Breaking

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Sorry

Sorry Folks That I could not post new items due to several problems that did happened with me i will be posting as soon as i get over with those problems in the near future ......................................................................


Till then i am extremly sorry ......


Well Happy Deepawali and ID

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Saturday, October 14, 2006

IE7/WMP11 Launch News

According to a new Vista-related press release on Microsoft's site, Windows Media Player 11 will be released to the public on October 24th.

"Windows Media Player 11 will be available via free download beginning Oct. 24 and will enable users to take advantage of an elegant and intuitive user interface, a new level of online store integration, especially with MTV’s URGE service, and improved navigation for larger music libraries."

An obscure post over on the MSDN blogs, states that Microsoft is targeting October 18th as the release date for Internet Explorer 7. Looks as though Microsoft is planning to release IE7 automatically on November 1st:

"The final release of Internet Explorer 7 is targeted for release October 18th …and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates starting November 1st, a few weeks after it’s available for download. Are your Web sites, extensions, and applications ready? Microsoft recommends that Web sites and applications be reviewed and made ready for the release of Internet Explorer 7 this month."

News Related To WMP 11
News related to IE7
Saturday, October 14, 2006

Microsoft Stands Firm On PatchGuard

Microsoft is still talking with partners who are complaining about how the Redmond, Wash. developer has set up Windows Vista's security, but it won't budge from its decision to lock down access to the kernel, a company security manager said Thursday.


"Vista is not completed yet, and we're sitting down with everyone," said Stephen Toulouse, senior product manager with Microsoft's security technology group. "We're still gathering feedback" about Vista's security, he added.

That might seem to leave open the door to changes in how Vista implements the security features that third-party vendors have questioned, including plans to bar access to the kernel in the 64-bit version of the upcoming OS as well as not allow competitors to turn off Vista's Security Center dashboard. Rivals Symantec and McAfee have gone public in the last month with criticisms of both features, and have charged that Microsoft's decisions will make Vista less secure, not safer.

Original News : Here
Saturday, October 14, 2006

Microsoft to PC Buyers: Don't Wait for Vista

If you are contemplating a PC purchase but concerned about waiting for Windows Vista, don't wait, said Microsoft officials at the DigitalLife conference here.

G. Michael Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows Client marketing at Microsoft, opened the DigitalLife conference on Oct. 12 with a keynote in which he laid out the company's plans for the rollout of the Vista operating system and the surrounding ecosystem of hardware and software that will support it.

Supporting Sievert in a demo role, Justin Hutchinson, group product manager, Windows Client, said "one of the things that lights up Windows Vista is the ecosystem of products that support Windows."

Indeed, said Hutchinson, "close to 100 percent of the PCs on store shelves today are Windows Vista capable."

Later Hutchinson said that about 98 percent of the new PCs being sold hold the "Windows Vista Capable" logo and a smaller percentage of those are branded as "Premium Ready."

Original News : Here
Saturday, October 14, 2006

IBM Dual-Core Power6 Processor Breaks 4GHz Limit

IBM is expected to push its next-generation Power6 dual-core processors to run at higher speeds, rather than following the Intel/AMD concept for high-end computing that packs more cores on a die.

The new CPU will run at speeds between 4-5GHz with a total of 8Mbytes L2 cache and a 75Gbyte/second link to external memory, according to EETImes.com.

The Power6 doubles the frequency and bandwidth of the existing Power5 without increasing its power consumption or the depth of its execution pipeline. The move lets IBM ship the chip as a mid-2007 refresh for its existing p-series server line.

"We needed to scale the whole system. When you just pack on more cores and don't scale the cache and memory bandwidth you can't really scale CPU performance as well," said Brad McCredie, a fellow in IBM's Systems and Technology Group.

The Power6 will essentially follow the pattern set by IBM with the Power4 and 5 CPUs. The Power4 was among the first computer CPUs to put two cores on a single die. The company packed two dice on a single module for high-end versions of the chip. Intel likewise plans to use multi-chip modules to pack two dual-core dice on a family of quad-core chip modules it will start introducing in November.


Original News : Here
Saturday, October 14, 2006

Seagate offers Maxtor OneTouch with 1.5TB


Seagate Technology announced today that it will ship a 1.5TB version of its Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition external hard disk drive. The new drive ships this month for $799.99.

The Onetouch III Turbo Edition is pre-formatted for Mac users and comes with FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces. It measures 5.4 x 3.9 x 8.5 inches. Inside the drive enclosure are two 750GB hard disk drive mechanisms configured together in a RAID array for a total capacity of 1.5TB. The "OneTouch" refers to the system's ability to back up your Mac's internal hard drive by pressing a button which activates software included with the drive.

Seagate also makes Maxtor OneTouch III systems in other capacities and configurations, including "Mini Editions" for portable users.

Original News: Here

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Google Bundles Web 2.0 Productivity Suite


In yet another step into Microsoft territory, Google on Wednesday released a package of applications that directly compete with the software giant's Office suite. Google is using its popularity in the search engine realm to garner attention for its Web 2.0 applications, Writely and Google Spreadsheets. Writely is a Web-based word processing program targeting Microsoft Word. Google Spreadsheets aims at Excel. Dubbed Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the bundle is available free of charge. The programs allow users to create and share documents online within a Web browser, one of the promises of Web 2.0.

Rumors of a Microsoft Office killer started earlier this year. Google acquired Upstartle, maker of Writely, in March. The software allows you to edit documents online, then publish them via blogs and other Web sites. Writely users can upload Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text documents, or create a document from scratch. A WYSIWYG editor formats and spell-checks the documents online. Google is now dropping the Writely name.

Google Labs launched Google Spreadsheets in June. Google hopes integrating the applications, both of which are still in beta, will make online document sharing and collaboration easier.

Original News : Here
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Microsoft Security Updates: October 2006


Microsoft has just posted their security patch bulletin for the month of October. As usual all required patches for your PC can be caught using Windows Update. A total of 10 patches were released this month including these 6 listed as 'Crtical':

MS06-057: Vulnerability in Windows Shell Could Allow Remote Code Execution (923191) Critical
This update resolves a vulnerability in Windows that could allow remote code execution.

MS06-058: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft PowerPoint Could Allow Remote Code Execution (924163) Critical
This update resolves vulnerabilities in PowerPoint that could allow remote code execution.

MS06-059: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (924164) Critical
This update resolves vulnerabilities in Excel that could allow remote code execution.

MS06-060: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (924554) Critical
This update resolves several vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word, the most critical of which could allow remote code execution.

MS06-061: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (924191) Critical
This update resolves vulnerabilities in Windows that could allow remote code execution.

MS06-062: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (922581) Critical
This update resolves vulnerabilities in Office that could allow remote code execution.

Please check this out for more detailed information regarding these Downloads and Updates

Check : Microsoft Windows Update
This also : Microsoft Security Bulletin: October 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Samsung to sell 10-megapixel camera phone


Samsung Electronics will put a 10-megapixel camera phone on the market in South Korea shortly.The mobile phone was first shown at Cebit in Germany in March this year and was originally due to launch in the second quarter.

Like some of the company's previous phones the SCH-B600 is styled to look like a conventional digital still camera from one side and a bar-type mobile phone from the other side. It has a 3x optical zoom lens like those typically found in digital still cameras, auto focus, manual focus, continuous and time-delay picture taking and a flash.

Other features include a tuner for South Korea's TU Media satellite multimedia service, Bluetooth and MP3 player, business card reader and TV-output.

It will cost 900,000 won ($950) in South Korea and Samsung said it won't be selling it in other markets.The phone is the latest in a line of high megapixel camera phones from Samsung. The company launched a 5-megapixel camera phone in October 2004, a 7-megapixel phone in July 2005 and an 8-megapixel model in November last year.

Original News : Here
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Adobe makes mobile acquisition


Adobe has acquired vector graphics technology developed by Actimagine.

Actimagine develops, patents, and licenses software solutions in the field of video and interactive vector graphics. The acquisition will extend the reach of Adobe mobile technologies, including Adobe Flash Lite, to high-volume mass-market devices, Adobe explained in a press release.

Under the terms of the agreement, Actimagine will also incorporate existing and future versions of Adobe Flash Lite technology into its service offerings.

"Adobe is committed to providing the technologies needed by operators worldwide to develop, deliver, and display engaging mobile experiences on a broad set of mobile devices," said Al Ramadan, senior vice president, Mobile and Device Solutions Business Unit at Adobe.

Andre Pagnac, CEO of Actimagine explains: "We intend to combine Flash with Mobiclip, our software video codec, to deliver most enjoyable user experiences."

Original News : Here
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Ballmer: Windows Live Is Top Microsoft Priority


ORLANDO, Fla.—Windows Live is the most important initiative at Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, told the audience at the annual Gartner Symposium and IT Expo here on Oct. 10.

"We're in a transition to software that is live. It will be click to run, like a Web site," said Ballmer. "We believe in evolving to click to run."

Windows Live is a growing collection of service add-ons for Windows. Some of the services are shipping, such as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Expo online classifieds. Nearly a dozen services are currently in beta test on the Windows Live Ideas Web site.

"The most important thing is the Live platform. The next level of consumerization is coming from Internet services and Internet delivery," said Ballmer, whose comments dovetailed with a theme espoused by Gartner analysts at this year's conference: that consumer technologies such as search, podcasting, on-demand video and blogging will seep into enterprise IT infrastructures in the years ahead.

PointerGartner analysts say consumer technology will overtake corporations. Click here to read more.Ballmer said the move to an online experience for the user does not diminish the need for powerful client systems, which are the bread-and-butter of Microsoft's software business.

Gartner analysts posed questions to Ballmer on a number of topics, particularly the forthcoming Vista release of Windows. Ballmer said the lesson his company has learned from the repeated delays that have plagued the release of Vista, once known as "Longhorn," is the need to reduce complexity in the development process.

"We learned we have to innovate and integrate, but not necessarily at the same time. There was too much new invention to be integrated," he said.

In the area of enterprise applications, Ballmer noted that Microsoft is working to release a hosted CRM (customer relationship management) service. He also said Microsoft is working on a common code base for the ERP (enterprise resource planning) products in the company's Dynamics product line—essentially what had been called "Project Green" a couple of years ago.

Ballmer also stressed that Microsoft will continue to invest in multiple core businesses: entertainment, online, enterprise and desktop. In addition, he touted the company's legendary tenacity if success does not come quickly. "The bone doesn't fall out of our mouth easily. We keep coming and coming and coming and coming and coming and coming."

Original News : Here

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Microsoft delays Mac Office 2007 release


The next version of Microsoft Office for Mac won't ship until the second half of 2007, the company has confirmed.


The Courier Mail reports Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU) product manager Mary Starman revealed the news, which means the Mac version of the office productivity suite will lag eight months behind the Windows version of the software (scheduled to ship January 2007).

When it does arrive, Microsoft promises a unified Mac OS X look and feel, interface improvements and yet more enhanced features on the Universal software suite.

Microsoft has also published several more articles on its MacBU blog, including a little biographical information about the developers working on the company's Mac products.

Original News: Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Yahoo Creating World's Biggest Time Capsule

Yahoo is encouraging people from around the world to contribute to what it is calling the largest time capsule in the history of the world. "It will be fascinating to see what people submit as their part of this 2006 snapshot, which will be shared with generations to come," said Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief of Yahoo.


Yahoo has launched what it ambitiously calls the largest time capsule in the history of the world. It is encouraging people from around the globe to contribute personal photos, stories, thoughts, ideas, poems, home movies -- the flotsam of every day life, in other words -- to its site, timecapsule.yahoo.com. The point, as with all time capsules, is to illustrate life in 2006.

Submissions can be made on such topics as love, anger, fun, sorrow, faith, beauty, past, now, hope and "you." Yahoo will then weave the contributed multimedia content into a single piece of digital art online. At the end of the project, the content will be saved in a digital archive and sealed, to be opened at Yahoo corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., on the company's 25th anniversary in 2020. It will also provide copies of the content to the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings archives in Washington, D.C.

"It will be fascinating to see what people submit as their part of this 2006 snapshot, which will be shared with generations to come," said Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief of Yahoo.
Historian's Dream

Indeed, that glimpse into everyday life 20, 50 or 100 years ago has fascinated both hobbyists and professional historians since the first time capsule was buried, most likely in a building. The International Time Capsule Society, which is currently setting up a registry of time capsules, estimates there are approximately 10,000 of them worldwide.

According to its Web site, burying time capsules is an outgrowth of an ancient Masonic cornerstone-laying ceremony during which the mason would place memorabilia inside building cornerstones. In 1793, George Washington, who was also a Mason, buried today's equivalent of a time capsule when laying the original cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol, the society reports.

Many of these capsules have unfortunately been lost -- or rather, never found -- it also said. Washington's, for instance, has never turned up even though the Capitol has been extensively renovated and expanded over the centuries.

Others have been lost due to less romantic -- at least, to a historian -- reasons. In 1953, Washington state celebrated its territorial centennial by burying a two ton time capsule on the state capital campus in Olympia, the society said. Unfortunately, the legislature failed to approve funds to mark the site, and the capsule was lost.
Capsules Online

A more recent example is e-timecapsule.com, initially created with the goal of launching materials into outer space. This summer, the project was granted permission to bury the capsule at Stonehenge in Great Britain, said David Ryan, president and creator of Electronic Time Capsule, a service that provides users with a way to develop their own time capsules to be delivered to their children or another person. Getting permission couldn't have been easy, but devotees of such projects apparently reach into the Prime Minister's office, he added.

With the advent of electronic media has come a new variant on time capsules, Ryan told TechNewsWorld. Projects like Yahoo's or e-timecapsule.com's have only a limited appeal -- largely to historians or social scientists. However, interest is growing among ordinary people who want to preserve glimpses of their lives for recipients in the future, according to market studies Ryan commissioned.

This, of course, is his vocation -- but it is also his avocation. "I write messages on my thoughts about the war in Iraq to my daughter, who is now three. She can then read [the messages] when she is 25 and is able to digest the information." Military combatants are driven by the same instinct, he said. "They write letters to their kids and instruct them not to open the letter until a certain date.

Original News :Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Group warns of more junk e-mail



The anti-spam group Spamhaus Project warned more junk e-mail could be on the way as it prepares to lose its domain name thanks to a company it has accused of sending spam.

Executives at the U.K.-based Spamhaus Project said Monday they expect a federal judge in Chicago will soon sign an order that would suspend the domain spamhaus.org because the group has refused to recognize the U.S. court and comply with a $11.7 million judgment.

Spamhaus warned the order could unleash up to 50 billion junk e-mails a day on computer users worldwide, though legal and technology experts were skeptical the effect would lead to millions of clogged inboxes.
According to Spamhaus, more than 650 million Internet users -- including those at the White House, the U.S. Army and the European Parliament -- benefit from Spamhaus' "blacklist" of spammers that helps identify which messages to block, send to a "junk" folder or accept. Losing the domain name would make it more difficult for service providers and others to obtain the lists.

"If the domain got suspended, it would be an enormous hit for the Net," said Steve Linford, Spamhaus' chief executive officer. "It would create an enormous amount of damage on the Internet."

But experts said even if the order filed Friday is executed, it's unlikely people would suddenly see much more junk mail. Experts note Spamhaus' blacklist already is widely available online, and a suspension at most would provide a hiccup Web-savvy systems administrators could easily work around.

"Suspending a domain name isn't the same as suspending a Web site," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard and Oxford universities. "Spamhaus is intended for use by people who run mail servers -- in other words, technically inclined people. If Spamhaus wanted to, it could simply pick a new domain name, or use no name at all."

Domain names are merely shortcuts to access a site's true, numeric Internet address. Spamhaus could simply distribute that address instead of the domain name.

And it's not even clear U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras could easily order such a suspension because the Domain Name System is in the hands of organizations and companies that are not parties to the lawsuit. They could challenge any such attempt.

Spamhaus CEO Linford said the group has backup plans in place to keep spam filters functioning, but alerting its customers to change the address their system uses to reference the blacklist would be daunting.

Linford said "mail servers will simply fall over" from a deluge of spam if the filters stop working.

Wheeling-based e360 Insight sought the order after Spamhaus refused to comply with a September ruling that required it to pay $11.7 million and post a notice on its Web site stating that e360 Insight is not a spammer.

Spamhaus officials did not bother defending themselves in the case, arguing that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction and that doing so would open the organization to a tidal wave of lawsuits by spammers that want to fight those who block their e-mails.

Bart Loethen, a lawyer for e360, insists his client does not engage in spamming and said he had to go after Spamhaus' domain until it removes the company from the blacklist.

"They are thumbing their nose at an order of the court," Loethen said. "What else can we do?"

Original News : Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Support ending for Windows XP SP1

Microsoft will end support for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and SP1a on Tuesday, leaving people no option but to upgrade to Service Pack 2 if they wish to continue to receive crucial components, including security software.

The move to drop support for SP1 is in line with Microsoft's stated strategy for support. According to its guidelines, Microsoft guarantees to provide "mainstream support" for a full product for five years, but will only guarantee to support a service pack for 12 months after the launch of the next version of that pack.

SP1 shipped in September 2002. SP2 was released in September 2004.

There's little reason for anyone to still be running SP1; SP2 contained a range of improvements to XP's security. People can check which version they are running by right-clicking on the My Computer desktop icon and then selecting properties.

The ending of support for SP1 will help Microsoft to clear the decks for the arrival of Vista, which is expected to be released to business customers next month and to consumers in January.

In July, Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 and ME.

Original News: Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Better Windows security keeps Apple safer: Gartner


Research group Gartner has said that Mac OS X users are now safer from a mass attack -- such as Blaster on Windows -- than they were two years ago, partly because Microsoft has closed so many holes in its ubiquitous platform.



Apple Mac users, who seem to be virtually immune from viruses, should still take care when installing software or applications from untrusted sources, according to Gartner.

In March 2005, in a report titled "Don't Assume Your Macs Are Immune to Security Flaws", Gartner vice president and research fellow Martin Reynolds warned businesses reliant on Mac systems to beware of "spyware infestations" and highlighted the potential of a hybrid virus that would attack both OS X and Windows.

On Friday, Reynolds said that 18 months on from his original prediction -- although OS X was far less likely to be the target of a hybrid worm -- Mac users were still vulnerable to keyloggers and other forms of spyware.

"Two years ago, a hybrid worm would have been a huge threat -- but the worm writers aren't that smart. With Windows largely closed up, mass attacks have stopped," he told ZDNet Australia in an e-mail interview.

"The Mac alone does not have a dense enough population to support a mass attack -- only one in 50 or so PCs is a Mac. Therefore, the risk of a mass attack is minimal. It is the targeted attacks that are a concern."

According to Reynolds, Apple's move to Intel means OS X now shares some common code with Windows, which could also open the platform to vulnerabilities.

"Moving to x86 means that the Mac shares some common code with the PC -- example, network drivers. These drivers opened up a target attack weakness in the Mac that was discovered because the drivers have common components," said Reynolds.

Spyware continues to be a concern for Mac users, according to Reynolds, who said that although OS X provided decent protection for its users, it could be overridden.

"Targeted attacks are difficult to prevent because many of them look like something that a user would do. The Mac OS puts good security around user activity, but this can still be overridden.

"Bottom line: pay attention to odd behaviour from any computer, it could be a hacker after your stuff. Don't just authorise anything that asks, think about it first," he added.

Last month, antivirus firm Symantec published its 10th Internet Threat Report and quietly admitted a few days later that its predictions of increasing Mac-targeted spyware threats have not been realised.

Original News : Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Microsoft's IE 7 May Beat Mozilla's Firefox 2.0 To Market


Mozilla Corp. has released Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 2 (RC2), but may be beat in the race to final by Microsoft, which said that Internet Explorer 7 would ship in October.

Firefox 2.0 RC2 went live late Friday, with the update pushed automatically to users of earlier editions of Firefox 2.0, the open-source browser's first major update since 1.5 in November 2005. Others can download RC2 in versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 39 localized editions, including ones for Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Mongolian, Russian, and Slovakian speakers.

However, at least one more release candidate will be issued by Mozilla. "There are a handful of security and stability bugs we'd like to see get in before the final FF2 release. Thus we'll be doing a third release candidate," wrote Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's director of engineering, in an entry on the developer's message forum.

But while Mozilla has not set a final release date for Firefox 2.0 -- on this calendar, it was once pegged to late October, but was withdrawn weeks ago -- rival Microsoft said that it will ship IE 7, the first significant upgrade to its browser since 2001, this month.

Original News : Here
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Microsoft's German CEO quits


The head of Microsoft's German subsidiary has quit over differences with the US headquarters.
Jürgen Gallmann, CEO of Microsoft Deutschland - one of the software giant's largest subsidiaries - resigned on Friday. In an email he sent to employees, the executive complained of Redmond imposing increasing restrictions on the German operations and showing little interest in local requirements.Microsoft has said only that Gallmann had asked to be released from his contract due to differences in views about the future strategy of Microsoft Germany. Gallmann will be replaced immediately by Klaus Holse Andersen, the current VP of Microsoft Business Solutions, who will report directly to Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International. A former manager with IBM, Gallmann joined Microsoft in 2002. Under his direction, the German subsidiary increased its workforce from around 1,500 to more than 2,000.


Original News :Here

Monday, October 09, 2006

Monday, October 09, 2006

Intel eyes increased stake in Nvidia


Intel is considering increasing its stake in graphics technology company Nvidia, in order to counter the proposed merger of AMD and ATI, according to a report by Digitimes.

The chip maker's share price rose by eight per cent on Wednesday on the back of speculation that it may attempt to acquire Nvidia. Intel currently owns around nine per cent of the company's stock.

However a takeover is thought to be unlikely. Instead Intel may simply buy additional shares and seek to form a strategic alliance with Nvidia.

'The partnership would imply that Nvidia decreases product developments for the AMD platform and devotes more efforts to IGP (integrated graphics processor) chipsets for the Intel platform,' Digitimes said, citing sources.

AMD announced in July that is had made a $5.4 billion offer for ATI; the two companies are Intel and Nvidia's main rivals in, respectively, the computer processor and graphics processor markets.

News Source : Here
Monday, October 09, 2006

Kaspersky defends Microsoft, refutes Vista security lockout claims

Russian security vendor Kapersky has jumped to the defence of Microsoft, refuting claims by rival security vendors Symantec and McAfee that Microsoft is using its monopoly to lock them out of access to the Vista operating system kernel.

According to a Reuters report, Kapersky co-founder and chief executive Natalya Kapersky said that from what the company had seen of Vista, Microsoft was not blocking access to the core.

Bothe Symantec and McAfee, the two largest security software vendors in the world, claim that the Patchguard feature of Vista, which locks up the kernel to prevent modification of the core code, would not make exceptions form security companies so that they could protect the operating system from the inside out.

Both McAfee and Symantec say that Patchguard has already been hacked at least once.

The two security vendors have become increasingly vocal against Microsoft and Vista since the Redmond software company entered their security space with its Windows Live OneCare security suite, significantly undercutting their prices in the process.

Microsoft has answered the two major security vendors' accusations, saying that it will continue to work hand-in-hand with computer security vendors on Vista.

Original News: Here
Monday, October 09, 2006

Disney exec talks Apple iTunes deal

Apple's deal to sell TV shows from Disney through iTunes was agreed in great secrecy but was the first definite deal for television in the digital age.

TV Week has reported an interview with Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney, who Apple CEO Steve Jobs first approached to secure the landmark Disney deal.

Jobs visited Sweeney in her office to demonstrate the service and the video-enable iPod, claiming the device "would revolutionise the television industry".

His visit came as Sweeney was seeking a strategy to help Disney compete with piracy, which she knew was manifesting itself in the form of its television shows appearing on file-sharing sites within hours of broadcast.

"There's a competitor you can't see, and that's piracy," Sweeney explains.

Apple's demand that the deal be arranged in secrecy did cause problems between Disney and its affiliates, Sweeney explains, but the company is doing work to repair the damage - and to explain the reality of television in the digital landscape, the need to 'monetise' content online.

Sweeney descrines the deal as a sea-change for media, saying: "People had been talking about digital media for so long, but nothing had happened."

She also confirmed that Disney has experienced no cannibalisation of its original audience through its online distribution deals. She also predicts more moves in terms of delivering television shows to mobile devices.
Monday, October 09, 2006

Microsoft and Apple eyed for AJAX alliance


In February, a group of technology vendors, including BEA Systems, Google, IBM, and Oracle, formed the OpenAjax Alliance, with the goal of promoting the popular AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) web development technique. Since then, more vendors, such as Sun Microsystems, have joined, and the alliance has launched its OpenAjax Hub project to boost interoperability among AJAX libraries. One of the founders of OpenAjax was David Boloker, who holds the titles of distinguished engineer and CTO of emerging internet technologies at the IBM software group. He also serves on the alliance's steering committee. Infoworld editor at large Paul Krill spoke with Boloker at the AJAXWorld Conference and Expo last week about AJAX, the security issues around it, and the possibilities of other vendors such as Microsoft and Apple joining the alliance.

Infoworld: Why did you found OpenAjax?

Boloker: If you go back nine months, the key problem that folks were having was, one: What exactly is the definition of AJAX? The second problem was: How do you get a message out to all parties that would be cross-vendor? The third thing was: From a technology standpoint, how can you basically start looking at what was going to happen when looking across toolkits?

So you can have one person's UI widget working with your UI widget, and these are all in JavaScript. And each and every one of the toolkits today, actually, expects to own the whole page; so they're going to basically take control, and expect to; then, when you leave their page, they lose control. Well, what really is going to have to happen is, you may like someone's Accordion control from one toolkit and want to use it, for example, with Tibco's. So one of the things which we started working on was something called OpenAjax Hub inside of OpenAjax, which is aimed at allowing that interoperability, and that's going to be an open source plan.

So those were the reasons why we started OpenAjax. Now, when you start looking at the bigger picture here and at what IBM is doing in this space, you'll see that it is in parallel to starting OpenAjax; what we did at IBM is, we started a project inside IBM to work on trying to bring down the level of complexity of writing and debugging applications, AJAX applications in particular. And the way we did it was, we built a piece of code called the AJAX Tooling Framework which went on top of Eclipse, which is the core foundation for tooling that we are using, and we can demo the AJAX Tooling Framework with the whole idea behind it [being] to bring down that level of not only complexity but also to allow someone to write a lot more AJAX code in a much shorter amount of time and get it published faster.

Infoworld: What about Microsoft - which has its AJAX technology, Atlas - not being a part of OpenAjax? Are there any more overtures being made? Are they just going to sit on the sidelines like they seem to do with other industry initiatives, like Eclipse? What's going on there with Microsoft?

Boloker: I actually just spoke with Microsoft yesterday about joining OpenAjax, and they've taken back the details and are thinking about it, and they'll get back to us.

Infoworld: What do you think the impact is of Microsoft not participating? You have this massive PC software company, and they're not participating. Do you think it's detrimental for them to not participate, or does it not make a difference?

Boloker: Well it makes a difference because I'd actually like to have them at the table. They have some very, very skilled developers, and they've thought about the area a lot, just as Tibco has and IBM has and JackBe has and others. It would be actually great if we actually can get everyone to the table, and I'm really hoping that we can do it.

Infoworld: Do you think you will?

Boloker: Optimistic.

Infoworld: But they have not made any commitments to joining at this point?

Boloker: None. They're thinking about it at this point.

Infoworld: Are there any other major companies on the sidelines? I can't think of any right now.

Boloker: There's plenty of people that are in discussions with us, and those people in discussions with us are folks like Apple. Let's see, who else would be in it? We're looking at Cisco as another. Cisco is not core to the web piece of this. The other companies are mostly in Asia.

Infoworld: What about the issues of security around AJAX? Apparently there are a lot of them. What are you doing about that?

Boloker: Security around AJAX is actually security around the web. So there's many sets of issues here, and one of the things which we're actually going to cover inside of OpenAjax is a whole discussion on security, at the meeting at the end of the week. And one of the topics is not only from a web standpoint of cross-application scripting, which has been a problem in the web for many, many years, when you have cross-application scripting between servers.

But this whole concept of when you're doing mashups, if you're doing mashups all within your establishment or customer shop or you have trusted parties, mashups are secure. It's when you do unsecure mashups between, say, myself and someone I don't really know; that other person's JavaScript could be misformed, or it could try to take control of my machine. And this is really where a question of needing to do some technology work between ourselves, the companies, as well as maybe even in the W3C to look at the question: How do I basically bring an access list to give someone approval to use the mashup or not to use the mashup?

Infoworld: Apparently there are issues with inexperienced developers, there are issues with the cross-site scripting, there are issues with web services. Even Jesse James Garrett who founded the term AJAX said there are a lot of issues and we're going to have to almost patch them one by one. So how can people rely on AJAX if it's got all these security issues? I talked to one AJAXWorld attendee yesterday, and she said she wasn't using AJAX yet, but the one thing she knew was that it apparently had a lot of security concerns.

Boloker: So there are security concerns. Actually, if you look at the security concerns you have when doing web services, there actually was work done for web services in the area of WS-Security. A lot of folks who are looking at this are looking at it for the first time. Well, the folks that actually have looked at service-oriented architecture said, "Well, if I'm actually going to start calling something, I want to, No. 1, ensure that I can call the resource, and then if I can call the resource that I'm actually entitled to, go deeper and actually access the data." The second piece of this is this cross-site scripting; this has been a known problem in the web, and it's a server-side problem that people have been dealing with.

Now, the other issues that you start looking at in the area of mashups, again, this is - you're absolutely correct. You have people that are writing JavaScript that don't really know how to write it, and if you create a mashup, you could end up with a serious problem. Now, if you look at the mashups that have been created up to this point, they've been done by very highly skilled and very knowledgeable web programmers who know what they're doing. Now, one of the reasons why we founded OpenAjax was this exact problem was when Scott Dietzen, CTO of Zimbra, who helped co-found OpenAjax, and I looked at this problem in late 2005, we pretty much decided that the number of problems that would be confronting people, you'd probably find one in 40 developers actually having all of the right capabilities to actually write good AJAX and secure AJAX.

Infoworld: So what are you going to do?

Boloker: The first thing we started doing is we're attacking the problem not one at a time, we're doing it in multiple fronts. The first thing was, How do we basically build AJAX, and how do we debug AJAX? And how do we see what's going from the client side of this to the server? And that's what IBM was working on, and Bob Goodman, a senior programmer at IBM, was doing with the AJAX Tooling Framework.

The second side of this is that we needed to get the knowledge out about what are the issues. You don't want to scare people away, but at the same token, you need to basically educate them. And this, again, was part of this whole side of what OpenAJAX was about. The third side of this is, How do you then look at it from an industry standpoint of coming out with the best practices? So this is a document that people [would] write to give to AJAX programmers. And then the fourth thing is to look for the technology side of it. How can we basically start securing the technology? And that work is under way right now. And while there are no great answers at this exact second, there's a very good understanding of the problem, and people are discussing what's the right way to do it.

Infoworld: What is the attraction of AJAX?

Boloker: AJAX enables you in a web browser to actually have some of the same qualities of an interaction that you used to have only in a fat client setting.

Infoworld: How does it do that?

Boloker: Well, what happens is, AJAX is actually, if you want to look at a set of standards that were to form a programming model, and those standards start off with DHTML and JavaScript and XML and there's Cascading Style Sheets, there's web services, there's all of these things that are falling into this, and each and every one of these is a standard. And the use of them all together creates a toolkit. And today there are probably 200-some-odd toolkits, between closed source and open source, and each of the toolkits does things very differently. So the first thing you have to worry about is, How does it work within Firefox? How does it work within Internet Explorer? These are all different. And then, once you get beyond that, how do I get it render effectively? Then you can start looking at, well, What are the qualities of the AJAX implementation? Can I do drag-and-drops? Can you do cut and paste, for example, from the browser and move it somewhere else? But the key thing you start looking at is, if you [look at] a great example of an AJAX application, and there are many on the web today, there is one that started off with the folks from a company acquired by Yahoo called Oddpost. And the Yahoo Beta Mail actually uses Oddpost, some of the core pieces. There's a group of developers that did very early work on finding how do I get a very, very high-quality Outlook-type mail client into a browser? And they basically were acquired by Yahoo and became Beta Mail. And if you look at what goes on inside Yahoo Mail, the first thing that's so apparent to you is you have the full services of a drag-and-drop all within the browser. The second thing you start looking at is the setting that you're having is they allow you to do RSS feeds. You can look at RSS and Atom feeds. I mean, they're just one example.

Infoworld: Before AJAX, or theoretically before AJAX, you had Flash. Do you see Flash as a competitor, as a complementary? It just seems like it is kind of a competitive technology even if Adobe says it's not.

Boloker: I was going to tell you to ask Adobe what their opinion was. Flash is yet another example of a web-based technology, and there are reasons why customers might want to use Flash to have an environment, a full environment, and you know there are reasons why people might want to do something just purely in DHTML and JavaScript. I mean the first obvious reason is DHTML and JavaScript [are] installed on everyone else's desktop today and is immediately used, whereas Flash was a plug-in. Now, that plug-in happens to be pretty much on most people's machines.

Infoworld: AJAX is a technique. Is there going to be an AJAX 2.0, 3.0? Do you see an evolution of it, or is it just that this is the technique for doing something and if you get too far away from it, then it's not AJAX anymore?

Boloker: Well, it's a programming paradigm, and with all programming paradigms, whether it's AJAX 2.0 or AJAX 3.0, it started off as AJAX. And it'll always be AJAX. And what you're going to do is learn, as an industry we're all going to learn nuances to do something easier or make it much more secure, the points you brought up before.

Infoworld: So OpenAjax is not going to come out with the next version of AJAX, right?

Boloker: No, OpenAjax is definitely not going to come out with another version of AJAX. OpenAjax is really going to be looking at [this] from a full industry partnership on how to move AJAX forward. Now, one might say that as we start looking at AJAX Hub and things like that, that people might say that, well, that's another version of AJAX. But in reality it's the same version of AJAX. We're just working to build it out.

Infoworld: Any final thoughts that you want to add?

Boloker: I think my only final words really come back to, I've been working in technology for many years, and as with any technology that's coming on the scenes, there are initially problems. Some of the problems have to do with, first of all, education of the audience, and the second thing has to do always with security, manageability, scalability, and things like that. Our friends from Google proved that AJAX can scale through Google Maps. For that matter, in a lot of cases I think that they've proved that you can run a pretty secure shop with AJAX. There are security problems that the industry.

Original News :Here
Monday, October 09, 2006

Mozilla Officially Releases Firefox 2.0 RC2

On Saturday Mozilla officially released RC2 of Firefox 2.0, Neowin originally reported the release a day earlier on Friday the 6th.

Mozilla Firefox, the popular web browser, caused a stir with the original release, but apart from minor changes, visual improvements and security fixes, there haven’t been a wide range of new features since the original 1.x release. This is all about to change, with the forthcoming release of Firefox 2.0, planned for October/November 2006.

This is Release Candidate 2 and the second public preview of Firefox 2.0, along with a snapshot of the forthcoming new features. It must be noted that this is only a beta and should be used for testing-purposes only. Many of the existing themes and extensions are not operating within this beta release.

Current new 2.0 features include anti-phishing support, useful for acknowledging the difference between a legitimate website and a fake site set up for the purposes of obtaining your personal information.

Download Mozilla 2.0 RC2 @Mozilla
Monday, October 09, 2006

MS to Offer Free, Discounted Vista

Microsoft is set to offer either free or discounted Vista upgrades to those who purchase new computers during the holiday season, press reports indicate. To qualify for the coupons, a PC would need to be purchased after October 28 of this year, and the upgrade would be good through March 15, 2007.

The Redmond company would not confirm the program publicly, other than saying "we're working with partners on this." Reports indicate that the free or discounted upgrade would be based on the version of operarting system installed.


For example, those who have Widows XP Professional, XP Tablet PC Edition, and XP x64 Edition would be entitled to the free upgrade. Those using Windows XP Home would be permitted to upgrade to Vista Basic for $49 and Premium for $79. No upgrade price was specified for Media Center Edition.

"I like this move on Microsoft's part, even though they haven't confirmed it. It should help boost holiday sales of computers," Microsoft MVP Terri Straton wrote for The Hive. " People will be able to buy Vista-ready computers confidently, knowing that they won't have to pay full price to upgrade when Vista is released."

Windows Vista continues to progress towards a release to manufacturing, possibly as early as next month. Microsoft will make available Release Candidate 2, numbered build 5744, of Vista on Friday to testers and select CPP participants.

Original News : Here
Monday, October 09, 2006

IE7 Is Coming This Month...Are you Ready?

IE7 Is Coming This Month...Are you Ready?

The final release of IE7 is fast approaching … and I mean really fast … and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates a few weeks after it’s available for download. We want to ensure that you are ready and the information below will help get you there.

Compatibility with sites, extensions and applications has been a very high priority for us as we develop new features, enhance the existing features and move the platform forward to be more secure and standards compliant. We are continually listening to feedback from our customers, partners and leaders in the industry to resolve major compatibility issues to ensure our common customers have a great experience with IE7. As we make key improvements in areas such as layout and security, some changes need to be made by site owners to work smoothly with IE7. We have produced detailed documentation, tools and other resources to assist site, extension and application owners in their testing and development efforts to ensure they are compatible with IE7. We have also proactively worked with hundreds of companies to resolve issues that were reported through our beta testing to ensure those issues were resolved before IE7 is released.

These efforts have been ongoing since last year and have been extremely successful but we can’t ensure 100% compatibility without your help. We need you to test and ensure your sites, extensions, and applications are ready for IE7. We strongly encourage you to do the following ASAP:

Download, install and test your products with IE7 RC 1 –This is the fastest and best way to test for compatibility issues.

Download the IE7 Readiness Toolkit - This toolkit pulls together a number of important resources to help you prepare for IE7:

Developer and IT Pro readiness check lists,
Detailed documentation on important changes in IE7,
Testing and debugging guidance,
Tools for testing, debugging and investigating issues,
And more…

Download and use the Application Compatibility Toolkit – Helps test browser-based applications to ensure they work with IE7.

Visit the Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Center – You will find an array of important information for developers.

Use the Information Index for Internet Explorer7 – Think of this as a table of contents linking you to documentation, blog posts, whitepapers and other information on IE7.

Read the IE Team Blog – Use the search feature on the right to find previous posts on almost any topic you can think of with regard to IE7.

What if my organization is not going to be ready for IE7 in time?

Organizations that are using Automatic Updates in their environments can block the AU deployment of IE7. For more details check out the “Options for Blocking Automatic Delivery” section of our Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7 article.

We hope that you are as ready and excited about IE7 as we are. If you have feedback or encounter any issues, check out the IE7 Support page for FAQs, Release Notes, and feedback options.

Original News :Here
Monday, October 09, 2006

Sorry

Sorry Folks this week has been bad for my blog as this is a technology blog this means that i have to update it regularly . But when my time comes to update this blog at that time the light goes and then you all can imagine that how does it feel and this is why this blog was not updated yesterday and also today morning so this does not mean that i willnot update this blog . I will but subject to certain conditions that i need light to post and also to see my blog running .This week was a interruption and therefore i am extremly sorry. I will update it regularly as per my schedule .


BCA LUTech
Monday, October 09, 2006

Intellitxt Links

About Intellitxt

What is it?
The green links are provided by a product called Intellitxt, it scans each page for both appropriate advertiser key-words and contextual relevancy. If a match is found, a small number of words can be subtly enhanced directly within the page. You will recognize the keywords by the green double underline that distinguishes them from other types of link.

How does it work?
A reader's mouse passing over any highlighted key-words will be presented with a Tool Tip describing an advertiser's product or service. If the reader then chooses to find out more information they can click on the key-word and it will act like an ordinary link taking them to a page belonging to the advertising company. For every click on a highlighted key-word, we will receive a small payment. If the reader is not interested in the advertiser's product or service, they simply read on, with little or no disruption.

Keyword relevancy
The key-word list has been chosen so as to be as relevant as possible to a technology site. For example, words like "database server" and "personal firewall" will be considered relevant. Words like "community" and "professional" won't be considered relevant to turn into advertiser links no matter how often they might appear.

Why is this being done?
Tom's Hardware Guide remains free to our readers mainly because we want as many people as possible to be able to benefit from all the great content that we have put together. Whilst the site is free to you, we invest time and money in terms of technology and personnel. As we're sure many will appreciate, there is pressure for us to generate revenue from advertising to cover all of the costs, and this is an opportunity for us to do just that.

What do you need to do?
Nothing. Continue to use the site as you've always used it. If you see any advertiser's products or services that interest you, feel free to click on the link. Hopefully you'll benefit, the advertiser will benefit, and we will benefit too. If not, don't scroll over the keywords and don't click and your reading experience will be uninterrupted.

Feedback
We'd like to hear from you about the service. We certainly expect there to be some concerns, and not everyone will like or use the service. In our experience of introducing new features, some will absolutely hate it, and they'll tell us all about it, and more! As usual, we'll try to respond to all your concerns, although can't promise individual responses. We hope and expect the vast majority will see it as an additional service for those people who are interested, and regardless, will not interrupt your reading experience.

Q&A
What if you can't see it?
The Intellitxt software only operates on Internet Explorer browsers, version 5 and above, Netscape 7.2 and above, andFirefox .8 and above. So, Mac users and Opera lovers will just have to believe them that it's there!

Can the user choose which key words are highlighted?
Nope. And neither can we. A computer program ranks the key-words by "relevancy" and "click price" to determine the most appropriate and highest yielding text link to serve.

What are the keywords?
There are thousands of them. As previously noted, the keyword list has been specifically chosen to be relevant and useful for technology sites such as ours.

Who are the advertisers?
There are currently thousands of advertisers that are using keywords to market themselves. Companies like Google have over 90,000 different advertisers who are spending millions of dollars a year to buy keywords. The advertisers that you might see on this site have been tailored to be relevant for the technology sector so they will likely be familiar to you.

How many highlighted keywords per post?
We will cap the highlighted keywords to a maximum of five per page. Many articles will have zero keywords highlighted as they won't be relevant, some articles may have one or two highlighted words. Some pages may have many more than five relevant keywords, however only five will ever be highlighted.

Haven't I seen this somewhere else?
Yes there are a number of other websites also involved in this program so you may have seen this type of advertising before.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Microsoft Office System 2007 Beta Ends


We are thrilled with the incredible excitement around the upcoming 2007 Microsoft Office system as is evident by over 3 million people installing the Beta 2 and later Beta2TR builds. With your help, we have far exceeded our technical participation goals.

At this time, we are pleased to announce that the 2007 Office system will be released to manufacturing (RTM) in the next few weeks. We thank you for your participation in the planning, development, and testing of this new release. As we approach the end of the beta testing phase of Office 2007, we would like to make you aware of several upcoming events that will affect you.

10/25 - Office Preview website closes down
On October 25, the Office Preview site will be closed down. Since this is the home of all Beta2TR product downloads, you will not be able to download Beta2TR after 10/25. All other information currently found on the Office Preview site will be migrated to the Office Online website (accessible via online help from within Office 2007 applications). This includes the FAQ, Product Guide, Top 10, Overview, the Demo tab, the New UI tab for programs, and other related information.


10/28 - Technical support gets a new home
Beginning October 28, support for Office 2007 products will transition from the Beta support newsgroups staffed by Office employees to the in-market product support provided by Microsoft Customer Service and Support. Starting 10/28, you will need to use http://support.microsoft.com to receive support for Office 2007 products.


10/30 - BetaPlace website and support newsgroups close down
The BetaPlace website (http://beta.microsoft.com) will close down on 10/30, signaling the end of the formal beta testing phase of the 2007 Microsoft Office system technical beta. At that time, the betanews.microsoft.com support newsgroups will also be closed down.


10/31 - SharePoint team sites decommissioned
The team site that you have been using at [name].spbeta.iponet.net will be shut down on October 31. If you have any important files or information stored on your team site, you need to store a local copy before 10/31, as all data on your site will be destroyed when the site is decommissioned.



Common Questions About the Transition NEW
Will there be a release candidate or other beta release beyond Beta2TR?
No. We are not planning to make any further builds available to technical beta testers. Office 2007 products will be available in retail channels early next year. The Beta2TR build is set to expire on March 15, 2007 for all client products and May 31, 2007 for all server products. This should allow you to use Beta2TR until you can upgrade to the retail version.

How will upgrading to the retail version work?
You may upgrade/migrate server products from Beta2TR to the retail release. However, all Beta version client applications (Office Professional, OneNote, SharePoint Designer, etc.) will need to be uninstalled before you install retail versions on your machine.

Will I still be able to access old newsgroup posts?
No. We will not be providing access to archives of any newsgroup posts. Please refer to Office Online for information and training, and http://support.microsoft.com for technical assistance beginning October 28, 2006.

Will I receive a free copy of 2007 Office system products?
Copies of 2007 Office system final product are not automatically distributed to all participants at the end of the Technical Beta. This program has been a volunteer effort by participants for the mutual benefit of you/your organization and the Microsoft Office team to enable feedback on your testing of 'real world' usage scenarios, and improvement of the final product quality for all Office users.

Thank you again for your willingness to help us make the 2007 Office system better than ever. We appreciate your participation and look forward to teaming with you again for future beta programs.

Original news: Here

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Saturday, October 07, 2006

George Lucas Sees Movie Downloading as the Future

US movie director, George Lucas, sees the future of film in downloads.

Speaking to Variety, the Star Wars director revealed that, while he's not rushing to be among the first to release movies through iTunes, he is interested in observing how the market develops - and has chatted to Apple CEO Steve Jobs about movie downloads.

Lucas and Jobs have a historical relationship. Lucas sold Pixar to Jobs for just ten million dollars in 1986. Walt Disney acquired Pixar from Jobs in a $7.4 billion stock deal this year.

It's all money - but Lucas sees diversity, not big budget blockbusters, as the future for the film industry. As audiences gain more control over hwat they want to see, audience tastes will diversify.

Lucas thinks that movie download services like iTunes are the future for moving picture entertainment distribution. He sees 'quantity' as the secret for future success.

For the same budget as a single major movie, "I can make 50-60 two-hour movies," he stressed.

"In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable," he said.

Original News : Here


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Saturday, October 07, 2006

MacBook Shutdown Caused by Heat Sink?

Apple has faced temporary problems sourcing spare parts for MacBooks affected by intermittent random shutdowns.

Some users have complained that their MacBooks have developed a penchant for this problem. In essence, the fault is one in which some - but not all - MacBooks will simply close down during normal use.

This fault appears to affect a small but substantial minority of MacBooks, and usually manifests itself after a period of normal use.

The fault is intermittent and hard to pin down. Apple's technical support department has told some users that re-seating the memory modules may mitigate it in some cases.

The company published a recent technical note advising affected users to contact Apple Support.

Sources have revealed that Apple originally traced the problem to the MacBook logic board.

Early last week, Apple resellers were informed that logic board replacement was no longer necessary in all cases.

Apple's maintenance partners have been instructed to replace the heat sinks in MacBooks first. Logic boards will then be replaced if the problem continues.

Apple last week added heat sinks for MacBooks to its list of available replacement parts for Apple maintenance departments. Initially, only logic boards were available, and the company had advised dealers to replace these if the problem manifested itself. The effect of the demand for logic boards and heat sinks has been to impact on repairs, as spares have been limited.

An Australian report reveals anger among some MacBook owners, who have waited weeks for their new machines to be repaired as a result. An Apple spokesperson told ZDNet: "In terms of the logic board we have now got supply." The company also moved to resolve complaints from some users named in the report.

Original News : Here

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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Pay-per-Digg service exposed

A pay-for-votes service has been launched that allows publishers to promote their submissions on Digg.com.

User/Submitter touts itself as a site "where Digg submitters pay for Digg users to promote their stories, and where Digg users make easy money".

Digg is a social book-marking service where users can submit stories and vote for content that they like. Submissions that garner enough interest are promoted to the service's front page, which typically leads to a spike in traffic.

The User/Submitter site offers Digg users 10 cents for every 'digg' they issue to listed stories. The publishers of those stories are then charged a base fee of $20 plus $1 per Digg.

It is unclear whether the service offers a genuine product or is a hoax, however. In a test by vnunet.com, we were able to create an account and were presented with a list of stories on which we could vote.

But we were unable to verify whether those stories had recruited the services of User/Submitter or were just random links pulled from the Digg.com website.

User/Submitter did not respond to several requests for comment.
Digg pointed out that User/Submitter is manipulating a voting system whose credibility is a crucial aspect of the user-driven media site.

"The concept of compensating an individual or individuals to Digg specific stories is certainly against the principles Digg was built on and its community, " Digg chief executive Jay Adelson said in an e-mail to vnunet.com.

He added that Digg is constantly looking for ways to prevent fraud schemes in its voting system, and that the service is considering legal action against User/Submitter.

The battle between creators of voting sites and people looking to profit from their manipulation is only going to get worse, according to Jupiter Research analyst Barry Parr.

"As the sites become more influential, it becomes an arms race for people who want to spam them," Parr told vnunet.com.

Parr cited Netscape's user-driven media site as an example of how voting systems are being manipulated.

"There is definitely an effort to promote political stories [on Netscape] both from the right and the left," he said.

There also are known cases of users manipulating or 'gaming' the Digg voting system, even though Digg has safeguards designed to prevent users from fixing ballots.

"Digg has many elements baked into its proprietary algorithm designed to prevent fraud, and Digg will continue to add new elements as new abuses emerge, " said Adelson.

It appears that some of those new elements are already in place. The vnunet.com test account was disabled within hours of posting diggs for User/Submitter stories.

Original News: Here


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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Microsoft Plans Vista Upgrade Coupon For Holiday PC Buying


Microsoft later this month plans to roll out an Express Upgrade program that gives buyers of Windows XP-based PCs a coupon for a free or discounted upgrade to Windows Vista through March 15.

As part of the deal, designed to drive PC sales though the holiday season, Microsoft will include coupons in each Windows XP SKU that will entitle users to a free or discounted Vista upgrade when the next-generation operating system ships in the first quarter of 2007, industry sources said.

For instance, customers who buy PCs equipped with Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Pro Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP Pro x64 Edition are entitled to a free upgrade to Vista, sources said. Customers will be responsible for fulfillment costs.
Not all of the coupons will be for free upgrades. Customers who buy systems running Windows XP Home Edition can upgrade to Vista Home Basic Edition for a flat $49 fee and to the higher-end Windows Vista Home Premium Edition for a cost of $79.
The Windows Vista Technology Upgrade Program runs from Oct. 26, 2006, through March 15, 2007. Distributors are expected to have the new SKUs in house for system builders by Oct. 15. News of the planned coupon and promotion emerged in June.
System builders must meet certain requirement to sell the new SKUs of Windows XP. The Technology Upgrade Program, for example, states that only systems running Windows XP that meet Windows Vista requirements will be eligible for the Express Upgrade, sources said.
Each of the new SKUs will ship with an amended system builder license that requires PC makers to ship the coupons only with complying systems. System builders also must agree to support the systems after the user upgrades to Vista.
Microsoft would neither confirm nor deny that a coupon program is in the offing. "We are talking with all of our partners about plans for an offer. But those discussions are ongoing, and we have nothing more to share at this time," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Read Full News : Here


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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Power and the NVIDIA "G80"


Gentlemen, start your DirectX10 engines


DailyTech received its first looks at a GeForce 8800 production sample today, and by the looks of it, the card is a monster: at least with regard to size and power requirements.

The GeForce 8800 comes in two flavors, which we will get into more detail about over the course of the next few days. Both cards are dual-slot PCIe cards measuring a little less than nine inches in length. The first card, the GeForce 8800GTX, is the full blown G80 experience. The GeForce 8800GTS is a cut down version of the first.

The marketing material included with the card claims NVIDIA requires at least a 450W power supply for a single GeForce 8800GTX, and 400W for the 8800GTS. Top tier vendors in Taiwan have already confirmed with DailyTech that GeForce 8800 cards in SLI mode will likely carry a power supply "recommendation" of 800W. NVIDIA's GeForce 7950GX2, currently the company's top performing video card, carries a recommendation of 400W to run the card in single-card mode.

NVIDIA is slated to launch both versions of the GeForce 8800 in November of this year. More details on the GeForce 8800 will be available later today on DailyTech.

Original News : Here

Thursday, October 05, 2006

NVIDIA "G80" Retail Details Unveiled


DailyTech's hands-on with the GeForce 8800 series continues with more information about the GPU and the retail boards. The new NVIDIA graphics architecture will be fully compatible with Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX 10 API with support for shader model 4.0, and represents the company's 8th generation GPU in the GeForce family.


NVIDIA has code-named G80 based products as the GeForce 8800 series. While the 7900 and 7800 series launched with GT and GTX suffixes, G80 will do away with the GT suffix. Instead, NVIDIA has revived the GTS suffix for its second fastest graphics product—a suffix that hasn’t been used since the GeForce 2 days.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800GTX will be the flagship product. The core clock will be factory clocked at 575 MHz. All GeForce 8800GTX cards will be equipped with 768MB of GDDR3 memory, to be clocked at 900 MHz. The GeForce 8800GTX will also have a 384-bit memory interface and deliver 86GB/second of memory bandwidth. GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards are equipped with 128 unified shaders clocked at 1350 MHz. The theoretical texture fill-rate is around 38.4 billion pixels per second.

Slotted right below the GeForce 8800GTX is the slightly cut-down GeForce 8800GTS. These graphics cards will have a G80 GPU clocked at a slower 500 MHz. The memory configuration for GeForce 8800GTS cards slightly differ from the GeForce 8800GTX. GeForce 8800GTS cards will be equipped with 640MB of GDDR3 graphics memory clocked at 900 MHz. The memory interface is reduced to 320-bit and overall memory bandwidth is 64GB/second. There will be fewer unified shaders with GeForce 8800GTS graphics cards. 96 unified shaders clocked at 1200 MHz are available on GeForce 8800GTS graphics cards.

Additionally GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS products are HDCP compliant with support for dual dual-link DVI, VIVO and HDTV outputs. All cards will have dual-slot coolers too. Expect GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS products to launch the second week of November 2006. This will be a hard launch as most manufacturers should have boards ready now.

Original News : Here
Thursday, October 05, 2006

Microsoft changes Window Server Datacentre licensing

Microsoft has changed the licensing of its Windows Server Datacentre operating system, allowing users buying new servers licensed with the OS to run an unlimited number of virtualised Windows Server instances.

Microsoft said that unlimited virtualisation rights would significantly extend the savings customers gain through server consolidation on the Windows Server platform.

“Together, Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition and Virtual Server 2005 R2 are an ideal, cost-effective platform for ‘scale out’ virtualization,” it said.

By licensing a server’s processors with Windows Server Datacenter Edition, users would be able to run Windows Server Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition or a mix of the three editions without having to track the number of virtual machines or pay for additional Windows Server licences.
Original News : Here
Thursday, October 05, 2006

Microsoft to Lock Pirates Out of Vista


Microsoft said Wednesday that it plans to clamp down hard on piraters of its next-generation operating systems, crippling both Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" if users fail to activate their copies within 30 days.

While the restriction of operating system features has been around since the advent of Windows XP in 2001, the new program takes that process a step further. It would also make widely distributed volume-license product keys -- traditionally supplied to corporations -- harder to use.

Called the Software Protection Program, the initiative is made up of several parts. The first move is to make certain features unavailable unless the user has confirmed their copy of Windows as genuine. Only licensed copies would have access to Aero -- Vista's new user interface -- and ReadyBoost, which uses a flash drive to temporarily add more memory to a computer system.

Additionally, the functionality of Windows Defender would be crippled, and optional downloads from Windows Update would be unavailable to the unlicensed user. Microsoft would also place a watermark on the desktop at all times that reads "This copy of Windows is not genuine."

The biggest change, however, is to the Windows activation process. With a number of corporate product keys publicly available on the Internet, activating a pirated copy of Windows Vista was quite easy as it only took one activation to prevent reduced functionality.

With Vista, the activation isn't permanent. If Microsoft discovers that the user has used a product key without authorization, it will force the user to reactivate his or her copy of Windows. Product keys may be blocked for a number of reasons, Microsoft says, including for abuse, stolen or pirate keys, or if the key was seized due to anti-piracy efforts.

"The Software Protection Platform has been under development for several years," Microsoft's director of the Genuine Software Initiative Cori Hartje said. "It brings together new anti-piracy innovations, counterfeit detection and tamper-resistant features into a complete platform that provides better software protection to programs that leverage it."

While Vista and Longhorn are the first to use the new technologies, the program would expand to other products in the coming years.

Hartje cited data from the Business Software Alliance that indicated 35 percent of all software installed in 2005 was pirated and unlicensed. This represented some $35 billion in lost revenue for the software industry.

"Software piracy is not a victimless crime," she said. "It harms consumers, businesses and other organizations every year."


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Thursday, October 05, 2006

William Hill fights back against the hackers


The entire online betting industry faces an ongoing battle in the fight against hackers and extortionists, according to William Hill's IT chief.

In the latest of the silicon.com CIO Vision video interview series, Victor Kemeny, IT director at the UK's largest bookmaker William Hill, said: "We have to be lucky 100 per cent of the time, whereas the bad guys have only got to be lucky once."

A number of UK bookmakers were targeted by criminal gangs two years ago, who threatened them with denial of service (DoS) attacks that would crash their websites unless they paid a ransom.

The UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit eventually smashed a Russian gang involved in the online extortion racket and money laundering but the threat hasn't entirely disappeared.

Kemeny told silicon.com: "We had a DoS attack six or nine months ago and we actually just rode it out. So for over 48 hours, we let the DoS attack run."

The security threat is one of the negative aspects of doing business on the internet but there are also plenty of opportunities.

He said: "The internet has changed the dynamics of the game. When it came along, there wasn't much belief that people would want to bet on the internet and we thought if we could make £50,000 a year we'd actually have a massive product there. Now we're launching arcade games and that can make potentially between £20,000 and 50,000 pounds a week."

Key to this will be offering more products - betting markets - for punters to bet on, according to Kemeny. This will take the form of more 'in-game' gambling where customers can bet on things like how many kicks of the ball before the next goal or, when a penalty is awarded, whether it will be saved or not.

He said: "For that sort of market you've got 30 seconds to create and take the bets."

Part of William Hill's plan for gaining competitive advantage in this increasingly rapidly-changing and fast-moving industry is to overhaul its ageing IT systems, and the company has just embarked on a three year project to replace legacy IT dating back to 1982.

Kemeny said: "What we're intending to do is deliver a more agile platform that will enable us to get to market quicker and actually provide us with a scalability - both horizontally and vertically - that actually means that as the business grows, depending on what channel it grows in, we can actually scale the infrastructure appropriately."



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Thursday, October 05, 2006

The other Google search site

Google
Google has created a search site without any Google branding to test new features. The site, SearchMash, has a simple blue and white interface with a search bar and an option to click on "popular searches." Once keywords are entered, the results page features links to results running down the left side of the page and the top three image results on the right side.

SearchMash also lets you click on a result and drag and drop it to change the order. Also, when a link is clicked on, the user is offered the option of opening the listings in the current window or a new window, seeing more pages from the Web site or finding similar pages. Additional results are added to the bottom of the original results page by clicking on a "more web pages" link.

With SearchMash, Google "plans to test user interface ideas without Google's brand somehow skewing the tests," Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch.com wrote in a blog posting on Monday. "It's pretty slick."


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Monday, October 02, 2006

Monday, October 02, 2006

Dhoom 2 Theatrical Trailer and Download






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If you want to download this movie clip then click here