All Things News

Straight from Ars Technica: “Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.”

Straight from Joystiq: “The rumors were true. Japanese news source NHK (english translation and Reuters validation) is reporting that Toshiba is planning to drop support of HD DVD, striking a final blow to the format and conceding victory to Blu-ray. The Sony-backed high-definition disc has been gaining strides for some time, most notably after Warner Bros switched to Blu-ray exclusively. Toshiba is expected to face hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

The so-called “format wars” seems to be at an end, and now we’re left to ponder about the future, such as how big is the office party Sony is throwing in honor of its victory? More related to video games, might we see a future Blu-ray add-on (and subsequently rumors of a built-in drive) for the Xbox 360?”

Straight from Tux Deluxe: “December 20th 2007. Today the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software projects such as Samba.Microsoft was required to make this information available to competitors as part of the European Commission March 24th 2004 Decision in the antitrust lawsuit, after losing their appeal against that decision on September 17th 2007.”

Straight from Joystiq: “Kiss your loved ones, hug your friends, because if this keeps up we’ve reached the end of days — the Xbox 360 outsold the PlayStation 3 last week in Japan. We’ll break down all the numbers in our weekly Japanese hardware sales post later today. For now (while we pack our towels), the Xbox 360 sold 17,673 fueled by (raise an eyebrow) Namco Bandai’s Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, which debuted at the #2 spot behind Super Mario Galaxy.

The PS3 sold 17,434 units compared to Xbox 360’s 17,673, a slight 200 unit separation. But to just give an idea how dramatic the increase in sales was, the previous week Xbox 360 only sold 3,718 units, increasing its sales almost five fold. Repent while you still can.”

Straight from Slashdot: “Microsoft is spending a ‘non-trivial’ amount of money to get Windows XP working on the OLPC project’s XO laptop. But why? Despite the conjecture that the Linux-based XO could convince millions of people in the developing world that they don’t need Windows and build a huge base of developers for Linux, there still remains the question of how Microsoft would convince owners of XO laptops to buy and install Windows XP over the functional Linux-based OS already on it. It’s doubtful that Microsoft could encourage or coerce Negroponte to put XP on the machine, so whose arms will they twist?”

No Vista for you!

Straight from Slashdot: “After weeks of grueling troubleshooting, I’ve finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation. Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into “reduced functionality” mode, where you can’t do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.”

Straight from Gizmodo: “The first generation 30GB Zune—which 1.2 million of you already purchased—is getting all the new Zune’s features. All. Sure, the new Zune is more of a half step forward than a completely new design. But Microsoft’s done something fantastic here by rewarding first gen buyers with cool new stuff that also happens to be free by software upgrade. And talk about spin— Microsoft just took a middling jump in hardware and turned it into a genuinely good move for loyalists (as well as a PR miracle). Are you paying attention Apple?Contrast this to what Apple did between the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The iPod Touch is running the same OS as the iPhone, but it’s artificially gimped. There’s no email. There’s no weather or stocks. No notes. No adding events to the Calendar. When old hardware can’t support new features, that’s not anyone’s fault. But all this stuff that’s right there in the software and costs nothing for Apple to put in, and they leave it out to artificially differentiate the product line.

Back to Zune. Not only is the old 30GB getting the new Wi-Fi syncing, it’s getting the updated sharing features, the new codecs, the podcasts, and the new Windows Media Center TV on the go. It’s essentially the new Zune, except thicker and with less storage space…which makes us ask why Microsoft would be so generous as to kill half the reasons why you’d ever upgrade to a new Zune. But as buyers, we’ll just say thanks.”

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Straight from Usenix.org.uk: “The Samba team will continue to provide security fixes to the GPLv2 versions, but new features will be added only to the GPLv3 versions, the team said. The Free Software Foundation has already released a number of elements of its Gnu’s Not Unix (GNU) project under GPLv3, including the widely used “tar” command for compressing and decompressing files.”

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Straight from Free Software Magazine: “GNU/Linux can be scary to a new user. After all, what if you mess up? What if you end up corrupting your hard drive so badly that you need to format it to get rid of GNU/Linux? The solution is to use virtualization technology. A virtual machine creates a virtual hard drive as well as a virtual computer, so you can install and run it from within another operating system. If you want to get rid of the virtualized (also known as the guest) operating system, just delete the virtual hard disk from the real (host) computer’s hard drive.”

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For those of you running Ubuntu as your OS of choice, you can seamlessly integrate a virtual Windows XP installation into your Ubuntu desktop with VirtualBox. Follow these step by step instructions.

Straight from Ripten: “It has been confirmed that Madden NFL 08 and NCAA Football 08 will run at 60 frames per second on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and only 30 frames per second on the Sony Playstation 3.This has to be very frustrating for loyal Playstation owners. The PS3 was supposed to be the better machine and the specs clearly pointed to that, however as of late the “specs” have not been enough to convince video game developers to not cut corners when developing games for the console.

We have seen footage of many games side by side for both the 360 and PS3, and in nearly every one the 360 version appeared to be superior.”

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Straight from Slashdot: “Another crack in the Windows Genuine Advantage wall. A user at UbuntuForums.org managed to validate an Ubuntu installation as a genuine copy of Microsoft Windows and get to the download page of Windows Defender, using IE4Linux and Wine. (Here is an OGG video of the process.) Along with the advancement of LiveCD technology, this could spell the end of Microsoft’s control over who gets their updates.”

Straight from Slashdot: “Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit.

“The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. ‘Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,’ said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release.”

Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.”

Straight from Gizmodo: “With a simple registry tweak, you can take that 30-day activation deadline and shove it—possibly forever. According to Brian Livingston, publisher of Windows Secrets, the activation delay hack previously thought to work for 120 days can be reused “indefinitely,” though it varies from copy to copy. The haxx0ring? Change a registry key (SkipRearm) hex value. That’s it, but check the article for a full rundown—newer shipped copies of Home seem to have plugged the loophole, so it may only work in other versions shipped after March. Guess they really do want you to pirate Windows.”

Straight from Joystiq: “When we learned that the PS3 version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would not feature the majority of downloadable content found on the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game, it was a blow to fans of horse armor everywhere. An episode of The 1UP Show (02/02) provides the follow-up hook as 1UP relays a juicy bit of info from Bethesda. As it turns out, it may be due to a memory limitation with the Playstation 3 itself.

1UP says that Bethesda simply could not find a way to load every piece of downloadable content without affecting the performance of the game. Considering that the Xbox 360 can pull off this feat without a hitch, that seems quite odd. Bethesda will still be looking into getting that content available for PS3 users, as addressed by their VP of Marketing, Peter Hines, who also comments on the “rumors” regarding the memory issue in an IGN interview.“

Straight from Engadget: “Toshiba’s new duo may not steal the show together, but the G900 is officially ready to help redefine high-end smartphone devices. The behemoth features, as we mentioned an utterly unreal 3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, rear biometric scanner, 2 megapixel rear camera, front-facing video conferencing camera, 64MB of internal memory, miniSD expansion, tri-band HSDPA (yes!), 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, USB, video calling, and USB On-The-Go. The E01 is far more lower end, but still manages HSDPA, a 65k color display, A2DP Bluetooth, and that same 2 megapixel camera. We’re still missing out on pricing and launch details, but for now you can still check out the gallery below for more pics, including a couple side-by-sides.”

Straight from HDGameNews: “On paper the Playstation 3 looked mighty impressive when compared to the Xbox 360 originally at E3 2005. It seemed that the true next generation would not start until Sony said so. Or would it? Does Xbox 360 really have more horsepower? (This article is not a fanboy rant but simply a means to hold Sony accountable for their promises.)”

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Straight from Xbox360 Fan Boy: “Speaking with journalist and Xbox guru, Dean Takahashi, Bill Gates offered several jabs to both Sony and Nintendo in the wake of CES. Speaking on Nintendo, Gates expressed concern that the novelty of Wii could wear off without good graphics to go with it, and that he still considered Sony to be MS’ biggest competitor (O RLY?). Regarding the PS3, Gates notes that the 360 has the advantage in every area. According to Gates, the 360 has good games, is easier to program, and is cheaper to produce. Because of the 360’s head start, it also has the advantage of undergoing cost reduction at a much faster rate than the PS3 with its more costly components.

Gates also stated that the PS3 has no advantage in terms of graphics and that it never will. In his words, Sony “burned a year” trying to get graphics out of the Cell processor, only to have Nvidia provide a chip at the last minute. Add to this the fact that the PS3 has no unified memory and that programmers have had longer to learn the intricacies of the 360 hardware, and the PS3 is caught in a cyclical game of catch-up.”

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Straight from Joystiq: “How did Microsoft dodge the scaling issue that has plagued Sony since its launch? Maybe it was the timing — an HD console in a Standard Def world — or perhaps it was Ana, the affectionate title for Xbox 360’s hardware scaler.

Whereas the PlayStation 3 downscales to meet resolution, Ana upscales Xbox 360 titles to 1080p to impressive results, according to Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera. Speaking with Microsoft’s Scott Henson, Kuchera learns that Ana was designed at the same time as Xenos, the console’s GPU. Though the addition of a PS3 hardware scaler is possible in the future, Xbox Group Product Marketing Manager Aaron Greenberg opines that it would be difficult for Sony to fix the issue with software, leaving first-generation PS3 owners in the cold.

However, the truth is, as Kuchera notes, differences between the two console’s graphics are minimal to nonexistent. “By [the time PS3 has second-generation titles] we’ll have Halo 3,” Henson said. “We’ll be on the third–generation games. We hope to always be a little bit ahead.” When will Sony pull ahead of the Xbox 360, graphically, and to what extent is Ana Microsoft’s secret weapon in keeping up?”

Straight from Slashdot: “Serge Wroclawski recently contacted Dell to request a refund on the unwanted copy of Windows XP that came pre-installed on his computer. Somewhat surprisingly, Dell complied. Wroclawski admits that the $52.50 refund was more of a victory in principle than anything else, but it was a success nonetheless. Using his tips and techniques readers can try their hand at getting a refund of their own. Wroclawski cautions that you should be prepared for a long haul: the process could take hours.”

Straight from Joystiq: “Yesterday, Microsoft’s Chris Satchell and Peter Moore offered up an old-fashioned bitch slap at Sony’s burgeoning online service, saying the PlayStation Network was “pretty much a disaster,” in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. The war of words has now been joined by SCEA’s Dave Karraker, who told GamePro, basically, “Um, hey, we’ve sold a lot of systems.”Karraker said the over 200 million PlayStation branded products sold to date were proof that consumers worldwide support Sony’s ability to “deliver hardware, software and services to suit this industry.” Um, sure, but what do historic sales have to do exactly with a brand new online network? Karakker then trotted out Gran Turismo HD as an example of “the potential of the PlayStation Network and the kind of ground breaking content we plan to offer.” Really? Your big defense of your online service is a game demo? Xbox Live has been offering those for over a year now. What else you got?

Apparently not much, at least not much that made it into the “in-depth rebuttal” GamePro printed. If Sony is counting on brand recognition and past sales to carry it through this generation, they’ve got a long, disappointing fight ahead of them.”