line media, such as tape or disk. And as far as system recovery is concerned, I can tell you that many people even in corporate entities do not perform the most basic steps to be prepared for a quick system disaster recovery. In some cases, some of the most important recovery services have been disabled because of lack of system resources or disk space (which is amazing given how inexpensive this is anymore).

What Could Be The Impact Of This "Trusted" Trojan Horse
---------------------
Just about every time you install a new application or piece of software you increase the time it takes to boot your PC and in some cases decrease its performance. On thing that drives me crazy is printing software. For the life of me I cannot understand how or why printer support software could total 400MB in size, but they sometimes do. Not only that, they tend to load all kinds of unnecessary real-time running applets. HP printers are notorious for this. Be very aware of what it is you are loading and only load those components that you need. Even some off-the-shelf software packages load adware and other not so helpful applets. Also, when you uninstall software, not all the software gets uninstalled in many cases. One thing I suggest is to purchase a registry cleaner. This can dramatically decrease boot times and in many cases increase the overall performance of your PC.

People are already concerned about identity theft, or at least they should be. I recently spoke with a business associate that told me that even with everything he does to keep his identity secure he has been the victim of identity theft not once, but twice. If your user id's, online accounts, passwords, financials, or other confidential information winds up on the Internet for any anonymous person to see, you can bet it will be used in a way to cause you problems. Even if only 10% of the global systems fell victim to this Trojan Horse, the cut off of communications could cost businesses billions of dollars and potentially impact their reputation as "secure" institutions.

Conclusion
---------------------
If we don't think that this "worse case scenario" can happen, then we're kidding ourselves. Recently, one of the market leaders in the perimeter defense business had to recall a service pack because it contained a significant "bug" that could result in a security breach; a service pack that can be delivered through and intelligent update service. Obviously there has to be a certain level of trust between us, the consumer, and the vendors of hardware / software we rely on. I'm not entirely sure what "fail-proof" solution can be put in place to prevent something like this from happening. Although I'm sure there are quite a few checks and balances in place already. The bottom line is, if you or I can image a scenario like this, there is always a chance of it happening. In my case, I usually wait for several days to apply new service packs and hot-fixes. Hopefully someone else will find the problem, correct it, and then I'll apply it.

source

First Security Patch for Firefox 1.5

2006-02-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

The Mozilla Foundation Wednesday released its first security and stability patch for Mozilla Firefox 1.5, in order to fix a series of security vulnerabilities and memory leaks. Firefox 1.5.0.1 quietly started making the rounds Wednesday night as an automatic update.

Mozilla recommends on its website that all users who aren't subscribed to automatic updates should download the patch as soon as possible to protect their computers from a rampant denial-of-service bug and several other security issues.

FBI Busted RiSCiSO Gang

2006-02-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

On 2nd Feb. FBI captured and indicated 19 members of RiSCiSO international piracy group guilty for having cracked software, games and films worth some $6.5m.

Taken from reuters:

"he indictments were announced by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago against 19 members of the underground piracy group known as "RISCISO," led by Sean O'Toole, 26, of Perth, Australia.

Another member of the group implicated in the FBI's investigation, dubbed "Operation Jolly Roger," was Linda Waldron, 57, of Barbados. Extradition will be sought for both.

As many as 60 members of the group, many of whom work in the computer field and live across the United States, tapped into their tightly controlled computer servers loaded with stolen merchandise that would fill 23,000 compact discs and was valued at $6.5 million, prosecutors said. Initially, the stolen software was sent to servers set up overseas."

Apparently the group was not making any profits from its activity. An FBI agent in charge of the probe said group members apparently acted in part out of the "thrill" of breaking the codes and to use the stolen items themselves. Nevertheless the indicted members will face a 15-count indictment with the possibility of jail terms of up to five years, as well as a $250,000 fine

Intel Stop Production of Its 8 Chips

2006-02-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

Taken from theregister.co.uk :

"Intel has told customers it is discontinuing the production of eight Itanium 2 processors, all victims of demand for "higher performance" products. The chips marked for termination are the 1GHz and 1.4GHz dual-processor models, both with 1.5MB of L3 cache. The 1.4GHz/3MB DP-oriented Itanic 2 is out too, as are the 1.1GHz/4MB, 1.3GHz/3MB, 1.4GHz/4MB, 1.5GHz/6M and 1.6GHz/3MB models.

All eight are sold on trays in batches of 1000 CPUs. Intel said it is also discontinuing 14 SKUs for boxed Itanium 2 products, all bundling the above chips. Intel's price list currently includes 14 separate Itanium 2 CPUs.

Out go three Xeon MP processors too: the 2.2GHz/2MB, 2.7GHz/2MB and 3GHz/4MB models, in both tray and boxed bundles. These chips are all 130nm products - two generations behind Intel's latest, 65nm process"

It is kinda normal since they were old generations chip. And they have plenty of this on their warehouse so consumer still can order this chip till it run out.

F-Secure Bogus Email Contain Trojan

2006-02-02T03:35:00.000-08:00

Just recently there was massive spamming attempt to thousand F-Secure users and detected on 1st February 12.15 GMT. The addresses used in attempt to spam are from press@f-secure.com, editor@f-secure.com or from info@f-secure.com. The attachment on the email triggers a new variant of the Breplibot worm, known as W32/Breplibot.ae. Fortunately F-Secure authorities has released the fix for it

You can check the email in F-Secure Official Blog

Significant Increase on WiFI Phone Market This Year

2006-02-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

Wireless market seems the hottest among others now. New research out of the UK indicates that the worldwide WiFi phone market is set to skyrocket as both consumers and the enterprise move to packet switched voice networks. Maybe you should say goodbye to corded phone soon at least at your office.

According to UK-based according to Infonetics Research's latest report, WiFi Phones Biannual Worldwide Market Share and Forecast, the WiFi phone market jumped 76% between 2004 and 2005 to US$102.5 million, and is projected to more than double in 2006 as enterprises slowly but steadily continue deploying voice over wireless LANs.

Though it is still in enterprise level, they believe in 2009 enormous growth of VoWLAN (Voice over Wireless LAN) will help building consumer confidence. And add potential for to be bundled services with broadband connection.

Healthy VoWLAN growth is projected through 2009, when WiFi phone revenue will hit almost US$1.9 billion. Initially an enterprise application, VoWLAN will eventually become popular with consumers too, and has potential for enormous growth as part of a VoIP service bundled with broadband connections, according to the Infonetics report.

Highlights of the report

WiFi phone units grew 112% between 2004 and 2005 and will grow 158% in 2006
Roughly 2/3 of WiFi phone revenue came from single-mode WiFi VoIP handsets in 2005, about a third from dual-mode handsets; by 2009, dual-mode handsets make up 3/4 of total revenue
52% of dual-mode WiFi/cellular handset revenue came from Asia Pacific in 2005, 25% from North America, 21% EMEA, 2% CALA
802.11e QoS was standardized in late 2005, and will generate a new round of product releases and renewed promotion of real-time applications such as voice and video over wireless LAN

source

Microsoft OneCare's Firewall Security Flaw

2006-02-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

Microsoft’s OneCare suite bundle that release on May last year may open security holes in your PC. OneCare suite that currently still on beta testing contains a firewall that may open a loophole. The firewall will accept any connection by your Java application or Javascript and other application that contain digital certificates according to security expert Roger Grimes.

Roger Grimes added Microsoft is undermining the suite's security by letting through code signed by a digital certificate. A digitally signed application should not be trusted just because it offers a certificate, as it creates a loophole for spyware and other malware.

Spyware vendor these days also put digital certificates on their malware and spyware script. However Yoav Schwartz, lead programme manager for OneCare, denied that this is the case. "It is highly unusual for malware to be signed," he wrote in response to Grimes's claims.

Based my own knowledge, I seen few malware/spyware were certified by famous Certification Authority. Maybe Roger Grimes opinions were right after all.

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Radeon X1800 XT vs GeForce 7800 GTX Benchmark Report

2006-02-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday ExtremeTech Release its test on Radeon X1800 XT vs GeForce 7800 GTX. However they not stressing on gaming performance (FPS) but they test based entirely on CPU utilization (video playback performance). I’ll put some summary of the report, maybe not so in detail. So be sure to see their full report.

As usual the test will carry out on same specs for both. There were few test, HQV benchmark, DVD performance, WMV9 performance, MPEG-4 AVC performance and DIVX performance test.

On HQV benchmark, Radeon X1800 XT proves superior compare to GeForce 7800 GTX (with PureVideo installed) with scores 103 for Radeon and 51 for GeForce. Radeon excels in most aspects and equals on the rest. If you want excels performance on video graphics and editing purpose, you may want to consider Radeon X1800 XT. However test is not finish yet.

On few codec test reveals, Radeon once again excels on CPU utilization. On DVD performance GeForce(on PureVideo) not showing very good performances but on other test GeForce(on PureVideo) proves almost equals but it is still worse compare to Radeon X1800 XT.

Last words, this test are based on codec and there are tons of codec out there. Maybe not so accurate, but it will be a good references for now.

Tips: Viewing Super Hidden Files on Windows XP

2006-02-01T03:35:00.000-08:00

Super hidden files are critical system files of Windows XP that are very much hidden from users view. Though it is pratically hidden from users view, there is a way to view it:

Click on the Start button and select Run.
Type in regedit in the box and click OK to start up the Editor.
Once regedit appears, navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ SoftwareMicrosoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced.
Right-click on ShowSuperHidden and select Modify.
Change the value to 1 and click OK to save your changes.

Sony Will Launched Network for PS3 and PSP

2006-01-31T22:43:00.000-08:00

Sony will launch a network for its newly released and upcoming gaming platform, PSP and PS3. according to Sony, this "PlayStation Network" will exceed capabilities of its competitor's network "Xbox Live". However there were no details available about this upcoming network.

PSM reports that Sony wants much, much more than a simple matchmaking and ranking lists service, and developers in possession of the PS3 dev kits will have to meet with Sony's online compliance team to make sure their titles will work with the projected PlayStation Network.

Will AMD Moving Ahead Intel Till 2007?

2006-01-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

Significant progress by AMD these few years become more serious threat to Intel market in few years ahead. AMD that only start with small companies compare to Intel has survive the markets thankfully to its loyal and satisfied consumer in couples years back. And significantly create breakthrough by analyzing market demands on chips, they slowly pushing Intel market down.

Though Intel also trying to catch up with AMD. Caris & Company analyst Rick Whittington says it is too late for Intel to catch up, maybe in late 2007 when its 45nm hits the market. This presumes Advanced Micro Devices makes no further refinements and is slow to ramp its own 65nm this year which looks to once again leapfrog them above Intel, he added.

It is still unclear will Intel move ahead AMD in the future. Computer manufacture that only move according to market, seems to side with AMD. Though in the eyes of expert users few Intel’s chip are actually better compare to higher clock rate of its competitor’s chip.

Upgrade Your Winamp 5.12 Now!

2006-01-31T06:35:00.000-08:00

Recent Winamp exploit published on internet by ATmaCa has alarmed every user of AOL’s Winamp 5.12. This exploit could be used to run unauthorized software on computer running Winamp 5.12 on Windows XP. Hacker tricks user to run the malicious script by clicking on specially crafted Winamp playlists.

However the problem only affects Winamp 5.12 users. Every users now will be informed with a popup message advising them to update to the newer version of the software, said AOL spokeswoman Deana Graffeo. Earlier versions of the product are not vulnerable, she added.

The First VoIP application for Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0

2006-01-31T05:41:00.000-08:00

Developer of converged Multimedia Client Software, SIPquest announced today that its Mobile Console is the first VoIP application to support Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 is the newest operating system to support dual-mode for PDA and smartphone devices. Capable to provide services over WiFi, WiFi and GSM and WiFi and CDMA networks, the Mobile Console application will allow dual mode device users in both wireless and WiFi networks.

The new application will also include a “Network Aware” feature that will allow users more options and personal choices when placing phone calls. For example the feature will recommend a network connection option based on availability for better quality and lowered costs or users can customize its connection preferences.

Nvidia Release Quadro FX 4500 SDI Today

2006-01-30T18:57:00.001-08:00

Nvidia announced its latest addition to its Quadro family today. This goody allows programmers to incorporate 3D broadcast graphics and virtual sets during live programming. Making it wonderful peripheral for any companies works in broadcasting.

According to Jeff Brown, General Manager for NVIDIA Professional Products, “Support for output of uncompressed SDI in 2K, HD, or SD formats on both Windows and Linux allows users to render stunning video content in real time and deliver material in final form more quickly with stunning visual quality.”

Compare to its predecessor, its performance expected to increase by 50% due to it’s 512MB memory.

Wikipedia Banned US Congress Access

2006-01-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

Due to recent edit of Congressman Marty Meehan’s biography by his staff, Wikipedia has announced to ban IP addresses that are associated with the US House and US Senate. Both of these entities actually have entire IP blocks reserved for them. The 156.33.xxx.xxx range belongs solely to the US government and is no stranger to Wikipedia.

This is incident are unethical and clearly violates Wikipedia policies. Wikipedia itself has been providing free information to public for many years now and has become major source of free information on the Internet around the globe.

During investigation Wikipedia also noticed another edits conducted by staff of US Senates. Taken from Wikipedia’s investigation report:

Senator Conrad Burns' page was edited to remove negative comments as positive comments were added.

Senator Norm Coleman's page was also edited to remove negative comments while positive comments were added.

Senator Robert Byrd's page was vandalized

Senator Tom Harkin's criticism section was deleted, a major section on Israel & military removed and later vandalized by a different IP

Senator Joe Biden's page had a major edit removing significant criticism

Senator Tom Coburn's page was vandalized more than once

95% Businesses Will Adopt VoIP in 2010

2006-01-30T02:14:00.000-08:00

According to Michael Rouleau, Time Warner Telecom’s Vice President of Business Development and Strategy, 95% of businesses will adopt VoIP in the end of decade. By simply adopting VoIP system you can reduce as much as 50% infrastructure cost and reduced toll charges with implementation of IP communication. Also Productivity increased along with portability and telecommuting possibilities offer by VoIP. This is the main factors that boost VoIP growth in the market.

However VoIP till now still not yet proven reliable. “It’s OK to drop a call or hear only every fourth word when you’re using a mobile device,” explained Rouleau, but people expect considerably more in terms of Quality of Service and reliability when sitting at the office. And the fact that, being a new technology, potential stumbling blocks regarding scalability and access have been difficult to predict.

So, in order for VoIP to gain traction, service providers, first have to demonstrate experience in delivering solutions and resolving issues. As its acceptance increases, business VoIP will become les premise-centric and new applications will enable more possibilities, which will result in 95% of businesses adopting by the end of the decade.

Should Kids Bring Mobile Phone to School?

2006-01-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

Technology nowadays has eliminated the gap within communication means. One person can communicate each others between thousand miles or more. The same means apply between parents and their children. That is why majority of the parents feel that the mobile phone has become a necessity for children.

But should they bring it to school? Let’s study a case recently happen in India. Abhishek Gupta, a 10th standard student was busy sending picture message to his friend studying in the other section when a teacher confiscated his mobile and handed it over to the principal.

This event took place at Government Model Senior Secondary School, India. But to carry a mobile phone to the schools has become a frequent practice among city students. Parents say that they give them the phone so that they can keep in touch with the children. But the school authorities find it hard to digest and feel the need to impose a ban.

I happen to read the news from here. I wonder whose fault is this. Is it parents? Is it the schools? Or maybe students fault? Or even maybe the mobile companies fault? Needless to say I think we should talk about this matter in deep with our children. Two ways communication is needed to prevent this kind misuse of technology.

Why Laptop So Damn Expensive

2006-01-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

Laptop users sometimes wonder, “Why the heck I pay much for this thing”. As a frequent laptop user, I too wonder sometimes. So I decide to find the answer. There are five main reasons I noticed why it is so expensive.

1.) Laptops use low power consumption devices, which is more expensive than typical power hungry desktop component. Also the component it is produced much less than desktop component.

2.) Flat panel displays cost a lot more than typical CRT monitor. A 14" flat panel display probably costs $300-400 wholesale alone.

3.) Extra circuitry is required for things like backlighting control, power management, PCMCIA, etc. Laptops also typically have things like IR ports and docking station connections which desktops don't have.

4.) On top of lower power, there is also an incentive to make things lighter. This also increases cost because light components cost more to make than heavier components. I know that sounds backwards, but light components must usually be of higher quality and have higher failure rates than heavier components. Making laptop hardware are so expensive to produced.

5.) Lack of Standard between models and manufacture. Compare to desktop component, laptop component are much less standard. Thus the component must be produced differently for each models and manufacture.

Of course the branded one will much more expensive. However nowadays there are many shops offer to build custom laptop for you which are cheaper than buying the branded one.

Silicon Valley New Wi-Max Ambitious Plan

2006-01-29T05:12:00.000-08:00

Silicon Valley leaders will propose plan to build 1,500 square miles of wireless network that will surround the region and nearby areas. This plan will benefit government workers, mobile corporate employees, residents and visitors in the greater Silicon Valley area. When it is completed it will surround area in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties and stretch over 1,500 square miles.

On this project, a coalition has been made as joint venture between Silicon Valley Network, the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority and Intel Corporation. And has been said that this coalition has raised about $60,000, they will put it toward issuing a request for proposals for the project by April.

The system itself not meant to replace in-home broadband providers like Comcast and AT&T, said Seth Fearey, vice president and chief operating officer for Joint Venture. He said the network system is meant to expand outdoor canopy coverage, providing network access in large gap between existing wireless hot spots and designed to reach into buildings to provide broadband access within coverage area.

Intel, which has worked extensively in developing Wi-Fi and Wi-Max technologies, will not bid on the contract. Instead, company spokesman Mark Pettinger said Intel will offer consulting assistance, which will ultimately enhance Intel's reputation in particular and Silicon's Valley's image as a whole.

"This is our opportunity to support a project that will improve Silicon Valley's vitality and livability for years to come," Pettinger said.

source

China's Computer Export '05

2006-01-28T18:58:00.000-08:00

The export volume of China's computer products last year reached 104.8 billion U.S. dollars, according to figures released by China's Ministry of Commerce.

The industry accounted for 14 percent of China's total export volume of foreign trade in 2005, the Ministry reports.

Notebook PCs, LCD screens, integrate circuits, and hard disk drive maintained the fastest growth in export business last year.

source

Raidmax X1 Gaming Case

2006-01-27T23:06:00.000-08:00

This baby recently became Anandtech editor’s choice. Reasonable price and amazing performance are the best interest of this computer case. With five slots of 5.25” drive and 2 slots of 3.5” drive Raidmax X1 shows plenty of space inside its case, along with 450Watt PSU makes it a very good case for gaming purpose.

Compare to its competitor Antec P150, Raidmax X1 performance is roughly about the same. Based on data presented by Anandtech during its test on three cases, Antec P150, Raidmax X1 and Dynapower E68, Raidmax X1 shows average of 29.3 / 33.2 degree on system temperature roughly 2 degree hotter than Antec P150 (27.1 / 31.9).

Dynapower E68 showing maximum cooling performance compare to others on this test due to its 120mm fan. Yet Dynapower 120mm fan give much noise compare to other cases. Both Raidmax X1 and Antec P150 are equally silent on this noise test.

Case Features:

• Real Time Thermal LED temperature display
• Custom side panel window with LED fan
• 2 Front USB 2.0 access ports
• Front Audio jacks
• Super Silence 120mm case fan
• Temperature responsive cooling fans
• Meets Intel CAG Regulations
• Intel Prescott Ready
• External Drive Bays: 5 x 5.25" and 2 x 3.5"
• Internal Drive Bays: 3 x 3.5" H.D.
• System Board: ATX Form Factor 12" x 10.5" or smaller
• Expansion slots: Standard ATX 7 slots
• Material: SECC Steel
• Power Supply: 450watts PS2 ATX12V Power Supply

Technorati Tags : Game, Computer, Case, Raidmax, X1

Your Laptop Could Worth Millions!

2006-01-27T20:54:00.000-08:00

A recent study by security software companies Symantec shows that an average laptop may hold $972,000 worth of data. With some contain more than $8 million. Most of the important data consist of commercially sensitive data and intellectual property data. This is very alarming situation that many executives actually does not concern to protect the data inside his mobile device.

My advices please use precaution when going out carry important laptop. Avoid putting critical data on your laptop, instead you can put it on thumb drive and put it on your front pocket. Be sure to backup data automatically using any software or you can manually back it up and encrypt it.

Technorati Tags : Encryption, Symantec, Laptop, Data, Backup, Notebook

Nigerian Scam Beware !

2006-01-27T02:54:00.000-08:00

IF you ever got email from nigeria please beware! i got email from there few days ago and i deleted it immidiately. much of the email asking for money in return the scammer will give you alot more money you can imagine. for more information please see this website http://www.zone-h.org/nigerianfraud . i hope noone ever got scammed.

Google Decline US Goverment Request for Search Engine Record

2006-01-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools of the government.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to force a handover of the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the
U.S. Supreme Court.

Google competitor Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), which runs the Internet's second-most used search engine, confirmed Thursday that it had complied with a similar government subpoena.

Although the government says it isn't seeking any data that ties personal information to search requests, the subpoena still raises serious privacy concerns, experts said, especially considering recent revelations that the White House authorized eavesdropping on domestic civilian communications after the Sept. 11 attacks without obtaining court approval.

"Search engines now play such an important part in our daily lives that many people probably contact Google more often than they do their own mother," said Thomas Burke, a San Francisco attorney who has handled several prominent cases involving privacy issues.

"Just as most people would be upset if the government wanted to know how much you called your mother and what you talked about, they should be upset about this, too."

The content of search request sometimes contain information about the person making the query.

For instance, it's not unusual for search requests to include names, medical information or
Social Security information, said Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum.

"This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search engine for some time," Dixon said. "Google should be commended for fighting this."

Other search engines already have complied with similar subpoenas issued by the Bush administration, according to court documents. The cooperating search engines weren't identified.

Yahoo stressed that it didn't reveal any personal information. "We are rigorous defenders of our users' privacy," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said Thursday. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue."

Microsoft Corp. MSN, the No. 3 search engine, declined to say whether it even received a similar subpoena. "MSN works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested," the company said in a statement.

As the Internet's dominant search engine, Google has built up a valuable storehouse of information that "makes it a very attractive target for law enforcement," said Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The
Department of Justice argues that Google's cooperation is essential in its effort to simulate how people navigate the Web.

In a separate case in Pennsylvania, the Bush administration is trying to prove that Internet filters don't do an adequate job of preventing children from accessing online pornography and other objectionable destinations.

Obtaining the subpoenaed information from Google "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current Web users, (and) to estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches," the Justice Department wrote in a brief filed Wednesday

Google — whose motto when it went public in 2004 was "do no evil" — contends that submitting to the subpoena would represent a betrayal to its users, even if all personal information is stripped from the search terms sought by the government.

"Google's acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept," company attorney Ashok Ramani wrote in a letter included in the government's filing.

Complying with the subpoena also wound threaten to expose some of Google's "crown-jewel trade secrets," Ramani wrote. Google is particularly concerned that the information could be used to deduce the size of its index and how many computers it uses to crunch the requests.

"This information would be highly valuable to competitors or miscreants seeking to harm Google's business," Ramani wrote.

Dixon is hoping Google's battle with the government reminds people to be careful how they interact with search engines.

"When you are looking at that blank search box, you should remember that what you fill can come back to haunt you unless you take precautions," she said.

Article Source

Technorati Tags : Google, Decline, US, Goverment, Request, for, Search, Engine, Record

Tips : SEO Facts 2006

2006-01-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

Many webmaster and author of a website still not understand how to advertise its website correctly. Many seem so stuck up to single method of marketing such as SEO. I really want to help many that still lost in this era of change.

SEO Facts:

SEO helps your website to be at the top of search engine. To do this you must choose your own correct keyword. From my personal opinion, first get a keyword and then build a website. Keyword itself will determine how hard it is for your website to get into the top.

SEO is practically free and only optimize the website so the robot of any search engine can crawl easily into your website. It will not help you making traffic or another stuff like that. For getting a nice and targeted traffic it is better to invest in another Search Engine Marketing such as PPC (Pay per Click) Campaign while you do your own SEO. SEO program and such others only help you do your own SEO, please remember that.

Everything needs time. After you done all SEM (Search Engine Marketing) program be patient. It needs time for your site build its own credibility. Also be sure to put quality content on your website and some user-friendly interface or you will lose everything. I’m sure you all have read articles about SEO. My last tips, be sure to not violate any search engine rule especially the major one and also avoid bad neighbour.

Technorati Tags : SEO, Facts, 2006

VoIP For Business Solution

2006-01-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or widely known as Internet Telephony, have been publicly used for several years now. VoIP itself originated to be used by ARPANET as commercial realizations of the experimental Network Voice Protocol in 1973. But due to many drawbacks it is believe not ready for widespread implementation even till now. Yet despite having few drawbacks left, many of communication pioneers have leaded the way for VoIP to be widely used.

VoIP needs an active Internet connection since the technology itself based on Internet Protocol. The cost generated by VoIP generally lower than the conventional way of communicating. It even practically free in certain situation. This provides valuable aspect to business enterprise due to considerable cost reduction offer by VoIP.

Behind it’s complexity of technical structure, VoIP has proven to be easier to implement these days. Although it’s quality of sounds may not the best due to latency and jitter problem, many big company installed VoIP as their communicating purpose known as IP Phone. Mostly their investments on VoIP are on internal network that relatively have much bandwidth to spare so jitter and latency can be reduced as much as possible. Outsourcing may the best option if your company core competency is not within Information Technology.

The interesting part of VoIP besides its cost is the ability to route the call anywhere you want. This allows you to communicated anywhere in the world from your computer with just internet line and on fixed cost or even free. Even now due to releases of new 3G technology for mobile phone and mobile phone ability to inter-connect with private and public wireless network, VoIP has been used in mobile phone in many countries.

VoIP as business investment are very much common these days. Since it offers many advantages compare to POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) also the drawbacks are reduced as the technology growth. The beneficial of this system has been widely used even there are free service of VoIP for individual uses such as Google Talk, Skype and many more that makes VoIP gain its own attention in the world.

Technorati Tags : VoIP, For, Business, Solution

Test Your Geekness !

2006-01-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

Lol...... just LoL.. Very interesting =)

Technorati Tags : Test, Your, Geekness

Tips : Computer Hardware Specs 2006

2006-01-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

For you all who likes to build your own computer this could be helpful! though it is not really a high-end computer

Processor : AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939)

Motherboard : DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity (nForce4 Ultra,DC400,Sata,Pci-E,Raid,Sc,Lan)

VGA Card : PIXELVIEW GeForce 6600GT GL

Memory : CORSAIR TWINX512-3200XLPT CL2225 (2x 256MB DDR 400 PC-3200, TWINX, Xtra-Low Latency, Black Heat Spreader) or You might consider CORSAIR TWINX 1GB instead

HDD : WESTERN DIGITAL WD800JD (80GB, 7200rpm, SATA 150, 8MB Cache) or WDC 120Gb 7200 Sata

Soundcard : CREATIVE XF341-PP (SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum)

Monitor : Viewsonic E70F+17" Flat Silver Black

Speaker : KLIPSCH Promedia GMX A21 (2.1 Multimedia Speaker System - 3150 watts PMPO)

CD/DVD : PLEXTOR PX-712SA (Internal Beige SATA, 12x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 4x DVD+RW, 4x DVD-RW, 48x CD-R, 24x CD-RW)

From my estimation the price might range about $800. Make sure to get bargain price for every hardware

Technorati Tags : Tips,Computer, Hardware, Specs, 2006

Tips Firefox 1.5 : Always Open New Window On a New Tab

2006-01-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

Firefox has a unique tab feature that Internet Explorer 6 doesn’t have. With this feature you can open a new window on a new tab. Therefore you will not see tons of Firefox windows on your Windows. Make it more ease to surf a lot of pages right?

Recent release of Firefox 1.5 allows you to always open new window on a new tab without pressing ctrl button all the time! It’s simple for you who still don’t know how. Just open Options window on Tools menu (Tools > Options) and then click on Tabs, tick the “Force links that open new windows to open in:” after that click on “a new tab” radio button, Click OK and then you done.

Beware though Firefox has a problem of leaking memory so it is not recommended to open a lot of new windows in the same time. Well then.. Happy surfing!

Western Digital Opens Support Facility in Vietnam

2006-01-24T04:38:00.000-08:00

The corporation also named two certified local distributors – EA Tech Singapore Co. and Vietnam R.Net Co – besides opening its customer service office in Ho Chi Minh City’s district 10.

The world’s Number 2 hardware maker, whose products can be found across the globe, has also launched its latest hardware products for desktops in the Vietnamese southern hub.

Vietnam is one of the fastest growing information technology markets in the world, its Asia-Pacific director has said.

Western Digital, founded in 1970, pocketed a cool turnover of over US$1 billion in the third quarter of 2005 alone.

Source: Thanh Nien, The Gioi Vi Tinh – Compiled by Ngoc Hanh