Chinese Trojan on Maxtor hard drives
Word has it that a Maxtor hard drive has been infected with a Trojan by a manufacturing sub-contractor in China, freaking out Taiwanese authorities who recently discovered samples of the infected kit. The pre-installed Trojan known as AutoRun-AH was discovered by Kaspersky Labs on Maxtor 3200 external hard drives sold in the Netherlands, although Seagate (who owns Maxtor) did express their skepticism about the reports initially. I guess it is time to get their heads out of the sand and face the issue head on. For those who purchase the Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 drives after August 2007, you could be a victim of AutoRun-AH - so keep your guard up.
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Add comment November 12th, 2007
Legion Paper has successfully converted its Moab, Utah offices to rely 100% on renewable wind power, picking up a Champion’s medal in the Rocky Mountain Power Blue Sky program in the process. The impact of such a move is equal to not driving a car for over 43,700 miles or reducing CO2 emissions by a whopping 20.4 tons. Talk about going green and relying on Mother Nature to keep you going! For those who do not live in such windy areas, what are some of the other ways where you can do your bit to stay green? [Press Release]
You don’t want to throw away a hard drive full of information, but it is quite a hassle to connect it to a computer to erase the data… If you are in this situation, you might be interested by the Drive eRazer, a stand-alone device that can wipe clean a hard disk, and by “clean”, we mean multi-pass military-grade deletion of files. It works with many drives (with optional adapters): “Used with WiebeTech’s v4 Combo Adapters, DRZR-1 and DRZR-2 can be used with many drive types. The most common include 2.5″ and 3.5″ IDE/PATA and SATA drives. It will erase most flash drives, PCMCIA, ZIF drives and DOM drives”
We recently posted about the Wibrain UMPC, and we thought that you might be interested by this (non-english) video that shows a short demo of the device could work. I’m personally not a big fan of this device because of the questionable split-keyboard choice. If you have not read our previous story, this computer runs a full OS on a Via C7M processor and a 1024×600 pixel 4.8” display. Price: $700 to $800
This might impact only the geekiest among you, but Fujitsu has a new digital TV HDMI controller that supports up to four inputs. The example above shows why one might need four HDMI ports. In addition to having more ports, Fujitsu also says that its solution is cheaper than previous ones, so expect to see more HDMI ports on new TVs very soon.
Those who wear their Bluetooth headset all day long will appreciate the idea behind this solar-assisted Bluetooth headset. The small solar panel can increase the battery life by up to 21hrs (according to the manufacturer…). Note that this number assumes that the panel is in direct sunlight. Real-life numbers might be a lot less impressive, but still, we’ll take any battery life gains that we get. Orange Store
This keypad will let you feel the pain of typing text messages on a desktop PC. If you don’t speak “SMS shorcuts”, it comes with software that translates SMS slang into normal English. Unless you’re training for the SMS Olympics, I don’t see why you would ever get one. 
O2 Micro was just issued a patent for its its Low-Power Audio CD Player invention for portable computers; enabling audio CD play without providing power to the notebook processor and LCD display. This automatically results in an extended battery life for the mobile end users, providing even longer hours of audio CD entertainment. I would say that this patent has come a little too late as everyone has already moved on to more advanced audio storage media instead of relying on CDs. [Press Release]
The NetEffect NE0201Gb Ethernet adapter helps to give an immediate and noticeable performance boost of all data center applications without requiring any change to existing network infrastructures or the applications themselves. It has been said that the NE0201Gb represents a low-risk stepping stone for enterprises planning a migration to 10Gb networking. Features include best-in-class performance efficiency with latency under 8 µsec as well as sustained low-latency performance even in multiple-connection environments. Enterprises who are interested can always pick up the NetEffect NE0201Gb as of today in both dual and quad-port configurations. Pricing details range from $795 upwards. [Press Release]
The Gravity Zero Groove bed from Hollandia International is pretty unique as it helps you drift off to dreamland faster with its 150-watt sound system - perfect for those who find the Sound Asleep Pillow not quite powerful enough. A couple of sleep system motors and two massage systems (complete with a dozen massage programs to keep you feeling refreshed always) are included as well, with four-joint adjustability, back-sliding system, and a flexible shoulder comfort zone rounding off the list of features.
