Bagle name game confuses virus watchers
What’s in a name? The public appears to be more concerned with the reasoning behind the name of the newest e-mail virus than what it actually does to their computers. Anti-virus technicians said on Wednesday that the “Bagle” virus was diminishing and not to be feared. But, since it first came on the scene on Sunday, Bagle has been the word on everyone’s lips, followed by a question mark – why bagle? Actually, it’s a mistake. It was first named “Beagle” after a reference from a line of the computer threat’s code, but security experts then changed it to “Bagle,” a misspelled version of the buddy to cream cheese. A senior consultant at Sophos, a UK-based software firm, said he wished it had been named beagle to escape all the “why did you call it bagel?” calls. But technicians agree that settling on an easily identifiable name is a both a difficult decision and the best public virus alert.  

Two screens better than one for new Nintendo
Nintendo has unveiled its highly anticipated 2004 answer to the portable video game system. Nintendo DS features two screens, one on top of the other. The video game industry staple had been expected to come up with a version of a handheld product to compete with Sony Corp’s PSP, a state-of-the-art handheld gaming device ready to launch at the end of the year. Competition is stiff, with Sony already dominating the console games market with the popular PlayStation 2. The new Nintendo machine will feature dual processors based on chip designs from British semiconductor firm ARM.

New phone uses your bones to make calls
There’s great new technology and there’s just plain creepy. Sanyo seems to have crossed into the latter. The Japanese telecom carrier has created the world’s first mobile phone that allows users to listen to calls inside their heads. The TS41 handset conducts sounds through bone with a “Sonic Speaker” that sends out sounds through vibrations that travel from the skull to the cochlea in the inner ear. The new phone, manufactured by Sanyo and sold by the Tu-Ka cell phone group, replaces the old outer-ear method. The bone-conducted sounds from the new handset can be better heard if the user plugs his or her ears to prevent outside noise from drowning them out. The TS41 marks the first time bone conduction has been used in cell phones, although it has been used in fixed-line phones in Japan for the past two years.

Saying a prayer for Jewish porn enthusiasts
Proving that God really does have an answer to anything, Jewish people who feel remorse for checking out porn on the internet now have a special prayer to say. Israeli rabbi Shlomo Eliahu’s prayer of repentance asks God to forgive the afflicted Jews by cleansing them of computer viruses and evil photographs that lead them from the righteous path. Eliahu, the chief rabbi in the northern town of Safed, Israel, said the prayer was a result of mass amounts of incoming queries from Orthodox Jews fretting over ever-alluring internet sex sites, which they felt were placing stress on family relationships. Eliahu recommends the stressed and sex-crazed recite the prayer when they log on to the internet to escape temptation or even program the purifying prayer to pop up in their computer screens to counteract the damaging effects of entering a porn site, whether they meant to or not.