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According to smart house news dot com dot au, If you have a new generation notebook or Desktop PC and are running Vista forget about getting access to the new Bigpond Next G™ network. Apparently the software that the Next G hardware uses will not work with Vista. Whilst, Telsta claim to be a key partner of Microsoft it seems they don’t support the new Windows operating system with their new range of Bigpond modems despite the OS already being launched to enterprise customers. That’s a really big oops as it was only weeks ago Microsoft launched the final version of their new Windows operating system to the enterprise market. These are the corperations that would of course spend millions on new notebooks and have hundreds if not thousands of employees who need remote wireless access or are now running Vista on their desktop.
However, Telstra no longer supports windows 98. but that is just their software to set it up you can log into modem and set it up manually which is what I did for a friend. It possible the next gen systems will be able to do that with vista. I won’t know until I play with it more.

Apparently, a nasty worm has emerged that attacks computers via a known flaw in popular corporate antivirus software from Symantec Corp. (SYMC), in an unusual effort to infiltrate personal computers through a non-Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) product. This appears to be signally the a new trend that hackers and malware creators are heading towards non Microsoft software for areas to spread their nasty work too.

The virus is called Big Yellow, which seeks to enter machines through a security hole in the remote management interface of corporate versions of Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec Client Security and can take complete control of the computer. Once infected with the worm's malicious "bot" program, the PC can be networked by an attacker with other computers in a "botnet" and used to attack others on the Internet.

In a very quirky move that is probably more fun than anything Skype has introduced a downloadable 'lie-detector': an application developed by KishKish that works with the Skype softphone to detect stress levels in the callers' voice. According to Skype, "Using the KishKish Lie detector, you can monitor (in real-time) the stress level of the person you are talking to which allows you to gauge the level of stress and modify your questions."

The use of voice stress analysis (VSA) as a lie detector became popular in the late 1970s and 80s. In the 90s the first computerised VSA (CVSA) systems came to out to the market. According to KishKish, "the CVSAT is now the truth verification device of choice in the law enforcement community as the number of law enforcement agencies utilising the CVSAT continues to grow dramatically, proving the viability of the system for twenty-first century crime detection. The CVSAT is also being utilised by the US military in the global war on terrorism."

The KishKish Skype lie detector uses the first 10 seconds to "calibrate the system to the general stress level of the speaker." (So does this mean you can fool the system by opening up with a great big porker before continuing to lie through your teeth?).

Afterwards, "you will see four indicators about the stress level of the speaker. The most prominent one is a needle that moves up and down and registers the stress level of the speaker. The second is a meter which measures the stress level from 0 to 100. There is also a green light that changes to red when stress levels are above normal and finally, on top of the display there is a message which indicates the stress level of the speaker (high, normal)." KishKish offers no indication as to the accuracy of the product.

The lie detector is the latest in a series of products from KishKish designed to enhance Skype. Other tools include: voice mail, call recorder, book and mobile and the company says further additions will be announced in the near future.

Story located at http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8145/53/

Nintendo has agreed to replace 3.2 million straps for its new Wii computer game controller, after apparently their controller wrist straps have been declared faulty when the controller broke and flew of the wrist causing scores of smashed television screens, broken lamps and dented walls.
The controller is an innovative, motion-sensitive device that is nicknamed the Wiimote. This device can be used like a tennis racket, baseball bat or sword and has become the biggest selling point for the Wii in the cut-throat battle against Sony's new PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft.
However, excitable users have found that the wrist strap is not strong enough and can break if they accidentally let go of the Wiimote, sending the device flying across the room.
According to one news website, almost since the day the Wii went on sale in the US four weeks ago, the internet has been buzzing with tales of domestic accidents caused by the breaking strap. Dozens of videos on the teen networking site YouTube demonstrate the damage - and injuries - caused by flying Wiimotes; one user even set up a website, wiihaveaproblem.com, for victims to swap their stories. Nintendo has already replaced its original strap design with a thicker, stronger version on new consoles, but agreed yesterday to replace the weaker straps on the 3.2 million consoles already shipped.

According to the whirlpool website, it appears that more and more ISPs are announcing they are offering ADSL speeds of up to 8Mbit/s after Telstra's announcement to open faster services to its competitors more than a month ago. The 8mb plans are the fastest available for ISPs on the older ADSL1 DSLAM infrastructure. But since TWI removed the speed caps of 1.5mbps, ISPs are scrambling to provide this service
The new port pricing includes a significant reduction in 1536/256 pricing and the introduction of a new 8192/384 speed.

ADSL has always been capable of 8Mbit, but Telstra chose to limit it to 1.5Mbit for commercial reasons, which many people have thought were questionable. Since the introduction of the new plans, the market has been flooded with all types of plans for lots of different types of users.

World wide communication systems are being disrupted by the effects of unusually large solar activities that have spewed electromagnetic radiation towards the earth. Solar flare activities can throw out radiation that both just cause minor disruption to satellite services or completely fry the satellite (however chances of such are very rare). The solar activites seem to be causing problems at 1.4 gigahertz, which are close to the wavelengths used by GPS satellites, cordless phones, some pay tv or transmission systems.
However, this sort of communications failures caused by radiation has been studied by military scientists as form of combat. This sort of weapon technically could disable communications networks and information technology equipment.
Infact there are already weaponry that can destroy remotely all telecommunications equipment with in a particular radius without even causing an explosion.

According to Whirlpool.net.au, which is the foremost authority on broadband issues around Australia, there will be a new single-user churn process to switch between DSLAMs is expected to be available early next year, however, Australia's largest retail ISP BigPond has decided not to participate. It should be pointed out that Bigpond is the retail ISP wing of Telstra, the company which also provides wholesale ISP products to many retail ISP's around the country.

For a few years now, Internet broadband users have been able to switch between Telstra Wholesale Internet based ADSL providers with little cost and downtime using rapid transfer (or "fast churn"). Th However, many ISP's have chosen to invest in their own infrastructure and install their own DSLAMs, which are telehoused in the exchange or near by. With these DSLAMs in place it has made the process of changing ISP's a lot more complicated.

Say if I changed from Bigpond ADSL to to an isp that owned its own DSLAM in my area. I would be required to disconnect my service with the old provider completely and then reconnect with the new ISP. Having to pay possibly a disconnect fee from the old ISP, a reconnect fee for the new one and I would not have broadband from anywhere to 14 days. However, an Australian has released details fo a new scheme that will allow quick churns between ISP's on different DSLAM's and that ISPs will be able to utilise a "single service transfer" in late January. It should be pointed out that it is the ISP, not the DSLAM owner that needs to participate. So whilst BigPond can choose not to participate but that doesn't prevent a user utlising an ISP on a wholesale Telstra DSL service from be able to switch across to other ISPs.

It should be pointed out that bigpond will continue to participate in the old Telstra operated rapid transfer process.

Microsoft have been working very hard to the sale of the new Vista Operating systems, whilst it won’t be released for Christmas here in Australia, people are being advised that they need to be looking at machines that are vista capable.

However, computer boffins believe vista will cause a massive hardware purchase spree as computer users buy Vista and suddenly find out they need better or more improved hardware to bring the machine up to a reasonable running speed and take advantage of the all the multimedia applications. When Microsoft released Windows 95, many people discovered that they suddenly had to upgrade their machines or buy new ones to take advantage of the full Windows ’95 experience. Hardware manufacturers are banking on this same spending on hardware to occur when Vista is released to the general public.

Microsoft this time have decided to release 5 versions of Vista to provide the user a more customized Windows experience. The interface of Vista looks a lot like a cross between the windows desktop, apple desktop and several Linux desktop environments.

Prices on broadband are reducing, but its interesting to note that the base 256k plan seems to be staying in place, whilst there are calls for speeds to be increased by media tycoons and now the minister for communications has asked Telstra to increase broadband speeds and stop complaining about the regulatory environment they are in.
According to the Telstra Bigpond site and discussing with customers that are friends it seems that Bigpond 512k customers have been upgraded for the same price as a 512k connection to a 1.5mbps connection. Surely, to look like they increasing internet speeds you would whilst changing all 512k customer to 1.5mbps also abolish the 256k plan and make the 512k for the same price?

So you don’t rush out and buy vista and then find your machine is not capable of even installing the new OS!! Microsoft has on their website a program which you can download and then run. The program then evaluates the computers current software and hardware configuration and then recommends any upgrades to the machine if they are needed. You can download the Microsoft Vista upgrade advisor from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx or just got to www.microsoft.com/vista and follow the links to get ready. A basic windows capable PC requires the following system hardware:

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:
• A modern processor (at least 800MHz1).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

Microsoft officially rolled out its Vista client operating system Thursday. But the hared part will be having to convince users. These days there are much more desktop options such as Linux and Apple OS X, Microsoft have to convince users that one they need to upgrade from XP and secondly not to choose some other desktop environment that may well be cheaper and more customizable for the corporate world.
Vista has been in development for five years and Microsoft are giving the new operating system all the hype of the Windows 95. Microsoft hired back in ‘95 the Rolling Stones's Mick Jagger sang the band's "Start Me Up" to kick off Windows 95. Windows 95 cause a mass upgrade in computer hardware as many customers running 386, 486 processors ran out to upgrade hardware to Pentiums because they suddenly discovered it took 40 minutes just to bring up the screen.
Buyers of computers need to look for the vista capable logo on all new computers sold with windows xp, companies are providing free vista upgrades for customers buying machines between now and the vista release date here in Australia.