New Zunes to take on Apple’s iPod

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Microsoft has launched three new models of its Zune digital media player in an effort to compete with Apple’s iPod.

The players – which come in 4GB, 8GB and 80GB models – have wi-fi so users can automatically download music, photos, and video from their computer.

Microsoft is also launching a social networking site dubbed Zune Social to allow users to display and share music.

Last year Microsoft sold 1.2 million Zunes compared to 100 million iPods shifted since its launch in 2001.

The new players go on sale in the US in mid-November. There are no details yet as to when they will be released in Europe.

They will be priced at $149 (£73), for the 4GB player, $199 (£97) for the 8GB player and $249 (£122) for the 80GB player.

It comes with a familiar circular touch-sensitive navigation button.

Full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7025821.stm

Battle to beat fake Ebay e-mails

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Fake Ebay and Paypal e-mails which are used to con users out of money are being targeted by a secure mail system.

The online auction site and web pay service are working with Yahoo to use the firm’s anti-phishing technology.

The firms are supporting the emerging standard known as domain keys, which block fake e-mails by validating the sender with a digital signature.

Spammers hide their identity by using a false, or spoofed, address in the millions of messages they send out.

The technology, called the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), will be available to millions of Yahoo Mail users worldwide in the coming weeks.

"It is a big step forward for consumers in defence against the bad guys," John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail, told Reuters news agency.

Full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7027451.stm

Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal

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Microsoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute.

The European Court of First Instance upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position.

A probe concluded in 2004 that Microsoft was guilty of freezing out rivals in server software and products such as media players.

Microsoft has two months to appeal at the European Court of Justice.

"The Court of First Instance essentially upholds the Commission’s decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position," the court’s statement said.

Microsoft’s top lawyer said it was important now for the company to comply with EU competition law, but that it had not yet decided on its next legal steps.

More on this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998272.stm

Fossett sought via Google Earth

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Images from Google Earth are being enrolled in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett.

Many people are scouring up-to-date satellite images of Nevada to try to spot Mr Fossett’s downed plane or wreckage.

The project is being co-ordinated via Amazon’s human-powered problem solving scheme called the Mechanical Turk.

It comes after a frustrating weekend in which searchers failed to turn up any sign of Mr Fossett.

More on the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6987358.stm

Windows Live @ Edu brochure

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Ray Fleming and Mark A’Bear have been busy with their Education Partners blog and recently published this Windows Live @Edu brochure (using Skydrive of course). What is Live @Edu? The guys explain:

Windows Live @ Edu is a hosted email service available free of charge to colleges and universities, which is hosted on the Windows Live Hotmail platform. It allows establishments to choose their own email domain name (for example, students.oxford.ac.uk) and use that for all email provision for their students. The back-end is linked to the university’s Active Directory, so that users are actively provisioned. It gives students a 2GB mailbox and unlike Hotmail, is advertising free. There are over 20 universities or FE colleges now using this system in the UK.

Although the mail service is free, there is a partner revenue opportunity from this service – the integration and configuration services from the mail service to the institution’s Active Directory (using Identity Lifecycle Management 2007)

Good to see a UK specific document and the speaks plain English about the service and its benefits.

 Continue At Source

WHS Rocks Berlin: New Partners, New Systems, New Pics!

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Berlin’s IFA is the world’s largest consumer electronics exhibition. Bigger than CES, bigger than CeBIT and this year it’s where the Windows Home Server roadshow kicks into gear. (To Charlie’s comment re: German football, at this point I should confess that I was at Wembley last week to see the Germans beat England 2-1. Gutted is not the word. But having been at the World Cup over in Germany last summer, I can say it’s a brilliant country in which to watch football. Watch out though for the Weissbier, it’s lethal :-))

Microsoft today offered a press preview of several of the new Windows Home Server systems hitting the market later this year, and I’m delighted to say, we had a couple of friends of the site there who have provided some great photos of the new hardware.

Whilst we were expecting to see the Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo Home Server and HP MediaSmart systems on display, along with a debut showing of Medion’s Home Server, I was surprised to see a couple of new partners show off their systems at the event.

The photos you’re about to see have come from Sebastian Kuback from winfuture.de – they have a full photo gallery, as well as videos from the event which are well worth checking out. You can brush up on your German whilst you’re there too (hint: Google Translate is your friend). Thanks to Sebastian for sending these images over for us.

Article continues here: http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2007/08/30/whs-rocks-berlin-new-partners-new-systems-new-pics/

Interview: What Vista SP1 means to you

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The first service pack for Windows Vista is slated for release to manufacturing in the first quarter of 2008. The announcement was made via Microsoft’s Windows Window Vista Blog by Nick White, a product manager at Microsoft. We got a chance to sit down with White to talk about SP1 (see interview below).

On the blog post, White made it a point to mention this service pack is quite different from other service packs offered for previous versions of Windows. Microsoft is taking full advantage of Windows Update to send improvements to Windows Vista customers rather than relying on one big service pack. That being said, the message for Windows Vista SP1 is don’t expect new features, but some components do gain new functionality.

So, the biggest question is what will be in Windows Vista SP1? The first is quality improvements (security, reliability, and performance) including all previously released updates. Next, SP1 will include additional support for hardware and standards including an Extensible Firmware Interface (ESO) and an Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT). Probably, the biggest group to benefit from Windows Vista SP1 is administrators.

Benefits of SP1 for administrators include the ability to use BitLocker Drive Encryption to encrypt extra local volumes besides just the C drive. Disk DeFragmenter has been enhanced to allow administrators the ability to control which volume the program defragments. The Network Diagnostics tool has been expanded to help diagnose common file sharing problems and issues associated with printing to local printers from a Windows Terminal Services session. If you manage Group Policy, tools are being updated in SP1 to simplify policy management.

A beta of Windows Vista SP1 will be available “in the next few weeks,” but only a small group of testers will be able to get their hands on it. Following the beta, a pre-release of SP1 will be available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers.

Read more from the Window Vista Blog and the Windows Vista SP1 white paper.

As you might expect, we had some questions for Nick White specifically around what the true benefits of this service pack are. Read our interview below and then check out my opinion.

Interview and rest of article here: http://www.geek.com/windows-vista-sp1-what-it-means-to-you

Don’t ban Facebook, pleads union

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The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged employers to allow staff to continue to access social networking sites at work.

The TUC said that, while employers are within their rights to forbid staff from using sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Bebo in work time, a total ban is an over-reaction.

“Simply cracking down on the use of new web tools like Facebook is not a sensible solution to a problem which is only going to get bigger,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

“It is unreasonable for employers to try to stop staff from having a life outside work, just because they cannot get their heads around the technology.

“Better to invest a little time in working out sensible conduct guidelines so that there do not need to be any nasty surprises for staff or employers.”

Article continues here: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2197747/ban-facebook-pleads-union

Bank’s U-turn on student charges

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A student campaign using the social networking website Facebook has forced an international bank into a U-turn over charges.

HSBC is to abandon plans to scrap interest-free overdrafts for students leaving university this summer.

Thousands of students on Facebook had threatened to boycott the bank. The National Union of Students said this made all the difference to the protest.

The HSBC bank said it was not too big to listen to its customers.

Many students said they had joined the bank in the belief that they could take advantage of such a free overdraft to tide them over between leaving university and starting work, the NUS said.

Article continues here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6970570.stm

Facebook’s code leak raises fears of fraud

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Experts are warning internet users to be more careful with their private information after secret code from the popular social-networking site Facebook was published on the internet.

This is the first time that some of the site’s secret operational code has been made public. Although it does not allow hackers to access private information directly, it could help criminals close in on personal data, according to one expert.

Nik Cubrilovic, of Techcrunch.com, said: “This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a user’s private data really is. Facebook has become such a success and has such a high profile that it has become a magnet for attacks against its systems.”

The Facebook craze has been sweeping the world, and the site now has more than 30 million users, including 3.5 million in Britain. New users registering for a profile on the site usually publish their date of birth and home town for anybody to see, and in many cases let approved friends see more personal details such as their home address and telephone number. Though this information is semi-private, criminals who become “friends” with other users have the potential to find out much more information about them.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet