Flash in the pan

When is a computer virus not a virus? When it's just theory... ...more

Adoption of Vista climbs 500 per cent - surveys

Adoption of Microsoft's flagship operating system has risen more than 500 per cent in a month, according to the latest figures from Net Applications. With a consumer launch at the end of January, February has been the first full month of Vista in public. The business version was launched at the end of November 2006. ...more

Cryptography break threatens digital signatures

Researchers in the field of cryptography have been successfully breaking the hash functions that are used to secure the privacy of electronic communications, threatening the integrity of digital signatures, according to a report on Slashdot. Details from the Crypto 2004 conference indicate that one Antoine Joux has broken the hash function used within the SHA-0 algorithm, and there are rumours that somebody is about to announce a partial break of the SHA-1, which is one of most popular cryptographic hash functions (CHF). As well as potentially undermining secure email web connections, such breakthroughs threaten the integrity of digital signatures. ...more

MSN UK states iLoo was a real receptacle

Despite claims from Microsoft people in the US that the iLoo is a late April Fool's joke, MSN UK has confirmed that the project is real, although it will now be canned. The company said in a statement that confusion arose between their US colleagues because 'the press announcement was a UK story about a UK market initiative and naturally was aimed at British culture and humour.' CNet reported on Monday that a US spokesperson for Microsoft told the news site that the iLoo was an April Fool's joke, played in May. ...more

AMD trumpets Torrenza partners

Sun, Cray, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, Dell and IBM have lined up behind AMD's Torrenza Initiative, which allows third-parties to share silicon with AMD server processors. Described by AMD as a 'game-changing approach to server design', it allows such OEMs to plug-in co-processors into the AMD64 ecosystem using HyperTransport technology. They will standardize designs on the 'Torrenza Innovation Socket'. ...more