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Rent-A-Page
FYI
(For Your
Information)
This page last updated 07/27/2000
Cybertoilet The Answer to Power Users Prayers
According to this pic yanked from the Brithish IT tabloid The Register, the cyber toilet includes all the amenities to make computing from the crapper enjoyable. A foam seat cushions your buttocks, while a padded backrest supports your lumbar region during intense production cycles.
Alert! Almost All Copies
Of Windows Have This Bug!
Microsoft has just released info and a patch on something called the "Fragmented IGMP Packet Vulnerability." Normalspeak: A malicious or incompetent person could potentially cause your PC to slow to a crawl or even crash by sending you a pile of a special kind of normally- invisible internet information packets. Geekspeak (feel free to skip this paragraph): IGMP stands for Internet Group Management Protocol; it's a protocol originally and mainly designed for hosts on multi-access networks to communicate their group membership information to routers, but has been extended and modified since its inception. It's now used in multicasting where data is sent to an IP address to reach multiple hosts. Normal IGMP packets aren't a problem, but if a Windows machine has to process fragmented packets, trouble can ensue. This affects all versions of Windows, and is a basis for potential denial- of-service attacks. This is brand-new security alert, and the patches are just now becoming available. If you want the patch (and I recommend you get it), Microsoft says they'll soon be posted as follows: Patches: Windows 95: available "shortly" Windows 98: a patch will be available via Windows Update on about Sept 9th, and is available right now for manual download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/corporate.asp Windows NT Workstation & Server 4.0;Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/NT40/hotfixes-postSP5/IGMP-fix/ Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/NT40TSE/hotfixes-postSP5/IGMP-fix/ More info: http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/MS99-034faq.asp Home Robot Recognizes
Faces |
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 A home robot being developed by NEC can recognize household
objects, and even recognize your face, according to the company. The
robot, code-named the R100, has two cameras used for seeing and recognition,
and an array of senses for controlling TV sets and other appliances with
remote control units. It has a built-in video camera for recording video
messages. When it sees the intended recipient of the message, it says "Hi,
I've got a message for you" and plays the video, presumably on a nearby TV
set. The robot responds to standard greetings such as "How are you?" with
an appropriate response. Designed to be pet-like, the R100 sometimes falls
asleep. If you pet it, the device dances and plays music. It's even a
watchdog. If you go on vacation, it will watch the house, record a video
of anything that moves, and send you that video via e-mail. See the robot
in action in web videos 1, 2, 3 and 4 (all the dialog is in Japanese). | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| When 'Whoops' Just Isn't Enough | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Intuit put a link to change your "Privacy Profile" at the bottom of their "Privacy Statement" page. Ironically, if you entered the last name of any user, along with the correct ZIP code, that person's "Privacy Profile" would come up for you to edit – no password required. Last week Intuit discovered the problem and replaced the web form with a phone number and snail-mail address for changing profiles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
  
  
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See previous FYI's
StreamingVideos
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