Latest Technology News

Japanese gamers are responding positively to the new version of the PlayStation Portable, with 250,000 units sold in four days according to Japanese publisher Enterbrain. The number matches the total number of original PSPs sold in the country during July and August of this year. The new unit is intended to compete with Nintendo's DS Lite, which has been a huge hit for the company in Japan as well as worldwide.

Sony's redesigned PSP is cheaper and slimmer than its predecessor. At 19,800 yen, it is about 5 percent cheaper than the original. The DS Lite sells for 16,800 yen. Both consoles were originally launched in 2004, although Nintendo's console has always been the cheaper of the two, and has resonated more among casual gamers.

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It's the type of bug that, when discovered twenty years ago on the world's leading spreadsheets of the time, generated controversy and sent thousands back to their software stores for refunds: Excel 2007 has a bug with the display of floating-point values, a Microsoft developer confirmed on his team's blog yesterday. BetaNews confirmed the bug's existence, which leads to some values in floating-point multiplication to be "rounded" to incorrect values.

The problem appears to be with certain kinds of pairs of values whose product is either 216 (65,536) or 216 - 1 (65,535). When one or both factors has floating-point precision but is only slightly fractional - meaning, it has perhaps one or two decimal places but is otherwise not "irrational," to borrow its mathematical meaning - Excel renders the product as 100,000 instead.

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Microsoft further detailed its plans for Office 2008 for Mac on Tuesday, saying that it plans to release three versions of the product including one with a Macintosh version of its Expression suite.

All versions will be available in English and 10 other languages, for the first time in Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian. It will support the Open XML format, and is quite similar to the Windows version in terms of design.

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In a blow to its fortunes that analysts feared could be fatal to the company, VoIP service provider Vonage was handed a defeat this afternoon by a federal jury in Kansas City, Kansas trying a patent infringement case brought against it by wireless carrier Sprint Nextel.

Vonage has been ordered to pay Sprint $69.5 million in damages plus 5% royalties on all future revenue, though the defeated company said this afternoon it will file an appeal. Today's decision comes six months after Vonage lost very a similar case to Verizon. There, the VoIP provider was ordered to pay Verizon $58 plus 5.5% in royalties on all future revenue.

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The Associated Press reported this afternoon that the chief technology officer of the company that makes Core Impact, a very well-known penetration testing product for enterprise networks, has gone public with the discovery of a new and significant vulnerability affecting AOL Instant Messenger, on systems where Internet Explorer 7 is also installed.

Core Security CTO Iván Arce told the AP that the current AIM 6.1, including the Pro and Lite versions, as well as the beta of AIM 6.2 all utilize Internet Explorer 7 for some of their rendering functions, including graphic emoticons. The interaction between AIM and IE7 apparently takes place over a link that Arce says he's proven can be exploitable, in demonstrations last month to officials of AOL's parent company, Time Warner.

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Today Sony announced its newest addition to the VAIO line of notebooks: the NR, its cheapest model to date.

Historically, Sony's VAIO line has been heavy on style while remaining light in your backpack. Though at times some entries in the line do look conspicuously similar to MacBook Pros, they have a design ethic that appeals to many.

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Despite the announcement that Gateway will acquire Packard Bell, Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo said Tuesday that it will not completely give up on attempts to acquire the company itself. If a deal between Gateway and Packard Bell falls through, the company said it will attempt to strike its own deal with the small computer maker.

Lenovo is in the midst of attempting to expand its business globally. While its IBM acquisition helped it to gain a strong foothold in the United States, acquiring Packard Bell will help its efforts in Europe. It is unlikely that the company will take on any future large acquisitions: in comments to Reuters, the company said that it was still in the process of "digesting" the IBM merger.

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The CE and tech media is billing Halo 3 as the "PS3 killer." While that may not be too far from the truth, it may also be a bit premature. Either way, time is running out.

PERSPECTIVE It's just what the doctor ordered. After a rough couple of months, the launch of Halo 3 is giving the Xbox franchise the good swift kick in the pants Microsoft needed to get itself back on track.

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Today's introduction of a new set of GeForce 7 integrated graphics chips for PC motherboards marks a major push for nVidia towards a segment of the market that Intel has traditionally commanded.

For years, graphics processor manufacturer nVidia has executed a simple strategy: Introduce innovative features on the high-end first, then push yesterday's high-end features down to the mainstream. By consequence, yesterday's mainstream GPUs were pushed to the low end, where the company historically maintained it's a better choice than integrated graphics.

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Amazon.com launched the public beta of its digital music store Tuesday, offering over 2 million DRM-free tracks.

The new music store could be seen as a strong competitor to iTunes, as it features many of the same artists without copy protection on the files. This means that not only can the tracks purchased from Amazon MP3 be copied, burned, and stored on multiple computers, but they are also compatible with most portable devices, including the iPod. All songs are encoded at 256 kilobits per second.

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Echostar said Tuesday that it will acquire Sling Media in a $380 million cash and stock deal that closes later this year.

Echostar is the parent company of Dish Network, while Sling Media is the manufacturer of the Slingbox 'place-shifting' device. Sling will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the satellite television company, although it will not change any of the services or products it provides.

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An official spokesperson for the European Commission, in response to our questions regarding procedures for reviewing the proposed merger between Google and DoubleClick, told BetaNews this morning that under EU law, any two companies anywhere in the world whose projected post-merger annual revenue from European customers would exceed 250 million euros is subject to regulatory approval there.

While declining specific comment on these two companies, EC press officer for competition policy Linda Cain wrote to BetaNews, "In general terms, under the EU Merger Regulation, proposed mergers must be notified to the European Commission if the annual turnover of the combined businesses exceeds specified thresholds in terms of global and European sales (5 billion euros annual global combined turnover, each party having at least 250 million euros annual turnover in Europe). All proposed mergers notified to the Commission are examined to see if they would significantly impede effective competition in the EU."

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Late yesterday afternoon, Apple Computer issued a single-paragraph statement reminding its iPhone users that their warranties would not be able to cover damages to their phones caused by the use of unlocking utilities. The company used a carrot and stick approach, reminding users that an iTunes Music Store update was on the way, but that attempting to install it on a cracked phone could render it useless.

Here is the Apple statement in its entirety:

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Since January of this year, Dell Computer has been tailoring its sales model to fit changing market dynamics. Its very successful direct sales (or build-to-order) approach is simply not the best way to get through to certain markets. China is a shining example of this, and Dell announced today that it will distribute PCs through Gome, China's largest consumer electronics retailer.

Gome has about 700 outlets in 210 Chinese cities. Dell's plan is to immediately assign in-store employees in 50 of those stores, with more planned early next year. Dell says it plans for Gome to feature its XPS M1330 and Inspiron 1420 notebooks, and Dimension 9200 and Inspiron 530 desktops. The latter model is expected to retail for around $300 USD, and be aimed at the rural customer.

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Multiple Microsoft sources have confirmed that the first beta test editions of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista were distributed to a select group of about 12,000 testers today. BetaNews learned these are indeed exclusive invitees, not merely a subset of the company's MSDN or TechNet subscriber base.

An account of the SP1 experience published today by Microsoft team blogger Brandon LeBlanc confirms what BetaNews reported three weeks ago: Rather than add new features, SP1 concentrates on making the existing ones work better - at least, those which remain after a slight feature cut.

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