NEC's writes down DVD burners to ?35

NEC has released the latest in its range of DVD burners, claiming the fastest read and write speeds around. The ND4550 now supports 11 types of optical storage: namely 5x RAM functionality and supports all DVD and CD formats including plus and minus read/write for CD and DVD media as well as Dual-Layer, ROM and RAM. The drive is billed to support Windows 98SE and newer only. ...more

News roundup... [13-06-2002]

Here, in brief, are some of the day's other stories. More MS security alerts Following in the wake of the Gopher-related security alert for Internet Explorer, Microsoft has released 3 more security bulletins. The first - with a maximum severity rating of 'critical', affecting Windows NT, 200 and XP - involves the Remote Access Service (RAS). ...more

Crimbo cam

The peripherals manufacturers re rolling out new lines in the run up to Christmas, and Epson is no exception, with the PhotoPC 2100Z. The new digital camera has a 2.3megpixel CCD which can interpolate images up to 3. ...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

PS2 at the double

The next three months will see Sony double production of its much-hyped, next-generation console. The company has said that it wishes to ship 10 million consoles worldwide by the end of March in an attempt to make up for the production delays that saw the number of pre-order machines being cut. At the moment, Sony is producing 1 million units a month and analysts believe that it would be difficult for the company to double production. ...more