Wednesday's Weatherbeater

CES starts tomorrow, but we've got the news today. It's Christmas in Ethiopia. The first commercial transatlantic telephone service started on this day in 1927. The Air Force began production of the first US jet fighter, the Bell P-59, in 1944. The Newlywed Game premiered in 1967. AT&T released a $1500 video telephone in 1992.

1. Homeless hacker Adrian Lamo says he'll accept a plea bargain that will give him six months house detention. He'll appear in court Thursday. FreeLamo.com will be renamed to LetLamoGoToTheMall.com.
2. The Sprit has landed and is sending back spectacular pictures, but the Beagle II still fails to report. Rats. [BTW, will someone tell Nasa to put a Skip Intro link on their interminable front page Flash animation?]
3. Intel has announced it will put up $200 million in venture capital to spur development of digital home tech. In his Thursday keynote at CES, CEO Paul Otellini is expected to announce new Intel TV chips.
4. Microsoft says it's continuing work on the Mac version of Virtual PC. Version 7 will support the G5 (the current version does not). Look for V7 in the "first half of this year." Mac Office will be updated around then, too.
5. 2004 will bring a whole new shape to the PC world. According to the Inquirer, this year Intel's socket 478 will be replaced by socket 775 (AMD is updating its socket design, too), DDR RAM will give way to DDR-II and a new DIMM form factor. That means new motherboards in the BTX flavor, requiring a new case and power supply designs. And to top it all off, the PCI and AGP busses will be replaced by PCI-Express. Finally a reason to upgrade that lame old 2.4 GHz proc.
6. Microsoft is still fighting the Blaster worm. The company released a removal tool Monday for the worm that first appeared in August, 2003. Apparently there are still many infected machines out there.
7. I like this. A new external hard drive from Western Digital has a built-in eight-way media reader, front panel USB 2 hub, and push button backup. 250 GB for $399.
8. Another CES announcement, Apex Digital plans a game console that plays PC games. The ApeXtreme will include a DVD player but a punchless Via 1.4 GHz processor for $400.
9. The US has started fingerprinting and photographing some International visitors for instant background checks as they go through customs. 27 mostly European nations are exempt. Brazil responds by fingerprinting US citizens entering that country.
10. HiDef radio is coming to a station near you. iBiquity Digital will show the new FM technology at CES.