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Here's a note for all e-mail users.
Please do not open the attachment if an e-mail on your box reads like this: "Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of unsolicited spam messages during the recent week. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any future problems with the online service."
The warning was issued by an e-mail security company which has said that something called the Trojan horse programme is hitting networks around the world. The messages apparently request the users to run an attached file to prevent their e-mail account from shutting down.
The security company has said that if people open the attachment what they are doing, unknowingly, is opening the backdoor on the infected computer for hackers to use.
Extreme gaming
The 2005 Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) World is the first year-long competition for extreme gamers that is touring nine countries in four continents.
Intel is the sponsor for the gaming competition which boasts of a cash prize of $1 million.
Though the CPL World Tour made its debut in Istanbul, Turkey, in March, the grand finale will be held November. Intel has also announced a special $20,000 award for the participant who accumulates the maximum number of points.
Among the games, the first one is called Painkiller. It is a first-person action game where gamers try to take control of the underworld in a fast-paced, action-packed adventure. Each game will be decided from the best of three matches, with each match taking 15 minutes to complete.Japan improves IPTV
Two Japanese companies have got together to run trials for next generation video streaming over IPTV. SKY PerfecTV and EdgeStream are exploring the possibility of providing DVD quality video over IP to the broadaband users in Japan.
SKY Perfect Communications Inc. runs SKY PerfecTV, Japan's digital multi-channel broadcasting services company.
The companies believe that there is a big demand for a platform that allows broadband users to see cinema quality video on their network. EdgeStream's disruptive technology promises high quality at competitive costs.
Video streaming to homes over the IP network in Japan can be improved because of the investments that the telcos and content delivery networks have made to update the last mile connections. With EdgeStream's new technology, SKYPerfec expects to offer DVD quality video on demand streams without interruptions to all the broadband users.
Hallstrom's Hoax
Walt Disney Studios has snapped up the domestic film distribution rights for Hoax, a drama that will be directed by Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom. The film is being produced by the Yari Film Group and Status Film Co.
The film will star Richard Gere playing Clifford Irving, the person who wrote the biography of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in the early 1970s.
The story revolves around Irving who was eventually forced to repay the book publisher McGraw-Hill after Hughes made a public statement pronouncing the book as a fake. The film stars Alfred Molina as Irving's accomplice Richard Suskind and with Marcia Gay Harden plays his wife Edith.
It's not that this is the first film being made on Irving's story. He was one of the subjects of Orson Welles' 1974 film F for Fake. It is reported that production on Hoax will begin next month. But Hallstrom fans needn't wait for Hoax to get completed to enjoy his films.
In the next couple of months, he is likely to release An Unfinished Life with Robert Redford and Jennifer Lopez as well as Casanova with Heath Ledger. Hallstorm was recognised by the Academy for his films My Life as a Dog and The Cider House Rules.
