“Tom’s Hardware is running an article about Extreme Data Rate memory (XDR DRAM for short), which was developed by Rambus and now entered mass production in Samsung’s fabs. Right now, Rambus says the memory is only for high-bandwidth multimedia applications such as Sony’s Cell processor, but the company ultimately hopes to push XDR into PCs and graphics cards by 2006. Time will tell if Rambus has learned from the mistakes it made with RDRAM a few years ago.” Slashdot [ article ] Well i’m really angry that Rambus failed the first time because I was unlucky enough...

Antivirus companies are researching reports that computer viruses have attacked the onboard computers of cars. Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs was asked last weekend how to disinfect the onboard computers of several Lexus models: LX470, LS430 and Landcruiser 100. The security company was told that the infection likely occurred via a mobile phone. Some mobile-phone viruses already exist, such as Cabir and Skulls, which spread by Bluetooth and infect handsets based on the Symbian operating system. Many Lexus cars include a navigation system that can connect to a mobile phone over Bluetooth to allow hands-free...

The Chinese government on Wednesday issued a list of 50 banned video and computer games, according to government news agency Xinhua. The list is roughly split between pirated games and games banned based on content. Pirated games cited by the news agency included “The Sims 2,” the top-selling PC game in North America last year, and soccer game “FIFA 2005.” The remainder of the games were termed by Xinhua “illegally distributed foreign games,” presumably for content. The list includes several games based on the Vietnam War, including “Conflict Vietnam”...

Google has released its ‘Google video beta’ search engine which allows you to search for any recent video or tv show. The results will come as 5 stills taken from the program, as well as the transcribed dialogue from the scene. I think this is currently only applicable to shows from the U.S. but thats not such a problem as many of the shows around the world are U.S. based. Google Video Search Beta

The Windows Genuine Advantage scheme means people will have to prove their software is genuine from mid-2005. It will still allow those with unauthorised copies to get some crucial security fixes via automatic updates, but their options would be “limited”. Microsoft releases regular security updates to its software to protect PCs. Either PCs detect updates automatically or users manually download fixes through Microsoft’s site. Those running pirated Windows programs would not have access to other downloads and “add-ons” that the software giant offers. Increased risk? People...

By R. Douglas Fields In the movie thriller Memento, the principal character, Leonard, can remember everything that happened before his head injury on the night his wife was attacked, but anyone he meets or anything he has done since that fateful night simply vanishes. He has lost the ability to convert short-term memory into long-term memory. Leonard is driven to find his wife’s killer and avenge her death, but trapped permanently in the present, he must resort to tattooing the clues of his investigation all over his body. That disturbing story was inspired by the real case history of a patient...

I got a letter the other day from AOL postmaster Carl Hutzler, about how the Internet community could get rid of spam, if it really wanted to. With his permission, here are some excerpts. “Spam is a completely solvable problem. And it does not take finding every Richter, Jaynes, Bridger, etc to do it (although it certainly is part of the solution). In fact it does not take email identity technologies either (although these are certainly needed and part of the solution). The solution is getting messaging providers to take responsibility for their lame email systems that they set up without...

According to hot sauces By Fuad Abazovic: Monday 24 January 2005, 09:05 SOURCES CLAIMED Microsoft is planning to introduce its 64 bit operating system for Intel and AMD processors (iAMD64) on the 29th of April. The sources are close to Microsoft. It appears there will be a release to manufacturing version of WinXP 64 in March. That’s the stage before the CDs get stamped out and the boxes get printed. Quite coincidentally, Intel will finally be ready with its full line of 64 bit capable CPUs, including Celeron 64s, close to that date. This, of course, is entirely coincidental and is just...