Security scare hits NASA

NASA space shuttle programme was once again in crisis as officials found a sabotaged computer meant for an imminent mission, and a trade magazine reported astronauts had been drunk on duty, reports Times of India.

The tampered computer was due to be installed on the US space shuttle Endeavour for an August mission to work on the International Space Station.

"One of our subcontractors noticed that a network box for the shuttle had appeared to be tampered with," NASA spokeswoman Katherine Trinidad said on Thursday. "It is intentional damage to hardware."

Thanks to Denon, and with help from Sony and Pioneer, Blu-ray may be about to make a decisive move in the next-generation disc format stakes, reports Teck.co.uk.

What Home Cinema has just reviewed Pioneer's new BDP-LX70 Blu-ray player, saying it delivered "the finest Blu-ray performance yet". On top of that, Sony's promising BDP-S1E standalone player is set for release imminently.

In addition, this week Denon announced its own high-end Blu-ray player, set for release soon. The DVD-3800BDCI looks capable of being the player that finally delivers on Blu-ray's huge potential as a disc format.

The coders responsible for Second Life pulled the plug yesterday on some of the most popular destinations in the virtual reality space - namely, the casinos that provide something to do, says The Register.

Linden Labs, the owners of Second Life, issued new policies on Wednesday covering virtual casinos on the official Second Life blog, effectively eliminating this form of entertainment there.

Speculation about the legality of gambling with a virtual currency on a virtual space had been tossed about on various Second Life blogs since the passage of the Unlawful Internet Enforcement Act (UIGEA) last year concerning the legality of the virtual casinos.

Microsoft has revealed details about Windows Vista's financial performance, supporting its contention that the operating system is meeting and beating market expectations, reports Computerworld.

Since its 30 January consumer release, Microsoft has shipped 60 million copies to PC makers, retailers and customers, said Kevin Turner, COO for Microsoft, during a presentation at the company's annual financial analysts meeting at its Redmond headquarters.

Microsoft had previously said it had shipped 20 million copies of Vista in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.