Article: Scientists Create Cloak of Partial Invisibility

LiveScience.com reports: "Scientists have created a cloaking device that can reroute certain wavelengths of light, forcing them around objects like water flowing around boulders in a stream. To creatures or machines that see only in microwave light, the cloaked object would appear nearly invisible. ... 'The microwaves come in and are swept around the cloak and reconstructed on the other side while avoiding the interior region,' said study team member David Smith at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. 'So it looks as if they just passed through free space.'"

The Life and Death of a Pumpkin...

A cherished holiday from a new and horrible perspective. Brought to you by Blame Society Productions.

WINNER: Best Short Film and Best Concept, 2006 Chicago Horror Film Festival, October (Chicago, IL).

Happy Halloween...

Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager (Episode 4)

If you have not yet already watched "Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager" episodes 1-3, you may want to watch them to get the background story. I have included links to these videos below:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
  

Episode 4
The continuing story of Chad Vader. Chad is Darth Vader's less-talented, less-charismatic younger brother, who is the day shift manager at a local a grocery store. In this episode it's Chad Vader's first evening as the night shift manager, but major changes are to come.



Chad Vader 5 Update
Matt and Aaron talk about the upcoming Chad Vader episode and read more viewer comments.

Building Your Own Stonehenge

Wally Wallington has demonstrated that he can lift a Stonehenge-sized pillar weighing 22,000 lbs and moved a barn over 300 ft. What makes this so special is that he does it using only himself, gravity, and his incredible ingenuity.

Article: IBM Uses 'Veins' of Water, Thermal Paste to Cool Chips

ExtremeTech reports: "IBM said Thursday that it had developed two methods to cool the surface of its chips, both based on networks of tiny channels used to funnel thermally-conductive substances."

As computers go faster and faster, they generate more and more heat. So people are having to invent better ways for cooling these chips, first they used heatsinks, then added fans, then have progressed to liquid cooling. IBM has taken heatsinks and liquid cooling to the next level with their technology.

Historical note: The Cray-2 used an inert substance called Fluorinert for cooling its processors. Fluorinert, was developed by 3M as a blood plasma replacement, it was also featured in the movie the Abyss where a mouse was immersed in a cup and could apparently breathe in it.

Photo Gallery: Office and computer pranks

TechRepublic reports: "What better way to welcome back coworkers from an extended vacation than an amusing practical joke? Whether you enjoy the simple elegance of filling someone's cubical with balloons, appreciate the effort required to cover an office with tin foil, or the comedic brilliance of growing grass on a keyboard, this gallery photo gallery will tickle your funny bone and keep you looking over your shoulder? You'll be glad these office pranksters didn't target you."

Article: Toshiba Releases Pocket-size Projector

PC Magazine reports: "What weighs just over a pound, nearly fits in the palm of your hand, and was just introduced by Toshiba? If you answered 'Toshiba's new mobile projector,' you're right. The TDP-FF1AU, from Toshiba America Information Systems Digital Products Division, weighs 1.1 pounds, measures 2.2 by 5.5 by 4.0 inches (HWD), and comes with a lithium-ion battery pack that adds 0.6 pounds and just 0.8 inches to the depth. According to Toshiba, the battery pack is good for 2 hours of viewing. If you need more than that, you can use the power cord."

Personally I would love to play with one of these devices just to see how well it works. I can think of a lot of cool applications for such a device.

For example: My Dell Axim 51v, can put out a 640x480 VGA signal. So I could put a video on SD card or a CF microdrive and have a totally portable movie projection system.

Article: Google Copies Rollyo's Business Plan, Inserts AdSense

Google Watch reports: "Google unveiled today a new customizable search engine that can be added to any Web site. The new service, called Google Custom Search Engine and built off the Google Co-op technology, will ostensibly help publishers attune search experiences to their specific audiences while giving Google more inventory on which to place its AdSense advertisements."

Steve Bryant did a great review of the Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE). I am still playing with the technology to say whether I really like it or I dislike it. Although, what I have seen of it so far I like.

GCSE allows you to create a 'search container' (this is what I am calling it) of sites that you can limit your search to. For example: I can create a search engine of just my blogs (IMHO, and Windows Tip of the Day) that I can make available for anyone to search. I can also limit any search results on my GCSE site to the content from just those sites.

Video: First Look at the Nintendo Wii

CNET News.com does a quick preview of the Nintendo Wii features, games and controller. Its a next generation console with lots of old school game play (it can play lots of games from several older consoles)...

Note: the Wii going to be released November 19th for $250...

Article: Sony Unveils PlayStation 3 and Game Details

PC Magazine reports: "San Francisco -- Calling it 'future proof' and the only true 'next-generation' game console, Sony today took the wraps off of its new PlayStation 3. .. Although there was lots of game play and many demos, the focus of the launch was more on the Internet-based capabilities and what else you could do with the console, like playing movies, music, and photos."

This is the best information that I have seen on the PS3 to date.

Article: Obedient driver follows orders, crashes car

Reuters.com reports: "A German motorist followed the command 'Turn right now!' from his navigation system and crashed into a small toilet hut by the side of the road -- about 30 yards before the crossing he was meant to take."

I would love to see how he explains this to his insurance company. The problem is he is not the only one who has done this. I think these people are taking the commands from the navigation system too literally.

Article: Firefox 2.0 Scheduled For Release on Tuesday

PC Magazine reports: "The Mozilla Foundation will release the Firefox 2.0 browser on Tuesday, Mozilla Foundation officials confirmed Monday. ... The new release promises several new features, as well as a solution to a annoying memory leak that has troubled earlier versions, according to Mozilla."

I have been playing with the release candidate of this browser for a few weeks now. It has some nice new features, but their not revolutionary.

I have one major complaint about this version of Firefox, several of my favorite extensions stopped working. So be prepared to be disappointed here.

Personally, I believe that the ideas for most of the new features in the browser were borrowed from the more popular extensions. Below is a list of some of the new features:

• Phishing filter warns you when you're visiting a fake web site.
• A new search feature that displays suggestions as you type your search request.
• A session manager that restores the windows and tabs you had opened before a crash.
• A spelling checker that spell checks your input into web forms.
• Better RSS support.

To download the new Firefox 2.0 browser go here.

Free and Low Cost Office Suites (and other stuff)

In a previous article, I talked about how to create a low cost virtual office. Now I am going to show you where you can find free or low cost office suites for personal or business use.

There are several options available to you. Some of these suites require that they be install on your local computer, and others can be run from within your browser.

Personally I am a big fan of Microsoft Office, and I have a hard time using anything less. The one problem with Office is that its not free or low cost.

If you just have basic word processing needs, such as writing letters to your friends and family, or creating simple spreadsheets or presentations. Then Microsoft Office might be over kill for you, there several other choices available that might be a better fit for your needs.

Out of all the free, low cost, or online office suites available, OpenOffice.org is the best IMHO. Then after that I would start to look at everything else and see what fits your needs. Whatever you look at, make sure its has the features that you're going to use.

All these tools are pretty good for doing basic things like creating a document, managing numbers, etc. Although, for tasks that are more complicated, you're going to need a real office suite like OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office.

Office Suites

Browser Based:

• ThinkFree: A Java-based browser office suite. Includes word processor, presentation and spreadsheet application.
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets: An AJAX-based browser office suite. Includes a word processor and spreadsheet application.
• ZOHO: An AJAX-based browser office suite. Includes a word processor, presentation spreadsheet application, and more.

Software Based:

• OpenOffice.org: One of the best office suites available. Includes a word processor, presentation and spreadsheet application.
• AbiWord: A free word processor application.
  

Drawing and Page Layout:

• Dia: An open source vector graphic program.
• GIMP: An open source bit-map drawing program.
• Scribus: An open source page layout program.
  

Instant Messaging Client

• Meebo: A browser based universal instant messaging client. Supports: AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber and GTalk.
• Trillian: If you have multiple accounts across several IM services this is a great IM client. Supports: AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.

Email/Calendar/Contact Manager

Browser Based:

• Gmail/Google Calendar: Provides: e-mail, calendaring, contacts and notes.
• Yahoo! Mail: Provides: e-mail, calendaring, contacts and notes.
• Contact Office: Provides: email, calendaring, address book, fax, SMS, phone calls, etc.

Software Based:

• Thunderbird: An e-mail client, with spam filtering.
  
• Sunbird: Calendaring with a task manager.
  

Other Useful Stuff...
Below are some extra resources that you may need in your day-to-day activities.

Software:

• GnuCash: Personal and small-business financial-accounting software.
• Free Templates: Free label templates for: Avery, CDs, address, mailing, shipping, etc.
• 1001 Free Fonts: Thousands of free fonts are available for download.

Reference:

• Answer.com: Need information about a word or subject, this site includes dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia (uses Wikipedia), and more.
• Currency Converter: Lookup current exchange rates for just about any currency.
• Martindale's Reference Desk: A great collection of links to different types of references available on the web.
• Martindale's On-Line Calculators: A great collection of links to different types of calculators available on the web.
  
• RefDesk: A great collection of reference resources that are available on the Web.
• Unit Converter: Convert just about any numerical data from one unit type to another.
  
• World Clock: A web-based world time clock.
  
• Yearly Calendar: A web-based yearly calendar.

GPS Crazyiness (Video)

"Gizmodo hooks up four GPS devices at the same time, ends up with a maelstrom of voices and a nightmarish conclusion. See the Garmin c550 StreetPilot,Cobra NavOne 4500, Mio C710 DigiWalker and Honda Civic Hybrid's GPS Navi in action."

Article: Scientists teleport two different objects

CNN.com reports: "Beaming people in 'Star Trek' fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality."

Scientists in Denmark are playing with technology that is going to take us one baby step closer toward Star Trek like transporters. They figured out how to teleport billions of atoms from one location to another (about 18 inches) using technology they call 'entanglement.' The technology they developed uses light, quantum mechanics, and magnetism.

Sun's Project Blackbox (Portable Data Center)

Sun created a new concept called 'Project Blackbox', which is a portable data center using an ordinary 20' shipping container. This product is optimized to deliver energy savings, space savings, and provide performance efficiencies.

Inside the shipping contain is 8' 18" standard racks, cable trays, cooling and lights. All you have to do is add: water (for cooling), 200 kilowatts of power, and network bandwidth and you're ready to go.

Quote Of The Week

"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug" -- John Lithgow

Are you messy enough? (Blog)

From UNEASYsilence: "Who said being messy didn't pay off? We are looking for the messiest, grimiest, just god awful pig sty of a setup out in computerland. We aren't talking about wires behind your desk that are not properly tie wrapped. We want to see Mountain Dew stains on the carpet, furniture made out of shipping boxes, moldy food, the worse the better."

And the winner is...

Also make sure to check out their Flickr site of submission.

Internet Explorer 7 is now available...

Microsoft just made Internet Explorer 7 available for download. This is the latest version of the IE browser, and its only for Windows XP SP2 . If you're running an earlier version of the Windows OS, you're out of luck.

This is the first major release of the IE browser since Windows XP was introduced back in 2001. It includes a radically different interface, with a lot of great new features and other improvements.

Some of the new improvements in the browser include: security protection, a redesigned user interface, and a development platform. Below is a high level list of the major new features:

• Phishing Filter (reports if a web site is not who it really is)
• RSS Reader (allows you to read RSS feeds in the browser)
• Tabbed browsing (open multiple web pages in a single window)
• Toolbar search box (quickly search from the toolbar)
• Advanced printing (optimized web page printing)
• Security Status Bar (displays different colors in the status bar to notify you how safe the web site might be)
• Privacy Cleaner (quickly deletes your browser cache, cookies, and other data that might contain personal information)
• And more...

Hands on the Wii

CNET News.com reports: "I'm sitting in a conference room here at CNET Networks' headquarters, playing a baseball game on a Nintendo Wii in which the players look like little more than rudimentary Lego people."

The Nintendo Wii has taken a radically different approach to creating their next generation game console. Instead of fancy HD graphics, they're going old school and designing games that are fun to play.

Changing the World with Your Screen Saver

Do you want to help cure cancer and other diseases? By installing special screen savers on your computer, you can donate your spare computing cycles to cure AIDS, cancer and solve other more complex problems.

The screen saver utilizes the unused processing power of your computer, as a part of a large distributed computing cluster. These clusters can be composed of thousands (or more) of computers working together for a common goal. The way these large clusters work is each computer downloads a small part of a larger problem, and computes the data and sends the results back to the master computer.

Below is a list of some of the projects that are available:

• boinc.berkeley.edu: Stands for 'Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing', here is a brief list of some of the current projects: Climateprediction.net, Seasonal Attribution Project, BBC Climate Change Experiment.
• folding.stanford.edu: Searches for treatments for Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and other related diseases.
• grid.org: Searches for treatments for cancers, and other diseases.
• SETI@home: Analyze radio telescope data in the search for extraterrestrial life.
• www.worldcommunitygrid.org: Searches for treatments for cancers, and other diseases.

To donate your spare computing cycles. All you have to do is download the software, set how much of your systems resources that you want to donate, then leave your computer alone.

Moller Prototype 'Flying Car' For Sale On eBay

Moller International of Davis, California, is selling their M400X Skycar on eBay. Here is a video.

Lightning exits woman's bottom

NEWS.com.au reports: "A WOMAN has suffered severe burning to her anus after being struck by lightning which hit her in the mouth and passed right through her body."

Put this article in the reality is stranger then fiction file...

MIT Sketch Board of the Future

Here is MIT's version of the sketch board of the future. Its pretty advanced, but at the same time its a technology that is in its infancy.

Jeep drives across water

Those wild and wacky Icelanders are at it again, now they're driving nitrous enhanced custom 4x4 across the water. It just proves Tim the Toolman Taylor's theory if you throw enough power at something, you can make it happen.

PCI Express 2.0 nears completion

CNET News.com reports: "A two-month clock has begun ticking for the release of PCI Express 2.0, an update designed to help the ubiquitous computer communication technology with virtualization, power management and high-end graphics cards."

Article: 'P2P TV' Streams Live U.S. TV Channels Over The Internet

PC Magazine reports: "Fans of the Oakland Athletics baseball team were in a quandary this week: due to Major League Baseball's scheduling preference for East Coast teams, games featuring the A's were shown during work hours, in the mornings and afternoons on the West Coast."

It seems that there is a popular trend in Asia (that will probably spill over into other regions) of illegally streaming TV channels from all around the world over the Internet.

I once read that BitTorrent traffic was consuming a large majority of the Internet bandwidth. I believe the traffic that these applications will generate will only make things worse as they get more popular...

Article: Why Microsoft's Zune scares Apple to the core

ComputerWorld reports: "Apple fans assume iPod will face Zune in the market, mano a mano, like other media players. But that's not the case. Zune will be supported and promoted and will leverage the collective power of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Soapbox (Microsoft's new "YouTube killer") and the Xbox 360."

I have made it clear in the past that I am no iPod fan. Its a great device, but I can't stand the cult following it has. All I am going to say is that its a glorified MP3 player, and get over it.

Microsoft's Zune has a few cool features that the current generation of iPods don't have. Such as a larger screen, and WiFi.

Personally one thing I like about the Zune's DRM is the subscription feature that allows you to download all the music you want. If I have to have DRM encoded files, I would prefer an 'all-I-can-eat' package. That way if I don't want the device anymore, I am not stuck with a lot of music I can't listen to at a later date. Then if there's some music I really want, I will buy the CD.

Best Star Trek Fan Films

Did you know that there are a several great Star Trek fan made movies and shows spinoffs. Some are based on the original Star Trek series, and others take different spins on the franchise.

Most of these shows have great special effects, sets, and sound. The hard part about watching them for me is to get over the acting, but I believe they're doing the best job that they can (I know I can't do better, so who am I to criticize).

Below is a list of some of the series that are available:

• Starship Exeter (based on TOS): A story of the U.S.S. Exeter, crew and commander by Captain John Garrovick.
• Starship Farragut (based on TOS): A story of the crew of the U.S.S. Farragut (NCC-1647), a Constitution class starship under the command of John T. Carter.
• Star Trek: Hidden Frontier (based on TNG): A story of the crew of the starship Excelsior and its home base Deep Space 12.
  
• Star Trek: Intrepid: Federation and Merchant Service efforts to colonize a sparse region of space far from the Federation core.
• Star Trek: New Voyages (based on TOS): Trying to complete the original series five-year mission of the Enterprise crew. Note: Walter Koenig (played Chekov [TOS]) and George Takei (played Sulu [TOS]) guest starred in episodes.
• U.S.S. Hathaway (based on TOS): Takes place during the same time period of events in Star Trek II and III.
• Star Wreck: A series of Finnish parody movies.
  

For more information, check out this Wikipedia article.

40 Years of Star Trek...

Star Trek is now 40 years old. I remember watching the Original Series in re-runs as a kid, and really enjoying it. In fact it inspired my love for Sci-Fi.

When I was younger I was a hard core Star Trek geek, but then as I got older I toned down my adoration for the series. I still enjoy it, but now I don't need to know all the trivia about it.

Confessions of a Star Trek Geek:
I have watched every single Star Trek movie ever created, and some even more then once (can you say 'The Wrath of Khan'). I also hated Star Trek V 'The Final Frontier', like the majority of fans of the series.

I have watched every single episode of the original series more then once, including the cartoon. I believe I have seen all the episodes of the Next Generation.

I have watch most (well at least three quarters) of the Deep Space 9 episodes, but I have not watched all the Voyager episodes (I think I have only seen half at the most). I also have missed the majority of episodes from the Enterprise series.

Auction at Christie's
Christie's is holding an auction from Oct. 5-7, in honor of the anniversary of Star Trek. This is the first official studio auction of memorabilia from all five Star Trek television series and ten movie spinoffs.

• Check out the Christie's main auction site, or the items up for bid.
• There's also a lot of great articles over at CNET.
  

Your 2-Cents
If you have any comments (such as your favorite Star Trek movie or TV series) that you would like to add to this article please post them. I would really enjoy reading them.

Article: Danish Scientists Teleport Light, Matter

PC Magazine reports: "Beaming people in Star Trek fashion is still in the realms of science fiction but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality."

I see these articles popup every few years, but I haven't seen any real fruit from the technology.

I want Star Trek like transporters and I want them now. :-)

Article: Star Trek XI: What We Know |

TwitchGuru reports: "If we face up to facts, we must admit that Star Trek has fallen by the wayside of late. The quality of recent movies has ranged from dubious to dire, and for the first time in nearly two decades, there are no new Star Trek TV episodes in production."

This is the latest information that I know about for Star Trek XI...

Internet Privacy is an Oxymoron

Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman of the Board of Directors Scott McNealy once said, "You have no privacy, get over it." That statement is more true today, then when it was originally said. Everyday, we are losing more of our ability and rights to protect our privacy.

Did you know that there is no such thing as true anonymity or privacy on the Internet? All you can do is mask your identity, and make it difficult for someone to know who you are. Although, in most cases its still possible for someone to track and identify you with enough work.

There is a lot of information about you that is leaked by your own personal Internet activities (such as surfing a web site, posting on forums, etc.). Then your computer and its applications (such as your browser, IM client, etc.) are doing their own fair share to help leak more information.

Anything that contains your name, address, etc. Is known as 'personally-identifiable information' (PII), because it can personally identify you directly. This information is generally provided by you to some web site or service (such as Amazon, eBay, etc.) that you may use regularly.

Any of the information (PII or not) is used to profile how you surf the web, what you buy, and other types of demographic analysis. All most all of this tracking is perfectly legal, and you even grant companies permission to do this when you agree to use a web site through its 'terms of service' or 'privacy policy' that you don't read.

Information Leaked by your Applications
As I said earlier, when you visit a web site there is certain types of information about you that is revealed by your computers applications. A lot of this information (such as your browser cookies) are needed by web-based applications to be able to customize your experience.

Below is a brief list of some of the information a web site can know about you, just by visiting it with a regular browser and Internet connection:

• The type of browser you're using, a long with information about its features. For example: what version of: Java, JavaScript, Flash and other applications you have installed (see: BroswerSpy).
• This doesn't include the information in the HTTP header, which includes information about your browser and the web page you requested from a web site (see the following article for more information).
• There is information in the HTTP header called the 'referer', that also gives the web site your visiting, the last URL of the web site you're coming from. Here is an example, of some of the information a site can see about you.
• Browser cookies and web beacons (an invisible 1x1 graphic on a web page with a unique id embedded in to its name), which can be used identify your computer across different web sites. This technology is generally used by advertising and marketing companies to track and profile your browsing activity to better serve you ads.
• As more web sites become interactive, browser cookies are used to track your web site session information. If you turn off the cookie feature, you can prevent certain web sites from working properly for you.
• Web beacons have been used by spammers to track if you open up an email message, and to see if a email address is valid. Although, most modern email clients prevent images from being downloaded automatically which help prevent information about you from being leaked.
• Your browser keeps local copies of all the web pages you visited in its cache, along with a history of all the URLs you visited. Some browser's like Firefox keep track of the files you downloaded, and the keywords you typed into the search toolbar. Then there is the saved forms information (known as AutoComplete in IE), and saved password feature. This information is used to improve the broswer's user experience, but also can become a privacy issue in some cases.

Then there is all your other Internet applications such as your e-mail client, instant message client, VoIP client, etc. Each of these programs have their own type of logging or privacy issues, that you might be or might not be aware of.

For example, your instant message client may keep logs of all your conversations. Your e-mail client, keeps all the messages that you received and sent. Your VoIP client keeps a log of all the calls that you make.

Even if you clean all this information off your local computer, your application's service provider has logs and/or copies of it in their servers and databases. Its not uncommon for them to use this information to profile usage habits of their users. All this information is also available to local and federal law enforcement generally with the use of a search warrant.

Generally, no matter what network enabled application your using, the following information is always going to be left about you on some server somewhere.

• Once someone knows your computer's IP address, its possible to isolate the ISP, and therefore the city, state/province, and country your computer's from (see: IP Address Locator).
• Local and federal law enforcement with the use of a search warrant can force the ISP to release your identity, based on your computer's IP address.
• When you visit a web site, information is stored in the web server logs of the time you visited the site, your IP address, which pages you viewed, and sometimes what you searched for on that site (see: Omniture).
• Think about this, all your favorite search engines keep all the information that you searched. If you have a personal account on a site like Google, Yahoo, etc., they can directly tie this information back to you.
• For example: "On August 4, 2006, AOL released three months of search history for 650,000 users to the public. Although the searchers were only identified by a numeric ID, the New York Times discovered the identity of several searchers." (excerpt from the Wikipedia)
• Anytime you visit a web site using it's domain name your computer needs to lookup the IP address of the remote server through some DNS server request. This information is then logged on that computer.
• When you're at work, and you search the Internet your companies web proxies and firewall can track all types of Internet activity. Plus in the U.S.A. any information on your computer, or in your e-mail is property of the company.

Digital Forensics
With all the data stored on computers these days, a new area of computer criminal science has been created called 'digital forensics'. These are law enforcement personnel specially trained to find and retrieve specific information off a computer.

The tools that these people use are good at extracting the data they want. Generally the programs we use everyday are really good at leaving digital bread crumbs all over your computer's hard drive about everything that you do. These digital forensics tools are designed to leverage this information

On a side note, about digital forensics tools. Did you know that by using a pattern analysis program you can predict if something was written by a man or a women with almost 70% accuracy.

The way this technology works is by analyzing the words used in a message and assigns different values to them to determine if the text was written by a man or women. More information can also be determined by your writing style beside gender, such as your nationality based on the words that you use.

To see this tool in action, check out Gender Guesser or Gender Genie. With technology like this, it means that any of those anonymous posting or e-mail you might have created are becoming a lot less anonymous.

Note: This technology was created by Dr. Neal Krawetz of Hacker Factor Solutions.

Inside Google's Manhattan Office

eWeek takes you inside Google's Manhattan Office. It seems like a cool place to work...

Article: Core 2 Extreme Quad E6700 Performance

ExtremeTech reports "Earlier this week, Intel announced the Core 2 Extreme Quad processor (code-named Kentsfield), a single-socket processor built with two Core 2 CPU dies. The two dies are connecting via a 1066MHz (effective) front-side-bus (FSB). Intel claims that the 1066MHz FSB will have more than enough bandwidth to feed both cores, even in heavy operation."

These are first bench marks that I seen about the new Core 2 Extreme Quad processor.

Article: Firefox Zero-Day Code Execution Hoax?

eWeek reports: "A public claim by hackers that Mozilla's Firefox browser is vulnerable to multiple code execution vulnerabilities may be an overblown hoax."

Article: Hackers claim zero-day flaw in Firefox

CNET News.com reports: "The open-source Firefox Web browser is critically flawed in the way it handles JavaScript, ... An attacker could commandeer a computer running the browser simply by crafting a Web page that contains some malicious JavaScript code, Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi said in a presentation at the ToorCon hacker conference here. The flaw affects Firefox on Windows, Apple Computer's Mac OS X and Linux, they said."

It just goes to show that no browser is completely safe from programming flaws, even our beloved Firefox...

Article: Silicon vs. CIGS: With solar energy, the issue is material

CNET News.com reports: "The booming solar industry is in the midst of an argument over which material will become dominant in the future for harvesting sunlight and turning it into electricity. Solar panels made from crystalline silicon currently account for more than 90 percent of the solar infrastructure today. ... Panels that harvest energy with CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) cost far less to make and install, say backers."

Crystalline or CIGS, personally I don't care which one wins as long as it's efficient, reliable and low-cost. Right now it seems like CIGS is the winner in theory, but we will have to see what happens. The market place will ultimately decide which one is better.

This article is a good read... Although it might only wet your appetite, and leave you wanting to know more about CIGS. For more information on CIGS check out this site.

Article: Sharp Develops Triple-View LCD

PC Magazine reports: "Japan's Sharp Corp. said on Wednesday it has developed the world's first liquid crystal display (LCD) panel that allows the viewing of three different images on one screen at the same time."

This is a very uniquie display, three people can watch three different TV programs at the same time.