Microsoft To Offer Browser Ballot, Caves to EU Pressure

Windows 43 Comments
The browser saga between Microsoft, the EU, and various browser makers just got a new chapter. We all know how the EU and Microsoft are in a legal tussle over the inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows. Microsoft surprised everyone in June by announcing that Windows 7 would ship without Internet Explorer in Europe, a move it had hoped would silence the EU. The EU and Opera, however, were not impressed, and now Microsoft has caved in to the pressure.
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webOS 1.1 Released, Restores iTunes Media Sync (UPDATED)

Wireless 42 Comments
Palm has released the first major update to its brand new webOS platform, version 1.1. It comes packed with a lot of bug fixes, speed improvements, and new features, mostly geared towards the enterprise, but there's also a lot of stuff in there for ordinary consumers. And iTunes sync? The game is on: Palm re-enabled iTunes syncing in webOS 1.1. Update: Palm isn't waiting for Apple to take the next step - Palm has reported Apple to the USB Implementers Forum. "Palm believes that openness and interoperability offer better experiences for users by allowing them the freedom to use the content they own without interference across devices and services, so on behalf of consumers, we have notified the USB Implementers Forum of what we believe is improper use of the Vendor ID number by another member." Update II: More on how Palm masquerades the Pre as an iPod.
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‘Microsoft Exec: Vista Perceptions Could Change’

Windows 42 Comments
"Windows Vista has been dragged through the IT industry mud for most of its life, in some cases for good reason. But Microsoft's OEM chief believes that Windows 7's success will help repair the damage to Vista's reputation and polish its legacy. Windows 7 and Windows Vista share much of the same code, and over time, this could cause Windows Vista bashers to soften their views, said Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. 'I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there,' Guggenheimer said in a recent interview. 'So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista.'"
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Synaptics Introduces 10-Point Touchscreens

Hardware 10 Comments
The iPhone's success with multitouch has been phenomenal, and not without good reason. Multitouch is a valuable asset to a friendly interface, a feature-rich environment, and to a myriad of apps that take advantage of that feature. Now Synaptics has unveiled the workings of touchscreens that are capable of registering up to ten touches at any given time. This will give "multitouch" an entire new level of complexity; entirely new apps, games, and system features will be able to take advantage of having up to ten touches at once, though on I think anything beyond five or maybe six touches is pushing humans' abilities to touch a screen and hold the device with the same hand. These beauties' sensors can be built in sizes up to eight inches, meaning that it can be implemented in phones and MIDs and even the smallest of netbooks. Synaptics has said to keep an eye out for these buggers in 2010-- not to far from now.
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Google to Integrate O3D into Chrome Browser

Google 11 Comments
Google announced their O3D plugin for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms a few months ago, and that was all very well and exciting; this will enable advanced 3D effects to be performed directly in the browser. These new 3D standards on the web will be a very exciting new step in technology. Lately, though, Google has also announced that O3D will eventually be integrated into Chrome. In the words of Greg Spencer, a programmer from Google, "The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration. I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."
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KDE 4.3 RC3 Released

KDE 2 Comments
The KDE project has announced the third release candidate of KDE 4.3, set to be released August 4. "While 4.3 already feels very stable, there still have been quite some changes to the code-base since the second release candidate. In order to have the 4.3.0 release well-tested, the release team decided to put out another release candidate and postpone the final 4.3.0 release by one week. The most notable change is probably a fix for a performance problem in Plasma, where applets would shortly freeze after being resized. This bug has been resolved by delaying the caching of rendered SVG images until after the resizing has finished."
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Apple Withdraws Legal Threats Against iTunes Sync Wiki

Legal 31 Comments
A win for people who hate the DMCA and censorship. As we reported on earlier this year, Apple pressured the public wiki site Bluwiki into removing several pages about how to sync iPods and other devices with the iTunes database without actually going through iTunes. Apple invoked the DMCA and sent several cease and desist letters, after which Bluwiki removed the pages in question. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation got involved, and together with law firm Keker & Van Nest they sued Apple. It worked.
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Intel Appeals Massive EC Antitrust Fine

Intel 1 Comment
In a statement to Betanews this afternoon, a spokesperson for Intel confirmed that the company has filed an appeal of last May's European Commission ruling, in which the company was fined the equivalent of $1.4 billion for what it found to be antitrust violations. According to spokesperson Chuck Mulloy, Intel's theory for its appeal is that the EC was prevented from seeing critical and possibly exculpatory documents, on account of an order of the court trying AMD's civil case against Intel in Delaware.
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Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 Complete, Hit RTM

Windows 32 Comments
It's been a three year long ride. Windows Vista was released January 2007, and its reception by the press was very negative, which made sure public perception was very negative as well. Sales were slow, people wanted Windows XP, and businesses didn't care about Vista either. Microsoft needed something that would make the world forget about Vista, and it needed it fast. The journey is over: Windows 7 has gone RTM.
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Apple Tries to Downplay iPod Fire Incidents

  Submitted by tupp Apple 42 Comments
It seems Apple is on a roller coaster ride this week, going from bad news to good news, back to bad news again. A local television station from Seattle, US, forced the Consumer Product Safety Commission via the Freedom Of Information Act to hand over an 800-page report about fire hazards posed by Apple's iPod music players. Experts on consumer safety agree that it's time Apple makes public statements about the fire hazards posed by iPods.
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If You Give Microsoft Toaster Tech

Humor 13 Comments
In honor of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, that adorable book some of you (or some of your kids) may be familiar with, we now have the If You Give Microsoft Toaster Tech episode. This isn't official Microsoft swag, but someone with spare time on his hands and a knack for tinkering designed this brave little toaster that brands bread with the Windows logo. Of course, I wouldn't buy one of these unless I had the Windows 7 upgrade coupon. This brings to mind: if Apple were to create a toaster, would you have to buy premium Apple bread for it to work? And would there be Psystar and Quo toasters for cheaper? How about a Linux toaster? Fill up the comments below with your wonderfully creative toaster/tech analogies. You could even bleed over into other kitchen appliances (an Ubuntu fridge, for instance, would be nearly good enough for anyone, but you'd have tinker and hack a bit before your ice would come out cubed).
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KDE Reaches 1000000 Commits

  Submitted by lemur2 KDE 30 Comments
The KDE project has announced that it has reached its one millionth commit to its Subversion repository, indicating that the KDE project is very healthy indeed. "This is a wonderful milestone for KDE," said Cornelius Schumacher, President of the KDE e.V. Board of Directors, "It is the result of years of hard work by a large, diverse, and talented team that has come together from all over the globe to develop one of the largest and most comprehensive software products in the world."
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When Will You Get Windows 7 RTM?

Windows 11 Comments
"I recognize this is an important question to have answered. Many of you have said you want to know exactly when you will be able to get your hands on RTM. Last Monday, I gave an update on RTM to close out some myths. In that update, I also gave a broad timeline on when different groups of people - or 'audiences' - would get the final RTM code. While I have nothing new to add regarding RTM today, I do however have more precise information to give on when you will be able to get RTM. Again, when you can get RTM depends on who you are."
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UAE Blackberry Update Is Spyware

Privacy, Security 6 Comments
Blackberry phones in the United Arab Emirates recently received a text from Etisalat, a major provider in the UAE, prompting for users to download and install an update to enhance performance. It was an ill radio wave that brought that text to phones because it turns out that the "update" downloaded was really software designed to collect received messages and send them back to a central server: essentially spyware.
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