Comment and Review Articles

· The New Market Bubble Theory - So here's the good news: The next five years will bring us the biggest stock-market boom in history. The bad news? The party will end in late 2010, after which we'll face the worst economic decline since the Great Depression.
· Denmark company to launch new network for HDTV - Danish telecoms operator TDC (TDC.CO) plans to launch a broadband service where consumers can access high definition television (HDTV) and video rental on the same network as telephony and the Internet, it said on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT

TDC said in a statement it would combine existing technologies such as copper, fibre and mobile networks to a create a national multimedia network with broadband speeds up to 50 megabits per second (Mbps).
· VOD offers new way to work out - Comcast hopes to add muscle to the video-on-demand business today, and sculpt the public's concept of a television network, with the unveiling of Exercise TV.

It's a collection of programs — developed in partnership with Body by Jake's Jake Steinfeld, New Balance footwear and Time Warner — that constitutes the first branded, ad-supported network with original programming designed exclusively for VOD, executives say.
· Why you need to Download Microsoft's Nwe WMF Exploit Patch Right NOW! - Thank God Microsoft lied. They told us they were waiting until 10 January, but it's out now. Click here to get it.

The WMF exploits are coming too fast and they're too darned all-encompassing. And yes, Mozilla/Firefoxers on Windows, you're in the bullseye too, as is anything that calls GDI32.dll. Maybe you thought this was all about shimgvw.dll?
· Mobile Phones Not Linked to Brain Cancer - USING a mobile phone for up to 10 years does not appear to increase the risk of brain cancer, scientists said today.

A team from The Institute of Cancer Research found no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma - a rare type of brain cancer - and mobile use up to a decade.
· 'Google Pack' Software to Fuel Googleplex - A pack of upcoming software programs expected to be announced Friday by Google is viewed as fundamental to the company's vision. And that's bad news for Microsoft, says one Google watcher.
· Fed's after Google data - The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases. The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.
· Time to say 'hello' to a computer phone? - Several years ago, in my ongoing crusade to save money, I bought an Aplio. In fact, I bought two. One for me, and one for my mother-in-law, who lives in Turkey. The idea behind the Aplio — a little black box about half the size of a shoe box — was that by plugging it into my phone and my Internet connection, I could call my M.I.L., as I call her, for nothing.

Now I see that Aplio was an early form of VoIP — Voice over Internet Protocol. And boy, we've come a long way, baby. A recent study by Forrester Research predicts that by the end of 2006, more than 5 million Americans will be using VoIP. Not to mention non-individuals, like the town offices in Milton, Mass., where I live. They switched in October to VoIP from POTS (Plain Old Telephone System — hey, I don't make this stuff up).
· Skype 2.0 does movies - POPULAR Voice over IP outfit Skype has shifted its latest version out of beta and released a few new functions, including moving pictures.

Skype 2.0 promises a better call quality and free one-to-one video conversations. There are improvements to the contacts filing systems and an ability to display your mood messages.
· When's a Rootkit Not a Rootkit? In search of Definitions - A vendor-neutral push to find an unambiguous way to describe rootkits has received backing from anti-virus specialist Symantec Corp., but security experts are suspicious of the plan, warning that strict definitions only serve to legitimize the use of a dangerous piece of technology.

The issue has taken center stage after Symantec admitted to using a rootkit-type feature in Norton SystemWorks to help customers avoid the accidental deletion of files.