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TECH UPDATE
Windows XP Service Pack 2 arrives
Windows XP Service Pack 2 — Microsoft’s response to many of the security woes that have plagued the company’s flagship operating system, web browser, and email client — is completed and will become available for download, the company says. However, the highly anticipated upgrade is not yet available to end users. Microsoft is announcing only its release to manufacturing, and expects it to be posted on the vendor’s Windows download site now. What’s more, the company is urging individual users to avoid downloading it, because anticipated traffic jams are likely to produce timeouts or other problems. Rather, users should wait for the update to come to them.
“The call to action is to enable Windows Auto-Update,” the automated software upgrade system added in Windows XP, says Greg Sullivan, Windows product manager. That way, people can acquire the patch—which is 80MB in compressed form—over the course of several days if necessary. Once the entire patch is downloaded, XP’s Automatic Updates feature either prompts the user to perform the installation, or simply starts the process itself, depending on the user’s settings.
Users who aren’t sure whether they’ve enabled Automatic Updates, or who need help doing so, should visit Microsoft’s Protect Your PC site, Sullivan says.
Through that same site, Microsoft will also offer to ship SP2 on CD to those who find the prospect of an 80MB download daunting. Microsoft acknowledges the process could take up to ten hours over a dial-up connection. The CD is free, and Microsoft will even pay for shipping.
IBM to build supercomputer
International Business Machines Corp said it had been selected to build a supercomputer for the US Department of Defense that help develop advanced weapons for the army.
The computer, code named “Stryker,” will be deployed at the Army Research Laboratory Major Shared Resource Center in Aberdeen, Maryland, IBM said.
IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
The supercomputer consists of 1186 powerful IBM computers connected together with a total of about 2,300 64-bit microprocessors made by AMD. The supercomputer would run on the Linux operating system.
This would be the largest Linux based supercomputer in the US military, IBM said.
The system will perform at a peak speed of 10 teraflops, or 10 trillion mathematical operations per second. That means the supercomputer will be able to accomplish in just one second what it would take a person with a calculator a few million years.
IBM expects the computer to be ranked among the world’s 20 fastest computers when the next list of the top 500 computers is released.
The fastest computer, according to the most recent list, was the Earth Simulator Center in Japan made by NEC Corp.
Beta MSN Web Messenger
Microsoft’s test version of its web-based MSN Messenger client is now available for download
A web-based client can be useful when installing the full client is not possible. It could be used on a public computer in a library, at school, or at a conference or when using a locked-down corporate system, for example.
The current beta release comes on the heels of Microsoft’s accidental sneak preview of the Web-based IM client. The company removed the pages hosting the Web Messenger on an MSN test Web site after the service attracted attention from MSN Messenger enthusiasts and the media. For now, the Web-client test is aimed at users in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Microsoft plans to roll out the service more broadly later this year, a company spokesperson says.
Yahoo readies search tools
Yahoo hopes to leapfrog Microsoft by releasing a tool that allows users to quickly and easily search for information on their PCs as well as in their personal files stored at Yahoo’s online services, a source familiar with the plan says.
The tool builds an index of content on a user’s computer and makes it searchable. Relevant links from the Internet, along with advertisements, are displayed in a pane on the right side of the screen.
Yahoo is developing a similar tool but plans to take its capabilities a step further, according to a person familiar with the plan. In addition to letting users search their local mail and hard drive, Yahoo’s tool will extend the search to include personal files stored at its online services, such as e-mail, calendar, and picture hosting, the person says.
Among the key benefits of such tools is that users should be able to search through files on their desktops much faster and more thoroughly than they can with the search feature currently in Windows.
First Pocket PC virus
A new virus targets PDAs that run Microsoft’s Pocket PC operating system, according to reports from antivirus software firms.
Labeled “WinCE.Brador.a,” it is a Trojan attributed to a Russian hacker who likely created it for financial purposes, most likely for sale to spammers and hackers.
It follows on the heels of a proof-of-concept worm released by the elite hacker group 29A last month. Unlike that worm, called “Dust,” or “WinCE4.Dust,” Brador does indeed have a payload. Brador is a full-scale malicious program, according to Eugene Kaspersky, head of antivirus research at Kaspersky Labs. “It has a complete set of destructive functions typical for backdoors,” he says. — Sci-tech World Report
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