Apple iPad Video

Cheaper tablet does not measure up to iPad

By now you’ve probably heard that Apple Inc. sold 3 million of its iPad tablet computers in its first 80 days on the market. Oddly, this is good news for Apple’s competitors. When a tablet priced from $500 to $830 sells this fast, there’s surely enough demand to support a rival product that’s cheaper . . . unless the alternative tablet can’t even approach the elegance and high performance of the iPad.

Which brings us to the Archos 7 Home Tablet, a $200 device available at Amazon.com. The Archos 7 is the first of several tablets coming to market that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

Now there’s a bright idea. Android-based phones like the Motorola Droid and HTC EVO 4G are excellent alternatives to Apple’s iPhone. Why not tailor Android to run on a tablet, just as the iPhone’s software has been superbly modified for the iPad? It could work — but not on the Archos 7, a product hobbled by its reliance on cut-rate hardware and a primitive version of Android.

Windows 7

It’s finally here. Nearly three years after Microsoft unleashed Windows Vista unto the world, crippling otherwise competent computers with obscene system requirements and feature bloat, Microsoft has returned for redemption with Windows 7, otherwise known as “what Vista should have been.” Though not as revolutionary in appearance as its predecessor, Microsoft has promised a slew of long-awaited refinements, including better performance, a powerful universal search, and better driver and hardware compatibility. We popped our freshly minted RTM copy of Windows 7 into the favorite office testbed – HP’s Firebird – and put the new OS through its paces to see whether Redmond can deliver on its promises when Windows 7 hits the streets on October 22.

Check out our Window 7 video review.

Installation

Not surprisingly, the installer for Windows 7 looks uncannily like Windows Vista’s: pop in the disc, navigate through a few questions about where you want it installed, then let it grind out the rest. Amazingly, it took only 17 minutes after finishing up the brief question period to landing on the Windows 7 desktop – a pretty impressive feat.

After launching for the very first time, Windows 7 transparently dealt with all our Firebird’s hardware except the video card, which we had to right click on under device manager and ask it to pull new drivers for. After a short automated search and install process, we had month-old drivers on the machine without so much as having to open a browser – though we did find slightly fresher drivers on Nvidia’s site.

The New Desktop

While Windows 7 retains the same glassy window style, icons and many other holdovers from Vista, more users will immediately notice that the taskbar has changed dramatically. Most notably, Microsoft has stripped out the clutter. A slightly taller taskbar now accommodates large, squared-off icons (rather than rectangular labels) in the bar, making it in some ways similar to Mac’s OS X dock. Every open program gets an icon, but you can also pin your favorites to hang out on the bottom even when they’re not in use, similar to the quick-launch area in previous Windows. This helps reduce the visual untidiness that comes from stringing out program titles in the taskbar itself. And really who needs them? If you do decide to revert to the old ways, Windows 7 will allow you to turn off the icon-based system, and also shrink the taskbar back to its original size.

New and improved Windows 7 taskbar

Since icons alone don’t tell you what’s going on with your desktop at any given time, Microsoft has implemented its new Aero Peek feature to fill in the necessary details. Hovering over any icon (or clicking if you’re in a hurry) will show the separate thumbnails for each window within any given program, like different Firefox windows, along with labels (Yahoo, Digg, Downloads, etc.) above them. Hovering over a thumbnail will take the details a step further by hiding every window and showing just the one in question to clarify which you’re dealing with. You can also right-click on any of the taskbar icons to get Jump Lists, which are basically shortcut lists pertaining to the programs. For instance, IE will present shortcuts for your last visited sites and tasks, like opening a new tab, while Windows Media player will let you pause or skip forward through playlists without actually opening it to full screen.

Hover over any icon to view thumbnails

With many users now sporting enormous widescreen monitors, Windows 7’s new “snaps” feature turned out to be one of the most unexpectedly smart additions to make the most of all that real estate. Grab any window, drag it to the right or left edge of the screen, and it will automatically resize to half the screen. This makes it easy to browse on two screens at once to compare, type in Word with a browser window next to it, and so on. When you’re done, dragging the window to a new position automatically returns it to the old size. Additional options for snapping (akin to those the freeware AllSnap offers) would still be appreciated, though.

Windows 7 new snap feature

For those who immediately look at a Windows desktop and want to get to work making it their own, Microsoft has made that easier, as well. The new personalization menu features a wide array of attractive built-in themes, plus the means to switch them up by swapping backgrounds, screensavers, and even picking a custom color from a mixer for menus and using a slider to determine its opacity. This isn’t quite a WindowBlinds level of customization, but it’s easy, and 99 percent of users will probably be thrilled with the results.

Windows 7 personalization options

A revamped device management window takes much of the confusion out of connecting new gadgets. Simple devices like hard drives, thumb drives and webcams will mostly be automatically detected, and show up under this pane alongside other connected items like mice, keyboards and Wi-Fi adapters. Although we didn’t witness it in our demo, manufacturers will also be able to customize the windows with specific images and custom interfaces.

Microsoft's Kumo Just Another Search Imitator

With by some estimates a 73 percent share of search traffic, Google is driving the industry. Yahoo is still a player, but Microsoft as always been an also-ran and not a very successful one at that.
The revenue generated by search engines is too large for Microsoft to ignore, but what's been leaked about Kumo suggests Microsoft's game of catch-up will already have been leapfrogged by competitors when Kumo goes live, reportedly on June 3.
Simply put: With three large companies in the game, anything one can do is easily copied by the others. Users search habits are hard to change, allowing time for catch-up and making it difficult to convince users to switch or even to start using a second search engine to improve results.
Kumo reportedly improves search results by suggesting more targeted searches capable of bringing users closer to the information they seek. Yahoo and Google have both recently demonstrated similar functionality.

Microsoft releases

After arriving first on torrent sites and then last week showing up on Microsoft's developer program Web sites, the release candidate of Windows 7 operating system arrived on the main Microsoft.com late on Monday night. The software was slated to be made publicly available on Tuesday.

The release candidate version, officially build 7100, is expected to be the last major public test of the product before it is finalized. The company will only officially confirm it plans to release Windows 7 before Windows Vista hits its third anniversary of broad availability in January. However, the software maker is widely seen as aiming to finish it soon enough for it to be on PCs that ship during this year's holiday shopping season.

See what's new in Windows 7 RC--photos
The latest official update to what some are calling the largest shareware trial period ever introduces more than mere bug fixes as the operating system upgrades from beta to release candidate. The Windows 7 release candidate does contain several major and minor changes, but the overall experience remains largely unchanged.

What's most important to you about the release candidate will depend on your perspective. Certainly, one of the biggest new features makes Windows Media Player useful again: you can now stream media files from one Windows 7 computer to another, across the Internet and out of network. Even better, the setup procedure is dead simple.

However, Microsoft has failed to remove a long-recognized Windows Explorer security risk from Windows 7, according to security company F-Secure. The "hide extensions" feature, which was present in Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista, is also included in the Windows 7 release candidate, The feature could allow virus writers to trick users into opening and running malicious files, he added.

A small brouhaha is erupting over Windows 7 and Intel processors. The hubbub is centered on which Intel processors will not support "XP mode" in Windows 7 and, by extension, which PCs will not support XP mode. Retail laptops may be one of the most prominent segments affected.

The other major release from the software maker came in the form of layoffs--Microsoft on Tuesday notified more than 3,000 workers that it is eliminating their jobs. The software maker said in January that it would cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. It made 1,400 cuts at the time. With the second wave, Microsoft has cut nearly all 5,000 jobs already.

McAfee blasted for having holes in its Web sites

Security vulnerabilities on McAfee sites, including one designed to scan customers' sites for flaws, expose certain customer accounts and could be used for phishing attacks in which malware disguised as McAfee software could be distributed, security experts say.
The McAfee sites are vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks and cross-site request forgery attacks that could lead to phishing attacks on customers who think they are visiting the security vendor's site, according to an article on ReadWriteWeb.
Ironically, one of the vulnerable sites is McAfee Secure, which scans customer sites to determine if they are vulnerable to such attacks. The problem would signal that either McAfee doesn't run McAfee Secure across all of its own sites or the product doesn't work well, the report said.
To fall victim to a cross-site request forgery attack on that site, targets would have to be logged into their McAfee accounts and browse to a malicious Web site that exploits the vulnerability, according to the Risky.biz site.
Such attacks on sites of antivirus vendors are particularly dangerous because they enable attackers to create fake versions of security products that install Trojans or other malware and customers will trust it, Lance James, co-founder of Secure Science Corporation, told ReadWriteWeb.
The hole on the McAfee Secure site would indicate that the company failed to comply with PCI requirements for Approved Scanning Vendors, didn't use a secure software development lifecycle in building the application, and neglected to do an in-depth penetration test of the site, security researcher Mike Bailey wrote on his Skeptikal.org blog on Monday.
A McAfee spokesman said on Tuesday that the company was aware of reports of the vulnerabilities and was "working to remediate the issues with the highest urgency."
"It is important to note that these vulnerabilities did not expose any of McAfee's corporate information. Additionally, we have not seen any malicious exploitation of the vulnerabilities," the spokesman wrote in an e-mail. "McAfee has strict policies in place for its own Web sites and for services provided by third parties. We are investigating how these particular vulnerabilities were not identified in our screening process and will adjust our processes if necessary."
McAfee isn't the only security company to have security problems on its site. Last month, The Register reported on a cross-site scripting vulnerability on Symantec's site. And in February, a Romanian hacker site claimed to have used cross-site scripting and SQL injection attacks to breach the sites of F-Secure, Kaspersky, and BitDefender.

Windows 7 Release Candidate debuts early

SOMEWHERE OVER COLORADO--As I wind my way back to San Francisco, the release candidate of Windows 7 has made its public debut.

After arriving first on torrent sites and then last week showing up on Microsoft's developer program Web sites, the operating system arrived on the main Microsoft.com late on Monday night. The software was slated to be made publicly available on Tuesday.
The release candidate version, officially build 7100, is expected to be the last major public test of the product before it is finalized. The company will only officially confirm it plans to release Windows 7 before Windows Vista hits its third anniversary of broad availability in January. However, the software maker is widely seen as aiming to finish it soon enough for it to be on PCs that ship during this year's holiday shopping season.
When it hit the MSDN and TechNet sites last week, Microsoft faced a crush of demand and encountered glitches. We'll try to keep track of how things go this time around. Let us know if it works for you.
A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for comment.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft.

Now closing: GeoCities, a relic of Web's early days

Yahoo is closing its GeoCities personal home page service, and with it will go an era of self-expression on the Web that's largely been replaced by social networks and blogs.
GeoCities rose to power during an era when publishing on the Internet meant setting up your own Web site. GeoCities simplified the process by helping people sidestep the complications of registering a domain and learning how to program HTML, the language that describes Web pages.
Yahoo is closing it GeoCities site this year.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Yahoo bought GeoCities for more than $2.9 billion in dot-com-priced stock in 1999, when GeoCities had more than 1.1 million users. However, while the idea of having a personal presence on the Internet has caught on, GeoCities turned out to be a backwater, not the mainstream.
"We will be closing GeoCities later this year," Yahoo said in a note on the site. "We'll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer."
Goodbye Geocities, hello FacebookToday, the way people choose to express themselves on the Internet is shifting away from isolated Web pages. Instead they use social-networking sites such as Facebook, with built-in features for creating a profile, staying in touch with contacts, and maintaining at least a little privacy; WordPress, where it's easy to post updates to a blog; or Flickr, where the photographically inclined can meet, share, and comment.
What these services and others including Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and Blogger possess is a mechanism to notify interested parties of new activity, helping to keep social links pulsing with new information in a way that just can't be replicated by depending on a person to swing by a personal Web site.
That's not to say personal home pages are extinct. Google Sites is still around, and Yola, formerly SynthaSite, bought out search ads related to GeoCities searches on Thursday. But for most folks, it's easier to rely on more sophisticated pre-built services than to roll their own sites.
It's no surprise GeoCities is on the chopping block. Yahoo has its hands full trying to integrate its successful properties with the socially active parts of the Internet. The company hardly has resources to spare on last decade's trend.
Part of GeoCities' closure is related to Yahoo's circumstances. The company already was under financial pressure before the recession arrived in full force, but now things are even tighter, and new Chief Executive Carol Bartz is focusing on the company's core, successful properties--laying off about 675 employees in areas that don't pass muster.
GeoCities' vanishing sites?Still unclear is what exactly will become of GeoCities pages. New sign-ups are already no longer permitted, but what about existing sites?
Here's how Yahoo put it: "You can continue to enjoy your Web site and GeoCities services until later this year. You don't need to change a thing right now--we just wanted you to let you know about the closure as soon as possible. We'll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer, and we will update the help center with more details at that time."
That leaves open the possibility that Yahoo will make it possible to move a site to another service, as it did when shutting down Yahoo Photos, but in the current climate, it's probably best not to expect such a graceful transition option. Yahoo wouldn't comment on its plans.
Another option is to upgrade to a separate paid Yahoo service: "You don't need to change your service today, but we encourage anyone interested in a full-featured Web hosting plan to consider upgrading to our award-winning Yahoo Web Hosting service."
But given how many GeoCities users weren't technical experts, it seems likely that a lot of amateur Web sites soon will vanish without a trace, a casualty of business priorities and the Internet's rapid changes.

Microsoft profits sink for the first time in 23 years

In a not totally surprising -- yet still kind of striking -- turn of events, Microsoft is reporting that its sales have fallen for the first time in 23 years. You read that right, 23 years. According to numbers that the company has just released, sales fell 6 percent year-over-year, while overall net income dropped a staggering 32 percent. Those numbers are significant, but what's more telling is where those losses are coming from. Namely? Netbooks. Apparently, in the midst of a global downturn consumers really are buying cheaper, especially when it comes to tech, which puts a fairly significant crunch on Redmond's bottom line. A CNN reports suggests that the presence of Linux on those devices has contributed to the hurt here, but it's more likely that the combo of a market still unwelcoming to Vista and the wide popularity of XP on the low-power systems has more to do with these dipping profit margins. Oh, and that general, awful market depression. Still, it should serve as some kind of wake up call to Microsoft that just being the biggest doesn't guarantee that the money will keep rolling in the way it has in years past -- clearly the big picture isn't as sharp as it's always been. Hey Windows 7 -- no pressure, right?Update: We've tweaked some language in the post that made the situation sound more dire than intended. Don't worry everyone, we know Microsoft isn't going anywhere.

Apple soars during economic gloom

The iPod lineup appeared to get a clear boost from the launch of the new iPod Shuffle, with Apple selling about 1 million more iPods than analysts had expected. iPod shipments were up 3 percent compared to last year, as revenue fell 16 percent, suggesting that sales of the $79 iPod Shuffle made up a greater amount of Apple's iPod mix than usual.
iPod Touch sales doubled compared to last year, Cook said, and Apple has now sold 37 million iPhones and iPod Touches combined. In March, Apple said it had sold 30 million of those two devices since their introduction.
And as had been foreshadowed earlier on Tuesday, Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones, which Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster predicted based on AT&T's activation numbers for the quarter. iPhone shipments were up sharply compared to last year, but they fell coming off the holiday quarter.

Bill Clinton: Business is the key to climate change

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--Absent having a vote in Congress, the best way for people to tackle climate change is to make clean energy cheap, said President Bill Clinton at a green business conference here on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Green event, Clinton said through the Clinton Global Initiative philanthropy, he is involved in a number of projects which show how environmental awareness makes sense for business.
Successful sustainability efforts help provide the political leverage for passing climate change regulations in the U.S., and internationally, Clinton argued.

Windows Mobile 6.5 details coming in May?

Windows Mobile 6.5 phones still aren't expected to arrive until the second half of the year, but Microsoft sounds like it's ready to show off the new operating system next month.
Electronista spotted a post to Microsoft's Windows Mobile blog last week that said the company is planning to "launch" the new mobile operating system at TechEd 2009, scheduled for May 11. "Launch" can mean an awful lot of things in the business world, and in this case, it's likely that Microsoft is referring to the "release to manufacturing" milestone, when a product is made available to its handset partners for testing and certification.
Representatives from Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on what will announced or demonstrated in May. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed Windows Mobile 6.5 in February at the Mobile World Congress, he said that phones with the new software wouldn't be available until the second half of the year.
Updated 4:15pm - Microsoft issued a statement regarding Windows Mobile 6.5 and TechEd 2009. And here it is:
"We're excited about TechEd as an opportunity to talk to business customers and developers about the software for the next generation of Windows phones. There will be several sessions we think will help people learn more to get their planning ideas started about the new phones coming to market in the 2H of 2009."

Apple rumor: Launch e-mail from an iPhone note?

According to developers poking through the latest version of the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, it seems that the Mobile Notes application in iPhone OS 3.0 is capable of detecting phone numbers, URLs, and e-mail addresses when viewing a note. Once detected, which the operating system shows by underlining the data, simply touching that item launches the corresponding Phone, Mobile Safari, or Mobile Mail application. (Source: AppleInsider)
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 3.0 OS in March, it only showed off a few of the new features that are going to arrive with the next release. Developers are being given over 1,000 new APIs to play with--allowing to them to tie their applications to parts of the iPhone's hardware in ways that were previously forbidden--and details have been trickling out ever since.

eBay buying stake in Gmarket; Yahoo selling its

eBay announced an agreement Wednesday to acquire Gmarket for a price of up to $1.2 billion, and Yahoo has agreed to sell its 10 percent stake in the South Korean e-commerce site in a move that would raise about $120 million.
Gmarket's board unanimously approved eBay's tender offer, in which the online auction and commerce site will pay a cash price of 31,767 Korean won, or $24, per share for all common shares and all American Depository Shares. eBay said it's assured of owning at least 67 percent of the company, and if it acquires all shares in the tender offer, the total price will reach about $1.2 billion.
eBay said it will combine Gmarket with its own Korean operations, the Internet Auction Co. it acquired in 2001, , though it will still use separate Web sites. "This deal creates strong operational synergies between the two market leaders, offers more opportunities for sellers and enhances our ability to serve complementary consumer segments," said John Donahoe, eBay's president and chief executive officer, in a statement.
eBay, once an e-commerce darling but now under more financial pressure, is making dramatic moves. The company plans a 2010 initial public offering to spin off Skype, its Internet telephony group.
The Gmarket offer, pending final approval by Korean antitrust authorities, would give eBay a significant new source of revenue. While its existing IAC business produced revenue of $161 million on $2.2 billion in gross merchandise sales, Gmarket produced $221 million on $3.2 billion in sales, eBay said. The company's offer is a 20 percent premium over Gmarket's closing price of $19.96.
With the recession hurting advertising revenue and Google supplying relentless competition, Yahoo is under pressure of its own. The company could announce more layoffs as it reports financial results next Tuesday, and raising $120 million could also help appease shareholders dissatisfied with Yahoo's financial condition.

eBay to launch a Skype IPO in 2010

eBay announced Tuesday plans to spin off its Internet phone and video-conferencing service, Skype, with an IPO in the first half of next year.
The decision comes four years after online auction giant eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion, with the plans to offer customers the ability to discuss their transactions in real-time. But over the course of the four years, eBay found its acquisition failed to provide the synergies it sought.
John Donahoe, eBay's chief executive, said in a statement:
Skype is a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum. But it's clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential. This will give Skype the focus and resources required to continue its growth and effectively compete in online voice and video communications.
Although eBay plans to launch a Skype IPO in the first half of next year, the company noted its exact timing will be based on market conditions.
Last year, Skype generated $551 million in revenues, up 44 percent over the previous year. The number of Skype's registered users has increased to 405 million at the end of last year, up 47 percent from the previous year.
Over the past year, eBay has been weighing its options regarding Skype's fate. When the company announced Donahoe as its new CEO last spring, eBay indicated the online auction giant would take a year to evaluate the future of its online phone and video-conferencing service.
Meanwhile, reports surfaced earlier this month that Skype's founders were interested in repurchasing the company, with the aid of private equity firms KKR, Warburg Pincus, Elevation Partners, and Providence.
eBay shares rose 3.76 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday to $14.92 a share. During the regular session, eBay closed down 1.71 percent to end the day at $14.38 a share.

Amazon 'adult' book fail: Internal error or Internet troll?

Amazon got blasted by gay rights groups this weekend after gay and lesbian book titles were delisted from its site. Was it an internal glitch, as Amazon claims, or is an Internet troll with a vendetta responsible?
Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith told CNET News on Monday that the "glitch" was being fixed, but declined to elaborate.
"This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection," she wrote in an e-mail statement.
"It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica," the statement said. "This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search."
However, a Live Journal blogger with the alias of "weev" claims he did it to cause an outrage among the gay community, which he alleges has repeatedly flagged his online ads on Craigslist as inappropriate.
"I guess my game is up! Here's a nice piece I like to call 'how to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code,'" he writes on his blog.
Weev said he figured out that he could easily get the books removed from search rankings by reporting them as inappropriate through a link at the bottom of the book page. He also claims he wrote code to identify all the gay and lesbian metadata-tagged books on Amazon and grab their IDs. He then hired people outside the U.S. to register new accounts en masse to help push the books out of the system, he said.
"Now from here it was a matter of getting a lot of people to vote for the books," he wrote. "The thing about the adult reporting function of Amazon was that it was vulnerable to something called 'cross-site request forgery.' This means if I referred someone to the URL of the successful complaint, it would resister as a complaint if they were logged in. So now it is a numbers game."
Amazon's Smith dismissed the claim and insisted the error was internal. She is not alone.
Blogger Mike Daisey, who worked in customer support and business development at Amazon from 1998 until 2001, wrote on his blog that: "Someone was editing the category systems inside of Amazon.fr, made an error, and that system is global, so it propagated everywhere. I have no insight as to anyone's nationality, or whether it was a language gap, or anything of that nature."
Smith declined to comment on Daisey's explanation.
Blogger Bryant Durrell said he tested out Weev's concept and doesn't believe it is legitimate, partly because of buggy code.
"Summation: nope, you didn't do that, you liar you. Nice meta-troll, though," Durrell wrote on his blog.
"The really interesting thing about the troll is that he's right even if he didn't do it. The vulnerability he describes exists anywhere you make automated decisions based on third-party input."

YouTube Korea squelches uploads, comments

Citing free-speech concerns about an anonymity-blocking law in South Korea, Google has disabled the ability to upload YouTube videos or comment on them in the country.
"We believe that it is important for free expression that people have the right to remain anonymous, if they choose," the company said in a blog post that also tells people that they can get around the restriction by using a different country's version of the site.
A Korean law requires "real-name verification" for Internet services with more than 100,000 different daily users, Google said. Under the law, people must identify themselves with a name and identification number before they can upload video or post comments.
Google shared this translation of its Korean blog post, explaining the situation:
We have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression in everything we do. We are driven by a belief that more information generally means more choice, more freedom, and ultimately more power for the individual. We believe that it is important for free expression that people have the right to remain anonymous, if they choose.
Because of Real Name Verification Law in Korea, we have voluntarily disabled comments and video uploads when using YouTube in Korea with the Korea country setting, so you will not be required to verify your identity.
You will still be able to enjoy watching and sharing videos on YouTube. You may still upload videos and comments without proving your identity by choosing a non-Korean country setting from the top of any YouTube page.
We understand that this may affect your experience on YouTube. Thank you in advance for your understanding. We hope that you continue to enjoy and participate in the YouTube community.

Microsoft virtual machine mythbusting backfires

A Microsoft marketing video designed to "bust myths" around the lack of virtualisation functionality in its products has only served to remind users of how far it has to catch up

The video features David Greshler, director of virtualisation strategy at Microsoft, and Edwin Yuen, technical project manager at Microsoft, taking apart ten "myths" they said were perpetuated by virtualisation technology rival VMware.

Amazon follows Apple to $1.29

As expected, Apple on Tuesday introduced variable pricing on iTunes, meaning that some popular tracks now cost $1.29 instead of $0.99. Less expected: Amazon.com has followed Apple into the fray. Scroll down today's list of top downloads, and you'll see a few tracks at $1.29.
It's not just Amazon. I heard from a contact at another large online music company that the impetus behind the new pricing models is indeed coming from the labels. Apparently, they approached all the major stores and asked them to begin selling certain songs for $1.29 on Tuesday

Researchers build 'flying' micro-robot

A flying micro-robot has been developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. A research team, led by Professor Mir Behrad Khamesee, manipulates magnetic fields to levitate and move around three axes a robot weighing about three-hundredths of an ounce. According to a paper shared with ZDNet UK--"MechMN: Design and Implementation of a Micromanipulation System using a Magnetically Levitated MEMS Robot"--this is accomplished with an array of electromagnets that creates a three-dimensional parabolic magnetic field. The robot is magnetized itself and sits on top of the parabola, supported by the interaction between its own magnetic field and that created by the electromagnets. Altering the flow of current in the electromagnet distorts the field and moves the robot, Khamesee said via e-mail Thursday.

The robot is monitored by the laser sensors and a camera, which create a feedback loop to a computer. When the robot grasps an object, the magnetic field is automatically adjusted so the robot can maintain its position while supporting the weight of the object

The research team, which includes Khamesee and graduate students Caglar Elbuken and Mustafa Yavuz, submitted the paper last fall to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for possible publication