Category: Computers, Science & Technology

First Disney went Blu-Ray… now Warner Bros., and I read today that the new Macs are supposed to have Blu-ray… maybe Sony has won this round after all! I can remember when Sony had Betamax video tape and VHS won the day. Betamax was technically superior, but Sony mis-handled it, and lost out… so maybe this time they are getting it right!

Warner goes Blu-ray exclusive

“We’ve all been wondering what to make of those whispers that Warner was indeed going Blu-ray exclusive, and apparently, those rumblings are true. Based on a breaking release, Warner Bros. Entertainment will be releasing its high-definition titles ‘exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year’ According to Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, the move is a ‘strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,’ and he also noted that ‘the window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger.’ Notably, Warner will continue to release on both HD DVD and Blu-ray until May 2008, but after that, it’s BD for life for this studio. Oh, and while there’s nothing official mentioning any sort of payoff, we’re hearing that quite a sum was dished out to make this happen.”

The bad guys are currently winning the fight for your PC! PC World reports that the malware writers are using sophisticated methods to build and test new malware “products.”

Malware Evolving Too Fast for Antivirus Apps

“If you think that the latest security suites afford complete protection against malware attacks, think again. Today’s for-profit malware pushers use dedicated test labs and other increasingly professional techniques to improve their chances of infecting your computer. And the techniques they employ to outpace security software makers appear to be working. Make no mistake–a good security program can go a long way toward keeping you in control of your system. But PC World’s recent tests of security suites found that new malware easily evaded the applications. In our tests of how well security software blocks unknown malicious programs, the best performer detected only one in four new malware samples. In contrast, February 2007 results from similar heuristics testing showed that the best utilities caught about half of new samples. ‘In this industry, unlike others, we have an antagonist we have to deal with, someone we’re constantly battling back and forth with,’ says Hiep Dang, director of anti-malware research with McAfee’s Avert Labs. ‘The bad guys have the element of surprise.’ Even just a 12-hour head start can translate into thousands of infected PCs, and malware authors have long tested their programs against antivirus applications to make sure they get that critical jump on the opposition.”

In a strange move… Microsoft has removed support from it’s Office 2003 suite for old document formats in a new Service Pack!

Microsoft’s planned obsolescence smacks Office 2003

“It seems as though the planned obsolescence that Microsoft committed so blatantly in Vista is now impacting Office 2003, too, with the arrival of Service Pack 3. If you need to access old Microsoft file formats for early versions of Word, Excel, or Powerpoint — but you’ve suddenly and dramatically found yourself unable to do so — there’s an intentional reason from Microsoft behind that conundrum, according to a bulletin put out by Microsoft last month. The reason for the unexpected incompatibility is that, by default, the SP3 update, which became available in mid-September, blocks the file formats used by these older desktop productivity tools from Microsoft. Moreover, the same also holds true for the file formats used in older versions of products that just so happen to compete with some of Microsoft’s software offerings, such as the multi-platform Lotus Notes and Corel’s Quattro spreadsheet and Draw software.”

Everyone likes to play “predict the future” and with tech it seems even more fun! So, the Techpodcasts crew was polled for predictions, and these are the results!

Techpodcasts Tech Predictions 2008

“‘Don’t Tase me, Bro.’ is being heralded as the top quote of 2007. Who would have guessed that? Well, some tried to in early 2007. Predicting the future is not just a psychics’ job. Then again, we are not predicting – we are analyzing – Seeing trends in the last year to determine what is coming out next year. I went through some of the predictions of 2007. Some were dead on. Social Networking and Apple devices seemed to top the list in this subject. Other predictions – well, not so much. Now we are fast approaching 2008. There is a lot of technology that was debuted in 2007 and since they are still in their infant stages, we will see them ramp into tools that change the way we compute. 2007 was also a year of rethinking. Going Green is one of the ways we rethought things. We definitely had some good progress and will continue the trend. So what is in store for 2008? I paneled my fellow techies at www.techpodcasts.com and we came up with some items to think about for this New Year.”

(Read the article at the link above for the list!)

Wow! I remember way back in the “olden” days of the web… when Netscape was king! Now, as 2007 closes… AOL (which acquired Netscape) is killing it off!

The end of an era as AOL officially retires Netscape

“As we bid adieu to 2007 and prepare to enter the new year, AOL is also saying goodbye to memories: the company has finally killed off the Netscape Web browser – or what was left of it, anyway. March 31, 2008 will mark 10 years since the Netscape development team opened up the source code to the browser that ushered in the Internet era. With its acquisition of Netscape in 1999, AOL continued that effort and helped launch the Mozilla Foundation into an organization that has taken on Microsoft and shaped the Web as we know it today. But Netscape’s time has long since passed due to the arrival of Firefox and AOL’s struggles to stay relevant in an increasingly broadband-connected decade. Netscape 6, the first browser based upon the Mozilla source code, debuted in 2000 and was succeeded two years later by Netscape 7, also a rebranded version of Mozilla. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer quickly took over Windows desktops and Netscape’s market share dwindled to single digits. The demise of Netscape wasn’t a big surprise to most. When the Internet bubble burst, there was little money to fund development of a product that could compete with something Microsoft gave away for free. Even the Mozilla foundation barely limped along with help from AOL until Google laid its golden egg: advertising in search results.”

Yay! They lost their Nasdaq listing!

Embattled vendor SCO Group dumped by NASDAQ

“A lost legal struggle with Linux distributor Novell, an apparently truncated fight with IBM, a bankruptcy filing in September…and now, a NASDAQ delisting. Is there any hope at all left for floundering PC Unix vendor SCO? The long embattled PC Unix vendor SCO has finally gotten the heave-ho from NASDAQ, some two months after filing for bankruptcy and three months after losing a crucial legal copyright struggle with Novell, a company that’s morphed over the years into a major distributor of Linux, a competing breed of Unix software that also runs on PCs.”

Ya-ha-ha! (Gloating ensues.)

Dewd! This is cool! Scientists have found a galaxy that is blasting it’s neighboring galaxy with death rays! Rock on!

“Death Star” Galaxy Found Blasting Smaller Neighbor

“The supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting a smaller neighbor with a violent energy jet—earning it the moniker the “Death Star” galaxy—scientists announced today. The jet has probably fried the atmospheres of any planets in the way, researchers added. But the never-before-seen display may also one day lead to a new burst of star and planet formation. And it may help unravel the many mysteries about how such jets form, how they work, and how they evolve, experts said. ‘The origin, propagation, and energy dissipation of jets are among the most important unsolved problems in modern astrophysics,’ said lead study author Daniel Evans of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

Dewd! 10 years since the term “blogging” was coined… and now, we use it all the time! (OK, well, I do!)

Blogging celebrates its tenth birthday

“Happy blog-a-versary! Today is the tenth anniversary of the coining of the term that makes some of us giddy and others recoil in horror: blogging. If you subscribe to the view that says the term was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, today’s the day. It was on that day that he combined the word “web” and “log” to describe his personal journal online, according to blogging lore. Back then, the number of blogs on the web varied, with some citing numbers in the mere double digits. The trend has exploded since then, with new blogs coming online every day.”

Can Microsoft be any lamer? Their “amazing, new” Vista operating system has been widely dissed by users, many of whom have opted to go back to Windows XP… now M$ is coming out with Vista Service Pack 1, which has over 300 fixes… and requires an arduous process involving three reboots! Funny, you can upgrade Ubuntu with only one or two mouse clicks!

Windows Vista SP1 Includes More Than 300 Hot Fixes

“Microsoft has released a detailed roster of the contents of its forthcoming service pack for Windows Vista, and the list includes more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance. The list, recently posted on Microsoft’s Web site, can be downloaded as a 47-page document that the company says is not exhaustive. Microsoft plans to add more fixes and patches to Windows Vista SP1 before a final version is released to the public early next year. For now, Vista users can entertain themselves by poring over the hundreds of updates that Microsoft says will be part of SP1. Among them: a fix for a problem in which optical disks turn blank after being formatted with Vista’s Live File System; a patch for a glitch that generates an error message when large files are copied from one Vista-based computer to another over a network; and an update designed to improve Vista’s speed when its operating on a computer linked to a virtual private network. Other updates are meant to improve Internet Explorer’s streaming video performance and prevent data loss in USB devices connected to Vista PCs. There’s also a fix that adds a Venezuelan time zone. Microsoft said some of the fixes detailed in the list are already available to the public as individual downloads, while others will only be released as part of the final version of Vista SP1. Unfortunately for some Vista users — especially those running custom business apps — the service pack will not fix some application compatibility problems that affect the current version of Vista.”

I bet that you knew that from personal experience. Unlike John C. Dvorak, who “get’s no spam,” most of us do! My spam filters are pretty good, and they eliminate tons of the hateful stuff… but some still gets through. Spammers should be shot!

Study: The Internet’s spam problem is getting worse

“A study finds that only one out of every 20 e-mails is from a legitimate source, and business professionals now rate it the top form of junk advertising. Barracuda Networks found that nearly 95 percent of all e-mail sent today is spam. This is up from just five percent of all e-mail in 2001, and 85 to 90 percent of e-mail in 2006. The company’s study found that 65 percent of respondents receive 10 or fewer spams per day, and half receive five or fewer. A little more than one in ten respondents reported receiving as many as 50 or more unsolicited messages daily. In 2007, spammers seemed to favor the use of attachments, a change from last year where inline image and botnet spam seemed to be popular. Additionally, techniques used by spammers have become more complex, which make them harder to stop and harder to track. For now at least, the relentless battle against what has probably become one of the biggest scourges of the Internet seems to a losing one. Security vendors are now being forced to watch new spam mails continuously for potential malware and security concerns. This increased vigilance does have a positive. ‘[Continous monitoring and defense] can block a new spam attack within minutes of its start, virtually at zero hour,’ Barracuda president and CEO Dean Drako said. Among business professionals, over half — 57 percent — consider spam e-mail as the worst form of junk advertising. This easily eclipsed junk postal mail at 31 percent, and telemarketing at 12 percent.”