Category: Software

Software

P2P Networks Distribute Windows SP2

Peer to peer activists Downhill Battle have set up a share to distribute Windows XP Service Pack 2. The move is intended to show the positive side of file-sharing networks and to demonstrate how powerful P2P networks can be.

SP2 has been released to manufacture, but is not currently generally available for download from Microsoft – late August is the expected time. Microsoft will be limiting downloads from its Windows Update site to prevent bandwidth and server problems, as it has predicted that the service pack will be installed on 100 million machines in coming months.

Downhill Battle have made SP2 available on BitTorrent, but other P2P users have picked it up and the update is now available on a number of peer to peer networks, including eDonkey.

As Downhill Battle state on the download page: “This website has been setup by Downhill Battle – Music Activism as a demonstration of how peer-to-peer filesharing technology can help distribute files that are too large for centralized distribution to handle. Even Microsoft, which has incredible server resources at their disposal, is limiting downloads of their SP2 release, but filesharing technology can let everyone download it right away. Congress is literally preparing to outlaw filesharing– it is crucial that we rally to defend and promote the technology.”

The version available is a network install, and definitely not what the average home user needs – particularly as it weighs in at 270 mb. The standard SP2 is about 80 mb.

Downhill Battle

The SP2 BitTorrent

XP Light for Developing Markets

Microsoft is about to release a stripped-down, low-cost version of Windows XP into five developing markets. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and two unspecified countries will receive Windows XP Starter Edition in October.

The move is to combat the two main threats to Windows in these markets: piracy and Linux. Microsoft hopes that a low-cost, properly licensed copy of Windows will dissuade users from simply buying a copied disk for a couple of dollars and that the company’s brand and software support will tempt users away from trying out a Linux distribution.

Aside from major changes to the OS, Microsoft has localised screen savers to include local landscape scenes, flags and traditional designs to encourage users to adopt XP Starter Edition.

Microsoft may have misjudged the market, however – XP Starter Edition apparently features lower resolution graphics, crippled networking and bizarrely, only allows users to run three programs simultaneously.

Given that most Linux distributions perform excellently in all of these areas, it is unlikely that Microsoft will be tempting anyone away from the penguin with less functionality rather than more.

Microsoft on XP Starter Edition

Microsoft Releases XP SP2 to Manufacturers

Microsoft have finally sent Windows XP SP2 off for disc manufacturers. The update, the biggest ever security fix to Windows, has been hotly awaited by many. Not least black-hat hackers who will be pouring over the code to see what vulnerabilities it has fixed.

SP2 has been described by analysts as much more than just a series of bug fixes, and has been likened to an upgrade to Windows.

‘Service Pack 2 is a significant step in delivering on our goal to help customers make their PCs better isolated and more resilient in the face of increasingly sophisticated attacks,’ said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect at Microsoft.

‘It is the result of sustained investments in innovation and extensive industry collaboration. It also reflects a broad recognition that as the security environment changes, the industry needs to work together to respond,’ he said.

The update includes an improved firewall, one that is actually switched on by default this time. Other enhancements include a long overdue popup blocker for Internet Explorer and better e-mail security.

The service pack was originally planned to be released in June, but further enhancements were needed. Microsoft is keen to get it completely right this time. Available as a free CD, the update will also be available for download – though dial up users may shrink from terror at its vast 90mb bulk. To alleviate this, Microsoft are encouraging users to switch on automatic updates in Windows, so that the fixes can be downloaded in smaller chunks.

The pack will be released in English first, with 25 other languages on their way shortly.

Windows Update

PlayStation3 Will Use Blu-ray

Sony has a announced that its forthcoming PlayStation3 console will include a Blue-ray drive DVD drive. Blue-ray is a higher density DVD technology, and will be able to store around 50gb of data by the console’s release at the end of 2005.

The inclusion of the Blue-ray drive is sure to guarantee mass market acceptance for the format, in the face of competition from other high density DVD technologies. Sony are particularly keen to see the format flourish as it is one of the founders of the Blu-ray group and has invested heavily in the technology. The main competitor, HD-DVD, has recently received a boost from Microsoft when they announced that their next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, would support it.

Blue light optical disks can store more data on them because the wavelength of blue coherent light is shorter, and therefore can read smaller pits, which are also packed closer together.

As Blu-ray is not currently compatible with standard DVD technology, this means that the drive will not be able to play standard red laser DVDs, or run Playstation2 software. It remains to be seen if Sony will be using a special dual-format drive, of taking the expensive step of including two drives in the console.

Blu-ray Home

Nintendo’s Response to Microsoft Sale Rumour: No.

Nintendo have replied to rumours floating around since yesterday that Microsoft wants to buy the Japanese games company with a big flat No.

Nintendo’s chief of public relations Yasuhiro Minagawa said “Nintendo is not on sale, and there is no such talk at all.” In fact, Microsoft have not even contacted Nintendo about a possible deal.

So where did the rumours come from? German finance magazine Wirtschaftswoche reported Bill Gate’s comments from the sidelines of a press conference: “If Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me, I will pick up at once,” he said.

Nintendo are a very Japanese company – America is a reasonably large market for them, Europe have historically not been a priority, but they are unstoppable in Japan. Microsoft, on the other hand, are a very American company – they have no understanding of the Japanese market. The size of the XBox, the games they’ve released in Japan, even the games they’ve cancelled in Japan, demonstrate this. Even if they had a hands-off approach in their home territory, the brand would be irrevocably damaged. Western gamers, all too aware of the rubbish that gets released under the Atari brand these days, would also know the difference.

Larry Hyrb from XBox Live’s blog

Doom 3 Leaked to P2P Networks

Doom 3 has been cracked and up loaded to the world’s various P2P networks – even the most casual search will uncover dozens of download sources.

This is terrible news for id Software, the game’s producers, after more than four years’ of work on the title. The game was due to go on sale on Tuesday in the US, and next week in the UK – so it is likely that this is final code version of the game, possibly taken from an advance or review copy, rather than stolen code in the case of Half Life 2.

First person shooter enthusiasts and Doom fans will undoubtedly buy legitimate copies of the new game, but it is likely that id will lose a lot of sales from P2P downloads. Because of review copies it is virtually impossible to stop PC games appearing on file sharing networks before titles appear on shelves.

id ran into problems earlier on this year when, predictably, attempts to stop a demo of Doom 3 from proliferating on the very same P2P networks failed.

Valve’s own Half Life 2 shooter was delayed for months after source code was stolen by hackers and then found its way onto the internet – it will finally be seeing release in the autumn, after a substantial rewrite of key sections of code.

Doom 3

Acclaim Faces Nasdaq Delisting

Acclaim are facing Nasdaq delisting as the market value of the company no longer meets the minimum criteria for inclusion on the technology stock market.

The company has until August 18 to remedy this or will no longer feature on Nasdaq. Shares fell 25% last week when the company reported their Q4 results for the financial year ending March 31 2004. Indeed, the debts that the company are facing mean that they could well be filing for bankruptcy before the end of the year.

Acclaim’s recent titles have not sold particularly well this year, and the outlook for Christmas is looking even bleaker – their forthcoming racing game juiced will be up against Sony’s Gran Tourismo 2 and EA’s Need for Speed Underground 2.

Acclaim

Manhunt Pulled from Stores After Murder

Dixons has pulled Rockstar’s Manhunt game from shelves after parents claimed that it inspired the murder of their 14 year old boy.

Rockstar are no strangers to controversy, and have had previous titles, mainly from the Grand Theft Auto series, banned or pulled from shops before.

Warren LeBlanc, 17 years old, pleaded guilty to the murder of 14 year old Stefan Pakeerah after luring him into a park in the Midlands and murdering him with a claw hammer and a knife.

An unpaid drug debt was given as the reason for the murder.

Manhunt is clearly marked as an 18 certificate game, and should not be sold or played by minors like LeBlanc. Those ratings are on the box for a reason, you know.

Giselle Pakeerah, Stefan’s mother said “I think that I heard some of Warren’s friends say that he was obsessed by this game. If he was obsessed by it, it could well be that boundaries for him became quite hazy. I can’t believe that this sort of material is allowed in a society where anarchy is not that far removed. It should not be available and it should not be available to young people.”

“I think that I heard”? Curiously, no-one has blamed the drugs involved for the murder as yet.

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers’ Association, who provide age ratings on video games, issues a statement: “We reject any suggestion or association between the tragic events in the Midlands and the sale of the video game Manhunt.”

The continued: “The game in question is classified 18 by the British Board of Film Classification and therefore it should not be in the possession of a juvenile. We would also add that simply being in someone’s possession does not and should not lead to the conclusion that a game is responsible for these tragic events.”

In response to the claims, and to avoid possible copycat actions, Dixons will be removing the game from all 1,000 stores throughout their group.

ELSPA

Rockstar Games

Microsoft’s Anti-virus Service – New Details

New details have come to light about Microsoft’s new anti-virus service. The details came from an executive at MS’s French headquarters, and feature information unconfirmed by US sources.

The anti-virus product will be a stand-alone package based on tools acquired from Microsoft’s recent acquisitions of GeCad and Pelican Software. The software will work in two ways: the first component will use a regularly updated virus definitions database to identify viruses by a unique signature.

This method is used by almost all anti-virus packages in the market today – each virus and its variants have a unique sequence of bytes that can be spotted by scanning memory and hard-drives. This method is only effective against new viruses if the database is updated regularly to feature newly discovered “fingerprints”, otherwise infection can still take place.

The second ant-virus measure scans for previous infections and provides a risk assessment for users. It’s not yet clear if the package will provide system scanning to halt suspicious behaviour, such as bypassing the operating system to write to disk or accessing email address books, which will prevent unknown viruses wreaking havoc.

Given that Microsoft estimates that two out of three computer users do not have up-to-date anti-virus software, this could be a very lucrative move. According to anti-virus specialists Sophos, 4,677 new virus were reported in the first six months of 2004.

AVG free anti-virus tool

ATI’s New Mobile Graphics Chip

ATI have unveiled their latest mobile graphics chip – the Radeon Mobility 9800. The DirectX 9 card is actually based on the new Radeon X800 core, and will first appear in Dells Inspiron XPS and Inspiron 9100.

Graphics capabilities have become far more important in recent years due to three factors: screens have become far better, good TFT screens are cheaper, and many people are buying laptops not just for business, but because they don’t have enough space at home for a full sized PC. And many of those people want to play games.

“Thanks to the new Mobility RADEON 9800, the Dell Inspiron XPS is the first laptop in the world with the power to run the Splinter Cell 3 E3 Weather demo at above 30 fps.” said Dany Lepage, Splinter Cell 3 lead programmer at Ubisoft’s Montreal studio. “The strong performance of the Mobility RADEON 9800, with antialiasing and the widescreen display of the Inspiron XPS, should allow players to experience Splinter Cell 3 in the best possible conditions.”

“ATI continues its outstanding graphics performance with the MOBILITY RADEON 9800 and enables us to be more creative with the visual effects in our games,” says Peter Molyneux, founder of Lionhead Studios. “Gamers can now experience the advanced 3D graphics in applications like Black and White 2 previously available only to desktop users.”

The Mobility 9800 has eight pixel pipelines and uses ATI’s Smartshader technology. A powerful graphics processor will basically eat your laptop battery in one gulp, but ATI have developed Powerplay to make sure you can actually play Splinter Cell past the loading screen.

Paradoxically, the chip runs at 100MHz less than its predecessor the 9700, but it has a staggering 110 million transistors – more than twice that of the previous offering.

Mobility Radeon