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New Internet speed record set

The record for the fastest Internet speeds set last February has already been left in the dust, with researchers in Europe and the U.S. doubling the last benchmark. According to an article in Wired Magazine (www.wired.

The record for the fastest Internet speeds set last February has already been left in the dust, with researchers in Europe and the U.S. doubling the last benchmark.

According to an article in Wired Magazine (www.wired.com), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), sent 1.1 terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits a second to the California Institute of Technology. The previous high speed record, which was set by CERN, CalTech, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Stanford University, was 2.38 gigabits a second.

The researchers compared that speed to the equivalent of downloading a single 60-minute audio CD every second. The fastest home broadband service struggles to accomplish the same feat in about eight minutes.

The technologies used to produce the new record won’t be available at your local Future Shop any time soon, but will generally be limited to research centres with large budgets, at least for the foreseeable future.

Still, some of the ideas and technologies could be adapted to the home market in the next few years.

Microsoft acknowledges new Windows flaws

Since Windows XP was first released in October of 2001, the company has issued 22 security patches – almost one for every month. To get lazy people up to date with all of these patches in one shot, Microsoft recently announced the release of Update Rollup 1, a CD that includes all 22 of those patches.

It seems that Microsoft jumped the gun slightly, as yet another patch will be needed to address three new flaws discovered in the XP operating system.

None of the flaws have been exploited by hackers or viruses to the knowledge of Microsoft, but a potential of for abuse existed in XP’s authentication software.

The Update Rollup 1 is only intended to patch the XP system until the Service Pack for Windows XP is released mid-way through 2004. The Service Pack was engineered with Microsoft’s newly announced Trustworthy Computing Initiative, and is expected to be extremely secure.

Until then Microsoft will continue to release patches as they become necessary.

Apple opens Windows with iTunes

For the last few years, iTunes has been one of the things that has made Apple computers great, giving users the ability to play music files, organize songlists, and burn audio CDs.

Earlier this year, iTunes’ capability expanded, with Apple now offering customers the opportunity to download hundreds of thousands of individual songs and even whole albums for a fee. Although the online music store is still losing money, it’s on the brink of becoming profitable.

Now Apple has brought iTunes to the other 95 per cent of computer users, releasing a copy of the software last week for PCs.

The real appeal for PC users isn’t the software, however, but a little piece of hardware called the iPod. Now in its second generation, iPod players can hold thousands of songs in a variety of different formats, as well as other files on their hard drives – photographers using digital cameras are using them to store pictures, for example. The highest end iPods even include games.

The iPod is already compatible with PCs, providing you have the right wires, but no software works with the iPod as seamlessly as Apple’s iTunes, allowing you to move songs back and forth to your desktop, create folders, and organize content almost instantly.

With more than 1.5 million iPods already on the market and sales continuing to rise, Apple is hoping to snare a good portion of PC owners with a tag team offering of iPod and iTunes – which in turn will drive more business to Apple’s online music store.

When we’re 64

AMD technology beat Intel to the market with the first home version of the 64-bit processor, and appears to be holding up well in tests and comparisons. Apple beat AMD with the release of its G5 line of IBM 64-bit chips, also to rave reviews, but it’s a PC world.

Although there isn’t a lot of software out there that runs on a 64-bit platform, people are discovering that it delivers superior performance running conventional 32-bit programs, and performing other functions.

For example, according to a comparison by PC World magazine, the 64-bit chips make more efficient use of memory, recognizing and using more RAM. That’s a benefit to users who use their computers to process digital video, or employ other top-heavy software that requires a lot of memory.

Currently Linux distributors are the only version on the market offering operating systems for Athlon 64 chips, and Microsoft’s XP version will be ready in 2004.

Aside from a DivX video encoder, most 64-bit versions of popular software are a long way from reaching the market.

Apple G5s have a few applications that use the whole 64-bits, but it’s going to be a while before it matters to most users.

The Athlon 64s have something else going for them that users will notice immediately. In addition to a much faster bus speed, allowing for faster saves, loads, printing, and more, the Athlons include a megabyte of L2 cache.

The price for 64-bit is still high, however, and as a result it’s not going to appeal to the average user for a few years – at least not until the software catches up to the hardware.

Still, the gradual shift to 64-bit makes the decision more difficult when buying a new computer for your home or office. The changeover, when it starts to move faster, is going to make a lot of systems obsolete.