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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Parents say kids stay online too long

One in five American parents believe their kids are spending too much time on the Internet these days. 21% of adult Internet users with children believe the kids are online too long, compared with 11% in 2000.

47% of the adults say they have withheld Internet use as a form of punishment. Since 2000, researchers have seen Internet use grow to 78 percent, from 67 percent. Access at home increased to 68 percent, from 47 percent.

The study found nearly a quarter of online users,especially newcomers to the Internet say they spend less time reading.

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Security bug in Firefox 2.0

Attackers have found a new method of extracting information from users. So far it has been mostly affecting MySpace users. Its done by tricking the user's browser to send information to the attacker first and then its passed on to the actual server (such as MySpace) where it needs to go.

Firefox's Password Manager does not perform a thorough check before it decides to send across the password information. It also does not check whether it is sending the information to the same server that requested it.

Mozilla hopes to come out with a solution to the problem with the release of Firefox version 2.0.0.1 or 2.0.0.2.

As for now, the remedy is to disable the Save Passwords feature in your browser.
In Firefox go to Tools, Options then Security. Once there uncheck the box which says Remember Passwords for Sites.

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Monday, November 20, 2006

Second Life virtual world gets attacked by worm

Virtual world Second Life had to close down for a short time on Sunday after it was attacked by a worm called Grey Goo.

The self replicating worm planted spinning gold rings around the virtual world, which is inhabited by over a million users. As users interacted with the rings they replicated, it resulted in a slowdown on the servers.

Users complain that the virtual world becomes unusable once 15,000 people are logged on simultaneously (a fraction of the overall residents).

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Saturday, November 18, 2006

Sprint to offer Microsoft Live Search on cellphones

Sprint plans to offer Windows Live Search on their cellphones to search location-based content from the Internet.

Sprint and Microsoft will share the revenue from advertisements placed alongside Windows Live search results and the two companies will work together to introduce new mobile phones services in the future.

The two companies say that future initiatives in the alliance will explore leveraging new Microsoft technologies in the development of a differentiated portfolio of rich and seamless information experiences for Sprint customers.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Courts fight back at spyware pusher

A federal court has shut down a Nevada company called ERG Ventures LLC. The Federal Trade Commission accused ERG with spreading spyware and adware on the Internet using the Media Motor program. Microsoft has also filed a lawsuit charging that a number of ERG Venture's affiliates used screensavers and other software to infect users PCs.

The malware installed by Media Motor changes browser home pages and adds toolbars that generate popup ads.

They didn't tell users about the numerous hidden programs that would be installed with the screen savers, and provided only an illusory option to stop installation.

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Sunday, November 12, 2006

Hot new Nvidia graphics card

Nvidia unveiled a new computer graphics processor with more than double the power of its predecessor. The new microchip, called the GeForce 8800, has a retail price of $599 for the high end version.

Nvidia also said that for the first time it is releasing a set of software tools that will let programmers tap the chip to handle non graphics related tasks such as crunching data. which they hope to boost the appeal of its chips for non gaming uses that need to crunch huge amounts of data.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Dell delivers quad core processors

Dell is selling its servers and workstations with Intel\'s new Quad-Core Xeon processors on board. The servers will arrive first and the workstations will appear soon after.

There are two processor versions available, the 1.6 GHz and the 1.8 GHz with faster models coming out next year. Dell claimes the new server options offer up to 1.6 times the performance of equivalent dual core systems.

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Dell goes with AMD for desktop processors

Dell plans to launch a desktop for its business customers that is powered by an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processor.

Dell's OptiPlex 740 will offer users the choice of an Athlon 64 or Athlon 64 X2 AMD processor, which replaces the Intel Pentium used in the last generation computers. The new PC is expected to be Vista Capable as well.

AMD has had growing success in the server market to compete with Intel in recent months and hopes this will even the score.

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Google Gmail on your mobile device

Google has released an enhanced and downloadable version of Gmail for Mobile Devices. It is a free Java based application that allows users to access their Gmail from a mobile phone or PDA.

The interface looks like the web based Gmail, but the features that are optimized for handheld devices. It offers improved access times and ease of use due to technology that automatically pre-fetches e-mail messages.

Gmail is available only in the US at the moment, and is compatible with more than 300 cell phones. Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and Cingular will carry the service

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Sony lightens up the notebook

Sony is going to be selling the world's lightest notebook computer in December in Japan, in a bid to boost its presence among business users.

Weighing 1.9 pounds, Sony,s type G Vaio computer will be the lightest laptop PC, and comes with a 12.1-inch LCD screen and will cost around $1,881.

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