Chip and Pin flaws will be investigated. Following on from last months retreat into denial the body that oversees the technology behind chip-based payment cards is to investigate chip-and-PIN security following claims that the protocol has been broken. The specification body, EMVCo, said it will analyse a paper by researchers from Cambridge University, who demonstrated an attack with a valid payment card that did not require a valid PIN to be entered to complete a transaction. EMVCo, owned by American Express, JCB, MasterCard and Visa, said those debit- and credit-card payment companies will also scrutinise the paper.
Windows 7 Obesity Worry. Citing data from Devil Mountain Craig Barth, the company's chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% of Windows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM, resulting in slow-downs as the systems were forced to increasingly turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks. The 86% mark for Windows 7 is more than twice the average number of Windows XP machines that run at the memory 'saturation' point, and this comes despite more RAM being available on most Windows 7 machines. 'This is alarming,' Barth said of Windows 7 machines' resource consumption. 'For the OS to be pushing the hardware limits this quickly is amazing. Windows 7 is not the lean, mean version of Vista that you may think it is.
MPs bemoan 50p Broadband Tax rate. Labour's plan to charge 50p per month to help fund ultra-fast broadband has been slammed as being rather "unfair" by a very cross cross-party group of MPs. The Business Innovation and Skills Committee said most of those who would pay the tax, which is to fall on those who have fixed phone lines, would not benefit from the faster broadband service.
Citizens don't trust Government with data. A new poll shows that Britons are becoming increasingly concerned about the type of personal information held by the government. Just under two thirds of respondents said they are against the government centralising information about citizens so it can be shared between different government departments. The 'State of the Nation' poll carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, for which ICM surveyed 2,288 people face to face, was released on 20 February 2010. Other findings show that 52% of participants think the introduction of identity cards is a bad idea, compared with 33% in the 2006 poll, and most people believe that the government should not be allowed to access the public's phone, email and internet records. The 2006 figure of 82% has risen marginally to 83%.
Microsoft warns users away from 64 bit Office. The advice is tucked away in an FAQ about the Office 2010 Tech Guarantee programme, which will ensure that buyers of Office 2007 will get a free upgrade to the new Office suite when its launched. "We strongly recommend most users install 32-bit version of Office 2010 on both 32 and 64-bit operating systems because currently many common add-ins for Office will not function in the 64-bit edition," Microsoft warns.
Microsoft turns its back on Windows XP. In a commercail bid to force customers to upgrade their Windows Exlplorer 9 will not be available on XP. Regular readers will already know about alternative browsers. Trust your browsing to the specialists. For example the very latest Firfox is still fully supported on Windows 2000.
Google shuts down its politcal Filter in China. The news broke as I was writing, making good on its previous threats. Some reports shugest Google will leave China completely next month. So do can we welcome Google back to the "do no evil" club - or is something else afoot?
Free Software for Schools. A huge resource bringing together many practitioners in the field is here: http://www.schoolforge.net/
Backup and share your files safely. Dropbox service stores files with strong encryption on multiple servers in Amazon's S3 service and works equally smoothly on Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs. Free up to 2Gb, details: http://www.dropbox.com/
Beware the Digital Economy. An amendment to the Bill proposed by the Liberal Democrates, which goes against their own statued policies, ISPs like BT could be obliged to block your internet connection just on the suspicion of copyright infringement. You will then have to go to the courts to prove innocence and recover costs. The danger is this bill will now become law before the election as it is a part of the Labour Budget. This is a dangerous reversal of centuries of legal tradition in the UK. Write to your MP here: http://www.writetothem.com/
Nvidia Over-heating. Recent drivers from Nvidia have been found to cause overheating on a range of video cards. The offending drivers have now been withdrawn with advice to downgrade. Check older but latest version (if you see what I mean) at: http://www.nvidia.com/Download
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