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Software
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Written by Metal Ghost - Administrator
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Sunday, 09 March 2008 00:10 |
 Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut prices of its Windows Vista operating system sold at retail outlets in a move aimed at pushing customers to switch to the newest version of Windows. The world's largest software maker said it plans to lower retail prices for Vista in 70 countries later this year in tandem with the shipment of the first major update to Vista, known as Service Pack 1 (SP1).
Packaged versions of Windows Vista sold at stores and on the Web account for less than 10 percent of all licenses of the dominant Windows operating system that sits on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers.
Most consumers opt to buy a new PC, which comes preloaded with the latest version of Windows. "We anticipate these changed will provide greater opportunities ... to sell more stand-alone copies of Windows," said Brad Brooks, a Microsoft corporate vice president.
In the United States, Microsoft will reduce prices for Windows Vista Ultimate, the company's top-end operating system, to $319 from $399 for the full version and cut the price for an "upgrade" version to $219 from $259 for consumers who already run Windows XP or another edition of Vista.
It also cut prices for upgrade versions of Vista Home Premium, its mainstream product, to $129 from $159. The price cuts vary by country.
In emerging markets, Microsoft will stop selling "upgrade" versions of Vista, because, for many customers, it will be the first purchase of a genuine copy of Windows. The company will instead sell Vista Home Premium and Home Basic, a stripped-down version, at the upgrade prices.
Two links: |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 14 March 2008 19:44 )
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Written by Metal Ghost - Administrator
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Friday, 08 February 2008 09:43 |
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Microsoft has been discussing the possibility of buying out Yahoo for a year and a half, the company has confirmed during a conference call discussing its proposed $44.6 billion deal. Microsoft is bidding $31 per share for Yahoo, that's 62% more than Yahoo's closing stock price Thursday. “We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.” “Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure,” said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. “The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.” Despite the Microsoft claims, Yahoo has responded with caution to the deal, according to a brief company statement. The Bay Area company appears to contradict Microsoft's assertion of long-running talks and describes the deal as "unsolicited." Yahoo has not rejected the deal out of hand but says it will determine its answer "carefully and promptly" to ensure that a takeover by Microsoft is in its best interests. Oh and ehm .. Yahoo's stock price went up more than 50% in pre-market hours.
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 06:32 |
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 Microsoft has released a Vista update targeted at hardcore gamers and pirates labeled, handily, as the 'March 2007 Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update'. The fix is "a package of software updates that address common application compatibility issues in Windows Vista," according to the firm. It fixes problems whereby games and applications may not install correctly, run properly or could cause system instability and/or instant user death. Maybe not that last one. What's notable is that many of the titles on the list of those updated are of particular interest to gamers and hackers. Lego Star Wars, Battlefield 2 and Age of Empires III all get fixes, which will be a relief to multiplayer game fans.
If you're a hardware enthusiast, you'll be pleased the HDTach, the popular software for measuring hard disk performance, is fixed. And if you're the kind of person that loves to download illegal music and movies, it's good to see that Microsoft has spent its time fixing problems with BitLord and Azureus, two of the most popular BitTorrent clients out there. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 March 2007 03:23 )
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 06:32 |
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  Following the release of its first non-beta Sound Blaster X-Fi drivers for Vista earlier this month, Creative has updated its ALchemy software to support additional games. ALchemy, which Creative introduced back in January, is essentially a wrapper that translates DirectSound API calls into OpenAL calls. Because of Vista's redesigned audio pipeline, the software is necessary for EAX audio acceleration to function in some games running on the new operating system. Aside from a handful of bug fixes, the new version 1.3 ALchemy software adds support for Baldur's Gate 2, Battlefield Vietnam, C & C Generals, The Chronicles of Riddick, Dungeon Siege, Far Cry, GTA 3, GTA Vice City, Hitman 2, Knights of the Old Republic 2, MDK2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Serious Sam 2, and Serious Sam: The First Encounter. A complete list of supported games can be viewed here under the "verified" header. The latest ALchemy software can be downloaded from this page. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 March 2007 05:42 )
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Wednesday, 24 January 2007 08:23 |
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OpenAL wrapper allows X-Fi users to take advantage of 3D sound in Windows Vista as dailytech reports.
Creative Labs has opened up the doors to its ALchemy Project to enable hardware acceleration for DirectSound and EAX audio algorithms in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista. The Alchemy Project is currently in its beta stages and intends to work around Microsoft’s audio limitations in Windows Vista due to the removal of the Hardware Abstraction Layer, or HAL.
Microsoft’s removal of the HAL removes the software layer required by digital signal processors to enable hardware acceleration for various 3D audio algorithms including DirectSound3D and EAX in pre-Vista games. Nevertheless, digital signal processors that support OpenAL can still take advantage of hardware audio acceleration.
The Alchemy Project intends to work around Windows Vista limitations by translating DirectSound calls into OpenAL – essentially an OpenAL wrapper. In order to take advantage of the ALchemy Project OpenAL wrapper the installer copies a few necessary files into each game directory.
The automated installer will install the necessary files into each game directory, if there is official support for the game. Officially supported games include:
- Battle for Middle Earth 2
- Call of Duty
- Call of Duty 2
- Diablo 2
- Everquest 2
- FEAR
- Full Spectrum Warrior
- Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
- Guild Wars
- GTA: San Andreas
- Hitman: Blood Money
- Max Payne 2
- Midieval 2: Total War
- Neverwinter Nights
- Neverwinter Nights 2
- NOLF 2
- Rome: Total War
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Wednesday, 24 January 2007 08:17 |
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 You have to be seriously freaking into Vista if you're even thinking about the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition (seriously, we didn't even think Microsoft was capable of a title like that), but at least the price is on target ($259) and they claim it's signed by the man himself, Billy G. Something tells us it's just an embossed signature print or something along those lines, but either way it's down to you and 19,999 others prepared to get their fanboy on with the latest, greatest version of Windows.
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Wednesday, 24 January 2007 08:10 |
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 Microsoft sent out a press release announcing that they will make its new Vista operating system available for download via the Internet when it debuts at the end of this month. In addition, Microsoft will allow people to upgrade to any version of Vista when they wish at the Vista Anytime Upgrade web site. Finally Microsoft will give families the chance to license two additional copies of Windows Vista Home Premium for $49.99 each from the launch date of Jan. 30 to June 30. In other news, The Wall Street Journal says that Microsoft's Windows Vista is a worthy OS but it is largely unexciting. The author goes on to say that Vista is the best Windows yet but won't win any awards for 'ease of use' either. Microsoft will make Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 available for direct download via Windows Marketplace starting January 30 at suggested retail prices (but without the discs, packaging and manuals of the retail version). Windows Vista editions offered through Windows Marketplace will be available in English only, in either 32-bit or 64-bit versions. Windows Marketplace visitors also can find a wide variety of Windows-compatible hardware and software, including products carrying the Certified for Windows Vista logo. Microsoft also detailed its Windows Anytime Upgrade program, a new option that allows customers to upgrade their existing edition of Windows Vista to a higher-grade edition by way of an online transaction. For example, if a Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Business user decides he or she wants more capability — perhaps to join his home PCs to secure domains at the office, or to experience the multimedia capabilities of Windows Vista on his work laptop — the user can click on the Windows Anytime Upgrade option in the Start menu, select the desired upgrade edition, purchase it online to secure a new digital key, and then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the upgrade. It was previously revealed that Microsoft would be shipping all versions of Vista on a single DVD, meaning that those who purchase the operating system on DVD will not have to download additional parts of the operating system for the upgrade.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 January 2007 08:10 )
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Tuesday, 16 January 2007 04:34 |
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 Google Earth 4 is officially released! The beta program began 6 months ago, and now almost exactly 1 year after GE 3 was released, GE 4 is no longer in beta (latest version is 4.0.2722). See the Google Earth home page for details, or just go download GE 4 now. GE 4 has many new features not available in the earlier version. Many of the features have been described in this blog over the past few months. Here are some highlights and why you should definitely consider upgrading. New Google Earth 4 features: - 3D Models - GE 4 supports a new format which allows for models which have textures. It also supports the new 3D buildings layer. The official release of GE includes lots of optimizations to improve 3D viewing.
- Time Animation - the new time slider appears when KML content has been stamped with time. Read about the new time feature. And, here is a list of the top ten time animations done in 2006 for GE 4.
- New Look - GE 4 has a much cleaner look than GE 3. It devotes more attention to the main 3D view, and has a new navigation gadget which appears in the upper right corner. There are too many enhancements to list them all. Some notable ones are: Support for radio buttons in KML, network link icons animate when loading, new organized menus, and more GE Options.
- Controllers - Support for joystick controllers and flight simulator yokes. And, best of all, the new SpaceNavigator (Windows only at the moment, but a Mac driver soon).
- Regions - GE 4 supports very large image overlays which can be "tiled" or "regionated" so you can view the full detail as you zoom in. See the "Rumsey Historical Maps" in the "Featured Content" layer for an excellent example of this powerful feature.
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Thursday, 11 January 2007 04:02 |
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 The DirectX10 Vista driver for R600 is almost done. ATI is still trying to finish up Crossfire support and to polish up the OpenGL performance in Vista driver but the driver will be ready for hardware launch. R600 is 80nm has a 512-bit memory controller, unified Shader marchitecture, supports DirectX 10 and should make G80 run for its money. The launch should take place in February.
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