News for Saturday June 1st 2002

Wow - it's been two months since I have updated the web site. Time flies so fast when you are working insanely long hours. If you are still stopping by on a regular basis I appreciate your patience.

I'm sitting on my sofa watching TV using my laptop on my new wireless LAN. I finally broke down and purchased a Linksys wireless router and I'm beginning to wonder what has taken me so long. I guess since we bought a second laptop today for my wife and she was very excited about the idea of sitting outside on deck surfing the web made the decision much easier.

Thanks for all news emails and please keep sending because eventually I will get around to posting news clips on Hitechbits.

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News for Friday March 29th 2002

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What does Folding@Home do? Folding@Home is a distributed computing project which studies protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. We use novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. This has allowed us to simulate folding for the first time, and to now direct our approach to examine folding related disease.

What are proteins and why do they "fold"? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they remarkably assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (CJD), ALS, and Parkinson's disease.

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Nanotubes self-assemble into circuit elements.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: EETimes Added by: Kim Heise

Here is a concept that leaves you wondering what the future holds. The possibilities are endless with nano-tehcnologies and systems that have the ability to physically replicate or modify their design depending on the requirements without much human intervention.

As an example we may one day launch satellites into orbit that posses the ability to repair themselves by producing spare parts when required.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Nanotubes measuring just 100 atoms in diameter have been created from designer molecules that were customized to self-assemble into angstrom-sized circuit elements, according to researchers at Purdue University.

Professor Hicham Fenniri's research group developed the nanotube "parent" molecules, which self-assemble in water first into tiny rings. The rings then snap together into long tubes. The outside of the seed molecules harbor "hooks" on which to hang other molecules, which functionalize the resulting nanotube for a specific electronic application.

Thus far, Fenniri has demonstrated two parent molecules: one that grows conventional wires, for electricity, and one for growing photonic devices that process light. Electronic components are next on his list.

"There are several electronic applications [for nanotubes], but there are synthesis issues about how to control the chemical properties," said Fenniri. By controlling the nanotubes' chemical synthesis, the researchers hope to tailor them for applications in electronics.

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Turning PDAs into chatterboxes.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

Several images spring to mind from many science fiction movies where personal translators became the essential tool for communication between various foreign languages.

In reality portable language translators appears to be closer than we expect.

Tech companies set on MPEG-4 box.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

I'm happy to note that several of the competiting multi-media streaming companies have reached an agreement that will eventually benefit the consumer.

Typically a single company may develop a very effective new technology but it would require a whole conglomeration of companies to release the new technology into the public.

Unfortunately no single company wants the competition to own the new technology so then the whole new invention/design is argued and haggled until it disappears into nowhere.

Seven companies including Pioneer and Sharp agreed this week to build a system that would bring MPEG-4 to cable set-top boxes.
Using the newly introduced compression format, which supporters say improves fourfold on the industry standard, the companies are developing an enhanced set-top box that combines the movie playback features of a DVD player and the interactivity of the Web.

The endeavor, called e-Box, is backed by National Semiconductor, Sigma Designs, CMC Magnetics, Modern VideoFilm, iVast, Pioneer and Sharp. No. 3 cable provider Comcast Cable agreed to collaborate on the technical specifications and will be the first to test the system when it's released early next year.

The cable industry has long sought to offer high-quality video-on-demand and interactive entertainment services. But the slow adoption of broadband as well as the expense and quality of content delivery have hampered the efforts.

By collaborating, the companies hope to overcome the technical hurdles that have undercut past efforts to build similar devices. For example, AT&T Broadband stopped development of an enhanced set-top box because of technical barriers of the project and exhaustive costs.

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Codeweaver runs Office without Windows OS.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: InfoWorld Added by: Kim Heise

The concept of allowing corporations to run several instances of Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes with out installing Windows on every workstation could prove to be a very fruitful enterprise for Codeweaver.

The problem is not the technology but being able to convince potential clients how well it works and to keep Microsoft at bay.

HOPING TO BREAK down one the biggest barriers to acceptance of Linux on the desktop, Codeweavers unveiled software that allows corporate users to run Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes without a Windows operating system.

The product, called CrossOver Office, eliminates the need for a Windows operating systems license as well as a Windows emulator which, traditionally, have tended to weigh down the speed and performance of desktop applications.

Typically, Linux users who want to run popular Windows-based applications needed to install a Windows emulator as well as licensing copies of Windows and the application they want to run. CrossOver Office allows users to go directly into Office applications or Notes, which helps speed deployment and eliminates the cost of an emulator, according to company officials.

"Making it simple to use Windows software on Linux helps knock down a big barrier to growth of the Linux desktop. This will help a lot of organizations choose the power, flexibility, and value of their Linux desktop," said Rick Lehrbaum, executive editor of DesktopLinux.com.

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Windows is not unlike any other operating system we use today in that it has several security flaws that could prove disastrous if not addressed sooner than later.

Overall I believe that Windows NT/2000/XP is more secure than the average consumer is led to believe because Microsoft is always in the cross-hair of every user just looking for every tiny flaw to become famous overnight. Thus - Microsoft makes every attempt to address major problems which I suspect will be the same in this case.

You will most likely not hear about major security flaws in Linux or Solaris on the 8'oclock news but you can be assured a major problem with Windows will be news head-lines.

A recently discovered security vulnerability in a software debugging component of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT and 2000 operating systems can allow an attacker to elevate their privileges on a system and take the system over, according to intrusion detection system vendor Entercept Security Technologies Inc. An exploit is already circulating among potential attackers, the company said.

Entercept is set to release details on the vulnerability later Thursday in an alert to its customers, security e-mail lists and the press. An initial posting about the issue was made to the Bugtraq security list on March 14th.

The vulnerability relates to the way Windows NT and 2000 handle debug processes, according to Robin Matlock, senior vice president of marketing and services at Entercept. Normally, when a user initiates a debug session, that session is handed off to a software gateway that determines whether the request has the proper permission to be passed on to another software component, the Session Manager, she said. If the request is passed on, it is then executed in privileged mode, she said.

The security flaw, however, allows any program to initiate a debugging session and bypass the gateway step, thereby operating in privileged mode even if the user does not have that access, she said. This could allow an attacker to read, modify and delete files, she said.

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New Pentium 4 2.4GHZ CPU shipping soon.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: Internet News Added by: Kim Heise

The actual speed step for Intel from 2.2ghz to 2.4ghz is not much to become exited over - it's the reduction of the chip size that is more interesting.

Smaller CPU's are typically cheaper to produce (less material), produce less heat and can therefore clock at higher speeds.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant confirmed Friday that it is gearing up to release its latest Pentium 4 chip. This one will run at a blazing speed of 2.4 gigahertz, which is 9 percent faster than the current 2.2 GHz model.

The company says the 2.4 GHz chip will retail for $560 if you are buying more than one thousand - the same price as the 2.2 GHz chip - but the difference is that the new chip will eventually be made for 300-millimeter silicon wafers. The processing technology will measure at 0.13 microns, which Intel says is a faster and cheaper way to make the chips.

Intel has been on a tear since this time last year. The company said it is shipping at least 10 percent more products than before. And the future doesn't seem to be letting up.

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"Ghost" haunting Windows XP computers unmasked.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: New Scientist Added by: Kim Heise

This article over at New Scientist made me laugh...You had better be careful the next time you curse at your computer. Odd results may ensue.....

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Animation software to be available to all.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: Yahoo News! Added by: Kim Heise

Desktop animation used to have two major drawbacks for the average consumer:

a) The first is that it requires massive computing power to produce high quality animations.

b) The software required to produce impressive computer animations are typically very pricey and not easy to use.

Today you can strike both off the list because computing power is more than practical enough for high quality computer animations and the computer animation software have dropped in price significantly. Last but not least - computer animation programs are much easier to use than ever.

The only requirement left: A healthy imagination.

Fans of animation and effects-packed films such as Shrek and Lord of the Rings will soon be seeing an explosion in groundbreaking special effects, thanks to wider availability of the software used to create them.

Industry giant Alias/Wavefront already has a free streamlined version of its Maya 3-D graphics software available for download from its Web site. A $5 CD version is due next week.

Today, the company will announce drastic price cuts on its professional versions, Maya Complete ($1,999) and Maya Unlimited ($6,999). That's far below their former prices of $7,500 and $16,000 -- sums that might not faze Industrial Light & Magic or DreamWorks but exclude small-time developers.

''Anybody who wants to do anything professional in 3-D now will be able to afford the tools that the top innovators use,'' says company president Doug Walker.

Maya Complete lets users build, animate and add voices to 3-D characters and create 3-D objects and environments for movies and games. Maya Unlimited has premium features for creating realistic cloth and fur. The free version offers tutorials and the same capabilities as Maya Complete, but adds a watermark so that saved output cannot be used professionally. Still, students and budding animators can tinker with the technology used in films such as Ice Age, Monsters, Inc., Harry Potter (news - web sites) and the Sorcerer's Stone and Titanic.

Part of the Maya strategy is to get dabblers to graduate to more powerful -- and more expensive -- programs. ''Going after the consumer market seems to be the Holy Grail for 3-D content-creation apps just now,'' says Daniel R. Huebner, editor of game development Web site Gamasutra.com.

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Iomega Releases NAS Servers.
Posted: 03/29/2002  Source: WinInformat Added by: Kim Heise

Finally Iomega has made a smart business decision. Why would any body purchase a ZIP drive for $120 with 100MB cartridges that cost you an arm and a leg when you can install a CD-ROM burner for $60 with $ 0.40 650MB blank disks?

The use of NAS (network attached storage) file servers have significant potential for all sorts of uses from emergency backups to portable storage between networks without requiring a dedicated computer. While the NAS enable storage devices do not run for pennies at this time - given the time it will become affordable.

How about a wireless NAS storage device?

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