Category: TechNews Bytes

The hybrid vehicle has moved out of the arena of the funky looking automobile that no one would ever want to drive, and several car companies, including Toyota and Ford, have decided it’s time to drop hybrid engines into normal cars and sell them to anyone and everyone who either cares about the environment, cares about their wallets (see: those steep and still rising gasoline prices), or cares about technology; and in this day and age, buying a hybrid car can get you everything from a tax break in most local jurisdictions (as well as on your federal income taxes) and a pat on the back from Homeland Security; you are helping reduce our national dependance on foriegn oil, you know.

But beyond that, let’s take a look into a company that’s looking for change the way we drive; to eliminate the myths around the real benefits and drawbacks of hybrid automobiles, and take some bold steps towards the next automobile revolution.

Toyota is lookingto make the combustion engine obsolete. And good riddance too. The Prius model was so warmly embraced by auto-buyers worldwide that Toyota dealers couldn’t keep them in stock, and Toyota couldn’t manage to produce enough of them. This year, they say, the 2005 model is going to floor us all, and there’ll be enough to go around. Enough to kickstart that revolution. Why? Wired News has the scoop.

[ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/hybrid.html ]

This in-depth article examines how now that lawsuits are being filed against song swappers and sharers on peer-to-peer networks and the legal hammer is coming down on those networks (who are meanwhile, struggling to stay alive in their own right, both by spending money on their technologies as well as their legal fees), most song swappers and would-be downloaders are looking for new and innovative methods of downloading their favorite tunes for free on the internet.

Some herald back to a simpler time, pre-Napster, if you will, where ftp servers and IM file transfers reigned supreme, and others are upping the ante by using portable music devices like Apple’s iPod to trade music. The problem here though is that the legal battle between the music industry and peer-to-peer file sharing networks is still raging, and should the gavel come down on the side of the music industry, everyone may be at risk-even companies like AOL and Microsoft, who furnish instant messaging software that allows for file transfers.

Sound farfetched? I can see this-even though peer-to-peer networks have perfectly legal uses and in themselves are not illegal, the music industry claims that the only reason anyone uses those services is to trade in illegal files; what’s to stop them from making similar arguments (they don’t even have to say the only reason people use IM networks is to trade files, just that the use of IM networks to trade files is damaging to them) about instant messaging? Or perhaps FTP? Or maybe even portable music players? We may eventually see IM clients come out with built-in protection to keep users from transferring music or movies. Who knows.

Regardless, PCWorld has the scoop, read all about it:

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120178,tk,dn032505X,00.asp ]

A few months ago, if you weren’t paying attention, Apple filed suit against several websites that posted leaked information about Apple’s coming-soon revision to the Mac OS X line, Mac OS 10.4, “Tiger.” Apple won the rights to have the names of those sites’ sources turned over to them, so Apple could root out the internal mole who was leaking said information to the outside world. Now trust me, I know how fanatical Apple fans can be (I’m one of them) but I also know how fanatical Apple is about keeping it’s secret information very very secret. So Steve Jobs didn’t take this lightly.

Looks like there were additional lawsuits against each of the developers accused of leaking information, and one of them has fessed up to the crime, settled with Apple for some undisclosed monetary amount, and has made some quite amusing public statements apologizing for everything he’s done and for the damage he may have caused Apple, even though he admits to not wanting to hurt anyone in the process. Read all about it:

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120171,tk,dn032505X,00.asp ]

Ah, rootkits. They’ve been around for a good long while, but recently they’ve been getting more and more publicity and credibility as methods to effectively target and breach the security on everyone from individual to corporate networks, make their way into individual PCs, and gain complete control over systems and steal all manner of information. Rootkits are tools originally developed to be lightwieght and stealthy remote access applications, allowing an individual on one side of the world to control another computer with little to no intrusion to the end system.

But as with most tools like this, they’re being used in the wrong hands with the wrong intentions, and crackers and black-hat hackers around the world are using easily available rootkits to infect systems, steal information and identities, and install malware that’ll do everything from host illegal files and share them to relay spam. Now, it seems various security companies are sitting up and taking notice; a whole array of security firms are working to develop software and tools that will detect and remove rootkits from infected systems.

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120067,tk,dn031605X,00.asp ]

Looks like the Mozilla Foundation has finally decided to give up development efforts on the Mozilla suite of software, which was initially designed to be a lean, mean, and still fully featured take on Netscape Communicator, in favor of sleeker stand-alone applications like Firefox and Thunderbird. I have to admit, I was a Mozilla early adopter back in the pre-Firefox days, and used it for email as well as web surfing. It was the natural progression of a fast and sleek yet comprehensive browser/email suite from the old Netscape 4.x days, and I thought it was exactly what the web needed. The vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express were already well documented, and I wanted to steer clear of them both. The newer Netscapes, 6.x and 7.1 were both memory-leaking, bloated footprint, poorly coded pieces of trash, and I wanted to steer clear of them as well. Mozilla was the perfect answer.

I’m unhappy at the decision by the Mozilla Foundation, but it was only a matter of time. Their energies and efforts are better spent focused on Firefox and Thunderbird as standalone web and email applications, which compliment each other but don’t need to come together, and thus easier compete with Internet Explorer and Outlook Express as other stand-alone applications. Regardless, Mozilla has been ebraced by much of the user community, and many organizations (including mine) have been touting it as the best thing since Netscape, and superior to Internet Explorer. Guess it’s time to start moving those people to Firefox, eh? I figure that’s exactly what the Mozilla Foundation wants. Read the full announcement:

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120012,tk,dn031105X,00.asp ]

Now let’s see what happens to Camino…

Well well, look who’s trying to get back into the browser game:
[ http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/15/technology/microsoft_browser.reut/index.htm ]

Apparently MS decided it’s time to ditch the service packs and patches and stop riding their popularity and come up with an entirely new browser to address the massive security issues in the current iteration of Internet Explorer.

While it looks like Bill Gates committed to the release of IE 7, he didn’t give much indication on when it would be, or whether or not the featureset would be comparable to other broswers like Firefox and Opera, one reason why
people are switching so quickly to them. Microsoft has claimed that they’re switching focus and energy to security, and even that’s debatable. But security isn’t everything, now let’s see if Microsoft has it’s eye on usability and attractiveness as well.

Symantec, most popularly known for their Norton line of products (including Norton Systemworks, Norton Utilities, Norton Disk Doctor, Norton Antivirus, and Norton Internet Security, to name a few) is under the microscope due to a massive exploit in over 30 of their software packages (most importantly, the Norton line) that could allow a malicious hacker to inject malware or malicious code on their systems using the oh-so-popular buffer overflow.

To my knowledge, Symantec has already issued a patch to deal with the issues, and they should be available from Symantec directly, even though they have no information on the issue on the front page of their website.

Read all about it:
[ http://news.com.com/Symantec+flaw+leaves+opening+for+viruses/2100-1002_3-5569811.html ]

and more information, including a link with details on obtaining the critical update needed to fix the exploit, is here:
[ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/symantec_uberbug/ ]

Or, if you’re not the mathematics type, the merger of these two former bell babies is worth about $16 billion and will create the biggest telecommunications company in the United States; a merger remniscent of when HP and Compaq got together to stare down Dell, which was larger than each of them but not at all as big as their powers combined. Well, looks like SBC and AT&T have teamed up to take on Verizon in the telecommunications ring.

It’s kind of a bittersweet ending for AT&T, which has been around for 125 years, and virtually an object in telecommunications since the invention of the telephone, a company whose name and brand are instantly recognizable regardless of where you are in the world. We’ll see where things go from here. More info:

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119506,tk,dn013105X,00.asp ]

PCWorld’s columnist, Anush Yegyazarian, brings us an insightful look at the give and take involving cities and municipalities that are trying to establish free, city-wide wi-fi internet access and the telecomm companies and business groups on the other side of the argument that, fearing for their lives in the face of free government wi-fi, are pushing back at cities whose goal is to bring internet access to all of their citizens.

More and more the concept of wireless broadband internet access is looking easier and easier to impliment than a national fiber infrastructure, (although we should definitely go that direction as well) and cities and counties are looking at setting up regional wifi networks as a way to provide consistent and blanketing internet access to communities, schools, and provide subnets for emergency agencies like police and fire departments. But the business sector has their objections, and like big business does, they have an influence on state governments, and they’re trying to block the progress of such moves.

Yegyazarian gives us an in-depth look at the entire debate, and calls it like she sees it; business needs to relax a bit, realize this is no real challenge, and let the information flow like water to the schools and homes of our nation’s cities; only good can come of this-and personally, I agree with her.

[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118733,00.asp ]

A beautiful (albeit long) article in the New York Times about blogging and it’s effect on dating, relationships, social networks, and the lives of bloggers came to the rescue of this morning’s doldrums of reading about politics. The piece follows the cause and effect of blogging about relationships, how blogging has impacted several peoples’ lives. Additionally, you get a little history about blogging, what it is and how to get involved, and why blogging is so popular.

I remember I started my first “blog” back in 1997; when I was in college and realized that I got free webspace and stayed up a couple of nights learning HTML and building what at the time was just a “personal homepage,” as people called it back then-the word “blog” didn’t exist. I just wrote on and off about what happened on a day by day basis, it was like an online diary for all who knew the address to see, and it was a cool way for people who knew you to stay in touch regardless of where they were, as long as they had an internet connection. Who knew that something that was such a leisurely pastime would grow into a digital phenomenon?

Anyway, the article discusses with prominent and popular bloggers the pros and cons of blogging about relationships and dating, not to mention address the privacy concerns of blogging what some people think is private information that somehow and suddenly becomes public on the web for all to read and interpret as they wish. Definitely a worthwhile read.

[ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/magazine/19PHENOM.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=19c4ac95468e0a22&ex=1104296400 ]

Many people have been sounding the death toll for the PDA for years now, claiming that they’ll be soon replaced by more versatile devices like smartphones and Blackberries that can stay online all the time, allow users to snag their email wirelessly, browse the web from anywhere using a cellular network, and talk on the phone when they see fit, but also stay used to the perks people on the go love about PDAs, calendars, contact keeping, a few games, and the like.

Personally, I love my Palm Tungsten T3 and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially not a smartphone, mostly because I have yet to see a smartphone that can perform the functions a PDA can as well as the functions a cellphone can and produce the web browsing capabilities that I crave WELL; sure smartphones can do them all, but they tend to do them all pretty poorly, and I think that’s the reason the PDA is hanging on, albeit by a thread. Until the technology takes a few more steps forward, I’ll consider adding a wireless card to my PDA and keeping my cellphone a separate device, but admittedly I might be in the minority, as more and more people look to carry one device that does everything they could possibly want in a palmtop system.

[ http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20041223_155104.html ]

If you got a shiny new desktop or laptop this holiday season, you might want to make sure it’s patched up and ready before you send it out onto the net; looks like the predators are right there waiting for your brand new, unpatched and unprepared PC to come online so they can attack it, even if your first destination is Windows Update to try and grab those necessary patches to make sure you’re safe and secure online. It’s a tough situation, but it’s the reality of the cyber world in which we live. Unfortunately I have yet to really see solid reccomendations for people with new computers to make sure they’re safe and secure before they go online; not everyone is an IT professional and makes a point to grab all the recent patches and security fixes and slap them on a CD to install offline before going online to get everything else.

Regardless, being aware and being informed is the first step to being safe, so read on:

[ http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cp_tech_home&articleID=1802184 ]