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Data Storage

Build Your Own SATA Hard Drive Switch 131

Posted by timothy from the there-can-be-only-one dept.
Mikey Win writes "ExtremeTech shows us a cool hardware hack that allows multiple operating system to boot without dealing with any tedious BIOS setup changes. How? By building your own SATA hard drive switch. The result? You can expect a longer hard drive life span, power supply load reduction, and partitions protected from becoming overwritten or corrupted."
Security

Xbox Live Players Targeted In Denial-of-Service Attacks 77

Posted by Soulskill from the poor-sports dept.
The BBC reports on a growing trend where some Xbox Live players are launching denial-of-service attacks against those who beat them or otherwise irritate them in games. Quoting: "'The smart thing about these Xbox tools is that they do not attack the Xbox Live network itself,' [Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Communications said.] He said the tools work by exploiting the way that the Xbox Live network is set up. Game consoles connecting to the Xbox network send data via the net, and for that it needs an IP address. Even better, said Mr Boyd, games played via Xbox Live are not hosted on private servers. The tools mean anyone with a few dollars can boot rivals off Xbox Live. 'Instead,' he said, 'a lot of games on Xbox Live are hosted by players.' ... For $20 (£13) some Xbox Live hackers will remotely access a customer's PC and set up the whole system so it can be run any time they need it. Some offer low rates to add compromised machines to a botnet and increase the amount of data flooding a particular IP address."
Data Storage

Canadian Nuke Bunker To Be Converted Into Data Fortress 197

Posted by timothy from the canada-has-nukes? dept.
miller60 writes "A hosting firm has purchased a nuke-resistant bunker in Novia Scotia, and plans to convert it into a data fortress for financial firms. Bastionhost hopes to attract European financial firms wary of housing sensitive data in the US due to the USA Patriot Act. The facility is one of a series of 'Diefenbunkers' built during the tenure of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to keep the Canadian government running in the event of a nuclear attack. While not all of these underground data bunker projects work out, a similar nuke-proof bunker in Stockholm, Sweden was recently converted into a stylish high-tech data lair for an ISP."
It's funny. Laugh.

PETA Using Games To Spread Its Message 477

Posted by Soulskill from the looking-for-a-new-audience-to-harass dept.
Cooking Mama is a series of games for the Wii and the DS in which players go through a number of steps to prepare meals using a variety of recipes. Last week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) created their own Flash-based parody of the game, highlighting the use of meat products by having a more bloody-minded Mama do things like pull the internal organs from a Thanksgiving turkey. Cooking Mama's maker, Majesco, issued a light-hearted response, pointing out the vegetarian meals in the game. PETA then said they plan to continue making parody games as a way of "engaging the public."
Role Playing (Games)

Three Downloadable Expansions Announced For Final Fantasy XI 51

Posted by Soulskill from the three-is-better-than-one-right dept.
Square Enix has announced plans to release three expansion chapters to Final Fantasy XI. Their blog post provided some details about the new content: "The first installment, A Crystalline Prophecy — Ode of Life Bestowing, is slated for release for all languages and platforms in Spring of next year. Subsequent installments will then follow, being released in intervals of every few months. These expansions packages will only be available through online purchase via PlayOnline. The projected cost for each installment is around $10.00. ... Up until now, expansion packs have generally been developed from a perspective of 'lateral expansion,' focusing namely on the introduction of new areas. These three new expansions, however, will deepen the storylines running through pre-existing areas by ushering in all-new plots and intrigues. While not necessarily containing as much content as traditional expansions, these episodic scenarios are designed to take anywhere from one to two months to complete."
Supercomputing

NVIDIA's $10K Tesla GPU-Based Personal Supercomputer 236

Posted by timothy from the plugs-into-standard-power-strip dept.
gupg writes "NVIDIA announced a new category of supercomputers — the Tesla Personal Supercomputer — a 4 TeraFLOPS desktop for under $10,000. This desktop machine has 4 of the Tesla C1060 computing processors. These GPUs have no graphics out and are used only for computing. Each Tesla GPU has 240 cores and delivers about 1 TeraFLOPS single precision and about 80 GigaFLOPS double-precision floating point performance. The CPU + GPU is programmed using C with added keywords using a parallel programming model called CUDA. The CUDA C compiler/development toolchain is free to download. There are tons of applications ported to CUDA including Mathematica, LabView, ANSYS Mechanical, and tons of scientific codes from molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and electromagnetics; they're listed on CUDA Zone."

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