January 18, 2005

BenQ FP91V 6ms response time LCD monitor

Taiwanese company BenQ is set to unveil the FP91V a new 19" LCD monitor with 6ms of response time. Key features include a 19" LCD Screen Size with 140/140 Viewing Angle, 1280 x 1024 resolution, a display area of 376.3 by 301.1mm, power consumption of 60W, 450:1 Contrast, 0,294 Dot pitch , 400 cd/m2 Brightness, 6ms GTG and 16.2million colors display.

- Seen at Ubergizmo

January 17, 2005

Computer Worm with bad taste

Security company Sophos advises on a computer worm lurking in mass emails asking you to help the victims of last month's Asian tsunami disaster. The worm appears with the subject line: "Tsunami donation! Please help!" and invites you to open an attachment called "tsunami.exe" -- which, if opened, will forward the virus to other Internet users.

Sophos added that it had so far only received a small number of reports of the worm, which it said was not the first to try to take advantage of the Indian Ocean catastrophe in order to spread.

Sophos recommends recipients delete the mails and do not open the attachments.

January 14, 2005

Texas Files Suit Against Spammers

The state of Texas has filed a civil lawsuit in the federal court of Austin against Ryan Samuel Pitylak, a University of Texas student, and Mark Stephen Trotter of California for just spamming non stop. Texas is seeking millions of dollars from two men it says are responsible for sending illegal messages on the Internet. The two are suspected of controlling companies -- PayPerAction LLC, Leadplex LLC and Leadplex Inc. -- that sent millions of Spam messages pitching fraudulent services. An attorney for the defendants said the suit was groundless and the pair would defend themselves vigorously. The suit charges the operation with using misleading subject lines in e-mail messages and making misrepresentations in the body of the e-mail. No criminal charges were filed. Assets of the spammers in question have been frozen and a temporary injunction put in place preventing them from sending any emails, ahead of a hearing and a possible permanent injunction.

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January 13, 2005

The FLY pentop computer

LeapFrog Enterprises has announced "The Fly" a talking computerized pen designed for children that can translate words into other languages, and help with math and spelling homework. The product uses special "Fly paper" that kids can write on which translates the writing into audio, in English or different languages. It also enables children to create interactive calculators that will work by touching the hand written digits and functions. The pen will then read back the answer to the writer.

The FLY pentop computer will be available in fall 2005 at a MSRP of around $99.

January 7, 2005

Microsoft fights back with new anti-virus tool

Computer security software vendors Symantec and McAfee both saw a drop in shares on the heels of Microsoft announcing their free Windows Anti-virus software built using GeCAD technology, which Microsoft gained through its acquisition of the Romanian antivirus company GeCAD Software Srl in 2003. The tool eliminates common viruses.

The antivirus software will be available for download from 11 January and will be updated with virus definitions on the second Tuesday of the month. Microsoft said the virus-removal program will not prevent computer infections and is not intended to replace the need for traditional Anti-virus software, such as products from McAfee Inc. or Symantec Corp.

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January 3, 2005

Fujitsu Siemens to pay Copyright Tax on New PCs

Fujitsu Siemens has been ordered by the Munich District Court (Germany) to pay 12 Euro copyright tax for each new machine it sells. The court believes that since the machine could be bought by pirates Fujitsu Siemens should pay the same tax that the makers of blank audio and video cassettes have to pay. This ruling brought some joy to the VG Wort rights society who has been fighting for more than two years to get money from PC companies. VG now plans to take the copyright levy to every other computer company in Germany.
The landmark case means that Germany will become the first EU country to impose a copyright levy on new PCs.

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