ANKUR JAIN

NASA alongwith its European & Japanese partners have set a new plan to complete the International Space Station (ISS) by 2010, earlier than originally planned to ensure they were functioning by 2010, when the orbiting space laboratory is to be fully assembled.

The new sequence moves up launch of Europe’s Columbus module to the seventh shuttle flight and moves up launch of Japan’s Kibo module two flights, to the ninth mission.

The first of three components for the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) – or Kibo – are slated for 2007, one flight earlier, during the eighth scheduled orbiter mission, said Keiji Tachikawa, head of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The remaining two components are set for the ninth and twelfth shuttle missions, he added.

All rumours about the secretive Microsoft Origami Project might be clearing off by March 9, as per the latest update on the website.

To say the least/predict, Origami is expected to be the size of a paperback book, able to play music, games, connect to the internet and run software. Information from Microsoft on Origami is sketchy to say the least. Industry experts predict it is the Microsoft’s long-awaited offering hoping to take a bite out of rival Apple’s all-conquering i-Pod.

It may just be coincidence, but March 9 is also the launch in Hannover of CeBit, the world’s largest annual trade show for the information and telecommunications technology industry.

FYI : Those who don’t know about IRC Chat, it’s similar to the modern Instant Messaging Networks like AOL & MSN Messenger, it’s more like an open chat/public chat room and has been in use much before the Instant Messaging.

Symantec is planning to tweak the behavior of Norton Internet Security & Norton Personal Firewall so that they are no longer vulnerable to Spybot Worm.

If someone types “startkeylogger” or “stopkeylogger” in an IRC channel, anyone on the channel using the affected Norton products will be immediately kicked off without warning.

These are commands typically issued by the Spybot worm, which spreads over IRC and peer-to-peer file-swapping networks, installing a program that records and transmits everything the victim types (known as a keylogger). Spybot is an annoying but otherwise harmless prank that “script kiddie” hackers have been using for the past week or so to knock users off online chat channels.