SanDisk Sansa e280 8GB Digital Multimedia MP3 Player - SDMX4-8192-A70

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Features

Display Screen 1.8" TFT Color LCD Storage Media Flash Memory (Integrated) Manufacturer SanDisk Corporation Camera Type Not Applicable Interfaces/Ports 1 x Mini-phone Stereo Earphone 1 x USB 2.0 USB Storage Capacity 8GB Flash Memory Manufacturer Part Number SDMX48192A70 Standard Warranty 1 Year(s) Dimensions 3.5" Height x 1.73" Width x 0.49" Depth Still Image Formats JPEG TIFF PNG BMP GIF Optical Zoom Not Applicable Video Formats MPEG-1 Playback MPEG-2 Playback MPEG-4 Playback AVI Playback DAT Playback QuickTime MOV Playback ASF Playback WMV Playback VOB Playback Digital Zoom Not Applicable Product Name Sansa e280 8GB Digital Multimedia Device Weight 0.16 lb Product Features Audio Player Video Player Photo Viewer FM Tuner FM Recorder Voice Recorder Playback Duration 128 Hour(s) 2000 Song(s) @ 128Kbps MP3 256 Hour(s) 4000 Song(s) @ 64Kbps WMA Audio Formats MP3 Playback WMA Playback - Secure

Wi-Fi Bug Found in Linux

A bug has been found in a major Linux Wi-Fi driver that can allow an attacker to take control of a laptop-- even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network.

There have not been many Linux Wi-Fi device drivers, and this is apparently the first remotely executable Wi-Fi bug. It affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets, according to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange, who found the flaw and released the information in a presentation at last month's Black Hat conference in Amsterdam.

"You may be vulnerable if you do not manually patch your MadWi-Fi driver," said Butti. Before making it public, he shared the flaw with the MadWi-Fi development team, who have released a patch. However, not all Linux distributions have yet built the patch into their code, said Butti.

The kernel stack-overflow bug lets an attacker run malicious code, and can be used even if the machine is not actively on a Wi-Fi network, according to Butti, who used "fuzzing" techniques which had been shown by David Maynor and "Johnny Cache" Jon Ellch, at last year's Black Hat USA conference, and previously exploited on Windows and

Macintosh systems.

Linux users have previously suffered from a shortage of Linux drivers, and have campaigned to get wireless networks supported in the Linux kernel. With fewer Linux laptops on Wi-Fi networks, security experts-- and presumably hackers-- have taken longer to get round to Linux drivers, but issue of handling remote data at the kernel level can cause trouble on the open source OS just as easily as any other.

Butti has previously developed the RAW series of proof-of-concept hacker tools. He also found the Windows Wi-Fi flaw by fuzzing, during the Month of Kernel Bugs last year.

Intel may have upper hand in processor war, for now

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), the world's largest chipmaker, had been losing market share to rival AMD, but is now believed by analysts to have stemmed losses or even gained share thanks to a raft of new products.

Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news), which saw its sales soar in recent years as its powerful, energy-efficient processors trumped Intel's, is now struggling with outdated products and a costly acquisition.

AMD's woes were underscored earlier this week when it said that lower prices and unit sales meant that first-quarter revenue would be about $1.23 billion, 20 percent below the average Wall Street forecast.

"AMD had superior products a year to two years ago and for the first time was able to have prices above Intel's, and Intel was having to be competitive on pricing to clear inventories" said Cody Acree, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.

"Today, it's a reversal of those roles," Acree said. "We expect that Intel is actually gaining share and that AMD is having trouble staving that off and is having to cut prices to help make that happen."

Intel had about 74.4 percent of the market for desktop, laptop and server processors, according to January data from Mercury Research, which estimated AMD's share at about 25 percent.

When Intel reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, it is expected to show a net profit of $1.28 billion, or 22 cents per share, on revenue of $8.97 billion, according to the average Wall Street forecast on Reuters Estimates.

While that would be a 5 percent fall in profit from a year earlier, analysts are bracing for AMD to report on Thursday a net loss of almost $342 million, a dramatic about-face from the $184.5 million profit it posted a year earlier.

AMD plans to counter Intel in the middle of this year when it launches a new chip with four processing cores, meaning that it can handle several tasks at once.

The big question is whether the chip, known as Barcelona, will offer enough of an advantage to take more customers away from Intel.

Intel has a quad-core chip as well, but it consists of two dual-core chips stuck together. AMD says its design of having all four cores on one piece of silicon will be faster and use less energy

Time is Running Out for Windows XP

Microsoft will force PC makers to stop selling machines running XP by the end of this year, despite ongoing compatibility problems and demand for XP from users.

Demand for XP is particularly strong among small and medium-sized businesses, according to Dell, which announced it will continue offering some machines with XP pre-installed.

However, the clock is ticking, and Dell and other PC makers will be obliged to stop selling machines running XP by the end of the year, despite ongoing compatibility and performance issues with Windows Vista.

Dell has decided to continue offering XP on business systems through the summer through a feature called "Customize with

Windows XP," the company said in a recent blog post.

Dell said the move reflects strong demand for XP machines, especially for smaller businesses, which often buy systems in small numbers from OEMs.

"Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system," said Tom West, director of small business marketing at Dell, on the company's blog. "The plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron systems until later this summer."

Dell isn't planning to offer XP on consumer systems, saying they prefer the "latest and greatest," a situation that displeased some customers. "Thumbs down for not offering this to home users," wrote one user.

"Many home users- especially gamers- do consider XP the 'greatest'- especially after all the media articles and benchmarks showing very poor gaming performance and compatibility on Vista," wrote another.

At the end of this year, however, Microsoft OEMs' contracts will no longer give them the option of selling XP-powered machines. This is despite problems that have surfaced for consumers as well as businesses, such as games and application incompatibility and driver problems.

Most recently, users complained that Vista's start-up, shut-down and application load times are far too long compared with Windows XP. Users on Microsoft's Performance & Maintenance forum, who sound pro-Vista for the most part, have vented about a variety of speed issues.

"I have XP and Vista running side-by-side [but] I twiddle my thumbs waiting for certain apps to load up on the Vista machine while the load is instantaneous on the older XP machine," wrote a user identified as William. "I've tweaked it as best as I could with the info available and I am still very disappointed."

Doubts have also been raised about Vista's security, after it emerged that Vista was affected by recent widespread hacks involving Windows' animated cursors, even though that portion of the code was addressed by an update more than two years ago.

Breaking: Google Spends $3.1 Billion To Acquire DoubleClick

About 20 minutes ago Google announced that they have agreed to acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash (nearly double the size of their YouTube Acquisition). Microsoft was reportedly in a bidding war with Google for the company. Google gets access to DoubleClick’s advertising software and, perhaps more importantly, their customers and network.

DoubleClick was founded in 1996. DoubleClick was taken private in 2005 by Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity for $1.1 billion. The New York Times is reporting that DoubleClicks revenues are about $300 million/year.

10x revenue for a mature company is a…healthy…valuation. At least part of the acquisition price appears to be due to a desire by Google to keep this asset out of Microsoft’s hands.