Hyped New Wii Feature May Work too Well

The Wii’s new MotionPlus controller attachment promises to make the console’s innovative control system even more sensitive, but it’s proving too much for some, according to one major game developer’s comments.

Thomas Singleton, producer of EA’s upcoming Grand Slam Tennis, made the statements in an interview with TechRadar.

“It truly is giving you that one-to-one control movement of your arm motion and then mapping it directly to that one-to-one movement of your character on screen. At times it’s overly responsive.” he said.

Why is that a bad thing? Imagine taking on a virtual Roger Federer in a Wii game where every tiny inconsistency in your backhand is reproduced with absolute precision. That sure sounds cool, but you’d have to be a pro yourself to stand a chance on the court.

Fortunately for us amateurs, Singleton’s on top of the problem, and has tweaked the MotionPlus’s accuracy to make it more user-friendly. “It had so much fidelity that at times we have limited that fidelity to make it a compelling experience,” he told TechRadar.

The MotionPlus snaps onto the bottom of the Wii’s remote, and is currently slated for a spring release, although Nintendo has yet to set a specific date.

By Mike Smith

Take Steps Now to Prevent Conficker Worm

Tomorrow — April 1 — is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it’s packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type — passwords, credit card numbers, etc. — and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we’ll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go “live” on April 1, but whoever’s controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there’s less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C — the latest bad boy — will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there’s no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker’s a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren’t without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker’s already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss — try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check — you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec’s Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro’s Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don’t have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users — whether they’re worried about an infection or know for sure they’re clean — are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won’t work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out.

By Christopher Null

ATM Virus that Steals Your Money

Russia’s leading computer security labs have warned of a new software virus which infects Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) to steal money from bank accounts of their users.

Two leading anti-virus software producers ‘Doctor Web’ and ‘Kaspersky Lab’ claimed to have discovered a new virus, in the networks of several bank ATMs, which is able to collect information from bank cards.

“This is a malicious programme intended to infect and survive in ATMs. It is possible that new software will appear, aimed at illegitimately using banking information and removing funds,” an official of the Kaspersky Lab was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency.

He said the virus is a Trojan, which is able to infect the popular American Diebold brand of ATMs, used in Russia and Ukraine. Judging by the programming code used, there is a high probability that the programmer comes from one of the former Soviet republics, he added.

The computer security experts say the number of infected ATMs is minimal but individual bank cardholders will not be able to detect whether an ATM is infected or not. However, banks can run a security software to find out if their machines are at risk.

Beware of the April Fool’s Day Computer Worm

In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.

Malware creators love to target April Fool’s Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we’ve seen in years.

Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent… though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm’s code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What’s known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything’s possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day — which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled — but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can’t be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.

Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions.

By Christopher Null

Ultra-Cheap Netbooks come with Drawbacks

Netbooks are a relative newcomer to the world of portable computers. They sit comfortably at the opposite end of the spectrum from the “desktop replacement” notebooks, those laptops with big screens, beefy specs and full-sized keyboards.

Netbooks sacrifice optical drives (CD/DVD drives) and have generally modest hardware specifications, smaller screen sizes and shrunken keyboards. They also tend toward smaller hard drive sizes … oftentimes much, much smaller. What you get in return is a small PC that is truly ultra-portable, weighing less than two pounds in some cases. In other words, a netbook is an ideal travel companion.

Is a netbook right for you?
This is the first question you have to ask yourself, and it’s a big one. If you already have a desktop PC or a desktop replacement notebook at home or in the office, and you want something small and light to take to the coffee shop or to use while sitting on the couch, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” On the other hand, if you’re looking for a primary machine, you may want to step up to a full notebook with a bigger screen, full-size keyboard, an optical drive, more hard drive space, and so on, at a sacrifice to portability.

Windows or Linux?
In keeping the price down — in some cases, at or below the $300 mark — netbooks don’t just make sacrifices to the hardware specs. Often, they use an open-source operating system in lieu of the more familiar Windows environment. While netbooks that run a version of Linux don’t generally require you to be a Linux guru to use them (though to get the most out of a Linux netbook it can’t hurt), it’s a bit of a departure from the familiar for Windows or Mac users.

That said, many netbooks like Acer’s excellent Aspire One line do offer Windows XP versions. Microsoft’s operating system is decidedly not free, so this option adds to the price — generally about $50 or so.

True netbooks — that is, those costing less than $500 — aren’t up to the task of running Windows Vista.

Netbook or “Ultra Portable?”
There are other tiny PCs that keep the size and weight down, but not the sticker price. These are considered “ultra-portable” PCs and they’re a very different category. While you still get the smaller keyboard and screen and, as a result, a much smaller and more portable laptop, ultra portable PCs tend to run the latest operating system. To run said operating system, the specs (processor speed, amount of memory, hard drive size and more) climb, and with them, the price. HP’s 2133 Mini-Note PC is a good example of the ultra-portable category: It runs Windows Vista, has a 120GB hard drive, 2GB of memory but suffers with an underpowered Via processor. So configured, it costs more than $800, a far cry from the sub-$500 price tag of a netbook.

The Key Question
Netbooks have smaller-than-standard keyboards. Some use chiclet-style or smaller-sized keys, and can be a difficult adjustment for people used to typing on a full laptop keyboard. It becomes that much more difficult if you have big hands. Some make the sacrifice work nicely, and while you probably won’t want to write your full manifesto or the great American novel on the keyboard, they’re ideal for general text entry or writing, or writing up to a couple thousand words at a go. The only way to tell if the keyboard will work for you is to try it out. Get down to your local electronics store and get hands-on.

Navigation Niggles
In addition to smaller keyboards, netbooks also have smaller navigation track pads than full-sized laptops. Sometimes the left- and right-click buttons are one rocker switch style bar, and sometimes they’re placed on either side of the track pad. This can take some getting used to. Test drive the navigation with an in-store demo model to find out if you can see yourself making the adjustment.

The Display Directive
With their small chassis and keyboards, netbooks also have diminutive displays. The de facto standard is 8.9 inches. This small screen is fine for just about anything you’d want your computer to do, but makes multi-tasking, like reading from a document while bashing out a response email, difficult. It could be much worse, though: The original ASUS Eee 700 PC that kick-started the netbook category had a tiny 7-inch screen that was exceedingly difficult to work with.

Color Me Stylish
Netbooks are perfect for an afternoon in your local Wi-Fi equipped coffee shop. However, as all the designer-PC-sporting hipsters in said coffee shop demonstrate, it’s as much about looking good (and busy) as it is actually getting stuff done. To that end, netbooks are available in an array of colors. From standard black and white to silver, pink, blue and so on. Which color is right for you?

System Specs
We mentioned that netbooks make sacrifices to the system specs to keep the size and price tag down. The question becomes how low should you go? Consider this a minimum list of product specs when shopping for a netbook:

Processor: 1.4 GHz Intel Atom or better. Steer clear of anything with a lower clock speed, and of marginal processors like the older Via chips found in HP’s Mini-Note PCs.

Memory: 1GB or better. Whether running Windows XP or a version of Linux, 1GB of memory is the number to look for. With 512MB of RAM you’ll have a functional netbook, and might be able to enter the market at the elusive $300 price point, but the extra $50 or so that 1GB of RAM adds to the price is money well spent.

Storage: Depends on your needs. If you want to keep your entire music collection on your netbook, if you want to keep a library of movies or have other storage needs, the 8GB solid-state drives (SSD, read: no moving parts) won’t do. Look for a 120GB standard (read: lots of moving parts) hard drive. This writer prefers the stability and access speed of SSD drives, but the small capacity means you’ll have to make sacrifices.

Battery: 6-cell. The whole point of getting a netbook is to have an ultra portable machine you can take with you anywhere and everywhere. There’s not much point though if your battery dies after a couple of hours with the wireless antenna turned on, as with a netbooks that sport 3-cell batteries. Opt for the 6-cell, and live with the price increase (about $50) or you won’t get far from the nearest power outlet.

Is a netbook a wise investment?
If portability comes at a premium, then yes. If you’re going to be desk-bound for a majority of your working time, then a more powerful and still portable PC would be a wiser investment.

However, for light-duty use like surfing the Internet, typing out emails, creating documents and generally keeping on top of all that’s happening online, netbooks are an excellent halfway point between a full PC and a BlackBerry or iPhone. They pack light, and so are perfect as go-anywhere computers.

For what it’s worth, this writer’s netbook travels literally everywhere with him. It’s so small and light that I don’t even have to debate whether or not to bring it along. If I have my backpack (which I almost always do), it’s a given that I have my netbook close at hand.

By Andrew Moore-Crispin
from: DigitalTrends.com