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 Software Updates: Updates to Adobe Air and Shockwave Player. Released on Tuesday were updates for Root Certificates and something that registry entry that controls the DLL search algorithm. Keep up with the SU page, it's always updating even when this website isn't. Click here. (Last updated 19.08.10)
(19.08.10) Could fast internet connections kill the games console? Start up company Gaikai believes they could as the plan to launch a gaming service that will supply high end graphics to systems as low end as a netbook. They do it by running the entire game on a server with only the video and commands being run at the players end. Sounds interesting, at least for people with fast internet connections. Read more here.
(18.08.10) Facebook users are being warned to watch out for a scam that steals information and generates spam. Disguised as a new button called "Dislike", it looks like just another comment option but the terms and conditions of installment reveal it's true intent. Read more here.
(05.08.10) Microsoft is releasing a beta version of IE 9 in September. It's supposed to be faster, by which I hope they mean that basic things like a blank tab open quickly, and better compatability with various Internet standards. For instance it's got a new JavaScript engine that is supposed to compile code 5 times faster than the existing one. Read more here.
(04.08.10) A security vulnerability that effects the iPad, iPhone and some iPods has been discovered. To fall foul of it the user has to visit a website that automatically loads a .pdf file with a font containing the threat. Described as easily exploitable, mobile Internet users are perhaps more vulnerable because of the shortened URLs used in messages and websites. Read more here.
(03.08.10) Windows 7 SP1 beta R2 has been made available to professionals along with Windows Server '08 R2, which means that the real things are about on schedule. W7 has proved so stable that MS says that the service pack is basically a roll up of all the updates plus some enhancements for Bluetooth and Remote Desktop.
Amazon has announced a smaller, lighter version of it's ereader, Kindle. With a screen still the same the K3 and retailing at close to £100, it will attract a lot more people than it's £155 predecessor. Read more here.
(22.07.10) Facebook has passed the 1/2 billion user mark this week, a remarkable achievement for a social networking site that isn't that flexible and has a reputation for invading privacy. It just goes to show that people like simplicity and aren't that bothered about privacy if they feel they have some control over it, even if they don't exercise it (see also: Google). The BBC has a nice graphic charting the success or otherwise of various networking sites here.
(21.07.10) Amazon has announced that for the first time electronic versions on the Kindle platform are out selling their hardback equivalents. Softbacks are still the biggest sellers but it's quite a shift. Kindle hasn't taken off in the UK in the same way as it has in the US but it's only a matter of time. Read more here.
Or is it? Google are planning a move into eBooks with something called Google Editions which will offer a store front leading their millions of searchers to publishers selling content in a Google format. Google is planning to take a much smaller commision than Amazon currently does which could shake things up. Read more here.
(14.07.10) Both eBay and Facebook are being sued for large sums for fundamental aspects of their operations. eBay by a company that claims it owns the patent on the, what? Process of paying by alternative methods to the credit card. They're just looking to be "fairly compensated for their ides", and it sounds like another US lawsuit that looks more like extortion than litigation but the Facebook case is different.
They're being signed by a guy who claims that he has a contract for developing the site and that he now owns, according to the terms of the contract, 84% of it. Sounds mad but if he really does have a contract things could be interesting. Read more here and here.
(07.07.10) Sony are recalling half a million Vaio following problems with them overheating. It's not the first time this has happened, they've had batteries that actually caught fire in the past. This time they think the problem can be solved with a software update, which seems optomistic to me. Read more here.
(21.06.10) Sharp are spending a lot of money advertising a TV that has an extra colour, yellow. As the Expert Review review points out this seems odd when 3D telly seems the coming thing but when you think about it, an extra colour added to a palette that has consisted of red, green and blue since colour monitors first arrived is quite a big jump. Like all new technology, first reviews are interesting but not that important, eventually this will change desktop monitors and if it works, the quality of our life (in a small way). Click here for the review.
(17.06.10) Not for the first time it is being proposed that the President of the US should have the ability to shut down parts of the Internet if they deem it necessary through the auspices of the Dept. of Homeland Security. The legislation, written by the HS committee, the odious Joe Lieberman, would also establish a new "cybersecurity" bureaucracy which would have the power to monitor the security status of private websites amongst other things. As ICANN, which runs the domain name and IP address system, resides in the US, legislation could give the POTUS the power to shut down networks anywhere. Read more here.
Apple have launched a website showcasing the new features that will be available when HTML5 arrives. Unfortunately its only viewable with Safari, Apple's browser and one feature is only available to users of their latest operating system. Most of what is on offer is the ability to embed things, such as video and video, directly into a webpage without the need for a third party application, so it will mean fewer add-ons for browsers. Read more, with a link to the website here and download Safari here.
(07.06.10) Schadenfreude alert - spyware has been found on several sites offering free software to Mac users. It's a threat first identified on PCs in 2008 and arrives along with free screensavers, ever a popular carrier of malware, masquerading as a market research program. So it's not a drive-by/no installation required problem but it is unusual to Mac users targeted in this way. Read more here.
(01.06.10) Asus has launched a rival to the iPad (Charlie Brooker review here) and if it actually gets released (there have been a few false starts), it looks like it could be a contender. It has the touch screen, a simple dock to a keyboard, USB ports, supports flash, has a camera and runs Windows 7, which means that there are already plenty of apps to install. Read more here and here.
Five real homes in Finland have been raided after complaints by players of Haffbo Hotel that their virtual possesions had been stolen. A Dutch teenager has been arrested for stealing virtual furniture and hundreds of players have effected after being lured to malware infected websites. Read more here.
(31.05.10) Ofcom has released it draft proposals to tackle piracy. Under it ISPs will keep an anonymised list of individuals who infringe copyright and copyright owners will be able to request details from it. Repeat offenders will then be prosecuted after being sent three letters explaining in plain English the offence and what to do next. What isn't clear from the draft is whether they consider serial downloaders the same as uploaders. Studies have shown that the vast majority of uploads can be traced back to a relatively small number of people, whereas there are is an enormous number of people who download just a few things and generally go on to buy more than the average consumer. Read the draft here.
The BBC has a nice graphic of where and what the world's super computers are. The US is home of most of them, including the largest at the Oak Ridge Nat. lab and although it comes in second, China only has slightly more than Germany. The UK is fourth and it's biggest is in Edinburgh. Read more here.
(27.05.10) Apple has overtaken Microsoft as the largest IT company by capitalisation. Once thought to be down and out, this is a comeback of Rocky proportions. Te turn around is thanks to the iPhone and iTunes, both of which are dominant in their markets. Which is ironic because it was thought that it was the locking into an operating system and propriety hardware was the reason that Apple computers lost out to MS's software and licensing approach. Read more here.
So it's appropriate that Apple is being hit with an anti-trust action. They're accused of using their clout in the music market to persuade companies not to give Amazon exclusive access to new music. Read more here.
Tab jacking is a phishing attack that takes advantage of people who open a tab in Firefox, leave the website to look at another tab and while they aren't looking the page refreshes to an attack site. I don't entirely understand how it works, the example given uses Gmail but I think it would actually exploit more vulnerable and less well policed websites. Read more here and check the URL when your return if you leave the tab. Thanks to Steve for the link.
(24.05.10) A website has been launched that demonstrates how much information your browser reveals about you to websites you visit. The good news is that for Firefox users with NoScript installed, it's virtually nothing. Click here for more and here to test your browser.
(17.05.10) Cars are vulnerable to hacking. As predicted here sometime ago, the wireless computer controls that connect many of the essential functions of the modern car, in many cases connected to the Internet, can be hacked. Security experts from the University of Washington carried out the study in an attempt to get manufacturers to address the problem before it's exploited in the wild. It occurs to me that if they can be deliberately hacked then they might be vulnerable to accidental radio interference too. Read more here.
(11.05.10) Researchers have worked out an exploit that bypassed all the anti-virus they tested. Put simply it presents a innocent file to the system for testing and the instant it's accepted, swaps it for a malicious one. Timing is crucial but it works most of the time and particularly well on multi-core processors. We can only hope that they find a way to fix it fast. Read more here. Thanks to Steve for the tip.
On a brighter note, Serious Sam HD: Second Encounter is upon us and it's apparently as much fun as it's mad gonzo precursor. In a time when every game has a complex plot, character developmet and tough moral choices, it's nice to have some straight forward old school run around and shoot baddies fun. Read more here.
(03.05.10) A method of tracking BitTorrent users in real time has been devised allowing researchers to map where files are going as they spread around the Internet. The French team behind the project collected 148m IP addresses and 2 billion download but say that the files originate from a relatively small number of original content providors. This kind of information could be a boon to anti-piracy groups and pretty frightening if you are one of those original providors who could now be found responsible for a huge amount of file theft. Read more here.
(21.04.10) Google has been criticised for having little regard for peoples privacy with particular regard to the launch of Buzz and the roll out of Street View. Street View is a red herring in my opinion and the mistakes made with Buzz were quickly addressed. The real problem with Google is the way it tracks users browsing and uses that information to better target advertising. That might seem benign enough but such databases can be compromised for all sorts of reasons. Read more here.
Google has released a map of countries and the requests for data or data removals they make. The UK comes third, behind Brazil and the US, in the request catergory, whick would make it top on a per capita basis and the pop-up for China is worth reading. Read more here.
(19.04.10) MS Fixit Centre offers automatic fixes/diagnostics for four areas of the computer, five if you have Vista. Internet Explorer freezes/crashes, printing problems, sound, video playback and for Vista only, problems reading or creating data disks. If you can't find a solution with it you can access more help through the online Fixit Centre using the profile it creates of your system. I haven't tried it yet but it could be very useful.
(18.03,10) Project Natal, scheduled for release in November, looks at first glance as the XBox answer to the Wii but it's a bigger step than that. Sitting on top of your monitor and connected to the console, it can detect body movement and entirely does away with the need for a controller. Which is pretty neat but it also has face recognition and scanning ability so it can recognise individuals and input data. Read more and watch the promo video here.
Peter Molyneux, the brains behind Black & White, is involved in the Natal project and is developing a game that involves interacting with very realistic virtual people. Here he talks us through working with "Milo", a child who needs help with his homework and it's at once very creepy and very intriguing. The Ai, a huge feature of B&W, is remarkable as the way the player interacts with the game, able to reach in and manipilate the landscape with hand gestures and even "hand" a drawing you've just done via the scanner to Milo who can then hold and respond to it.
And the Natal device is only going to cost £50. pretty cheap for such a revolutionary upgrade. It's also rumoured that an upgraded or possibly next gen Xbox will become available at the same time.
(17.03.10) BioShock has upset players for charging them for new content that turns out to be already on the game disc. Costing around £4 it adds new characters and challenges to online play and is the sort of stuff that is normally given away for free to reward loyalty and keep interest up. So charging for it is annoying enough, the fact that it's something the players already have just makes it worse. Click more here.
(15.03.10) Hard drives: Apart from getting bigger while using fewer platters, not much has changed in the world of hard drives for some time but this year things have started to change, with solid state hard drives becoming commonly used in high end systems and a new formatting structure replacing the one that's used for 30 years.
Solid state drives have been around for a while but they've prohibitively expensive and not as stable as traditional drives, now stability is less of an issue, with a 246Gb drive costing around £550 and for those with less money, a 32GB is around £70. Connecting with a SATA cable they offer newer PCs a big boost without the need for extensive rebuilding. More detail can be found here.
Not here yet but soon will be is the 4K sector standard. For the last 30 years, sectors on hard drives have been 512k in size, based on the old IBM floppy disk. Having sectors of 4012K will make it easier to make larger drives (how much bigger do they need to get?) that work more efficiently and use less power. But there is a downside, XP users will find there computers can't recognise the larger sectors, thankfully the newer drives will be able to pretend to have the older format. Read more here.
Makers of Zeus, a commercially distributed malware program that lets would be pirates create their own Trojan now comes with an activation system similar to the one used by the likes of Microsoft. I'm not sure what to say about this, it's like something William Gibson might have thought up. Read more here. Thanks to Steve for the tip.
(09.03.10) I knew it would happen, Ubisoft's authoritarian game license enforcement system has been brught down by hackers. As you will recall, new game from Ubi required an Internet connection to authenticate the license everytime a game was loaded, which obviously people objected. Now, system that's designed to thwart hackers better be secure because it's annoying people who do little else other than figure out ways of circumventing systems and in this Ubisoft failed. The servers that host the authentication has been brought down by a denial of service attack and players all over the world can't play the games they've paid hard cash for. Read more here. Honestly, Microsoft got more sympathy when it cut off hacked Xboxs.
(24.02.10) The Digital Economy Bill, which contained some draconian measures for dealing with file sharers, has been significantly revised following lobbying from ISPs and pressure groups. It will now take much longer to go through the process that could lead someone having their connection cut off, the onnus will be on the copyright owner to prove theft rather than the user their innocence and there will be fines for false claims of breach. Read more here.
(15.02.10) Google Buzz, their attempt to create an intergrated social network, launched last week and it's already had to be rejigged following complaints about how it does so many things automatically. For instance, if you are a Gmail user, you'll find it there in the settings and all your other Google applications associated with it and your most frequent email contacts added to your network along with their associations. They've now made most of this an opt-in and a series of suggestions, which is good thing but I don't think they're going to recover from a such a bad start. Read more here and here.
(10.02.10) Flash player cookies is something I've covered in the past but I hadn't realised quite how persistent they are. Not only do they store and track visits using Flash (that's almost all), allow cross-site cookie storage (meaning that you don't even need to visit a site for it to cookie you) but it continues to do so even after you tell it not to. I changed my Flash security preferences, which you have to do by going to their website here, so I was very surprised when I revisited and found a long list of websites I'd visisted.
The next version will stop this but only when you're in "private browsing" mode, which doesn't really address the issue in my opinion and frankly I can't think of a good reason why they should have to be able to access the information in the first place. As I frequently mention, I use NoScript, which let's me choose which sites can run Flash, which helps but it doesn't stop those that do from using cookies, to do that you need BetterPrivacy, which let's you control the cookies themselves. Read more here.
Samsung has announced new DDR3 memory that it claims is more efficient in both data processing and power usage but what is really remarkable, to me* at least, is that it uses a 30nm circuit, much smaller than the current generation of CPU which are 42nm. Does this mean that CPU will eventually run on 30nm, uping speeds and lowering power needs? I hope so. Read more here. *Probably not that remarkable but the news of 30nm passed me by)
BioShock 2 arrived today and early impressions is that it's pretty good. It gets off to a gentler start than the original, which was like being dumped into the middle of a horror movie but the atmosphere is still there and the story is already involving. If you haven't played the original, get it, it's quite cheap on eBay and will play on most reasonable 2006+ systems.
(09.02.10) BioShock 2 is out today and getting great reviews everywhere. Set in a world created around the concepts expouned by Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, it drops the player into beautifully rendered underwater city and populated by a cast of disturbing characters. Unlike most computer games it unfolds like a novel in which moral choices and consequences drive the story as much as shooting things, although there is of course a lot of shooting. Frightening and intrigueing in equal measure, Bioshock 1 was one of the best games I've ever played and I'm really looking forward to the new episode. Click here and here for a reviews.
(02.02.10) Firefox 3.5 has become the most popular browser according to tracking company StatCounter but Internet Explorer (all versions) still dominates overall. This story is being reported in various ways but I liked the StatCounter version the best just because it's got a great graph. Click here to see it and then mess around with the settings (check Antarctica).
(28.01.10) Apple's slate turned out to be something called the iPad (v. unpopular in some quarters) and reaction has been somewhat underwhelmed. The general consensus seems to be that while the good things are good, it's let down by some basic failings.
It's a sort of web surfing ereader but there's no camera, so you can't conference call and there's no Flash, which means a lot of web content is unavailable. Plus there's no multi-tasking, so you can't surf, listen to music and twitter at the same time and the battery can't be removed, which means you can't carry a spare and it won't run long enough to get you through a half day journey. Read more here and here. Stephen Fry loved it though - "The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the responsiveness, the smooth glide of it..." (here
(27.01.10) Apple are announcing their log awaited new device, a sort of tablet/netbook/smartphone hybrid this evening. As I post this it still hasn't happened but you can be amongst the first to know just what it is by clicking ). (My verdict - let's call it the iFad)here.
(18.01.10) ATi has released the Radeon HD 5670, completing the 5000 series range with a card aimed at the budget end of the market. Costing around half of 5770 it will appeal to the 70% that never pay more than a £100 for their graphic needs, basically those who don't want to play the latest 3d games. Click here for a review.
A 26 year old who ran a popular file sharing website has been cleared of conspiracy to defraud even though he'd made an estimated £200000 doing so. His defence was that his site was analogous to Google and like the search engine wasn't responsible for his members actions. The BPI is very disappointed. Read more here.
(12.01.10) Bugs in IE 8 and Windows 7 have not been fixed in the latest round of updates from MS. The one in IE 8 makes otherwise safe websites capable of harbouring threats in XSS (cross site scripting), so the best plan is to adopt Firefox and NoScript (see forum). Read more here.
Click here to see what happens when you give an unbreackable mobile phone to a reporter to test on camera.
(07.01.10) Microsoft and HP have announced a tablet PC/eReader hybrid that they're calling a "slate PC," a direct reference to Apple iSlate and very similar in scope. In the past MS versions of Apple products (apart from Win7, which is very Mac like apparently) haven't done so well, the Zune phone and the MS download store are mere blips next to the iStore and iPhone but they've both been late to the market. It looks like this could appear first. Click here for more.
Almost unnoticed, well by me at least and lot less glamorous than most of the stuff written about here, the humble USB is upgrading from 2 to 3. The increase in speed is so dramatic, with transfers running up 4.8Gb/ps, that it's thought it will rival and probably replace eSata for high speed external connections. It's only just making it onto the retail market, so even those with fairly new computers are going to have to go back to the day when they needed a USB PCIe card, just as we did when USB 2 appeared. Read more here and here.
(06.01.10) Google has launched its phone, the Nexus One. Much of the popular press have led with the question "is it the iPhone killer?" The answer to which is obviously no, the iPhone is very good and its users very loyal, fortunately the specialist press goes a bit beyond this and have given the Nexus an almost universal thumbs up. Even in it's early days it comes with good apps, is very usable and possibly best of all offers the consumer the choice between an unlocked phone or a cheap phone tied to a contract, in marked contrast to the iPhone. Read more here, here and here.
it may love the iPhone but Gizmodo isn't so keen on Asus's Waveface. True it could have a better name and the predictably evangelical IT promo is a bit annoying but the thin flexible display looks to have lots of potential and I think we'll be seeing a lot of it in the next few years, perhaps the next phone will slip into your wallet. Click here.
(16.12.09) Game news: Bioshock 2 is due out in February and it looks like it's going to be good. Often sequels offer little but better graphics but the makers of a game that made the player feel as if they were in a novel seem to have put a lot of thought into the new game, moving the story on and offering an bigger arena to explore. Read more here. Meanwhile, World of Warcraft players can look forward to the next chapter in their never ending quest for domination of the WoW domains in the shape of The Fall of the Lich King, click here for a trailer.
(15.12.09) Intel and AMD have settled their long running anti-trust dispute (Intel had been found to be insentivising retailers and manufacturers to the disadvantage of AMD) and Intel have paid AMD $1.25 billion as a result. They've also agreed to share technology for the next five years in a cross licensing agreement, which could lead to greater standardisation across platforms and make things easier for motherboard manufacturers. Read more here.
Intel could be following AMD and buying a chip manufacturer, and it's nVidia. It's as neat a match as AMD and Radeon really. Read more here.
(11.12.09) The makers of online game Evony is sueing a UK blogger for libel after he posted a series of comments on the game. What's odd is that they're doing so in Australia in court that's yet to decide if it has jurisdiction over the case. Read more here and click here for the Wikipedia page, half of which is made up of "controversies."
(25.11.09) Radeon have launched it's new flagship card, the HD 5970 which runs on two very slightly underclocked HD 5870 cpus and it's really fast. It's also huge, over a foot long. It can handle Crysis 2 at ultra high setting and 8AA with ease and the only things that beat it are the HD 48xx cards in Crossfire.
Not only does this give Radeon the lead over nVidea for the first time in years, it means that in a year or so's time, gamers on a modest budget can look forward to running games like Crysis on maximum settings, which in turn means that we'll be getting closer to almost photo realistic games. Read more here.
(24.11.09) Here's a review of Google Chrome from PC Advisor and they don't like it.
I.E. 8 has a security flaw that exploits the mechanism that is designed to protect against XSS attacks vulnerable to XSS attacks. It's complicated, so read more here.
(23.11.09) Google's much heralded operating system has been released to developers. It's an open source project and it's native applications are based on Google's existing web programs, so it relies on people having a fairly fast Interent connection but they are well tested, so it should work. Read more, with lots of images, here.
Bumptop is a 3D desktop skin that turns the screen into a virtual box in which things can be dragged, pinned, stacked and resized using mouse gestures or touch if you're lucky enough to have a touch screen. Not really aimed at anyone I know but interesting none the less, read more here.
(18.11.09) MS Office 2010 beta has been released and it looks as if it's makeover of Office '07 similar to the one Vista received to create Windows 7. If it's as successful it'll be very good and maybe worth the upgrade from Office '03, having said, it would have to be really good and pretty cheap to get me to abandon Open Office. Read more with screenshots here.
Two men suspected of being behind the ZeuS or Zbot virus that has infected thousands of computers with the aim of stealing financial details have been arrested in Manchester. They're first people in Europe to have been arrested for taking part in a scam that spans the world. Read more here.
(16.11.09) If you have a weak heart you may want to sit down for this; they're working on devices to prevent radio controlled pace makers from being hacked. Read more here.
China has got it's very own super computer. Made up of more than 70000 chips it can perform 563 trillion calculations a second and will work for the petroleum and aircraft industries. It's fifth in the super computer table and well behind the Jaguar computer in the US which has 220000 chips. Read more here.
(12.11.09) Microsoft has banned around a million users of hacked xBoxes from accessing xBox Live, preventing them from partacking in the online games that make up the bulk of the consoles market. The users themselves haven't been banned, it's the hacked consoles that can play pirated games, DVDs and cheat by modifying profiles by enhancing abilities. It's a caused a spate of sales of hacked boxes, a huge number of people visiting the official xBox message board (see the FAQ to see how hardline MS are on the issue) and speculation that the ban was prompted by Modern Warfare going on sale, which is expected to be widely pirated. Interestingly many posting on message boards express little sympathy for the banned users, presumably because they're fed up with being beaten by people with faster cars or immunity to bullets, and who can blame them?
(11.11.09) Another exploit has found for the hacked iPhones (those freed from the standard contract and restrictions) that enables the attacker to download all the stored information and leaving no trace that it's happened. Like previous attacks it goes for the secure shell remote access service option where installed and the failure of most people to change the default password. Read more here.
(05.11.09) Windows 7 Service Pack 1 beta is probably going to be released in January, which means it will be shipping for real in the summer. Although the operating system is far less buggy than XP and much more driver friendly than Vista was, there are still a few things that need to ironed out, so if the reports are accurate it's good news. Read slightly more here.
Firefox 4 is some way off but it's going to have a sleeker look, more in tune with the "glass" effects of Vista and Windows 7 but hopefully without the "tabs on top" interface of Chrome, which is just annoying. Read more here.
(02.11.09) The BBC has launched a new website especially for those of us who are overly interested in politics. It brings together all the video streams from the various parliaments and assemblies, each of which is given it's own microsite, making it much easier to find specific things fast. Read more here.
(29.10.09) The Internet is 40 years old today. It was on October the 29th, 1969, that engineers in Stanford and UCLA connected two computers via a phoneline and sent the letter L from one to the other, in reply an O was sent, then a G and then the system crashed. But they got it up and running later that evening and it's been going pretty much ever since. Click here for more.
(28.10.09) The Guardian Newspaper's jobs website has been hacked and job application data, CVs and the like stolen. No financial information but what appears to be a serious and targeted attack (as oppossed to someone just doing it tagging style) has been reported to the police. Read more here.
(27.10.09) Gizmodo one of the most popular and influential tech blogs has been found to have scareware embedded in one of it's adverts. The ads appeared to be for Suzuki but in fact triggered fake virus warnings when clicked. It's similar to the attack hosted by the New York Times and just goes to show that you should TRUST NO ONE. Read more here.
(26.10.09) Yahoo, which seems to be going through a bad time at the moment, has closed GeoCities, once the standard bearer of what would become social networking and for which Yahoo paid over $3 billion (technically a share swap) back in '99.
Established in 1995 it allowed people with no programing ability to create their own microwebsite for no charge (pages carried adverts) and it's structure was based around real world neighbourhoods. It became popular very fast, hence Yahoo's interest. Sadly they didn't really develop the concept much and it soon began to look old. Even so the sites it hosted still got 11.5 million unique hits in March this year. There are literally millions of sites though. To mark the occasion XKCD has created a web page that celebrates the somewhat clunky look of typical geocities site, click here to see it. Read more on the story here.
(15.10.09) Google has come up with a clever way of combining it's satellite maps and it's 3d Earth thingy (I think that's the technical term) which allows people to create buildings for the latter from images taken from the former. At least that's what I think that what it does, read more here. (Assuming that they improve the rest of the west coast on Google satellite to the resolution of Tobermory, this might actually be interesting.)
(14.10.09) TomsHardware has an article and review on the new 5750 and 5770 cards from ATi. Rather than just concentrating on the benchmarks it delves a bit deeper, pointing out for instance how power efficient they are in comparrison to their equivelant in the 4000 series. Well worth a read if you're considering buying a card. Click here.
(13.10.08) ATi have released two more chips in the 5000 series, the 5770 and 5750. They much lower specs than their bigger brothers but still support DirectX 11 and perform almost as well as the 4890. Priced at around £110/£140 they'll be a pretty good buy when the cards start to shift on the 22nd but more to the point for the budget conscious, the price of some 4000 series cards is bound to drop. Hooray! Click here for a spec comparrison and benchmarks.
(08.10.09) Spammers wasted no time harvesting and exploiting the 30000 email addresses published following a huge phishing scam (see News), it was only 48 hrs after they appeared that spam volume went up by 40%. Most of it came from the compromised accounts and was sent to whoever was in the address book. Most of the spam was flogging cheap electronics goods from bogus stores. Read more here.
Spotify, the music streaming service may not survive if it can't get more of it's users to pay for the ad-free version according to it;s founder. I think the problem is the relationship between the occasional advert, which appear about every twenty minutes or so and the £9.99 per month ad-free subscription. Presumably the ads are spaced so they don't put people off, which means they don't raise much money but the sub seems quite high to get rid of something that isn't that annoying. I hope the find the balance because it's a good service. Click here.
(28.09.09) World of Warcraft can expect their computers to automatically upgrade to version 3.2.2, in fact they may already have done so. It includes various fixes and a reworking of something called a brood mother and is very good apparently. Read more here.
DirectX 11 is here with Sapphire releasing two ATi cards which support the new standard. Unlike Dx10, 11 promises real improvements in performance and perhaps heralds a revival in ATi's fortunes as they seem to be ahead of nVidea in producing products, they'll be cheaper too. Click here for an article which is a bit techy but has some images that demonstrate the differences the new cards have.
(10.09.09) Which is faster, the carrier pigeon or ADSL - well there's only one way to find out and that's exactly what a South African IT company did. They got a pigeon to carry a 4gb usb drive 60 miles and at the same time sent the same data via the Internet. When the pigeon arrived after 2 hrs just 4% of the date had arrived. More here.
(07.09.09) Guitar Hero 5 is out with new songs, improved presentatation and a new party mode. Song choice is still inferior to its rivals but it's getting good reviews, click here.
A Bill before the US Senate would give the US President the power to disconnect non-govermental website in the case of emergency and the definition of ermergency would be up to him or her. The bill has been amended following concerns from civil liberty groups but still contains enough to worry them. Because the USA effectively controls the internet through the domain naming system. Read more here.
(27.08.09) Microsoft has dropped the price of the xBox following Sony's PS3 cuts last week. Parents could be having a cheaper Christmas than expected. Read more here.
(24.08.09) Tayside police have had their website hacked by naughty scamps who've plastered a picture of comedian Frankie Boyle. Poor password choice might be to blame. Read more here.
(20.08.09) Moving pictures are coming to magazines, bringing the thin flexible displays that it seems were part of tomorrows world only yesterday to reality. They're very small at present but can store up to 40 minutes of video and it can only be a short time before they get bigger and we can pick up a TV programme at the newsagents. Read more here.
Mozilla isn't impressed with Windows 7's "browser ballot", pointing out that Internet Explorer is still in the box seat as it's required for Windows Update. Read more here.
(19.08.09) Sony is dropping the price of the new slimline PS3 by £50 in an attempt to compete with the XBox (it's still going to be considerably more expensive than the Wii) and it's launching a service that allows people to rent movies that they can download and store on the system. Whether this is enough to save the ailing console is yet to be seen. Click here for more.
(10.08.09) The hack that brought down Twitter and other social networking sites has been blamed on the Kremlin after it emerged that the likely target was a popular Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu and was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Russian-Georgian war of 2008. The attack which brought down services for 2 hours has been followed by a series of hoax messages ostensively coming from the blogger but designed to discredit him. Read more here.
(06.08.09) Nikon has launched a compact camera that can also project images just like a slide projector. It costs about £400 but that's bound to come down and has a 12mp resolution, 5X zoom, a viewfinder and I want one. Read more here.
(04.08.09) Apple seems to be desperate to keep the news that iPod batteries are prone to catch fire and is trying to get victims of the menace to sign gagging agreements before replacing the player. It amazes me that they're seen as the cuddly alternative to Microsoft sometimes. Read more here.
(03.08.09) Microsoft is dropping the European edition of Windows 7 that would ship without Internet Explorer. Instead it will come with a "ballot screen" that lets customers choose which browser they wish to use. Microsoft doesn't seem happy about this but it keeps multi-national companies happy and will allow MS to sell upgrade and full versions of the operating system, previously only full versions were going to be available because a clean install was required. Read more here.
(29.07.09) Windows 7 activation system has been cracked less than a week after it was released to manufacturers. That's not to say that cracked versions will last forever, Microsoft has ways of checking that an OS is legitimate before allowing it to update. Read more here.
The Yahoo search engine is set to disappear as the company has agreed to join with Microsoft's Bing. It keeps Yahoo independent but worth a lot less than it was when MS tried to take it over. Read more here.
(21.07.09) US Kindle users who downloaded George Orwell's 1984 have had remotely erased from their eBooks after Amazon was informed that the book was still in copyright (the US has much longer rights than the UK). The company has acknowledged that the remote deletions were a mistake and say they won't happen again but that's of little use to students who lost their notes along with the book and all customers will be shocked that their eBooks can be accessed in this way. Read more here.
(13.07.09) Morgan Stanley, the bank holding company, has released analysis of the current state of the media written by a 15 year old intern and they think it's most insightful thing they've ever read on the subject.
It's been picked up by all sorts of news outlets but no one seems to asking simple questions such as "how representative of teenagers is a 15 year old who gets a job at Morgan Stanley?" Nor does his work seem that impressive, he claims for instance that teenagers watch sporadically or virtually no television at all, when recent research shows they spend far more time watching it than they do on their computers. He's half right about file sharing but hasn't noticed that it's falling dramatically and cites Last.fm as the streaming music system of choice when services such as Spotify are in the assendancy.
And have school age teenagers ever spent time reading newspapers or spent a lot on records? No, they've never been a big market and most music was acquired via home taping of one sort or another. It worries me that large banks that have so recently got into trouble by following the notions of eager young traders should be so impressed by someone so young. His thoughts could drive investments! Read them here.
Researchers have found that poor shielding in the cable that connects the keyboard to the PS2 plug on the computer tower can lead to electrical signals leaking onto the earth wire and via the computer's own earth, leak onto the mains circuit. It's possible to pick them up from up to 15 feet along the circuit and then filtered to reveal what the original keystroke was. Really, nothing is safe these days. Read more here.
(09.07.09) PC Advisor has a good FAQ about the Google Chrome OS. It points out that it's based on Linux but with enhanced security settings, so like the chrome browser it takes a piece of freeware and tweaks it. As with the browser, for which normal Firefox add-ons don't work, it's thought that most Linux software won't run on Google Chrome, which would force people to use alternatives, such as Google's various online applications. Read more here.
(08.07.09) Google are planning to launch an operating system aimed at the netbook market. It's being reported in quite dramatic terms in some parts of the press, The Times headlined the story with "Google moves to destroy Microsoft dominance" for instance but while it's a good thing and I rather like the aim of producing quick and lighweight OS, I think that the Register is onto something when it writes that Microsoft will be happy with the announcement. Netbooks form only a very small part of the overall market and a full blown OS that can satisfy both consumer and business markets a very different animal. Read more here. I quite fancy a netbook though.
North Korea is suspected of launching a denial of service attack against government computers in South Korea and the USA using a botnet of infected computers. Read more here.
(07.07.09) Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps are out of beta. I don't think it involves any updates, it's just that Google has a rather odd idea of what constitutes "beta." Normally it means "test version" but Gmail has been in beta since 2004 and has only had one serious update, so as far as they're concerned it means something else. Read more here.
(06.07.09) BT is dropping Phorm, the controversial user tracking software, following complaints by privacy campaigners. It's already being investigated by the EU for carrying out secret tests on unsuspecting broadband customers in 2006-7 and the descision to drop it doesn't bode well for the other two ISP who use it, Virgin and TalkTalk. Read more here.
(01.07.09) Michael Jackson's death last week caused such a surge on Google that its server thought it was under a DOS attack and shut down for a short time. The service continued to run slowly for the next few days, although its's hard to tell if this is due to increased traffic or just the same inconsistant service that users have been experiencing for several months. Read more here.
(24.06.09) Microsoft has released a trial version of it's new free anti-virus software in the US, China, Brazil and Israel. The trade doesn't think it's up to much, testing poorly against other free AVs such as AVG and Avast and very poorly against paid for software. However this is only trial ware and will probably improve, it will have to if it's to survive. Read more here.
(21.06.09) Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 has been available for about a month and from what I can tell is pretty stable. Most of my add-ons work and it seems a bit faster than the current official release. It comes with some interesting new features, the best of which, the way it handles video, will only be exploited once it leaves the beta stage. Basically it runs video from within the page without the need for pluggins and allows creators to treat the video as if it was an interactive web page. It also has some nifty ways of exploiting the address bar for searches uses special characters. Click here to download it and here for a demo of the new video capabilites.
Google Wave is a mash-up of twitter, google docs and a wiki. allowing several people to colaborate and publish rich text documents. Looks interesting, click here for the development blog.
(12.06.09) Internet Explorer will not be bundled with Windows 7 following the ruling and the record fine from the EU. Microsoft say they will make the browser easy to locate and install but presumably it will just as easy to download other browsers too. I wonder how you locate and download a browser without a browser. Click here for more. Thanks to forum member Baldeagle for the tip.
(10.06.09) This months Update Tuesday sees a record number of updates from Microsoft, 31 in all and five of the ten packages they come in marked "critical." Worringly the company reckons that almost half of them could be exploited within the next month, which is understandable as one of them plugs eight holes in Internet Explorer. It's very worrying for people who still use dialup and/or are light computer users, as they're often miles behind when it comes to updates. Read more here.
(26.05.09) I've featured the phenomena of Amazon's ironic reviews in Friday fun but I think this is the first time they've resulted in an increase in sales. Three Wolf Moon is a Tee-Shirt featuring the kind of art favoured by the sort of people for whom the mullet is still the height of fashion and the reviews it attracted have turned into an Internet meme which in turn made it a desireable item of apparel. The makers are having to print an extra 400 000, even if they don't like the comments. Read more here.
(22.09.05) eBay has won the right to continue to feature auctions for L'Oreal beauty products after the company failed to prove that it was a market place for fakes. Remarkably all the examples brought to court by L'Oreal turned out to be genuine. Click here for more.
(21.05.09) A vulnerability in Java that exploits an unpatched vulnerability in Adobe Flash and Reader (and probably other .pdf readers) is spreading across websites that means that just visiting an infected site can enlist the computer into a botnet which redirects Google search results.
Normally these problems are quickly addressed as infrected sites are identified but this particular exploit employs a unique code for each attack, meaning that sites are harder to spot. The best advice I can give is to use Firefox and the NoScript add-on which prevents Java Script running automatically (details on the forum's Internet section). More here.
Twitter users are warned to be careful of following links that apparently go to another twitter account but actually lead tvvitter.com. In case it's not obvious, that's two "v"s in place of a "w." User's are then prompted for their login details. Read more here.
And finally, and again from The Register, BitDefender has joined AVG and Avast in offering a free version of its anti-virus program but beware, it doesn't offer any form of live protection, rather it can just perform scans when asked. So if you're looking for real but free protection stick to AVG or Avast (Avast would be my choice. Read more here.
(17.05.09) Pirate copies of Windows 7 which are being exchanged via P2P networks and file sharing sites are loaded with viruses. Computers they're installed on become part of botnets and are very hard to clean of infection, so if you want to test W7 get it directly from Microsoft Technet. Read more here.
(14.05.09) The EU has fined Intel a record $1.45 billion for abusing it's market position by offering manufacturers and retailers inducements to ignore chips from their rivals AMD. It was this investigation that led to a lot more AMD based computers appearing, usually at a considerable saving for similarly perfoming Intel systems. Read more, with responses from both companies here.
(12.05.09) A squabble has broken out between the makers of popular Firefox add-ons Ad-block and NoScript, it's all rather funny and little sad. Read the whole sorry saga here and here.
(02.05.09) Wolfram Alpha, a search engine that has a sort of artificial intelligence that interprets what users are really looking for and doesn't result in page upon page of irrelevant results, was demonstrated last week and the reviews are very impressive. It's more of a research and computational tool than a device for general searches, click here for the article and here for video presentation.
(30.09.04) Windows 7, Microsoft's next operating system which is in the final stage of testing, will have an XP mode. At the moment it's planned as an add-on but I wouldn't be surprised to find it will be part of the OS when it finally hits the shops. It will enable people to run programs not compatible with W7 and sounds a lot like a very specific version of Virtual PC to me, a free MS program that lets you run alternative OSs from within XP. Read more here.
(28.09.04) All Internet communications are to be monitored, including visits to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Content won't be stored, just IP details etc and they won't be stored on a central database but instead by individual companies in systems that make searching by the security services easier. So, while the government's obsession with monitoring us continues, at least they won't be able to trawl a large database and there's less chance of them messing up another IT project. Read more here.
(20.04.09) Hackers have responded to the Pirate Bay court result by launching a denial of service attack on the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's websites, making it slow or unavailable for much of today. Will it make any difference? No but then, neither will the Pirate Bay decision. Read more here.
(16.04.09) World of Warcraft has released another massive 640mb patch, which is bigger than most games were just a few years ago. There's all sorts of new stuff which will mean lots to devotees but not much to the rest of us, such as "The Secrets of Ulduar!" and the "The Argent Tournament!" Read more here and prepare to surrender your banwidth.
Heavy Metal buffoons Metallica, famous for suing Napster (fair enough) and the hoax copyright claim on the E and F chords (here), are asking for 5 cents every time someone plays one of their tracks on Guitar Hero. Could it be another spoof? Read more here.
XP "mainstream" support ends today, I'm not sure what that means in practical terms, you can try to figure it out here.
(08.04.09) Fuji have launched the first digital 3D camera, click here for a video of it.
(06.04.09) Paul Clarke, our transport minister, has had his website hacked, not very important but funny. Read more here.
(25.03.09) Keyboards, first you get mobile phones, then you get computers that can exploit the mobile phone network via Sykpe and the like, then there's mobile phones that can access the internet, with touch screens and then they need keyboards but they're tiny keyboards...So lets have a normal sized keybaord with a tiny touch screen, it's obvious. Click here.
(18.03.09) Google Chrome has released a beta version of it's next update which it claims is considerably faster than the current one. There's also a new way of dragging tabs so you can view pages side by side and auto-form filling. It seems pretty stable and problem free to me. Click here to download (it will over-write the current version though) and here to read more.
The Home Office has been pushing ISPs to start using the Internet Watch Foundations black list to prevent access to website despite being clueless about what the IWF actually does. Whether a self-appointed watch-dog should have an official role in regulating the Internet is debatable but it's really worrying that the government is involving it without actually knowing what it does. Read more here.
(16.03.09) Could graphics chips be the future of computing? At the moment they are almost exclusively used to process graphics requests but perform many times the number of operations than even the fastest CPU. Both Intel and AMD are looking at the possibilities, read more here.
(10.03.09) A rather interesting new search engine is about to launch. Called Wolfram Alpha, after it's author Stephen Wolfram, it won't just search for things, it will actually be capable of answering questions entered in plain English. There'll be two version, one for mathematical queries and the other for simple questions. Results for the latter will be generated by software that annalises webpage text and works out if it answers the question. Read the creator's blog here.
(03.03.09) Empire Total War, the latest addition to the phenomenally successful Total War series, has gone on sale and marks a step forward for franchise which has remained pretty much unchanged since it's first incarnation, Shogun. There is still the same mixture of turn based management and real time 3d battles but to this sea warfare has been added and to great affect if the videos are anything to go by. It's received universally good reviews from the gaming press and costs between £23 and £32, depending on version, on Amazon. Click here and here.
(19.02.09) SSL may not be as secure as we all hope, a hacker has demonstrated a method of spoofing both the user and a webpage is being accessed securely when in fact someone is reading what passes between them in plain text. It doesn't even seem that complicated to initiate and people using wireless networks will have to be particularly careful. Read more here. Thanks to Steve for the tip.
(18.02.09) The owners of the Pirate Bay file sharing site are up in court in Sweden and things seem to be going quite well. The prosecutors have been surprised to learn that the site doesn't actually host pirated material, only links to where it might be found and so the main charge has been dropped. They're still hopeful that the minor charges will stick though. Read more here.
(09.02.09) Korean electronics behemoth LG is to launch a smart phone with a 3d touch screen interface, allowing the user to spin the image of a cube to access the application they want to use. Take that i-Phone! Read more here.
(05.02.09) Google have a new add-on for their phone which allows people to track the location of their contacts, provided the contacts have enabled it presumably. It seems one step beyond Twitter to me, which led to around 100 000 people being alerted to Stephen Fry being stuck in a lift this week and it won't be long before everyone spends their day gazing at screens displaying webcams worn by contacts. The webcams will be relaying the wearer looking at a screen displaying...Read more here.
(20.01.09) The MoD's computer systems have been infected by malware, possibly including the Conficker worm. It's left many operators without access to their computers over a fortnight after the problem was dicovered. It would be amusing if this wasn't a government bent on storing more and more of our personal information in ever larger databases. Read more here.
(09.01.09) It's only a month since Google Chrome went from beta to full release and version 2 is already being tested by the development community. New features will look familier to Firefox users but one is interesting, the ability to create different profiles for each user, letting them have their own bookmarks, auto-complete facilities, etc. Read more here.
(08.01.09) A year after Intel AMD have started producing 45 nanometer chips, the Phenom II line and it's quite possible that Intel will moving to 32 this year. However AMD aren't really competing on top end speed, on a technical level they're competing on architecture and, having bought ATI, intergration. Also, it's much easier to upgrade, unlike Intel system you can move through processor lines without changing motherboards, so you can buy AM2+ mobo and X2 cpu today and upgrade to a Phenom II when prices become more affordable. Read more here.
(07.01.09) The Police and other security agencies are to be given the power to remotely scan our computers if EU proposals go through. The power already exists in exceptional circumstances in the UK but this would extend it to forces from other EU countries. Read more here.
I've never paid much attention to Windows' Malicious Software Removal Tool but according to Microsoft, Decembers update has been responsible for cleaning almost half a million computers of the Antivirus 2009 application which conned people into paying for fake security software. Read more here.
(22.12.08) You've probably heard about the massive data cables that were broken in the Mediterranrean and work has already started to repair them (click here) and apparently there's been a massive effect on the network connectivity across the middle east and India. The main effect on the UK has been to call centres, most of which route the calls through the Internet, hence the poor call quality. But according to the Internet Traffic Report (click here) Europe and North America have hardly been effected at all and for Australia and Asia in general things are down but not catostrophic. Which led me to do a little research into the international network, did you know there's quite an important cable running up the Sound of Mull? Click here and here for some clues to where everything goes.
(08.12.08) As you've probably read, an Wikipedia page featuring an album cover depicting a naked child has led to the encyclopedia being blacklisted to various degrees by six of the UKs largest ISPs, including Virgin and the O2 group. All of them subscribe to the Internet Watch Foundation's watch list and when flagged up the page the blocked the site, some just blocking the offending page while others appear to have prevented users editing or registering with Wikipedia at all. Read more here.
(02.12.08) The PC version of GTA IV will have a "defanged" version of a very unpopular DRM type program embedded in it, which should stop it being pirated for a few days. More interestingly, it seems that the makers may have also added some nasty surprises too which will effect game play if it's not properly registered. Click here.
(01.12.08) The computer mouse is forty years old and what do you know - the inventor didn't get rich. Unfortunately for him the patent ran out just before the PC revolution happened. He did get a medal though. Read the whole story here (which is much more interesting than I've made it sound).
(25.11.08) The latest edition to the Tomb Raider series is out, Underworld, promising more of the same but in bigger, better and more interactive environments. It's getting pretty good reviews, averaging 7/10 and the screenshots and videos look great. Read more here.
(20.11.08) The UK spends way more time online than the rest of Europe according to OfCom, spendings hours playing games or social networking. Not only that but we have the cheapest mobile phones, broadband and basic TV services. 60% of households have broadband and 43% of them like to upload photos to sites like Flickr, mySpace and Bebo. There's also been a dramtic increase in the number of people watching TV online, something that sure to continue with the BBC starting to show all its channels live next week. Read more here.
(18.11.08) Three London hospitals have shut down their computer systems in response to an infection by the MyTob worm which has the ability to send email. What's strange about this is the worm is three years old, which begs the question "how old is their antivirus database" and if that can get in, what else has also infected them? Read more here.
(13.11.08) The volume of spam has dropped dramatically across the world following the shutting down of the Californian web hosting company McColo which was responsible for 75% of spam sent in the USA. The company served as a host for criminal gang running "botnets" of of hacked computers, websites containing scripts that attempted to takeover visitors computers, as well as just sending out spam. The lull is in all probability temporary as the criminals will just move elsewhere but for now it's a wellcome releive. Click here for more.
(06.11.08) The Wi-Fi Protected Access encryption standard has been cracked by researchers. It's not the first time this has been done but it's the first time that it's been done quickly enough, under a quarter of an hour, to be of practical use to hackers. Read more here.
The University of Portsmouth has demonstrated a system that enables a laptop to be operated by brainwaves and other "bio-potential" signals. Designed for the physically impaired it's the frst such system to be tested on real people in the real world and the developers are now seeking funding to bring it to the market. Click here.
(04.11.08) An Ohio man who created fake barcode labels on his home computer and used them to buy goods from shops at a fraction of the real price, has pleaded guilty to offences connected to the $1 million scam. He sold the items on eBay where 100s of satisfied customers gave him an almost 100% positive feedback rating. Read more here.
(29.10.08) Windows 7 has been demoed to developers this week and according to the BBC article it's what "Vista should have been," which is good I suppose. You push things around on the screen as if you were on cop show and stuff. Click here for more.
(29.10.08) Nottingham Trent University and the National Media Museum have got together to create an archive of computer gameing software and hardware. They intend to collect everything from 1972's Pong to the present day and beyond and they want your help to get all the consoles etc together. It seems an ambitious project with the expansion of casual gaming but worthwile none the less. Read more here and tell the BBC about your favourite games here.
(21.10.08) Microsoft has announced plans to compete with Google's online software applications calling it "cloud computing," perhaps they think a bit of trendy jargon makes it more exciting. How far behind the game they are is evident in the fact that it won't be fully available until Windows 7 comes out. Read more here.
(20.10.08) Nicola Sarkozy, husband of Carla Bruni and President of France, has had his online bank account hacked and small amounts of money taken. A spokesperson said it "proves that this system of checking (bank accounts) via the Internet isn't infallible," which is so true. Read almost exactly the same thing but with more words, here.
(16.10.08) Remember that beer application for the iPhone? It used the screen to mimic beer being poured into a glass and the phones movement detector to let people to pretend to drink it. The guy who developed is suing Carling for using very very similar application in an advert and selling it online. He's hoping to get over £6 million for copyright infringement and loss of revenue. Read more here.
(13.10.08) The latest version of Open Office, 3, is proving so popular that people are having difficulty accessing the website. The alternative to MS Office has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years, partly because it's free (well - dah) but also because while it's improved it functionality it's managed to remain light on system resources unlike it's big rival. Read slightly more here. The Open Office website is here.
(08.10.08) Boston University researchers are developing wi-fi networking using visible light emitted by LEDs. Offering 10mps it's not the fastest but could be very easy to set up and be applicable to many devices. Read more here.
(18.09.08) The latest installment of the Gerry and Bill sitcom ad only came out a few days ago but Microsoft has decided to drop the ads following negative reaction from consumers. Which is a pity because they're quite funny if you're familier with Seifeld's humour. Click here for more and to see the last of the ads.
Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account has been hacked and screenshots posted online. It's a quite an important issue in the USA election as Palin and her advisors are thought to have used private email accounts to conduct state business. Read more here.
A study conducted by the RAC has found that texting effects driving more than drink or drugs. Reaction times slowed by 35%, 21% slower than people smoking cannabis and steering control was 91% worse. Read more here.
(17.09.08) The Government is backing the Phorm system of tracking and profiling users internet use which gives it the green light despite EU enquiries about it's legality. I wonder if the security services will have access to the data. Read more here.
(11.09.08) Hackers have got into the Cern computer and have been scrawling silly messages on it. Click here. Why do I have that REM song going round in head.
(10.09.08) The police are going to interview BT about early implementations of Phorm, to see if it violated customer rights. The EU has already criticised the system that sees users surfing tracked so they can better target advertising. Read more here.
(09.09.08) The UK IT Advisory body is proposing that public body websites should ignore the least popular browsers and not bother testin for compatibility. With the Gov. wanting such websites to become an ever more important part of our lives this could effectively kill off the smaller players, which in some cases have a tiny part of the market. Read more here.
(05.09.08) Firefox is promising a boost in browser speed with version 3.1 which is due out at the end of the year. They're doing something clever with Javascript apparently. Read more here.
(02.09.08) Google are to launch a browser called Chrome in direct competition with Internet Explorer, although in all probability the biggest loser will be Firefox. That's because most IE users do so because it came with their computer and they hven't realised how easy it is to use another browser not how muh better they are.
Chrome will be open source like Firefox and hyperthreading, meaning that it handles memory far better, should load pages more quickly and be more stable than current browsers. Read more here and read a Google comic book guide to what they're planning here.
AMD are dropping the price of their leading Quad and Tri-Core processors because they're having difficulty competing on performance with Intels equivilents. With speed outstripping the demands of all but the most geeky of home builders, AMD will be the choice for most. Read details here.
(19.08.08) Image Metrics, a Californian company that makes animations for the film industry, has developed a technique that brings a new level of realism to CGI humans. It really needs to be seen to be believed, click here to do so.
(12.08.08) Mozilla has launched a new project that will make web applications, such a Gmail, accessible offline from you desktop, sort of bringing the whole thing full circle. Unlike similar applications from Microsoft and Adobe, it doesn't require a new platform, instead it exploits the web. It's described as a series of experiments but looks very interesting. Click here for more.
(08.08.08) Microsoft is working on the succesor to Windows and it appears to be web based, click here to be afraid.
(06.08.08) The EU has ordered the UK to explain the lgal basis for te Phorm system that has been adopted by Talk Talk, Virgin ad BT to track and analyise individual surfing behaviour, Click here for more.
GTA IV is close to being released for the PC, with suspected dates ranging from October to early December. basically it's going to be out before Christmas. Read more here.
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