Japanese Firm Pushes Wi-Fi to 3 Miles
Maspro Denkoh, a Japanese manufacturer of wireless communications equipment, has developed a transmission system that can send Wi-Fi signals as far as three miles.
The system relies on high-gain antennas produced by the company and is compatible with standard IEEE802.11b/g communications equipment.
Wi-Fi networks use two types of antennae. One is a tube-shaped model about 40 centimeters long and the other is a much shorter and square-shaped model. Combining two of the tubular antennae--one on each end of the link--will result in a transmission distance of about three miles while one of each antenna will work on distances up to 1.2 miles and two of the compact antenna will be fine for up to a little more than half a mile, according to the company.


Bug spotted in Symantec antivirus
A serious security flaw in part of Symantec's antivirus products puts enterprise systems running the software at risk of intrusion.
A buffer overflow flaw in the Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine could let remote attackers run code on vulnerable machines, Symantec said in an advisory Tuesday. The problem affects various versions of the engine, which is the part of the security software that actually scans for threats. Security patches are available to correct the problem, which Symantec rates "high" on its risk impact scale.


ATI launches new family of top-end graphics chips
ATI Technologies Inc. launched its new family of high-end graphics chips on Wednesday, a move it hopes will help it win back market share in the fiercely competitive sector.
ATI's Radeon X1000 family of processors will compete with the GeForce 7800 product line designed by Nvidia Corp.
Both ATI and Nvidia are targeting high-end customers such as video game enthusiasts, who are willing to pay top dollar for chips and graphics cards that offer the highest speeds and richest detail.