PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

Posted on 3rd Dec 2010 at 11:56 by Paul Goodhead with 28 comments

As most of our long-term readers will know, we produce a PC hardware buyer?s guide each month, detailing our views on what PC components you should be buying and why. It?s a great opportunity for us to summarise our findings of the last month and for you guys to tell us that we're wrong.

This month though there are simply so many new releases just out of reach over the upgrade hill that we simply didn't think it was worth doing December buyers guide.

Intel's imminent release of its much hyped Sandy Bridge CPUs, for example, means we can't confidently recommend anyone build an LGA1156-based system from scratch. Even our recommended LGA1366 systems, such as our Premium Player, may even be under threat if Sandy Bridge's performance matches up to the buzz being generated.

PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

Add to this the fact that it looks like there's a slew of new graphics card releases from both sides of the red/green divide on the horizon, and the waters become even more muddied.

ATI for instance is about to release its Radeon HD 6900-series, which should logically compete directly with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 5801.5GB. We also expect new graphics cards from Nvidia sometime soon, as it would be silly not to deploy its revised Fermi chip in more GPUs than just the GTX 580.

As a result, we won?t be publishing a buyer?s guide this month and will instead be dispensing the tried and tested tech world cliché of ?just wait another month? before taking the plunge. There is so much new and exciting kit in the horizon that it would be pointless to recommend you buy anything now, unless you absolutely have to.

We?ll be back on track with our buyers guide in January of course, so you should expect a bumper article detailing how we think you should be spending you Christmas windfall.

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Apple quietly kills jailbreak detection API in iOS

Less than six months after introducing it, Apple has quietly disabled its jailbreak detection API in iOS. The programming interface was used by developers to detect whether or not an iOS device had been jailbroken, according to Network World. The API could ask the device itself whether it has been jailbroken or not because jailbreaking changes specific files used by the operating system.

The functionality was introduced in June as part of a mobile device management (MDM) bundle for iOS 4.0, intended to be used by enterprise applications for businesses. Once an iPhone declared itself jailbroken via Apple's API, an enterprise application could take actions to prevent the possibly unsecure device from connecting to a corporate network or e-mail server. In version 4.2, however, the API has been removed, leaving vendors perplexed as to why. Third-party MDM vendors had created their own utilities to check for jailbreaks, but Apple's jailbreak detection API allowed MDM applications direct access to iOS system information.

Jailbreaking allows users to install applications that haven't gone through Apple's App Store screening process and that potentially can take advantage of APIs typically reserved for built-in iOS applications. The process has been a major concern for Apple since users do so to pirate App Store software or to use their device on other carriers. Although doing so voids Apple's warranty, the US government recently legalized jailbreaking. Nevertheless, Cupertino has found itself in a kind of cat-and-mouse game with hackers: as soon as the company implements a new method for protecting its phones, someone always finds a way to work around the new code.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41533-apple-quietly-kills-jailbreak-detection-api-in-ios.html

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Apple quietly kills jailbreak detection API in iOS

Less than six months after introducing it, Apple has quietly disabled its jailbreak detection API in iOS. The programming interface was used by developers to detect whether or not an iOS device had been jailbroken, according to Network World. The API could ask the device itself whether it has been jailbroken or not because jailbreaking changes specific files used by the operating system.

The functionality was introduced in June as part of a mobile device management (MDM) bundle for iOS 4.0, intended to be used by enterprise applications for businesses. Once an iPhone declared itself jailbroken via Apple's API, an enterprise application could take actions to prevent the possibly unsecure device from connecting to a corporate network or e-mail server. In version 4.2, however, the API has been removed, leaving vendors perplexed as to why. Third-party MDM vendors had created their own utilities to check for jailbreaks, but Apple's jailbreak detection API allowed MDM applications direct access to iOS system information.

Jailbreaking allows users to install applications that haven't gone through Apple's App Store screening process and that potentially can take advantage of APIs typically reserved for built-in iOS applications. The process has been a major concern for Apple since users do so to pirate App Store software or to use their device on other carriers. Although doing so voids Apple's warranty, the US government recently legalized jailbreaking. Nevertheless, Cupertino has found itself in a kind of cat-and-mouse game with hackers: as soon as the company implements a new method for protecting its phones, someone always finds a way to work around the new code.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41533-apple-quietly-kills-jailbreak-detection-api-in-ios.html

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Gawker hackers release file with FTP, author & reader usernames/passwords [TNW Media]

Gawker Media is under siege at the moment, fighting off attacks from a group of attackers that have been able to compromise the entire database of Gawker Media?s web properties.

Sensitive information has been exposed, including staff conversations, their private passwords used within the network and passwords also used by people who have registered to comment.

All of the above information has been outputted by Gnosis, a group who wanted to seemingly put Gawker back in its place, creating a 500MB torrent file, currently residing on the popular torrent tracker ThePirateBay.

Inside the torrent file lies a file entitled Readme.txt. This file is potentially the most sensitive of them all, for it holds the usernames and passwords used by the entire Gawker staff, focusing particularly on Gawker?s founder Nick Denton.

The usernames and passwords to Denton?s Google Apps, Twitter, Campfire accounts are all listed; Denton uses the same password for them all:


The attackers then go on to list a number of different usernames and passwords of Gawker authors, commenting only to mention the ease of which they are revealed:

Gawker Media uses Campfire as their backchannel to discuss site operations and potential stories. The attackers managed to unearth 4GB of data from the Campfire logs, unveiling seven FTP usernames and passwords setup by a number of different gaming companies:

Details are provided on how to access Gawker?s gaming website Kotaku, referencing the FTP server, username and password and the processes associated with how to access its server and data stored on it.

Back in November, Denton was told by a co-worker that he was spotted logged in to the Campfire backend, this was not him. Instead of safeguarding his credentials, Denton is convinced by other staff members that it was his own fault and doesn?t change his passwords, something he may later regret.

Then it gets even more interesting.

We speculated that the Gawker attacks could be associated with a previous feud between Gawker and 4Chan, where Ryan Tate and other Gawker staff called out 4Chan publicly on the site. This is confirmed when the attackers post up staff conversations relating to the feud, laughing off 4Chan?s so-called attacks and discussing ways they can antagonise 4Chan users even further.

It reads as follows:

rian M

The headeline of your post should be ?Suck on This, 4Chan?

Maureen O.
I like the call to make today Everybody Write About 4chan Day

Hamilton N.
Nick Denton Says Bring It On 4Chan, Right to My Home Address (After The Jump)

Ryan T.
We Are Not Scared of 4chan Here at 210 Elizabeth St NY NY 10012

Richard L.
don?t forget Fourth Floor

Ryan T.
Right! And Brian?s headcut illustration

Ryan T.
As the lead image

Brian M.
Oh, 4Chan does not want to mess with me once I wind my neck up at them

Brian M.
#giirrrrrrlllllllll

Maureen O.
hey guess what, 4chan has already declared gawker the winner of the 4chan war! we won!

Richard L.
VICTORY

Richard L.
what?d they say?

Jim N.
USA! USA!

Richard L.
MR. OBAMA, TEAR DOWN THAT MOSQUE!

Maureen O.
they say that this day will go down in history as the day 4chan failed.

Richard L.
that?s terrific.

And here we are today, a retaliation, so it seems.

The rest of the file goes on to list numerous different MySQL databases, security credentials and examples of user accounts compromised in the process. Users that registered on Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku have found their accounts posted to the file.

Gnosis, the team behind the attacks, pause to show just how many users use ?password? in their login details, over 2700 records share the same password at a rough count.

It?s a clear show of strength on Gnosis? part, who have actually distanced themselves from 4chan in email exchanges between the team and us here at The Next Web.

We have been told that there are still things to come and that Gnosis aren?t finished yet.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/13/gawker-hackers-release-file-with-ftp-author-reader-usernamespasswords/

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A Magnetic Shortcut to Clinical Trials

Even the most promising drug will fail if it never reaches its target. So before starting large clinical trials, pharmaceutical companies must determine, among other things, the precise dosage to use, a process that can be expensive and time-consuming. Scientists investigating a drug for Parkinson's disease have now shown how an MRI scan can quickly determine the optimal dosage for drugs that act on the brain.

The most precise way to track drugs as they move through the body is a PET (positron emission tomography) scan, in which a drug is a radioactively tagged, injected into the body, and tracked with a scanner. But PET scans have several drawbacks, notes Kevin Black, associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who led the new research, published in the December issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. PET scanners, and PET scans, are very costly. And because they expose subjects to radioactivity, multiple PET scans can pose a health risk. As an alternative to PET scans, drug companies sometimes spend months to years assessing optimal dosages via clinical measures such as mood questionnaires or tests of patients' manual dexterity.

The Washington University study, funded by Synosia Therapeutics, is the first to track a drug's effect with an MRI technique called arterial spin labeling (ASL). Using this approach, the researchers determined the optimal dosage of the Parkinson's drug noninvasively, without injections or radioactivity, in four months.

The researchers focused the MRI machine on subjects' neck arteries to tag water molecules in the blood by changing their magnetic properties. These water molecules were visible in subsequent scans, providing a picture of arterial blood flow to particular parts of the brain.

The researchers took scans before and after the administration of different doses of the drug. When they compared the shots, Black and colleagues could see immediately which areas of the brain implicated in Parkinson's showed increased blood flow, owing to the action of the drug. This allowed them to identify the most effective dosage for further testing.

Using ASL to accelerate the move to large trials will interest drug companies as a cost-cutting measure, says the University of Pennsylvania's John Detre, a neurologist who developed ASL in the early 1990s and was not involved in the new research. "A key go/no-go decision in drug development early on is whether the drug is getting into the brain and doing what you think it's doing," he says. "This study is a fantastic proof of principle."

ASL doesn't have the specificity of PET scans, which can track the way drugs act at a molecular level, says Luis Hernandez of the University of Michigan's MRI Research Facility. "But if you want to know if the drug is changing the part of the brain it should be reaching," he remarks, "then this works well."

An obvious target for ASL is antidepressants, which take two to six weeks or longer to show a clinical effect. With ASL, it is possible to see very quickly whether the drug is affecting the brain?an indication that it could be effective in alleviating depression. Detre adds that the technique could see more use in other areas of drug development: "You might be able to use this one technique to look at the effects of a very broad range of drugs on the brain."

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=1092beb1059e232c821062d101dd2f8f

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Weekend tech reading: Elder Scrolls V, Mass Effect 3 announced

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim announced, coming 11/11/11 Todd Howard took the stage at the Spike VGA 2010 show to announce The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with a release date of November 11, 2011. No platforms were announced, but we would assume it's going to be PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Shacknews

Mass Effect 3 confirmed for holiday 2011 The first trailer for Mass Effect 3 has been shown at the Spike VGA 2010 show, confirming the EA Store slip-up which listed the game for pre-order yesterday. The trailer shows a besieged Earth under attack from a new enemy. Shacknews

World's smallest battery created Because battery technology hasnt developed as quickly as the electronic devices they power, a greater and greater percentage of the volume of these devices is taken up by the batteries needed to keep them running. Now a team of researchers working at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) is claiming to have created the worlds smallest battery... Gizmag

Jamendo geeks solve the hidden Chrome OS equation (and win a Cr-48 netbook) By now if you're as RSS-addicted as me you've probably seen the excellent "How to remain calm" Chrome OS video. Like the previous potato-powered Chrome ad, excellent job from the marketing guys at Google! However this time with my fellow geeks at Jamendo we noticed an equation hidden at 2:23 in the video... Jamendo

Panelize fixes one of Chrome OS's fundamental flaws If you haven't played with Chrome OS yet, it has one fundamental niggle that harkens back to the DOS days of yore: windows don't exist, and it has no way of displaying multiple tabs on screen at the same time. This means if you want to refer to a document while you compose an email, you need to repetitively switch between tabs... Download Squad

When computers go wrong When computers go wrong, they often go spectacularly wrong. In most cases, catastrophic failures are blamed on "computer bugs", although human error is normally the root cause for the embarrassing failures. Stewart Mitchell charts the world's ten most calamitous computer cock-ups. PC Pro

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41534-weekend-tech-reading-elder-scrolls-v-mass-effect-3-announced.html

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PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

Posted on 3rd Dec 2010 at 11:56 by Paul Goodhead with 28 comments

As most of our long-term readers will know, we produce a PC hardware buyer?s guide each month, detailing our views on what PC components you should be buying and why. It?s a great opportunity for us to summarise our findings of the last month and for you guys to tell us that we're wrong.

This month though there are simply so many new releases just out of reach over the upgrade hill that we simply didn't think it was worth doing December buyers guide.

Intel's imminent release of its much hyped Sandy Bridge CPUs, for example, means we can't confidently recommend anyone build an LGA1156-based system from scratch. Even our recommended LGA1366 systems, such as our Premium Player, may even be under threat if Sandy Bridge's performance matches up to the buzz being generated.

PC Hardware Buyer's Guide, December 2010

Add to this the fact that it looks like there's a slew of new graphics card releases from both sides of the red/green divide on the horizon, and the waters become even more muddied.

ATI for instance is about to release its Radeon HD 6900-series, which should logically compete directly with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 5801.5GB. We also expect new graphics cards from Nvidia sometime soon, as it would be silly not to deploy its revised Fermi chip in more GPUs than just the GTX 580.

As a result, we won?t be publishing a buyer?s guide this month and will instead be dispensing the tried and tested tech world cliché of ?just wait another month? before taking the plunge. There is so much new and exciting kit in the horizon that it would be pointless to recommend you buy anything now, unless you absolutely have to.

We?ll be back on track with our buyers guide in January of course, so you should expect a bumper article detailing how we think you should be spending you Christmas windfall.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/No2Eb57kHTI/

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Gaming 18 - Game of the Year 2010

Gaming 18 - Game of the Year 2010

Posted on 1st Dec 2010 at 13:36 by Podcast with 5 comments

Yes, its a brand spanking new gaming podcast. Blimey, we're so good to you people. This episode is hosted by Joe who is joined by Paul, Harry and guest Chris Pickering.

As you may have guessed from the title, we use this podcast as an opportunity to look back at our favourite games of the year. You can tell us your favourite titles of 2010 in our official, reader-voted awards - but this is where we give our personal opinions!

So, what are our favourites? Well, Joe and Harry wax hyperbolic about Mass Effect 2 while Paul highlights Neptune's Pride as his game of the year. Meanwhile, Chris spends his time explaining why Gran Turismo 5 wouldn't be his game of choice.

We also announce the winner of last episode's competition to send in an amusing screenshot and announce a new competition along the same lines. As you can see from the winning screenshot above, it doesn't take much to make us chuckle here in the bit-tech offices, so get your entries in to podcast@custompc.co.uk for your chance to win a bag of swag.

While you're at it you could drop us a gaming or hardware related question. We're going to make much more of an effort to answer the steady stream of queries that make their way into the podcast@custompc.co.uk in-box in future episodes.

The bit-tech games podcast features music by Brad Sucks and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in browser or subscribe through itunes using the links below - be sure to let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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