Dick Tracy comparisons are inevitable. And there's nothing wrong with that. Until — and if — NTT Do Como ever makes its Seiko Wristomo phone for the United States, your best chance of imitating the square-jawed cartoon cop is to get yourself a WristLinx 2-Way Wristwatch Communicator by XACT Communications Two-way radios are drawing a lot interest these days. They're not just kids' toys. They are becoming a cell-phone alternative for certain private uses, from keeping the family togeth...
After six years of service, Microsoft is officially retiring its NetMeeting conferencing software. Instead, the company's Office Live Meeting software, based upon PlaceWare, will fill the void left by the gradual phase out of NetMeeting. Currently, both MSN and Windows Messenger utilize NetMeeting technology to power application and whiteboard sharing. Development is indefinitely frozen, however, and Microsoft's IM clients will be migrated to drive Live Meeting services. A Microsoft spokes...
Many customers do not or cannot roll out security updates as soon as they become available, but still need to be protected against the risks that they mitigate. Each security bulletin that Microsoft delivers includes information that customers can use to help mitigate risk while they deploy the update. However, Microsoft is delivering other security technologies that provide additional mitigation when a security update cannot be deployed immediately. These security technologies cover the followi...
For computer security experts, 2003 started with the Slammer Internet worm and went downhill from there. The year, which included four major worm and virus outbreaks in August alone, has been labeled the "year of the worm" and "the worst year ever" by more than one computer security expert. All that activity meant good news for antivirus software companies such as Symantec. It was bad news for organizations of all kinds, which expended precious resources disinfecting everything from desktop ...
During his keynote address at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Bill Gates shed light on Microsoft's "seamless computing" vision. Windows Media Center Extender Technology will spark the evolution of Media Center Edition PCs into entertainment workhorses that broadcast digital media throughout the entire home. Gates also exploited the CES spotlight to announce Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) - wired gadgets that utilize Microsoft’s MSN services. R...
You've got: an advisory from the U.S. government. The newly ordained Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked its National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) to roll out the National Cyber Alert System. The system is intended to provide timely and actionable information to Americans with the explicit purpose of assisting the public in securing their computers and minimizing emerging threats. Threats are aggregated, analyzed, and graded by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (...
It wasn't a banner year for new Microsoft product releases. But Microsoft did get more 'transparent' in 2004. Microsoft watchers won't hail 2004 as a banner year for new products from Microsoft. But the year was memorable for another reason. In 2004, Microsoft was far more open about its product-release foibles than ever before. Microsoft's increasing "transparency," as company execs like tend to label its new-found openness, isn't due to a sudden desire to make amends for past c...
Although the next version of Windows is still about two years from release, Microsoft on Friday offered developers an early look at the new graphics engine that will accompany it. Avalon was originally envisioned as a core feature of Longhorn, the next version of Windows. It will still be a part of that operating system, but it will also be made available as an add-on for users of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The main purpose of the new technology preview is to test Micr...
A half built Supercomputer being built for the US Government by IBM, already has a run at the title of the Worlds Fastest even though it is only partially complete. The US energy secretary said on Thursday that the Supercomputer was able to process 70.72 teraflops per second. This is two times faster then the computer that currently holds the title of the Worlds Fastest Super computer. BlueGene/L as its called is being developed for the US department of energy's National Nuclear Security A...
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday formally announced a low-cost Internet device targeted at emerging markets. AMD's Personal Internet Communicator is designed to provide Net connectivity and Windows-based computing for consumers in emerging economies. It features functions such as browser, e-mail, word processing and the ability to view images and multimedia files. It is a sealed device, operates without a fan and can only be upgraded by the service provider, reducing the risk of...
On April 9, 2003, Microsoft officially announced that it would support AMD's then-upcoming 64-bit Opteron and Athlon 64 microprocessors with 64-bit native versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The news must have sent shivers down the spines of executives at Microsoft partner Intel, whose 64-bit Itanium product line has languished because of slow performance and incompatibilities with today's existing 32-bit software. For AMD, of course, it was--and still is--a major victory. No...
The good old days of home electronics weren't so good for the Analog family. Those were the days when each room of their home and each of their electronic devices was an independent island in a vast electronic archipelago. Those were the days when there were few choices if they tried to bridge these islands or take their music, videos and pictures on the go. When they could only watch DVDs or listen to their music collection in one room of the house. When downloading music was equally co...
As the hubbub of alternative Web browsers keeps growing—from speculation over a so-called "Gbrowser" from search-engine leader Google Inc. to the many advances in the open-source Mozilla project—in the background, America Online Inc. has been quietly testing its own Web browser, dubbed "AOL Browser," for more than a month. Departing from its past embedded strategy, the company has made the forthcoming AOL Browser a stand-alone piece of software and it will not need the America Online client ...
Honeypots are a relatively new and highly dynamic technology. Because they are so dynamic, it is difficult to define just what they are. Honeypots are unique in that they are not a solution in and of themselves; they do not solve a specific security problem. Instead, they are highly flexible tools with many different information security applications. This contrasts with such technologies as firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDSs), which are easier to define and understand as they s...
New computer code that exploits a recently disclosed hole in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser is circulating on the Internet and could allow remote attackers to take full control of vulnerable Windows machines, according to warnings from antivirus companies and Internet security experts. Two new "proof of concept" exploit programs first appeared Wednesday, and were posted to Web sites and Internet news groups frequented by security experts. The new code is more dangerous than ...