Vista Laptops Shipping with 13-Year-Old Virus

Just this weekend I was writing to a reader about anti-virus protection for his PC, and I noted in passing that it is new viruses that pose a much greater threat to your computer, not the tens of thousands of old ones that are no longer "in the wild," since new ones are far more likely to be actually spreading.

Well today's news offers a humbling caveat to that general rule: A mountain of laptop computers sold in Denmark and Germany have been found to contain a boot virus dating from 1994: A virus called Stoned Angelina which moved your computer's boot sector (but otherwise did no harm aside from replicating itself on additional PCs).

All the laptops were pre-loaded with Vista and an anti-virus system called Bullguard. Bullguard later explained that the virus is so old that signatures for the virus were no longer included in the company's virus definitions package. It's entirely likely that many other anti-virus systems would have missed removal of Stoned Angelina as well.

Still, it's an important reminder of a few issues: First, older threats can stick with us for far longer than we might otherwise have imagined (maybe forever). And perhaps more importantly, remember that you can't even trust brand new equipment from being malware-free. Your first order of business with any new computer should be to install and run an anti-virus application, no matter how clean it appears at first glance.

Easy Data Transfer Between PCs -- With No Extra Software!

Last Gadget Standing WINNER

When Data Drive Thru submitted its Tornado data transfer gizmo for our CES Last Gadget Standing competition, I was skeptical. Its claim: Plug in a custom USB cable to two computers and you can transfer data between the two PCs without installing extra software.

Now I've used network-based sync tools many times as well as LapLink, but all of those require a little overhead. So I put the Tornado to the test.

Sure enough, you just extend the two USB cables and plug each into a PC. On one computer, the Tornado transfer system popped up on screen in a few seconds. On the other, my machine required a reboot. I plugged the Tornado cable back into it, and the transfer system popped up immediately.

Transferring files is really quite simple. The Tornado client is a lot like having two Windows Explorer windows open at once. One PC appears at the top of the screen, the other PC at the bottom. You can browse each PC completely, then just drag and drop files from one computer to another, and you can do file copies either way. Transfers are extremely quick, thanks to the USB 2.0 interface. (I'm used to doing these kind of transfers over Wi-Fi, which is dog slow in comparison.)

With the exception of that one reboot, I had zero trouble with the product. My only real complaint is the length of the cable: At about five feet long, it can be surprisingly tricky to position two computers that close together and wrangle a USB cable connection to each. An extra foot would have actually made a huge difference.

At $60, it seems like the Tornado is a little on the pricey side, but not obscenely so. Then again, considering LapLink Gold costs $130 on its web site (and a USB cable is an extra $50), it's comparatively a bargain. I like it!

All About FiOS

Reader Rob McAuley writes: I live in the NYC metro area, and there is currently a major advertising war going on between the local big cable company (Optimum Online) and Verizon. Both companies are aggressively rolling out internet service commercials, each stating that their service is better than the other guy and that each other one isn't fully fiber optic. Fiber optic... FiOS... cable... DSL... what's the difference? How much faster is this FiOS? And what's the truth behind all the finger pointing?

I won't get into the theories about what "Fios" might mean, but in a nutshell it stands for Fiber Optic Service. If you hear someone talk about fiber and FiOS, they're talking about the same thing, though they might be from different companies.

The idea behind FiOS is simple: It uses fiber optic lines to carry data to you via light pulses instead of electrical ones running on coaxial, twisted pair, or other traditional copper wiring. Fiber can carry more data than electrical wires, so FiOS's improved bandwidth makes it quite zippy. But hey, you might ask, what about all those old commercials from Sprint and the like, saying they were using fiber to carry my long-distance phone calls? Isn't that fiber used for Internet connections, too? Yes, in part, but FiOS means the fiber runs all the way to your house, giving you a high-speed optical connection from end to end. With the other services, you eventually have to drop down to slower telephone wiring (DSL) or cable lines.

The upshot? People seem to love it. There's no fiber service available where I live, but I know a few people who do have it and they unilaterally rave about the speeds that can climb as high as 30Mbps downstream (and 50Mbps in some regions). Compared to the 3Mbps or 6Mbps that are typical for DSL or cable, that's a substantial boost. Yes, you'll pay for it (Verizon's 30Mbps plan is $180 a month), but lower speed plans are much more affordable (15Mbps is $50 a month).

Finally, I checked out the claims of Optimum Online (NYC's other fiber provider) vs. Verizon and found them mostly to the same; the differences amount to little more than sales puffery. Both offer the same packages, but Optimum appears to have better pricing, especially at the 30Mbps level (which Optimum calls "BOOST"). However, coverage areas vary widely, and there's a good chance that only one will be able to serve your home, especially if it's an apartment building. Overall Optimum gets good reviews, though, so I'd try them first to take advantage of the better pricing. Wish I could offer hands-on experience with FiOS, but hopefully some commenters will chime in with their own experiences.

Dubai skyscraper world's tallest

The Burj Dubai is expected to be more than 690m tall when finished in 2008 Enlarge Image

An unfinished skyscraper in the Gulf state of Dubai has become the world's tallest building, at 141 storeys, its developers say.

Emaar Properties said the 512m (1,680ft) Burj Dubai is now taller than Taiwan's 508m (1,667ft) Taipei 101.

It is thought Burj Dubai will eventually be 693m (2,275ft) tall.

Height records are contentious, with dispute over what defines a "building" and what is being measured - height to the top floor or the tower's antenna.

When finished the building is expected to meet the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's four criteria - the height of the structural top, highest occupied floor, the roof's top, and the spire's highest point - to become the world's tallest structure.

"Burj Dubai has now reached 141 storeys, more storeys than any other building in the world," the company said in a statement.

There is speculation that, spire included, the final height could be more than 800m, but Emaar is keeping structural details secret.

'Symbol of Dubai'

When finished, the skyscraper will have more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, apartments, shops, swimming pools, spas, corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani's first hotel, and an observation platform on the 124th floor.

It's a fact of life that, at some point, someone else will build a taller building Greg Sang, Emaar Properties

To qualify as a building, a structure has to have floors and walls all the way to its roof.

The tower is also expected to break the record for highest man-made structure, currently held by the wire-assisted KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, US, which is 628m (2,072ft) tall.

"It's a symbol of Dubai as a city of the world," Greg Sang, the project director for Emaar Properties, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Chairman Mohammed Ali Alabbar said Dubai has "resisted the usual and has inspired to build a global icon," according to AP.

"It's a human achievement without equal."

Building began on the structure on 21 September 2004, and is expected to be completed in 2008.

The spire of the building is expected to be able to be seen from 100km (60 miles) away.

"It's a fact of life that, at some point, someone else will build a taller building," Mr Sang said.

"There's a lot of talk of other tall buildings, but five years into Burj Dubai's construction, no one's started building them yet."

Previous skyscraper record-holders include New York's Empire State Building at 381m (1,250 ft); Shanghai's Jin Mao Building at 421m (1,381 ft); Chicago's Sears Tower at 442m (1,451 ft) and Malaysia's Petronas Towers at 452m (1,483 ft).

The CN Tower, in Toronto, Canada, is the world's tallest freestanding structure, at 553m (1,815.3 ft).

Officials confirm meteorite but question sickness claims

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A fiery meteorite crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed Wednesday.

A crater is some 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep after a meteorite reportedly fell in southern Peru.

But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened 200 people.

Witnesses told reporters that a fiery ball fell from the sky and smashed into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning.

Jose Mechare, a scientist with Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a "rocky meteorite," based on the fragments analyzed.

He said water in the meteorite's muddy crater boiled for maybe 10 minutes from the heat and could have given off a vapor that sickened people, and scientists were taking water samples.

"We are not completely certain that there was no contamination," Mechare said.

Jorge Lopez, director of the health department in the state where the meteorite crashed, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 200 people suffered headaches, nausea and respiratory problems caused by "toxic" fumes emanating from the crater, which is some 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep.

But a team of doctors sent to the isolated site, 3½ hours travel from the state capital of Puno, said they found no evidence the meteorite had sickened people, the Lima newspaper El Comercio reported Wednesday. See where the meteorite landed »

Modesto Montoya, a member of the team, was quoted as saying doctors also had found no sign of radioactive contamination among families living nearby, but had taken blood samples from 19 people to be sure.

He said fear may have provoked psychosomatic ailments.

"When a meteorite falls, it produces horrid sounds when it makes contact with the atmosphere," he told the paper. "It is as if a giant rock is being sanded. Those sounds could have frightened them."

Justina Limache, 74, told El Comercio that when she heard the thunderous roar from the sky, she abandoned her flock of alpacas and ran to her small home with her 8-year-old granddaughter. She said that after the meteorite struck, small rocks rained down on the roof of her house for several minutes and she feared the house was going to collapse.

Meteor expert Ursula Marvin said that if people were sickened, "it wouldn't be the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises."

A meteorite "wouldn't get much gas out of the Earth," said Marvin, who has studied the objects since 1961 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It's a very superficial

Crack down on US mod chip sellers

The Wii console has proved hugely popular in the US

US Customs has carried out raids in 16 states to clamp down on the sale of modification or "mod" chips.

In the largest operation of its kind to date US Customs officials raided more than 30 homes, businesses and shops.

When a mod chip is installed on a game consoles it helps circumvent copy protection systems to let owners play pirated games.

Mod chips have been made for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Xbox and Xbox 360 game consoles.

The raids followed a 12-month investigation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into who was importing the chips and selling them on. Typically the chips are made overseas before being shipped to dealers in the US or other nations.

'Illicit devices'

"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE in a statement.

"These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering," said Ms Myers.

Mod chips are also used by gamers to add functionality to their consoles or to back-up games. However, often this means breaking strict copyright laws.

Raids were carried out across many US states including California, Florida, Hawaii and New York. No details of who was arrested have been released.

Mod chips for the Nintendo Wii seem to be growing in popularity. ICE said it had helped Nintendo seize more than 61,000 Wii mod chips since April 2007.

According to figures released by ICE, counterfeiting and piracy costs the US up to $250bn (£125bn) every year.

2008 debut for PlayStation 3 Home

Home lets players create an avatar for the virtual world

Sony is delaying the launch of the Home online world service for its PlayStation 3 console.

Originally slated for an autumn launch, Home is a virtual world in which owners of the PS3 create avatars and socialise with others.

The social networking system is a key plank in Sony's strategy to win customers for its game gadget.

Sony said Home would now be launched early in 2008 but gave no specific date for its release.

Console crowd

Sony said the delay to the Home service was needed to improve the quality of the finished product.

"This is going to be a worldwide service that needs to offer a wide range of functions required in Japan, in the US, in Europe and in Asia," said Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment head, in a speech at the Tokyo Game Show.

Mr Hirai also remained tight-lipped about widely expected price cuts for the PS3 but said it was improving the line-up of software for the console in a bid to attract customers.

With Home, Sony hoped to cash in on the wave of interest in online communities that have made successes of websites such as Second Life, MySpace, Facebook and many others.

Via Home, PS3 owners could socialise with other console gamers and acquire and decorate their own virtual home.

The news is another blow to the fortunes of Sony which, until the launch of the PS3, dominated the console game market.

Now it trails third after Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. Figures released for US sales by the NPD Group show that in August Nintendo sold 404,000 Wii consoles, Microsoft sold 277,000 Xbox 360s and Sony sold 131,000 PS3s.

Mobile phone technology turns 20

Nokia's 1100 is the world's best-selling handset

The technology behind the mobile phone is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

On 7 September 1987, 15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications.

According to the GSM Association there are more than 2.5 billion accounts that use this mobile phone technology.

Adoption of the technology shows no signs of slowing down with many developing nations becoming keen users of mobile handsets.

Future phones

Robert Conway, head of the GSM Association, said the memorandum of understanding signed in 1987 is widely seen as the moment when the global mobile industry got under way.

Although work on the GSM technical specifications began earlier, the agreement signed in 1987 committed those operators to building networks based upon it.

GSM FACTS China has 445 million GSM customers There are 2.5 billion GSM connections worldwide 64% of mobile users are in emerging markets About seven billion text messages are sent every day Source: GSM Association

"There's no doubt that at the time of the agreement in 1987 no one had an idea of the explosive capabilities in terms of growth that would happen after the GSM standard was agreed," he said.

Since then, he said, the numbers of people using GSM mobiles has always outstripped the predictions.

Once the preserve of the well off, mobiles were now "the everyday gadget that's essential to people's lives," he said.

In the UK there are now more mobiles than people according to Ofcom statistics which reveal that, at the end of 2006, for every 100 Britons there are 116.6 mobile connections.

Figures from the GSM Association show it took 12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made but only 30 months for the figure to reach two billion.

"In the developing world they are becoming absolutely indispensable," said Mr Conway.

This was because handsets were now cheap and mobile networks much less expensive to set up than the fixed alternatives.

There are so many phones that recycling them is a problem

But getting mobiles in to the hands of billions of people was just the start, said Mr Conway.

"The technology is a gravitational force that brings in to its orbit a huge amount of innovators," he said.

In the future, he suggested, high-speed networks would be ubiquitous adding the intelligence of mobiles to anything and everything.

"The technology will be in the fabric of your clothing, your shoes, in appliances, in your car," he said.

For instance, he said, the ubiquity of mobile technology could revolutionise healthcare and see people wearing monitors that gather and transmit information about vital signs.

Phones too could change radically in the future.

"You'll pull them out of your pocket and they'll look like a map but unfold like a screen," said Mr Conway. "We're now on the verge of another wave and that's going to be stimulated by mobile broadband."

Old mobile spectrum to be freed

Ofcom hopes the changes will boost 3G in rural areas

Old mobile phone frequencies in the UK could get a new lease of life thanks to proposals by regulator Ofcom.

The telecommunications watchdog wants to loosen restrictions on who can use the portion of spectrum currently reserved for second-generation mobiles.

By opening it up, Ofcom hopes to boost 3G coverage in rural areas and speed up mobile downloads.

Ofcom plans to hold an auction to choose which company gets to use the liberated spectrum.

Currently the parts of the radio spectrum available for second generation mobile services are divided into two tiers.

One, operating at 900Mhz, is only used by O2 and Vodafone. The other, at 1800Mhz, is used by those two companies plus Orange and T-Mobile. Ofcom imposes restrictions on these frequencies which mean they can only be used for 2G.

If Ofcom's proposals win support, the 900Mhz frequency will be available for three other operators to use and both chunks of spectrum will be allowed to support both second and third generation services.

Owners of the right to use these parts of the spectrum would also be able to trade these rights to other companies.

By lifting restrictions, Ofcom said that operators would be able to boost the data carrying capacities of their 3G networks for relatively little cash.

The loosening of regulations could mean much better coverage for rural areas, boost download speeds and improve reception inside buildings.

Most of the benefit would likely come from greater use of the 900Mhz frequency as 3G equipment using this frequency is already starting to appear.

The consultation period will close at the end of November 2007.