From Daily Tech:

The highest capacity optical storage devices and DVD recorders all use blue lasers — and offer only poky write times in the range of 2X to 4X. New high-powered blue lasers could change that in a hurry

Nichia Corp. of Japan has broken the speed record for writing Blu-ray discs.
The company has announced a new blue-violet laser that can fill up a 54GB double-layer disc at more than 10X record speed. Currently-shipping Blu-ray and HD-DVD format disc recorders are mostly of the 2X variety, though a few can boast 4X speed.

The difference from today’s 2X record times to 10X, based on future availability of the high-speed lasers, will be remarkable, according to blue laser expert Steven DenBaars, professor of materials and co-director of the Solid-State Lighting Center at the University of California Santa Barbara. As an example, today’s 2X blue-laser-based DVD recorders require about 50 minutes to write a disc containing a full-length DVD movie, DenBaars said, while a 10X laser could accomplish the task in about 10 minutes.

A column from Larry Magid, via the Mercury News:

Most of the time I write about gadgets or fun Web sites, but today’s column is about a more serious topic: Keeping your kids safe on the Internet.

While I think that some of the “online predator'’ dangers have been overstated, there are nevertheless risks that every parent should consider before they let their children or teens surf the Web or even carry a cell phone. No reason to panic, only a tiny number of children each year are victimized by adult predators.

But millions are exposed to cyberbullying, unwanted pornography or possible “loss of reputation'’ because of indiscreet postings on social network sites. Today’s net-enabled cell phones also pose a risk, partially because they’re used away from home.

There is also the danger of kids getting into trouble at school or with the cops for their own inappropriate online behavior. For example, a Florida appeals court recently upheld the conviction of two teens (16 and 17 at the time) who took sexually explicit pictures of each other and then one of them sent the digital images to the other.

The naughty photos weren’t posted publicly or distributed but somehow police found out, and the youths were arrested and convicted for producing and possessing child porn. This is far from a case of pedophilia, but it was a technical violation of the very strict child porn laws.

I’m hoping these teens get off with a slap on the wrist — it would be tragic if they’re forced to register as sex offenders — but it does send a message: “Children behave.'’ Besides, teenage relationships have a habit of going south and there’s always the risk that images like these could end up on the Internet.

To help your kids stay safe online, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (disclosure: I serve without compensation on its board of directors) just launched NetSmartz411.org, which has a knowledge base on a wide range of technology and safety questions. The knowledge base is surprisingly good but like any interactive resource it has its limits. The service also has an “ask the experts'’ button that lets you send e-mail to a trained analyst who will answer your question.

Other Internet safety sites include GetNetwise.org, NetSmartz.org and sites I help operate: BlogSafety.com, SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com.

Excerpt from the Washington Post:

In a string of tirades against Sprint Nextel’s cellphone service, posted recently on Bloggingstocks.com, Steve of Indiana chimed in.

“I was a Nextel customer for 2 years,” he began, adding that he switched to Verizon in August because of poor customer service, dropped calls and sketchy signal availability. “I’ll never go back to Nextel,” wrote Steve, who confirmed his comments in a telephone interview but spoke on condition of anonymity. “I thought when they merged with Sprint last year that things would get better,” he wrote, “but they didn’t — and bingo, my contract ended so I was outta there.”

For the mobile carrier, which is based in Reston, there have been too many Steves since the 2005 merger. Analysts, employees and stockholders are wondering when and how the company might turn things around and compete more aggressively with rivals such as Verizon Wireless, AT&T (formerly Cingular) and T-Mobile, which are adding customers in droves.

Next Wednesday’s update on fourth-quarter earnings almost surely will not cheer them, as Sprint officials made clear in a Jan. 8 announcement intended to dampen Wall Street expectations. They said the company, which lost 300,000 monthly subscribers in the fourth quarter, would lay off 5,000 workers in the coming months and miss its 2007 projections.

It was the latest in a string of bad news. In the second quarter of 2006, Sprint’s profit fell 38 percent, and the company lost customers at double the rate of Verizon Wireless. The following quarter, Sprint lost 2.4 percent of its customer base each month — again, a rate notably higher than that of its competitors. It has also faced turmoil among its management in the past seven months, ousting not only its chief operating officer but also its chairman and longtime Nextel leader, Timothy Donahue.

Sara Krueger, a spokeswoman for the company, said it is making strategic investments to improve its network, customer satisfaction and “brand awareness and marketing,” among other things. “We are already seeing growth in certain segments of our wireless and wireline businesses, and are confident these investments will . . . return the company to an overall growth trajectory in 2008,” she said in a written response to questions.

I have used Nextel for a few years now (because of work) and if you are a regular here, you know I hate the service because of too many dead zones between my home and office.  Sprint and Nextel use two different technoligies for their networks and they say that Nextel will eventually use Sprint’s current network, but will it be any better?  And when is that going to happen?

Remember when Milli Vanillis’ recorded songs turned out to be someone else?  Scandals of that nature are common to pop culture, but not heard of in the classical music world.  Until now.

Joyce Hatto died of cancer in 2006. She was a classical pianist that was referred to by the Boston Globe as the “greatest pianist nobody ever heard of”.  The reason?  Her husband supposedly recorded over 100 recordings of her playing major works of composers. According to Stereophile magazine, her husbands recording label, “Concert Artists Recordings issued Hatto’s performances of the complete solo keyboard works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Prokofiev, not to mention virtually complete runs of Chopin and Liszt, as well as all of Brahms’, Saint-Saäns’, and Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos.” She was praised by critics for her wide range and her ability to play this range of music so well.

Fast forward to February 2007. A critic at the Gramophone magazine put a CD of Hattos into his computer.  His iTunes player then started searching the online Compact Disc Database (CCDB) (now known as Gracenote) and displayed the right song title, but a different pianist, Lászlo Simon. Curious, the critic checked his Hatto disc against the Simon disc and found them exactly alike.

He then checked out other Hatto recordings and iTunes once again showed a different artist.  He got those recordings and compared them and could tell no difference.

He then sent these recordings to a sound lab, known for restoring audio recordings.  The lab, Prisitine Classical, scientifically checked the soundwaves of each recording.  They were a perfect match.  Further checking of other recordings revealed slight tampering with the speed of the recordings.  When corrected, these recordings matched perfectly with those of other pianists. 

These comparisons are so accurate that it would be impossible for a human duplicate these pieces so perfectly.  In fact, not even the same pianist could play the same piece twice in a row that accurately..

So how many more of Hattos recordings are fakes?  It’s a continuing story.  Check out the links in this post as well as those below for further info.

Read “‘Hoax’ stuns classical music world” on The Register

Read “Questions arise over recordings by pianist Joyce Hatto” on The international Herald Tribune

Excerpt from Computerworld:

Configuring a PC around the minimum hardware requirements of an application or operating system is lot like agreeing to live in a basement apartment. Sure, it will work as a place to live — if you don’t mind damp and dim living conditions.

Such may be the case for Windows Vista’s minimum requirement of 512MB of RAM.

Microsoft’s on-the-box minimum RAM requirement “really isn’t realistic,” according to David Short, an IBM consultant who works in its company’s Global Services Divison. He says users should consider 4GB of RAM if they really want optimum Vista performance. With 512MB of RAM, Vista will deliver performance that’s “sub-XP,” he warned.

Short has been beta testing Vista for two years and was at the IBM-oriented Share user group conference in Tampa, Fla., last week discussing some of Vista’s performance requirements. His XP system has 2GB of RAM, which he calls the “sweet spot” for that operating system, but on Vista, 4GB of RAM may be closer to its “Nirvana,” he said.

That’s due in part to Windows SuperFetch, which takes data from the hard drive, stores it in the available RAM and makes it readily accessible to the processor. SuperFetch depends a great deal on user predictability and takes snapshots of user activity. If SuperFetch determines that an application is launched at a particular time, it will have it loaded into the available RAM. With more RAM, there’s more caching and better software response, said Short.

Hardware vendors, of course, will offer systems built on Microsoft’s minimum hardware requirements called “Windows Vista Capable,” configured with 512MB of system memory and a processor that is at least 800MHz. But their heart may not really be in it.

For instance, Dell offers a Windows Vista Capable configuration that isn’t capable of much, according to what Dell says about it on its Web site: “Great for … Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games.”

Dell recommends 2GB of system memory.

Microsoft may be using PCs loaded with 4GB of RAM for some of its customer demos; At least that’s what Ann Westerheim, president of Ekaru LLC, reports. A Microsoft representative recently demonstrated Vista on a system with 4GB of system memory to some of its customers, and the performance was so impressive that it drew some “ohs and ahs” from the audience, said Westerheim. The Westford, Mass.-based company provides technology services for small and mid-sized business.

Article excerpt from Joris Evers, CNET News.com:

Congress decided in 2005 to extend the period of daylight-saving time by three weeks in spring and one in the fall, reasoning that providing more daylight in the early evening would reduce energy use. However, the shift could cause trouble with software set to automatically advance its clock by an hour on the old date, the first Sunday in April, and not on the new date, the second Sunday in March.

“There has been a great deal of speculation of what the impact could be,” said M3 Sweatt, chief of staff of Microsoft’s customer service team. “For most people, the most apparent issue is that meetings and reminders may appear to be off by one hour.”

But Microsoft may be downplaying the risk. Some say those companies that don’t pay full attention to the issue are in for a rude awakening.

“We’ve been aware of the DST changes since late last year. But the tools and patches keep changing, or weren’t available, which made it difficult to create a solid plan,” said Warren Byle, a systems engineer at an insurance company. “This change might go smoothly for those who are prepared, but I think it will be the ‘Y2K that wasn’t’ for the rest.”

The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions, causing late payments. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours.

On top of that, the effect is expected to be felt around the world: Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change, and time zone shifts have happened in other locales as well.

Good advice from PC World, and easy to do.  Read the entire article here.

If you haven’t changed the default password on your home router, do so now.

That’s what researchers at Symantec and Indiana University are saying, after publishing the results of tests that show how attackers could take over your home router using malicious JavaScript code.

For the attack to work, the bad guys would need a couple of things to go their way. First, the victim would have to visit a malicious Web site that served up the JavaScript. Second, the victim’s router would have to still use the default password that it’s pre-configured with it out of the box.

In tests, the researchers were able to do things like change firmware and redirect a D-Link Systems Inc. DI-524 wireless router to look up Web sites from a DNS (Domain Name System) server of their choosing. They describe these attacks in a paper, authored by Sid Stamm and Markus Jakobsson of Indiana University, and Symantec’s Zulfikar Ramzan.

From Theo Valich at the Inquirer web site in the UK:

The GEFORCE 8800GTS 320MB makes a strong showing today, with most of the hardware sites reviewing different brands that are now coming to market with the most affordable DirectX 10 cards yet. Oddly enough, it seems Nvidia’s reviewers guide explicitly called for reviewers to review the card using only Windows XP, since Windows Vista is not currently supported. Pretty funny, especially when you see all those Windows Vista Ready stickers on the retail boxes.

Excerpt from Eric Lai at Digit.com:

Windows Vista’s powerful new graphics engine may be one of its hallmark features, but it’s engendering complaints from a key segment of potential early adopters: hardcore gamers.

A small but significant number of games written for Windows XP either crash or creep along slowly on Vista, according to numerous complaints by game enthusiasts in online forums.

“Formatted PC, installed Vista, updated any drivers possible. Now half [of my] games will not run, or run with corrupt graphics,” lamented one poster on Jan. 31 in a discussion forum at graphics chipmaker Nvidia’s Web site.

“You installed Vista. You deserve your problems. Heh,” replied a second poster.

Most of the problems have been found in popular first-person shooter games such as CounterStrike, Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and F.E.A.R.

Games, especially first-person shooters, tend to strain a PC’s graphics capabilities much more than business or even multimedia applications.

Besides the occasional crash, the most common reports appear to be games whose animation speed, measured in frames per second, suffers under Vista.

Experts blame still-flaky software drivers, Vista’s complexity and a dearth of new video cards optimized for Vista’s new rendering technology, DirectX 10.

That’s despite promises from Microsoft that Vista is backwards-compatible with XP’s graphic engine, DirectX 9, and that it will support existing games.

Meanwhile, games written to take advantage of DirectX 10 have been slow to emerge. And one Nvidia executive predicts that gamers may not routinely see games optimized for DirectX 10 until mid-2008.

Thanks to les Lieberman for spotting this on MSNBC.com:

Between three and four FBI laptop computers are lost or stolen each month on average and the agency is unable to say in many instances whether information on the machines is sensitive or classified, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday.

The inspector general said the FBI is doing a better job of reducing the number of thefts and disappearances of weapons and laptop computers, but that not all problems were corrected as urged in a report five years ago.

“Perhaps most troubling, the FBI could not determine in many cases whether the lost or stolen laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information,” said the report. “Such information may include case information, personal identifying information, or classified information on FBI operations.”

In a report five years ago, the inspector general said 354 weapons and 317 laptop computers were lost or stolen during a 28-month review.

The new report found that 160 weapons and 160 laptop computers were lost or stolen over a 44-month period.

The FBI said it was preparing a response to the report.
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