Latest Hi Tech News

Microsoft have releashed a Word document regarding the enhancements and changes they have done to their newly launched 64bit Windows XP Professional over over Windows XP Professional SP2.

The enhancements of 64bit Windows XP Professional include the following:-

• Data Execution Prevention (DEP) – 64bit enabled users should know this. It is basically an enhanced security that enforced by both hardware and software to protect against malicious code exploits.
• Files and Settings Transfer Wizard – Help previous Windows-based computer users to migrate their files to WinXP Pro x64.
• Internet Protocol security (IPsec) – Ensure private, secure communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks.
• Outlook Express – Surprisingly in WinXP Pro x64, spell checking is not supported in Outlook Express.
• Remote Assistance – No Voice Session (VoIP), in other words, voice conversations is not supported. No escalation using e-mail in Remote Assistance too.
• Remote Desktop – Unicode keyboard input support, Client-side time-zone redirection, GDI+ rendering primitives support, FIPS encryption support, Fallback printer driver and Auto-reconnect.
• Search Companion – Well, again spell checking is not supported. :-?
• Windows Installer – This will help you in installing applications.
• Windows Media Player – Windows Media Player 10 (WMP10) is installed. Microsoft claimed that WMP10 is the most secure version of Windows Media Player and it has been updated to work with the other security enhancements contained in WinXP Pro x64. Please be aware that this WMP10, handles licenses differently than previous WMP.

Those bolded are the enhancements that interest me.
Thinking of installing it to my dust-collecting harddisk.

For more detailed information you can either download the document from here, or visit the source.

Google have been providing blogging service since quite some time ago, throught its Blogger. Google’s bitter rival, Yahoo! have its Yahoo! 360 service too.

Now, Yahoo! 360 will allow users to import photos and music from non-Yahoo applications as well. Since late March, Yahoo 360 service entered a limited beta period and is available to users invited by Yahoo to have a try on it. The service provides services like publishing blogs, sharing content, and posting pictures, and also controling who can visit the site. It currently allows users to include content from other Yahoo services such as Yahoo Photos and Yahoo Music too.

Yahoo plans to add the capability to import content, such as photos and music, from non-Yahoo applications to its new Yahoo 360 social networking and blogging service, according to an executive of the company.

“Some of the things that people very much want to do is to share content from other sources outside of Yahoo,” says Paul Brody, director of community products at Yahoo. “[Yahoo] 360 right now does a great job of allowing you to share the content you might have already on Yahoo.”

Yahoo 360 will be made widely available to the public in the next few weeks, at which time the capability to share non-Yahoo content will also be included.

[Source]

Motorola announced on 2nd May 2005 that the Ojo, its consumer oriented videoconferencing solution, would be on display at several high-end electronics retailers across the US ahead of its debut later this month. Motorola will start taking orders for the unit later this month as well.

The Ojo (pronounced oh-joe) promises full motion video and works over a broadband Internet connection. The device will also work as a cordless phone over regular telephone lines when not used for a videoconference. While the Ojo carries a hefty price tag at $799 USD, Motorola hopes that the demonstrations will spark consumer interest.

“Consumers can now experience first-hand the power of visual communications by bringing a Motorola Ojo into their connected home,” Motorola vice-president David said.

Hope so much we can have things like this in Malaysia too. :)

[Source]

According to survey released on 2nd May 2005 by SANS regarding the Top20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities during the first quarter of 2005, researches believe that online criminals has turned their attention to antivirus software and media players like Apple Computer Inc.’s.

As more Windows users agreed to receive security upgrades automatically, hackers looked to take advantage of other software programs that might not be patched as frequently, the head of the cybersecurity training and research organization said.

“Operating systems have gotten better at finding and fixing things and auto-updating, so it’s less fertile territory for the hackers,” said SANS Chief Executive Alan Paller.

[Source]

Now, hackers have found ways to take control of a user’s computer by tunneling through Microsoft’s Web browser, media player and instant-messaging software. So, again, I’m here to promote a more secure browser : Firefox. :)

Click the following link to download Firefox.

According to networking guru, George Ou from ZDNet, Sony Play Station Portable (PSP) is bad enough to ruin wireless Local Area Network (LAN) in the home, due to its lack of support to WiFi Protected Access (WPA) security.

Currently, Sony PSP supports only Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption security for wireless LAN, but too bad this encryption technology was found to be completely broken five years ago.

The Wi-Fi Alliance in 2003 mandated that all Wi-Fi products comply with the new WPA standard and use the new TKIP encryption algorithm yet Sony somehow feels exempt from this responsibility.

So, for PSP user, they will have to lower their wireless LAN security to only support WEP instead of a more secure WPA, in order to connect using PSP. The following is one of the suggestions from George :

Sony needs to rectify the situation as soon as possible by retrofitting all new PSPs off the factory floor with WPA capability and offer a free upgrade to the PSPs that are already out in the wild.

[Source]

We have seen the introduction dual core processors, first Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Opteron, then come Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840.

Intel’s vision of a future chip design which are moves that are necessary to improve overall system performance as the chipmaker packs more cores onto a single chip.

The new head of Intel’s Corporate Technology Group, Justin Rattner, described Intel’s evolving vision of what its chips might look like around 2015 in an interview at Intel headquarters Thursday. Intel, like much of the chip industry, has decided that multicore designs are the way to go to improve performance in the future.

Some the early fruits of Intel’s project are evident in Intel’s I/O Acceleration Technology, announced earlier this year at the Spring Intel Developer Forum, Rattner said. This technology essentially improves the I/O performance of Intel chips by dedicating excess processing resources to I/O functions. It will be available next year with Intel’s first dual-core Xeon server chip, code-named Dempsey.

However, Intel is urged to move away from its frontside bus design by analysts and customers due to the advent of multicore processors. This is because in Intel’s current chips, the interaction between the processor and a system’s memory bank is handled by a memory controller on the chip set that feeds data to the processor at various speeds ranging from 400 MHz to 1066 MHz, depending on the chip. This design has served the company well for many years, but as chips start to take advantage of multiple processing units, they require increased amounts of memory bandwidth to perform to their true potential.

Some aspects of moving away from its frontside bus designs will start to become possible as Intel introduces its 45-nanometer and 32-nanometer processing technologies, which will be capable of producing smaller transistors than Intel’s current 90-nanometer processing technology, Rattner said. At the moment, those introductions are scheduled for 2007 and 2009.

45nm & 32nm ?? :-O