Business

Sony has officially apologized for using a sacred and historically beloved Anglican cathedral in its violent shooter, Resistance: Fall of Man. In the eighth level of the game, developed for the PlayStation 3, there is a bloody shootout in Manchester ... Cathedral. "The sequence in question has the player defending the church...against an all out alien assault." (Source: blogcritics.org ) Once the Church of England discovered its presence in the video game, it began a public war against Sony. As a result, Sony appears to be sorry for the uproar. "It was never our intention to offend anyone in the ... (view more)

Is Microsoft finally beginning to get it or is this more smoke? According to Softpedia.com , Microsoft has decided to continue focusing on desktop products. This means Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System will be followed by Windows Seven and ... Office 14. Kevine Turner, Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft, emphasized the fact that Windows Vista will not be the last big operating system release from Microsoft. That also holds true for Office 2007. "There will be another release of and launch of a Vista type operating system. There will be another release of Office, and we're going to ... (view more)

Microsoft put many Xbox users' minds to rest last Thursday, when the company announced that it would be extending the warranty on the Xbox 360. The peace of mind won't come cheap for Microsoft, however, which will take a hit of just over $1 billion ... to provide the extended warranty. "As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures," Microsoft said in a statement. (Source: news.com ) The company said that the investigations revealed many factors ... (view more)

Google has lost the Gmail name battle in Germany. The winning party, German entrepreneur Daniel Giersch, has had his own Gmail trademark in the country since 2000. Google, on the other hand, launched its Gmail service more recently in 2004. This ... specific trademark case is not the first of its kind. In 2005, Google quarrelled with a U.K financial firm that had been offering a Gmail service to currency investors since 2002. It is not surprising that Google lost this overseas case as well; after all, Google's Gmail "does not appear to be an active domain in a number of countries including ... (view more)

In another unprecedented move for Dell, the PC manufacturer is "stepping back" from telling businesses to upgrade to Windows Vista due to challenging migration issues and is warning them about hardware issues they'll have to deal with. "They need to ... be looking at the number of images they will be installing and the size of these images" said Dell's European client services business manager Niall Fitzgerald. "A 2GB image for each user will have a big impact." Microsoft has suggested that a 1GB image was fine for Vista, but Fitzgerald says 2GB image sizes are more likely. (Source: Zdnet.co.uk ... (view more)

On Friday, Google employee Lauren Turner created a post on the official Google blog which criticized Michael Moore's new film "Sicko." The post caused so much outrage that Turner has since posted another note which apologizes for her controversial ... suggestions. In the original post, Turner not only panned the movie but also offered health care advertisers a way to fight back by placing Google ads so that when a user searches for Sicko, their health care ad pops up. "We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding ... (view more)

Although they certainly take a lot of heat from competitors like Google, Apple, or even the Vista-buying public, Microsoft is one of the most iconic and arguably trustworthy names in tech. That's currently working against web mail users, many of ... which are being duped by a security threat that disguises itself as a Microsoft update. Compared to most spam threats, this one is particularly brilliant (and thus, dangerous). The fake emails, which carry and install malware, are actually personalized for the unlucky recipient. According to security company Internet Storm Center, the victim's first ( ... (view more)

Windows Vista Ultimate director Barry Goffe has apologized for Vista's 'Ultimate Extras.' What are 'Ultimate Extras'? Ultimate Extras were initially a key selling point for the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista. When the operating system (OS) first ... launched in January of this year, four extras were released: Windows Hold'Em, 16 language packs, Secure Online Key Backup, and Windows BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool. But since then, the ultimate extras have fallen flat. In fact, not a single extra has been released since January, except for a beta version of a feature known as DreamScene. ( ... (view more)

Although chairman and recent Harvard graduate Bill Gates has bragged that Microsoft has shipped its new operating system, Windows Vista, some 40 million times, there has been much criticism of the product. That's not news. However, word that ... Microsoft will offer more simplified methods of "downgrading" new systems to Windows XP, is. Much to the company's chagrin, customers have demanded that newly purchased computers ship with the outgoing operating system XP rather than Vista, which took some ten years to create. (Source: networkworld.com ) The new, XP-friendly initiative will help customers ... (view more)

When consumers think of portable media devices made by a company whose name starts with 'A', "Archos" might not come to mind. Despite manufacturing some of the first MP3 players available to the public, their products continue to be overshadowed by ... the increasingly popular iPod. Archos is only now realizing that to stay afloat of the market they helped to pioneer, they must come up with products that can match any device produced by Apple. Archos may have found the answer to their prayers in the 605 WiFi media player. The Archos 605 WiFi is a medium capacity touch screen multimedia player ... (view more)