IT industry and Personal Computer (PC) news. February
2006
Vista Beta 2 in 2 parts Microsoft plans to release the Beta of Vista in 2 stages. The first
stage will be for businesses and this will be released very soon. The second
Beta is for consumers and this will be released before June '06.
This sounds like a good plan as Microsoft can fix all the bugs that
businesses find, before consumers have to deal with all the remaining bugs.
Opera Software's Mobile Phone Browser Finally! A mini browser for your mobile. Now you can surf the net and
see the web compressed up to 80 percent, rather than having to scroll back
and forth and up and down just to read a few words. You can choose a spot
on the page and zoom in. This is what mobile phone users with WAP have
been wanting for ages!
Panda Software's analysis of bots The latest analysis of 2005's bot attacks from Panda states that it
has increased 175 percent since 2004. This is alarming as, with this kind
of escalation, any connection to the net in 2006 may mean a much slower
experience as millions of computers worldwide are simultaneously and regularly
attacked by new bots. Makes me want to think about possibly not using the
net for a few minutes sometime!
Oracle Fusion Oracle, the company that recently completed its acquisition of PeopleSoft,
is developing a Fusion software that will integrate all existing Oracle-owned
programs into one massive interactive system. Sounds daunting and nigh
impossible. The eventual plan is for brand names like JD Edwards and PeopleSoft
to no longer be recognised. Rather, Fusion would be the recognised reference
for any accounting software knowledge.
Nanobots Grey Goo take-over theory refuted. Professor Gerard Milburn, at the recent Sir Mark Oliphant Conference
in Australia, discussed the theory of nanobots replicating and taking over
the world, destroying everything in their path. He says that "It's a beat-up"
He goes on to discuss the fact that life on Earth has been replicating
uncontrollably for billions of years, without destroying the planet, so
it's unlikely that nanobots would do the same. I'm not a professor but
isn't that what Humans are doing now? And other animals are held in check
by natural predators that evolved around the same time. Will nanobots have
natural predators to hold them in check? Seems like it's still something
to worry about!
