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Internet Warfare against Georgia, Is Russia to Blame?

If you have been paying attention to anything other than the Olympics lately you have probably heard the news of the war that has broken out between Russia and the country of Georgia.

There have been numerous reports from news channels and political parties about what started the conflict and who is to blame.

Being an American citizen and having no concept of what goes on in that region of the world I do not have the needed perspective to comment on who started what.

Instead I wanted to point out an interesting article I came across outlining cyber attacks that have taken place against the country of Georgia. The information at this point is limited but from early analysis of the attacks experts are concluding Russian involvement in nation wide attacks against the cyber infrastructure of Georgia.

Coupled with DDOS (Distribute Denial of Service) attacks, spoofed websites with political propaganda have been surfacing throughout the region, along with Russia’s blocking traffic to websites in Georgia.

This is an early example of Cyber Warfare in the twenty first century. While this is not the first occurrence we have heard of this, this is certainly one of the most public ones. Security experts are still analyzing logs and timelines to try and determine detailed information about the attacks. As it stands the information available has only lead to more confusion about exactly what has happened, which is one of the goals with attacks of this nature in the first place.

For more information on the story checkout the latest article at the Register here.

With Energy Prices on the Rise what can you do to Save Money?

Lately it is a thought that is on all our minds… the cost of energy. What has happened in the past few years that dragged us to the point we are at today? I could go around pointing fingers, or playing the blame game but the fact is that not much gets accomplished when we focus on things like that.

Instead I would like to make a recommendation for something proactive we can do to save a little money in the grips of this energy crisis.

Enter “Edison”, a power management program created by Verdiem Software. Edison is a software program that adds a robust functionality to the standard Windows power management options through a third party interface.

The program itself is very easy to use and shows you the amount of money, energy and CO2 you are saving according to the settings you decide to go with in the program. It is very eye opening to see not only the monetary savings but the potential environmental impact that can be made by managing our power consumption on the PCs we use everyday.

I am by no means a green activist, but in the past few months our weather patterns, world events, and national economy have made it apparent why we all need to start paying more attention to these issues. For us techies it can be something as simple as installing some software the help promote a positive change.

Check the following link to download the Edison PC Power Management Software.

Tethering App for the Apple iPhone Briefly Available to Users

In the latest technical debacle from Apple, tethering software for the Apple iPhone was made available on the Apple “Apps” store for about 20 minutes before being removed entirely.

Users who were lucky enough to download the $10 software created by Nullriver, gained the ability to tether iPhones to their laptops or PCs, enabling online access for those systems through the phone itself.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the issue, as to why the software was available from Apple’s Apps store because of the supposed screening process Apple has in place to ensure only “approved” apps are available for sale.

Nullriver posted an article explaining what had happened, and wrote they were still waiting on a response from Apple as to why the software had been pulled.

As an iPhone owner I am very disappointed to see a company preach about innovation, only to stifle it when there is money to be made. This seems to be the trend that has followed the release of the iPhone, and anyone who has tried to enable the device to do more than what Apple had originally intended.

They have obviously come a long way from the days of building computers in the garage. While this has helped provide consumers with numerous innovations in computers, Apple seems to have lost sight of the original passion they had to “create” technology. Either that or they feel they should be able to corner the market on “thinking different”.

For more details on the story checkout the full article at TechCrunch here

Playstation 2 Component Called Coltan Incites African War in the Congo

I came across an article today entitled “Playstation 2 component incites African war”. The story goes on to talk about how a rare metal called coltan, used in the production of the PS2 has become the modern day blood diamond of the tech industry.

The story mentions that numerous devices including cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles all make use of this rare metal to produce certain components.

The article came off as sounding desperate for news to me, and we all know it is not uncommon for the media to go to any length to create something political to generate a story.

The fact that the article was peppered with words like “claims,” “allegedly,” and “according to,” makes me question the facts that were presented in the story.

While mentioning that numerous hardware manufacturers utilize this metal, the article focuses on singling out Sony, probably due to the high profile success of the Playstation game console.

The article’s tone carries an overall air of guilt that is being targeted towards companies producing these devices, and the consumers who are buying them. This is very apparent in two of the comments in the story that are listed below.

“Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms,”

“a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don’t care to know.”

I wonder if they actually believe this is part of some clandestine attempt to bring suffering to people, or just the fact that there are thousands of other considerations surrounding a Video game console release.

With factors like digital media rights, trademarks, violence & ERSB ratings, soundtrack licensing, political & religious implications and more, I think expecting a company to track down the source of every material they use to build a piece of hardware is completely unrealistic.

The article does a great job of (unknowingly) highlighting the real source of the issue, which are the numerous ongoing conflicts around the world.

These problems will not go away if we stop producing video game systems, or refuse to use cell phones and computers. These are cultural issues that need to be addressed on a global scale, as opposed to grasping at straws to assign blame.

Once we can get past the “who is at fault” mentality that pervades our society, we can focus on ideas that will make a difference and ask “how can we make things better”.

Unfortunately we don’t see a lot of news stories asking “what can we do to make a difference” in our modern day culture. Maybe that in itself is one of our biggest problems?

Microsoft Announces Free Gaming Service for Windows

Microsoft has revealed their new gaming service “Games for Windows – LIVE”, a free gaming service that allows users to play games online through a service similar to that of Xbox Live.

The new service will utilize gamer tags, friends lists shared between Xbox 360, Windows Live and Zune, text & voice chat, and gamer achievements. All of these features are similar to those found on Xbox Live, the service that Microsoft has received high marks for on its Xbox and Xbox 360 console platforms.

On top of the PC game play aspects offered by the service, Microsoft has also announced cross platform gaming between Windows users and Xbox Live gamers. Although there was no mention of any plans to offer the Xbox Live service for free.

The Windows Live service sounds like it will attempt to set some new standards for online gaming. While it worries me when companies try to create standards for the rest of the industry, some of the innovations delivered by Xbox Live would be a welcomed change in the PC gaming world.

So far there has yet to be any industry standards regarding online gaming with PCs leading to a rather fractured online community consisting of millions of users. It would be very cool to allow those people to easily interact in a common ground to further the gaming culture, and bring gamers closer together.

To read the full details checkout the Games for Windows - Live homepage here.

With the new standards and features offered by Games for Windows - Live what are your impressions of how well the service will be received by users? Do you think standardizing online gaming will provide value to gamers, or make people feel as though they are being told how they should play. Let’s hear your thoughts!

ATI 4800 Series Will Deliver the Power of Graphics Supercomputing for Gamers

With the latest technology offering from ATI, gamers and video enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting their chance to test drive the new Radeon HD 4800 series video cards.

Offering amazing video performance with some incredible specs to boot, the ATI 4800 series stands to set a new benchmark in video performance.

ATI’s technical specs list one TeraFLOPS power delivered from the TeraScale graphics engine along with 800 stream processors and next generation GDDR5 memory.

It is incredible to see how far graphics technology has come in the past few years. I still remember playing Carmageddon on my friends 266 and thinking it couldn’t get any better than that. We have come a long way since then.

The ATI 4800 series is competitively priced and available from most major distributors. The question is, with all the power and performance available from this line of cards will you be rushing out to get one, or waiting for the next big thing? I’d be interested to hear what others think.

For more information on this latest release check out the full story at: ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series – Overview

Concerns from Customers Have Delayed the Pending Deadline

In a recent article on Information Week, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer make Windows XP available to large computer makers, such as Dell, Lenovo, or Hewlett-Packard, or to software retailers.

This did not come as much of a shock, since most businesses in the computer industry have been watching Microsoft bump back the cut off date from the original December 2007 deadline.

Since the Windows XP cutoff was first announced, Microsoft has had to readjust its deadline several times to address concerns from users over quality issues with the new Windows Vista operating system.

While this deadline will affect larger manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo, many white box system builders will be able to offer Windows XP until 2009 – 2010.

The main question that is posed from all the feedback Microsoft has received from its customers is “why are people so against this move to Vista?”

In almost any industry, consumers are usually excited to adopt the latest and greatest technology. Whether it’s for a status symbol or merely to be on the cutting edge, you will find the majority of people embrace this type of change.

I think this highlights aspects of Microsoft’s aging business model that continues to frustrate customers, and cause consumers to look for other means of software for their systems.

Click here to read the entire Information Week Article

Editor’s Note: With all the concerns surrounding the upgrade to Windows Vista what are you planning to do for your next operating system. While some may plan to upgrade to Windows Vista or purchase the Vista “downgrade”, others are planning to wait for the 2010 release of Windows 7 or switch over to another operating system altogether. What are your thoughts on the issue?

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