The endless confrontation between HDD and SSD
In these months the storage market is going through a particularly vivid and interesting period: the SSD technology continues to break speed records still costing however an unacceptable amount of money per single Gigabyte, while the magnetic technology HDDs wink at eco-sustainability and increase the number of Gigabytes, nay Terabytes available for users data.
Videogames highlights - March 2009
Are videogames art? Personally I’m not convinced at all, and after 20 years of this hobby now become mainstream I think that the medium need different categories, and that in any case it is too much young to be defined with standards layered through the centuries. Besides this, what is sure is that the amount of promotional videogame contents released by software houses hasn’t lacked even in March, so I end the introduction right now and get on to dealing with the aforementioned contents.
AV-Comparatives releases a new round of antivirus tests
After having crowned AVIRA AntiVir the best antivirus of year 2008, in these weeks the team of AV-Comparatives experts has returned to prove the security IT industry by arranging a new antivirus comparative. Report n.21 is the first made during 2009, follows the previous one released in November but unlike the latter aims at verifying the antivirus capability of detecting known viral samples.
KarmaKula chapter 2: “The Frog in the Well”
As previously scheduled, on Wednesday, April 8 the Ninjai Gang has released on-line the second chapter of KarmaKula, the live action series that made its debut at the end of March and that represents, after Ninjai, the last achievement of the Gang’s many creative energies. The book is more or less always the same, though this time it’s worth reporting a definitely different gore level compared to the first chapter and the introduction of new directing gimmicks for a series that takes more and more the shape of some kind of cold steel fantasy western.
Klaatu, barada, nikto, Conficker!
More than a week after the 1st of April, the day when the Internet stood still because according to the press the Conficker/Downup/Downadup/Kido worm could have destroyed the net, the infrastructures, civilized mankind and the entire planet things are going more or less as usual: Internet remains a dangerous place but it hasn’t exploded like a supernova, and bits are flowing quickly from a part to another one of the planet. The true novelty is that the botnet built up by one of the most complex malware ever finally shows what its true purpose is.
Rootkits penetrate the heart of the machine
Since, in 2005, the nasty commercial policies of Sony BMG uncovered the possibility to seize control on the operating system to hinder the normal working of the PC and peripherals, the evolution of rootkit software went through an unparalleled acceleration. The interest for the matter rose in research and among cyber-criminals gangs, with the result that can be esteemed in these days: rootkits have reached the lowest levels of electronic devices circuitry by infecting network routers, the BIOS and even the most privileged working mode of the x86 processors.
Why I hate Twitter
According to the opinion of columnist John C. Dvorak, the instant messaging service known as Twitter would have as much useful practical applications as the user can think about. Maybe it’s because imagination doesn’t always help me but I can’t help but consider Twitter bad, very bad, because I simply think it’s a communication bestiality that induces brain and speech regression in those who waste their time on it.
Two on-line bloody series to follow closely
Internet has always been a wonderful place, and so it remains: while the owners of mainstream contents hurry to stretch out their shadow on any single particle of the existing web or the one yet to come, turning a space of expression free from the power games into something disgustingly similar to commercial television, music and movie industry, somewhere there still is interesting stuff to go after that is exclusively born from and for the Net.
Home of the Underdogs is back on-line. Twice. With downloads
The phoenix of abandonware hasn’t had the time to rise again from its ashes, that it has soon split in two separate parts with no communication between them. The efforts of the community gathered around the discussion group Home of the Underdogs Revival Project have actually led first to houtd.org and, some weeks later, to homeoftheunderdogs.net. Both sites claim to be the “official” home of the new Home of the Underdogs, and plan to pursue its “mission” in different ways, rather difficult to conciliate in a unitary approach.
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