"Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked. The pirate milestone, reached almost three months before Windows 7 is set to hit General Availability on October 22, 2009, was achieved via OEM instant offline activation that passes Windows Genuine Advantage validation and keeps the operating system permanently activated. Previous cracks weren't as solid: while they may be working now, they can easily be disabled by Microsoft. This one won't be so easy."

The venerable master boot record (MBR) partitioning scheme can't fully handle disks larger than 2TB. With 1TB-hard disks now common and 2TB-disks becoming available, forward-looking individuals are thinking about alternatives to the MBR partitioning scheme. The heir apparent is the GUID Partition Table (GPT). Learn how to make sure your Linux system is fully prepared for the future of disk storage.

The discussion around whether or not jailbreaking iPhones should be exempt from the DMCA has just reached a level of ridiculousness that words can't really describe any longer. As some of you might know, Apple and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are in a tussle with one another over whether or not the US Copyright Office should put an exemption in the DMCA allowing the jailbreaking of iPhones. Apple's reasoning for why no exemption should be made is rather... Over-the-top.

The rumours and back-and-forths have been going on for as long as I can remember, but today, the deal was finally announced: Microsoft and Yahoo! have tied the knot - but only strictly related to internet search and advertising. The move is supposed to help both Yahoo! and Microsoft in their competition with Google.

We haven't discussed Psystar in a while, have we? In case you've been living under a rock for a while, Psystar is a Mac clone maker entrenched in a legal battle with Apple. Recently, Psystar changed lawyers, and today they posted a vigorous entry on their website about how ready they are for the fight with Apple.

As Microsoft had already confirmed, it's going to open a line of retail stores later this year. Last week, Gizmodo published a set of detailed slides supposedly detailing the shopping experience Microsoft is going to implement. Today, Microsoft has confirmed those leaked plans are real (but not finalised!), while also announcing the first two store locations.

"Google has opened the source code of several key components of Wave, the company's new collaborative messaging platform. The code, which is available under the Apache Software License, will allow third-party developers to start experimentally bringing Wave-compatible federated messaging to their own software."

It's obvious that physical album sales would decline ever since the rise of iTunes and other online music stores, and who wants to buy an entire album of filler songs online when you can purchase the three or four songs from the album that you want? Apple and its associated record companies have noticed the large decline in online sales of entire albums, which have higher profit than individual tracks, so they're working on a new perk to spark people's interest in buying albums again. What's more is that these doubtful rumors that have been going around about Apple's tablet actually seem to have some truth to them.

Following the Cupcake branch, the Android team is baking something new and deliciously named. The Donut branch will be developing many new features in order to compete with rival phones and OSs like the iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, and webOS. Despite what many others have said, Donut is not going to be Android 2.0, but much of the development going on in that branch will end up being rolled out in the next firmware update. The development from Donut will bring Android a slew of new features, among which are CMDA network compatibility (for Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless networks, purportedly), integrated universal search similar to that of iPhone 3.0's Spotlight, more text-to-speech, "automatic backup, and a home-screen widget to let users easily toggle functions like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth." Following the pastry theme, we may expect to see the next two Android branches to be named "Eclair" and "Flan." The only thing I'm wondering is if Android will evolve to a point beyond personal pastries where we'll begin to see "Lasagna," "Orange Chicken," and "Carl's Junior's Famous Star." I'll buy an Android phone just to get those updates that will remind me just how beautiful the world is.

We focus on this week's tit-for-tat bickering between Microsoft, the GPL and Linus ; and Apple and Palm--caught tugging either end of iTunes with neither willing to let go. Can't we all just get along?

A lot of work is under way in designing the user interface for the next two releases of Firefox - 3.7 and 4.0 - and both of the currently proposed themes (Windows-specific) look interesting. These interface refreshes were needed as well, as the current Firefox interface is showing its age. Looking at the mockup for Firefox 4.0, it all becomes clear: This is Firefox - Chromified.

Adobe Flash. It's everywhere. Not all of us want it, but many are forced into submission simply because it's weaseled its way into a myriad of applied and common uses. This just makes all the worse the news that a vulnerability in Adobe Flash, Reader, and Acrobat applications is allowing malcontents to exploit computers with these products installed.

We've been buying Wireless N draft devices for two years now, and some of us were holding our breaths to see if we'd have to replace that N hardware sooner than expected. Your uber-fast wireless hardware, if you even utilize its speed, is safe. The Wi-Fi Alliance said that the final standard of 802.11n will essentially remain the same with only a few minor additions; most if not all Draft 2.0 hardware will still function properly with final-version hardware. What's more is that the Wi-Fi Alliance also said that the final version of 802.11n will be effective in September and products will start testing the complete version later in the month.

Last week, the European Commission announced that Microsoft is willing to implement a browser ballot screen in Windows so that users can select a browser to install when installing Windows or when setting up their OEM computer. While this makes Opera very happy, Opera would like to see Ubuntu and Apple offer such a ballot screen too.