Hardware 2.0

On August 25th, security firm Symantec engineers announced they had discovered a virus that leveraged a flaw in the AMD64 CPU. This virus, called W32/W64.Bounds, was capable of binding itself to Windows executables in such a way that made it hard to detect. However, it's now been shown that this virus doesn't have anything to do with in AMD CPUs, but instead with the X86-64 instruction set itself. But could this be a sign of things to come?

September 5, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

14 Comments Vote

Any product that Microsoft brings out generates a high level of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Windows Vista (or Longhorn as it was called before that) has created a greater frenzy of FUD than any other product that I can recall. One myth that just won't seem to go away is that some sort of super PC is needed to run Vista. Garbage!

August 31, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

51 Comments Vote

A few weeks ago I blogged about how Vista's Windows Experience Index was fatally flawed. I'm pleased to say that under the latest Vista build (pre-RC1, build 5536) things are a lot better. In this post I'm going to take a detailed look at the Windows Experience Index and see how it is used to judge the performance of your PC.

August 31, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

9 Comments Vote

Greenpeace has updated their "Green Electronics Guide", a list which ranks the major mobile and PC manufacturers on how well they take care of this planet we all share based upon the information they make available. The results make interesting reading indeed.

August 29, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Comments Vote

What do you do if a standard is taking too long to thrash out and manufacturers are desperate to get their gear out of the door? You come up with a "pre-standard" instead! This is what's happening with the 802.11n standard - this standard won't be ratified until 2008, but "pre-standard" certified equipment will start hitting the shelves next year.

August 29, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

2 Comments Vote

Over the past few days some interesting details about Microsoft's Zune player has emerged. The most interesting feature - the ability to be your own DJ and create mobile social network "pockets"

August 27, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

11 Comments Vote

Apple has narrowed down the serial number of the batteries that have been recalled.

August 26, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

3 Comments Vote

Are you a Windows Vista beta tester? Have you noticed that startup sound that plays just as the PC gets to the point ready to accept your logon password? Yes. OK. Well, have you tried to disable that sound? If you do, you'll discover something odd - that there's no way to disable it. No check box, no button, no setting. Nothing. Zip. Nada.Doesn't that beg the question - why?

August 25, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

10 Comments Vote

Today, Microsoft has announced something that I've been expecting for a long time - that 32-bit versions of Windows Vista won't be able to play back next generation high definition protected content. What does this mean? It means that Microsoft might have just killed off HD.

August 24, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

171 Comments Vote

Apple is recalling 1.8 million lithium ion notebook batteries after receiving reports of nine units which seriously overheated, resulting in two users receiving minor burns.

August 24, 2006 by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

15 Comments Vote