Business

Discovering that the brand new laptop you've purchased has only a trial edition of Microsoft Word is a bummer. Discovering that Microsoft Works, the cookie-cutter full-version alternative, will feature advertisements in the future only compounds the ... frustration. Announced last Wednesday, Microsoft's new initiative to bombard poor Works users with ads will first run in a test program. There's no concrete date for the new and exciting Works SE 9, although Melissa Stern, a senior Microsoft product manager, says customers can expect to find it on new computers within the next few months. So, why ... (view more)

Is Sony assisting the adult entertainment industry? In terms of technical support, the answer is yes. Japanese companies creating films with adult content have encountered problems while trying to mass produce their products for Blu-ray disc. ... However, there is no need to worry, as Sony has come to its rescue. According to the director of administration for a Japanese DVD replication firm, "Companies cannot press Blu-ray discs because they cannot touch adult-related contracts. So we asked some makers in Taiwan to do the work, and then we import the discs back to Japan. The Taiwanese company ... (view more)

When Microsoft shipped Windows Vista, one new feature that was introduced was a firewall that monitored both inbound and outbound traffic. What Microsoft failed to mention about the firewall is the fact that monitoring outbound traffic is disabled ... by default. Microsoft claims it was disabled because administrators wanted more control over it. Even more interesting is the fact that you can't enable outbound filtering through the Windows Security Center in Windows Vista. The user is required to manually configure the firewall if you want to filter that outbound traffic. To do this in Windows ... (view more)

Microsoft recently boasted that its Windows Vista operating system, software that has been called into question a thousand times over by our Bill Lindner , has crossed the 60 million sales plateau. Even more impressive may be future estimates by the ... company, who foresee more Windows PCs in the world than cars by the end of fiscal 2008. Such a bold, and to some degree irrelevant statement could only be made by CEO Steve Ballmer. He made the mind-blowing analysis very appropriately during a recent "analyst day" in Redmond. Microsoft has continued to parade a list of achievements for its ... (view more)

BSkyB and Sony are teaming up to satisfy European customers. The pair will make it possible for users in the UK and Ireland to download films and television programs with Sony's handheld PSP console. The innovation will be Europe's first PSP video ... download. With the new technology, programs can be downloaded directly onto PSP units using a Wi-Fi connection. Since BSkyB will work with third-party providers, content will be available by subscription. BSkyB picked Sony to be its partner because of the intelligent technology behind the PSP console. In the words of James Murdoch, BSkyB's chief ... (view more)

A few months ago, Microsoft's attempt to multiply its presence on the web was planned through an acquisition of competitor Yahoo. That never panned out, but in its wake now arises what could be an ever more effective plot: partnership with Digg. For ... those who are unaware of Digg, it's a news aggregator where actual users vote on the most "diggable" articles on the web. Any Internet writer, including yours truly, knows a story's clicks can explode if just a few hundred Digg users recommend it to their peers. Thus, for both web publishers and readers, Digg is an enormously influential resource ... (view more)

After coming across the information from the "Does Windows Vista Send Information to the Government?" story , I decided to do a little research on Microsoft, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Security Agency (NSA). What I found was ... very interesting, and it raises some serious questions. It's not clear what software was being used by my source as I wrote that previous post. He may be using some sort of file sharing or peer 2 peer (p2p) program. He posted pictures of a log from the peerguardian 2 program, software that isn't listed as compatible with Windows Vista. Just because ... (view more)

According to Microsoft, the company has now leaped from 40 million sales of Windows Vista (reported a few months ago), to an even more impressive 60 million. For the record, that's a tally of 20 million units sold since mid-May, alone. Word of the ... jump came last Thursday, during Microsoft's annual meeting with financial analysts. The message was delivered by proud papa Kevin Turner, the company's COO. Turner's boasting is intended to steer the media away from reports that Vista is selling poorly, perhaps as a result of some stinging criticism. (Source: rcpmag.com ) It's also an important ... (view more)

The Copyright Board of Canada has given the OK to a tax being placed on iPods and other removable storage memory cards that could be used for private copying. The approval comes despite strong oppositions from both the Canadian Storage Media ... Alliance and the Retail Council of Canada. Kim Furlong, Director of Federal Government Relations with the Retail Council, said that the tax is a dangerous approach. "It's like going into Best Buy and learning the computer is a hundred dollars more just because the government thinks you might download music. It's effectively a hidden tax," she said. ... (view more)

The European Union's executive branch has approved a grant of 120 million euros (about $166 million US) to help fund the German government's next-generation Internet search engine, code-named Theseus. (Source: arstechnica.com ) The grant will be ... distributed among different companies, including SAP AG and Siemens AG, as they begin research on the Theseus project. The project aims to develop "new search technologies for the next generation Internet," including "semantic technologies which try to recognize the meaning of content and place it in its proper context." Semantic technologies are ... (view more)