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The easy way to keep your software patched
Secunia, the software security specialist, has just launched a free downloadable tool that automatically monitors the vulnerability of software installed on your PC. The Personal Software Inspector is based on Secunia's very useful web-based inspection service, which informs you of updates and patches via email. The new tool sits in your system tray and alerts you to critical security updates for installed programs.
It's a simple but handy tool, especially when programs don't themselves alert you to new patches and updates. Direct download links to updates are provided if available. It's currently in beta and is a free download for personal use only.
Palm 750 users offered free Windows Mobile 6 upgrade
Palm has made Windows Mobile 6 for 750 and 750v users available for download, several months after first promising it.
The free upgrade overwrites Windows Mobile 5 with Microsoft's newest smartphone operating system, Windows Mobile 6. Palm 750v owners (the Vodafone version) also get fast mobile broadband enabled, which increases download speeds from 384Kbit/sec (3G) to a massive 1.8Mbit/sec (HSDPA).
Palm says the benefits of this update are:
- Improved calendar functionality
- Email enhancements and additional support
- Live links to Microsoft SharePoint documents
- Ability to set an out-of-office message and flag emails for follow-up from the device
- Simple interface to allow you to use the Treo as a high speed wireless modem for laptops
Another key feature Palm adds is USB cable charging, something that should really have been do-able at launch.
You can download the update here: www.palm.com/uk/750update
Dead and stuck pixels still appearing
I've seen a number of LCDs with stuck pixels lately. These red, green or blue dots ruin films, games, pictures and pretty much anything you stare at on your screen.
Trying to flash a series of colours on a stuck pixel can purportedly knock it out of its stubborn state. A small utility called UDPixel apparently does this on just the affected part of the screen so you can carry on working.
I accept that stuck pixels were a problem when LCD technology was in its infancy, but to see some manufacturers send us in review kit with stuck pixels years later worries me a lot.
It's not uncommon for review kit to be cherry-picked. And if we get bad samples, what can everyone else expect?
In the last month I've seen a notebook from PC World and a desktop from Hi-Grade with the problem. The Hi-Grade had two stuck pixels and the warranty wouldn't cover a replacement for less than six stuck pixels – and even then, the replacement would be a refurbished model rather than a new one.
I was consoled somewhat however, when the Sony-monitor representative speaking on behalf of Hi-Grade sympathised with me, saying "I know it's a bit unfair".
I'm still investigating the notebook and will hopefully get the chance to test UDPixel with it soon.
Hitachi launches Blu-ray camcorder
Hitachi is about to unveil what it says is the world's first camcorder to pack a Blu-ray burner, and able to take and store video in full 1920 x 1080 HD format. The device, to launch officially at next week's IFA consumer electronics shopw in Berlin, will pack an hour of HD on to an 8cm mini-Blu-ray disk; the drive will also burn 8cm DVD-Ram, and RW media as used in older camcorders. The IFA organisers say there will be other Blu-ray announcements at the show. I'll be reporting from the show in the last couple of days, after my break this week.
Google looks to the skies
It's hard to deny how mind-blowing Google Earth can be - I've spent many hours simply flying round the world and getting close up satellite images of random places.
Now Google has launched an add-on to Google Earth that lets you shift your gaze skywards and glide around the millions of stars and galaxies.
As with Google Earth, various layers can be applied to the images. The Backyard Astronomy layer, for example, points out those stars you should be able to see on a clear night - all you have to do is pinpoint your current location using Google Earth first.
Combined with services such as Heavens Above - a site where you input your location and it will provide you with details of visible passing satellites and the like - home astronomy has never been more accessible.
You can't zoom into planets, such as Mars and Venus, and scour their surfaces in the same way as Google Earth, but it's still a fascinating service.
Vodafone's HSDPA on trial
If you can grasp the concept of high speed broadband wherever you go, then you can consider yourself tech-savvy.
I believe this because I've been carrying around an HSDPA enabled notebook a lot lately and I've had to physically show off the Sim card slot in the notebook before friends realise how I'm getting internet access without Wi-fi or Ethernet. This confusion also explains why mobile phone operators are now referring to HSDPA as 3G.
My main aim of reviewing HSDPA was to get a verdict on its speed and coverage. But before I got that far, there were massive problems with Vodafone's content control.
Vodafone, who appears to be on the bleeding edge of UK HSDPA speeds, uses content control to block gambling and porn. But it's not just smut that gets the chop; Vodafone actively blocks football forums, humorous websites and even MSN messenger.
As a Web 2.0 man, I only enjoy the internet for forums, humorous websites and instant messaging. The rest is just business.
Control power to your home appliances from afar
There are plenty of standby-killer devices on the market to limit the effect of your LCD TV on the polar ice caps, but the new Bye Bye Standby Online from Domia takes things a step further.
The kit includes a small device called the Bye Bye Standby Controller that plugs direct into your router (you'll obviously need a broadband connection) along with a couple of Bye Bye Standby plug adapters.
Plug in your TV, table lamps and other devices into the adapters and, via a web-based interface, you'll be able to control the power to them from any internet connected PC.
Although the Bye Bye Standby name suggests power saving is its main purpose, we think its big selling point is actually being able to power up devices in your home. If you're working late, for example, you could give the impression that someone's home by remotely turning on the radio along with a couple of table lamps.
As expected, the Controller requires its own power supply, which will be a pain for homes where plugs near the router are already in use - something a wireless version of the Controller would sort out.
However, we can't deny it's an interesting product and one we're looking forward to testing out for ourselves in the next few days. Watch this space for the full review.
UPDATE:
We've now got pricing info. The kit costs £84.99, while the Controller on its own is £49.99 (although you'll need some plug adapters to use it).
However, it's also a subscription-based service, which seems a little odd to us. You get a free three-month subscription with the £84.99 kit or just one month with the Controller on its own.
Products such as network cameras run their own web server and are accessed direct through the router. It therefore seems odd Domia are routing people through its website to access the Controller and charging a subscription as a consequence.
We're currently awaiting comment from Domia on this.
Skype crippled by Windows Update and the nature of peer-to-peer
Considering its many millions of users, there's a good chance most of you experienced Skype's two-day blackout at the tail-end of last week.
Skype's own Heartbeat blog explains the problem was linked to the latest Windows Update release, which prompted thousands of restarts and, consequently, a similarly huge number of simultaneous Skype Log-ins.
A self-heal feature of the Skype network failed to rectify the situation, and the internet phone service was left paralysed for approximately two days.
Unlike VoIP clinets, Skype's service is peer-to-peer, with the user directory distributed in much the same way as you might download one of the many legal movies using BitTorrent.
While this allows the Skype service to grow quickly without the need for massive investment in infrastructure, it also leaves it open to the kind of problems experienced last week.
Skype's blog posting continues: "We would like to point out that very few technologies or communications networks today are guaranteed to operate without interruptions".
While this is true, I can't remember the last time my BT line was inactive for more than a couple of hours.
That said, it's difficult to knock something that offers free calls and despite this rather unfortunate affair Skype's massive and loyal fan base is unlikely to be diminished as a result.
Stream MP3s from your mobile phone to your car's stereo
If your mobile phone doubles up as your MP3 player, a new device called the Venturi Mini lets you wirelessly listen to your tunes while on the road.
Sitting in a standard 12v car cigarette lighter socket, the device hooks up to your mobile phone (providing it's got A2DP Bluetooth) and will then stream the music to your radio via its built-in FM transmitter.
The Venturi Mini also streams calls from your mobile and, using RDS, will display who's calling on your car radio's display.
Other nice touches include a lock to ensure it doesn't spring out of your car's cigarette lighter and audio input for an MP3 player.
Priced at £79.99, the Venturi Mini will hit the shops next month.
Component shortages may hit Christmas supply of notebooks
Component shortages could mean notebooks being in short supply over Christmas, judging from a report in Taiwan-based Digitimes. Manufacturers including market leaders Acer, Dell and HP have faced shortages of displays, analogue chips, batteries, optical drives, circuit boards and capacitors, it says.Ray Chen, president of Taiwanese manufacturer Compal Electronics, is quoted as saying component shortages could persist through October. But battery shortages could continue into next year, says Digitimes, quoting industry sources.
Watch out, Apple and Google, your halos are slipping
Apple and Google have long escaped the antagonism that other major players in the IT industry seem to attract. Microsoft has users; Apple has fans, despite getting away with product tie-ins that would have Microsoft executives hung at dawn. Google has become a rather cheerful verb.
Perhaps it's all that sun in California, where both Apple and Google are based, or some hangover from the hippy-trippy San Francisco days of the sixties.
But there are signs the Apple and Google halos are slipping. Customer satisfaction with Apple has dropped five percent over the past year though it still ranks top at 79 percent, according to according to a report from the University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center which uses a measure called the American Customer Satisfaction Index(ACSI).
Professor Claes Fornell, head of ACSI at Michigan, believes perceptions of Apple may have been affected by its recent rapid growth. "It’s not easy to manage quality and customer satisfaction when a company quickly has to increase production or provide service to a larger number of customers, ” he said.
Google's satisfaction rating fell four percent to a score of 78, though it remains the most popular search engine. Ask.com, with a score of 75, is catching up fast.
"[Google's] home page has not changed much, and some users say it looks stale compared to Ask.com, which has a very different display of search results," says the blurb on the new report.
So it's got nothing to do with Google trying to wrest control of our lives from Microsoft, then.
Nokia issues product advisory - 46 million phone batteries affected
Nokia has released a product advisory for its BL-5C battery saying that "in very rare cases the Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries subject to the product advisory could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge"
And if you think it's a small problem, think again.
Nokia's press release continues "This advisory applies only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006" - only 46 million potential problems then.
So how do you know if your phone's battery is affected? First, turn your phone off, remove the battery and check whether it is the BL-5C, then head to Nokia's site where you can see which phones are affected. If your phone is in the list, enter the ID number found at the bottom of the rear of the battery.
Interestingly, the ID check doesn't appear to know whether you've entered a valid ID number - so as long as you enter 26 characters it will assume you've typed in the ID correctly. Since it's incredibly easy to accidentally enter a wrong character, surely Nokia should ensure any entered ID is actually a valid one.
As it stands, if you enter any random 26 characters you'll simply be told your battery is not affected - which is a bit of a concern. As anyone who has installed the likes of Windows Vista or XP will know, the chances of inputting a single wrong character in a 26 character string is pretty high.
Arc lights up handheld video
This is a block diagram (click for larger view) of ARC's new AV 417V video subsystem for handhelds, which uses an ARC 700 central processor controlling a set of specialist modules: two Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) multimedia processor units, hardware-accelerated encode and decode units, a video-optimsed direct memory access engine, and a motion estimator used in compression. Data formats supported are listed on the right.
The four other new chips in the same family, the 407V, 406V,404V,402V and 402V, have only one SIMD processing unit. See here for details.
Most US Denial of Service attacks are state-sponsored, says Broers
Today's report on web security from the House of Lords Science and Technology committee contains many nuggets of interesting information - not least that most Distributed Denial of Service attacks in the US are believed to be state sponsored rather than organised by criminals bent on blackmail.
Russia, or at least someone in Russia, was believed to have launched a DDoS attack on Estonia following a row a few weeks back about war graves. But which states would be attacking US businesses, and to what purpose?
Lord Broers, chair of the House of Lords committee that produced the report, said little to elucidate the matter at today's press conference, though it appeared that the information came from conversations with US experts.
But he said: "It is clear that we are witnessing the emergence of a new era of what might be called cyberwarfare."
Verisign had told the committee that DDoS attacks at peak were now increasing internet traffic 170-fold, a figure expected to increase 500-fold by 2010
Lord Broers said other web crime was also astonishing in scale, with credit-card numbers on sale in chat channels for as little as a dollar apiece.
Ex-Evesham staff available
A site has been set up for people who have been made redundant from PC vendor Evesham Technology, which has just gone into administration. The company, which won several awards, had a good reputation for its products and support.
The site is targeted at Evesham veterans with a view to helping them keep in touch and to post job opportunities. But if you have any work going, no doubt they would be glad to hear from you.
Damned lies and statistics give snap verdict on the Great British Tourist
Daft statistics are water off a duck's back to techie journalists. We are bombarded with surveys on this or that from companies seeking any way to get a mention and most of them have to be taken with a pinch (well, a tablespoon) of salt, especially now that we are deep into the silly season.
But the latest, from Samsung, contains a nugget of hope for those of us who have the impression that British tourists abroad look and behave worse than other nationalities.
It reveals that one in 12 (8 percent) of people in Britain "practice their beach pose" before going on holiday. This means that 92 percent of us don't, but we have to look on the bright side: some few Britons are setting us an example.
It could mean eight percent fewer men strutting about with their beer guts drooping over their Union Flag boxers, and fewer women with their cellulite bulging from ill-advised miniskirts and bikinis.
It means more people realising that even fat people can look elegant (except, perhaps, techie journalists who must be the scruffiest bunch of professionals in the world).
The Samsung figures do look deeply suspect, however. Just 21 percent of women confessed to being very concerned about how they look in holiday snaps, which means that 79 percent were lying.
Samsung, which has just launched a new range of digital cameras, craftily points out that they no longer need to resort to scissors or a biro to eliminate images they disapprove off. They can simply delete them from the digital holiday record.
Endeavour shuttle project on Photosynth
The excellent Photosynth project from Microsoft's Live Labs has just launched a new collaboration witb NASA to display images of the preparations for the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.
Photosynth is a unique way of viewing collections of 2D photos in a simulated 3D environmnent. It requires the installation of the free Photosynth viewer application.
Apple announces the 'most incredible desktop computer' it's ever made
In typical brash fashion, Apple supremo Steve Jobs described his new iMacs as "the most incredible desktop computer we’ve ever made". Built using "professional-grade" aluminium and glass, Jobs also said the new computers are "highly recyclable".
However, the iMacs run off Core 2 Duo processors (2GHz up to the 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme) and not, as many had hoped, Intel's newer quad core chips.
Graphics performance will disappoint those interested in playing a few games. The top-of-the-range 24in iMac (£1,459) houses a lethargic ATI Radeon 2600 Pro, while the cheapest 20in version (£799) has to make do with the HD 2400 XT.
No doubt the thought of having to increase the iMac's size and add noiser fans to take care of the extra generated heat made Apple turned its nose up at the much faster HD 2900 XT - considering the relatively small Apple gaming market it's probably not a bad decision.
The new models are also a fair bit cheaper than previous iMacs, but UK consumers are still getting a raw deal. The 20in version costs just $1,199 in the US - that's over £200 cheaper than here in the UK.
Along with the new iMacs, Apple also announced 2008 versions of iLife and iWork, as well as enhancements to its.Mac online service.
We'll be posting a full review of the new iMac imminently...
USB2 extender hub uses Wifi rather than ultrawide band
We had to do a doubletake on news from Brighton-based Amplicon that it is offering a wireless USB2 extender. It sounded at first sight as if the company was offering one of the first Wireless USB devices.
But note that Amplicon’s product does not capitalise the word wireless. Wireless (cap W) USB uses ultrawideband (UWB) radio to replace the usual USB cable and it is rated at 480Mbits/sec over two metres, though real data rates will be half that. Transfer rates drop off rapidly with distance and the maximum range is 10 meters. It is thus suitable for links across a room rather than a building.
Wireless (cap W) USB products should hit the shelves later this year after the technology is formally endorsed by parliament. The first available will be USB2 hubs, with a plug-in adapter for the host PC, and will allow links to up to four devices.
Amplicon’s WiRanger also consists of a host adapter and four-port hub but it uses Wifi 11g instead of UWB for the wireless link. This means it is rated at 55Mbit/sec, though you will be unlikely to get that at the claimed maximum range of 30 metres.
It costs £249.99, which is a lot by consumer Wifi standards. But the maximum length of a USB cable is five meters, so if you want to extend a fixed link further you would have to buy at least one hub or repeater. And that’s without factoring in the cost of routing cables across a building.
HD-DVD vs Blu-ray - just enjoy it!
DSGi (think Dixons/PC World/Currys) had its Christmas preview event last night in London. As expected, home networking is getting a big push with manufacturers such as Belkin getting their updated Draft-N routers (now with an LCD display) ready for launch in stores by September.
However, I was more than a little surprised to read in the press pack that one of the highlights of the festive season will be consumers being able to 'enjoy' the high-definition format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Quite how anyone is able to enjoy the possibility of splashing out a large amount of money on one format, with the possibility of the other one dominating and, in turn, making their expensive kit redundant is beyond me.
Surely the only way to enjoy the battle is to simply watch from afar, leaving your credit card tucked safely inside your wallet - which is probably something DSGi won't be too happy about.
