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Computer Security, The Next 50 Years 234

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-don't-forget-physical-security dept.
bariswheel writes "Alan Cox, fellow at Red Hat Linux, gives a short-and-sweet talk at the European OSCON on the The Next 50 Years of Computer Security. Implementations of modularity, Trusted Computing hardware, 'separation of secrets,' and overcoming the challenge of users not reading dialog boxes, will be crucial milestones as we head on to the future. He states: "As security improves, we need to keep building things which are usable, which are turned on by default, which means understanding users is the target for the next 50 years. You don't buy a car with optional bumpers. You can have a steering wheel fitted if you like, but it comes with a spike by default." All of this has to be shipped in a way that doesn't stop the user from doing things."

802.11n Spec Still In The Air 119

Posted by Zonk from the title-not-intended-as-a-joke dept.
Vitaly Friedman writes "Standards for the hotly anticipated Wi-Fi successor haven't yet been agreed upon. Where's that leave all those early-bird products? 802.11n is a highly anticipated successor to today's Wi-Fi, promising a huge performance boost. The draft spec promises to deliver data rates up to 180 Mbps, which could make wired home networks unnecessary and should allow high-definition wireless video streaming. At issue is whether the draft spec is far enough along that companies can make products that will provide that performance but still be compatible with each other and with older Wi-Fi equipment."

Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again 482

Posted by Zonk from the redux-redux dept.
UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."

Developers React To 'Wii' 499

Posted by Zonk from the gnashing-of-teeth dept.
Gamasutra has reactions from game developers to the announcement of the Revolution's new commercial name, 'Wii'. From the article: "It doesn't change my personal opinions of the console in the slightest. It changes my opinion of the Nintendo marketing department considerably. Did they even bother to research this? Why do they do these things? What was wrong with 'Revolution'? It's bad enough that the Japanese have a drink called "Sweat," but at least they don't try to export it to the English-speaking world with that name. Am I supposed to be happy about having to go down to the game store to purchase the 'Nintendo Wee'? For God's sake, where was Miyamoto? I can't believe he would have let this get by. - Ernest Adams"

How IBM Out-foxed Intel With The Xbox 360 327

Posted by Hemos from the beat-them-to-the-punch dept.
xcaverx writes "Learning from failure is a hallmark of the technology business. Nick Baker, a 37-year-old system architect at Microsoft, knows that well. A British transplant at the software giant's Silicon Valley campus, he went from failed project to failed project in his career. He worked on such dogs as Apple Computer's defunct video card business, 3DO's failed game consoles, a chip startup that screwed up a deal with Nintendo, the never successful WebTV and Microsoft's canceled Ultimate TV satellite TV recorder. But Baker finally has a hot seller with the Xbox 360, Microsoft's video game console launched worldwide last holiday season."

Will OSX Build In Torrenting? 285

Posted by CmdrTaco from the imagine-that-itunes-catalog dept.
Cjattwood writes "Mac OS rumors has an article describing a possible implementation of a Bittorrent client into Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", including a unique sharing reward system where the user can share bandwidth and get rewards, such as credit in the iTunes store."

Microsoft's IE7 Search Box Bugs Google 803

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-wait-a-minute dept.
tessaiga writes "The New York Times reports that Google is crying foul over a new IE7 search box feature that defaults to MSN Search. Although the feature can be modified to use Google or other search engines, Google asserts that "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7." Google goes on to assert that the move "limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990s". I notice that in my version of Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available."

Apple Looking at ZFS For Mac OS X 261

Posted by Hemos from the only-the-shadow-knows dept.
Udo Schmitz writes "Apples Filesystem Development Manager, Chris Emura, is looking into porting Sun Microsystems' file system ZFS to OS X. At least this is what Sun's Eric Kustarz states on the ZFS mailing list. Is this a glimpse of hope for all those of us who think HFS+ isn't up to par for a 21st century OS? Next thing you know and they'll rewrite the Finder ..."

Videogame Remake of 1986's World Series Game 6 174

Posted by Zonk from the have-to-love-the-dedication dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Even non-baseball fans must concede that the re-creation of the bottom half of the 10th inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series, using the original broadcast audio and a replay with Nintendo's RBI Baseball, took enormous dedication. 'Something like the Keith Hernandez at-bat, where he flies out to center, took like 200 attempts,' Creator Conor Lastowka told WSJ.com. Though it wasn't quite as hard as it looks: 'Thanks to the emulator software, each time Mr. Hernandez's at-bat strayed from history's script, Mr. Lastowka was able to replay from the previous at-bat. Using a computer rather than an actual game console like a PlayStation allowed Mr. Lastowka to save his progress along the way. He built his precise Game-Six replica bit by bit -- not in one flawless, improbable take.' Before he made the viral video, Lastowka was jobless; three days after its release, he had a job with a classic-films company."
Security

Apache Now the Leader in SSL Servers? 160

Posted by Zonk from the moving-on-up dept.
miller60 writes "Apache has overtaken Microsoft as the leading developer of secure web servers, according to Netcraft's monthly SSL survey. Apache now runs on 44.0% of secure web sites, compared to 43.8% for Microsoft. Apache's recent gains are attributed to the inclusion of mod_ssl in version 2, and strong growth of SSL-enabled sites in non-US markets where Apache has stronger market share."

Nintendo Revolution Renamed 'Wii' 966

Posted by Zonk from the weeeeeeeeeeee dept.
Retroneous writes "The Nintendo Revolution has had its name changed to the Nintendo Wii." Confirmation on the official Revolution site. Update: 04/27 16:32 GMT by Z : More information available from a Gamasutra article: "New details on the disc format have also been revealed: 'Instead of a tray, a single, innovative, self-loading media bay will play both 12-centimeter optical discs used for the new system as well as Nintendo GameCube discs. Owners will have the option of equipping a small, self-contained attachment to play movies and other DVD content.'"

Perils of DNS at RIPE-52 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the don't-ping-me-there dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that " The RIPE meeting got off to a good start yesterday (for those of you outside Europe, RIPE is the European counterpart to ARIN). Emin Sirer from Cornell presented his study of DNS vulnerabilities. The results are staggering: the average name depends on four dozen nameservers, 30% of domains are vulnerable to domain hijacks by simple script kiddies, 85% of domains are vulnerable to hijacks by attackers that can DoS two hosts. The lesson: DNS must be managed by professionals, and the pros have to pay attention to the DNS delegation graph when they set up name servers."

IE The Great Microsoft Blunder? 643

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the not-a-shining-example-of-engineering dept.
JordanL writes "Hot on the heels of the beta rollouts of IE 7, comes an editorial from John Dvorak declaring IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made. From the article: 'All the work that has to go into keeping the browser afloat is time that could have been better spent on making Vista work as first advertised [...] If you were to put together a comprehensive profit-and-loss statement for IE, there would be a zero in the profits column and billions in the losses column--billions.'"

HyperTransport 3.0 Ratified 179

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the easy-to-upgrade-processor-dreams dept.
Hack Jandy writes "The HyperTransport consortium just released the 3.0 specification of HyperTransport. The new specification allows for external HyperTransport interconnects, basically meaning you might plug your next generation Opteron into the equivalent of a USB port at the back of your computer. Among other things, the new specification also includes hot swap, on-the-fly reconfigurable HT links and also a hefty increase in bandwidth."

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