Content and news by Rob Williams

It sure doesn’t seem like it, but it’s almost been two full years since the lid blew off of Sony’s rootkit-infected music CDs fiasco, something that has scarred the company and made them the butt of jokes ever since. So whenever anything “minor” occurs with the company, people notice and immediately escalate the issue.

Case in point would be with Sony’s Micro Vault USM-F thumb drive, which uses a rootkit-like feature to disguise itself on a Windows PC. Malicious applications could be left underneath the same folder and go undetected. What I’m wondering, is whether or not this is unique to this particular thumb drive. There are many drives on the market that have the same functionality. Would it be unreasonable to think that they might do the exact same thing?

In this case, the “good will” was a security program that tried to keep itself secure from would-be hackers but ended up becoming a security risk itself. This is a little bit different from the original Sony BMG rootkit fiasco, where the intent was to deliberately add protection software to music CDs that consumers did not ask for or want and make that protection software hard or impossible to detect and uninstall.

Source: Ars Technica

It’s likely that at some point during our lives, we look back at something and regret it highly. Of course, no one owns a De Lorean anymore, so we can’t exactly go back in time to right our wrongs. Luckily, there is a great way to make yourself feel better about the past… look at the major mistakes of others. Such as one eBay seller.

Long story short, this one seller sold a very old bottle of liquor on eBay, not caring to actually proof-read the auction prior to posting. Thanks to that oversight, it sells for $300USD. Seems like a solid sale at first, however the buyer knew what the bottle was really worth. He re-listed the item on eBay a month later, and it ended just a few weeks ago at just over $500,000USD. It’s an incredible item but an even more incredible profit.

This is a faint glimmer of hope for those aspiring to become internet brazillionaires. Some guy decides to sell a 200 year old bottle of ale but accidentally leaves out one “P” in the brand name. A lucky bargain hunter just happens to see the auction and –realizing the value of the bottle– spends a healthy $300 only to resell it for half a million a little later. Yeah, I’d be mad.

Source: CrunchGear

We posted yesterday that NBC and Apple were officially breaking up. According to Apple, it was primarily due to the fact that NBC wanted to charge upwards of $4.99 per episode. Well, NBC issued a counter-argument yesterday that pointed out it wasn’t really about money, but rather how they lacked the ability to create custom packages that would be appealing to the consumer. Yeah. That seems likely.

Not to end things there, they brought the security issue into play, noting: “since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material.” Is it really that common for people to download TV shows from the web and copy them to their iPod? It comes as a surprise to me. Regardless, you don’t have to look too hard to realize that NBC is the one at fault here.

Right. This has exactly WHAT to do with legitimately selling shows to paying customers, NBC? We think this is the telling quote: “It is clear that Apple’s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying.” Yeah, pretty clear it’s still about the money for those guys.

Source: Engadget

Open source projects are great. They create free applications and tools for anyone who wants them, and often times, the open sourced version is more robust and more secure than commercial equivalents. Like Linux for example. But as Linux.com points out, the lifestyle of the open-source coder is not always that peachy. Often arguments can occur and your code submission bashed. Even Linus can’t escape it, but he mentions in the article that he’s good in letting things go.

FOSS development is often described as a meritocracy, where only the best code makes it into a project. That sounds good from the point of view of the user, but that philosophy has some harsh edges that can damage the ego and even cause developers to walk away from a project. Any developer’s code submissions might come under heavy criticism from rival contributors as well as from the project hierarchy. You need a tough hide to survive.

Source: Linux.com

Sure BMWs can be expensive, but when a deal like this comes along, you just need to hop into the driver’s seat and take off. Of course I’m talking about BMW M3 Challenge, a free game that will be available later this month. It’s built on the same engine as GT Legends and is designed to promote their brand new V8 M3, offering 420HP and 0-60 in 4.8s. Oh, and a price tag that equates to $100,000USD. Yeah. I am thinking I will play the game instead.

The freeware game will debut at the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt in mid September, followed by a downloadable version at a later date. The game will feature four game modes, including online play for up to 16 players, with racing taking place at the Nürburgring. As an incentive to race online, BMW will be awarding prizes to the best international drivers.

Source: Pro-G

Rumors are fierce that Microsoft is planning to buy Research In Motion, developers of the BlackBerry handheld. Reasons of course are linked to the success of the iPhone. Microsoft might be feeling a little anxious about their own products, so who better to acquire than one of the leading handheld companies? Apparently investors like the idea as well, as their stock prices immediately went up following the rumor leaks.

Moving into as many markets as possible, and remaining strong in the business application realm, it makes sense for Microsoft to be interested in RIM. The iPhone’s use for business purposes has not yet met its potential, but a lot of companies are paying close attention to the device’s growth, success and influence.

Source: Mashable

When I was younger, I had a bad habit where I would get so frustrated with a game, that I’d wind up throwing the gamepad across the room. Ironically, some of the games that pushed me over the edge are on Gamasutra’s list of “20 Difficult Games”. This is not a list for the most difficult games of all time, but are rather just a few games that happen to be difficult, and ones that new game designers can learn from. Oh Cobra Triangle, how I loathed thee.

Nothing attracts the ire of those fickle game bloggers quite like them getting their asses handed to them by a game. And it is possible to make a game arbitrarily difficult without too much effort. Increase monster attack strength, decrease player health, remove resources and/or add more foes — these are just the most obvious ways a game can be made harder, and it doesn’t take any great skill to add them.

Source: Gamesutra

According to our friends at Phoronix, KDE 4.0 has been delayed until December 20th, making it two months late. Of course, it is much more sensible to deliver the product once it’s deemed stable. Delaying by two months will allow two additional beta releases, to make sure as many bugs are squashed as possible. Being a die hard KDE user myself, I’m anticipating the new release greatly. Four more months isn’t so bad, is it?

KDE 4.0 Beta 3 is now scheduled for release on September 24 while the fourth beta will come out on October 22. There are two release candidates as well — KDE 4.0 RC1 on November 21 and KDE 4.0 RC2 on December 5. The new release schedule can be found at KDE.org.

Source: Phoronix

NBC announced the other day that they’ve decided to not renew their ongoing contract with Apple, which means all of the NBC sitcoms and dramas will no longer be available for purchase. This is all due to the fact that they were unable to come to a reasonable agreement, similar to what happened with Universal a few months back. Given that, it’s easy to think that Apple must be the cause, but no, not at all. Here’s what was given as the reason in the official release out of Apple:

“The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99.”

Not much of a surprise though. Just look at the hassles that NBC has caused other companies in the past, including YouTube. Seriously. Who in the heck is running this network? Them pulling out of Apple means one thing… more piracy, less revenue. Not difficult to do the math.

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

Source: Apple.com

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two full weeks since our last “WCUOTG?”, but indeed it has. September is shaping up to be a very exciting month. As you can see by the picture below, a review of ASUS’ killer Xonar sound card is coming soon, hopefully by early next week if all goes according to plan. Although I am unsure of the in-depth test results yet, Rory is very impressed with the cards presentation. ASUS is looking to turn heads with their first sound card offering, that much is clear.

That’s not the only sound card coming up though. Matt Harris is currently taking a look at Auzentech’s X-Fi Prelude card, which everyone has high hopes for. Creative’s X-Fi is impressive as is (despite their whacked driver issues), but with Auzentech’s loving touch, we can only expect one amazing offering.

The annual Austin Game Developers Conference takes place next week, with Kiersten hitting it up and relaying all that she finds out there to you. This is a developer-specific conference, so game announcements are not usually the priority, but we will learn about cool new upcoming technologies and hear keynotes from influential people.

Content doesn’t stop there though, as we have reviews of Dell’s 30″ HC monitor, ASUS and Samsung’s latest 22″ widescreens, Ideazon’s new MERC Stealth keyboard, ASUS P5K Premium motherboard, Turtle Beach’s new X3 headset, Cooler Masters CM690 chassis, Logitech’s G51 gamer’s speaker set, high-end Ultrasone Edition 9 headphones… and oh so much more on the way. As always, stay tuned!

If there is one company that keeps up to a regular release schedule, it’s Nikon. If it seems like it has only been a few months since their last slew of releases, it’s for good reason. It was only this past February when they released eight new digital cameras, all of which are essentially outdated now, thanks to these new ones.

First are their budget L14 and L15 cameras. The L14 features a 7.1 MP sensor with 6.3-18.9mm lens while the L15 features an 8.0 sensor with 5.7-17.1mm lens. Moving onto their “Style” series, we have the S510 and S700. The S510 features 8.0 megapixels and 5.7-17.1mm lens, and the S700 features a staggering 12.1 megapixel sensor and a 7.9-23.7mm lens. The L14, L15 and S510 all come in Silver, Blue and Pink varieties, while the S700 offers models in “Titanium Silver” and “Urban Black”.

Also new are the S51 and S51c, which both share the similar design that was introduced with the S6 released last August. Both feature 8.1 megapixels and a 6.3mm-18.9mm lens, but the “c” model includes WiFi capabilities. On the downside, it appears you can only upload to Nikon’s own “my Picturetown” service.

Nikon made huge news this past March when they finally brought back a capable point-and-shoot camera, the P5000, which I was personally pleased about since it included a viewfinder, something that all non-SLR Nikons lacked up until then. Well, the P5100 improves on the original by offering a 12.1 megapixel sensor, but includes the same 7.5-26.3mm lens. The P50 is a small brother of the P5100 and comes in Black and Silver models. They include an 8.1 megapixel sensor (Nikon must have many of these on hand ;-)) and a nice wide-angle 4.7-17.0mm lens. You can learn more about these new cameras through the link below.

Source: Nikon Imaging

Popular music retailer HMV has decided to lower the prices on their entire selection in Canada in order to entice buyers to… buy. Let’s face it… no one wants to pay upwards of $18 (or more) for a CD unless you are major fan of the band. Hilarity ensues if you want to purchase an older album, which normally start at $25. As a result of these price drops, older titles will be priced up to 33% lower, while the rest of the selection, including new releases, will drop 20%.

The CRIA (Canuck version of the RIAA) blames this move as a result to piracy. Oh really? Is it really surprising that people don’t want to shell out a crisp $20 for a new release? Being a Canuck and a regular HMV shopper, I’m pleased to hear about the price drops, especially on the older releases. Whether or not this move makes much of a difference is yet to be seen, but I’m hoping it will.

“Canada has the highest rate of illegal downloading in the world,” he told CBC News. “It’s affecting our ability to build a digital industry.” Other countries, including the U.S. and Britain, have been able to stem the tide of illegal downloading by updating laws and increasing enforcement, he said, but calls from the recording industry for updated copyright laws in Canada have gone unheeded.

Source: CBC News

It’s been well over a year since we took a look at Nero’s 7 Ultra Edition, and soon it will be obsolete. According to Computing News, Nero will be releasing version 8 on October 1, and you can expect us to have a review shortly afterwards. New to this version will be some web-integration, including the ability to upload your videos and share content with MySpace, YouTube and a service called My Nero.

Also new is RescueAgent, allowing users to restore deleted files and recover data from scratched CDs. This in itself seems like a great tool and is one I look forward to giving a go. The latest version, as you would expect, is developed with Windows Vista in mind, and this will be seen with some Sidebar functionality, such as 1-click CD copying.

Nero 8 introduces the newly-designed Nero StartSmart user interface, which maximizes user efficiency with a one-stop solution for creating and managing digital media projects. With this new interface, prime functions like burning and ripping audio and data discs can now be accessed directly, letting users complete projects with one-click functions. Nero 8 also supports a number of next-generation formats with editing, playback, and burning features. In addition, Nero 8 lets users edit photo slide shows and create High Definition video in both Blu-ray BD-AV and HD DVD video formats.

Source: Computing News

It hasn’t even been a year since Microsoft released their Zune music player, but Zune 2 and Zune Flash images have made their way onto the web, courtesy of Gizmodo. The Zune 2 will feature an 80GB hard drive while the the Zune Flash offers a 4GB and 8GB model, and is far smaller than it’s big brother. The controller seems odd at first glance, but it might be one of those things you just need to use before making a conclusion. Looks sharp overall though.

These photos came from a source who cites marketing materials, likely from the retail channel, but were confirmed by a second source as well. Does that mean they’re final? I don’t know. If I were Microsoft, I might seed the internet with mockups as to confuse. Oh how I love counterintelligence measures. So take them with a grain of salt, confirmed as something, but still unofficial.

Source: Gizmodo

The past year hasn’t been too good for AMD. Their new releases are lackluster, to the point that they won’t even send out their latest releases to regular reviewers. Their ATI branch is suffering similar troubles with their X2-series of cards, which haven’t been able to out-perform NVIDIAs biggest models. So, if you were AMD, what would you do to really aggravate the competition? Release a new instruction set with their naming scheme, of course.

Yes, Intel first released SSE back in the Pentium 3 days, followed by SSE2 with the Pentium 4 and SSE3 in late 2005. SSE4 is on it’s way with Penryn/Nehalem, so to see an SSE5 instruction set on the horizon that has virtually nothing to do with Intel is beyond odd. It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if SSE5 was built on top of SSE4, but it’s not. It uses portions of SSE4 which seems to become SSE4A, as seen in this forum thread. In fact, SSE5 could have been named 3DNow!2 and it would have made much more sense.

But, I am putting too much emphasis on that. The fact is, SSE5 will bring some interesting things to the table. According to documentation, SSE5 would thrive off of a GPU, which is where AMD’s own Fusion technology would be of benefit. The set also adds over one hundred new instructions, which you can see laid out in this comprehensive PDF. Now the question to ask is, what will Intel be naming their next instruction set?

Source: Ars Technica

Sony has announced that they currently have no 60GB PS3s in their warehouses. Instead, they’ve all been purchased and are available for purchase by you at the usual retailers. What happens once those run out is completely up to Sony, but hopefully it works out to the consumer’s favor. If they stick to their 80GB model for $599, that leaves us at the same spot we were in just a few months ago.

At this point, the extra $100 is well-worth it if you plan on picking up MotorStorm and enjoy downloading a lot, but if the 80GB model becomes the only model on the market, then once again it’s going to leave less of a choice for consumers. When Sony made price drops of $100 last month to their 60GB model, sales sky-rocketed. Hopefully they know better than to offer a single model for $599 at this point.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Sony’s online inventory had been fully depleted. In July, after slashing the PS3 price by $100, the company said that the now discontinued 60GB PS3 would be available for several months. At that point, Sony alluded that they may also reduce the price of the $599 80GB PS3 to $499 as my analyst expect.

Source: PC World

The folks at the official Xbox blog have posted news that popular Fox cartoon show, Family Guy, will be making it’s way onto Xbox Live for anyone to download, for a fee of course. When this goes live next week, Season 1 and 2 will be available, as well as the movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. Pricing is currently unknown, but it’s likely to be more expensive than actually running out and purchasing the DVD sets. I could be wrong, but convenience rarely comes cheap.

According to the release schedule, season five will be available later this month, while season six will be available the beginning of next month. What exactly happened to season three and four? Seems like an odd way to release anything. For those who already own the DVDs, like me, this news isn’t that exciting. I’ll just kick back and wait for season five to be released later this month.

Peter Griffin is the father of this not-quite-so-average family unit of middle-class New Englanders. Lois is Peter’s loving wife who struggles to maintain a modicum of normalcy in their home life. Rounding out the Griffin household are their children–teen queen Meg, 13-year old slacker Chris, and their youngest child Stewie, a diabolically clever baby who’s already set on conquering the world. And then there’s Brian, the brainiest of the bunch, who also happens to be the family dog.

Source: Xbox.com

OCZ has once again updated their CPU-cooling line-up with the release of the Vanquisher, a model similar in design to their Vindicator, but much smaller overall. The cooler is equipped with a total of six heatpipes, three that run up along each side of the fins. Also included is a modest 92mm fan rated for 800-2000RPM speeds, with a great looking green OCZ logo. Overall the cooler looks sharp, but I can’t help but shrug at the fact that it uses the same board-mounting mechanisms as the stock Intel coolers do. Those are a pain to deal with, literally.

The OCZ Vanquisher aggressively cools your CPU thanks to a pure copper base plate and three copper heat pipes that rapidly transfer heat away from the processor up to the dense, aluminum fin array where the thermal load is quickly dissipated by the included 92mm fan. The efficient heatpipe design moves so much heat that the fin array is able to transfer up to 200 Watts. The Vanquisher also utilizes a unique low speed fan mounted with rubber connectors to effectively decrease vibration and noise, ensuring minimal distractions at your workstation.

Source: OCZ Press Release

Chances are, you will be completely floored at the amount of money and effort required to deliver you HD-content. Engadget HD took a trip down to WFTS ABC 28 to see their setup, as they are first local-news channel to provide their cast in HD. The amount of various machines, cables, buttons, cameras… is quite impressive, to say the least. Not to mention incredibly expensive, which is why HD-content as a whole is slow to catch on.

So, 4 months and about 1 million dollars later, they produced the first local HD broadcast on July 28th, 2007 — this didn’t include the $800,000 in cameras they bought the year before. You’d think the cameras would be the biggest expense, and while they’re probably the single biggest, you still have to buy an HD switcher, encoder, sync-master, HD video server, as well as a whole list of other equipment and cables.

Source: Engadget HD

Major Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn has unleashed a new P35 board this morning, the MARS, which is the first board to be released in their new Quantum Force line-up of products. Touted as an “overclocking” board, the MARS offers nifty passive heatsinks on the PWM/NB/SB, support of up to at least 575MHz FSB, CPU voltages up past 2.0v, DRAM voltages up to 3.365v and more. Yes, this is a serious overclockers board, and one that could kill your components if you are not careful.

The Quantum Force series is suited for enthusiasts, similar to ASUS’ Republic of Gamers branding. They’ve also plans to launch a special website, at http://quantum-force.net in early September that will feature access to beta BIOS downloads, forums, tutorials and more. Although the MARS supports native 1333FSB processors, it will come in a DDR2-flavor only.

“Quantum Force is not just about a new product line, it is also a complete philosophy about how we develop our products” claims Quantum Force product manager Greta Kuo. “We have developed a design manifesto we call SWORD, which focuses on delivering more performance capability with better value for money, whilst listening to the feedback of real enthusiasts.”

Source: Foxconn