Friday, December 26, 2003
Microsoft aims to make spammers pay
Despite efforts to stem the billions of spam e-mails flooding inboxes, unwanted messages are still turning e-mail into a quagmire of misery.
Spammers send out tens of millions of e-mails to unsuspecting computer users every day, employing a myriad of methods to ensure their pills, loans and "requests for our lord" pleas fox e-mail filters.
Some are even turning to prose and poetry to fool the technological safeguards people put in place.
But a group of researchers at Microsoft think they may have come up with a solution that could, at least, slow down and deter the spammers.
The development has been called the Penny Black project, because it works on the idea that revolutionised the British postage system in the 1830s - that senders of mail should have to pay for it, not whoever is on the receiving end. Full Article>>>
Spammers send out tens of millions of e-mails to unsuspecting computer users every day, employing a myriad of methods to ensure their pills, loans and "requests for our lord" pleas fox e-mail filters.
Some are even turning to prose and poetry to fool the technological safeguards people put in place.
But a group of researchers at Microsoft think they may have come up with a solution that could, at least, slow down and deter the spammers.
The development has been called the Penny Black project, because it works on the idea that revolutionised the British postage system in the 1830s - that senders of mail should have to pay for it, not whoever is on the receiving end. Full Article>>>
Toshiba begins shipping XDR DRAM sample chips
Toshiba Corp. began producing sample memory chips based on Rambus Inc.'s next-generation XDR (extreme data rate) memory technology on Thursday, the Japanese company said the same day.
XDR, which was formerly known by its Yellowstone development code-name, is targeted at high-performance applications such as digital consumer electronics, network systems, game consoles and graphics applications. It runs at a speed of 3.2GHz, which is significantly faster than any memory technology in use today.
Toshiba's first samples are 512M bit DRAM (dynamic RAM) chips and come slightly ahead of schedule. When Rambus announced XDR in July this year it said it expected sample chips to begin rolling off fabrication lines at Toshiba during 2004. Full Article>>>
XDR, which was formerly known by its Yellowstone development code-name, is targeted at high-performance applications such as digital consumer electronics, network systems, game consoles and graphics applications. It runs at a speed of 3.2GHz, which is significantly faster than any memory technology in use today.
Toshiba's first samples are 512M bit DRAM (dynamic RAM) chips and come slightly ahead of schedule. When Rambus announced XDR in July this year it said it expected sample chips to begin rolling off fabrication lines at Toshiba during 2004. Full Article>>>
2004 shaping into a very Martian new year
With the arrival of Europe's first interplanetary probe at Mars and two more U.S. spacecraft on the way, the red planet will be under intense scrutiny for months as scientists attempt to figure out why a world flecked with evidence of an Earth-like past appears dead and dry.
An even more compelling question is whether indigenous life ever took root on Mars, as many suspect but cannot prove.
"If you look at the surface of Mars today, it's a desolate place. It's dry. It's cold. It's barren," said Cornell University astronomer Steven Squyres, who heads the science teams for two NASA rovers scheduled to land on Mars beginning next month. "It's not an inviting environment for life, and yet we see these tantalizing clues," he said.
The unprecedented barrage of spacecraft is due partly to the relatively close distance between Earth and Mars, an alignment that occurs every two years. This year's lineup is particularly favorable, with Earth and Mars about 35 million miles apart -- as close as they have been in more than 60,000 years. At that distance, spacecraft can be dispatched from Earth using less powerful and less expensive boosters.
No one expects everything to go perfectly, however.
"Mars has been a most daunting destination," said NASA's associate administrator for space science Ed Weiler. "Some -- including me -- have called it 'The Death Planet.'" Full Article>>>
An even more compelling question is whether indigenous life ever took root on Mars, as many suspect but cannot prove.
"If you look at the surface of Mars today, it's a desolate place. It's dry. It's cold. It's barren," said Cornell University astronomer Steven Squyres, who heads the science teams for two NASA rovers scheduled to land on Mars beginning next month. "It's not an inviting environment for life, and yet we see these tantalizing clues," he said.
The unprecedented barrage of spacecraft is due partly to the relatively close distance between Earth and Mars, an alignment that occurs every two years. This year's lineup is particularly favorable, with Earth and Mars about 35 million miles apart -- as close as they have been in more than 60,000 years. At that distance, spacecraft can be dispatched from Earth using less powerful and less expensive boosters.
No one expects everything to go perfectly, however.
"Mars has been a most daunting destination," said NASA's associate administrator for space science Ed Weiler. "Some -- including me -- have called it 'The Death Planet.'" Full Article>>>
