Category: Microsoft

Microsoft Loses European Anti-Trust Appeal

Microsoft Loses European Anti-Trust AppealMicrosoft has lost its appeal against a court ruling that they abused their dominant position in Europe.

The judgement released today was handed down by the European Court of First Instance – following the hearings on 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 April 2006 – is huge, running to 1373 points.

In the courts words “The Court of First Instance essentially upholds the Commission’s decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position,” this is despite Microsoft providing their own shortlist of people they found acceptable to provide evident to the court and request to delay the hearing.
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iPlayer Petition Gets Bland Response From Gordon Brown

iPlayer Open Beta: A Flawed GemThere was a petition put on to the Number 10 Web Site questioning if the iPlayer should only be available on the Microsoft platform. On the last look it had 16,071 signatures on it from members of the public concerned about it as well.

Just now the Prime Minister issued his response.
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Microsoft Stumble On Open Doc Standard

Microsoft Stumble On Open Doc StandardThere’s been general surprise at Microsoft’s failure to secure their ‘Open XML’ interchangeable document standard to be accepted by the ISO – International Standards Committee – and the IEC – International Electronic Commission.

It is important to Microsoft as Governments around the world are looking to allow simple document interchange between all of their systems.
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Smokin’: Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel Get Microsoft Fix

Smokin': Microsoft To Fix Xbox 360 wireless Racing WheelAfter some reports of problems with “smoking” when mains power units have been attached to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 wireless Racing Wheels, they decided to fix, or in their language “retrofit,” them.

Their use of language really is spectacular, beyond “retrofit,” they also say that the “AC-DC power supply is used to energize the Wheel.” Energize! What’s this? Star Trek?
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Xbox 360 UK Price Drop & Elite Too

Xbox 360 UK Price Drop & Elite TooAfter a pretty long period of speculation, Microsoft have confirmed that they’ll be dropping the price of the Xbox 360 in the UK and releasing the Elite version too.

As of this coming Friday (24 August) the entry model Xbox 360 Core will have a retail price of £180 – a £20 drop and the 20GB hard drive 360 will gain a retail price of £250 – a £30 drop.

Filling out the top of the line pricing will be the Xbox 360 Elite, which brings an HDMI video port, wireless controllers, a black finish and 120GB drive – all at £300.

Give Your XP Machine A Vista-esque Sheen

Give Your XP Machine A Vista-esque SheenIf you’re fed up with the relentless blueness of the standard XP theme but can’t be arsed with all those fiddly downloadable theme programs, maybe you’ll warm to the Royale theme.

It’s apparently an unreleased Microsoft XP Media Centre theme that was leaked out to the web, and it looks rather purdy in a shiny but dark’n’moody Vista-esque sort of way.
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BBC iPlayer: A Flawed Gem

iPlayer Open Beta: A Flawed GemToday the BBC has opened a list for up to 500,000 UK TV license payers to sign up for access to iPlayer – if they have an appropriate computers setup.

Over the next six months, those who sign up will be let on to the Beta trial to use iPlayer. (Those of us who have been on the 15,000 people iPlayer trial will have noticed that there was a new release of the software last night.)

Let’s be clear, we do think that the iPlayer is an advance for the BBC, and the functions and control it gives views are welcome.

Where it really lets itself down is that it is dependant on a very thin slice of technology needs.
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iPlayer: OSC Interview After BBC Trust Meeting: Podcast

We got the exclusive opportunity to interview the members of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) that has met with the BBC Trust, directly after they had been discussing the BBC iPlayer with them for the first time.

From there we scooped the iPlayer On Linux a must story, but there was a lot more detail in the interview than we could get into the piece.

Various highlights were

  • How discussion went with the BBC Trust
  • The path that the OSC has been following
  • Discussion with Ofcom
  • How iPlayer is based entirely on the Microsoft stack
  • concerns under the BBC Radio player being rolled into the iPlayer and the loss of support of other players that would occur
  • BBC Trust’s different view on BBC Content and content from other production companies
  • Support for a Linux iPlayer from the “the most popular Linux desktop client in the world”

If you, like many others, are unhappy about the iPlayer only being available on a particular version of Windows, get yourself over to the iPlayer petition. Every vote counts, so join the current 12,000+ that have said they don’t like it.

Sorry about the popping in part of the recording (like the beginning), but I left the mic windshield at the office – blast!)
[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/osc-post-bbc-trust-iplayer-meeting.mp3]

Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?

Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?We’re all aware that the BBC is planning to make their iPlayer compatible with Macs … and we even know that now that the BBC Trust has committed to make it work with Linux (shock horror).

Well if you’re like most of the tech population, you might be scratching your heads, wondering how the bleep they’re going to be doing it – given that the whole system relies on Microsoft technology to deliver any of it, and in particular the DRM. Especially as, to date Microsoft has steadfastly refused to deliver a media player for the Mac that has DRM built in.
Continue reading Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?