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Windows

Vista Activation Cracked by Brute Force 470

Bengt writes "The Inquirer has a story about a brute force Vista key activation crack. It's nothing fancy; it's described as a 'glorified guesser.' The danger of this approach is that sooner or later the key cracker will begin activating legitimate keys purchased by other consumers. From the article: 'The code is floating, the method is known, and there is nothing MS can do at this point other than suck it down and prepare for the problems this causes. To make matters worse, Microsoft will have to decide if it is worth it to allow people to take back legit keys that have been hijacked, or tell customers to go away, we have your money already, read your license agreement and get bent, we owe you nothing.'"
Supercomputing

Using Lasers to Speed Computer Data 85

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The start-up Lightfleet has developed an unusual way to use lasers to speed the flow of data inside a computer, hoping to break a bottleneck that can hamper machines using many microprocessors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company plans to sell servers it predicts will be much more efficient than existing systems in tackling tough computing problems. Tasks could include automatically recognizing a face in a video image or sifting through billions of financial transactions for signs of illegal activity. These machines will attempt to sidestep some of the problems associated with parallel computation by ensuring all processors are connected, all the time."
The Courts

Submission + - Louisiana city wins 2nd municipal fiber case

An anonymous reader writes: The (Lafayette, La.) Daily Advertiser reports that the Louisiana Supreme Court today unanimously ruled in favor of Lafayette Utilities System in its fiber to the home legal battle. The city passed a referendum in July 2005 62%-38% to approve bond sales to fund its city-operated utility service's plan to lay fiber-to-the-home throughout the city (population about 112,000). Cox and BellSouth previously delayed it with a suit that failed; this decision is against a resident sued about the use of bond to fund the endeavor. According to LUS, "bonds could be issued in 2-3 months.. Eighteen months after the bonds are issued, some LUS customers could be using fiber." LUS already has paid $3.5 million in legal fees to get to this point.
Announcements

Submission + - Superconducting heat spreader to obsolete CPU fans

vinsci writes: R&D company Novel Concepts, Inc. has announced its new IsoSkin heat spreader material that dissipates heat 20 times more effectively than copper, according to the company. The thin (down to 500 microns) IsoSkin spreaders could eventually be used to replace the outer "skin" of portable electronics, thereby eliminating the need for heat sinks and fans that cool notebooks and PCs, ExtremeTech reports.

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