Microsoft ODM tells Bloomberg: Windows 7 coming as soon as September
While Microsoft continues to maintain that Windows 7 will launch "3 years from Vista," or early 2010, a Microsoft ODM partner says otherwise. The president of Compal, a Taiwanese manufacturer that builds laptops for HP and Acer, told Bloomberg that Microsoft may begin shipping Windows 7 in late September or early October of this year.
Ray Chen made the statement at an investors' conference in Taipei on Wednesday, adding that he hoped Windows 7 would help boost sagging PC sales due to the global economic crisis. Microsoft, for its part, didn't say Chen was incorrect, but repeated its January 2010 timeframe to Bloomberg. Who to believe? It's hard to say, although some signs have pointed to Microsoft fast-forwarding its release roadmap.
Nintendo points finger at pirate countries, asks for help
Not only have sales of Nintendo products continued to rise, but so has piracy of those products. In a report to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the body specializing in international trade agreements, Nintendo listed six countries where piracy of the Wii and DS are out of control.
The Special 301 process looks at the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights worldwide, and countries are then classified according to the frequency and severity of their violations of IP rights.
Unified Blu-ray licensing is remedy to 'bag of hurt'
One of the most repeated and memorable quotes from the tech world in the last six months was Steve Jobs referring to Blu-ray as a "bag of hurt," not for any consumer end shortcomings, but rather for its complex licensing process.
Today, Sony, Phillips and Panasonic issued a joint press release announcing the creation of a "one stop shop" for Blu-ray licensing that will seeks to simplify and cheapen the process. The idea has been discussed numerous times since 2007, well before Blu-ray had even won the high-definition format war.
Digital Music Forum: Monetization still hard to come by
Everyone in the digital music "value chain" needs enough compensation, said Ted Cohen, managing partner of TAG Strategic and a long-time observer of the music scene. Cohen spoke today on a topic that's becoming an ongoing theme at the Digital Music Forum East in New York City.
Taking the stage soon after the conference opened this afternoon, Cohen divided the digital music constituency into several groups: artists, content owners, and service providers. Artists "want music to be their day job," said the music industry veteran.
Rambus continues to turn the tables in remaining patent disputes
In just one week's time, tack two more wins onto Rambus' column. After what appeared five years ago to have been potentially company-crushing scrutiny into its intellectual property practices -- truly the heart of the company -- the US Supreme Court decided Monday not to review last year's ruling of a DC Appeals Court panel that cleared the company of charges from the US Federal Trade Commission of unfair monopoly practices.
Specifically, the FTC, using evidence supplied by Rambus' competitors, had accused it of participating in memory technology standards committee JEDEC, while at the same time deceitfully withholding disclosure of having applied for patents for the same technologies JEDEC was standardizing. An FTC panel unanimously came to that conclusion in 2006. But the DC Court of Appeals unanimously overturned that conclusion, on the basis that JEDEC's bylaws didn't exactly specify that members must disclose their patent interests...and that if Rambus behaved the way competitors say it did, it may not have been alone.
Internet Explorer gets updated Google search toolbar
In keeping with Google's habit of giving its search fields multiple purposes, the new Google Toolbar 6 beta for Internet Explorer is just a little more than its name lets on.
Packaged with the toolbar is what is known as the Google QSB (quick search box) which appears as a Google logo next to the Windows Start Menu when it is installed. Clicking on it opens a search field that doubles as an application launcher which remembers your most frequently used apps.
LeapFish attempts to break into the search game by contextualizing results
It's a tough game job creating a new search engine. Trying to break into the market with Google, Yahoo, and MSN is sort of like trying to start your own baseball league to draw fans away from MLB. Three-month-old search engine LeapFish isn't trying to start a new league, it's just trying build a better stadium.
LeapFish takes the indexed results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN, and does what what CEO Ben Behrouzi calls "the heavy lifting." That is, it gives a selection of results that include web entries, related statistics, videos, and other such relevant information rather than the same information you'd find if you were to use those individual search engines.
SP2 for Vista, Windows Server 2008 coming next week
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that the first release candidates (without numerals) for Service Pack 2 for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 will be released to the general public for testing next week. This after private testers with the MSDN and TechNet services receive their copies first.
For the first time, the SP2 standalone package will be delivered to users not according to operating system build, but to byte length. So the 32-bit standalone service pack (302 MB with the basic five languages, 390 MB for multi-language) will update both 32-bit Vista and 32-bit Windows Server 2008. Then there will be two 64-bit standalones, including one which covers x64 architectures (508 MB / 622 MB) and one for Itanium 64-bit (384 MB / 396 MB). The RC will represent a kind of dress rehearsal for this new method of distribution.
PlayStation Network claims 20 million users
While the PlayStation 3 continues to be regarded as the runner-up in online console gaming, the system's growing library of free to play online titles has helped PlayStation Network (PSN) grow to double every year, and the growth continues.
Last year, Microsoft said it had reached the 17 million subscriber mark for Xbox Live, but more recent numbers are not yet available. The company made a strong push early this year to attract more users to the online gaming service by dropping the price of an annual subscription to $30 from the customary $50.
Better Business Bureau gives failing grade to Linden Lab
The company responsible for Second Life, the once-fashionable-now-beleaguered virtual realm, has gotten an F from a Bay Area branch of the Better Business Bureau. In its writeup, the BBB cited the number of complaints filed against business, the business' failure to respond to complaints, and the length of time the business has taken to resolve complaint(s).
According to the BBB, Linden has received 43 complaints in the past three years, 25 of them closed in the last 12 months (and 31 in all). Ten were administratively closed by the BBB, and 2 went unaddressed by Linden.
My first day with Kindle 2: I'm finally ready to drop the paperback
I've always been a fan of technology that makes it easier for me to consume media. I bought the Diamond Rio PMP-300 the day it came out in 1998, was an early customer of TiVo, and can't imagine renting movies from a physical store after being a Netflix subscriber for over 8 years.
That's why I pre-ordered the first Kindle the moment it was announced in 2007. I had previously tried out electronic book readers from companies such as Sony, but they all lacked the complete ecosystem that makes it actually worthwhile to switch to digital books. The Kindle seemed to have it all: a fairly slim form factor, great screen, and a huge library of books easily downloadable with a single click.
A Google Chrome user's opinion of Safari 4 Beta
Download Safari for Windows 4.28.16.0 Beta from Fileforum now.
After writing for Betanews for a couple of years, there's something you may not know about me. If there is one company that I approach with favoritism (but never fanboyism!), it's Google. Yes, Google's omnipresence is enough to make you want to don a tin foil hat, but it's hard to argue with a company that gives everyone such powerful research tools at no cost.
Windows 7 testers should upgrade their IE8
The first release candidate for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, released last month, addressed a number of technical behavioral issues that, according to IE8 Program Manager Herman Ng yesterday, included some serious crashes and system hangs. That's normal for even a public beta like IE8 Beta 2, and the new Crash Recovery feature in RC1 addresses 94% of these "reliability problems," Ng said, albeit with what could be for many testers a very well-used safety net.
But what about Windows 7 beta testers? The IE8 release candidates currently available are for Windows Vista and Windows XP, separately. Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to address their concerns as well, so yesterday, it begain issuing a "reliability update" for its version of IE8. This doesn't make its IE8 a "release candidate for Win7," though it does roll up the various fixes implemented in the Vista and XP RC versions.
Adobe updates Photoshop CS4
Adobe has released an update (11.0.1) to Photoshop CS4 which includes a handful of significant fixes. Performance issues have been tweaked, the pen barrel rotation feature on Wacom tablets has been fixed, 3D textures edited by plug-ins are now properly recognized, and the quality of Stacked (auto blend) images has been improved. Also, attempting to paste formatted text, or open a corrupt font no longer result in a CS4 crash.
The update is available directly from Adobe.
Corel keeps the paint wet for new Painter 11
It's the dream of graphic artists to be able to use a program that emulates -- not just simulates -- the texture, the behavior, the luminance of pigment...while at the same time preserving all the conveniences of digital editing, such as layering and selective blending and the ability to "undo."
The latest Corel Painter 11, whose availability for download begins today, adds a little more of that much-desired flexibility between the two universes. For example, once you've blended a paint on one layer with a paint on another layer (imagine those paints being wet, if you will), what happens to those intermediate colors created during the blending process? In a demonstration video on Corel's Web site today, you can see how the latest incarnation of the Magic Wand tool enables separation of blended pigments between layers. So you can move a layer around and thus effectively "re-blend," a process not unlike ciphoning off wet paint from a fresh canvas.
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