Zune 4.0 software won't play nice with HDTV Media Center recordings

With the launch of the Zune HD and the CEDIA show just around the corner, we've been hoping this could mean an all new integrated future for Windows Media Center and other Microsoft platforms -- until now. As a few commenters pointed out yesterday, the corrected spec sheet received from Microsoft indicated HDTV and protected Windows Media Center DVR-MS (the files used by Vista Media center) recordings were not supported. We reached out for clarification and received the following:

"Zune HD, and the forthcoming Zune 4.0 PC software, will support and transcode Windows Media Center recorded TV file formats from Windows Vista or Windows 7 that contain MPEG-2 video, in either the DVR-MS or WTV formats. Support is limited to unencrypted SD and HD recordings. HD Files with AC3 audio are not supported by Zune."

As you may or may not be aware, at least in the U.S. , and most other countries, any high definition broadcasts you snag from antenna, ClearQAM or otherwise use Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, meaning the Zune software won't be able to convert them. Current workarounds for bringing Media Center recordings on the go should still be a go, but all we can see is the missed opportunity to tie the two platforms together with easy one click transcoding support. Hopefully Microsoft still has something up its sleeve to pull together Zune and Windows 7 Media Center, but portable DVR recordings ain't it.

LG launches X130 with a powerful cell battery

12 hours. That, according to LG, is the new benchmark by which all wannabe long-lasting laptops will have to measure up. Of course, we've seen similar aftermarket solutions before, but it's good to see a manufacturer stick a flag in the ground -- and a big rump on the back -- in the race for the highest endurance netbook. And boy is the X130 a netbook: 1024 x 600 resolution, 10-inch screen and the predictable Atom N270 et al.

Koreans can grab one now for 789,000 Won ($639), with almost worldwide availability to follow shortly. Check out our review of the X120 for a flavor of LG's history in the market, while we go look for actual benchmarks undermining that legendary battery life claim.

AMD to launch HD 5XXX cards on September 10.

The word is finally out. AMD will launch it’s much anticipated next generation graphics processors code name “Evergreen” on September 10th; ahead of Windows 7’s launch in late October..

For AMD, these 40-nm, Microsoft DX11-compliant GPUs will fundamentally change the graphics industry and give it a clear advantage over Nvidia, again!

The prior generation of ATI cards was such high performance and so cheap that they forced Nvidia to hastily put together competitive video cards.

Sadly, AMD’s Santa Clara, Calif., rival hasn’t shown much of its DX-11 chips yet. However, Nvidia might choose to show off its wares at its own GPU Technology conference at the end of September in San Jose.

Nvidia to introduce new mobile chipsets

Nvidia is planning to introduce three new mobile chipsets in the first quarter of next year. TitledMCP89, MCP99 and MCP85, the first two will be designed for Intel laptops and the third for AMD. It is also reported that Nvidia expects to receive MCP89 and MCP99 orders from Apple - who currently makes a broad use of Nvidia's GeForce 9400M.

In May Nivida claimed that Intel was unfairly stifling its sales of graphics chips for netbooks by offering companies steep combo deals on Intel's Atom CPU and 945GSE chipset (which contains the GMA 950) together. Going back a few months further, the two began a spat over whether or not Nvidia's chipset license covered processors with integrated memory controllers (Core i7 and on, basically).

Nvidia declined to comment on the report.

MSI launches new C-series notebooks

MSI has announced five new additions to their C-Series notebook line that promise a decent selection of specs and starting prices as low as $549. There are three 16-inch models (the CX600, CR600-013, and CR600-017) all of them offering a 1,366 by 768-pixel display resolution and weighing in at 5.4 pounds, while a pair of 17-inchers (CX700 and CR700) sport 1,600 by 900-pixel displays and weigh just under 6 pounds.

All five laptops ship with Vista Home Premium pre-installed, a 320GB hard drive, 4GB of memory, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, and a 6-cell battery, as well as other laptop standards like a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, and 3 USB ports. The 16-inch CR600-017 even includes a Blu-ray drive for some HD movie watching. It costs $649 and carries a 2.1GHz Pentium Dual Core T4300 processor, whereas the remaining four models pack a 2GHz Pentium Dual Core T4200.

On the graphics front, budget-conscious shoppers looking for some light gaming capabilities will appreciate the Radeon HD4330 discrete graphics on CX models. Meanwhile, the CR line settles with Nvidia GeForce 8200M G integrated graphics but also offer an HDMI output that could come in handy with that Blu-ray equipped model. Overall, there’s not much to get excited about here but with prices between $549 and $799 there’s not much room to complain either.

Microsoft confirms Zune HD prices.

It was only a couple of days ago that we were talking about leaked pricing for the new Zune HD. Today, Microsoft has gone ahead and not just confirmed the recent slew of rumors but also began accepting preorders for its next-gen media player at Amazon.com, Best Buy, Walmart and its own Microsoft Store. As previously reported, the 16GB Zune HD Black and 32GB Platinum model will be available for $220 and $290 respectively.

The device will be officially available on September 15, when ZuneOriginals will also begin offering both 16GB and 32GB units in five different colors and the option to customize them with one of 10 new engravings.

The Zune HD is Microsoft’s first portable media player to offer a touch screen, so naturally its biggest competitor will be the iPod touch, which is priced significantly higher at $299 and $399 compared to its similar-size counterparts. Apple will likely introduce new models soon though, and if its strategy with the iPhone is of any indication it might also slash iPod touch prices to comparable levels and leave the old 8GB model on shelves as a lower-end alternative.

Besides confirming pricing and availability details, Redmond also announced a slew of Zune HD-specific accessories for preorder at the Microsoft Store, including two docks and a premium car pack. Check out all the details in the official press release here.

Lenovo debuts IdeaCentre Q700 HTPC

Lenovo has introduced a new HTPC, the IdeaCentre Q700. The system is comfortably nestled between the size and specifications of a nettop and full-blown HTPC. It should fit in perfectly with your other home theater equipment, and its hardware ought to chew through basic HTPC-oriented tasks.

The IdeaCentre Q700 is equipped with an Intel Pentium E5200 2.5GHz CPU and X4500 integrated graphics, 4GB of RAM, and the choice between a 320GB, 500GB or 640GB HDD. Although it's not available with a Blu-ray drive at the moment, it does come with a DVD burner.

It also houses an HDMI and VGA-out, TV tuner, eight USB 2.0 ports (split between front and back), Firewire, an eSATA connector, a 4-in-1 card reader, 5.1 surround sound outputs, gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity. Models are available with a remote and USB receiver dongle, and all ship with Vista Home Premium 64-bit installed.

Granted, you won't be playing high-end games on max with smooth frame rates but the Q700 crams a lot into its 2.36" x 7.87" x 9.84" box. The offer only looks better when you consider its $499 asking price.

Corsair debuts speedy 128GB flash drive

Although Corsair isn't the first to offer a 128GB USB flash drive, they are claiming that their Flash Voyager is the world's fastest. They boast that their new drive makes use of a "revolutionary design that employs a unique controller architecture" and that it achieves SLC performance using MLC NAND flash memory.

Corsair says that the drive is able to achieve read speeds of 32MB/s and write speeds of 25.6MB/s with the limiting factor being the speed of the USB 2.0 interface and operating system overhead. It is encased in red water-resistant rubber to protect it from the accident prone.

The 128GB Flash Voyager GT is available immediately for $399.99 via authorized Corsair distributors and resellers around the globe and ships with a 10-year limited warranty. Though, for that price you can pick up a much faster 2.5" SSD drive, minus the extra portability mind you.

Opera 10 moves into third beta

Generally, any attention on browsers these days is aimed at the big names, Firefox and Internet Explorer, with a sprinkling of affection for Safari every now and then. We can't forget the little guys in that, however, and the long-lived Opera remains in this category. Today Opera has pushed out a new beta of their upcoming version 10 browser, after a successful round of tests and user feedback that enabled them to move forward with the next stage of development.

Beta 3 introduces a handful of new features, with a lot of attention on the user interface and mechanical functionality of the browser. They're also citing stability improvements, something anyone can appreciate. One feature intentionally left out is Opera Unite, a relatively quiet technology that is intended to provide for “inter-browser” communication, an extension of social networking.

If you're an Opera fan or like to try out new browsers, check Opera 10 Beta 3 out yourself at their site.

Microsoft seeking Bing-iPhone integration

Depending on how you measure success in the search market, Bing has served Microsoft well in the short time it's been available. Unwilling to rest on their laurels, Redmond is working fast to push Bing even further, doing everything they can to try and wrest some control back from the ubiquitous Google. They're looking at every avenue and platform possible, including the quickly growing mobile market.

To that end, they have identified the iPhone as an area they can improve in, and as such have begun developing a software wrapper that iPhone app developers can make use of.

The wrapper would let developers easily integrate Bing search results into their applications, likely sorted by the context of the application itself. As an example, someone putting together an application that revolved around finding computer hardware on sale could integrate it with Bing cashback. That's just an example, and clearly Microsoft's intent is to get more eye-time with Bing searches.

The software wrapper is an ideal way to do that, especially since Apple is not a player in the search market. Microsoft truly has only Google to deal with in this, and catering directly to iPhone developers is a clever way to get on the inside of one of the world's most popular mobile computing platforms.

Ban on sales of RealDVD!!!!!

RealNetworks suffered yet another setback yesterday, as U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel backed up an earlier injunction that prevents it from manufacturing or selling its RealDVD disc-copying application on the grounds that it breaks copyright law. The original injunction came on October last year shortly after the software’s debut, and it will now hold until the case is resolved at a full trial.

Often criticized online for its lackluster software history, RealNetworks actually found support on message boards and blogs for releasing RealDVD and standing up against the almighty Hollywood studios. But as far as legal issues are concerned, things are still on sketchy ground.

RealNetworks claims use of its RealDVD software falls under the fair-use doctrine, as it allows the copying of legally owned DVDs without breaking or modifying the original CSS encryption nor allowing users to distribute their backups. At the same time, however, it also opens up the possibility of borrowing or renting DVDs to make digital copies of them. But should RealNetworks be held liable for what use people give to the software?

Essentially what the courts are telling consumers is that it’s okay to make digital backups of their DVDs but not to build the tools necessary for the job – negating the possibility of fair use in the first place. A final decision is still to be made at a future trial; in the meantime you can resort to one of many readily available free and paid tools that offer similar disc-copying functionality.

µTorrent 2.0 beta released..

One of the most popular BitTorrent clients on the planet – and a favorite of ours – is nearing its next major development milestone. The first beta of uTorrent 2.0 for Windows went live recently complete with bug fixes and a handful of new features. Tracker owners in particular have been looking forward to this release as it finally implements support for the high-performance low-overhead UDP tracker protocol.

As TorrentFreak explains, UDP trackers are much less resource intensive than HTTP trackers, and most torrent sites out there already support it. Essentially what this means is that torrent trackers will be able to support many more users with their current hardware and not crash under the load, while on the other hand users would avoid browsing slowdowns since UDP trackers do not interfere with HTTP traffic.

Vuze, BitComet, Deluge, KTorrent and several others have already implemented this feature but uTorrent’s popularity should further boost widespread adoption of the protocol.

There are a few other changes in version 2.0, including a transfer cap feature which will help users with cap-limited bandwidth avoid overage charges or having their service cut off. You can track your usage in megabytes, with a handy graph to visualize it, and even configure uTorrent to shut down once the predefined limits have been hit.

Last but not least, uTorrent enjoys several improvements to its uTP support, which allows the client to automatically regulate its bandwidth usage to avoid adversely impacting your internet connection and other locally-running programs. The full list of changes can be read at the uTorrent forums.

Microsoft barred from selling Word

Microsoft has been ordered by a US District Court to halt sales of its popular word processing application, Word. Judge Leonard Davis has ruled that the software-giant is guilty of patent infringement and has prohibited it from selling, importing, testing, demonstrating or marketing any Microsoft Word products able to open XML, DOCX, or DOCM files (XML) files containing custom XML.

Plaintiff i4i sued Microsoft in March 2007 claiming that it violated a 1998 software patent (number 5,787,449) for a document system that eliminated the need for manually embedded formatting codes. One of the fundamental features of the markup language XML is that it is readable by both people and machines. XML allows developers and users to define their own tags for data - unlike other markup languages like HTML which have predefined tags.

Microsoft has already paid $200 million after a federal jury ruled that the XML properties of Word 2003 and Word 2007 infringed on i4i's patent. Redmond accumulated another $77 million in fees after the most recent ruling, $40 million for willful patent infringement and $37 million in prejudgment interest. The company must comply within 60 days and is planning to appeal the verdict.

BFG launches liquid-cooled Nvidia GPUs, modular PSU

BFG is reaching out to gamers and PC enthusiasts this month with new products that promise speed and efficiency. First up is a pair of maintenance-free, self-contained liquid-cooled Nvidia GeForce graphics cards; the GTX 285 H2O+ and the GTX 295 H2OC. Both cards feature BFG’s new ThermoIntelligence Advance Cooling Solution, which in other words means you can enjoy the benefits of water cooling without the hassle of installing a custom solution.

The new cards have been developed together with CoolIT Systems, are easy to install right out of the box and never need refilling or additional components. They're also factory overclocked and can run using three different speed settings – Auto, Quiet, and Maximum – to control acoustics and performance. The benefit, according to BFG, is up to 30C cooler temps under load when pitted against standard air cooled models.

You can expect to pay dearly for these cards, though. BFG’s GTX 295 H2OC currently sells for $850 on Newegg and will be joined by the GTX 285 H2O+ tomorrow at a still unknown price.

The company also announced the EX-1000 recently, a 1,000 watt modular power supply certified with the 80 PLUS Bronze rating, which indicates an efficiency of 80% or greater under real-world loads. The EX-1000 comes with a lifetime warranty, 24/7 tech support and is available now exclusively at Best Buy for $199.99.

Microsoft: Dropping IE6 support not an option

Despite enthusiastic efforts around the world to move on to something better, IE6 is unlikely to go anywhere for a long time. Numerous alternatives exist, from Microsoft themselves, Mozilla and others, but while the software giant would like to see IE6 gone as much as anyone else it's still up to users to make the final decision to upgrade.

A post on the IEBlog touched on this topic recently and basically concludes that dropping IE6 support is simply not an option, for a variety of reasons. One of these includes the substantial user base that clings to the old browser, which still represents millions of web-connected users. Another and arguably more important reason is the commitment level Microsoft has to maintain.

They are stuck with the fact Windows XP shipped stock with IE6, and they have an obligation to continue supporting it for the lifetime of the product. That's a problem for Microsoft since extended support for Windows XP – and thereby IE6 – continues for another five years.

We're talking just Microsoft here, of course. Any other company around the world can choose to support whomever they wish – YouTube will soon drop support for IE6, most web developers cater exclusively to IE7 or higher and many other sites are urging users to upgrade as well. Ultimately, IE6 will die, but it is clear that Redmond expects that death to be slow and painful.

Kingston specs up its SSDs with new V+ series

Memory maker Kingston has expanded its range of solid state drives today with the introduction of the SSDNow V+ series. Available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities, the new drives offer higher input and output operations per second (IOPS) as well as faster read and write speeds than their non-plus SSDNow V predecessors, at up to 220MB/s and 180MB/s respectively.

They also have fairly modest power requirements drawing 0.15W while idle and 2.6W when in use. As you might expect though, while Kingston’s V series of SSDs are part of the company’s value-driven solutions, the improved performance and higher capacities will indeed come at a price. Things start at a somewhat reasonable $254 for the 64GB model, but get out of reach for most users with the 128GB and 256GB versions reportedly set to debut at $500 and $992.

The new SSDNow V+ range sees Kingston move away from simply rebranding Intel’s SSDs as it has done in the past, instead putting a Samsung S3C29RBB controller at the heart of the new 2.5-inch SATA drives.

Zune HD prices leaked, start at $220 for 16GB model

Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD has seen a lot of good press in recent weeks. Its high-quality OLED screen along with the HD video support and souped-up graphics are just a few of the things that may give it an edge over the iPod touch. Now, thanks to some shots of the Best Buy inventory system obtained by Gizmodo and a subsequent leak by Amazon we also know what the portable media player will cost.

According to reports, come September 8 there will be a 16GB model selling for $220 and a 32GB model priced at $290 – color options appear to be black and silver. This puts the Zune HD well under the price tag of an iPod touch which rings in significantly higher at $299 and $399 for those sizes.

But Microsoft may not have the upper hand for long since Apple typically announces changes to its iPod lineup in the fall. The Cupertino-based company could drop the price of its touch screen media player around the time Microsoft’s device launches, or perhaps maintain it with hopes that the rumored microphone and camera on an upcoming model will make up for the difference. We’ll just have to wait and see – for now you can watch a short video showing the Zune HD’s interface and media playback after the break.

Intel issues firmware fix for 34nm solid state drives

Intel today released a new firmware revision to address an issue with its second-generation 34nm solid-state drives. The bug, first discovered a couple of weeks back, could cause data corruption for those who altered or disabled the drive’s password within the system BIOS, and was considered serious enough for the outfit to temporarily halt shipments of the new drives.

Owners of affected 34nm drives can grab the firmware update tool at Intel's Download Center. You'll need to burn the ISO image to a blank disc, then boot off the disc and run the updater from there. Be sure to check the readme file for possible incompatibilities (the update might not work with some Nvidia chipset based systems, for instance) and follow the instructions included in the Firmware Update Guideline.

Intel, others license SLI technology for P55-based motherboards

Nvidia has announced that several top manufacturers have licensed SLI technology for use on their Intel P55 chipset-packing motherboards. The boards are designed for the upcoming LGA 1156-based Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs codenamed "Lynnfield." Among the companies are Asus, EVGA, Intel, Gigabyte, and MSI. As such, those who buy a P55-based motherboard and a new Core i5 or i7 CPU will be able to furnish their PC with any combination of Nvidia GeForce video cards - including Quad SLI.

With the addition of the latest Core i7 and i5, SLI is now obtainable on all consumer PC platforms, including the Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo as well as AMD's Phenom II. An Intel exec said that SLI is the perfect complement to their future CPU and system board offerings. The Lynnfield line and corresponding motherboards are expected to debut in the third quarter of this year, probably next month.

Facebook to acquire FriendFeed

Facebook announced today that it will acquire FriendFeed for an undisclosed sum. Most are viewing Facebook's move as an attempt to equip itself for a "real-time" Web war against Twitter. All 12 of FriendFeed's employees will join Facebook, with FriendFeed's founders holding senior roles on Facebook's engineering and product teams.

I wouldn't be surprised if you are unfamiliar with FriendFeed, as it never really took off in the mainstream. In short, it is a service designed by former Google employees who were involved with projects including Gmail and Google Maps. The service consolidates updates from the social media in real-time and is considered to be an innovative product.

The crew behind FriendFeed is enthusiastic about teaming up with the minds behind Facebook. FriendFeed will continue to operate normally for now, until a long-term plan is established.

Tr.im may close soon.

Tr.im, one of the many URL shortening services on the Web has closed up shop after failing to find a buyer. Parent company Nambu Networks described the service as a costly and futile effort to maintain. The company reportedly approached numerous businesses in the Twitter development world in an attempt to find a purchaser, but none were interested - even for a "minor amount."

Nambu Networks says it attributes Twitter with the success of competitor bit.ly, calling it the "clear market winner." It went on to say that Twitter has all but sapped them of the energy to double-down and further develop tr.im. In addition to the fact that bit.ly is the default for Twitter users, tr.im recently suffered from a denial of service attack last week which knocked it offline and certainly didn't help anything.

Tri.im is no longer accepting new links, and existing URLs will be redirected until at least the end of this year. There has been talk of the service living on as some form of an open-source project, but nothing is certain at this point.

Google Voice to be retooled as Web app for iPhone.

Even though Apple prevented it from listing Google Voice on the iPhone App Store, Google is planning on retooling the application as a Web-based app, according to The New York Times.

In David Pogue's Friday column regarding the ongoing saga of Apple and Google Voice, he reveals that Google has already found a loophole:

Already, Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app--except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.

Google Voice is a free application that lets users assign a single number to ring their home, work, and cell phones, and also get voice mail as text transcriptions. There's speculation that AT&T is behind the decision to block the application since Google Voice allows cheap international calls and free text messages.

It's not clear if simply making Google Voice available as a Web app will change Apple's mind, but there is precedent. Apple also rejected Google's Latitude for the iPhone until it was remade as Web app.

A Google spokesperson did not say how close to completion the project might be, but reiterated a previous statement. "We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers."

Mozilla issues first Firefox 3.6 alpha version

Mozilla has released the first alpha version of Firefox 3.6, a browser with speed improvements and new features the organization hopes to finalize faster than its predecessor.

"Unlike the year that passed between Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months," Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post Friday.

Firefox 3.6, code-named Namoroka, has a variety of changes, but it's not as dramatic a departure as 3.5 was from 3.0. Among the 3.6 features are faster JavaScript, the Web programming language Firefox executes with its TraceMonkey engine; faster page-rendering speed; some new features for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology for controlling some of the look of a Web site; and a feature called the compositor that handles complicated layout circumstances better.

Performance is a big issue with browsers these days as people spend more time using them and programmers create more sophisticated sites and applications that live on the Web. All major browser makers are emphasizing performance improvements in their newest versions.

Download links for the first Firefox 3.6 alpha are at the Mozilla Developer Center.

Microsoft joins HTML 5 standard.

After leaving much of the creation of a new version of HTML to Apple, Google, Opera, and Mozilla, Microsoft has begun sinking its teeth into the Web standard.

The move adds clout to the effort to renovate HyperText Markup Language, the standard used to describe Web pages, which last was formally updated in 1999. In a mailing list posting on Friday, the software giant offered a host of questions and concerns with the present proposal.

"As part of our planning for future work, the IE team is reviewing the current editor's draft of the HTML5 spec and gathering our thoughts. We want to share our feedback and discuss this in the working group," said Internet Explorer Program Manager Adrian Bateman in the message. "I will post our notes as we collect them so we can iterate on our thinking more quickly. At this stage we have more questions than answers, but I believe that discussing them in public is the best way to make progress."

HTML 5 in its current draft form includes a number of significant advancements, notably several that make the Web a better foundation for applications, not just static Web pages. Among the present HTML 5 features are built-in video and audio, the ability to store data on a local computer to enable use of Web applications even when offline, Web Workers that can perform computational chores in the background without bogging down Web application responsiveness, Canvas for creating sophisticated two-dimensional graphics, and drag-and-drop for better Web application user interfaces.

The formal HTML standard is under the governance of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and Microsoft's Chris Wilson is a co-chairman of the W3C group developing HTML. But much of the course of HTML 5 has been set so far outside that by a separate effort called the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), which browser makers launched years ago when they didn't like the XHTML 2.0 direction the W3C was trying to take HTML.

Microsoft hasn't been uninvolved in HTML 5. It's the origin of technology in HTML 5 called ContentEditable, which lets elements of Web pages be edited in place by people using a browser. And Microsoft said its newest browser,Internet Explorer 8 also supports these HTML 5 components: the DOM Store, Cross Document Messaging, Cross Domain Messaging, and Ajax Navigation.

But the new message indicates Microsoft is getting serious about the effort, digging into many nitty-gritty aspects of the proposed specification. That's important because Microsoft has of late embraced a standard-centric philosophy when it comes to what technology IE supports, and IE is of course the dominant browser on the market.

Microsoft declined to comment for this story.

Google, Apple, and Mozilla have been trumpeting HTML 5 features in their latest browsers, but Microsoft takes a more cautious tone.

"The support of ratified standards (that Web developers) can use is something that we are extremely supportive of," said Amy Barzdukas, general manager for IE, in a July interview. "In some cases, it can be premature to start claiming support for standards that are not yet in fact standards."