New DVD technology can hold 1.6TB of data per disc

A team of researchers from an Australian university has developed a new DVD technology that could someday boost disc capacity by 10,000 times beyond today’s standard 4.7GB DVDs, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, in Melbourne, said the technology, dubbed Multiplexed optical recording, can create a “fifth dimension” of recording using polarization and gold nanorods to reflect light, boosting data density beyond 1012 bits per centimeter. The team was able to store 1.6TB of data on a disk with the technology, and said that someday the technique could yield up to 10TB on a single DVD-type disk.
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Computerworld - Hard on the heels of the success of the revamped Star Trek franchise, security company Sophos has released a Klingon-language version of a free malware scanning tool it uses to show Earth-bound customers how its technology stacks up against rivals’ software.

Dubbed Klingon Anti-Virus (KAV), the software is actually a tweaked version of Sophos’ Threat Detection Test translated into the language spoken by Klingons in the fictional Star Trek universe.

Downloads of KAV have been “through the roof,” said Carole Theirault, a senior security consultant with Sophos. “It’s been huge. I’m just shocked.”

Sophos’ description of KAV uses considerable humor to pitch the product. “Our routine monitoring of sub-space transmissions alerted Sophos that the loss of the Klingon battlecruiser Klothos was not due to Romulan incursion into the Khitomer system, but a result of trying to remove VBS/PeachyPDF-A from the battle computer using M’swoN’kar after Commander Kor opened an attachment from the system S’cam-419,” the company said on the site promoting KAV.
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Antivirus researchers from the University of California gained control over a well-known and powerful network of hacked computers for 10 days, gaining insight into how it steals personal and financial data.

The botnet, known as Torpig (AKA Sinowal), is one of the most sophisticated networks that uses hard-to-detect malicious techniques to infect PS-s and subsequently harvest data such as mail passwords and online banking details.

The researchers were able to monitor more than 180,000 hacked computers by exploiting a weakness within the command-and-control network used by the hackers to control the computers. It only worked for 10 days, however, until the hackers updated the command-and-control instructions, according to the researchers’ 13-page paper.
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Pirated copies of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) on file-sharing sites contain malware, according to users who have downloaded the upgrade.

Windows 7 RC, which Microsoft Corp. will officialy launch tomorrow, leaked two weeks ago, with copies first appearing on BitTorrent tracking sites on April 24.

Some of the pirated builds include a Trojan horse, numerous users said in message forums and in comments on BitTorrent sites such as Mininova.org.
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The Web site has a name reminiscent of a popular TV program — Cybercrime Response Unit — but its mission and ability to protect consumers and online users from identity theft is very real.

The Cybercrime Response Unit is a one-of-a-kind online center designed to help consumers fight cyber-crime. Launched last week by McAfee Inc., an Internet security company, with the help of leading national experts and resources from the Federal Trade Commission and WiredSafety.org, the site helps individuals and small businesses determine whether they are victims of ID theft without knowing it or are at high-risk of becoming victims.

It also guides users through steps recommended by security experts to reclaim a stolen ID, report problems associated with ID theft and assists those who have not yet been victimized keep it that way.

And here’s the best part: all of it is offered for free, just visit www.mcafee.com/cru.

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An executive at Taiwanese computer company Acer said he expects start shipping systems bearing Microsoft’s new Windows 7 as early as October, 2009, though Microsoft has not confirmed the statement.

Acer U.K. CEO Bobby Ryan said the company plans to begin selling Windows 7-powered systems on Oct. “23 October is the date Windows 7 will be available,” said Watkins, in an interview with the site.

Watkins also said Acer is expecting Microsoft to launch a free Windows 7 upgrade program at least 30 days before the ship date so that consumers shopping for PCs during the September back-to-school season can purchase a Vista-based machine without fear of it becoming obsolete in a few weeks.

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Even with smartphone use exploding, new owners of the mobile platforms generally appear to be using their handsets in the same manner as the earliest smartphone users did nearly two years ago — iPhone owners use their devices primarily for entertainment and personal use, while BlackBerry, Nokia, and HTC owners are more likely to use their handsets for business reasons.

While a new poll out this week by Compete found that 73% of iPhone owners operate their devices for personal purposes, 59% of other smartphone users view their BlackBerry, HTC, and Nokia handsets as business devices.
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Want to fight global warming? Try virtualization.

The biggest marketing trumpet for virtualization has been monetary savings–physical-to-virtual conversions reduce capital expense by consolidating many servers onto fewer hosts. Additional potential savings can come from reduced management costs, less downtime, and lighter staffing.

As energy prices have fluctuated widely during the past year, CFOs are punching new holes to tighten corporate belts ever further, looking for savings wherever they can. Power and heating and cooling costs are surfacing as areas of opportunity.
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When Google announced that it planned to acquire online ad network DoubleClick in April 2007, Microsoft and others lined up to oppose the deal. But the acquisition went through, with only minor accommodations on Google’s part, and now the integration of the two companies has yielded a new suite of online rich media creation tools for advertisers.

A year ago, after the deal closed, Google said it would sell the unit, to avoid the appearance that it sold search result placement through search marketing services, and also announced the layoffs of about 300 of DoubleClick’s 1,500 employees.

These days, Google’s giving rather than taking away. On Friday, Google unveiled DoubleClick Studio, a platform for designing rich media ads using Flash and Web technology. It includes a rewrite of the DoubleClick ActionScript API, an interface for verifying ad-related events, media previewing, reporting, and ad distribution.

Rich media ads make use of motion graphics, audio, and interactivity. This is what sets them apart from display ads — banners, for example — and text ads that can only be interacted with through a click. If well-designed, they’re more engaging to viewers and lead to better results than their less-flashy brethren.
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How long does Microsoft plan to keep selling copies of its Windows Vista operating system after the upcoming launch of Windows 7? The company isn’t saying.

With previous versions of Windows, Microsoft used a transition period when old and new versions of Windows were available to help corporate customers manage their transition to the new version of the operating system.

This time Microsoft aims to put the ghosts of its Vista troubles to rest as soon as possible, and could stop selling Vista as soon as Windows 7 is released.

“We are still not sure if [computer makers] will be able to ship Vista once Windows 7 is made available. Having said that, an enterprise customer that purchases a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed is allowed to downgrade to Vista should they desire, similar to what we have today on Vista to XP,” wrote Richard Francis, general manager and Windows client business group lead at Microsoft Asia-Pacific, in an e-mail.

Microsoft will stop supporting all versions of Vista in April 2012, Francis said.

The launch of Windows 7 could take place within a few months from now. Last week, the company released the final beta version of the software, one of the last steps before locking down the code and sending the finished operating system to computer makers.

Microsoft had high hopes for Vista, but users found the OS sluggish on some computers and they complained about the number of permission prompts required for some tasks. Dissatisfaction with Vista kept user demand high for Windows XP, but many companies — including Eastman Chemical and Continental Airlines, among others listed on Microsoft’s Web site — decided to roll out Vista within their organizations.

Microsoft appears to be betting that Vista won’t be missed once Windows 7 is released.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a version of Windows that will actually run better [than the previous version] on the hardware that most customers have,” said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of the Windows product management group at Microsoft, during a conference call with reporters last Thursday.

Compared to Vista, Windows 7 will be faster and work better on systems such as netbooks, which have less powerful processors and less memory than other computers, he said.

While Microsoft hasn’t detailed plans for Vista after the launch of Windows 7, Nash said Windows XP will continue to be available on netbooks for one year after the launch of the new operating system. Read the rest of this entry »