Firefox review 3 beta

OSWeekly activated the latest Firefox 3 beta and is not impressed. Firefox 3 is now in beta 5 and accessible for download at the Mozilla site.

Quote from the review: "I’ve been testing the latest absolution of Firefox back my aftermost article, which discussed the areas Mozilla bare to assignment on. Overall, it looks and feels like the aftermost release.

The aftermost and bluntly the better disappointment had to be the absolute abridgement of accomplishing annihilation advantageous with the browser's RSS abilities. True to Mozilla's Google loyalty, the absence clairvoyant charcoal the Google Reader."

Read the abounding analysis on OSWeekly.

Microsoft removes genuine validation for ie7

In a somewhat surprising move, Microsoft has made their Internet Explorer 7 browser available to anyone running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, in an update that removes Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation software from the browser.

Before the update, only users running genuine Microsoft products could update from the terrible IE6 browser, but now even those with pirated Windows can update.

"Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users," remarked IE7 program manager Steve Reynolds on the IE Blog. "With today’s 'Installation and Availability Update,' Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users."

The move is likely to give some of the browser market back to Microsoft which it has been losing to strong competitors such as Firefox and Opera.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11388.cfm

Mirrors 'could deflect' asteroids

Flying mirrors could save earth from a catastrophic asteroid collision, researchers have claimed.
Up to 5,000 mirrors would be used to focus a beam of sunlight on to the asteroid, melting the rock and altering its orbital path away from earth.

The announcement came after a team at the University of Glasgow compared nine different methods of deflecting near earth objects - asteroids and comets.

A 100m asteroid hits the earth roughly every century.

Orbiting mirrors would be used to focus sunlight on an area of the asteroid - heating the rock to around 2,100 degrees Celsius.

This would create a thrust which would nudge the asteroid off course.

The team found that the orbit of an asteroid 150m across could be sufficiently modified by a swarm of 100 mirrors in a few days.

For an asteroid on the scale of that which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs, a 5,000-strong fleet of spacecraft would need to focus a beam on the surface for three or more years.

"With only 10 spacecraft flying in formation, each with a 20m mirror, we could deflect a similar size asteroid into a safe orbit in about six months.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7029650.stm

Russia builds most powerful vacuum bomb

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it had tested the world's most powerful vacuum bomb.

Russia has tested the world's most powerful vacuum bomb, unleashing a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear weapon. "The main destruction is inflicted by an ultrasonic shockwave and an incredibly high temperature," the report said. "All that is alive merely evaporates."
"Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," Alexander Rukshin, deputy head of Russia's armed force chief of staff, told Russia's ORT First Channel television.
"You will now see it in action, the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site," the report said. It showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed.
A vacuum bomb, or fuel-air explosive, causes widespread devastation. A typical bomb of that type is dropped or fired, the first explosive charge bursts open the container at a predetermined height and disperses the fuel in a cloud that mixes with oxygen. A second charge ignites the cloud, which can engulf objects or buildings.
"At the same time, I want to stress that the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one."

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1155952320070912?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Halo 3 brokes its previous sales record!

Halo 3 makes $170 million USD in first 24 hours

Long before Halo 3 hit retail shelves, Microsoft boasted that the launch would be the "biggest day in US entertainment history." Judging by figures compiled for the first 24 hours, they can now back that claim up.

According to a press release from Microsoft, Halo 3 has generated $170 million USD in its first 24 hours of US availability, making it the biggest launch day in the history of the US entertainment industry. The sales beat out the "Spider-Man 3" movie as well as the latest Harry Potter novel, although it must be said that the game is fairly more expensive than either a movie ticket or a hardcover book.

In every copy of the game Microsoft also included a 48-hour trial for Xbox Live, which likely helped drive September 25th to be the busiest day in XBL history.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11268.cfm

Microsoft launches enterprise 'get legal' program

October 02, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft Corp. amped up its antipiracy campaign today, adding a program that targets large customers that need to "get legal" after being fingered for using counterfeit or illegally-applied volume licenses.

The program, dubbed Get Genuine Windows Agreement (GGWA), plugs a hole in the company's antipiracy efforts, said Cori Hartje, the director of Microsoft's 18-month-old initiative to identify phony copies of Windows or instances of unlicensed use of the software.

"This fills in the entire picture," said Hartje. "Consumers who had been identified as running a counterfeit [version of] Windows could simply push a button and have the purchase made right then. But we didn't have a good way to programmatically address the same for larger-scale customers, particularly through the [reseller] channel."

GGWA uses Microsoft's standard volume licensing -- and therefore is designed for organizations that generally acquire the company's software through that venue -- to sell full licenses of Windows XP Professional. Most customers looking to get legal using GGWA would go through their existing channel reseller, Hartje said.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9040518&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top