News
-- Ryan D'Silva
Big Viruses
Viruses have always been designed to be small to be unnoticeable. Not any more. Because
of the size of the installed base of operating systems like Win95 and 98, virus designers
don't have to work so hard to get a virus down to size so that it's unnoticeable. Viruses
are now being released which make network connections, look for and transmit files,
capture keyboard events and perform complex varying tasks. The removal on the limitation
on size makes it possible to create complex viruses in high level languages. This
basically means it's more accessible to programmers who don't necessarily need to take
advantage of the low level computer/operating systems architecture. Key words: Caligula,
CodeBreakers, Remote Explorer
Nintendo
64 Emulator designers head into possible legal battles
Nintendo has always said that the emulators out there for it's console are illegal.
While Nintendo was trying to decide what to do with the information that another emulator
was released for it's console, a developer called GossiTheDog released it's source code
for free download. The emulator in question UltraHLE (High Level Emulator) was hosted on http://www.emuunlim.com for a few hours before it was
taken down.
1 Ghz processors?
Intel previewed it's Pentium III this month. It featured new instruction sets to help
with speech recognition, 3D processing, Internet Streaming. Also included was a new
feature called a Processor Serial Number (PSN) which was supposed to help with Internet
security by essentially giving each Intel based computer out there a unique ID number.
However, privacy activists protested as the user should be given the choice whether or not
they wanted the feature in their computer. So Intel decided to make the feature
switch-able on or off with a piece of software. However, Andreas Stiller (a German
processor expert with C&T magazine) said that that process was easily hack-able, and
even worse, hack-able remotely, and worse than that, he claimed it could be done in about
10 minutes. In better news for Intel, 0.18 micron processors should be released by the end
of this year or early next year. With this rate, Intel said that 600 and 800 Mhz
processors would be ready by late this year and 1 Ghz processors should be ready by early
2000.
http://www.intel.com
New Operating
System for Lego MindStorms released
Markus Nogo released a new operating system called LegOS for the Lego MindStorms lego
kit. The kit which usually sells for ~$200-300 (Cdn.) consists of a central controller
called the Robotic Command Explorer and 3 input and 3 output ports. The LegOS offers
preemptive multitasking and dynamic memory management.
http://www.multimania.com/legos/
http://www.legomindstorms.com/
Microsoft
creates a new language called COOL in effort to tie together COM+ and C++
Word about this development leaked out after Microsoft asked a few developers about
what their opinions were on it. Speculation abounds that this is language is developed
solely to replace Java and undermine it's popularity. As part of it's battle over Java
with Sun, rumors were spreading that Microsoft was dropping all development with Java.
Microsoft denied this and stated that the Visual J++ development teams were not laid off
and that work on the projects was continuing. Microsoft's stand on COOL was that it was to
make it easier and more efficient to use COM+.
3COM sells the most handhelds
Is this one of the battles Microsoft is destined to lose? Microsoft has it's own Mobile
operating system called Windows CE, but the operating system for 3COMs Palm Pilots called
PalmOS seems to be gaining momentum. Sales of hand-held computers increased by over 60
percent over last year's figures, and the Palm Pilot comprised 40 percent of those orders.
Windows CE devices came in 2nd with 25 percent. In related news, 3COM unveiled the new
Palm V and the Palm IIIx. 3COM also bought SmartCode Technologies to improve the
communication abilities of its handhelds.
Split Microsoft up?
Could that be the solution? Although they aren't commenting, the US government is
discussing this as a possible solution to its monopoly. The most famous precedent is the
AT&T case and of course, Xerox has been forced to license it's technology. The methods
of dissection being discussed are dividing Microsoft into 5 small companies each with
their own technology and letting them compete against each other. Another tactic is to
split them up into an application and an operating system company. In related company
news, Microsoft is releasing IE5.0. It will be available for HP-UX, all Windows Operating
Systems and Solaris.
IBM and HP and Linux
IBM and RedHat have entered into a deal to optimize RedHat's version of Linux for IBM's
machines. Starting off with RS/6000s and other computers from the Personal Systems Group,
IBM will be prepackaging Linux on customers' demand. As part of the deal, RedHat
developers will get IBM ThinkPads (hopefully ncouraging them to develop Linux for the
ThinkPads). HP is doing something similar - they're investing into the open source
phenomenon, and working on an OS for their systems which would be based on Linux and open
source.
Censorship kicks
out a student from a computer lab
Michaun Jensen was researching a sociology paper on the censorship of offensive words
and images in her computer lab at Southern Utah University when she was asked to leave the
lab. To begin her research, she visited an erotic site and then a site containing pictures
of Hitler standing beside Mussolini. The first visit got her a complaint and the second
visit got her expelled from the lab. This started a debate on the topic of censorship and
took an unusual twist as the same material was available in the schools library, but was
not censored. The policy that students should not view objectionable material in computer
labs is common across most universities.
Developments in MP3
MP3 makes it as a hot topic at Silicon Alley 99. The conference which covers
e-commerce, agents, networking technologies and Internet technologies has invited Chuck-D
an MP3 activist to speak about the technology. Meanwhile, Sub-Pop has decided to post
samples of songs it produces on www.mp3.com. This would
primarily be usable to artist who are about to go on tour. Sub Pop is one of Americas'
biggest independent labels. Songs will be made available in MP3 and the Liquid Audio
format. Sony has stated that it could solve the whole dilemma of users copying MP3s
unlicensed. Its innovation comes in 2 parts - MagicGate and OpenMG which would allows
users to "move" MP3s back and forth instead of copying them. It relies on
special server hardware and special client software which would restrict copying of
software.
Cobalt RaQ systems vulnerable
Michael Righi a 17 year old from Pittsburgh, discovered a security hole in a popular
server software developed by a company called Cobalt Networks. Apparently, Cobalt RaQ
personal and Web directories in such a way that a files in either are treated the same.
This means that a mistyped password would be logged on the server and available for
download by malicious hackers.
PC makers choose K6-2 and K6-III
Despite the recent economical hardships AMD continues to gain big PC producers on their
side. On the 26 of February Gateway announced that they would launch new series powered by
K-6 and K6-III CPUs. This is the first time the company steps on the America market
together with AMD. The main reason behind the company's act is the low price of Advance
Micro Devices's products. Compared to the new PentiumIIIs, AMDs are more than twice
cheaper for the same frequency characteristics and they also like Intel chips have
multimedia extension that improves visual computing. With such appealing price and close
performance no wonder why AMD outsold Intel in January.
AMD site: http://www.amd.com/
Gateway site: http://www.gateway.com/
LinuxWorld
Conference and Expo brings together over 100 big computer industry companies
From 2nd to 4th of March LinuxWorld Conference and Expo will be held in San Jose,
California. Leading computer corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard
and Compaq Computers will take part in the show together with many smaller companies.
Linus Thorvalds will have a key presentation together with the founder of the Free
Software Foundation Richard Stallman and Gnome designer Miguel de Icaza. Companies like
Red Hat, Debian, S.u.S.E, LinuxPPC and Slackware that distribute and develop the OS are
also in the list of the participating guests. Microsoft team will not join the Expo, the
company announced.
Linuxworld: http://www.linuxexpo.com/
New Java
Virtual Machine(JVM) for Macs offered by Apple
In the midst of the past month Apple Computer introduced a new JVM which by the
corporations' estimations will be up to five times faster than its predecessors. The
product - named MRJ 2.1 is based on the CaffeineMark3 benchmarks and is available for free
download from the Apple site. MRJ 2.1 is based on JDK
1.1.6 distributed by the Sun Microsystems and gives freedom to Macintosh developers to mix
Java based applications with native Apple technologies like Quicktime and Applescript.
Hackers Take Control Of Satellite
According to the Sunday Edition of the Times of London an unknown band of
crackers/extortionists have seized control of one of the United Kingdoms Skynet 4 military
communication satellites. The individual(s) involved apparently altered the course of the
satellite from its previous geo-synchronous orbit. This incident occurred a little over
two weeks ago, and was apparently detected by NORAD and other space monitoring agencies.
http://www.antionline.com/
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