By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Whether or not you believe Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage program is spyware or not, it does phone home … and if you feel, as many, that such activity is unnecessary once your OS has been verified as legal, there’s a way to get rid of it. A French firewall testing firm, Firewall Leak Tester, which specializes in firewall stress tests, has released RemoveWGA, which removes the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification Tool, the controversial part. The Validation Tool is still intact.

We Say: I’ve tried this on my system. First thing to note is the bitmap above; it now shows I’m free of the WGA Notification Tool. I also, after that point, tried going to the Windows Update site, where it asked to reinstall the software.

When you run RemoveWGA it adds a line to your registry which removes the Notification Tool upon your next boot. It needs to run the program on the next boot, so don’t try, as I did, running it from a removeable drive … and don’t change the filename either. Typically I rename .exe files to include the version so I can remember which version I have downloaded. In this case the autorun key looks for RemoveWGA, so that won’t work. If you want you can use a -silent command line option and have that run upon every boot; it will check and only pop-up a dialog if you are “infected.”

You can download the utility here.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Dell is investigating a report of a laptop that exploded at a conference in Japan this week. The report, which was originally posted in The Inquirer, also included pictures of the laptop in flames.

Dell has confirmed that the laptop in question was indeed a Dell, but had no further comment. Last December Dell recalled 22,000 batteries because of possible overheating and fire-risk problems.

We Say: I’ve had more than one Dell battery recalled for different laptops, so I’ve experienced the recall part, but fortunately, not the explosion part!

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

And the MPAA goes around accusing John Q. Public of piracy! Today Movie critic Paul Sherman of the Boston Globe was arrested and charged with selling 100 “screeners” … which are copies of movies sent to reviewers specifically for review purposes … to pirates.

Sherman, no relation to the animated Jay Sherman of FOX’s short-lived The Critic, did not exactly get rich from his piratical dealings. He received a mere US$4,714 for the use of his screeners. If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty of US$250,000 and a three-year prison term.

It was not revealed how Sherman was identified and caught, but some suspect that the recent practice of adding digital watermarks to screeners may have played a part. Source: Ars Technica

We Say: He made less than $5,000 and he might go to jail for 3 years? Plus a $250,000 fine? What was this guy thinking? The risk / reward ratio is obviously way off in this case.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

There have been previous stories about health risks associated with cell phones, including the radiation they produce as well as the increase in auto accidents associated with their use. It’s also been known that if you’re in a lightning storm, you’d better hang up that landline phone. It looks like you’d better toss your cell phone away at the same time, if you’re outdoors.

(Swinda) Esprit and other doctors at the hospital (Northwick Park Hospital in England) added in a letter to the British Medical Journal that usually when someone is struck by lightning, the high resistance of the skin conducts the flash over the body in what is known as a flashover.

But if a metal object, such as a phone, is in contact with the skin it disrupts the flashover and increases the odds of internal injuries and death. Source: Reuters

We Say: In contact with the skin? I’m wondering if this means that if I have it in a holster and it’s touching part of my body, that’s enough, as opposed to actually have to use it. Flashover incidents usually have a low incidence of mortality, so anything you could be doing to disrupt flashover (maybe even watches or keys) could be deadly.

By Michael Tate
Guest Contributor, RealTechNews

Face it, when you’re tooling around town on your scooter, the last thing you want is to NOT get noticed at a critical time. It also really stinks when your horn sounds like an angry cricket. It commands no respect at all. Like most mechanically inclined bikers, I went looking at aftermarket horns. Lots of lovely goodies, but nothing really grabbed me until I spotted one of these:

Meet the Wolo Bad Boy model 419.

It’s tiny (5″x5″x3.5″), lightweight (16 oz) and whoa nelly, is it ever loud. About 118db to be precise. That’s about twice as loud as the standard car horn. Installation is simple, uses the same two wires that operate your existing horn (which you will soon after trash).

We Say: This is a really inexpensive safety upgrade for most of the motorists out there, both bikers and car drivers. Check out the audio link, it sounds a tad Ferrariish, but I’m not sure. I cannot hear in my right ear anymore (my doctor said it was temporary…) $49.99 Product Page
Source: Wolo Mfg.

Alice Adds: Holy Gee. I think it would blow me off my seat and cause an accident (and I don’t mean the vile brown note kind either.) But I probably could have used this when I got run over on my scooter. Damn truck driver never even heard me screaming at the top of my lungs.

=======================================
Other Hacks and Car Stuff Worth Knowing About:
–VroomBox Emulates Muscle Cars < ---Nice!
–Make Your Own Custom Car Emblems
—Lexus IS has Secret Cheat Code
— The Hacker’s Diet (Hilarious and it works)
–Ultimate Elevator Hack: Press 2 Buttons and Head Straight to Lobby

–Free RealTechNew Newsletter

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Hmm … this so much reminds me of all the attention Sony received over its DRM oh-so-long (it seems) ago. A number of privacy advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, have voiced opposition to AT&T’s new Privacy Policy.

“My understanding is that they will be monitoring television viewing habits, and that it’s a condition of service that customers can’t opt out of,” said Paul Stephens, policy analyst at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “It’s frightening,” he said.

AT&T said it began to review its privacy policy six months ago, and the update was aimed at clarifying its practice and did not change how it treats customer information. But the American Civil Liberties Union said AT&T was trying to give itself license to do what it wants with client data. Source: Reuters

We Say: As I said previously, it’s obviously a reaction to the recent events over the wiretapping “cooperation” that AT&T is accused of. Now, eventually Sony admitted its error and backtracked. Will AT&T change its mind on its new policy? Only time will tell.

By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

It’s funny that even though we all know that technology is constantly improving and getting faster and more powerful than what we have now, it’s still astonishing to hear what the latest accomplishments are. Take for instance the news that scientists at IBM and GA Tech announced recently that broken the speed record for silicon-based chips with 500 gigahertz speeds. Ho-hum you say? This is almost 250 times the speed of chips today. That is remarkable. Imagine your current computer running between 10 and 100 times faster. Coming back down to earth for a minute, the 500GHz speed was achieved by cooling the chips to 451 degrees below 0F. That’s pretty close to absolute zero. The chips still run at a impressive 350GHz at room temperature.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks.

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

I can’t help but read about the new changes at MySpace and laugh, how are these changes going to help anything at all? All people have to do is signup as a teenager and they will be allowed to keep doing what they have been doing, contacting the younger users of MySpace. This is pretty much what they said:

MySpace users who are 18 or over will not be allowed to request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old’s friends’ list unless they already know either the youth’s e-mail address or full name, which means they will no longer be able to access personal profiles of kids under 16.

Under the changes announced Wednesday, any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other details, such as display name. The ONLY difference is that adults can no longer request to be added to a youth’s list to view their full profile as that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over.

Those under 18 will still be able to make contact. Without age verification, adults can sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old’s list of friends, which would enable the full profiles.

We Say: How does this help anything? Wouldn’t pedophiles who are already on MySpace already be signed up as teenagers? Why would they be signed up as over 18 when they know that MOST kids probably wouldn’t react to them the same as they would if they thought they were the same age. And why aren’t they trying to protect the 16 and 17 year olds? I just don’t see how this helps the users they are trying to protect, am I missing something?