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Tech News: The HD DVD Hack

Sex, lies, and the Microsoft blogger laptop scandal

Sometimes it can be hard to tell if a story has legs because of the story itself, or just because of the actors involved the story. This week there’s been no end to the brouhaha over Microsoft’s reported attempt to curry favor with so-called “A-List” bloggers by sending them Acer Ferrari laptops loaded up with Windows Vista and Office 2007. To listen to the outcry, one might think that this kind of thing doesn’t happen everyday.
by Ken Fisher.

A peek at faster Power6, Cell chips

Judging by details revealed in a chip conference agenda, the clock frequency race isn’t over yet.
IBM’s Power6 processor will be able to exceed 5 gigahertz in a high-performance mode, and the second-generation Cell Broadband Engine processor from IBM, Sony and Toshiba will run at 6GHz, according to the program for the International Solid State Circuits Conference that begins February 11 in San Francisco.
by Stephen Shankland.

HD DVD reportedly cracked, but difficult to verify

Reports are circulating that the AACS content protection system shared by both Blu-ray and HD DVD has been cracked. None of the sites reporting this information have confirmed the crack, however, and our own investigation suggests that this is not a full working crack at this time. From the available details, the hack appears to only address AACS encryption, which means that Blu-ray would not be fully crackable using this method, as it has additional forms of DRM.
by Ken Fisher.

Companies probe possible high-def DVD hack

The companies behind an encryption system for high-definition DVDs are looking into a hacker’s claim that he has cracked the code protecting the new discs from piracy, a spokesman for one of the companies said Thursday.
from Reuters.

Virtual reality to get its own network?

A nonprofit group says it plans to build a network called Neuronet purely to support virtual-reality game and business applications.
by Stephen Shankland.