Online retailers drop Xbox 360 Core unit price

Source: Afterdawn

Just a day after UK retailer Makro dropped £80 off the price of the Xbox 360 Premium console, several online retailers have cut up to £50 from the price of the Core version of the console. Play.com has cut a quarter of the price of the console, sealing it for £149.99 instead of the RRP of £199.99. Microsoft has made no official price cut for the Xbox 360 consoles.

Rival retailer, Amazon.co.uk, has also dropped the price of the Core unit slightly, down to £189.99 from the RRP. Amazon is also selling Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) console for £109, £40 less than the RRP. Rumors of an official Microsoft price cut for the Xbox 360 circulated recently, naming the PS3 launch as a time frame for an announced.

Microsoft is also expected to unveil a black Xbox 360 around the time of the European PS3 launch.

RIAA stepped up fight against college students

Source: Afterdawn

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group that represents music companies including the "big four" record companies, has increased the amount of complaints it makes against University students across the U.S. The RIAA has been sending thousands more complaints to Universities than it did last year. The complaints are against students who share files from campus computer networks.

"It's something we feel we have to do," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "We have to let people know that if they engage in this activity, they are not anonymous." The RIAA gave a top 25 list of the worst offending Universities to the Associated Press, claiming to have sent over 15,000 complaints to these locations in all.

The top five schools are Ohio, Purdue, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. Some Universities choose to punish students who receive complaints, with penalties ranging from simple email warnings to being suspended from classes for an entire semester. "They're trying to make a statement," said Randall Hall, from Michigan State University, 7th on the list with 753 complaints.

For students caught twice by the RIAA, Hall meets with them personally and forces them to watch an RIAA-produced 8 minute long, anti-piracy DVD. A third time offender is looking at suspension. "I get the whole spectrum of excuses," Hall said. "The most common answer I get is, 'All my friends are doing this. Why did I get caught?'"

Most Universities play along because they can be sued under federal law if they don't do something to stop the offenses. Others however, are not to keen to act as security guards for music copyrights. Purdue has received 1,068 complaints so far this year, quite a leap from the 37 in 2006. However, despite such a high amount of complaints, the University rarely even notifies a student about a complaint because it is too much trouble to track down alleged offenders.

"In a sense, the (complaint) letter is asking us to pursue an investigation and as the service provider we don't see that as our role," spokesman Steve Tally said. "We are a leading technology school with thousands and thousands of curious and talented technology students." Getting complaints sent to you is one thing, but the RIAA has targeted students who share a lot of music with civil lawsuits.

Rivals attack Vista as illegal under EU rules

Source: Reuters
Author: David Lawsky and Sabina Zawadzki

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three years ago.

The group, which includes IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle and Red Hat, said its complaints made last year are yet to be addressed just days before Vista is due for release.

The European Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance to muscle out RealNetworks and other makers of audio and video streaming software and that it made its desktop Windows deliberately incompatible with rivals' server software.

"Microsoft has clearly chosen to ignore the fundamental principles of the Commission's March 2004 decision," said Simon Awde, chairman of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS).

Microsoft said it had no comment. The Commission was not ready to act.

"We are in the process of examining this complaint," a Commission spokesman said. ECIS disclosed on Friday that the latest additions to its complaint were made only last month, after it studied Vista.

Microsoft's new Vista operating system is due for formal release on Tuesday, including a major rollout in Brussels, complete with a news conference and party.

"Vista is the first step of Microsoft's strategy to extend its market dominance to the Internet," the ECIS statement said.

It said Microsoft's XAML markup language was "positioned to replace HTML", the industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet. XAML would be dependent on Windows, and discriminatory against systems such as Linux, the group said.

It said a so-called "open XML" platform file format, known as OOXML, is designed to run seamlessly only on the Microsoft Office platform. It governs the way a document is formatted and stored.

"The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve -- or even debug -- its monopoly products and of course high prices," said Thomas Vinje, lawyer for ECIS, in the statement.

Other complainants in the group include Corel, RealNetworks , Linspire and Opera.

SOME ISSUES RESOLVED

On some fronts, however, complaints were resolved. Microsoft announced earlier this month concerns raised by security companies such as Symantec and McAfee had been dealt with.

Those companies had said Vista would deny them access to the heart of the operating system, which they needed to protect it from certain kinds of malicious software. After negotiations, Microsoft said it would provide information the firms needed.

"The information was indeed what we expected and what we were looking for," said Cris Paden, manager of corporate public relations for Symantec, who earlier had raised concerns.

Microsoft has challenged the Commission's 2004 decision, which included a record fine of nearly 500 million euros ($649.4 million) and orders to change its business practices. It awaits a decision by the EU's Court of First Instance.

Sony Plans to Charge More for PlayStation 3 in Europe (Update5)

Source: Bloomberg
By Michael White

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's biggest maker of video-game players, will charge Europeans as much as $836 for a PlayStation 3 when the console debuts in March, more than consumers in the U.S. or Japan are paying.

Sony is ``working toward'' having 1 million consoles in Europe by the March 23 release date, Kimberly Otzman, spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment America, said.

Consumers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand will pay the most. The console with a 60-gigabyte hard drive will cost 425 pounds ($836) in the U.K. and 599 euros ($776) in other European countries, Sony's London-based European entertainment division said today in a statement. That's more than the $599 U.S. price and 59,980 ($497) in Japan for the model with the most capacity.

``It is expensive and I'm interested to see if they move all those million units right away,'' said John Broady, an analyst at San Francisco-based Gamespot.com, which tracks sales. ``It's a reminder that this is an expensive system.''

Australians will be charged A$999.95 ($780) for the large machine and New Zealanders NZ$1,199.95 ($840), based on prices set in Sony's statement.

Shares of Tokyo-based Sony gained 2 percent to 5,740 yen as of 1:58 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. They have gained 16 percent in the past 12 months.

European Delay

In the U.S., sales have trailed those of Nintendo Co.'s $250 Wii console, which features a motion-sensor remote control.

Sony last year bowed to protests and lowered the price in Japan for the least expensive system to 49,980 yen ($425).

The European release was delayed by four months to March because parts for the console's Blu-ray disc player were in short supply. Sony overcame early stumbles and said on Jan. 8 that it reached its goal of shipping 1 million PlayStation 3 units to the U.S. by the end of 2006.

The Blu-ray player can be used to play games and to watch movies in high-definition format.

The 1 million-unit target for Europe suggests that Sony has overcome the glitches that limited supply at the console's Nov. 17 U.S. start, Broady said.

``They had some real stumbles at launch in the U.S.,'' Broady said. ``It's an impressive feat to have 1 million units ready for Europe.''

Initially, Sony won't offer a 20-gigabyte PlayStation 3 in Europe. That version sells for $499 in the U.S. Introduction of the low-end model later in the year is dependent on demand, Sony said. More than 30 game titles will be available during the launch, the company said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at Mwhite8@bloomberg.net

Researchers Build Memory Chip The Size Of A Blood Cell

Source: Informationweek
Author: Sharon Gaudin

Chip development has taken on a new scope -- microscopic, actually.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have created a memory circuit the size of a white blood cell that they claim has enough capacity to store the Declaration of Independence and still have space left over. The circuit, built by a joint Caltech-UCLA team, has a 160-Kbit capacity -- reportedly the densest memory circuit ever fabricated.

James Heath, a Caltech chemistry professor who led the research team, called the creation of the memory circuit a milestone in manufacturing, even though it's nowhere near ready for wide-scale production and sale.

"It's the sort of device that Intel would contemplate making in the year 2020," says Heath. "But at the moment, it furthers our goal of learning how to manufacture functional electronic circuitry at molecular dimensions."

Caltech researchers say the 160,000 memory bits in the circuit are arranged like a large tic-tac-toe board -- 400 silicon wires crossed by 400 titanium wires -- with a layer of molecular switches sandwiched in between. Each wire crossing represents a bit, and a single bit is 15 nanometers wide. That's one ten-thousandth of the diameter of a human hair. In comparison, they add, the densest memory devices currently on the market are about 140 nanometers wide.

"Whether it's actually possible to get this new memory circuit into a laptop, I don't know," says Heath. "But we have time."

The researchers' work appears in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Hi-def DVD security is bypassed

Source: BBC News

The encryption on high-definition DVDs has been bypassed, the consortium backing the copy protection system on discs has confirmed.

At the end of last year a hacker claimed he had defeated the protection on a number of HD-DVD titles, leading to fears the entire system was broken.

But the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) Licensing Authority has said the breach is limited.

"It does not represent an attack on the AACS system itself," the group said.

The AACS group has admitted that a hacker had managed to decrypt some discs and other people were now able to make copies of certain titles.

The hacker, known as muslix64, has been able to access the encryption keys which pass between certain discs and the player. Once those keys have been obtained the disc can be stripped of its encryption enabling the digital content to be played on any machine.

A spokesman for the AACS group said the large size of the files and the high cost of writable hi-def discs made widespread copying of the movies impractical.

The attacks on the new format echo the early days of illegal trafficking in music files, AACS spokesman Michael Ayers said.

Security

AACS copy protection is used on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray titles, giving rise to concern from the entire movie industry about the security of its content.

A large-scale breach of AACS could be a threat to the $24bn DVD industry and dent hopes that high-definition discs would invigorate the market.

The hacker obtained the keys from "one or more" pieces of software which plays high-definition DVDs, said Mr Ayers.

But the AACS group would not identify them or say whether their AACS licensing would be revoked.

"We certainly have not ruled out any particular response and we will take whatever action is appropriate," Mr Ayers said.

In a recent interview with digital media website Slyck, hacker muslix64, said his motivation for defeating the protection system was frustration.

'Fair use'

"I'm just an upset customer. My efforts can be called 'fair use enforcement'," he said.

He said he had grown angry when a HD-DVD movie he had bought would not play on his monitor because it did not have the compliant connector demanded by the movie industry.

As part of the copy protection system on high-definition DVD, content providers can insist that movies will only play correctly if there are HDMI - or in some specific cases, compliant DVI - ports on the player and screen as these two connectors can handle the HDCP copy protection system.

"Not being able to play a movie that I have paid for, because some executive in Hollywood decided I cannot, made me mad," said the hacker.

Own The Internet - All Advantage AKA Agloco

Article Source: Own The Internet Blog

Author: Javivi

This is AGLOCO™ 's proposition, just three words: Own the Internet.

Whenever you are online, either surfing, blogging, clicking on an ad, making a purchase, all the money generated by your activities is pocketed by a small number of players. At AGLOCO™ they say not anymore!

AGLOCO™ is a global community, whose owners are its Members (you and potentially the millions of internet users out there). Their goal is to capture a significant portion of the value generated by our online activities and return it to Members in cash. Best of all, it is totally free, Members will NEVER have to pay anything, nor will they have to disclose ANY personal information!

How does this work? Once you sign up on their website, when available you will be able to download the Viewbar software, a free toolbar-sized application (half the size of a traditional Windows tool bar) that quietly sits on your desktop without ever hampering your online habits. That’s all you need to do! Just continue using the Internet as you used to… no need to change your habits!

Do you have several individuals using one computer? You can have different AGLOCO™ viewbars to fit the profile of each user.

Don’t want to see or use the Viewbar at any given time? Just minimize it and the Viewbar stops working!

There are different ways AGLOCO™ can make money for its Members:

• Cash: You get cash by surfing the Internet while the Viewbar is running. AGLOCO™ ’s profits are distributed back to its Members. And you can also receive real-time discounts should you choose to purchase from AGLOCO™ ’s partners. They will never include gambling or adult entertainment sites as partners.

• Shares: In addition to cash, AGLOCO™ will give out shares in the company to its Members. Eventually, AGLOCO™ plans to go public and will be traded on the London Stock Exchange AIM. You can start earning stock options by keeping Viewbar active while you surf. In addition, you will gain extra shares by referring active users to AGLOCO™ (they lose nothing). Click here to see the calculator.

The more people join AGLOCO™ , the more value the community can generate for itself. The company believes those that build the community deserve more: your own profits become larger the more people you refer. You can accumulate hours not only from your Internet activity but also from those who you refer, and their referrals too… Up to 5 levels underneath you! For example, if you refer 10 people and all of them refer 5 people each, you could make over 7000 shares a month*!

Remember, this is all free, you don’t lose anything, all you have to do is sign up, download the Viewbar and that’s it. Build your network and refer friends, family and colleagues to AGLOCO™ and earn even more!

The guys behind this idea include several Stanford MBA’s and a few individuals who started AllAdvantage back in 1998, which gave over $100 million to its users before falling victim to the burst of the internet bubble. Today, the context is much more favorable: The sophistication of on-line commerce, the rapid emergence of communities, the wealth of advertising revenue sources, etc. Isn’t it time you got your share of the Internet?

Don't wait any longer. This is a win-win opportunity, and you’ll make it even more profitable for yourself when you start referring friends and relatives before others get to them! Since I assume you learned about AGLOCO™ thanks to my website*, please don’t forget to add my referee ID when signing up: AGLO-0014. Click here to sign up directly!

Get your FREE account here

It's funny, brokers these days seem to be like buses. You wait ages for a new one, then two come along at once.

Source: Forexheaven

Not that long ago, we reviewed Easy Forex – a new kind of broker that broke the mould by making it simple and quick to open an account. The fact you could fund it with a credit card or PayPal was pretty radical.

Well what do you know – another broker is on the scene, also promising quick sign up. And we're really excited about this one – because they're doing it better! They're called Marketiva, and we've taken a closer look.

Trade For Free?

We thought that Easy's account opening minimum of $5 was pretty impressive. Hard to beat, even. However, Marketiva have beaten it.

You can open an account with...absolutely nothing. In fact, when you sign up for an account, they actually give you $5 credit.

Combined with their 1% margin, you can quite reasonably start live trading with no money down. We can't think of another broker where that's possible.

If you want to add funds to your account, you can do so by good old wire transfer, as well as using eGold and eBullion, which is different. Alas, no PayPal at this time.

Aside from the obvious advantage of being given free money in your new account, the sign up procedure is really very quick indeed. It takes just a couple of minutes to get your account up and running, and then you're ready to download the software.

Gorgeous Platform

Forgive me if I get overexcited here, but the thing is, the trading software supplied by Marketiva is...gorgeous!

I know that looks aren't everything, but well designed trading software does make the job easier. Forex brokers (all brokers in fact) aren't exactly known for producing very user friendly software, which makes this trading station all the more surprising.

When you start it up, the screen is divided into four areas:

Rates and News: This is the market data area with live streaming quotes. Marketiva's spreads are average, but nothing special. Between 3 – 5 pips seems to be normal for most pairs. All of the usual currency pairs are available.

Clicking on the "Latest News" tab brings up a live news feed. You can choose the type of news you want displayed here, with special features, technical and fundamental analysis all offered along with the usual forex news.

Charting and Discussion: The charts are lovely and clear, but you can only have one open at a time. Still, the platform makes it easy to create new charts and save them along with your favourite indicators etc, and then switch between them. You can choose time scales from 5 minutes to monthly, and all the indicators and options we've come to expect are present.

Selecting the "Discussions" tab brings up an integrated Live Chat system – a great idea – but perhaps a distraction for newbies. Still, being hidden in a tab, you don't have to watch it. There are a ton of chat rooms available, including local rooms for most countries. You shouldn't have any problem at all finding someone to talk to who speaks your language - both literally and in the financial sense! Technical and account support are also provided through the chat system.

Portfolio / Signals / Alerts: Here you can see your account balances. Hang on, did I say balances in the plural? I certainly did – because Marketiva gives you a Virtual $10,000 account to play with alongside your live account.

This is an excellent idea – there's no need to log into a separate demo system to test out new strategies or paper trade ideas. You can trade live and demo accounts at the same time!

The Signals tab in this quarter of the screen, is where you can get trading signals from free and commercial systems. A couple of systems are available free, and paid for ones can be added as well.

The Alerts tab brings up market news items. Very handy for trading the news.

Order Management: The final quarter is where you place and manage orders. Market, Stop and Limit orders are all supported, as are Good Till Date, Good Till Cancelled, and Immediate orders.

Orders can also be entered by clicking on a live quote. The order ticket allows you to select whether you want the order to be routed through your Live account or the Virtual one.

Finally the Account Center tab is where you can deposit and withdraw funds.

The Forex Angels Say: With live and virtual trading in the same platform, and free money credited to your account when you sign up, Marketiva has got an outstanding offer. Their brilliantly integrated software makes getting started a breeze. Everything you need is in one easy to use package. It's smooth, and it works. We definitely recommend taking a look!

Click here to register

Other Best Online Payment Service

Source: Wikipedia

E-gold is a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. under e-gold Ltd., and is a system which allows the instant transfer of gold ownership between users. e-gold Ltd. is incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles.

According to the company's website, as of September 2006, e-gold had 111,779 oz (3,465,149 grams) of gold and 138,567 oz (4,295,577 grams) of silver in storage, which is worth approximately US$86 million. There are typically 66,000 e-gold spends each day totaling 15,000 oz (460 kilograms), which is about US$10.5 million. There are over three million e-gold accounts of which about one quarter is active.

Click here to register for FREE

The Second Biggest Online Payment Service

Source: Wikipedia

Moneybookers is the second-biggest online-payment service (after PayPal). The UK-based company allows people to send and receive money via e-mail. Users can send money from a credit card, debit card or transfer money to and from a bank account in most OECD countries.

Moneybookers is free for sellers with personal accounts. Business accounts are available to qualified applicants and incur acceptance fees. Funds may be withdrawn by bank check, transfer to a bank account, credit/debit card or SWIFT international transfer to many countries. As a security measure Moneybookers does limit transfers received by accounts to the thousands of dollars or Euros. Unlike many competing online fund transfer services, Moneybookers requires identity verification before using their service; this minimizes fraud and prevents money laundering. Additional verification steps raise the maximum amount transferable to €20,000 or equivalent within a 90-day period. Moneybookers does not usually get involved in merchandise disputes and the availability of credit card chargebacks may be very limited.

The moneybookers.com domain was created 18 June 2001. As of January 2007, Moneybookers claim to have over 2.5 million users and processed over €2,000 million in transactions. Moneybookers is a subsidiary of Gatcombe Park Ventures Limited.

Under eBay's Accepted Payments Policy Moneybookers and Nochex (UK only), are two of the few payment services that can be offered by eBay sellers.

Click here to register for FREE