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Mozilla Prepares Firefox 3.5 for Possible Tuesday Release

Justin Kerr — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:52:46 -0500

Betanews claims to have confirmed the official release date of Firefox 3.5, and if correct, it could be as early as Tuesday June 30th. Once out of beta, everyone will have the opportunity to test out a stable version of Firefox’s new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Early tests of the public beta have been impressive, and have pegged TraceMonkey performance at over 200 per cent faster than the previous version, Firefox 3.0.11. These same tests showed both Safari 4 and the Chrome 3 leaving Firefox 3.5 in the dust, but it’s a bit early to jump to conclusions until we can compare the released version of all three browsers side by side. Until then, check out our in-depth preview of the Firefox 3.5 RC.

Mozilla is also hoping that Firefox 3.5 will help them champion the open HTML5 standard, and start putting a dent in proprietary video technologies such as Adobe Flash or Windows Media. HTML5 has seen a lot of support from third party browser developers lately, and could prove to be a very capable and flexible alternative. “Somebody has to take a stand” said Mozilla senior platform engineer Damon Sicore. "Somebody has to put open video on the Web. It's important that these formats are unencumbered. We feel that it's something that's in our mission that we have to do to keep them moving forward, in keeping the Web open."

Have you been playing with the Beta or RC version of Firefox 3.5, or do you like to wait for the final release?

Games for Windows Ups Ante in Anti-Piracy Fight

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:35:26 -0500

Pirates of all ilks are locked in a game of cat and mouse with regulators and content proprietors. Throughout their endless war, both have tightly clung to Newton’s third law: every regulation (action) has an equal and opposite ruse (action). Microsoft has come up with a fresh way to stymie videogame piracy. Its newfangled anti-piracy measure will prevent gamers from enjoying illicit copies of games before the street date.

Copies of Games for Windows Live titles will become playable on a set date – the date of the release of the game. PC games will be authenticated online under this new scheme.

"We have zero-day piracy protection—this helps reduce the leakage of IP before release. The bits are encrypted, and there is a one-time activation that checks to see if the game has been released or not, and we'll send out a decrypt code so the game can be played." Drew Johnston, the product unit manager for the Windows Gaming Platform, told Ars Technica.How will pirates respond?

Image Credit: PCGAMESHARDWARE

id Software CEO: Rage Coming in 2009 (Update: False Alarm)

Nathan Grayson — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:09:34 -0500

Update: Looks like we (along with a few other websites) spent too much time losing ourselves in Hollenshead's beautiful blues and -- hearts full of hope -- skimmed over his real meaning entirely. Maybe if they'd stop making these alarm buttons so red and shiny, we'd be less tempted to press them so often.

“When it’s done,” you’re done. Go running back to Duke Nukem Forever. You knew what this was.

While speaking with GameTrailers TV at last month’s DICE Summit, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead gave gamers the signal to look out over the horizon, because Rage is a comin’.

When asked whether his company’s latest monosyllabic murder simulator would blow its top in 2010, Hollenshead replied, “No, we'll be out this year."

Well, that’s good enough for us. Rage will be published by Electronic Arts and will probably aid F.E.A.R. 2 and Sadness in helping some website establish a “Best Game Ostensibly about a Vague, One-Word Emotion” award category for their best games of – take of whiff of that new release window smell – 2009. We can’t wait to hear more.

Office 14 Won’t Launch Until 2010 – But Will It Delay Windows 7?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:55:49 -0600

During his annual “strategic update” with Wall Street analysts, Steve Ballmer made it very clear that Office 14 will not launch in 2009. Normally outside of the business community, few would take notice of this. But with the high profile beta of Windows 7 igniting a passion in both raging Microsoft fans and Mac / Linux converts alike, a delay on the Office side should have everyone concerned. The reason for this is simple; Office releases usually follow operating system launches extremely closely. Windows XP & Office XP both shipped together in 2002, and Windows Vista & Office 12 shipped together in January 2007 as well. Even though some versions of Office have released in-between operating systems, if we simply rely on history as a guide we won’t be seeing Windows 7 until 2010.

Microsoft released an alpha version of its new office suite back in January, and rumors were swirling that Office 14 would indeed come in 2009, rumors Steve Ballmer has now put to rest. With an open beta not planned until sometime in the summer, it seems likely that the RC (release candidate) version would push well into the fourth quarter and see an early 2010 release.

Now that we know Windows 7 development is far ahead of Office, will Microsoft delay the launch in order to have a concurrent release? Or will it break with tradition in order to capitalize on the good will that has been building since the release of the beta. Let us know what you think.

Rumor: HP to Launch 3G-enabled Mini-Note in June

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:51:47 -0600

Currently all netbook manufacturers are pounding the market with a barrage of netbooks. The intervening lull between successive netbook models is constantly shrinking, leaving consumers spoilt for choice and a tad overwhelmed.

HP is about to launch a new netbook, the Mini-note 2140, in February but a report about its successor has already emerged. Its successor, the Mini-note 2150, will have at least one additional feature in form of a built-in 3G modem, according to Digitimes. The 2150 is rumored to be scheduled for a June launch. Nothing else is currently known about the 2150.

The 10.1-inch Mini-note 2140 will be launched in February with prices beginning at $500.

Rumor: Windows Vista SP2 RTMs in April '09

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:12:28 -0600

The Malaysian website Tech ARP, which previously figured out the release schedule for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3, has looked into its crystal ball again and predicts Vista SP2 will be released to manufacturing in April 2009. First, though, a release candidate (RC) will be released in February.

So, what will be the big attractions in Vista SP2?

Windows Search 4.0
Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack
Native Blu-Ray recording
Windows Connect Now support for easier Wi-Fi connections
UTC timestamp support in the exFAT file system to enable correct file synchronization across timezones

Keep in mind that Vista SP2 will only install on systems running Vista SP1.

So, how does the Vista SP2 release schedule jibe with previous service pack releases? ZDNet's Ed Bott (whom I assisted many moons ago on the book Special Edition Using Windows Me) has run the numbers on the typical timespan between service packs, and finds that the space between Vista SP1 and the predicted release of Vista SP2 is on par with most Microsoft service pack releases other than those for Windows XP: about a year after the previous service pack.

Why is Windows XP an exception? Bott notes that Windows XP broke the pattern established by Windows NT4 and Windows 2000. It took almost two years to release XP SP2 after XP SP1, and almost four years elapsed between XP's SP2 and SP3. Thus, Vista SP2, if it comes out as predicted, will mark a return to normal.

So, what do you think? Does the projected release date for Vista SP2 make sense, or does it still seem "rushed" as some have suggested? Hit Comment and tell us your thoughts.