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Microsoft

Silverlight 2.0 Released 164

Posted by kdawson from the opposite-of-sun dept.
rfernand79 writes "Via Scott Guthrie's Blog for Microsoft, we find out that Silverlight 2.0 has been released. The blog post notes some interesting statistics, including the magnitude of video streamed during the Olympics and the Democratic National Convention (both using Silverlight). 'Hello Worlds' and educational links are included in the post."
Windows

Windows 7 Won't Have Compact "MinWin" Kernel 580

Posted by kdawson from the starting-over-is-hard-to-do dept.
An anonymous reader points us to an interview Microsoft's Windows 7 development chief, Steven Sinofsky, did with CNet. He reveals that Windows 7 will be a further evolution of Vista, and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. "We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
Encryption

Atari Founder Proclaims the End of Gaming Piracy 831

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the until-they-build-a-better-crack dept.
OMGZombies writes "Speaking on a conference held yesterday in New York, the Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said that a new stealth encryption chip called TPM will 'absolutely stop piracy of gameplay'. The chip is apparently being embedded on most of the new computer motherboards and is said to be 'uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords' though it won't stop movie or music piracy, since 'if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it.'"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to patent in-game stalking (newscientisttech.com)

Submitted by
b100dian
b100dian writes: "From NewScientist:

As spectator sports go, video games are no match for the football terraces or the racing stands. But Microsoft hopes to change that by giving its video games a "dynamic spectator mode", in which the footage is streamed to a third party who becomes a virtual observer but takes no part in the action.
Read the full dynamic spectator mode patent application.
Question: can you mention at least one existing game that already has this?"
NASA

Journal SPAM: Atlantis Launch 2

Journal by stoolpigeon

Earlier in the day there were quite a few clouds. We drove through some showers around 16:00 or so - but by 19:00 things were looking very nice. I had taken my daughter out to dinner, and the schedule was kind of tight. We left the restaurant, and out of habit, I went to hop on the 528 and head home. This was a mistake. Even though the launch was 30 minutes and over 50 miles away, the toll-road was a parking lot. I weaseled my way to the first available exit and carved a new route home.
Announcements

Submission + - Dell Suddenly Discontinues E1405/640m Laptop

Submitted by halcyon1234
halcyon1234 writes: As of sometime last night, Dell stopped offering the E1405/640m model. Shopping carts containing the 640m were deleted, and all links to the popular, portable laptop no longer work. Sales reps say the product either at the end of life. Some customer service reps admit that Dell is no longer able to purchase the parts needed to build the 640m, but they have not been specific as to which suppliers or parts. A replacement model is expected sometime in the coming weeks. Until then, anyone who has ordered a 640m, or is looking to have their 640m serviced, is out of luck.
Upgrades

Submission + - Buying a new laptop - Apple with BootCamp or PC?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: So here's the deal — I've finally decided (cheap as I am) that it's time for a new notebook. However, it's been such a long time since I actually purchased one (I usually, as many of you probably do, just get by with whatever I can garbage-pick and squeeze another year out of) that I don't really know what the best way to go is. The low-end MacBook is no slouch and provides a fast processor, good expandability and features in an appealing package at a good price. However, I've also been looking at some of Dell's mid-range business offerings (the D620 in particular) and I can't decide. With the MacBook, I can run Boot Camp and have the best of both worlds — or so it seems — for a lower price. The question really comes down to this: have any of you made this same half-hearted switch, and if so — what problems have you encountered? Does the Mac really run well under Windows? Does it even matter? I await your replies.
Software

Submission + - New Pidgin pixmaps

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Well, these days the Pidgin (former Gaim) team has come up with some new images to represent the IM app we all know and love. My anonymous opinion is that they suck... badly. What does the slashdot crowd think? Is it to late to help the Pidgin developers with some cool and web twooish ideas?
Networking

Submission + - OneTeam, Mozilla/XUL Instant Messaging Client

Submitted by
HumanTorch
HumanTorch writes: "A new Mozilla/XUL based IM Client has been announced. There have been several trials in the past, but the development team seems to be serious in building the "Firefox of Instant Messaging" by leveraging a plugin development community. The client also aims at corporate Instant Messaging, with features targetting productivity, by providing control on who and when people can interrupt you.

What do you feel would be the killer feature in a new corporate oriented IM client ?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft e-mails show Mac OS X Envy

Submitted by MCSEBear
MCSEBear writes: Information Week reports that Microsoft e-mails submitted as evidence in the state of Iowa's anti-trust case show definite OS X envy among Microsoft execs.

In 2004 after Apple demonstrated details of Mac OS X Tiger: "Lenn Pryor, former director of Microsoft's platform evangelism, said Spotlight, the new Mac OS X 10.4 search tool that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs highlighted at the conference, was "amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn-land today." Pryor now works for Skype.

[Jim] Allchin agreed. "I don't believe we will have search this fast," he wrote in an e-mailed reply June 30, 2004."
Windows

Submission + - Vista Voice Commands Could Be Run From Afar

Submitted by andreamer
andreamer writes: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?&p=416

It's possible to record Vista voice commands and put them to automatically play on a website, and if someone navigates to that website, the commands are accepted as valid and will run on your computer. While it seems like anyone with half a brain would just turn off the sound, it's still amusing that they didn't think to have it filter out sounds coming from the computer itself.
Announcements

Journal Journal: PDF to become an open, ISO standard

Journal by LWGLIN

This is great news: "Adobe Systems Inc. on Jan. 29 announced that it has released the full PDF (Portable Document Format) 1.7 specification to AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management. AIIM, in turn, will start working on making PDF an ISO standard."
Now I won't have to start endless discussions with people not liking PDF because it is 'proprietary', an argument that IMHO made no sense because Adobe has alwa
X

XFCE Adds Icons, Switches to Thunar in v4.4 83

Posted by timothy from the longtime-companion dept.
b100dian points out yesterday's release of XFCE 4.4, writing "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE is really evolving. Besides adding desktop icons, introducing Thunar (in lieu of xffm) and MousePad, applications that are as simple as they are effective, and Terminal, which has built-in support for desktop composition (supported by the window manager out-of-the-box), it also introduced (finally!) a shortcut for the pop-up menu (you can see in the tour that Ctrl-Esc is bound to this menu). Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever:)" I've been using Thunar a lot lately (mostly under Gnome) because the renaming feature is powerful but reasonably intuitive -- very handy for cleaning up digicam photo names.
X

Submission + - XFCE 4.4 released

Submitted by
b100dian
b100dian writes: "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE is really evolving.
Besides adding desktop icons, introducing Thunar (en lieu of xffm) and MousePad, applications that are as simple as effective, Terminal that has built-in support for desktop composition (which is supported by the window manager out-of-the-box), it also introduced (finally!!) shortcut for the pop-up menu (you can see in the tour that Ctrl-Esc is binded to this menu)!!.
Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever:)"

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