At the Professional Developer Conference PDC10 Today, Microsoft rolled out an updated Internet Explorer 9 platform preview and Internet Explorer Test Drive website to let Web developers test their sites with the most current technologies that may not yet be in the public beta of Internet Explorer.

Among the updates in Platform Preview 6, two new HTML5 features have been included: CSS3 2D Transforms, and recognition of HTML5 Semantic Elements as object-type HTMLElement.

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Streaming video on demand service Vudu will be available on all forms of Boxee in November, the company announced Thursday. This partnership will put a Vudu client on both the D-Link Boxee Box and the Boxee media center software for PC and Mac.

The service offers 480p, 720p, and 1080p HD movie rentals, and gets many movies in conjunction with their DVD launch. Though the service first launched as a standalone set top box back in 2007, it eventually became a video solution embedded in TVs and connected Blu-ray players.

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What defines a platform - any platform - in today's market, is apps. If you have apps, you're on the map. If you don't have apps, you're webOS.

Just two short years ago, it would have been unthinkable for anyone to consider the JavaScript engine of any Web browser as the basis for a genuine software platform - something you could make a living from as an apps developer, rather than just a hobbyist. For many, JavaScript was something a Web page used to determine which browser was running, and if it was Internet Explorer, to make it refrain from doing certain dangerous stuff. But in just two years' time, not only have the JS interpreters in Web browsers including IE increased their calculating and processing speed by a factor of ten, but the security of browser-based scripts has improved from almost non-existent to formidable. And all of a sudden, you begin to wonder whether Larry Ellison overpaid for Sun Microsystems.

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Having all but lost the social networking war, MySpace on Wednesday decided to lean on one of the few areas where it still has a good deal of clout: entertainment. The newly redesigned MySpace focuses less on the "friends" aspect it pioneered in the space, and more on sharing videos, music, and games with friends.

The site says it wants to become a "social entertainment destination" for the Generation 'Y' crowd. CEO Mike Jones said that the move marked a complete change in strategy for the company, and focused on its existing strengths. This change may also be the last best hope for the site given how far it has fallen.

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For as popular as Roku's streaming set top boxes are, they have had practically zero presence in physical retail stores. That is, until a few weeks ago.

Early in October, reports emerged of Roku set top boxes with Netgear branding being seen in Fry's, Best Buy, and Radio Shack electronics stores. Though Netgear confirmed the product's existence, it wasn't until yesterday that the company officially announced the new product.

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The white iPhone 4 may never see the light of day as Apple admitted Tuesday that it would not meet its end of year goal for the model's release. When pressed on the issue by Reuters, a spokesperson said the white iPhone won't make an appearance until at least Spring 2011.

Based on the release schedules of the iPhone since its launch, Apple's admission suggests that white will not be a color option for the iPhone 4. Although the company has only offered the reasoning that the model has been more "challenging to manufacture than we originally expected," it appears the color itself is the problem.

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After an arduous four years in and out of the courtroom, battling the RIAA over copyright infringement accusations, peer to peer file sharing service Limewire has finally been shut down.

The RIAA's suit against Limewire was part of a sweeping initiative to curb the trade of copyrighted materials on peer-to-peer networks. In 2005, the group sent cease and desist letters to the owners of major p2p services including Kazaa, WinMX, i2Hub, eDonkey, BearShare, and LimeWire. The orders demanded the services "immediately cease-and-desist from enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings," but gave the services the option to discuss "pre-litigation resolutions." Most services complied, such as Kazaa, which offered a $115 million settlement.

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The answer to the question may be a question: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a goose?

By analysts' criteria, the 11.6-inch MacBook Air is no netbook. Strange then that many Betanews readers regard Air to be a netbook -- and an overpriced one at that. But even if Air is classified as something else, it could easily suck away netbook sales, as analysts contend iPad has done. MacBook Air being a netbook or not is really independent of its impact on netbook sales. That said, in researching this story, I found that many readers (and real consumers) don't separate the two concepts. I wonder if they really need to.

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Microsoft has rolled out the release candidates of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, the last of the beta builds before the update's final release to manufacturing.

Windows 7 SP1 constitutes a bundle of minor updates for the client version of Windows 7 and has been in beta since June (Though a version leaked two months beforehand.) The main updates to Winddows Server 2008 R2 include new features in the virtual desktop infrastructure called RemoteFX, and Dynamic Memory.

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Tech blog Engadget got its hands on some photographs of a device purported to be a prototype "PlayStation Phone" from Sony Ericsson. The phone is a landscape slider that bears a strong resemblance to the PSP Go when opened, and instead of Sony's XMB interface, it will supposedly run Android 3.0.

As expected, Sony Ericsson would not comment to us on the photographs this morning, but Engadget apparently has a decent source of information, and they have been getting exclusives on the device since August.

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Tueday evening, Barnes & Noble unveiled NOOKcolor, the book retailer's second generation Android-powered e-reader. While the first generation Nook utilized both an electrophoretic "e-paper" screen and a full-color touch panel, this generation goes for the pure tablet experience, and uses a 7" (1024 x 600) LCD touchscreen.

The NOOKcolor is just under half an inch thick and weighs 15.8 ounces, it features 802.11b/g/n, comes with 8GB of storage, supports microSD cards up to 32GB. The battery life is purported to be around 8 hours if the Wi-Fi is turned off.

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Apple had better not do its market research at Betanews, and executives should hope that you, our readers, aren't the measure of interest in MacBook Air. In response to last week's question "Will you buy MacBook Air," the majority responded "No." However, as usual, there was a marked difference between those folks commenting to the story and readers responding by e-mail. A slightly greater number of e-mail respondents say they will buy one of Apple's two thin-and-light models.

Apple unveiled new MacBook Airs -- in new 11.6-inch and updated 13.3-inch display sizes -- during an October 20 media event dubbed "Back to the Mac." Standard configs for the 11.6-inch model sell for $999 and $1,999 and $1,299 and $1,599 for the 13.3-inch Air. Many respondents used the more typical speeds-and-feeds measure to evaluate the, ah, Air quality. Nicholas Gerstenberger expressed sentiments shared by many other Betanews commenters responding in comments: "Old CPU tech, 64GB max drive (even if it is SSD) and a $999 price tag place way over a fully optioned laptop with optical drive 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive and loads of RAM. Sorry I'll pass."

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Fearing that over-the-air radio may be nearing extinction faster than predicted, the US National Association of Broadcasters has been backing legislation requiring mobile phone manufacturers to install "radio-activated chips," making them into de facto FM radios. . . whether consumers actually want them or not. But in an effort to accelerate legislation to make this happen before, say, next January, the NAB signaled yesterday it's willing to make a bargain with its most valuable negotiating chip: radio's decades-old exemption on paying performance royalties.

For over a year, the NAB has boasted that it has the support of a majority of members of the US House of Representatives, backing a bill that would extend the broadcast radio industry's exemption from paying performance fees to musicians (and their designated rights holders) indefinitely. But the political careers of many of those representatives are now somewhat less than definite, as many pollsters predict a change of party leadership in the House next January.

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Microsoft on Tuesday officially launched Office 2011 for Mac in retail. The Mac OS version of Microsoft's popular productivity suite includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Messenger, and new to this edition, Outlook.

In addition to adding Outlook for Mac, Office 2011 adds a new focus on cloud-based creation and collaboration. It meshes with Office Web apps, SkyDrive, and SharePoint, and brings new co-authoring tools that let users simultaneously edit documents or share presentations with remote users through their browser.

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I used to like cookies. Oatmeal raisin. Chocolate chip. Oreos, if dipped in frosty milk. No longer. I hate cookies, thanks to all the privacy-snooping bits left on my computer -- whether or not I want these crumbs. Today, I've got another reason to hate cookies and to demand that all the frakers sending information in the clear over the Internet cease and desist: Firesheep.

What? You haven't heard about the new Firefox plug-in that lets anyone as capable as four year-olds to snatch your log-in information out of thin air? Well, hell, put down your damn Starbucks cup and disconnect from the open WiFi network (after reading this post, of course)! This plug-in, which quietly released yesterday, is literally hacking for idiots. If you're smart enough to install a Firefox plug-in, you, too, can snatch credentials from backwater, unsecured services -- like Facebook.

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