Thursday Tech News

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There are at least four different levels of graphics for the new Windows. Two of them--Aero and Aero Glass--will have new composited graphics, with the high-end Glass shell adding more three-dimensional effects and transitions. Another view, dubbed "To Go" is designed for laptops and other new consumer machines and has many of the same color schemes as Aero, but not the fancy graphics tricks. Finally, a classic mode will look much like XP or even Windows 2000.

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"With the Longhorn launch we are delivering the first part of NGSCB: Secure Startup," Jim Allchin, Microsoft's group vice president for platforms, told vnunet.com at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle. "Not all of the compartmentisation technology will be available. The main thing is Secure Startup." Secure Startup protects users against offline attacks, blocking access to the computer if the content of the hard drive is compromised. This prevents a laptop thief from booting up the system from a floppy disk to circumvent security features or swapping out the hard drive.

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The music industry trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, filed subpoenas in November 2003 asking for help identifying a North Carolina State University student who used the name "CadillacMan" and a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student who used the name "hulk." The students allegedly file-swapped songs using the universities' computer systems. Both schools initially were willing to cooperate, but later joined attorneys for the students in opposing the request, U.S. Magistrate Judge Russell A. Eliason wrote in his order, which was filed earlier this month.

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Gateway will announce on Thursday three of its latest models, which feature easy-to-use display settings and an adjustable stand for additional viewing positions. The $209.99 15-inch FPD1560, the $299.99 17-inch FPD1760 and the $349.99 19-inch FPD1960 LCD monitors are currently available direct and through Gateway's retail partners, including Best Buy, Circuit City and CompUSA.

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The developments are major for all Net-phone operators, including cable operators, AT&T CallVantage and Net2Phone, which are facing mounting pressure to improve less-than-optimum 911 services. For the most part, U.S. VoIP providers don't have unfettered access to the telephone system built for the nation's 3,200 emergency calling centers that are owned and controlled by Verizon and the three other Bell operating companies. So they still can't successfully route a 911 call to the right emergency calling center or provide emergency operators with the caller's phone number and location.

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It will cost more than a nickel, but such programs do exist. And Yago is not the only victim of theft who is not aware of them. Called track-and-recover software, the technology assumes that the stolen machine will eventually be hooked up to the Internet, and once online it is programmed to send a signal indicating its Internet Protocol address. That may allow the thief to be traced through an Internet service provider.

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Some mutant flies can get by on 30% less sleep than their normal counterparts, thanks to a single mutation in one gene. The finding is important because it suggests the amount of sleep needed may be largely controlled by one gene, which may shed light on human sleep needs, says Chiara Cirelli at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. "This isn’t some obscure fly gene - there’s a homologue in mammals and humans." ... Understanding how the protein works might make it possible to develop new kinds of drugs to help keep sleep-deprived people alert, the team suggests. There is a snag, though, since the lifespan of minisleepers was about 30% shorter than normal.