Microsoft slashes Windows Vista retail price in surprise move
Microsoft appears to be attempting to increase Windows Vista sales by making the operating system more affordable both in the United States and abroad.
In the US, the changes will only apply to the Premium and Ultimate upgrade versions of the software. Premium will fall from $159 to $129, while the Ultimate version will now be $219, down from $299.
Performing artists not seeing money from file sharing settlements
In the last few years, major record labels have issued dozens of lawsuits against sites distributing audio and video files of their property. Artists' representatives are now saying the settlement money isn't going where it belongs.
Of the suits that have been settled, Napster agreed to pay out $270 million, and Kazaa acquiesced to paying $115 million from a case launched in 2004, compensating for past infringements, and converting to a legal download business offering licensed music. Universal Music Group, who went up against Grouper and Myspace for copyright infringement, inked a settlement from online video site Bolt.com.
Google gives phone numbers to San Francisco's homeless
Through its Grand Central subsidiary that it acquired last year, Google will provide phone numbers to homeless people in San Francisco by working with the city's shelters.
The project, dubbed Communications and Respect for Everybody (CARE) will join up with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's Project Homeless Connect (HPC) to accomplish this. Along with lifetime access to a permanent phone number, the project offers voicemail as well.
Windows Server 2008: To keep things stable, you need new hardware
Microsoft has a growing number of beneficiaries to whom it must simultaneously appeal. There are OEM partners who want Windows Server to drive sales, and clients who at the same time plead for no more disruptions.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The big message from Microsoft's gala launch on Wednesday had to do with changing the world, and the role information workers may play to that end. Yet Microsoft's own business customers are looking for operating systems to stop making sweeping changes to the way they work, to stop forcing them to make plans around Microsoft's itinerary...and the company's own program mangers are acknowledging this new reality.
Microsoft's Jason Zander on Visual Studio and dynamic languages
The mindsets of the dynamic language programmer and the classical, static language developer are practically different beasts. So can they share the same IDE? We spoke with the man in charge of what aims to be that one IDE, Visual Studio 2008.
Of the two dilemmas, one would probably prefer the type that Microsoft's newly appointed Visual Studio general manager Jason Zander faced this week, to the one facing the SQL Server team: holding a gala launch for a product that actually started shipping last November, as opposed to one that may end up shipping in July.
Zoho joins the supporting ranks of Office Open XML
Online word processing and document collaboration suite Zoho Writer received an update which has made it compatible with Microsoft's Office Open XML file format.
Zoho's free online productivity suite already offered many of the same features as Microsoft Office, and even went so far as to coyly address the need for Office to a Zoho user, mentioning that there's an plug-in for Word and Excel that lets you save directly to Zoho.
Microsoft's Ballmer on reconciling the gap between IT and executives
Along with Bill Gates, Microsoft may be hailing the departure of a mindset and a culture that's fixated on extending its hold on the pipeline of information. At least that's how Steve Ballmer presented his company yesterday.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in front of a projection of what's supposed to be the future, some of which he admitted to be "an inventory of what Microsoft has shown thus far."LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - The post-Gates era of Microsoft is already showing signs of a material difference in the company's objectives and its core message. During yesterday's keynote address for the company's single-day "Heroes Happen Here" launch event, CEO Steve Ballmer presented fewer of the meandering metaphors and enumerated participles that spawn, most obviously, from Bill Gates' mode of speech. And gone was any hint of the almost apelike stance Ballmer took during his famous "Developers, developers, developers" rant of years ago -- though it still managed to populate the screens of show visitors even yesterday, thanks to YouTube.
Wii building sales lead over PS3 in Japan once again
After successfully cutting into Nintendo's considerable lead in console sales over the past several months, Sony is once again losing ground. According to statistics provided by Japanese game magazine Enterbrain, Nintendo sold 331,627 Wii consoles in the four weeks ending February 24, compared to 89,131 for the PS3. This is larger than the 3-to-1 margin in January.
As has been practically consistent since its launch, the Xbox 360 lagged far behind with only 14,079 consoles sold during the same period. With such broad success during the month, Wii games also stood atop the best selling games. Nintendo sold some 1.33 million copies of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, followed by Wii Fit, which had sales of 309,311 units. Both games are produced directly by Nintendo.
In Her Own Words: Neelie Kroes on the MS fines
The European Commissioner stood in front of reporters Wednesday morning to announce the EU's latest round of sanctions against Microsoft.
While BetaNews reported on the news that the EU would be fining Microsoft 899 million euros at that time, we are posting snippets of her comments and answers to reporters questions below in order to give our readers an better idea of the bloc's reasons for this latest round of sanctions.
Why would Comcast need 'seat warmers' to appear to show support?
Comcast has admitted to paying "seat warmers" to attend an FCC hearing held Monday, to hear its arguments in favor of blocking P2P file transfers. But Comcast contends that the seat warmers left once company employees showed up.
In a phone interview today, the organizer of a Federal Communications Commission hearing Monday on the grounds of Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., disputed Comcast's statement, telling BetaNews that its paid "seat warmers" were only hired by the Internet service provider to fill seats until Comcast employees turned up to take their places.
Corsair announces 4x faster flash drive
Corsair announced today its new 16GB Voyager "GT" USB 2.0 flash drive that will be showing at CeBIT next week in Hanover, Germany.
The company typically markets its devices as more rugged than other removable memory devices, with its Survivor line designed to even be water resistant to 200 meters. But the GT is instead shown off for its transfer speeds.
Nobody likes DRM, including attorneys for Microsoft, Real
At this week's Digital Music Forum, lawyers managing digital rights for Microsoft's Zune music download site and RealNetworks' Rhapsody said that they too believe digital rights management to be more of a headache than an asset.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Few would argue that consumers truly like dealing with digital rights management. But attorneys for big music download sites like Microsoft's Zunes and RealNetworks' Rhapsody aren't all that thrilled with managing digital rights, either.
Internal e-mails show concern over 'Vista capable' program
As the looming court battle over the "Windows Vista capable" program draws nearer, a federal judge unsealed internal e-mails which show that Microsoft may have been aware of potential problems long before the suit was filed.
These e-mails are likely to provide the plaintiffs a good deal of evidence that the Redmond company was indeed aware that some of their certified products could not run the more advanced features of the new OS.
Blinkx inks new content deals, goes after 'double-dippers'
Video search engine Blinkx has announced content partnerships today with BBC, CBS and The Weather Channel. If you watch TV while you're on the Internet, Blinkx thinks it can be of service.
Though it does have a history of jumping the gun when it comes to announcements, Blinkx's new partners build considerably its library of 18 million indexed hours of video.
Next edition of .NET Micro Framework adds Web services support
The impending ubiquity of .NET in computing devices everywhere got a big boost this week with the unveiling of a new edition of its handheld and embedded device runtime, now capable of communicating with Web services.
As Java already proved, the ubiquity of a runtime platform depends on its ability to scale up to the data cluster level, and down to the handheld device level. Microsoft would like to one-up Java wherever it can, but in some respects, it has to play catch-up first. This week, the company may have caught up with Java in at least one more department, with the release of Web services support for the .NET Micro Framework, unveiled in its new 2.5 release.
© 1998-2026 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.