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June 3, 2003
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Intel speeds up Pentium M
Enhancing its Centrino package of chips, Intel released three new versions of its Pentium M processor and announced plans to update its wireless chips with a new security standard, it said Monday in a press release.
The Pentium M now comes in a 1.7GHz version, a 1.2GHz low-voltage version, and a 1.0GHz ultra-low-voltage version. When combined with Intel's 855 GM chipset and the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 chip, the packages are each priced at $725, $372, and $350, respectively in 1,000-unit quantities. Intel also sells the Pentium M processor separately to PC makers who elect to use other wireless silicon, and the new Pentium M chips cost $637, $284, and $262, respectively.
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Tobacco Plant Source of Rabies Treatment
Researchers have used tobacco plants to produce antibodies directed against the rabies virus and have successfully prevented rabies in hamsters and mice using the antibodies, according to a report released Monday.
The antibodies may one day offer a cheap and safe alternative therapy for rabies, which is sometimes treated with antibodies collected from horses -- which can cause severe allergic reactions -- or with antibodies from people, which can be expensive.
Rabies is a deadly viral infection of the central nervous system most commonly found in raccoons, skunks and bats. Dogs and cats can be infected as well, although vaccination has gone a long way to eliminating the disease in pets in the U.S.
Currently, people who are bitten by a rabid animal -- the usual means by which humans become infected -- are treated with a series of vaccine shots given over about one month.
The goal of the vaccine is to induce the body to produce antibodies against the virus that causes rabies, thereby preventing the infection from ever taking hold.
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Toshiba Unveils Media Center Laptop
The Media Center PC has arrived in notebook form.
Toshiba on Tuesday announced a laptop computer running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition, which was launched last year in an effort to turn PCs into home entertainment centers. The Satellite 5205-S705 includes a digital video recorder (DVR), DVD player and a set of integrated Harman/Kardon speakers with a subwoofer.
The $2,699 notebook comes with a remote control that allows users to operate it much like they would a TV or stereo. They can watch their favorite shows on the laptop's 15-inch screen and record them to its 60GB hard drive. The Satellite 5205-S705, which is powered by a 2.4GHz Intel Mobile Pentium 4 processor and an Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5600 graphics processor, also includes 512MB of memory, integrated 802.11b and a built-in CD/DVD burner.
The laptop also features the Toshiba Style Bay, which can hold a second hard drive, extra battery or a bridge media adapter. The media adapter can accommodate Memory Sticks, CompactFlash cards and Smart Media cards.
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Apple tunes up iSync, QuickTime
Apple Computer on Tuesday updated its iSync and QuickTime software as part of an effort to make sure that Macs and cell phones have plenty to talk about.
Both modest updates are aimed at taking advantage of the growing importance of wireless phones in the technology world. With iSync 1.1, Apple has increased the total number of cell phones that can exchange information with a Mac to about 20.
Version 6.3 of the QuickTime streaming media software, meanwhile, gains support for new cell phone multimedia standards. QuickTime, which acquired MPEG-4 support in July, now supports wireless devices compatible with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP, which promotes telecommunications standards for mobile systems.
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Microsoft Patches Up Its Patch Approach
Microsoft is reworking its software-patch management approach and plans to reduce eight patch installers to two by year's end.
The company is about to publish a road map for releasing software that helps IT departments fix Microsoft products to guard against hacker attacks, chief security strategist Scott Charney said during a speech and interview at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Dallas on Tuesday. By the end of the year, Microsoft plans to offer customers two patch installers-one for operating systems and one for applications-versus the eight that are available today. That could go down to one by the time Microsoft ships "Longhorn," the next version of its Windows desktop operating system, due in 2005. Difficulty managing installation technology for security patches has caused uptake to be too low, Charney said.
"Patch management was broken," he said. About 95% of hacker attacks occur against known vulnerabilities in software, Charney said. Patches issued by Microsoft have been too difficult to use and their quality has been too low, partly because internal competition among Microsoft developers to build better patch-management software caused too many to reach the market. "We were making it more difficult than it had to be." By the end of the year, he said, "you'll have one set of tools that can look across the whole Microsoft spectrum and tell you what you need."
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Apple design guru awarded prize
Apple Computer's industrial design guru Jonathan Ive was named "Designer of the Year" by London's Design Museum, earning a prize of $40,927 (25,000 pounds). The winner of the award, which is new this year, was chosen by a panel of four jury members as well as more than 20,000 members of the public, with the London-born Ive beating out three other nominees.
The other finalists were linguist-turned-jeweler Solange Azagury-Partridge, glassware and furniture creator Tord Boontje, and video game maker Rockstar Games.
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Beagle searches for life on Mars
Europe launched its first ever bid to explore Mars yesterday, successfully embarking on a half-year journey to unearth one of the oldest mysteries; whether there is life on the Red Planet.
Ninety minutes after liftoff from the Russian space base in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the orbiter - carrying the "Beagle 2" lander - separated from an unmanned Soyuz rocket and began its 400 million kilometre trip to uncover the mystery of life on Mars.
If all goes according to plan, on Christmas Day the Beagle-2, named after the ship that took Charles Darwin on a quest for the origins of life, will land on the planet and begin its exploration.
The successful launch marked Europe's official entry into the interplanetary travel club, ESA scientific director David Southwood said following liftoff at 11:45pm (3.45am AEST).
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