News

I'm nearly finished loading spyware on my test PC for a review. Should be up by Friday or Saturday.

Schools perform balancing act of security and freedom.

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As they face these attacks, IT professionals at college campuses are developing specialized means to keep information and data secure. They're coming up with ways to let a variety of users with different machines and different levels of authorization connect easily to their networks. That's striking a chord for companies coming to terms with an increasingly mobile work force, and corporate America is finding it can learn a thing or two from universities about managing security matters.

Chinese dude arrested for stealing fake items.

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A man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion carrying out a virtual mugging spree by using software "bots" to beat up and rob characters in the online computer game Lineage II. The stolen virtual possessions were then exchanged for real cash. The Chinese exchange student was arrested by police in Kagawa prefecture, southern Japan, the Mainichi Daily News reports.

Music swappers in Singapore arrested.

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The three young men who were arrested, between the ages of 16 to 22, had shared more than 20,000 files in internet chatrooms. It was the first time Singapore police have clamped down on web surfers who download pirated music and films since new copyright laws came into effect in January this year.

Nokia says no to iTunes phone.

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But Nokia said that because of the design of the new N-series phones, software developers could readily produce programs to allow the gadgets to use services like iTunes. "There is no commercial agreement between Nokia and Apple to integrate iTunes into the N-series devices," said Kari Tuutti, spokesman for Nokia's multimedia division.

iSuppli rips apart the Mac Mini. Finds hardware worth ~$280...

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The dissected Mac Mini included a 1.25GHz PowerPC chip, 256MB of memory and a 40GB drive. The Mac Mini does not come with a keyboard, screen or mouse and is generally more expensive than similarly configured computers housed in bulkier, larger chassis.

Adobe Acrobate Reader bug.

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The security issue affects Adobe Reader for Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris and Adobe Acrobat for Windows and Mac OS, Adobe said. Security monitoring company Secunia rates the issue "highly critical," according to an advisory posted Tuesday.

Umbilical cord stem cells.

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The newly discovered human cells, named “cord-blood-derived embryonic-like stem cells” or CBEs, are not quite as primitive as embryonic stem cells, which can give rise to any tissue type of the body. But they appear to be much more versatile than “adult stem cells” such as those found in bone marrow which repair damaged tissue during life.

Make sure you checkout Rude's review of some pro computer speakers: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=175

Google may be liable for trademark infringement.

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Although Geico senior counsel Jonathan Shafner said Tuesday that the court opinion signaled that the judge wants the two sides to reach a settlement, he said he could not comment on any settlement discussions. If the parties do not settle within the 30-day period for which the judge granted a stay, trial could continue on whether Google is liable for damages if Geico's trademarks are found to be infringed from any non-Geico ads that refer to Geico and what the damages would be, Shafner said.

Predicting solar flares.

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A new technique predicts with 90% accuracy which regions of the Sun will spew out flares of particles that could endanger astronauts or knock out power grids on Earth. But the method cannot yet calculate when the eruptions will occur - a crucial requirement for accurate space weather forecasting.

Youthful skin gene found.

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Mice which had the gene completely switched off using a sophisticated genetic technique, suffered premature ageing. Symptoms included becoming hunchbacked, losing hair and losing weight. Loss of p63 also cut short their lives – by about 23% – compared with mice with normal p63 expression.

I'd first like to welcome all the new members. Make sure to check out the forums and ASEville.

RudeMoody checks out some studio class computer speakers: The M-Audio StudioPro 4 Speakers

Next up, two new UArts!

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within


The Jessie Project: Debut Album


Thanks for the UArts. Keep them coming. Remember you can write your own User Article. Start writing one now.

New Content Alert! »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=175 Serious speakers for mixing and making music.

Logitech announces more wireless combos. Awesome.

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The diNovo package comes with the MX 1000 laser cordless mouse originally launched last year and a Bluetooth wireless-enabled keyboard, which the Swiss-American company said could let customers transmit a picture from a mobile phone or camera to the PC or use a wireless headset to conduct voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, phone calls.

New law strengthens power planet security.

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, would be tasked with setting standards to prevent system instability or failures that can be tied to a "sudden disturbance, including a cybersecurity incident." FERC may impose penalties for violations and has 180 days to begin the process of certifying the reliability organization.

Zobot worm attacking Win2000. Haven't patched my system yet... And I use a firewall.

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All of the worms exploit a hole in the plug-and-play feature in the Windows 2000 operating system. Microsoft offered a fix for the bug as part of its monthly patching cycle last week. The software maker deemed the issue "critical," its most serious rating.

Bar at the center of the galaxy.

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Now, astronomers have used Spitzer to peer through that dust at slightly longer wavelengths, observing 30 million stars in the galactic plane in the region around the centre of the galaxy. They found that the central bar was much longer than previous observations had suggested - reaching about half the distance between the galaxy's centre and our Sun. The bar is estimated to stretch a total of about 27,000 light years from end to end.

Mixing music on your PC? These speakers are a definite help!Next Page »

This material keeps you cool and warm.

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On a lighter note, outdoor clothing manufacturer Burton and the Canadian Ski Team also use the stuff. As time goes on, consumers will find a variety of Aspen-equipped jackets, gloves boots and bibs designed to protect them from the cold as well as a flamethrower.

Pee powers this battery.

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The urine-powered battery was able to generate a voltage of about 1.5 volts – with a corresponding power of 1.5 micro-watts – using just 0.2 millilitres of urine, says Lee. And if a second droplet of urine was added 15 hours after the battery was first activated, the replenished urine could generate still more electricity.

Nanotransistors.

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And, whereas current silicon transistors have been shrunk to around 100 nanometres, the Y-shaped nanotubes measure just tens of nanometres in size. Eventually, they could even be shrunk to just a few nanometres, the researchers suggest.

Stungun bullets.

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Meanwhile, Midé Technology Corporation of Medford, Massachusetts, is proposing the Piezer. Rather than conventional stun-gun circuitry, with batteries linked to transformers and a capacitor, the Piezer contains piezoelectric crystals, which produce a voltage when they are compressed. The Piezer would be fired from a 12-gauge shotgun, stunning the target with an electric shock on impact. Shotguns are already used to fire less-lethal "beanbag" rounds to subdue suspects, but these have short range. Midé claims the Piezer could be effective at 40 to 50 metres.

I'm working on an article about a piece of spyware removal software. Should be up by the end of the week or so.

Motherboards:
Foxconn i945, i955 Boards @ Legitreviews.

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Legit Reviews looks at three leading dual core motherboards from Foxconn and see how they handle the latest Intel processors. With the market moving toward dual core CPU's, you need either an i945 or i955 chipset based board to correctly utilize Intel's newest processors. Price points drive the market and LR checks to see if Foxconn's newest boards balance budget and performance.

Asus K8N-DL @ LC.

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It still appears that one of the main problems AMD has been facing in the past, that is, great processors hampered by the lack of chipset support still rears its head, existing platforms are somewhat stale, bordering on obsolete technology. This is where nVidia's nForce4 Professional core logic aims to fill the void. Currently, less than a handful of boards are out there but we have secured one of them, namely the ASUS K8N-DL and run it through the paces. Several BIOS revisions later, we are still not quite where we want to be ...

Geil PC3200 One @ 3DGM.

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With a CAS of 1.5 at 400MHz DDR this is some seriously sexy memory! The complete timing is a blistering 1.5-2-2-5 at 400MHz DDR. While this is brilliant it can be overclocked to 600MHz DDR using a timing of 2.5-4-4-7. It's available in a single 512MB module or 512MB and 1GB Dual Channel kits. Affordable memory that kicks butt! Watch the Video to find out more...

Asus A8N-SLI Premium @ PCStats.

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The Asus A8N-SLI Premium includes IEEE 1394a Firewire, two Gigabit NICs, 7.1 channel audio and an additional Serial ATA/RAID controller (for a total of 8 SATA headers). In terms of expansion, the motherboard offers up one PCI Express x1 slot, one PCI Express x4 slot and three traditional 32 bit PCI slots to the two PCI Express x16 sockets. Finally, the board can be used with any Socket 939 AMD Athlon64/FX CPU currently on the market, and up to 4GB of PC3200 DDR-RAM can be installed.

Gigabyte i955 @ PCStats.

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The Gigabyte GA-8I955X Royal comes with the ICH7R Southbridge chipset, which replaces the ICH6 on all 955X and 945P boards. The Intel 955X Northbridge supports Intel Pentium Extreme Edition and Pentium D dual core processors as well as any other LGA775 Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron processor. Two PCI Express x1 slots and three conventional PCI slots take care of expansion needs and the GA-8I955X Royal can support up to six IDE and six SATA II devices. Onboard peripherals include a Silicon Image SATA/RAID controller, a GIGARaid IDE/RAID controller, A pair of BroadCom Gigabit LAN adaptors and 7.1 channel Intel 'High Definition' sound.

Albatron K8SLI @ OCC.

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I was completely amazed. Not only by the margin that the two mid range GeForce 6600 GTs trounced the high end X850XT but the price per pound as well. One Radeon X850XT is priced at approximately $450. Two GeForce 6600 GTs AND the price of the Albatron K8SLI mainboard is about $445. Think about that. Two VGA cards and a new mainboard upgrade for less than the price of a single high end VGA upgrade - not forgetting that the two midrange VGA cards kicked the crap out of the high end Radeon.

RAM:

Centon GEMiNi PC3200 @ PCStats. Centon doesn't scream 'quality' where I work.

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Centon has given us a first look at an overclocker-calibre dual-channel DDR memory kit. The two 512MB GEMiNI PC3200 dual-channel DIMMs we are testing in this review are rated to run at 200 MHz with 2-2-2-5 timings, at a voltage of 2.6V. The GEMiNi memory seemed to like running with 2.8V and it easily passed the 240 MHz mark with 2-2-2-5 memory timings. Pretty impressive! To get past 242 MHz however, we had to dramatically increase voltage to 3.4V!

Video:

XFX 7800GT @ Hexus. And TTL. And HWA. And Tweaktown. And Gamergod.

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The most desirable mainstream graphics board on the market at the time of writing, bar none. Anything slower treads on the 6800 Ultra's toes a bit too much, so it'll be interesting to see how NVIDIA might handle that product overlap in the months to come. We await the imminent arrival of the ATI R520, and friends, that little while longer, but see NVIDIA's timing as just about perfect. In the meantime NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT is effectively the HEXUS 'Editor's Choice' for the high-end.

Aopen 6600 @ OO.

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With SLI capable video cards, performance levels as high as the 7800GTX, one must wonder why Overclockers Online would have any interested in something like the 6600. Silence is what makes the difference with this card. No longer will we have to listen to any fans with AOpen's silent solution.

Gigabyte GA8NSLI @ ClubOC.

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Once you start overclocking with the GigaByte GA-8N-SLI Royal, it can be a bit overwhelming with all of the options and tools you have at your disposal. For CPUs with the C.A.M. enabled, you can lower the multiplier to target higher front side bus speeds. With the independent memory bus speed, you can high side your RAM for even more bandwidth. I have chosen to simply hit the CPU was as much Front Side Bus speed as it would take keeping the multiplier to its HIGH setting to prduce the highest overall CPU speed possible. Since the RAM bus speed is mostly independent, I set the piper on the highest bus speed achievable loosening RAM timings as applicable. Patriot memory has an unofficial rating of 700Mhz as achieved in lab testing with timings of: 4/3/3/12! After some voltage increases and testing the system with different settings, this GigaByte board has met all expectations.

Intel plans to release Pentium M across the line in 2006. NetBurst is dead. Pentium 3 architecture is better.

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The design of these upcoming processors is largely derived from the Pentium M notebook line of chips. For the past few years, Intel has produced chips based on two separate architectures. Current Pentium 4 desktop chips and Xeon server chips come from the NetBurst architecture.

Jerk-O-Meter.

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For now, the Jerk-O-Meter is set up to monitor the user's end of the conversation. If his attention is straying, a message pops up on the phone that warns, "Don't be a jerk!" or "Be a little nicer now." A score closer to 100 percent would prompt, "Wow, you're a smooth talker."

Nasal spray for Alzheimer’s.

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Now Howard Weiner, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, US, and his colleagues have tried a new strategy. Weiner was intrigued by the fact that brain inflammation in the earlier trial coincided with exceptional clearance of beta amyloid. He did some experiments and found that mice with Alzheimer’s treated to develop multiple sclerosis-like brain inflammation also cleared the beta amyloid from their brains. “Sometimes inflammation is good,” he says.

MRO heads to Mars.

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The $720 million mission's main science phase runs from November 2006 to December 2008, enabling the onboard cameras, spectrometer, climate sounder and subsurface radar to gather an unparalleled amount of data about Mars.

HP buys billboard printing company.

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Rich Raimondi, vice president of U.S. commercial sales for HP's Imaging and Printing division, said the acquisition provides a needed addition to HP's portfolio. Currently, HP's largest designer jet printers can handle pages measuring only 5 feet. Scitex Vision's XLjet Premium can switch between four, six and eight colors and print 370 by 740 dots per inch at 1,335 square feet per hour.

This toaster runs BSD.

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The toaster on display now in the NetBSD booth at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, is as high-tech as they come. This toaster features a 4 line LCD, USB keyboard, 10/100 ethernet port and a RS232 serial port for the external console. The toaster's internal circuit boards have been bypassed and routed through the CPU board allowing NetBSD complete control over the toaster's features. A keyboard connects through a USB port on the side of the toaster and the 4x40 LCD displays a NetBSD/toaster login prompt. The burner element is also controlled by the TS-7200 via an internal relay. Unlike previous NetBSD toasters which were nothing more than a glorified PC case-mod, this toaster can actually toast bread!

Meteor shower tomorrow morning.

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Early Friday and Saturday mornings the skies above the Northern Hemisphere will be peppered with little bits of space debris that create the annual Perseid meteor shower. With the Moon not much of a factor, it should be a good display.

Atlantis won't launch in September.

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They expected to spend several more weeks examining five areas of foam loss, the largest of which involved a 1-pound (0.45-kg) chunk of hand-sprayed foam from an aerodynamic ramp intended to shelter electrical connections and pipes that run along the outside of the tank.

We've got some new members joining the forums (»http://www.aseforums.com) and posting content at ASEville (»http://www.aseville.com). Be sure to stop by and say 'hi'.

Slot machine change per user. Server based slot machines... no.

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But that's about to change. Where one-armed bandits have always been standalone devices with a single game hard-wired into their circuitry and rotors, the industry is getting set to unroll a new generation of machines in which the games will be stored on back-office servers and downloaded at the whim of gamblers. According to executives from two of the biggest slot machine manufacturers, the so-called server-based gaming, or SBG, technology is slated to be the biggest news at next month's Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, the casino industry's huge annual trade show.

Open source patenting. Software patents are BAD.

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Red Hat will finance outside programmers' efforts to obtain patents that may be used freely by open-source developers, the top Linux seller said Tuesday at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. At the same time, the Open Source Developer Labs launched a patent commons project, which will provide a central list of patents that have been donated to the collaborative programming community. The threat of patent-infringement lawsuits has long dogged collaborative development, leading some open-source programming advocates to turn against the patent system altogether. The initiatives signal a new willingness on the part of the open-source community to combat the threat of patent-infringement lawsuits more directly--and within the existing patent system.

6.5 ton broadband satellite launches.

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The big question is how many people will buy a satellite internet service. So far, it has only really found acceptance in areas beyond the reach of DSL or cable modems. But IPSTAR also hopes to compete directly against the wired services. "There are a lot of eyes on this satellite," says John McCarthy of Loral Space and Communications in New York, which built the craft.

Pig brain cells in humans.

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Huntington's disease, which affects one in 100,000 people, has a prognosis so terrifying that many people with the gene in their family decline to be tested, preferring to live in ignorance of their fate. Symptoms usually develop between the age of 30 and 50, and include uncontrollable twisting movements, progressing rapidly to disability, dementia and early death. The pig brain cells used in the treatment are not neurons but come from the lining of a brain structure known as a choroid plexus. They have a nurturing role, mopping up toxins, producing cerebrospinal fluid and secreting a range of hormones and proteins called neurotrophins that are essential for brain cell function and protection. In Huntington's disease, there is a significant reduction in these chemicals.

Alcohol tolerance gene found.

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A gene that helps fruit flies develop alcohol tolerance has been found – and named “hangover”. The gene also controls the flies’ response to stress, and the researchers say that a similar pathway linking alcohol tolerance and stress probably functions in humans. The findings may explain why people who have been in a stressful situation often have a blunted response to alcohol and may drink more to feel inebriated, experts say, putting them at greater risk of becoming addicted.

New York requires companies to inform of breaches.

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New York Governor George Pataki on Wednesday signed a bill that requires businesses and state government agencies to notify consumers if sensitive data is nabbed in a security breach. This places New York on the list of states such as California that have adopted similar rules--while many other states and the federal government are considering them.

Double asteroid system found.

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Called 87 Sylvia, the 280-kilometre-wide, potato-shaped asteroid lies about 3.5 times further from the Sun than the Earth does. Astronomers discovered an 18-km-wide moon orbiting it at a distance of about 1360 km in 2001. The newly found moon lies about twice as close to Sylvia, at a distance of 710 km, and measures just 7 km across.

Making Mars colonization a reality.

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Designs call for large masonry arches and vaulted ceilings and domed skylights built with bricks baked from Martian soil and stones cut from Martian quarries. Bruce Mackenzie, a co-founder of the group and a former member of the National Space Society’s board of directors, has been preaching the benefits of brick as an ideal building material for a Martian settlement for years.

Discovery has little damage.

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Shuttle Discovery appears to have suffered very little damage on its latest mission, though a detailed analysis is yet to be completed, a NASA spokeswoman said on Wednesday. "It's one of the cleanest vehicles they've ever seen," said Leslie Williams, a spokeswoman at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Cryptography: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=174

Microsoft directs money from spam king to NY.

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After covering its legal expenses, Microsoft will dedicate $5 million dollars to helping law enforcement agencies address computer-related crimes, Smith said. "In appreciation of the role of the New York attorney general, another $1 million of this settlement money will be directed to New York state...to expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults," he said in the letter.

Ring computing. No, I mean take your computer with you.

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The trick is to store the virtual computer on a USB key, or any portable device with substantial storage space, like an MP3 player. The virtual computer’s "soul" - as the researchers dub it - can then be uploaded to a new PC simply by plugging the portable device in. This host machine needs no special software or even a network connection to take on an entirely new personality.

Waste plastic + waste Steel = Good Steel.

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Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to super-hot temperatures of 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 Fahrenheit). Sahajwalla said many waste plastics, from shopping bags to dishwashing liquid containers and drink bottles, contain high enough levels of carbon to be useful in steelmaking.

Yahoo buys into some Chinese company. Another US corp. shooting themselves in the foot. Nice job.

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Yahoo Inc. is close to paying $1 billion and forking over its China operations for a 35 percent stake of China's second-largest e-commerce operator, Alibaba.com, a source close to the discussions said on Wednesday. The deal is in the final hours of discussions, the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Members of the Chinese media have been invited by Alibaba to a news briefing set for Thursday in Beijing, according to one reporter.

Space market uplifting.

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The slump in the global space and satellite market is over, and government and commercial sales should reach $158 billion by 2010, up from $103 billion in 2004, according to a report released on Tuesday. "Now is a good time to be involved in the space and satellite industry," concluded the annual report compiled by the International Space Business Council, an independent consulting group based in Bethesda, Maryland.

If you haven't checked out our new article on cryptography, it is waiting for you: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=174 More parts to come.

Games kill people. Seriously, this guy died from playing games!

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The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing online battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said. Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play on-line games on August 3. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.

New mouse found.

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Madagascar, nicknamed the “8th Continent” because of its diversity of species, continues to reveal new secrets - and they do not get much cuter than this. Biologists have discovered two new species of lemur, endangered primates that are ancestral to monkeys and apes, and that exist now only on the island. The finds bring the total number of known lemur species to 49.

Mars rovers hit gold.

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Spirit landed in the lava plains of Gusev Crater, getting off to a slow start in its mission. But since it began clambering up to higher ground in the Columbia Hills in July 2004, it has seen granular rocks with a mix of grain sizes. And recently it has seen the most extreme case of this from a spot about 20 metres below the summit of Husband Hill, which rises about 80 metres above the floor of Gusev Crater.

Spam king loser.

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Microsoft said that as part of the settlement Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com Llc., agreed to pay $7 million to Microsoft. Microsoft and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had sued Richter in late 2003, asserting that he had sent, or helped other spammers send, billions of e-mail messages to consumers touting everything from herbal products to loan consolidation schemes. Richter and his company also violated state and federal laws, they said.

Make sure to read up on cryptography: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=174

Discovery lands safely at Edwards.

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Discovery's return had been delayed by 24 hours after rain and lightning at Kennedy Space Center in Florida had led NASA's entry flight director Leroy Cain to opt for an extra day in space. The weather for Tuesday’s landing in Florida was still not suitable, so Cain chose to end the mission in California. Rain can damage the heat shield tiles, though it does not endanger the landing. During the 14-day mission, the crew travelled 9.3 million kilometres (5.8 million miles), transferred supplies the space station, tested heat shield repair kits and performed an unscheduled repair by plucking protruding gap fillers from the orbiter's belly

Waterproof paper. By accident.

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It turned out that the coating, in combination with the makeshift apparatus, made the paper waterproof without making it waxy, brittle or changing its other characteristics. The original piece of paper has been submerged in water since June 6. It hasn't dissolved and Ramsey's original writing is still on it. She once even took it out of the water, wrote on it some more, and submerged it again.

Sender ID fades. I still don't have SPF records on here.

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Basically, Sender ID checks whether an e-mail that claims to come from a certain Internet domain (such as "customerservice@anybank.com") really originates from the e-mail servers associated with that domain ("anybank.com"). The system uses the Domain Name System, or DNS, to make that determination. Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which merged with Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail Technology to become Sender ID, also uses the same approach.

Bacteria that makes nanowires.

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The long, very thin wires are unprecedented in biological systems, says the microbiologist who discovered the bacteria and the wires' conductivity. They completely change science's understanding of how microbes handle electrons, he said. Derek Lovley and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, Mass.) reported observing and measuring the conductivity of long wires, 3 to 5 nanometers in diameter, emanating from the Geobacter bacteria.

NASA to launch Mars probe for water.

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The 2-ton orbiter is scheduled for launch on Wednesday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station between 7:54 a.m. and 9:39 a.m. EDT. Weather conditions were favorable, with only a 20 percent chance that isolated showers would cause a delay, Air Force weather officer Clay Flinn said. The 21-foot (6.5-meter) spacecraft will ride aloft on a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket and is scheduled to reach Mars in March 2006. Using the friction of the planet's upper atmosphere as a brake, it will slowly dip into a low orbit about 190 miles above the surface of Mars, NASA said.

Cryptography, the science of analyzing and deciphering codes and ciphers and cryptograms. This is the introduction of a multi-article discussion on encrpytion. Next Page »

I expect an article on encryption to be posted today. Keep checking this space.

Athlon X2 3800+
AMDZone, Legitreviews, TWL.

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AMD released their Athlon 64 X2 and it was good. The enthusiast community clamored for more. They wanted a lower speed grade X2 that would still pack a punch, and go head to head with Intel's lower priced dual CPU packaged Pentium D series. Many thought AMD made a mistake by not offering this grade, but of course lines must be converted, and it makes sense to project numbers, and product the CPUs that will bring in higher ASPs. We feel the launch today of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is perhaps brought about by so many requests, but also a result of AMD having ramped up dual core production higher enough to begin supplying higher volume lower cost parts.

CPUs:

Sempron 3400+ @ AMDZone.

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We were able to reach nearly 2.4GHz with default voltages, or almost a 33% overclock. Yes, that is a nice looking overclock without too much effort put into it. There is a chance that some of these Palermo cores could have 3GHz coaxed out of them with a bit of luck, and a better overclocking setup. With the 64 bit support that Sempron has been missing for so long this becomes an attractive CPU to the budget overclocker. The only downside is the comparatively short life of Socket 754 compared to 939. That being said Socket A Semprons are still available.

Motherboards:

Tyan K8WE @ HCW.

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The K8WE from Tyan features NVIDIA's NFORCE4 Professional chipset. How's this for loaded: Dual CPU, dual PCI-E x16 slots, supporting SLI. Yeah! We put the Tyan through the paces against a board from IWill, sporting the previous generation dual CPU chipset from NVIDIA; NFORCE3 Pro 250.

Foxconn Dual Core Boards @ OC Cafe.

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The top graph represents Far Cry running with the DivX Converter pumping out that DVD, while the bottom graph shows us Far Cry going by itself. As you can see, the dual core CPU does make a difference. The Asus motherboard took a massive hit in frame rates, as did the Foxconn 955X7AA while using the single core CPU. However, the 955X7AA, when couple with Intel's dual core chip, chugged right along barely noticing the extra load going on. Very cool!

ECS Dual AMD/Intel CPU board. Awesome.

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While flexibility is the name of the game in the software world, the computer hardware realm is a lot stricter. AMD and Intel technologies are completely different from each other, so it's impossible to use one product in the other's platform. Or at least that has been the general rule until now... The ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid motherboard is on our test bench for a thorough examination, and in the configuration pictured it works with either a socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 or socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 processor. Intrigued yet?

RAM:

OCZ PC3500 @ Phoronix.

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Overclockers and enthusiasts these days usually pursue one of two goals: to reach DDR600+ memory speeds at slightly relaxed timings, or to maintain tight 2-2-2-5 timings while pushing up to around DDR520+ speeds. If you're looking for the latter, then OCZ's new Gamer eXtreme PC-3500 might be the perfect modules for you.

Crucial Ballistix PC-5300 @ VL.

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Performance takes a few forms. If your are a fan of synthetic memory tests than this RAM is significantly better that DDRI and overclocking helps quite a bit. However most of us don't run these tests continuously so we look to the real world results. For the most part there is no significant increase due to DDRII memory. The exceptions are TMPGEnc which shows a 4.5% increase by moving to DDRII, and the game tests which show a 3-5% increase in frame rate (3-4fps) also by moving to DDRII.

Video:

ATI X300 HM 128MB @ Hexus.

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My evaluation of such low-end hardware using the latest graphically challenging games might seem pointless at first glance. Look twice and you'll see that while both HyperMemory and TurboCache boards were generally really unhappy with the latest games, analysis of UT2004 shows that in older games (and to some extent new ones at very low resolution) they'll do fine. If your aim is to build a really cheap PCI Express-based gaming box for the kids, or to use a card as a stop-gap solution before you pick up something more powerful, they do fine.

Sapphire X850XT-PE AGP @ TTZ.

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The Radeon X850 XT is the fastest chip ATI has to offer. Sapphire Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition cards are available in both AGP and PCI-E models. The card we got our hands on was the AGP version. The Platinum Edition tag means card is clocked higher than the regular edition. This is the top of the line video card using an ATI chip.

MSI 6800 SLI @ PCStats.

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Over the next few pages PCSTATS will be reviewing a pair of PCI Express MSI X6800 TD-128E SLI-capable videocards in both single and SLI mode. We're going to see just what kind of performance a user can expect from these high-end cards operating in tandem. By now, most consumers should be familiar with SLI benchmarks from 6600GT mid-range nVidia cards, so let's take things up a notch! Each of the MSI NX6800 TD-128E videocards we'll be testing are based on the nVidia Geforce 6800 GPU and sport 128MB of GDDR3 memory, SLI compatibility, full HDTV/S-Video/composite TV-out capabilities and dual-monitor support. The blue analog connection is for CRT monitors and the white DVI connector is for digital LCD displays.

ATI X850XT @ HTR.

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Up until a few weeks ago the X850 series video cards were proclaimed as the fastest cards on the planet but now with the release of that other companies new card does it make the X850 obsolete? Come along as we run it through a battery of new and not so games to see how it stacks up and also to see if the X850XT is a worth while choice as opposed to the X850XT PE.

Gigabyte 7800GTX @ PCStats.

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Old games of yesteryear look primitive compared to the stunning games of today and visually it's hard to go back and play those old favorites. Today, if you want the best videocard on the market regardless of price, it's definitely going to be something based on the nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX core. The GV-NX78X256V-B is backed up by 256MB of GDDR3 memory and supports VIVO as well as component output, and is fully SLI compatible. Included in the package is also a pretty good software suite which includes two full version games and some multimedia software.

Albatron 7800GTX @ PCStats.

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The Albatron GeForce 7800GTX videocard is pretty darn impressive. In addion to its nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX GPU with 302 million transistors, the PCI Express x16 videocard packs 256MB of GDDR3 memory, SLi compatibility, a low-profile & low-noise heatsink, twin DVI video connections and support for a host of video input and output formats. Albatron ship along a basic set of software and cabletry with the Albatron 7800GTX videocard so that every feature can be used (SLI bracket excluded), but there's nothing else in the box aside from the 7800GTX card to really get excited about

Sapphire X800XL @ Gotapex.

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Last week I looked at the Sapphire X800XL Ultimate edition. It proved to be a good card, putting up impressive numbers, enough so that you can play the latest games at decent detail and AA/AF combinations. This week we take a look at another one of Sapphire's offerings, the X800 XL Hybrid. The Hybrid puts a different interface onto the X800XL series, using ATI's PCIe->AGP bridge, but also adds Video In capability to the VO that most Sapphire cards come equipped with. What this means for you is the continuation of your legacy S754/478 boards that normally come equipped with AGP instead of the newer PCIe interface. If you are looking for the video editing portion of this, then the VIVO capability further enhances the bundle.

Powerclor X800GT @ bjorn3d.

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Today ATI is launching a brand new RADEON® graphic card the X800 GT. This particular VPU is targeted at NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT and 6800LE series of cards. ATI's partners will supply roughly 50,000 units during the launch month which means there will be quite a lot of X800 GTs available. While testing the card I talked to Andrzej Bania -- PR and Marketing Manager for Northern Europe & South Africa. We spoke about X800 GT and how it will impact ATI's current line of products. You might recall X700 XT which was a direct competitor to GeForce 6600GT, unfortunetely ATI decided to can it in favor of a more powerful X800.

Yes, this is my first weekend post in awhile. I also have a server update. I have moved nameservers and such for all the sites. You may get sporadic downtime, but I'm 95% sure this won't happen. Just a heads up. Expect an article on encryption soon.

Employers screw America with H1-B Visas. I have a 3 word statement for you. It begins with Go and ends in Yourself.

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Employers have applied for 49,040 H-1B guest worker visas for next fiscal year, more than 75 percent of the program's annual cap of 65,000, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The tally, made July 31, suggests the limit for the controversial visas could be reached near or on the first day of federal fiscal year 2006, Oct. 1. This fiscal year, employers hit the annual cap as of the first day.

Discovery heads back home.

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Before she and her crew of six left the station, Collins thanked the ISS crew for being such good hosts. ISS flight engineer John Phillips, replied: “Thank you so much for being wonderful guests. It’s really been a pleasure. And no, we’re not glad to see you go. We’d love to see you stay longer.”

Northern lights at Saturn.

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The solar wind compresses the magnetic field around Saturn, dislodging charged particles trapped in radiation belts around the planet. These particles then stream along magnetic field lines down into the top of the atmosphere around the poles. There, they collide with atoms and molecules of hydrogen, making them glow at ultraviolet wavelengths.

It has been pretty slow around here this week, but you can help out by join the forums and getting in on the action: »http://www.aseforums.com

Man charged in bootlegging movie.

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Curtis Salisbury, 19, used a camcorder to make copies of recent releases "The Perfect Man" and "Bewitched" and then distributed them through illicit computer networks that specialize in piracy, the Justice Department said.

IBM doping up with germanium. I'm still interested in the silicon lasers.

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IBM said it invented the silicon germanium process more than a decade ago, and has been improving it ever since. By adding the element to silicon -- a process known as doping -- the chip can operate at a faster clip. That boost is especially useful for radio communications devices, which need to modulate rapidly. The Armonk, New York-based company said the process will allow chips to operate at speeds of 200 gigahertz, or 200 billion cycles per second. That speed will help enable advanced communications technologies, including, it said, collision-avoidance radar for automobiles.

Yahoo launches audio search.

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Yahoo Audio Search complements music services, such as Yahoo Music Unlimited and other third-party services by providing consumers access to an extensive array of other audio-related content such as podcasts, spoken word and artist Web sites," John Thrall, head of multi-media search engineering at Yahoo, said in a statement.

New Windows CLI targeted by virus writers.

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The proof-of-concept viruses, along with detailed explanations of how they work, were included in a magazine that was published on the Web over the last week. The viruses' only action is to infect other shell scripts on the host's operating system. They would cause little harm in the wild, but would be relatively easy to modify using the information from the article, said Hyppönen in a blog posting on Thursday.

Digicam growth peaked. I just bought a Canon S2.

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Meanwhile, Chute reported that Kodak currently is the top dog in the U.S. digital-camera market, with sales of 2.15 million units in the first half of 2005 and a 22.1 percent market share. Next up is Canon, with sales of 2 million units and market share of 20.6 percent. Sony is third, with 1.78 million digital cameras sold and 18.3 percent of the market.

Intel cuts production of cheaper chipsets.

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An Intel representative dismissed reports suggesting the company was exiting the low-end chipset business altogether but said the company was in the middle of making changes to its manufacturing plants to make way for more mobile-focused and high-performance products. Despite reports of which products would be phased out, Intel declined to officially state which chipsets would be put on the back burner.

This robot catches fast balls.

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The robot does not even need a catching mitt. It resembles a single metallic claw, with just three fingers instead of the human complement of five. An array of 32 by 48 individual photo detectors in its “palm”, tracks a ball's trajectory at high speed. And a series of specialised image processing circuits recognise this movement almost instantly.

Discovery checks out, ready to head home.

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The announcement came after a night of wind tunnel tests which proved that sizeable chunks of the small thermal blanket—damaged on launch and puffing out from just below the orbiter’s leftmost flight deck window—would likely not rip off and smash into a vulnerable section of Discovery. The blanket clearance was the last piece needed to clear Discovery for landing. Its heat-resistant tiles and reinforced carbon carbon (RCC) panels were cleared during earlier inspections, shuttle officials said.

iTunes launches in Japan.

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The California-based company said iTunes would charge 150 yen ($1.35) each for 90 percent of its songs and 200 yen for the other 10 percent, undercutting existing services such as Sony Corp.'s Mora, which charges 210 yen per song.

Patent reform is hard. Easy fix: Destroy software patents and BOGUS patents.

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The issue is coming to a head in Washington, where committees in the House and Senate are planning hearings on a host of proposals to change the nation's patent law and how the Patent and Trademark Office operates. The ideas being proposed run a wide gamut, from forcing patent holders to license their inventions to others, to the elimination of software patents altogether.

NASA checks thermal blanket damage.

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Pictures of the orbiter have shown a deformed and billowed blanket just underneath the left window, at which shuttle commander Eileen Collins sits. The puffed-up part of the blanket stretches 51 centimetres (20 inches) across. Engineers are concerned that a piece of the blanket could be ripped off during re-entry to the atmosphere. They estimate that the largest piece blown loose would be 23 grams (0.05 pounds).

Found: Hidden Black Holes.

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The most active black holes eat so voraciously that they create a colossal cloud of gas and dust around them, through which astronomers cannot peer. That sometimes prevents observations of the region nearest the black hole, making it impossible to verify what's actually there.

Asian bird flu may cause many deaths.

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If Asian bird flu mutates into a form that spreads easily between humans, an outbreak of just 40 infected people would be enough to cause a global pandemic. And within a year half of the world’s population would be infected with a mortality rate of 50%, according to two studies released on Wednesday.

Bush stupidly threatens to veto stem cell legislation. The House and the Senate can push this through.

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The bill, approved in the House and likely to come up in the Senate after the August recess, would allow federally funded research on stem cells derived from leftover embryos in fertility clinics. There are currently about 400,000 such frozen embryos, many of which will otherwise be destroyed. "They have the prerogative to pass laws. I have the prerogative to set limits on what I think is right," Bush said of congressional efforts to lift the restrictions he imposed.

Remember to check out this cool thermal color changing fan: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=173

Yahoo test weblog search. ASEville has Journals.

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Blogs are of particular interest to industry players like Yahoo because they are a powerful and multiplying form of content online, yet there are few tools to sift through all the material in real time. Chief Yahoo rival Google and MSN have yet to introduce blog-specific search tools. Google, however, includes some blogs in general Web results.

Mozilla Corporation.

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The body, called the Mozilla Corporation, is wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation and will plough all its revenue back into the foundation. Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Corporation, said the foundation decided to create a commercial subsidiary, as its commercial activities were restricted through being a nonprofit organization. "It is difficult to determine what ways of generating revenue make sense for a nonprofit and which ways of generating revenue are not appropriate," Baker wrote in her blog. "The Mozilla Corporation has been created to address this. The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable entity and so is legally permitted greater freedom of action (than) the Mozilla Foundation."

Korea clones a dog.

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Although many other animals have been successfully cloned, dogs are notoriously difficult: the South Korean team only obtained three pregnancies from more than 1,000 embryo transfers into 123 recipients.

Yahoo to launch Adsense type adverts. Google could use some competition.

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While Yahoo and Google already go head-to-head serving major search-advertising partners such as America Online, Google has largely enjoyed a monopoly delivering its signature text-only ads to smaller content sites, including blogs. Now Yahoo will play to that constituency and challenge Google's pricing power in one of the fastest-growing online mediums: blogging. Like Google's service, Yahoo's self-serve product will display text ads deemed relevant to the content of specific Web pages. Advertisers pay only when a reader clicks on their ads. Yahoo and publishers will split the fees.

Remember to post your systems at ASEville: »http://www.aseville.com I also posted a new review of a color changing thermal fan: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=173

Many DNS Servers vulnerable to cache poisoning.

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There are about 9 million DNS servers on the Internet, Kaminsky said. Using a high-bandwidth connection, he examined 2.5 million. Of those, 230,000 were identified as potentially vulnerable, 60,000 are very likely to be open to this specific type of attack, and 13,000 have a cache that can definitely be poisoned.

DMCA like clauses appear in FREE TRADE agreement! Amazing what the US does today. Screw this copyright protection crap. 70 years after the author dies!???

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That's why business lobbyists have been pressing to include far more precise rules in subsequent treaties. And the Bush and Clinton administrations have been happy to go along, effectively saying to poorer countries: If you want the United States to open its markets to your products, the price is adopting the most problematic sections of our copyright law.

Crew Exploration Vehicle to use shuttle assets.

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NASA has decided that its next launch vehicle for getting humans into space will be based on the space shuttle system, including its main engines, solid rocket boosters and external tank. There will be one big difference, though, instead of riding along the side of the new rocket, astronauts in the future will be riding on top on top of their next launcher -- above any debris that might fall off.

Shuttle repair EVA successful.

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Robinson smoothly pulled out two gap fillers that were sticking out from between heat shield tiles. “It’s pulling out very easily,” Robinson said as he removed the first gap filler protruding from tiles on the orbiter’s nose landing-gear door. He estimated he used only 6.7 newtons (1.5 pounds) of force to pull it out and then stashed it in a trash bag, so it would not float away.

In related news, NASA TV reports that the EVA will include checking the thermal blanket on the shuttle. Just watching the EVA on NASA TV is amazing in itself.

Since when did a fan become so complicated? There are fans that glow and light up and more. I have a very unique fan that changes color with temperature to give a nice look and a practical advantage to the normal glowy fan. Read on to find out more...Next Page »

NASA will attempt a shuttle heat shield repair in space.

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The gap fillers are used to prevent the heat shield tiles from rattling together and getting damaged during launch. Two are sticking above the tiles, one by 2.8 centimetres (1.1 inches) and the other by as much as 2.2 cm (0.9 inches) near the front of the orbiter. These protrusions were not the result of foam falling from the external tank during lift-off and hitting the orbiter. They may simply have been jostled loose by the intense vibrations of launch or the adhesive holding the gap fillers to the orbiter may have lost some of its stickiness.

Ecstasy can stop Parkinson's symptoms.

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When the researchers treated these mice with high doses of different types of amphetamines, their movement problems dramatically improved. The most effective compound was methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) – commonly known as Ecstasy. This result was surprising, because amphetamines are thought to affect movement through the dopamine system. But since these mice have no functional dopamine system, an unknown mechanism must be at work. The authors suggest proteins called trace amine receptors may be involved. Amphetamines interact with these receptors, but very little is known about their physiological role in the brain.

Oracle buys some of Indian banking firm.

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Oracle said the current I-flex management team will continue to run the company and will align its product development, sales, marketing and services activities with those at Oracle. The I-flex service organization will continue to work with major banks around the world. Charles Phillips, an Oracle co-president, will join the I-flex board, and I-flex stock will continue to trade on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. I-flex provides software and services to 575 banks in 115 countries.

Global warming makes stronger storms.

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Hurricanes are powered by the temperature difference between the top of the sea and the air above the storm, so warmer water was expected to pump the storms harder. But previous computer models had predicted that the half-degree increase in sea-surface temperatures from global warming over the past 30 years should have increased wind speed by only about 3%, corresponding to a 10% increase in Emanuel's estimate of destructive power.

Time for your weekly update of around the web news. Before you dive into this news, make sure to show off your computer systems at ASEville for free: »http://www.aseville.com

Motherboards:

Foxconn WinFast NF4K8AC-8EKRS @ PCStats.

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Today, PCStats will be checking out the econo line Foxconn WinFast NF4K8AC-8EKRS socket 939 Athlon64 motherboard. This motherboard is based on the vanilla nForce4 chipset and it seems like the only difference between this and the Ultra version is Serial ATA II (this version supports standard SATA). Other onboard features include a PCI Express x16 and two PCI Express x1 slots, an integrated 7.1 channel audio codec, Gigabit LAN and IEEE 1394a firewire.

ECS PF5 Extreme i945 @ Hexus.

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ECS' PF5 Extreme has its fair share of good and bad points. Let's take the good first. The company's Scalable D.G.E. technology offers up a possible quad-display setup that's run off two PCI-Express cards. No, it's not SLI or CrossFire, so don't expect true dual-card 3D performance, but it's handy for those that need the screen real estate and a step up from mixing onboard graphics displays (i945G) and discrete cards'. The layout and feature-set for a £90 board are both good, too.

Foxconn i945 & i955 @ HCW.

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Well the new chipsets do come with a new southbridge; ICH7. Today we're going to look at three new motherboards from Foxconn which use all three of the newest chipsets from Intel. And to find out if there is much performance benefit, we included a 925x board.

ECS 915p @ VL.

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This board has some very interesting things that someone upgrading from their older PIV or Athlon system and wants AGP and PCIe, DDR and DDR2. Overall this is a solid basic board for someone who doesn't overclock much, if at all.

Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 @ BFR.

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Today on BFR we have the opportunity to review Gigabyte's GA-K8N Ultra-9 motherboard. Last year we looked at their GA-8GPNXP Duo which is based on the Intel 915P chipset and packed full of features. The Ultra-9 has a Socket 939 Processor type and, like the 8GPNXP, is feature rich containing the Nvidia nForce4 Ultra chipset with on board sound, ethernet, IEEE 1394b (FireWire), 2 RAID controllers, as well as Gigabyte's ever popular Dual BIOS technology. This motherboard also has an extreme amount of SATA connections.

Ram:

OCZ PC5400 @ GruntvillE.

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Now, this overclock is with the stock Intel HSF included with the socket 775 CPU. I started upping the FSB in small increments, waiting for a “BSOD” or some strange behaviors in performance. I was very surprised but the only system changes I noticed were increases in temps. I used the program AiBooster provided with my ASUS board to overclock. I verified all overclocked speeds with CPU-z. As you can see below, my system was able to reach 4.0Ghz with no problems.

Mushkin PC3500 Redline @ ipKonfig.

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Mushkin's new Redline memory modules push the limits just like our favorite race cars. The latest attempt to push the boundaries puts Mushkin in a good lead in the memory market with its new Redline 2-2-2 memory modules for the hard-core gamers abroad. Today's memory seems to keep pushing the limits with the game in mind, and that's a good thing with today's games becoming more and more demanding. So with that in mind, memory manufactures are keeping heads above water and making every effort to give all possible to those pushing their systems.

Video:

Gainward 7800GTX @ NGOHQ.

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The reference Geforce 7800GTX core is clocked at 430 MHz and the memory is clocked 1200 MHz. The Gainward 7800GTX Golden Sample core is clocked at 480 MHz for the core and the memory is clocked at 1300 MHz. Yep you read it right; this is the fastest air-cooled Geforce 7800GTX card clocked at 480/1300. Memory bandwidth reaches 41.6GB/second. And the best part is that you are under warranty from Gainward at that speed.

Crucial X850XT @ Hexus.

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There's little doubt that ATI's RADEON X850 XT graphics card provides decent performance in the high-end sector. Our benchmarks have illustrated that it performs at around the same kind of pace as a GeForce 6800 Ultra, and around 5% slower than ATI's own X850 XT Platinum Edition. Performance, then, isn't really a concern.

Gigabyte 7800GTX @ bjorn3d.

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By now, you've probably heard it a thousand times, but it deserves repeating. NVIDIA's 7800 GTX launch was not just a typical paper launch. A handful of companies had cards on the virtual shelves of e-tailers the day that the new card was announced. As a matter of fact, we even had a retail board for our preview article. Today, though, it's time to look at retail 7800 GTX offering from Gigabyte, a name I'm sure you all recognize.

Sapphire X800XL @ GotApex.

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The Sapphire bundle is really becoming sub-par. They have certainly kept up with cooling needs and pay great attention to that side of the business. The inclusion of the Component output even shows that they have a lot of care for things other than just pure gaming. That being said, they really either need to just completely dump the bundled software or get new games. Two year old software that isn't even in the most popular genre do nothing but cost people money that they would otherwise spend on more parts.

Ok, so I was recently browsing all the latest news tidbits concerning the next generation of systems (while I'm supposed to be working, mind you) and i've got another bone to pick...with Nintendo, this time. Allow me to explain...Here's what we know (so far) about the new systems.

The XBOX 360: It looks nice, it's powerful, customizable, expandable, and will have great online play via XBOX Live (2 million subscribers ain't half bad). The controllers look great as well: very similar to the "controller-S" design, which I like, with only a few intelligent-looking tweaks.

Sony's PS3: It looks sleek and quite powerful as well, and will have massive, unbeatable 3rd party support. The controllers look like a bad idea, though. That design has been done before via a 3rd party Playstation 1 controller that I remember, and they were terrible. Let's hope i'm wrong.

...and then I get to reading about the new Nintendo unit...arrogantly codenamed "Revolution". Right off the bat, it looks like Nintendo is already admitting that the unit will be weaker than the other 2 consoles. But hey, it's all about the gameplay, right? Nintendo always has taken that stance: better hardware means nothing...it's about the gameplay. It's like saying that it's OK that your girlfriend's an ugly pig, it's what inside that really counts...and while that may be true in real life, why should you have to settle for one or the other in the gaming world (looks or personality, AKA graphics or gameplay)? Well, honestly, in this day and age, we shouldn't have to. The answer's simple: Nintendo, LAY OFF THE HOME CONSOLE HARDWARE AND JUST MAKE YOUR GAMES FOR THE OTHER SYSTEMS! Next Page »

Not! Either we are going to start posting content on this site, or it will go away. If anyone is reading this and would like to help out, shoot me a PM or email. I would like to be able to post at least one article/review per week and daily site news. I just don't have the time to do that with this site (and it seems no one else does either).

There you have it.

Petabyte storage for cheap.

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How cheap are they? Capricorn's storage systems cost about $2 a gigabyte, said the company's chief executive, C.R. Saikley. At that price, the cost breakdown would be about 65 cents for the gigabyte of storage and $1.35 for racks, software, networking, management tools and other components. That means that a Capricorn 1-terabyte system (which consists of 1,000 gigabytes) would sell for about $2,000, while a 1-petabyte system (1,000 terabytes) would cost about $2 million.

IE7 with anti-phishing technology.

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WholeSecurity, via a project called the Phish Report Network, has thousands of Web sites in its blacklist and adds more all the time from the hundreds of new sites that contributors flag daily, said John Ball, senior product manager at WholeSecurity. Microsoft helped the company launch the Phish Report Network in February, along with Visa, eBay and eBay's PayPal unit, which all help to build and maintain the list.

Cisco and researcher settle dispute.

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The injunction also requires Lynn to return any materials and disassembled code related to Cisco, according to a copy of the injunction, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California. The injunction was agreed on by attorneys for Lynn, Black Hat, ISS and Cisco. Lynn is also forbidden to make any further presentations at the Black Hat event, which ends Thursday, or the following Defcon event. Additionally, Lynn and Black Hat have agreed never to disseminate a video made of Lynn's presentation and to deliver to Cisco any video recording made of Lynn.

Get Windows running with 2 processes.

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So if you don’t have it already download Process Explorer. To make things go more quickly uncheck the Confirm Kill entry in the Process Explorer Options menu. Then kill Smss.exe, the Session Manager process. The reason we start with Smss.exe is that Smss.exe watches the back of Winlogon, the process it creates during the boot, so if you terminate Winlogon first Smss.exe gets upset and blue screens the machine with an error indicating that the Windows logon process terminated unexpectedly. And if you kill Lsass or Services without killing Winlogon you'll see this dialog that Winlogon shows before it shuts down the system (you can abort the shutdown by running "shutdown -a"):

New large Kuiper Belt object found.

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Its exact size cannot be determined because the reflectivity of its surface is not known. But if the reflectivity is as dim as most other distant, rocky objects that have been studied, it could be twice as wide as Pluto, which is about 2300 kilometres across.

Dicovery debris causes slight concern.

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They originated from an ice frost ramp, very close to another ramp that shed the larger foam chunk, and separated from the tank about 20 seconds after the bigger piece, Hale said. There is no definitive evidence – based on surveys conducted Wednesday with a sensor-laden orbital boom and sensors inside the wing – that the foam debris made contact with Discovery’s right wing leading edge as it fell away, he added.

Shuttle stops at ISS.

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In the 54 months since the ISS opened, the crew has performed many experiments and studies on sciences and technologies that could be used in the next generation of space exploration, including long-term missions to the moon and Mars. Since 2003, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on it way back to Earth, the space station's work has been muted. NASA removed one of its three-member crews to save on resources, and the mission's completion date was pushed from 2006 to 2010.

Shuttle fleet grouned due to tank foam debris. Couldn't have waited until Discovery was back...

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None of the falling pieces hit the Discovery orbiter and, based on early analysis, shuttle managers say it appears safe to land. “But if this had come off earlier [in the flight], we think this could have been very bad,” says deputy shuttle manager Wayne Hale. In 2003, falling foam hit Columbia's wing, leaving a hole that led to the craft's destruction during re-entry. Now, having discovered that the problem has not been solved, NASA has grounded the shuttle fleet. The next shuttle flight was scheduled for September, but until the foam problems are fixed, shuttle managers say that Atlantis will stay on the ground.

US makes rival emissions pact.

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Both the US and Australian governments have been investing heavily in recent years in research and development for “clean coal” technologies. The aim is to reduce pollution from burning coal, which is currently the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. Their companies will now hope for increased access to Asian markets for their technologies.

Intel begins the Pentium M push into desktops and servers.

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A Xeon chip for blade servers due in the first half of 2006 derives from the Pentium M family, the company's notebook chip family, said Stephen Thorne, marketing manager of the server platform group at Intel. Code-named Sossaman, the chip puts out a maximum of 31 watts, fairly low for server chips, which can boast thermal ceilings of 110 watts.