Texas Community College banned MySpace.com

What a strange day today, no new releases except bunch of the tv shows. So I’ll post at least some tech news…

Del Mar College has blocked the popular Web site MySpace.com in response to complaints about sluggish Internet speed on campus computers. August Alfonso, the school’s chief of information and technology, says an investigation found that heavy traffic at MySpace.com was eating up too much bandwidth. He says forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site. The schools president, Carlos Garsia, says, “This was more about us being able to offer Web-based instruction, and MySpace.com was slowing everything down.”

The bandwidth problem partly stems from the fact that MySpace.com is heavily used for downloading and uploading video and music clips. Such activities, particularly during peak-use periods, can sap a network of available bandwidth and result in slower access speeds. The site just recently started offering video. Another reason may be the knowledge of MySpace visitors - because most MySpace users are not skilled web developers, this often results in poorly constructed profiles. Such profiles have been known to freeze up web browsers due to malformed coding, or as a result of users placing high bandwidth objects, such as videos and flash, in their profiles.MySpace.com is a social networking site with more 72 million members. It allows users to post searchable profiles that can include photos of themselves and personal details. Anyway, I’m still wondering how comes this may slow down the network so much, this college must have at least 100 Mbit net connection, which should be pretty enough for these activities…

Windows Live Mail with 2GB soon

Microsoft means his fight against Google and Yahoo seriously. With starting a new portal, they are also going to offer new mail service. Windows Live Mail is expected to launch in June and will offer a 2GB storage. The webbased email service has a Outllook look and feel. The email can also be read offline using the Desktop Live Mail client, this client will also be able to access IMAP and POP account. The service will be free but ad based.

It will also be possible to get you Live Mail in to Outlook but that will cost 19 Euro a year. Anyway, I don’t see any reason why should I pay for such a basic feature like POP3 access, when it’s everywhere offered for free. It is expected that together with the launch of Windows Live Mail, also the new messenger client Windows Live Messenger (8.0) will be released. We must wait a bit before saying the final verdict, but my opinion is that Gmail is still the best option in current conditions. I prefer good user interface and simple graphic before tons of gigabytes…

Most popular ways to kill your PC

Computers should be essentially immortal right? They are just a collection of circuits and signals, and as long as power flows to them, they should continue to operate; there’s nothing to break down, nothing to age… uh-huh. Anyone who’s ever owned a computer knows that this is not quite true. This is how does quite an interesting article starts at PC Stats describing the most common reasons why computers die.

Computers and their component parts do have a finite life span, and just like us, they have a list of afflictions that are most likely to claim their digital existences. Also just like us, most of these problems stem from careless handling, neglect, unhealthy environments and old age. Toss careless manufacturing into the mix, and you can see why the average computer system rarely survives more than ten years without some sort of catastrophic failure.

I’m also wondering, why so many people in my surroundings experience problems with computers - I’ve built many computers on my own and all of them are very stable, running for years without bigger issues. I had only a problem with PSU once, but it was simply cheap piece of crap, replacing it made the trick…

Most Common Problems
26% PSU and power issues
23% Bad gear and user negligence
13% Heatsink related
15% Assembly and moving
10% Lightning strike and static
3% Computer cruelty
6% USB related
2% Overclocking

Hacker busted after hacking university database

A San Diego man who tests the security of computer systems has been charged with hacking into the University of Southern California’s student application system, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Eric McCarty, 25, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted in connection with the June 2005 breach of USC’s online student application system. The incident caused the university to shut down the site for 10 days. The database contained information – including Social Security numbers and birth dates – from roughly 275,000 applicants dating back to 1997, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Zweiback said evidence obtained on McCarty’s home computer indicated he accessed information on just seven individuals.

A USC official learned of the hacking on June 21, 2005 - the USC applicant site was shut down. A USC official later provided the FBI with records which showed that one particular IP address. There wasn’t a long way from IP to concrete person, FBI agents tracked the IP address to McCarty’s home computer, obtained a warrant and searched his residence in August. The university spent $140,000 to notify by letter all of the people whose information was on the admissions database and alert them to the potential danger. It’s not a good idea to hack unhidden especially if you live in the USA…

Sony reduced the price of PlayStation 2

The opening day for next-gen console PlayStation 3 is drawning nearer and nearer so Sony decided to decrease the price of his actual no.1 product, PlayStation 2. On Thursday, Sony announced that it has slashed the console’s price by $20, from $149 to $129. Since its release in the fall of 2000, more than 100 million PS2 units have been sold around the world. The price change was not unexpected. Gaming experts had predicted that Sony would cut prices on the PS2 before releasing its much-anticipated, next-generation console, the PlayStation 3 (PS3), in November.

Mukul Krishna, an analyst with research firm Frost & Sullivan, said the PS2 price cut might simply represent a desire to clear out old inventory. “Since they are close to the PS3 launch, giving a price cut or discount on the system will help them get rid of as much inventory as they can,” he said. Krishna also said that, whether it is to make room for the PS3 or to attract new users, Sony had to do something immediately following the surprise delay of the PS3, which had originally been scheduled for release during the spring of 2006. The pressure on Sony increased significantly when the company pushed the PS3’s release date back to nearly one year after the Xbox release. Anyway, every saved buck is good for the costumer…

MS to introduce Windows Media Player 11 in June

Microsoft says Windows Media Player 11 will be available in June of this year. The software, which will be built into Vista, is designed to offer better synching with portable devices, make it easier to scroll through long libraries of music, and be tightly integrated with Urge, a new subscription and download music service co-developed by Microsoft and MTV Networks. With the new media player, consumers will be able to “reverse sync,” meaning they can send content from a digital device to a PC. That will allow users to transfer pictures taken with their camera phone, or music purchased on a wireless device.

Other sync options include synching a player to multiple PCs and filling a device with random tracks–a la Shuffle in iTunes–according to a Windows Vista product guide that was briefly made available on the Internet last week. Another change is the ability to alter protected music and video files to change their quality level.

With the new software, protected Windows Media files can be converted to smaller file sizes for playback on mobile devices, where there is less need for very-high-quality video files. Of course, the player that most people want to connect with is Apple Computer’s iPod. And no, Windows Media Player 11 won’t allow conversion of purchased Windows Media Songs into iTunes’ proprietary FairPlay format. So songs bought from a Windows Media store still won’t play on the iPod. The question is, do we really need Windows Media Player? I don’t remember I would use it in last few months because BSPlayer is my default video player and I’m fully satisfied…

BitTorrent eats a third of world net traffic

I’ve just came across to new article on BBC (actually, not so new, it was published on Friday) informing about enourmous share of BitTorrent in world internet traffic. Recent estimates say that one third of overall world traffic is based arround BitTorrent. I’m pretty sure that I saw similar survey few months ago which reported over 60% of traffic used by BT, which is actually a pretty huge number. We all know about big popularity of torrents which is still increasing but there is also one group which is particularly not happy about this: internet service providers.

BitTorrent’s efficient use of broadband connections has hugely increased the amount of traffic going across the net, because it runs all users’ net connections flat out to deliver huge files. Some internet service providers think this is unacceptable. Recently BT began clamping down on so-called “broadband hogs”, by starting to enforce a 40GB monthly limit. Some ISPs go even further, breaking down customers’ net usage into different types of activity, and discriminating against bandwidth-hungry file-sharers. So-called traffic-shaping is part of an ongoing battle between ISPs and BitTorrent programmers. As network providers look for smarter ways to identify torrent traffic, and reduce its impact on their network, more and more help sites are springing up showing users how to encrypt their data to avoid it being tracked and controlled.

I’m one of these users, whose ISP has set a data limit to avoid p2p leechers downloading hundreds of gigabytes. Although it may seem not enough for someone, these 40 gigs per month are quite enough for me - if you select only the stuff you will really need and which will not stay unwatched or unused on your drives for month, you should fit into this cap without bigger problems. I know there’s a high number of people downloading every new release, but they never manage to watch or play it - on the other hand, they think they are pretty leet because they have latest stuff into their computers. But back to the topic - BitTorrent is extremely popular way of filesharing and I assume this ratio of p2p traffic will increase in the future quite a lot, not only by few percents…

No more computers without OS in China

As part of China’s larger anti-piracy initiative, Beijing has slapped a ban on the selling of computers without operating systems alias “naked” computers. Wang Yefei, deputy director, Beijing Copyright Bureau, said that the Chinese will not be able to buy computers without operating systems and that the new directive will be effective end-2006. Yefei said that the ban is aimed at further protecting intellectual property of software. Some manufacturers have been selling “naked” computers, which are hundreds of yuan (tens of U.S. dollars) cheaper than those equipped with legitimate software.

Some customers would install pirate software and infringe legitimate rights and interests of software companies, according to the official. China has made an effort to fight piracy. Since the year 2000, police have detained about 13,000 people suspected of breaking intellectual property rights (IPR) laws in cases involving 4.8 billion yuan (some 600 million dollars), and 3,370 people had been charged with violating IPR laws and regulations. Still big and wild country…

ICANN planning new domain .tel

To help people manage all their contact information online, the Internet’s key oversight agency (ICANN) is considering a “.tel” domain name. If approved, the domain could be available this year. As proposed, individuals could use a “.tel” Web site to provide the latest contact information and perhaps even let friends initiate a call or send a text message directly from the site. Businesses could use a “.tel” site to determine customers’ locations and route them automatically to the correct call center.

In my opinion, this is a completely useless buzz, if we don’t talk about adding just one new domain for domain speculators. I can’t imagine someone who would buy a domain and pay for webhosting just to have his telephone number visible on the internet - you can use many different services for this, freewebhosting or just register a normal generic domain. Yeah, .xxx could be good idea, but this is simply too much. By the way, do you know that there’s also .museum or .aero domains anyway? They are in place for 6 years already, but almost nobody know or uses them. Just stick to .com or .net and it will be OK…

Google brings another service: Calendar

Google Inc. is introducing on Thursday a free Web calendar service for consumers to schedule events and share them with others. Google Calendar, available at www.google.com/calendar, offers a variety of features to make using Web calendars as easy as desktop calendars such as Outlook, allowing users to “drag and drop” events from one calendar to another. The coding is pretty good as always when Google put fingers into something. Users of Gmail may find the Google Calendar particularly useful. Google’s software scours Gmail to recognise mentions of events and then automatically offers the user to add the date information to the calendar.

Details of the long-rumored calendar, complete with screenshots of features and instruction guides, had leaked out in late February among Silicon Valley technology enthusiasts. The calendar poses a direct challenge to Yahoo Calendar, the No. 1 Web calendar service in the United States, which was introduced in 1998 and has changed little in substance in recent years. But Google said it plans to “play nice” and allow users to share Google Calendar events with Yahoo Calendar. Friendly approach, quality services and all for free. That’s what I like about Google…

Universities banning P2P traffic

Univerity of Connecticut is going to ban all peer to peer traffic except of DC++. Beginning in fall 2006 all peer-to-peer programs will be blocked on the network. The current restrictions on these programs allow them to work, but limit their ability to consume network bandwidth and restrict their network speed. According to a campus-wide e-mail from UITS, similar restrictions have been on the network in the past from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but they now apply to the entire day.

Some popular methods still remains - the restrictions are only in place between the UConn network edge and the Internet. As a result, programs that allow users to share within the UConn network, such as the popular DC++ will be unaffected. DC++ is very popular in local filesharing within the university, so many users will not be affected that much. “It’s not prevention, but a restriction,” said Elaine David, assistant vice-president for Information Services and the director of Information Technology Security, Policy and Quality Assurance. The universities are well known for hosting dumps, sites and overally becoming the source of new warez. The future will show us whether this is only isolated attempt or the trend in university networking…

ATI Catalyst Drivers v6.4

New month, new drivers: ATI has released a new ATI Catalyst drivers (34.2MB) bringing them up to version 6.4. The package contains: RADEON display driver 8.241, Multimedia Center 9.13 Catalyst Control Center 6.4 , HydraVision, Hydra Vision Basic Edition, Remote Wonder 3.03, WDM Driver Install Bundle, Southbridge/IXP Driver and AVIVO Video Converter Engine. Catalyst 6.5 also adds official CrossFire support to Oblivion.

List of performance improvements:

• 3DMark06 CPU scores improve as much as 4.9% across all product lines
• 3DMark06 HDR 2 Deep Freeze (SM3.0) test improves as much as 2%
• Call of Duty 2 improves approximately 1.4-2% on Radeon X1900 and Radeon X1800 Crossfire configurations. Gains are slightly less (1.3%) for non-Crossfire Radeon X1900 and Radeon X1800 products
• FarCry improves 2-3% on ATI Radeon X1900 non-Crossfire configurations. Greatest improvements result from tests with no AA and AF
• Half Life 2 improves as much as 3.8% on Radeon X1900 non-Crossfire configurations. Greatest improvements result from tests with no AA and AF
• Unreal Tournament 2004 gains 3-5% on all Radeon X1×00 non-Crossfire configurations

Some fixed bugs and problems:

• Doom 3: Setting the in-game resolution to 2560×1600 no longer results in green circles appearing around energy projectiles of demons. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-21778
• EarthSim: Missing textures are no longer noticed on the terrain of both Mars and Earth when running the application on systems containing an ATI Radeon X1600 or X1600 XT product. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22076
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Crossfire AFR mode support is now enabled. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22015
• Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight: The frames per second are no longer lowered when moving the mouse cursor over a chat window during a multiplayer game. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-21453
• Maya 7.0: The Frame Marker located near the bottom of the screen is now displayed when connecting a secondary CRT and enabling extended desktop. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-21777
• Quake 4: The game no longer fails to respond after lying dormant for approximately 10 minutes, followed by switching between the game and notepad.exe. This issue was known to occur when extended desktop was enabled on systems containing an ATI dual display graphic card. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-21993
• Serious Sam SE: Entering the Technology Test mode no longer results in display corruption being noticed in the Reflections and Portals screens. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-22005
• WARHAMMER: DAWN OF WAR: Starting a skirmish game on a 4 player map under Windows XP, no longer results in the game performance appearing choppy when using an ATI Radeon X800 series, and having all of the game options set to high. Further details on this resolved issue can be found in topic number 737-2097

Toshiba will launch first HD-DVD notebook

Toshiba plans to put on sale in Japan in May its first laptop computer with a built-in HD-DVD drive. Model announced as The Qosmio G30 is expected to be the first computer available from any vendor with an HD-DVD drive. Along with playback of HD DVD content, the new Qosmio can read and write to current DVD and CD discs, including DVD+/-R DL (dual-layer) and DVD-RAM. The new notebook’s slim-type 12.7mm-thick drive achieves its thin form factor with an optical system requiring only a single objective lens to read HD DVD discs and to read and write to DVDs and CDs.

The Qosmio G30/697HS integrates two TV tuners, one for digital terrestrial broadcasts, the other for analog terrestrial broadcasts. It runs on an Intel Core Duo Processor T2500 (operating frequency 2.00GHz) with Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics. The notebook also has a 17-inch WUXGA (1,920×1,200 pixel) display and HDMI (high-definition multi-media interface) output, so you can connect all your peripherials - the engineers know very good that notebook without muiltimedia abilities can’t succeed nowadays. The price should be about $3300.

Google adds new search technology

Google is preparing for the battle between it’s search engine, Yahoo and MSN. Google has snapped up the rights to Orion, a mathematical formula that could change the way internet searches are carried out. Both Microsoft and Yahoo were interested in acquiring this technology, but Google was simply faster. The formula works by finding content related to a key word and then showing the results, including topics that are relevant to the search. It also displays a selection of the files it finds, so that users can see whether the result is what they are looking for before visiting a page.

The algorithm was written by Ori Allon, a 26 year-old doctoral student at the University of New South Wales (Australia), and is named after him. Allon and the University are not allowed to reveal how much Google paid or to discuss the software any further. Anyway, it should be pretty enough to cover student’s expenses and night life. Allon is now already working full time at Google’s headquarters in California. We will see the results, the search engine is pretty good already in my opinion, so if there should be something even better, it must be really superb…

New law suits against music downloading

It looks that Europe is getting too hot for file sharers too. The IFPI has announced nearly 2,000 new cases against file-sharers across the UK. Legal action is being extended to Portugal for the first time. In a development that could be mirrored in other EU countries, thousands of file-sharers in Denmark could now find their online connections cut off by their internet service providers (ISPs). In Italy, a series of raids against individual file-sharers and servers in the past fortnight has led to the seizure of more than 70 computers in the search for evidence. Each server had around a thousand users and 30TB of shared music.

The latest wave of cases, covering actions launched today or brought about in recent months, takes the total number of legal actions against uploaders to more than 5,500 in 18 countries outside the US. These actions, a combination of criminal and civil suits, are aimed at ‘uploaders’ – people who have put hundreds or thousands of copyrighted songs on to file-sharing networks and offered them to millions of people worldwide without permission from the copyright owners. Today’s actions target users of all the major unauthorised p2p networks, including FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella (BearShare), eDonkey, DirectConnect, BitTorrent, Limewire, WinMX, and SoulSeek. More info in press release of IFPI. Damn…

New movie download services will be launched soon

The movie download firms Movielink and CinemaNow have made a deal with the big five studios to ensure that downloads will coincide with DVD releases at Blockbuster and WalMart. Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period. The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD - to be more exact - burning a copy of the movie to a DVD will make it playable only on other computers.

Both movie sites will debut with several hundred older films. Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices “similar to home video,” says Ramo. That’s around $20 to $30 for newer films, and $10 to $20 for older flicks. CinemaNow intends to be more aggressive, offering some of its new flicks for under $20 and to build traffic, it will offer a two-for-one sale at the outset. The second film will cost $4.95, says the services CEO Curt Marvis.

The downloaded movies would still come with several restrictions that underscore the difficulty of the new digital world for Hollywood studios. To keep from competing directly with large retailers like Wal-Mart, both sites for now are only allowing the movies people buy through downloads to be stored on PCs or on devices like the game player Xbox outfitted with certain Microsoft (MSFT) software. Movies can’t be “burned” or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs, says Ramo.

The first batch of downloadable movies will include Brokeback Mountain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, King Kong.and Saw II. The problem of this service will be probably the price, for which you can buy a new retail DVD even with shipping fees…

Hackers use BBC news in spam mails

The Register informs about new methods used by hackers to attract consumers to click on the infected link. Hackers are using excerpts from BBC news stories as a lure to trick surfers into visiting a website that exploits a new, unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

The spam emails contain excerpts from actual BBC news stories and offer a link to “Read More”. Surfers who follow this link are taken to a spoof copy of the BBC story hosted on a maliciously constructed site that exploits the unpatched createTextRange vulnerability in an attempt to install key logging software on victim PCs. This key logger monitors activity on various financial websites and uploads captured information back to the attacker, security firm Websense warns.

Surfers are advised to avoid responding to spam messages, no matter how enticing. Disabling Active Scripting in IE or using an alternative browser until Microsoft issues a patch are also advisable.

Pocket hard drive from WD: 6 GB!

Western Digital announced a pretty nice new product in their portofilio: The WD Passport Pocket Drive is the size of a matchbox and is connected to your computer using a USB plug. This USB 2.0 device sports a 6GB hard drive and works with both Macs and PCs. Western Digital says the flip out, rotating USB connector on the Passport is thin enough “that two drives can be used at the same time in the tightly spaced USB ports found on notebook computers”.Pretty amazingly small for a hard drive. The price is only $129 dollars too, which is in my opinion quite good value for so great piece of hardware…

UPDATE: Well, I’ve found something little better. An USB flash drive with AWESOME capacity of 64 GB. But it has one small problem: Buslink Flash Drive PRO 2 is probably the most expensive flash drive on the world: You can buy decent used car or this, the price will be the same - $5000…

Three Florida banks hacked

Three Florida banks have had their Web sites compromised by hackers in an attack that security experts are calling the first of its type, informs the Computerworld. Earlier this month, attackers were able to hack servers run by the ISP that hosted the three banks’ Web sites. They then redirected traffic from the legitimate Web sites to a bogus server, designed to resemble the banking sites. Users were then asked to enter credit card numbers, PINs and other types of sensitive information, he said. The affected banks are Premier Bank, Wakulla Bank, and Capital City Bank, all small regional banks based in Florida. The three banks in question could not be reached to comment for this story, but Premier Bank is now asking customers to change their passwords after the bank was notified of a phishing scam, according to a note on the company’s Web site.

Russian eBay and Paypal cheaters busted

eBay helped to shut down a Russian Web site last week that was offering to sell stolen customer account information for as little as $5 each. Armed with an eBay customer’s login and password, a fraudster could post items for sale, collect payments, and then never deliver the goods. The site was also offering to sell a handful of PayPal accounts.

The site was inaccessible Friday morning, but Alex Eckelberry, president of security vendor Sunbelt, posted screen captures in his blog that appeared to show account information for sale from customers in the U.K., Germany, and Australia. His posting is available online. The site preferred accounts that were used infrequently, meaning a user would take longer to notice any suspicious activity, and asked a higher price for accounts with good feedback ratings. Prices ranged from $5 to $25 per account.

EBay reiterated its guidelines for customers to avoid having their data stolen: Be extremely wary of e-mail that ask you to update personal account information, download eBay’s toolbar with software that detects fraudulent eBay and PayPal sites, and report suspicious e-mail. It’s quite common to buy anything from hacked user account on estores to nice ICQ or MSN numbers…

Google prepares new user interface

Screenshots of a new results page on Google.com have been floating around the web for a few months now. The new ’style’ had only been accessible to an apparently random selection of beta users, and members of Google’s very exclusive pre-release group. Until now.

The new UI sports information on results in other sections (images, groups, froogle and news) that core users don’t tend to use. We’ve seen efforts in the past to combine the different categories together (e.g. image results at the top of normal search queries) and the latest design reflects a desire to spread interest across the sections. The new UI also cleans up the head of the page (significantly), and loses the light blue background bar indicating which page users are on. The changes aren’t somehow big, but it’s nice to see that Google is still thinking about improving their services…

3 steps to enable new user interface:

1.) Go to google.com

2.) Copy this javascript into address bar (not into search bar!)

javascript:alert(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=fb7740f107311e46:TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu;path=/;domain=.google.coms”)

3.) Enter search query as usual and see new results…

Germany: Download movie and get to prison

Germans risk two years in prison if they illegally download films and music for private use under a new law agreed yesterday. Anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years. The measures, some of the toughest in Europe, were announced after an aggressive campaign by the film industry in Germany, the largest market in the EU and one of the most computer-literate populations. According to film industry estimates, Germans download more than 20 million films a year. Many expect the next James Bond film, Casino Royale, to be widely available in Germany weeks before its official release in November (eh, people outside USA are used to this, aren’t they :)).

The law, which comes into effect on January 1, 2007, has infuriated consumer groups. They claim that it will turn consumers into criminals and harm the Government’s efforts to create a knowledge-based economy. Patrick von Braunmühl, of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, said: “It can’t be that everyone has to be worried now about the police knocking on the door and impounding the family computer because their 16-year-old son has downloaded a few songs.â€? German branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the equivalent of 439 million music CDs were copied illegally in Germany last year. Finally, similar law came into effect in Sweden before few months, and as fair as I know, it really had some effect on the people downloading warez off the internet. German users are known to prefer eMule and BitTorrent, which are quite easy-to-track, anyway, there’re still some relativelly secure ways to get new stuff…

2.56 terabit/s? Now real!

German and Japanese scientists recently collaborated to achieve just such a quantum leap in obliterating the world record for data transmission. In cooperation between Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications and Fujitsu, they achieved something really huge. By transmitting a data signal at 2.56 terabits per second over a 160-kilometer link (equivalent to the contents of 60 DVDs) the researchers bettered the old record of 1.28 terabits per second held by a Japanese group. By comparison, the fastest high-speed links currently carry data at a maximum 40 Gbit/s, or around 50 times slower. Can you even imagine leeching at this speed ?

Universal launches film download service

Universal Pictures has launched a new service that will sell digital downloads of movies such as “King Kong” along with a DVD copy, tapping into the online video market now dominated by Apple’s iTunes. From April 10, consumers will be able to download two digital copies of selected movies — one for a computer and one for a portable device — and receive a DVD in the mailbox. Universal said it could “completely revolutionise” how people watch movies.

The new service will use Microsoft’s digital rights management technology, which is designed to prevent consumers from duplicating the movies, burning them to disc or uploading them to the Internet. Universal will start the service with “King Kong” as part of an initial collection of 35 movies, including “Pride and Prejudice” and “Serenity.” “King Kong” will sell for 19.99 pounds, roughly equal to the retail price. I think this may become quite popular, the price is relatively good in comparsion with the retail, but still, the most users will continue with using p2p as the best movie provider…

120mm fans in roundup

Colleagues over belgian website Madshrimps made a nice comparsion of 17 120mm additional fans from many different manufacturers. They tested both performance and noise level, comparing it to official values. One would think, that something so small in the back of your pc case can not affect the temperature a lot, but the opposite is true - there were measured huge differences between fans in range of 15°C! Another interesting thing is that probably the most known brand, Coolermaster, finished as the worst option with highest temperature. Definitelly interesting reading, check it out.

If you are not into extreme silence but don’t want to go overboard either in the noise department the Acoustifan Ultra Quiet offers excellent performance, the Arctic Fan 12 with its integrated anti-vibration kit also delivers quite well at different voltages. If you want flashy lights Coolermaster’s LED silent will suite you perfectly although it’s overshadowed in *bling* by AC Ryan’s BlackFire4.

Microsoft confirms critical hole in IE

Microsoft has issued a pre-patch advisory with workarounds for a “highly critical” vulnerability that could put millions of Internet Explorer users at the mercy of malicious hackers. The advisory confirms the existence of a code execution hole that was discovered and publicly reported by Secunia. “When Internet Explorer displays a Web page that contains certain unexpected method calls to HTML objects, system memory may be corrupted in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code,” the software maker said.

Secunia said in an alert that the vulnerability is due to an error in the processing of the “createTextRange()” method call applied on a radio button control. “This can be exploited by a malicious Web site to corrupt memory in a way that allows the program flow to be redirected to the heap,” Secunia said in the alert, warning that successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code whenever the target visits the rigged Web site. The vulnerability was confirmed on a fully patched system with IE 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. It has also been confirmed in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, Secunia said.

First Alpha of Firefox 2.0 is here

The development of Mozilla Firefox is still pretty active and the authors of this brilliant piece of software has released a new alpha version of Firefox 2.0, with code name “Bon Echo”. Some comments of first users:

Users hoping to get a glimpse of the improved anti-phishing, session restoration and management features promised in Firefox 2.0 are likely to be disappointed. This pre-feature alpha version of Firefox 2.0 is aimed squarely at developers working on the internals of the software and making sure the code is compatible with Firefox 1.5. Expect many sites that render normally with Firefox 1.5 to misbehave under Firefox 2.0 until this basic work is completed.

Mozilla’s road map marks out the delivery of a feature-complete beta during Q2 prior to the release of a full version of the software in summer. At this point mere mortals - rather than intrepid code jockeys - can take Firefox 2.0 for a spin. Among the features to look out for will be a places menu, accessible from the bookmark toolbar, which allows surfers to easily access previously visited sites. Users will be able to search their history, bookmarks or RSS subscriptions. Firefox 2.0 will also ship with anti-phishing technology from Google. Google Safe Browsing uses a combination of blacklisting of known phishing sites and inference.

Microsoft postpones Vista to 2007

Microsoft has delayed the release of its consumer Windows Vista operating system until January 2007. The application will be made available to enterprises in November this year. Jim Allchin, co-president of platform products and services at Microsoft, said in a conference call that the company decided to delay the consumer version of Vista because PC manufacturers required more time to test and prepare their systems.

Windows Vista was hit by quality issues that caused the release to be pushed back “a few weeks”. But this prompted manufacturers to ask Microsoft to delay the consumer version until 2007 because they had insufficient time to test and prepare their systems for availability this year. “Quality is the top-line message, and we needed just a few more weeks,” said Allchin. “We will release to manufacturing and sit on the disk for the consumer launch.”

Windows Vista was originally promised for the second half of 2006, but delays have plagued the operating system throughout its development. Windows Vista is currently in beta and has been made available to a limited group of testers through Microsoft’s Community Technology Preview. You can find more information in Microsoft’s press release published on their homepage.

FBI agents behind the monkeys ?

Funny. These top secret, high-skilled and experienced agents of FBI don’t have access to something so basic as the email address. What’s more, only 100 of total 2000 FBI people in New York own mobile phone, which would be prepared to browse internet, such as BlackBerry.

“As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,” Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting. “We just don’t have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field,” he said.

FBI officials in Washington denied that cost-cutting was putting agents at a disadvantage. Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau’s 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.

“The FBI should have the tools it needs to fight terrorism and crime in the 21st century, most of all in New York City, and one of the most effective means of communications is e-mail and the Internet,” he said.

No wonder there are hackers attacking tons of websites every day, when these people who should fight against them don’t even have basic access to common things, like email…

3 different versions of Windows Vista for consumers

Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system will be available in three versions for consumers. Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate will be available in the second half of 2006, reports Microsoft. There will also be Business and Enterprise versions for the corporate world. The company has not yet establishing pricing. All versions will work with either a 64 or 32 bit processor.

The Home Basic version is intended for home users with simple computer needs. Home Premium is oriented toward users with mobile computers. Among its features is the new Aero interface, which is intended to simplify the administration of personal programs and data. The operating system also enables content to be entered or functions to be selected using either a digital pen or fingertip. Windows Vista Ultimate expands the Premium functions through numerous business applications. The three private versions and Windows Vista Business will be available in stores as standalone software packages or pre-installed on new PCs.

Anyway, I think that it will end with everyone using the corporate version without activation and similar security “issues”

PlayStation 3 will ship with Linux

Sony President Ken Kutaragi confirmed that the Playstation 3 (PS3) has been delayed, at a press conference in Tokyo earlier this week. Kutaragi additionally confirmed that the gaming console will ship with an upgradable 60GB hard drive pre-installed with Linux, according to in-depth coverage at 1up.com.

The PS3 will be among the first consumer computing devices to make use of the Cell processor co-developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba. In addition to running Linux from its hard-drive, the PS3 is expected to be available with various Linux-based productivity packs that turn the game into a computing appliance for special applications such as digital video editing.

Additionally, the PS3 will have network interfaces, and will avail users of network-based services such as “matchmaking, messaging, rankings, friends lists, voice/video chat, in-game shopping, and game downloads,” according to 1up.

Another dangerous bug in IE

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser crashes when attacked through a new unpatched vulnerability, security companies warned Friday. The zero-day bug occurs within the “mshtml” library when a malformed HTML tag with an abnormally large number of script handlers is fed to the browser. According to the researcher who posted the initial description to the Bugtraq security mailing list, attackers can easily crash IE by flooding its buffer.The researcher, Michal Zalewski, also released proof-of-concept code that crashes the latest IE release on a fully-patched edition of Windows XP SP2. Symantec noted in an alert to customers of its DeepSight system that its staff had confirmed the proof-of-concept code crashed IE in some, but not all, situations. Also on Friday, rival McAfee released a new signature to anti-virus customers that detects the proof-of-concept exploit.

Because the vulnerability can be exploited by a single malicious HTML tag, IE could be brought to its knees if its user simply surfed to a nasty Web site. Symantec, however, warned that the bug may be even more serious. “Further investigation in the details of exploiting the vulnerability to determine the possibility of code execution are currently under way,” the company’s advisory read.

If that’s the case, IE users may face a new major hijack risk. There are no known work-arounds, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to questions about its plans for the vulnerability. If you still use Internet Explorer, may be it’s an ideal time to try Firefox or Opera. I don’t say these browsers are ideal or without security problems and bugs, but for sure there are not as many as in case of IE…

Sony Ericsson Black Diamond - cellphone of the future

Industrial designer Jaren Goh has created his newest concept,the Black Diamond mobile phone for Sony Ericsson. This high end 4 megapixel phone is Cased in a layer of polycarbonate with mirror finish cladding. The OLED technology makes for vivid illumination under the polycarbonate skin and gives it a borderless screen effect. The ultra thin profile,clean lines,and ultra-glossy finish are all qualities sure to attract Sony Ericsson fans and gadget freaks alike. I would be proud to have such a phone, but my Motorola MPx220 works fine too…

Microsoft wants to beat Google

Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday. “What we’re saying is that in six months’ time we’ll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google,” said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa. But being good is not enough to win the hearts and minds of consumers already dedicated to another standard. Microsoft will put its search engine into its widely used communications tools Windows Messenger and Hotmail. “Integrating search into those other applications … makes it very seamless for people,” he said. Timing in Europe will be pegged to that in the United States.

So we can expect another good search engine pretty soon, but I really don’t think it may be better than The Google. These aims mentioned by Holloway are kinda realistic, but they will not make MSN better than Google. May be they will display more accurate links, but the majority of people will be still using Google. We also can’t forget that Google’s developers are still comming out with new features, applications and services, last time with Google Video. For me, Google is still pretty clear no.1.

2GB of RAM: Do We Really Need It

Guys over great hardware website Xbit labs wrote interesting article about amount of memory in our computers. These days, its nothing so strange to see users with 2 GB or even more RAM. But do we really need it, isn’t it just some tech hype? In my opinion, 768 MB (which I have in my own computer) or more is fairly enough to work with your computer, when 1 GB is pretty enough for everything. The thing is that I don’t have a time to play all latest games, but have to do some work instead of it. The conclusions of this article is that there’s some difference between having 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM, but if you aren’t progamer playing latest titles on maximum details, then you don’t need it so much. This may change with time of course, but for now, I’ll stick with my 768 MB…

New world record in writing text messages

Smashing the previous Guinness World Record of 67 seconds, a 28 year old Singaporean women has triple-tapped 26 words into a mobile phone in an astonishing 43.24 seconds. Kimberly Yeo, a Business student, typed the 160 character message

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”

including all punctuation and in upper- and lower-case letters - without the aid of any predictive text functions such as T9 or iTAP. Yeo says she sends an average of 1500 text messages a month to friends and family, so it’s no wonder she is so good at it. The feat was accomplished outside a department store, in a contest held by Singapore carrier SingTel, and Yeo walked away with about $10,250 in prize money - all for sending one text message. My Motorola MPx220 is quite fine mobile phone, but I still prefer instant messaging before writing short messages…

Million dollar homepage hacked

The FBI is investigating the hijacking of milliondollarhomepage.com - the website that earned $1m for its British creator Alex Tew by hosting micro-advertisements - by hackers who demanded a ransom to restore the site. Mr Tew was sent a demand for $50,000 by e-mail by a hacker, believed to be Russian. When he refused, the website crashed. The e-mail, which was made available exclusively to the Financial Times, read: “Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send us 50000$.” Too much attention and too much money isn’t great combination in this world…

3DMark06 is out!

Year after year, new versions of 3DMark are released. This popular benchmark software by Futuremark is well-known as video accellerator killer, because if its extremelly demanding requirements. New version brings back three old levels (Proxycon, Firefly Forest and Canyon Flight) with new effects (more lights, more shadows, more complex geometry) and one completely new level called “Deep Freeze”. Minimum requirements to run 3DMark06 are really tough:

- Intel or AMD compatible processor 2.5GHz or higher
- DirectX 9 compatible graphics adapter with Pixel Shader 2.0 support or later, and graphics memory of 256 MB minimum
- 1GB of system RAM or more - 1.5GB of free hard disk space
- Windows XP operating system with latest Service Packs and updates installed
- DirectX 9.0c December 2005 or later
- Microsoft Excel 2000, 2003 or XP for some 3DMark functionality
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for some 3DMark functionality

You can download installation file (580 MB!) on these websites: FileShack, GameSpot, GH. More mirrors can be found at the Futuremark homepage. There are also first reviews, which you can read for example on AnandTech, EliteBastards, Hexus, PC Perspective, Techgage and Tweak3D.