Game Consoles Scaled to Servers

New XBOX. Get this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7835721/

20-gigabyte detachable, upgradable hard drive; 3 dual-core processors running at 3.2 ghz;
512 mb RAM; 3 USB ports that can connect with digital cameras and portable music players.

When the game console becomes more powerful than servers running our companies, we should be concerned, shouldn’t we?

R

Spear Phishing

Source: US-CERT Cyber Security Bulletin May 4 – May 10, 2005

Phishing Evolves. A new method of phishing called ’spear phishing’ that evades traditional anti-phishing defenses is being used by Internet scammers. Spear phishing is more specific, because it typically targets a handful of people who are employees of an organization.

In one method, the phisher harvests specific email addresses, either through a phone call or through a company website, and then sends four or five employees a message from a spoofed address purporting to be part of their IT or human resources department. With a spoofed internal address, spear-phishing emails appear to come from within a company and people tend to be more trusting.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3274129a28,00.html.

R
www.micklerandassociates.com

Longhorn and the Aero Interface

Longhorn is apparently going to get a socialnet infusion. Social-networking technologies, including blogs, Wikis, and RSS, are likely to play a key part in the Longhorn “Aero” interface, based on a recent reorganization at Microsoft.

In late April, Microsoft reassigned Lili Cheng, group manager of Microsoft Research’s social-computing group, to the Windows Shell interface team. “I’m moving with a bunch of people—about 10—from my research team,” confirmed Cheng, whose new title will be Director of Windows User Experience and Research.

Cheng will be charged with managing the design, user research and user assistance teams within the existing Windows user experience unit. Cheng said that she and her team will “be working on Longhorn and beyond.”

Microsoft plans to show off its next-generation Windows interface called “Aero” at the Professional Developers Conference in September.

Meanwhile, I found some early release screenshots of Longhorn’s Aero Interface at the following URL:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_aero.asp

From what I can see, certainly an improvement over XP’s bubbly, “I want to be a Mac” interface, “Aero” looks more distinctive and PC-like. Microsoft is even trying to incorporate representative product images of hardware into the UI – brilliant – so that people can visually understand relationships between hardware and drivers.

Longhorn’s release is still unscheduled to my knowledge.
R

www.micklerandassociates.com