WANTED FORTUNE TECHNOLOGY

Xbox 360 Ad Banned

A TV advertisement for the Xbox 360 has been banned in the UK because it promotes and glamorises dangerous driving. The ad featured a rooftop and street car chase ending with the protagonists congratulating each other and swapping roles. "We were concerned that the ad gave the impression that reckless street car racing was exciting and fun, and considered that was compounded by the congratulations offered to the other driver at the end of the race by the other young men involved," stated the Advertising Standards Authority.

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Best Buy & Circuit City Report Strong Demand for Vista

Best Buy Company Incorporated and Circuit City Stores Incorporated have both reported high demand for Windows Vista in their retail stores. In separate earnings statements, the two retail companies said that PCs with Vista preinstalled have been selling well since the January 30 release. However, while this drove sales of PCs and computer services up 10% at Best Buy, Circuit City was affected negatively because it did not keep enough Vista PCs in stock to meet customer demand. News from retailers drove Microsoft stock (MSFT) up more than 3 percent on Wednesday at midday Eastern Daylight Time. The opening price was $28; by 12:35 p.m. EDT stock was trading for $28.73.

Best Buy said sales of Vista helped it gain market share in laptop and desktop computer sales. The company reported positive results for its fiscal fourth quarter, with profit that rose more than 18% year over year. Circuit City, on the other hand, reported a US$12.2 million loss for the quarter, and admitted sales were less than expected. The company acknowledged in a news statement it was negatively affected by "volatility" around the Vista sales transition due to the fact it kept its Vista PC inventory "lean" and so could not fulfill customer demand.

News source: PC World

Samsung Launches Quiet SpinPoint Hard Drives

Samsung has announced 80GB and 160GB flavours of its new 3.5” SpinPoint S166 Series of ultra silent and high-speed hard disk drives. The S166 Series has a spindle speed of 7,200RPM, provides an 8MB buffer, features the SATA 3.0Gbps interface (PATA interface also available) and includes Native Command Queuing. The new SpinPoint S Series of hard drives offer upgraded versions of Samsung’s proprietary SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies. Benchmarking results presented by Samsung show competing hard drives generate on average 2.8 bel (1 bel = 10 decibels) in idle mode and 3.2 bel in seek mode, while Samsung’s S166 series generate just 2.4 bel and 2.75 bel respectively. Samsung claims the 15% noise-level reduction is “significant”.

“Samsung is constantly pushing the technology envelope with the introduction of new and innovative products that meet the computing needs of today’s most demanding customers and operating environments. This latest technology development by Samsung in the new SpinPoint S166 Series makes our high-end, award-winning hard drive products attractive to a wider audience by even further reducing acoustic noise and improving disk data transfer speed,” states TJ Lee, vice president of sales & marketing at Samsung Electronics’ Storage System Division.

News source: DailyTech

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Apple Launches 8 Core Mac Pro

Meet the latest addition to the Mac Pro family: The world’s first 3.0GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro. Consider the bar officially raised.

Performance standard
No matter which Mac Pro model you choose — 8-core or quad-core Intel Xeon — each delivers advanced performance, workstation graphics, and unparalleled expansion in so many possible configurations, your imagination has finally met its match.

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Latest MS Update Causing Major Headaches

Broadband Reports is running a story regarding the latest MS update to fix problems with animated cursors.

"Users in our Security forum note that the latest critical Microsoft Windows update (KB925902) is causing all kinds of problems. Most notably, it prevents some users from loading anti-virus software, but others say the update prevented them from booting entirely. "So far, we have errors with AVG, Realtec, F-Secure, a false positive of a Trojan, a messed up Vaio, USB problems and Accessories and Utilities all vanishing into thin air," says one security forum regular."

I have personally installed this on two Vista machines and one of them failed to boot after the patch was installed. Unfortuntely patches that are often pushed out too quickly to fix critical flaws cause adverse issues on certain configurations as we have witnessed in the past. Watch out for Microsoft rectifying this with an update to the patch. Until then do not install the update if it's causing issues to your machine and report these directly to Microsoft support.

View: Broadband Help

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Thailand blocks YouTube for clip mocking king

Thailand's military-appointed government has blocked access to on-line video-sharing Web site YouTube after owner Google Incorporated declined to withdraw a video clip mocking the country's revered monarch. Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom ordered a block of the entire site from Thailand after the ministry's attempts to get the offending page removed last week failed. "Since Google has rejected our repeated requests to withdraw the clip, we can't help blocking the entire site in Thailand. When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban," said professor Sitthichai.

YouTube, which has dominated the user-generated on-line video market since it was founded in February last year, carried a 44-second clip ridiculing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest reigning monarch. The sender of the clip, seen more than 16,000 times, was named "paddidda" and has been rudely attacked by most of 99 comments, according to the Web site. Sitthichai said YouTube had told Thai officials it did not find the clip offensive so turned down the request to remove it. The most offensive to Thai Buddhists was the juxtaposition of a pair of woman's feet, the lowest part of the body, above his head, the highest part of the body. Criticizing or offending royalty is a crime in Thailand. Those guilty of 'lese majeste' can be jailed for up to 15 years. The coup leaders and the appointed government deny muzzling free speech.

News source: MSNBC

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FBI checks out gambling in 'Second Life'

FBI investigators have visited Second Life's Internet casinos at the invitation of the virtual world's creator Linden Lab, but the U.S. government has not decided on the legality of virtual gambling. "We have invited the FBI several times to take a look around in Second Life and raise any concerns they would like, and we know of at least one instance that federal agents did look around in a virtual casino," said Ginsu Yoon, until recently Linden Lab's general counsel and currently vice president for business affairs.

Second Life is a popular online virtual world with millions of registered users and its own economy and currency, known as the Linden dollar, which can be exchanged for U.S. dollars. Yoon said the company was seeking guidance on virtual gaming activity in Second Life but had not yet received clear rules from U.S. authorities.

View: Full Story

News source: News.com

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