Sony on Monday dated and detailed PS3 firmware update 2.40, a gameplay upgrade that includes in-game Cross Media Bar access and Trophy achievements to facilitate nerd cred. As previously unveiled, PS3 update 2.40 will introduce two features already popularized by Xbox 360; a universal system menu during gameplay, and an achievement system that tracks, records, and shares player accomplishments made in game. Firstly, in-game XMB “means you can access the PS3 menu at any time while playing most games, simply by tapping the PlayStation button on your controller,” say Sony. “With 2.40, you can check if any of your friends are online (thanks to their own user profile), read and send messages, change some settings for games, all without having to quit the game you are playing.”

With regards to the Trophy system, all in-game accomplishments will be recognized with either platinum, gold, silver, or bronze hardware, depending on how much content has been unlocked and at what ranking. Xbox 360 recognizes accomplishments with a single Gamer Score, a total of all unlockable points acquired. Sadly, Trophies will be limited to only a handful of games at launch, and they are not retroactive, meaning any supported will have to be replayed to acquire a Trophy.

Source: Gamepro

Software giant Microsoft will stop selling its ubiquitous XP operating system on Monday. But that doesn’t mean the seven-year-old software won’t continue contributing to the company’s financial performance for years to come. Terminating XP was expected. It comes just 18 months after Redmond, Wash.- based Microsoft introduced a new, more advanced operating system called Vista. While the new system is powerful, upgrading means spending lots of time and money to rework applications designed to run XP specifically. As a result, some companies, including Microsoft partner Intel Corp, have balked at adopting Vista, preferring instead to continue using XP.

Though Monday will be the last day Microsoft sells XP or provides free support for the “hundreds of thousands” of computers that are estimated to run on it, the company has come up with a novel way to wring money from the aging operating system: It is killing XP but isn’t letting it die. One way Microsoft will still make money from XP is by charging to provide support. Because the software continues to be popular, Microsoft’s “extended” support program is sure to generate lots more revenue. Microsoft will offer the program at least through 2014. That will likely attract lots of big corporate customers. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make more money by supplying XP to computer makers Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and others. Because Vista has had trouble making headway in the corporate market, computer makers have asked for “downgrade rights” - the right to continue offering XP on their notebook and desktop computers after.

Source: CNN

Beatles music may soon be strumming a new tune via air guitar video games, according to a report in the Financial Times. Apple Corps and EMI, which respectively represent The Beatles’ business interests and ownership of its master recordings, have reportedly been in discussions with video game publishers Activision and MTV Games.Under a possible deal that could be worth several million dollars, users could put their air guitar to use while listening to The Beatles and playing Activision’s Guitar Hero or MTV’s Rock Band games, according to the report.

The move to push The Beatles’ music onto a new stage via video games could occur within the coming weeks, the Financial Times reported. Such a move would mark a change in embracing technology for The Beatles’ music, given that digital-use licenses for Beatles recordings are not yet available. The Beatles representatives, as well as the game publishers, declined to confirm whether a deal is on the horizon.

Source: Cnet

Graduation time is near for most students at Tesoro High School in Orange County California. However, two students are facing the prospect of beginning a prison term rather than walking across the stage to receive their diplomas. One of the teens faces the possibility of 38 years in prison.The two teens, Omar Khan and Tanvir Singh, have been charged with multiple felony counts. Khan’s chargers are by far the most severe with a total of 69 felony counts pending against him including identity theft, second degree burglary, computer access and fraud, removing and secreting a public record and altering and falsifying a public record.

The charges stem from Khan’s attempt to hack into his teachers computer using a stolen password to change his low grades to A’s and B’s. Khan is also alleged to have tried to install spyware to allow him access to the schools secure network remotely. In addition to attempting to change his own grades, Khan is also accused of trying to change the grades of 12 other students. Khan was found out when he requested a school transcript in order to appeal a denial of admission to the University of California for the coming fall semester. An investigation was started after school administrators noticed discrepancies in Khan’s grades. That investigation resulted in the officials finding Khan had original tests, answers and copies of his altered grades.

Source: DailyTech

So at the recent WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) Steve Jobs announced the new Apple 3G Iphone. Sure its got GPS and longer lasting battery but is it really worth it?

For a software version 2.0 and a second generation smart phone its not excactly as advanced as it could be, lets be realistic for a second, if you were a big multi-billion dollar company trying to sell its latest product, don’t you think you would try and cram every last piece of technology into it? Its not like its got to have laser weaponry or anything but i would have liked to see better features than the ones displayed by Apple these past few days.

Such as:

Video capture and the ability to upload that captured video to video sharing websites. A built in copy and paste ability (you have to pay 100 dollars to buy that program. Even though its been used since before computers had even one color on there screens.) So, for a consumer market driven by whats got the most features i think apple have let us down slightly with its mere 3 or 4 software upgrades

But with all the let downs and slight mere changes the prices have been slashed by over half. The 8gb will cost around 100 UK pounds while the 16gb will sell for around 200 pounds.

Am i thinking of getting one? Yes. Why? Because of the price and of the fact that while I’ve bitched about the phone this whole time its still darn good.

Catch ya next time, Matty

Apple on Thursday said music sales on its iTunes store have topped 5 billion songs, and visitors are renting and purchasing more than 50,000 movies each day. Apple, which has surpassed Wal-Mart as the leading music retailer in the United States, put out a brief press release on the latest numbers, offering no further details. The company has a catalog of more than 8 million songs, 20,000 TV shows, and 2,000 films, including 350 in high-definition format. In announcing on April 3 that it had surpassed Wal-Mart, Apple said that it had sold more than 4 billion songs through iTunes. Given that announcement was 77 days ago, that would mean the company has sold nearly 13 million songs a day since then. Apple was not immediately available for comment.

Apple has gotten in trouble before for its iTunes math. In late April, the company said it offered 10 million songs on its 5-year-old store, but later ratcheted the number down to 6 million songs. In August 2007, the company said it had 5 million songs. Apple’s movie collection includes titles from 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Sony Pictures Television International, and Lionsgate. ITunes will rent and sell movies on the same day as their DVD release. Customers using Mac or Windows operating systems must have iTunes 7.6.2 or higher to buy or rent the movies.

Source: InfoWeek

Firefox 3, the recently released open source browser from Mozilla, has claimed that over 8 million copies of the software were downloaded on Download Day. The company stated early that their goal was to surpass the initial release of Firefox 2, at 1.6 million downloads in 24 hours, and hit 5 million downloads. The goal of the marketing campaign is to set a Guinness World Record for most downloaded software in a single day. A few days have passed and, barring the server downtime that plagued users for a few hours, the results look promising for Mozilla’s world record attempt. According to the official Mozilla blog, Firefox 3 easily cruised past 5 million user downloads. “We exceeded 8 million downloads in our 24 hour period,” the blog states. Downloads were tracked from 11:16am PDT on June 17th to 11:16am PDT on the following day.

The next step in the process is for Firefox 3 to be certified by Guinness World Records. To help get their audit logs in order, Mozilla has brought on two external judges: Paul Vixie, of the Internet Systems Consortium, and Corey Shields, of the University of Indiana’s University of Information Technology Services. Once the two judges and Mozilla feel confident that their download logs are in order, they will be handed over to the people at Guinness World Records for verification. If the attempt is verified, Firefox 3 will be the first recipient of the most software downloaded in a single day record. The process of having a record certified by Guinness can take two different paths. If Mozilla chooses not to expedite the service, the results will be released in four to six weeks. On the other hand, if the company opts for Fast Review, the results could be available in three days from the time the logs are submitted.

Source: CRN

Toshiba on Tuesday launched a new ultraportable laptop that it claims is the world’s lightest, putting it in contention with vendors including Apple and Lenovo. The company said the full-featured Portégé R500-S5007V weighs just 2.4 pounds (1.08 kilograms), compared to Apple’s MacBook Air, which weighs 3 pounds, and Lenovo’s Thinkpad X300, which weighs around 2.93 pounds. The laptop measures 0.77 inches at its thinnest point, according to Toshiba. The company also claimed that the new laptop was the first to include a 128G-byte solid-state drive (SSD) to replace the hard drive. Laptops to date have had 64G bytes of storage, though both Lenovo and Apple provide 128G bytes of storage through two 64G-byte modules.

Battery life is also preserved by the laptop’s transreflective 12.1-inch screen, which can shut down the LED (light-emitting diode) backlighting by reflecting the sun’s rays to illuminate the screen, according to Toshiba. For US$2,999, users can get a laptop powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 processor at 1.33GHz, with 2M bytes of cache and 2G bytes of RAM. It will come with Windows Vista Business OS, which is also downgradable to Windows XP Professional. The laptop includes a SuperMulti optical drive that can read and rewrite DVD and CD media, wired and wireless 802.11 a/g/n networking, Bluetooth 2.0 support and built-in safety features to protect laptop data during falls. The Portégé R500-S5007V is a standard configuration, however, Toshiba offers similar configurations with a hard drive option, a company spokesperson said.

Source: NY Times

After several beta releases and a planned bid for the Guinness Book of World Records, Firefox 3.0 has arrived. As of 1pm EDT Tuesday, users can download the latest version of the open-source browser, which includes an improved book marking system and drop-down search returns in the URL bar, among other features. Aesthetically, the browser is not drastically different from its predecessor. The forward and back buttons have been altered, while the browser buttons and window frames have also been redesigned to conform to the look of a user’s operating system, but not much else has changed. On the features front, the drop-down URL bar—dubbed the Awesome Bar—offers suggestions of possible Web sites as you type your search query.

Version three offers a three-tier bookmarking system: bookmark stars allow for one-click favorites; bookmark tags allow you to add details to your favorites; and bookmark folders are saved searches that update when you add new items matching that search to your bookmarks, according to Mozilla. Download manager has also been revamped and now includes the ability to pause and resume downloads, search through downloaded files, obtain more detailed file information, and revisit the original download page. Firefox 3.0 also boasts improved color profiles, font and text rendering, and zooming capabilities, as well as malware and phishing protection, Mozilla said.

Version 3.0 is three years in the making. Mozilla released the first beta version of Firefox 3.0 in November 2007, with version two debuting a month later. Beta 3.0 version 3 arrived in February with major code rewrites of the page layout, graphics, and font engines and over 350 plugged memory leaks. Most recently, Mozilla on June 5 unveiled the second release candidate for Firefox 3 with several localization updates. That came a little over two weeks after RC1 was made available. When the download goes live on Tuesday, the clock will start ticking on Mozilla’s bid to break a Guinness world record for most downloads in a single day. Mozilla said last week on its blog that it has already received at least one million pledges from users who say they will download Firefox 3 on release day.

- Andrew

Sony will soon add a Google Internet search feature as part of a software update for the PlayStation Portable. On the PSP blog Monday, Sony said the new upgrade, v4.00, “replicates the Google Internet search experience. PSP users will need to be connected to the Web via Wi-Fi. The move represents Sony’s continued efforts to expand the Internet features of the handheld. Of course, what users really want is an easy way to download movies off the Web.

Nonetheless, the company continues to force users to buy the much rejected Universal Media Discs (UMD), the mini DVDs that Sony built especially for the PSP, or hack the device with video converters. Sony said the upgrade will also give users the ability to change speeds on playback of video stored on Memory Stick PRO Duo. This allows the viewer to scan quickly through a movie or slow it down.

Source: Cnet