Due to a couple of power outages today - remind me why I pay my power bill? - causing a reboot I ended up upgrading to version 2.0.0.4 of everyone’s favourite browser Firefox. Well the favourite browser of 54% of the visitors to this site anyway. So what’s new in the latest release? According to mozillaZine the new version improves support for Vista and fixes some security flaws. However the browser still bypasses Vista’s Parental Controls so junior can still download dodgy pics of Paris Hilton! Happy surfing!

In what would be quite an about face on the copying of movie media, the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) Licensing Administrator has put forward an agreement to companies using AACS that consumers would be allowed to make a number of copies of their HD DVD or Blu ray movies. The agreement defines the term ‘managed copy’ where by companies using AACS could add an extra charge to the cost of their product iof the consumer wished to be able to make copies.

As Michael Ayers, a representative of an industry group that licenses the AACS, points out

It remains a possibility that consumers, if given the chance to make three copies of “Spider-man 2” could give those copies to their neighbors, which technically would qualify as low-volume piracy.

So we shall wait and see how the companies using AACS (inclduing movie makers) respond. Hopefully it will be positively, as I believe this is a decent compromise between the two parties, especially between movie makers and movie viewers.

Free Movies Free Movies

It seems that Bungie and Microsoft had a few issues with their limited beta for Halo 3 last week. According to 1up,

5:00 a.m. on that appointed date came and went, though, and the beta didn’t launch for Crackdown owners. It wasn’t until some 14 hours later — 7:00 p.m. PST — that Microsoft issued a patch for Crackdown…yes, Crackdown. There wasn’t an issue with the beta — Halo 3 downloaded and played fine for press and those involved in the Friends and Family program — so how did Microsoft’s biggest promotion of 2007 blow up in its face after months of hype?

After a lot of finger pointing Microsoft fessed up that the issue was with Xbox Live.

“This is the first time that we’ve tried to interface downloading of a beta through Xbox LIVE with a previously-shipped game. It’s a complicated process, made even more significant by the huge interest in this beta,” said the company [Microsoft] in a statement.

Given all the effort (hype?) that has gone into marketing this launch which is after all just a beta release and a limited one at that, you think Microsoft would have thoroughly tested the process. You get the feeling the first user to download the beta was the VERY first person to download it. People had taken time off work and school to be some of the first to play test this beta so the lack of QA by Bungie and Microsoft is pitiful. Hopefully a bit more effort will be put into the final release - the marketing machine has already stepped up a gear with this press release announcing the launch date of September 25th.

For those of us who weren’t involved in the beta screw-up, err, test here’s a great Halo video with a smattering of Alien vs Predator to feed our Halo need.

Source: 1up

DX10 video card owners can give their cards a good testing with CapCom’s demo of Lost Planet:Extreme Condition. They have also released a DX9 version along side the DX10. However Radeon DX10 owners may not be so lucky as the following blurb indicates:

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is the first game demo that takes advantage of NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series DirectX 10-compatible graphics processors. NVIDIA has worked closely with Capcom to bring the hit Xbox 360 action shooter to the PC, providing technical expertise and GeForce® 8 Series graphics processing units (GPUs) for development and testing. Lost Planet is in NVIDIA’s The Way Its Meant To Be Played® program.

Hmmm, obviously the ATI guys at AMD are not too impressed by all of this and have released the following:

“Lost Planet” is an Nvidia-sponsored title, and one that Nvidia has had a chance to look at and optimize their drivers for. The developer has not made us aware of this new benchmark, and as such the ATI Radeon driver team has not had the opportunity explore how the benchmark uses our hardware and optimize in a similar fashion. Over the next little while AMD will be looking at this, but in the meantime, please note that whatever performance you see will not be reflective of what gamers will experience in the final build of the game.

The guys over at Legit Reviews have done a great side by side comparison of the demo with a GeForce 8800 GTX and a Radeon HD2900 XT and the differences are obvious. The game has of course been designed with the GeForce cards in mind and I’m sure AMD will release drivers to overcome the differences. However I felt a comparison using the 8800 GTS would have been better as the GTX is much more expensive than the HD2900 XT.

Even so the release of the Lost Planet demo will have taken any remaining shine off the over due Radeon HD2900 XT launch. Time for AMD to pick up the ball!

Despite the eagerly anticipated release of Halo 3 not being until towards the end of the year, just in time for the Christmas present shopping season, Microsoft arranged for a sneak preview for invite-only gamers. The lucky group got to presumably play a version similar to the public beta version out on Wednesday.

However the game got mixed reviews from the group with the graphics receiving particular negative feedback. Nick Puleo, editor at Evilavatar.com, said,

The graphics can use some work…They’re not much different than the previous Halo.

Despite any misgivings the group may have about the game, we’re sure it’ll still sell like the proverbial hot cake come release time. It’ll be interesting to see what the responses are during the beta test too. Anyway to keep you Halo freaks happy (that’ll be us too!) here’s a video of a leaked beta of the game.

Source: Reuters

Russian authorities originally charged school teacher, Alexander Ponosov, with installing pirated versions of Microsoft Office and Windows on PCs at the school where he taught. The case was thrown out of court after the court said Ponosov’s actions were “insignificant”. Posonov had claimed the PCs had come with the pirated software pre-installed by sub-contractors.

In a bizarre twist Ponosov has ended up being fined US$200 (about half a month’s salary or a crate of Stolichnaya) after he joined prosecutors who lodged an appeal after the first case was dropped. The appeal led to Ponosov’s retrial and subsequent guilty verdict and fine. Bet he wishes he’d kept quiet now. But no, he does plan to appeal again. Just keep on digging mate, keep on digging.

However the story sounds a bit fishy to us? How come there’s no reports of the authorities pursuing the ‘sub-contractors’ that Ponosov bought the PCs from? Also Russia is on an American ‘watch list’ regarding copyright protection, perhaps the Russian authorities think that Posonov’s conviction will satisfy the Americans? It just smacks of a political manoeuvre by Russia in its effort to join the World Trade Organisation. What do you think?

Source: CNN

Well, Messenger in a Browser to be more precise. I’ve just been taking a look at Yahoo’s browser Messenger beta, so it’ll be live in 2012 or so. Removing applications from your desktop and system tray seems like a good idea to me and as you can add MS Live contacts too so you get to remove even more icons and applications from your PC. It also means you can IM while you are away with your laptop or from any PC anywhere.

On downside is that your addins like Yahoo Finance are not automatically displayed but there is a link to My Yahoo which you can modify to suit your information needs. Also there’s no new faetures so it’s not really a giant leap forward more a little bit of a tip toe into the future.

Source: Reuters