MojoKid writes "Dual Graphics in Notebooks have been in development for a long time now but very few Notebook vendors have actually brought products to market. Recently, NVIDIA's launch of the GeForce 7900 series enabled manufacturers like Alienware the ability to configure Dual GPU SLI systems in a Notebook form factor. HotHardware has a world's first look at the Alienware m9700 Aurora, that comes equipped with a pair of GeForce 7900 MXM modules in a Desktop Replacement form factor. With a 2.4GHz AMD Turion64 processor, SLI and a 17" panel, this machine has more horsepower and features than many high end Desktop setups."

Billosaur writes "BBC News is reporting that the password to the dreaded Archiveus virus has been discovered and is now available to anyone who needs it. Archiveus is a 'ransomware' virus, which combines files from the My Documents folder on Windows machines and exchanges them for a single, password-protected file, which it will not unlock unless a password is given. The user would normally be required to pay the extortionist money in order to receive the password, but apparently the virus writer made one small, critical error in coding: placing the password in the code. BTW, the 30-digit password locking the files is mf2lro8sw03ufvnsq034jfowr18f3cszc20vmw."

kukyfrope writes "In a recent interview on U.K. site Kikizo Peter Moore, Microsoft's head of the Interactive Entertainment business, claims that Microsoft has 'under promised and over delivered' Xbox game compatibility on the Xbox 360. He states that gamers are now looking more towards next-gen titles, forgetting about the majority of Xbox titles." From the article: "Moore's comments shouldn't be misunderstood. MS will be adding to its backwards compatibility list, but it hardly seems like a priority now that the 360 is hitting its stride and the original Xbox is getting less and less support."

An anonymous reader writes "The music recommendation/music discovery space seems to be heating up this year. Two big recent features on music recommendation engines: ExtremeTech has a round-up and reviews of eight leading services. Of the eight, Last.fm emerges as the winner: "Last.fm is by far the best out there, possessing a huge library of music, a great community, and a recommendation feature that will blow you away." Meanwhile, Pitchforkmedia.com just ran an in-depth feature about the hows and whys of music recommendation software, that tells the story going back to the '90s, and interviews people at Last.fm, Pandora, MusicIP, and the startup Echo Nest: '"Our hope is to answer every possible question about music that ever existed. If we can pull that off, then I think we're doing very well," says [Brian] Whitman.'"

feminazi writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie details 20 things you won't like in Windows Vista, with a visual tour to prove it. He says that MS has favored security over end-user productivity, making the user feel like a rat caught in a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes required by the User Account Controls feature." From the article: "In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake."

140Mandak262Jamuna writes "The BBC reports on findings that the arctic/polar region was tropical some 55 Million years ago." From the article: "Although the data tells us how the world changed from one with green house conditions to one with ice house conditions millions of years ago, it may also help scientists to predict what will result from the present changes in climate. Appy Sluijs points out that the data reveals that some of the climate models used to detail the Arctic's history got things wrong, and as they are the same models that predict our future climate they may need adjusting. " The reader pointed out that this may have had as much to do with continental drift as it did climate change.

prostoalex writes "Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Video last night, allowing users to upload, share and tag their videos. For Windows users the player uses the standard Yahoo! Player, while Mac and Linux users get video encoded in Flash. Yahoo! joins a highly competitive field of video services currently led by MSN Video, YouTube and Google Video. The Associated Press reports on the Yahoo! Video launch as well."

Gamespot reports that the Jack Thompson-penned anti-games bill currently being considered by the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee has been approved, and will now go to the full Senate for debate. From the article: "According to the text of the bill, it would be illegal to sell, rent, or lease a game to a minor if it met the following three conditions: (1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence. (2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors. (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

Sam Haine '95 writes "News.com is reporting on the creation of Stardust, a virus which uses macros to attack StarOffice, Sun's office suite. The malware was written as a proof-of-concept code to show what might be possible rather than as a serious attempt to create a new attack vector." From the article: "The pest is written in Star Basic. It downloads an image file with adult content from the Internet and opens that file in a new document, according to Kaspersky's posting."

conq writes "BusinessWeek reports on the latest developments in the Rambus/Micron saga over pricefixing." From the article: "One e-mail, dated June 5, 2001, from Micron Vice-President Linda Turner to other Micron employees was in response to worries about prices on DDR-DRAM that had been falling. 'No problem!,' Turner wrote. 'We want DDR to explode in the marketplace so have actually been requesting Infineon, Samsung, and Hynix to lower their DDR pricing to help it become a standard (and drive Rambus away completely).'"

Next Generation reports on a controversial new game rating system recently rolled out in Japan. From the article: "The Z mark, which designates the most violent games, was the blocking issue for months while the new rating was in preparation. Game makers were hesitant to submit their new titles to the CESA rating check because they did not want to be the first to get this Z mark. Many titles were held back, including EA's The Godfather. Some shops have even declared they don't want to have Z rated titles on their shelves. On May 25, the CESA made its own list of Z rated titles already released on the market."

Robert writes "Steve Ballmer told investors recently that Microsoft's biggest challenge is embracing software-as-a-service business models, as embodied by rival Google Inc. Investing in software as a service and advertising-supported businesses is a challenge like that which the company faced at the dawn of the open-source movement. To paraphrase him heavily, the takeaway was: Yes, we're investing a lot, but it's riskier, long-term, not to do so. We have a lot of cool stuff coming up and, yes, we are also playing catch-up on a couple of fronts. His speech came a month after Microsoft revealed that its R&D budget for fiscal 2007, which ends mid-2007, would rise to $6.2bn." From the article: "We've got to make this transition, which our industry is making, from software as a product to software as a service ... If you want to be a leading software company, you've got to be a leading software-as-a-service company."

Jeremy Parish, over at 1up, has single-handedly taken up the banner of the classic game. Today, he talks about Castlevania and other classic vampire killers. From the article: "There was recently a rather lively debate on my personal blog about how silly the whole franchise has become, considering it started off as little more than a loving tribute to classic monster movies and has somehow mutated into a rather straight-faced effort by silver-haired pretty boys to battle vampires. It's like a horrible Ann Rice/DeviantArt mash-up, based around a not-quite-menacing villain whose job is basically to serve as a MacGuffin for exploring twisty castle corridors and has occasionally been depicted as a dude in a badly-designed tuxedo."

mmAPP writes "CoolTechZone.com has an article up that pleads with Apple to focus on its quality assurance before releasing new products. From the article: 'If anything, I think Apple should do a better job at quality assurance than Dell, HP or other OEMs that deal with more units than Apple. The benefit of being a considerably small company (in comparison to other OEMs) is to focus on delivering quality products. There's no denying that Apple is perhaps one of the most innovative companies when it comes to consumer electronics, but ignoring quality as a result is not something it needs to ignore.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Wired is running an article with some great investigative journalism. Writer Thomas Green snuck into the ISS World Conference, a trade show featuring communications-tapping equipment and normally a press-free event. There, he got some very interesting quotes from the attendees." From the article: "You really need to educate yourself ... Do you think this stuff doesn't happen in the West? Let me tell you something. I sell this equipment all over the world, especially in the Middle East. I deal with buyers from Qatar, and I get more concern about proper legal procedure from them than I get in the USA."