Month: February 2008

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Microsoft is busy preparing its IE8

IE-8

Web site developers may be interested to hear promises made in blog posts by the IE8 platform architect Chris Wilson, who says there is a “lot of potential breakage” in the new browser.

With half a billion supposed IE users and thousands of sites already customised to work with earlier browsers, IE8 has the potential to make Web surfing slicker, or to screw it up for thousands of people.

The team wants IE8 to support the right standards without “breaking the existing Web”. The new hope is an opt-in approach to standards using a element rather than a blanket approach. In theory, this should help avoid the problems that plagued Web sites when IE7 first launched.

No matter what you think if IE, it’s clear that the developer team is aware of these problems. Their goals are certainly admirable, according to this blog post: “We must deliver improved standards support and backwards compatibility so that IE8 continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 and makes the development of the next billion pages, in an interoperable way, much easier.”

As Chris Wilson explains, “many sites had worked around many of the shortcomings or outright errors in IE6, and now expected IE7 to work just like IE6… Sites didn’t work, and users experienced problems.”

source:itnews 

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Spore releases on Sep and Mass Effect in May

sporemass_effect

First, Electronic Arts (EA) and Maxis have announced that “Spore”, that highly anticipated game from the creators of ‘The Sims’ will be available with retailers across the globe the weekend of September 7, 2008. 

“Spore” will ship for the PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, and mobile phones.

A jubilant Will Wright, chief designer of Maxis, said “The wait is almost over. We’re in our final stages of testing and polish with ‘Spore’, and the team at Maxis can’t wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year.”

Among the most ambitious simulation games ever planned, “Spore” sees the evolution of life from single-celled organisms through the birth of tribes and the beginnings of civilization to the creation of whole new worlds including Space exploration and colonization of other planets.

Described by Maxis as a “massively single-player” game, “Spore” offers players their very own universe plus a wealth of creative tools to modify it in the way they want to.

Incidentally, Wright began work on the game way back in 2005 but due to development problems, it got delayed beyond last year when it was originally expected to hit stores.

While “Spore” hasn’t been officially rated or priced yet, online retailers are pegging it at around $50.
An EA company, has announced that the popular Space epic, “Mass Effect” is headed for the PC in May of 2008.

A futuristic game set in the 22nd century, “Mass Effect” sees humans stumbling upon objects that help them travel faster than light so that they are suddenly propelled into the Milky Way.

The PC version of the game invites players to don the hat of ‘Commander Shepard’, who’s assigned the honorable task of nabbing the villain, in this case ‘Saren’, and saving the galaxy from imminent destruction.

“Mass Effect” for the PC is fraught with conspiracy, treachery, courage, and heroism, not to mention all the alien monsters and interstellar mercenaries who spell doom for the galaxy. To make the game even more exciting, the PC version allows for a ‘Run and Gun’ style of game play — complete with graphics and all that jazz!

The list of features of “Mass Effect”, the PC version reads: optimized controls designed specifically for the PC, high resolution visuals, ‘Run and Gun’ control, new decryption mini-game, and new inventory screen GUI (Graphics User Interface) and functionality.

The game hasn’t yet got a rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

source:techtree 

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Supper High-Definition Astro Systems DM-3400

DM-3400

Don’t be too smug with your HDTV just yet – the Astro Systems DM-3400 could be the future even as America starts to warm up to high definition TVs. This 56″ behemoth looks like a standard LCD display at first glance, but it actually offers 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, making it meant to be used in digital cinemas, editing studios and broadcast facilities.

Features include a quartet of DV-D inputs and an equal amount of HD-SDI inputs along with RGB 4:4:$ signals. Users can even hook up multiple input signals for a quad display view on a single monitor. The system supports SMPTE 294M/292M/296M/372M (important for matching up video and audio). And the system weighs about 100 pounds and consumes 500 Watts of power.

There is no word on pricing as at press time, but one thing’s for sure – this ain’t no living room solution and will probably remain the domain of professionals in the meantime.

source:reuters

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Security Researchers At Linux Role In Botnets Btudied

LINUX
Over two-thirds of the malware infections suffered by Sophos’s Linux honeypots involve Rst-B, which attempts to infect ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) binaries in the current working directory and in /bin, and to create a backdoor to the system.

it a six-year old Linux virus is still in circulation, and Sophos suspects the high uptime exhibited by servers (compared with the typical home or office Windows PC that spends much of the day switched off or asleep) makes them valuable to bot-herders as central control points.

Sophos has created a detection tool specifically for this virus, and encourages administrators to use it and then forward any infected files to SophosLabs for analysis.

“If you don’t find Linux/Rst-B on your system, it’s good news but obviously doesn’t mean that you are not infected with something else, said Billy McCourt, SophosLabs UK.

“I’d encourage you to at least do regular on-demand scans on your Linux box but ideally run an on-access scanner.”

A previous analysis by McCourt suggested that Rst-B infections are not being used by intruders to gain access to systems, rather they occur as a side-effect of already-infected hacking tools being downloaded onto servers once a foothold has been gained.

source:itwire 

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Kaspersky launches ‘Mobile Security 7.0’ protection

Kasperky

Kaspersky says their new Mobile Security 7.0 application offers “powerful protection for data stored on smartphones in the event that the device is lost, as well as protecting against network attacks, malware and SMS spam”.

As it is a new product, it’s unsurprising to hear that it features a “series of technical and functional modifications, that have improved the performance of the product, making it more effective and user-friendly”.

According to Kaspersky, key new functions “allow users to completely block a lost device or to remotely delete all the data on it. Moreover, if a smartphone is stolen, the SIM-Watch function prevents the thief from accessing data on the phone without the original SIM card; as soon as the original SIM card is replaced, a message notifies its owner of the new telephone number”.

While a number of Windows Mobile devices do have the ability to have their data wiped, not all Windows Mobile owners are connected to a corporate environment where a system administrator can perform these functions.

This means that Mobile Security 7.0 should give consumers on the latest Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms a way for themselves to ensure their smartphones can be kept secure, which certainly sounds like a very handy feature to have, whether you’re accident prone or not, for even the most careful of people can still have their phone stolen.

source:itrire 

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New i-mate™ Ultimate 8502 and i-mate™ Ultimate 9502 PDAs

 imate

The world may still well be suffering from iPhone mania, but in the business world, Windows Mobile Smartphones and Blackberries firmly rule the mobile telecommunications roost.

i-mate™, the global specialist in Microsoft® devices and software applications, today teamed with Telstra Corporation Limited, Australia’s leading telecommunications company, to launch the i-mate™ Ultimate 8502 and   i-mate™ Ultimate 9502.  Telstra is the first operator to deploy these devices globally and both devices will be exclusive in Australia to Telstra customers.

Fine tuned to run at optimal performance on the Telstra Next G™ network – Australia’s largest mobile broadband network with speeds unsurpassed by any other national mobile network in the world – the Ultimate devices from i-mate™ are the first mobile handsets on the Next G™ network to offer high speed data uploading via HSUPA as well as high speed data downloading via HSDPA.  This feature is expected to be popular with customers needing to send emails, documents, and data fast.  Each Ultimate device also offers access to the full range of Telstra information and services which are now free to browse from the Home tab of BigPond mobile services.

Ms. Holly Kramer, Group Managing Director, Telstra Product Management said: “We’re excited to be the first mobile operator in the world to offer these new i-mate™ Ultimate devices.

“These advanced devices from i-mate™ are rated at downlink speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.9Mbps, making them the fastest PDAs available on the Next G™ network.

“The devices were chosen for their ability to showcase the power of Telstra’s Next G™ network, the world’s largest and most advanced national 3GSM wireless broadband network,” she said.

The i-mate™ Ultimate 8502 (RRP = AUD$999) and i-mate™ Ultimate 9502 (RRP = AUD$1099) will be available from Telstra and Telstra Licensed Shops in Australia from early March 08.

source:i-mate

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Firefox 3.0 beta 3 released with Hugh changes!

 Firefox-3

Firefox 3.0 beta 3 is here, with plenty of improvements set to send Firefox’s percentage of market share soaring ever higher once the final version is released to the public.

Having had a quick look at the latest version, the interface certainly looks snazzier, performance seems to be faster and all-in-all, Firefox 3.0 is shaping up to really give Internet Explorer 7 and even bigger run for its money than it has already given, while Microsoft continues dithering around with Internet Explorer 8.

Perhaps new feature will be the option of asking the user to save the contents of tabs on exit. Currently Firefox remembers the contents of tabs in case it crashes and needs to be reloaded (which frankly, for 2.x, happened often enough for that feature to come in very handy). But on a normal program exit, after being asked whether you mean to close the tabs, Firefox cleans the cache…which almost makes a rude exit through Task Manager more preferable to the File menu.

Also making progress is Firefox’s support for JavaScript 1.8, which adds support for features made popular in scripting languages like Python: for instance, inline embedded functions (defining a variable as a function), and the intriguing comparison operator contains that iterates through entries in an array.

Mozilla says that there are around 1300 individual changes from the previous beta, “including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements”.

source:mozilla

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BIOS Will Run Linux Based Maintenance Services Remotely When Windows Fails

 phoenix

Phoenix is currently working with software and hardware vendors to build the platform and its associated applications. Currently, they plan to offer the following: e-mail functions, Web browsing, a media player, IP soft phones, the remote system maintenance and repair functions mentioned below, and embedded security.

“We have the opportunity to be able to provide remote maintenance services even when Windows is down and run diagnostic programs while the user continues uninterrupted,” said Josh Pickus, CEO of SupportSoft.

Linux is already gaining some ground as an embedded operating system. So now Phoenix, which made its name as the core provider of BIOS for PCs, is working with several partners to leverage embedded Linux as a bypass operating system.

The basic concept is that an embedded Linux OS will accompany the core system firmware or BIOS, allowing instant-on applications to be run from it at any time.

This means regardless of the status of Windows — before, during and after it boots up or shuts down, if it has crashed or if maintenance is being performed — some software will be allowed to run, including Web browsers and tools that can read files and documents on the hard drive.

The system will be built upon Phoenix’s HyperCore virtualization platform, and the company expects to offer SupportSoft’s remote management tools as a part of the package. By running support software alongside Windows, it could allow maintenance to be done to a system from an “outside perspective,” eliminating the need in certain instances to actually be on site (like for OS reinstalls, for example.)

source:betanews
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Yahoo Launches OneConnect Mobile Service

oneconnect

oneConnect will be the first mobile product with an open architecture that aggregates communications tools – email, instant messaging (IM), text messaging (SMS), and social networks – for a new level of convenience in mobile communications. Users can view new postings on Facebook, photos on MySpace, or a connection on LinkedIn.

It includes features such as a socially-connected address book, integrated mobile messaging, contact status alerts, and innovative location-sensing technology with proximity alerts. Widgets will offer the capability to access email from major providers, including Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and AOL.

After its release, oneConnect is expected to become available across hundreds of devices and mobile browsers around the world. The product is expected to be made available in Q2 2008.

source:tech2 

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“World’s First” Class 6 32GB SDHC memory card by Panasonic

32GbSDHC

Panasonic has announced the “worlds first” Class 6 32GB SDHC memory card, the RP-SDV32GU1K and while it may not be the first 32GB SDHC memory card it is the first at a Class 6 speed.

At Class 6 you will see a 20 MBs transfer rate and with the large storage available you can record up to 12 hours of high-def video or store about 12,320 10-megapixel images. The new 32GB card from Panasonic will be available in April and retail for $699.

source:reuters