Windows Vista

Experience the WU based Vista SP1 installation by following 4 simple steps. Windows Vista SP1 RC distributed through Windows Update will be applicable to Windows Vista machines that are running on any of the 36 languages supported by Vista RTM.

Download: Vista SP1 RC

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Microsoft is giving away copies of Vista Ultimate and Office if you will let the Vole closely monitor how you use the software.

While the more cynical amongst us might think that Vole can’t sell its software and so is giving it away, the deal is part of Microsoft’s Feedback programme.

According to its website, the Feedback Program allows you to connect directly with the Windows product team using your computer.

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Tiffany, the world’s second-biggest luxury jeweler, said eBay is a “rat’s nest” for counterfeiting and urged a judge to rule that the biggest online auctioneer was liable for infringement.

Tiffany assailed eBay in a legal brief submitted Dec. 7 to U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan, as the companies await his ruling in a trademark infringement trial. EBay said in its brief that it’s a “model citizen” in the fight against counterfeiting.

At issue is whether eBay must pay damages for failing to make adequate efforts to block sales of counterfeit silver jewelry. New York-based Tiffany and other retailers claim online sales of counterfeit clothes, bags and jewelry cost them about $30 billion a year.

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Today sp1 ships. hurray. It’s not up there yet but should be later today.

Looking down the list of fixes, here are some that caught my eye (read the whitepaper for the full list):

• Communicator won’t let you IM a distribution list any more for security reasons
• Icons for presence have been modified so that red/green colour blind people can tell the difference between available and busy by looking at the icon rather than the text next to it
• That Excel bug with 65,534 getting shown as 100,001 is fixed
• SharePoint works on Windows Server 2008
• ASP.net AJAX supported on SharePoint for web parts
• Outlook delays with opening large psts eliminated

Office Online Downloads (SP1 will be available here)

Nearly seven months after the Latitude XT was first shown to the world, Dell is finally making its first Tablet PC available to consumers. Dell says that its new 3.53-pound Latitude XT is a ground-breaking device and is among the thinnest and lightest in its class.

The 12.1″ Latitude XT has both pen and capacitive touch technology. Capacitive touch allows users to manipulate items on the screen without the need to apply pressure directly to the display.

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The new

Silverlight is the next generation of .NET based media experiences. More information on Silverlight can be found over at it’s homepage.

When initially loading the website, you will be promt to install Silverlight. You have to have Silverlight installed to view the new download center. Apparently BETA participants are being invited randomly from the Microsoft Connect website. The design is very sleek, and sexy I should add. Other than that, the current download links on the BETA website forward you back to the current Download Center.

Hope to hear some official word on this BETA soon, in the mean time check it out!

AMD reached its lowest share price for more than four years last week and, as a result, its market value dropped to around US$5 billion – that’s $400 million less than it paid for ATI in July 2006.

Intel, AMD’s major competitor in the CPU business, has been on a roll for the past 18 months and is now worth around US$162 billion, which makes the chip giant more than 32 times the size of AMD in monetary terms.

Even worse for AMD is that its partner-cum-archrival, Nvidia, has a market cap of around $19 billion, which makes it almost four times as valuable as the struggling platform company.

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The first dual-core Celeron processor, the E1200, will have core frequency of 1.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and 512KB L2 cache with a price of US$53 in thousand-unit quantities.

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Two labs of America’s top scientists have fallen for the oldest trick in the hackers’ book

A report featured on ABC News concluded that two nuclear labs had been “hacked.”  The true story is a bit more entertaining and the reveals that there is no threat to the country’s nuclear safety.  Real threats such as concerted “hacks” conducted by the Chinese against the U.S. government are certainly a concern, but the only thing dangerous about the compromise at these labs is the stupidity of a few scientists and workers at the plants.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico have made a habit of collecting the social security numbers, names, and birth dates of scientists who visit the plants.  The information is put into a database, which reads like a who’s who of America’s top scientists.

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Cheaper than the X48, but still offering a 1,600MHz front side bus

P45 might be a redundant name to anyone in the UK, but that hasn’t stopped Intel from apparently using the name for its next mainstream motherboard chipset. According to a motherboard manufacturer that we’ve spoken to, Intel is planning to introduce the new chipset in 2008, possibly as early as January, and the rumor is that it will basically be the same as the P35, but with a 1,600MHz front side bus.

The timing of the launch sounds about right to us, as Intel is also planning to launch its first CPU with a 1,600MHz front side bus, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, in January 2008. Intel also plans to announce its X48 chip for enthusiasts at this time, which supports the 1,600MHz front side bus as well.

The chain’s 103 retail stores will remain open and staffed during the holiday season, offering discounts on computer and electronics.

CompUSA, the computer and gadget retailer controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, has been sold to a restructuring and investment firm that will close stores and sell some company assets.

The new owner is Boston-based Gordon Brothers Group, which recently helped CompUSA sell under-performing stores. The terms of the deal were not not disclosed.

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After an article appeared on the Engadget Web site Dec. 6, a Dell spokesperson confirmed that the PC vendor will unveil its new tablet offering—the Latitude XT—at a Dec. 11 event.

In May, Dell first revealed through its Direct2Dell blog that it would offer a convertible tablet PC by year’s end that would be geared for the enterprise and several vertical markets, including health care and education.

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Much of AMD’s bad luck over the last three months revolves around a nasty bug it just can’t shake

Erratum, to those in the hardware or software industry, is a nice way of saying “we missed a test case” during development and design.

Yesterday, The Tech Report confirmed AMD’s iteration of Intel’s F00F bug.  The bug, which has been documented since at least early November, can cause a deadlock during recursive or nested cache writes. 

How does the TLB erratum occur?  All AMD quad-core processors utilize a shared L3 cache.  In instances where the software uses nested memory pages, this processor will experience a race condition. 

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Full versions, which Microsoft hopes will help spur increased Vista adoption, are due to be released early next year.

Microsoft released on Wednesday new test versions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service Pack, two highly anticipated technologies that are scheduled to be released early next year.

Microsoft also revealed partner resources to prepare customers for the release of the server OS, which the company plans to release to manufacturing on Feb. 27, 2008, the same day as a joint-launch event that also will promote SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. Combined, the three mark Microsoft’s major product release cycle for the year, although the products are not scheduled to be released simultaneously.

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nVidia finally do something for the much complained stock cooler of the new 8800GT. The refreshed version looks like the old one but with a larger fan(75*10mm vs. 65*10mm).

Moreover, the old fan running from 1500 to 4400RPM which produce unbearable noise at full load, while the new fan, rages from 650 to 1650RPM. Yes, that’s right, the RPM when full loading is just slightly higher than the lowest RPM of the old one.

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