In the recent weeks, technology giants Sony and Toshiba have expressed an interest in settling the dispute over the next generation of high definition digital versatile discs. Now it appears that both sides are as far apart as ever, with the billions of Yen spent in development of each company’s respective format being the dividing factor.

In May it appeared that the format war would finally be settled. Each company recalled the VHS/Betamax format fued of the 1980′s, citing a concern for the consumer as their basis for coming to terms with one another. However, things have changed since then, and Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi believes that the chances of the two companies coming up with a unified format to replace Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are slim.

So which format should you, the consumer, support? While HD-DVD doesn’t have a recognizable, tactile piece of hardware to showcase itself, Sony has the Playstation 3 as a launching pad for its Blu-Ray format. While this would apparently place the ball in Sony’s court, there is always a possibility that some of us will be stuck buying new hardware should our chosen format ultimately fail.

>> Media Center Pc World

Microsoft has launched a public beta for a new piece of software, code named ‘Acrylic’. Acrylic is a design tool that will feel reasonably similar to anyone familiar with Adobe Photoshop. Acrylic offers the more advanced editing features (layers, etc) not currently found in the standard imaging program bundled with Windows, Microsoft Paint.

Microsoft describe “Acrylic” as “the codename for a new professional design tool that brings together the richness of pixel-based painting and the flexibility of editable vector graphics for a more fluid and flexible creative workflow. With Acrylic you can create sophisticated designs and graphic elements for your on-screen, Web, and print projects..”

Microsoft are offering the software on a 180 day trial basis, and are welcoming feedback via their online forums. for an extensive list of features, click ‘read more’. Microsoft’s long term plans with the software are somewhat unclear; the company already offers a photo editing product, and has imaging capabilities in other programs. They have have yet to make clear whether it would be sold as a standalone product, or bundled with a future OS release – i.e. Longhorn.

>> Acrylic homepage

Steve Jobs announced at the WWDC keynote today that Apple is switching to Intel processors. MacNN has live coverage. The bottom line is that Mac OS X for the last five years has been running on Intel, the switch is expected to be complete in two years, and Rosetta will allow PPC apps to run on Intel-based Macs, transparently.

“Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life. There have been rumors to this effect… We’ve had teams working on the ‘just in case’ scenario.” said Steve Jobs. Apple will ship a Mac with Intel processors by June 6th, 2006, as reports said. It should be complete by June 2007. Says that Intel offers a better roadmap for the markets that Apple services. Jobs talked about IBM missing the 3 GHz mark for the G5, and in not being able to put one in a PowerBook. Today’s WWDC keynote demonstration has been done entirely on an Intel Mac. Developers applauded Steve when he said that both processors would be supported for a long time and the core to this will be universal binaries. ‘Rosetta’ will allow PowerPC compiled apps to work on an Intel Mac. UPDATE: After Jobs’ presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. “That doesn’t preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will,” he said. “We won’t do anything to preclude that.” However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers’ hardware. “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac.”

>> View keynote demonstration

There are two important events that will happen to the support policy for Windows 2000 after June 30th of this year. First, support for both IE 5.01 SP3 and IE 6 SP1 on Windows 2000 SP3 will expire. Users running IE 5.01 or IE 6 SP1 on Windows 2000 should upgrade to Windows 2000 SP4 in order to continue to receive security updates. Second, Windows 2000 SP4 moves from mainstream to extended support. The key difference between mainstream support and extended support which I think is most relevant to this audience is this quote from the lifecycle site: “Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended support phase.” We will of course continue to keep our Windows 2000 SP4 customers secure with security updates through the life of Windows 2000 (through 2010). There are a few other differences between the two support models which you can read about at the lifecycle site. You may also want to read my previous post about Windows’ lifecycle. It should be no surprise that we do not plan on releasing IE7 for Windows 2000. One reason is where we are in the Windows 2000 lifecycle. Another is that some of the security work in IE7 relies on operating system functionality in XPSP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000.

>> IEBlog

Ad-Aware is designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components.

Improvements:
* Disk-scan is approximately 30 % faster
* CSI scan is now more efficient
* Added “Scan for low risk threats” option, to scan for targets with low TAC index
* Ad-Watch CSI engine performance highly improved; using less CPU and Memory as well as having a smaller footprint
* GUI adapted to use the new TAC

Important corrections:
* Freezing during scan (occurring on some systems) now corrected
* Combination of the +silent and +update command line parameters no longer prevents scan completion
* The +nodefnotice command line parameter now suppressing “out-of-date” message on preferences window.
* Ad-Watch TrayIcon tooltip indicating the loaded definition file now refreshed when the definition file is changed or updated in Ad-Aware
* Several minor GUI improvements (Ad-Aware, Ad-Watch and Proc-Watch)

>> http://www.lavasoft.com

Citing user requests to coalesce it’s disparate services, Google released its new personalized homepage service. It allows you to arrange your Gmail, Google News, Google Maps driving directions, weather and a few select news services (including Slashdot, Wired, New York Times, BBC News) on a single page. Future plans include Universal RSS support. Clearly a shot at existing services like My Yahoo.

>> http://www.google.com/ig

* New: By popular demand all “http force to ‘Now Playing’” support has been removed* New: Deletes in the Media Library now move files to the Recycle Bin* New: WMA Playback now works with WaveOut plugin* New: NSV Subtitles can be disabled on the fly* Fixed: Authentication for OGG/Vorbis streams* Fixed: Drag and Drop strange behavior in open file dialogs* Fixed: Stuttering WMA On Start and Seek * Fixed: NSV Video stall during buffering* Fixed: Autosize of video to be accurate to the Video size not snap size* Fixed: Short NSV Clips audio cutout* Update: CD Ripping Library * Update: Online Media tree is now dynamic (More free videos on the way!)* Update: Sonic Install / Config flag mismatch.

>> Download Winamp 5.091

In my opinion, MSN Messenger is getting way too bloated with functions I’ll never use. So I returned to Microsoft’s other instant messaging program: Windows Messenger. It’s nice to see that classic interface again …

A new version of Windows Messenger has been released on Friday the 13th. Windows Messenger 5.1.0680 is currently available in English only. Other languages will be available in June 2005. This release improves the following features:

1) Improves the file transfer functionality for users who have multiple network connections. These multiple network connections include configurations for users who have wired wireless network or VPN connections.
2) Improves presence integration with programs. For example, this version includes the functionality to update presence information in Microsoft Outlook and in Microsoft Windows SharePoint services.
3) Provides support for Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit.
4) Improves security by using the latest secure components. Additionally, URL links are now non-clickable. This behavior is by default.

>> Download Windows Messenger 5.1.0680

Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks. Gaim users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time. Gaim supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer (coming soon), away messages, typing notification, and MSN window closing notification.

It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, and more.

>> Download Gaim 1.3.1

After more than a year, a new version of this very good, free music ripping soft.

* Wave editor and native interface stability improved
* Many bug fixes (E.g. extraction engine crashes, CDDB problems, compression queue)
* Added interface for CDRDAO for CD writing
* Inserting all tracknames from Clipboard using Ctrl+Shift+V

>> http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

For ripping to mp3, you need the LAME codec (http://mitiok.free.fr)