Topic: COMPUTER - on November 18, 2007 at 12:00:00 PM CET
49 Open Source Projects in the Spotlight
Too often, open source projects labor in near obscurity. No corporate stipend, no team of publicists, no media blurbs for every new release. But the open source community is a vital source of productive creativity – truly an engine of the future.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 16, 2007 at 5:38:00 PM CET
Man buys Eee PC, erases Linux, installs Mac OS X Leopard
An enterprising Eee PC user has managed to install Apple's Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, onto his tiny laptop - though he quickly saw the error of his ways and replaced the OS with the previous version, Tiger.
Blogger Dan, posting on Uneasy Silence, notes that anyone attempting the maneouvre needs not only an external DVD drive but also a number of patches to reconfigure the Apple OS to operate on a processor lacking Intel's SSE 3 multimedia extensions.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 13, 2007 at 11:16:00 AM CET
Chinese Trojan on Maxtor HDDs spooks Taiwan
Confirmation that a Maxtor hard disk drive was infected with a Trojan by a manufacturing sub-contractor in China is spooking Taiwanese authorities, one of the countries where examples of the infected kit have begun to appear.
As first reported by El Reg in September a pre-installed Trojan named AutoRun-AH was discovered by Kaspersky Labs on Maxtor 3200 external hard drives sold in the Netherlands. Maxtor is owned Seagate. Initially, Seagate expressed skepticism about the reports.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 13, 2007 at 11:14:00 AM CET
Diversity attacks Top500 supercomputer list
The latest Top 500 Supercomputer list has arrived, reflecting a rather vibrant market for the highest performing systems.
A refreshed version of IBM's BlueGene/L system at Lawrence Livermore National Lab remains the top overall machine. It's been number one since 2004, which must be a source of endless joy at both Big Blue and LLNL. The fresh BlueGene system has posted a Linpack benchmark score of 478.2 teraflops, which compares to 280.6 teraflops six months ago.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 10, 2007 at 10:36:00 AM CET
The Register Misunderstands BitTorrent Encryption
The Register recently had a story about an explosion of encrypted BitTorrent traffic. They speculate that this is an attempt to evade the recording industry and law enforcement officials who are cracking down on illegal file sharing. But as TorrentFreak explains, El Reg is fundamentally misunderstanding the rationale for BitTorrent encryption.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 9, 2007 at 1:47:00 PM CET
Graphics Cards - The Next Big Thing for Password Cracking?
Interesting research from Elcomsoft, using the parallel processing capacity of graphics cards to speed up the password cracking process.
Pretty inventive thinking, as graphics cards get more and more powerful, and they are created to do massive parallel tasks for all the latest and greatest games, why not apply it to password cracking!
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 8, 2007 at 11:56:00 AM CET
Linux Engineer Reiser Coaxed Son to Cover up Mom's Murder -- Update
Hans Reiser, the Linux engineer who is a black belt in judo, might have strangled his estranged wife to death and possibly coaxed his 6-year-old son to help cover it up, a prosecutor told jurors here Wednesday during the second day of Reiser's murder trial.
"There are a lot of different chokes," said prosecutor Paul Hora, as he explained the art of judo. "It's fast. It's quiet. It's deadly."
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 6, 2007 at 10:29:00 AM CET
Open source, Lego-like computer modules run Linux
A six-person startup is readying a modular, open source hardware/software system resembling a set of electronic Legos. Bug Labs claims device developers can build "anything" using "Bug," which comprises an ARM11-powered base and various modular add-ons.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 6, 2007 at 10:28:00 AM CET
Give one (XO laptop), get one, and get free T-Mobile access for a year
The Give One Get One philanthropic campaign puts laptops into the hands of children in the developing world. For a limited time - from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, 2007 - people can donate $399 for two laptops. One laptop will be given to a child in the developing world. The other laptop will be sent to the donor along with information on how to activate the one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 6, 2007 at 10:09:00 AM CET
SiCortex does desktop supercomputer
Supercomputing youngster SiCortex has done the inevitable by popping out a pint-sized version of its cluster in a container.
The new SC072 - code-named "Catapult" - fits 72 processors into a deskside unit that starts at less than $15,000. The system is a no brainer for SiCortex since it provides a more a digestible option for engineers, developers and those hoping to take the company's weird hardware for a test drive. In addition, the more compact unit lets SiCortex tap into a trend pioneered by now deceased Orion Multisystems of selling supercomputer class machines in a near PC form factor.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 6, 2007 at 10:07:00 AM CET
Do Grade Changing Hackers Deserve 20 Years In Jail?
Over the years, we've had numerous stories of kids caught changing their grades by hacking into school computer systems. However, is it worth a $250,000 fine and 20 years in jail? That's apparently what two men face after hacking into California State University's computer system and changing their grades.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on November 5, 2007 at 12:46:00 PM CET
The Mystery of Missing Nina - ABC News: Exclusive: Accused Murderer Talks
In September 2006, Nina Reiser, a 31-year-old doctor and mother of two, disappeared.
Nina and her husband, Hans Reiser, were in the midst of a nasty divorce, and even without a body, it didn't take long for police to arrest Reiser and charge him with his wife's murder. Recently Reiser sat down with "20/20" in an exclusive pretrial jailhouse interview.
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