One of the most anticipated features in Windows Vista is its redesigned user interface that features glass-like title bars and alpha blended windows. But with the upgrade a year away, Stardock has released WindowBlinds 5 to offer Windows XP users the same capabilities right now.

Version 5 of Stardock's flagship Windows customization software has been in the works for over a year, according to company CEO Brad Wardell. Initially, Wardell's team was dubious that such features could be added without severe performance lag to Windows XP, which lacks Vista's new advanced graphics subsystem.

Continue reading →

Apple may soon offer a way to copy television shows onto that new video-enabled iPod you receive this Christmas. According to rumor site Think Secret, the company will take the wraps off a new Intel-based Mac Mini with digital video recording capabilities at Macworld Expo in January.

The move would pit Apple against both Microsoft and TiVo in a race to control the living room. The new Mini will reportedly include a built-in iPod dock and a new DVR application that integrates with Apple's recently released Front Row software. The upgrade could result in a larger Mini, however, as a full desktop hard drive would likely be required to hold recorded television content.

Continue reading →

Firefox hit its second major milestone Tuesday with the release of version 1.5, arriving just over a year after the alternative browser debuted at 1.0. The update sports Mozilla's new Gecko 1.8 rendering engine to speed up Web surfing, along with a myriad of other fixes and improvements.

Notable changes in Firefox 1.5 include the ability to reorder tabs, faster back and forward buttons, a feature to clear personal data, improved accessibility and popup blocking, along with support for more Web standards such as SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6. Firefox 1.5 is available now for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Continue reading →

TiVo has inked a deal with TGC to build digital video recorders using the company's technology, which would be initially available in Taiwan with possible expansion into China, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore. The move marks TiVo's second venture outside the United States.

Despite only temporarily offering TiVo service in Britain, the company remains eager to expand overseas. "Consumers around the world want the TiVo experience," said TiVo CEO Tom Rogers. "We are committed to enhancing the TiVo brand and to delivering a superior television-viewing experience to living rooms around the world."

Continue reading →

Things continue to get worse for Sony BMG following the discovery of a rootkit in its CD copy-protection software that degrades PC performance and puts users at risk for security attacks. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, famous for going after corporate corruption and recently spyware companies, has turned his attention toward Sony.

Spitzer sent investigators to a number of retail music outlets, who were able to purchase the affected CDs more than a week after they were allegedly recalled, according to BusinessWeek. Stores including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sam Goody, Circuit City, FYE and Virgin continued to stock the rootkit-laden albums.

Continue reading →

The first casualty from Symantec's acquisition of Sygate in August is official: Both the free and paid version of Sygate Personal Firewall have been axed due to an overlap with Norton Personal Firewall. Users will be given a discounted upgrade path to Symantec's product, which runs $37.49 USD.

Sygate becomes the second free desktop firewall to be discontinued in as many months; Kerio Technologies will scrap its consumer firewall at the end of the year. Sygate's Enterprise firewall and endpoint compliance products will still be updated and supported, Symantec says.

Continue reading →

Calling it a violation of antitrust law, an Internet business trade group on Monday filed suit to stop the proposed ICANN-VeriSign settlement from taking effect.

The agreement, which settled a dispute over the redirection of unused domains, also gave VeriSign control of the .com top-level domain through 2012. ICANN also selected VeriSign to continue managing the .net domain.

Continue reading →

Cheap Apple iBooks aren't the only laptops that can get consumers in a buying frenzy it seems. On Friday at a Wal-Mart store in Orlando, Florida, customers pushed and climbed over each other to get their hands on a $400 HP notebook, with one man fighting a security guard.

One person described the scene as "crazy" according to reports, and another said the laptops were being thrown into the air. A similar scene broke out at a Wal-Mart in Washington, where police were called to help control a crowd that dislodged counters and displays to get their hands on the cheap laptop.

Continue reading →

P2P users have found a creative way to fill up the more than 2 gigabytes of e-mail storage offered by Google's Gmail: file sharing. A new service created by Dutch student Robbie Groenewoudt taps into Gmail and creates an index of files that can be accessed by other users.

Appropriately named G2G Exchange, the Web-based service does have some drawbacks. It requires users to hand over their Gmail account information, although it can be configured to index only e-mails with certain labels. G2G's FAQ page recommends that users create a new Gmail login specifically for sharing files.

Continue reading →

Networking manufacturer NetGear said on Monday that it would add a disclaimer to its packaging, offer a 15 percent discount on its online store, and pay $700,000 in legal fees in order to settle a class-action lawsuit over misrepresentation of the speed of its wireless products. Details of the settlement were made public in a Friday filing with the SEC.

Netgear was sued in California Superior Court in 2004 for allegations that wireless devices sold by the company did not perform as fast as advertised. A similar suit filed in February was later dismissed. While Netgear has admitted no liability, it will add a disclaimer to its boxes indicating that wireless speeds can vary due to a variety of factors.

Continue reading →

The Supreme Court on Monday granted eBay's request for a writ of certiorari in a 2003 case, which found the auction site violated patents surrounding its "Buy it Now" feature.

A federal appeals court at the time awarded patent owner MercExchange $25 million in damages and granted a permanent injunction against eBay that would bar the site from using the feature.

Continue reading →

Sony's PlayStation 3 will add parental controls to limit access to violent video games, according to statements made on Monday by the Entertainment Software Association.

The commitment by Sony means that all three next-generation consoles would offer some type of method to give parents greater control over what video games their children are playing. Sony had already offered some tools to limit access to movies viewed on the PlayStation 2, but the protections did not work on video games.

Continue reading →

Most TiVo customers use the devices to skip over commercials within recorded shows. However, the DVR maker on Monday announced that beginning in the spring of 2006, it would use the set-top box to deliver on-demand advertising to interested subscribers.

TiVo says this is the first time television would be used as a medium to deliver such targeted ads to potential customers. These commercials would be found based on keyword searches, similar to the way Internet advertising currently works.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's decision to submit its forthcoming Office Open XML format to European standards organization Ecma International seems to have done the trick: Massachusetts says it expects the new version of Microsoft Office to meet its "open format" requirement.

The Massachusetts plan, which was finalized in September, calls for all electronic documents created after January 1, 2007 to utilize only formats deemed "open," which include OpenDocument and Adobe's PDF. OpenDocument is the centerpiece in the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 release, but is not supported by Microsoft Office.

Continue reading →

Move over HD DVD and Blu-ray. Bell Labs spin-off InPhase Technologies and Hitachi Maxell are currently working on a computer disc about the size of a DVD that could hold up to sixty times the data. The companies hope to have the disc and compatible drives on the market by the end of next year.

The new discs will use a technology known as holographic memory. Data is stored on a crystal material that is sensitive to light. In order to read and write data, a light beam is split in two and one is passed through semi-transparent material. This material alters the beam to encode data.

Continue reading →