Google Launches IMAP Support for Gmail
Google has launched a new IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) service for Gmail that will allow users to sync Gmail with their e-mail clients.

Google Inc. has launched a new IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) service for Gmail that will allow users to sync Gmail with their e-mail clients.
(PCW took the new service out for a spin earlier this week.)
"It keeps the same information synced across all devices so that whatever you do in one place shows up everywhere else you might access your e-mail," said David Murray, associate product manager, in a blog post. "For example, I can read an e-mail in Gmail, then move it to the 'Starred' folder on my iPhone, then archive it by moving it to 'All Mail' in Thunderbird, then see all of those changes on my BlackBerry or any of [these] devices for that matter."
Previously, Google offered only POP (Post Office Protocol) access, for Gmail, which meant if users made changes on other devices, those changes weren't seen in Gmail when they logged back in. Users then had to re-read and re-sort all their e-mails. The IMAP feature means all user e-mails will be stored on the server, so users can sync their data across a wide variety of devices.
Murray said users can use Gmail at work, in the car or anywhere on any device. He added that the actions users take will automatically sync with Gmail on the Web and anything users do on the Web will be seen on their phones or their e-mail clients.
To use the new service, users should click on the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab in their Gmail Settings and turn it on

Blast-off for Mars hunt

A US space probe has started a 10-month journey to Mars, where it will dig through soil for signs of life in a frigid region of the Red Planet.

The Phoenix Mars Lander is scheduled to land on Mars on May 25 after travelling 680 million km through space.

NASA hopes to land the probe on flat ground with few or no rocks at a Martian latitude equivalent to northern Alaska.

In its three-month mission, the lander will pierce through soil in the planet's arctic region amid temperatures from -73C to -33C.

The craft is equipped with a 2.35m robotic arm that will enter vertically into the soil to break the icy crust believed to lie within a few centimetres of the surface. The arm will lift samples on to the lander's deck and check for water and carbon-based chemicals, considered essential building blocks for life.

The craft will also analyse the soil chemistry to look for clues of past or present life.

With its two solar panels deployed, the lander, built by US aerospace firm Lockheed Martin, measures 5.5m x 1.5m, weighs 350kg and carries 55kg of scientific equipment.

Mars landings are especially risky. Only five of the 15 US, Russian and European attempts have worked.

In 2002, the NASA probe Mars Odyssey detected huge quantities of hydrogen on the Martian surface.

NASA to Begin Digging Mission on Northern Pole of Mars

WASHINGTON, July 30 — NASA is about to launch a scientific laboratory to Mars that will be the first spacecraft to land in the northern polar region of the planet and dig for evidence of water or other conditions that could support some form of life.

The spacecraft, Mars Phoenix Lander, is set to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a Delta II rocket during a three-week window that opens Friday. If the 770-pound lander touches down safely after its 10-month journey, it will spend three months or longer probing the ground and monitoring the weather above.

Unlike rover missions that explore large areas, Phoenix is to stay on one spot in the permafrost region of the Martian arctic and use a mechanical arm to explore the area in detail. “This is a vertical mission,” said Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the mission’s principal scientist. “We are going to dig down and not explore horizontally.”

The target area rests at latitudes equivalent on Earth to Northern Alaska, Siberia or Greenland, Mr. Smith said. It is covered with polar ice in the winter, but Phoenix is to arrive in the summer when the ground is mostly clear.

After landing, the robot spacecraft will unfurl a pair of circular solar power arrays that give it a width of 18 feet. It will deploy a pair of stereoscopic color cameras on a mast that extends 7 feet above the surface to record panoramic views, and extend a 4-foot mast bearing temperature sensors from an onboard weather station supplied by the Canadian Space Agency.

The weather station, designed to operate even after the craft’s primary digging mission is completed, is to track daily and seasonal changes in temperature, atmospheric pressure and wind speed and direction. In addition, a pulsing laser will fire into the atmosphere to measure the size and altitude of dust and ice particles in the vicinity.

With a 7.7-foot-long hinged arm that operates like a backhoe, the craft is to dig a series of trenches more than 20 inches into the ground with a movable metal scoop that has sharp prongs and serrated blades on the end. At full range, the arm can reach eight square yards of surface area near the lander, Mr. Smith said.

Guided by a camera on the end of the scoop, scientists will select soil and ice samples for detailed study by instruments on the lander. For one experiment, the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, samples will be dropped into a hopper to feed eight single-use ovens the size of an ink cartridge in a ballpoint pen. The sample will be slowly heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit to study the transition from solid to liquid to gas, and the vapors analyzed by a mass spectrometer to measure the mass and composition of specific molecules.

Four other samples are to be examined in a miniature wet chemistry laboratory, where they will be stirred into a prewarmed solution and mixed with chemicals to tease out certain constituents, such as carbonates, sulfates and soil oxidants. Such components could either encourage or deter the formation of life if liquid water were available at times, scientists said.
This laboratory also contains two microscopes to examine the fine structure of soil and ice samples, revealing features as small as 1/1,000th the width of a human hair that could be evidence of past liquid water on the planet.

Phoenix draws its name from the mythical bird that rose from its ashes because it is made of parts of two earlier efforts to explore Mars. “It’s really getting a second chance, as its name implies,” said Douglas McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA. “It is mainly refurbished hardware.”

The spacecraft is made of the supporting structure and some instruments from the 2001 Mars Surveyor lander, which never flew because of cost overruns, and several backup instruments from the unsuccessful Mars Polar Lander in 1999.

Mr. McCuistion estimated the project would cost $420 million, including $90 million for the launch rocket. He said the amount was $25 million to $30 million above initial estimates because the program decided to do more tests and simulations to help assure mission success.

Recent spacecraft like the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have landed on Mars encased in airbags to cushion their fall and bounce around obstacles. Phoenix Lander is too heavy for the airbag approach so it will make a fiery entry into Mars’s atmosphere protected by a heat shield before being slowed by a parachute and eventually making a soft landing with the help of pulsing retro rockets.

Mr. McCuistion noted that the success rate for landing spacecraft on Mars was under 50 percent, and that there was added risk in attempting a soft landing.

While Phoenix is to operate during the Martian summer, scientists hope the spacecraft survives dwindling sunlight and power to see approaching winter cover the area with ice. “I’d be thrilled if we could last long enough to see ice form around the spacecraft,” Mr. Smith said.

Picture Laboratorium in Mars:

Software

Microsoft Issues Comprehensive Vista Patches to Testers

Microsoft tackles some of Vista more annoying problems

Windows Vista was released to businesses in late November and to consumers in late January. Over the past eight months, numerous issues have cropped up with the operating system and Microsoft has been hard at work in solving them.

According to a posting at nV News, Microsoft has issued two comprehensive software patches to testers which resolve a laundry list of Windows Vista issues. The "938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack" improves performance when copying/moving large files, copying/moving large directories with large amounts of data and resuming from hibernate. Other problems addressed include fixes to Vista's Memory Manager and an issue where a computer would lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep.

The "938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack" contains a variety of updates to improve the reliability and compatibility of graphics cards and printers. Also included are enhancements to HD DVD/Blu-ray playback on large monitors.

The two update packs are technically only available to Windows Vista testers. However, a brave nV News forum subscriber posted a link where anyone can download the two update packs in x86 and x64 versions.

Here’s the list of fixes in those new Vista fix

I linked to an AeroXP post this morning listing hot fixes for Windows Vista provided in two new Knowledge Base postings. The AeroXP post is gone now. Poof!
So if you wanted the list of what’s in there, here it is. I grabbed it from NVNews.Net. I am posting the Vista fix pack feature list here in case it somehow disappears again:
938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the performance and responsiveness for some scenarios and improves reliability of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:
• Improves performance in resuming back to the desktop from the Photo and Windows Energy screensaver.• Resolves an issue where some secured web pages using advanced security technologies may not get displayed in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.• Resolves an issue where a shared printer may not get installed if the printer is connected to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system and User Access Control is disabled on the Vista client.• Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.• Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files.• Improves performance in bringing up Login Screen after resuming from Hibernate.• Resolves an issue where synchronization of offline files to a server can get corrupted.• Resolves a compatibility issue with RAW images created by Canon EOS 1D/1DS Digital SLR Camera which can lead to data loss. This only affects RAW images created by these two specific camera models.• Resolves an issue where a computer can lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep mode.• Improves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.• Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack
• Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.• Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.• Increased compatibility with many video drivers.• Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.• Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.• Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.• Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.• Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.• Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.• Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

These appear to be many of the fixes that will be part of the Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, which is expected to enter public beta testing some time soon. Microsoft made these fix packs available to selected testers around July 20.

Why the secrecy around these fix packs? All I can do is refer you to Microsoft’s statement on wanting to eliminate SP1 disinformation. That’s all that the company will say officially and publicly for now.

Dawn asteroid probe won't launch until September

The scientist leading NASA's Dawn spacecraft on a three-billion-mile reconnaissance mission to explore a massive asteroid and a "dwarf planet" believed to harbor water has been designing the project for more than a decade. Liftoff was supposed to happen this weekend, yet troubles interfered. And officials Saturday ordered another launch delay -- all the way to September.

Chris Russell, professor of geophysics and space physics at the UCLA, first proposed the mission in 1994. He's been waiting a long time to see the robotic probe, powered by exotic ion thrusters, travel into the asteroid belt where it will orbit the rocky body Vesta, then venture out further to the small world called Ceres and also orbit that tantilizing object.

But getting the spacecraft built and launched has been beleaguered by setbacks.

"The spacecraft will spend much less time in space than we put in preparing for the mission," Russell said recently. "I want to get this spacecraft up in space, where it belongs. I'm really confident about the spacecraft. We've been testing and retesting."

Russell's team hoped to see the instrument-laden space probe leave Earth in the coming days. Now, everyone must wait a bit longer.

A 12-story United Launch Alliance Delta 2-Heavy rocket with Dawn nestled inside the vehicle's nose cone was supposed to blast off from Cape Canaveral's pad 17B on Saturday afternoon. But stormy weather prevented the rocket's second stage from being fueled on Thursday, forcing the liftoff to be delayed from Saturday to Sunday.

NASA decided early Friday morning to slip the launch another 24 hours - to Monday - because of troubles with a telemetry-relay aircraft downrange. Then a decision was made late Friday to retarget the launch for no earlier than Sunday, July 15.

Problems with the tracking plane and delays getting a substitute ship into the Atlantic Ocean region has been a source of headaches for the launch officials. Either the aircraft or the instrumented ship is required to receive telemetry from the rocket during the second and third stage firings off the west-central coast of Africa. Without a mobile tracking asset in place, engineers would have no insight or data while those critical events of the launch occur.

NASA has been racing against the calendar because Dawn's current launch opportunity closes July 19, giving just a few days left to get the spacecraft on the required trajectory to fly past Mars for a sling-shot maneuver and then into the asteroid belt for its rendezvous with Vesta and Ceres over the next eight years.

Missing this launch period forces a wait until the next window, which opens in September and extends through late October.

With the dwindling dates left to fly and the looming August 3 launch of the Mars lander Phoenix aboard another Delta 2 rocket from the neighboring Cape Canaveral pad, NASA management on Saturday opted to call an end to Dawn's liftoff chances in July.

"The decision was made Saturday to move the launch to September after careful review by NASA's Science Mission Directorate officials, working with Dawn mission managers, the Dawn principal investigator, and with the concurrence of the NASA Administrator," an agency spokesman said.

"Primary reasons for the move were a combination of highly limited launch opportunities for Dawn in July and the potential impact to launch preparations for the upcoming Phoenix Mars Lander mission, set for early August."

The alignment of the planets dictates a tight August 3 to August 24 window for the Phoenix liftoff to happen. If the craft doesn't launch within those three weeks, the next shot at Mars won't come until 2009.

"A September launch for Dawn maintains all of the science mission goals a July launch would have provided," the NASA spokesman said.

An additional complicating factor for Dawn is its launcher's second stage. A propellant blend of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine fuel must be loaded into the Delta vehicle two days prior to liftoff. But the corrosive nature of the rocket fuel limits the amount of time the stage remains suitable for flight -- roughly 40 days -- after the propellant is pumped aboard. Proceeding with the fueling for a launch next weekend and then possibly experiencing weather or technical delays that pushed the flight past the July 19 window cutoff date would have added further problems and cost to the Dawn mission.

The start of Dawn's adventure to examine Vesta and Ceres has experienced a number of hurdles, including outright cancellation of the project in March 2006. After a heated controversy, NASA restarted the mission less than a month later.

"It has been quite an emotional roller coaster," said Russell.

"There were some days I didn't think we were going to make it. But we never kept trying."
Recent plans called for the launch to happen June 20, but that date was scrapped because more time was needed to prepare the Delta rocket before on-pad assembly could start. Then a targeted June 30 launch day was doomed when the pad's crane developed a problem last month, causing a hiatus in attaching the solid-fuel boosters.

Those slips in the launch schedule coupled with this week's weather and tracking aircraft problems left Dawn with little of its window left prior to the high priority Mars lander liftoff.

Dawn's ion thrusters, derived from the engine successfully demonstrated on NASA's Deep Space 1 technology pathfinder craft, will propel the spacecraft during its eight-year, three-billion-mile mission, reaching Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015. The spacecraft will orbit at increasingly lower altitudes above the objects to determine the composition, internal structure and evolutionary history of the bodies.

"I think of Dawn as two journeys," Russell said. "One is a journey into space. This is analogous to what ancient explorers did, who knew there was unexplored territory and wanted to discover what was there. We're going to explore a region for the first time to find out what the conditions are today.

"Dawn is also a journey back in time. Ceres and Vesta have been altered much less than other bodies. The Earth is changing all the time; the Earth hides its history, but we believe that Ceres and Vesta, formed more than 4.6 billion years ago, have preserved their early record. They're revealing information that was frozen into their ancient surfaces. By looking at the surface and how it was modified by the bombardment of meteoroids, we will get an idea of what the early conditions of Ceres and Vesta were and how they changed. So Dawn is a history trip too. We're going back in time to the early solar system."

Scientists suspect that Vesta is solid rock. The oval-shaped object has an average diameter of approximately 320 miles. On the other hand, Ceres could have water or ice beneath its rocky crust. This "baby planet" has an average diameter of about 600 miles.

"Why do we explore the solar system? Why did Lewis and Clark go across the U.S. at the start of the 19th century? We're not going to expand the human race off this planet for a long time, but discovering our origins and how the solar system evolved is valuable in itself. Mankind has always expanded horizons. Exploration is a human imperative."

Exactly when Dawn will blast off to begin its expedition wasn't immediately clear Saturday. NASA officials did not announce a target launch date for September.

Syria intensifying Internet crackdown: watchdog

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria has stepped up its muzzling of the Internet, blocking access to a string of websites critical of the regime, including some run by leading dailies, a human rights group said on Saturday.

blocked by firewalls within Syria include the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat (The Middle East) and the Beirut newspaper Al-Mustaqbal (The Future) run by the family of slain Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said.

E-mail provider Hotmail has also been blocked since July 17 last year, the watchdog added.
"Freedom of the Internet is regressing in Syria after the authorities blocked access to a string of independent websites," the group complained.

In November 2005, media watchdog Reporters without Borders named Syria as one of 15 enemies of the Internet around the world.

NASA's Asteroid Probe Set for Monday Launch

NASA is hoping for a Monday liftoff for the Dawn spacecraft, a probe bound to visit the two largest asteroids in the solar system.

Dawn is now set to ride a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket into space July 9 at 3:56 p.m. EDT (1956 GMT) after new issues scrapped plans for a Sunday liftoff.

Mechanical difficulties with a telemetry relay aircraft, combined with the unavailability of a tracking ship and an unfavorable weather forecast for rocket fueling, delayed plans for a Sunday launch, NASA officials said. Weather forecasts for Monday improve to a 60 percent chance of favorable liftoff conditions, they added.

Dawn's planned Monday launch will kick off an eight-year trip to Vesta and Ceres, the two largest space rocks in the Asteroid Belt that rings the Sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter. The $449 million mission will mark NASA's first to orbit two different planetary bodies, and will study space rocks that formed about 4.6 billion years ago while the solar system was still young.

"What's exciting to me is that this is comparative planetology at its best," said David Lindstrom, NASA's Dawn program scientist, during a Friday briefing. "We truly are going back in time; back to the dawn of the solar system."

Powered by an ion drive, Dawn is due to enter orbit around Vesta in October 2011 and use three onboard instruments to study the space rock's surface before heading off towards a February 2015 orbital rendezvous with Ceres.

Vesta is a dense body scarred by an ancient impact that, researchers believe, sent a myriad of small meteorites falling to Earth. Ceres, with its spherical shape and a diameter about 600 miles (almost 1,000 kilometers) wide, is so large it is considered to be a dwarf planet and may sport a subterranean cache of ice or water, mission scientists added.

Examining the differences between dense, bright Vesta and the dimmer, less-dense Ceres may yield new answers for researchers studying the formation of planets, NASA officials said.
Dawn's ability to shift from one target to another hinges on its three xenon ion-driven thrusters, which allow the probe to maneuver with less propellant than that required for chemical-based rockets.

"We couldn't do this mission without the ion drive," said Mark Sykes, a Dawn mission co-investigator from the Planetary Science Institute at the University of Arizona. "It's an extremely flexible way of moving around the solar system."

NASA now has until July 19, a window eight days longer than first announced, to launch Dawn before standing down to allow preparations for the planned Aug. 3 liftoff of Phoenix, the space agency's next Mars lander mission.

"We're kind of just threading the needle with these two launches," Kurt Lindstrom, NASA's Dawn program executive, told SPACE.com.

The next opportunity to launch the mission arises this fall. By the end of October the distance between Vesta and Ceres - which are currently relatively close to one another - will begin increasing, mission managers said, adding that the two space rocks will near each other again in 15 years.

NASA delays launch of Dawn probe to explore solar system

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US space agency on Friday delayed by 24 hours until Monday the launch of its spacecraft Dawn due to set off on an eight-year mission to unlock the mysteries of the origins of our solar system.

"The delay was prompted by difficulties with an aircraft that would gather data signals from the rocket during launch, and the availability of a tracking ship," NASA said on its website.
The window for launching the unmanned craft would now be between 3:56 pm (1956 GMT) to 4:26 pm (2026 GMT) on Monday, July 9, the agency said.

Dawn had been due to launch into space on Sunday on a voyage to examine two massive asteroids.

NASA scientists said there were also concerns that fuel loading would not be completed in time on Friday at the Cape Canaveral Air Force base, in Florida, due to looming bad weather.
Scientists hope the Dawn probe will shed light on the earliest moments in the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago by examining the two celestial bodies Ceres and Vesta in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn is scheduled to enter orbit around Vesta in October 2011, proceed to Ceres in May 2012 and then begin orbiting Ceres in February 2015 -- travelling a total distance of 5.1 billion kilometers.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says the mission should provide a better understanding of the building blocks that formed the terrestrial planets and how the two "protoplanets" followed different evolutionary paths.

The deep-space explorer, measuring 1.64 meters (yards) long and 1.27 meters (yards) wide when its solar array is retracted, is equipped with a high-definition camera and two spectrometers to study the two massive asteroids.

Ceres, discovered in 1801, has a spherical shape and has a diameter of about 960 kilometers (596 miles). Scientists believe it may have a layer of thick ice under its crust, covering a rocky core.

Vesta, discovered in 1807, is smaller than Ceres but the third largest asteroid in the solar system. With a diameter of 520 kilometers (323 miles), Vesta has a rocky surface without a trace of water and a hot interior.

After having cancelled the Dawn project previously, NASA revived the mission in 2006 after an investment of 449 million dollars.

It is the ninth mission out of 10 planned in NASA's Discovery program that employs unmanned vehicles to explore space, often focusing on asteroids.

Computer games World Cup kicks off in Paris

PARIS (AFP) - The World Cup of computer gaming has brought some 700 players from 51 countries to Paris for an intense weekend of virtual combat, a sign of the growth of the "electronic sports" industry.

The players, selected from 500,000 candidates, will compete for a pool of 180,000 dollars (132,000 euros) in prize money at the Electronic Sports World Cup grand final, put on by the Games-Services company. It was taking place at a convention hall on the southwestern edge of Paris.

Gamers arrived with their own keyboards and computer mice -- as important as "a tennis player's racket," according to one organiser. The computers themselves are provided to ensure fairness.

They were facing off in games including Counter-Strike, Pro Evolution Soccer 6 and Quake IV.
The popularity of video gaming has led to the development of professional players, particularly in South Korea where some earn up to two million dollars (1.5 million euros) per year, said Matthieu Dallon, Games-Services president.

"In Korea and in the United States there are television channels 100-percent dedicated to electronic sports," he said.

Svanevik Sondre, a Norwegian player who goes by the name "Real," has sponsorship contracts with Sennheiser, Razer and Qpad -- all big names in the industry. His team is among the favorites to win the Counter-Strike competition.

"We try to practise four hours a day, four days a week, and we intensify before the competition," he said. "I get a salary every month. I cannot tell exactly how much but enough to live, more than a thousand euros."

Besides the gamers, between 40,000 and 50,000 people were expected to attend the competition to watch, participate in tournaments and get a look at new gaming products

Online auction for security bugs

Security researchers who find holes in software can now sell their findings to the highest bidder.

An online auction house has been created to bring together those who find the loopholes with the companies that can do something about them.

It aims to close the gap between the small number of bugs investigated and the huge number thought to exist.

By rewarding researchers, the auction house aims to prevent flaws getting in to the hands of hi-tech criminals.

Hard cash

Many malicious and criminal hackers rely on loopholes in widely used software, usually Windows, to get access to the valuable information on users PCs.

There is known to be a ready market for these vulnerabilities on the digital underground and significant sums of money can be made by selling them.

In early 2006 anti-virus firm Kaspersky Labs revealed that Russian hackers had been selling the Windows WMF vulnerability for $4000 (£2,000).

The loophole was offered for sale weeks before it was widely known about and long before Microsoft moved to close it.

Many criminal groups prefer to use vulnerabilities for their own ends to steal information or hijack computers rather than have any and every malicious hacker using them.

The independent auction house, called WabiSabiLabi, aims to staunch the flow of vulnerabilities to the underground by giving security researchers a legitimate marketplace for what they find.

"Our intention is that the marketplace facility on WSLabi will enable security researchers to get a fair price for their findings and ensure that they will no longer be forced to give them away for free or sell them to cyber-criminals," said Herman Zampariolo, head of the auction site.

He added that it could tempt many researchers to report findings they would otherwise keep quiet about. In this way it hopes to ensure many more vulnerabilities get reported.

"Very few of them are able or willing to report it to the 'right' people due to the fear of being exploited," said Mr Zampariolo.

Once a vulnerability is reported, WSLabi will confirm it is real and that it can be exploited. After this it will be placed on the auction site where it can be sold to the highest bidder or sold to just one firm.

WSLabi said it would ensure that all those who buy the vulnerabilities were legitimate.
The first vulnerabilities posted to WSLabi are selling for between 500 (£340) and 2000 (£1,350) euros.

Many other companies, such as iDefense and Tipping Point, run schemes that give cash rewards to security researchers who find serious loopholes in widely used software.

The Mozilla Foundation, which oversees development of the Firefox browser amongst other things, gives a t-shirt and a $500 (£250) bug bounty to anyone finding a critical vulnerability in its software.

Rings of Ire

Microsoft roiled the gaming world Thursday by taking a $1 billion charge to take care of problems with its Xbox 360. NEWSWEEK’s N’gai Croal talks to Xbox chief Peter Moore about the decision.

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to be first. Microsoft's Xbox 360 videogame console beat its competition—Nintendo's Wii and Sony's Playstation 3—to the market by a full year. And despite the Wii's explosive start, Microsoft is still clinging to its global lead, while former market leader Sony struggles to catch up. But a growing problem whose existence had been mostly confined to the videogame intelligentsia—the three flashing red lights indicating that one's Xbox 360 has completely malfunctioned (also known as the "Red Rings of Death")—burst into the public eye Thursday afternoon. After the market close on the East Coast, Microsoft announced that it would take a charge of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion to cover the costs associated with the Xbox 360's "unacceptable" failure rate; specifically, for extending its warranty period from one year to three, and to reimburse those who paid for repairs after their one-year warranties expired. We spoke with Microsoft entertainment and devices corporate vice president Peter Moore on Friday, and though he was candid throughout, the big question—what exactly is the problem?— remains unanswered. Asked whether the issue is a single problem with the cooling design—as several armchair engineers and numerous gamers believe—Moore stated, "I'm not going to pretend to be technical on this issue, but it's been a multitude of problems. There's no one specific factor we can point to." Yet Moore insists that the problem is not systemic, and he refused to say whether the flaws lie in design or manufacturing.

Nevertheless, the amount of money that Microsoft has set aside, when divided by the 11.6 million Xbox 360s that Microsoft has shipped, comes out to roughly $100 per unit sold, an amount that industry veterans say is right around what it would cost for shipping, handling, labor and replacing the entire motherboard for a console of that complexity. Excerpts from our conversation :

NEWSWEEK : All right. You're live and direct. Peter Moore: OK. Let me take you though what we've just announced about 15-20 minutes ago. You know about the fundamentals. Business is strong; we're going to have a good E3, but to cut to the chase, there's something we haven't done so well, and that's that the rate of repairs that have been coming in showing the three-flashing-red-lights error message has been, quite frankly, unacceptable to us. So we've decided to take some steps to take care of that.

Firstly, we're making improvements to the console itself that will reduce the occurrence of these issues. But perhaps more importantly, we're implementing an enhanced warranty program to cover the general hardware failures, the ones that are indicated by the three flashing red lights. So we're announcing a specific warranty coverage extension to three years for any console that displays the three-red-light error message. If you get that, we'll repair the console, free of charge, including shipping, for three years from the purchase date. And perhaps equally important, for the people who have already paid us to get it fixed out of warranty, we're going to retroactively reimburse any customer that's had that problem and has paid us to fix their box—from the get-go. So we will be able to take care of everybody that's had this message from launch onwards. And the three-year warranty will be in place immediately, and will cover every box that's been bought or is about to be bought.

There's obviously no safety issue here, and this decision to do this is voluntary on our part. It obviously comes with a cost, and we're going to be taking a $1.05-$1.15 billion pretax charge to earnings for the quarter that's just ended, our fiscal year Q4 for FY07. That will cover the cost of being able to put this program in place. We continue to stand by the product, as you know, and we'll hopefully be able to take care of some people that we haven't done a good job with over the past few months.

The word that you used is that the rate of repairs for Xbox 360 consoles showing the three red lights was "unacceptable."Yeah.

When did it cross that threshold? Walk me through the stages from awareness to growing concern to unacceptable.What we needed to do was gather data. You can't do this stuff, as you know, anecdotally. It's taken us a while. We needed to make sure that what we were able to announce would be able to improve the quality of the box by gathering the data. Also, to roll out something of this nature on a global basis requires logistics in place, as well as to calculate the costs. Obviously, this is not an inconsequential amount of money. We needed to make sure that we did this once and did it right, and so it's taken a little while. I couldn't put a specific number of weeks or months on it, but this is not something we thought about last Monday and figured we should do this week. This is something that obviously teams around the world have been working on, to make sure that: A) we take care of our customers, because they've taken care of us, and we haven't done a good job recently of taking care of them. and, B) captured all of the costs so that we could take a one-time pretax charge.

How did you determine the three-year period for the extension to the warranty?Three years seems like a reasonable amount of time for somebody to have a piece of consumer electronics of this nature. We felt—certainly, I think it's unprecedented that someone's had a longer warranty on a console than this. I can't remember. But we felt three years—and certainly, the folks we've spoken to in the last half hour and some of the community feedback seem to think that this is more than fair. If you're a gamer and for three years we cover you, then we feel that you've gotten good value from the box. It's not an exact science. Two years, three years, it felt like fairness more than anything else for us.

If someone already has a refurbished box, is this for repair? New Xbox 360s? What is it exactly?

We're going to send you a box. I'm not going to get into details of exactly what that box is, but our goal is to take care of you. Two things here: if you paid us to fix your box, we're going to reimburse you. Simple as that. If you have a problem with your box, we're going to replace it.

Your background is in marketing. You're intimately familiar with PR. It seemed to me that while there was certainly a growing awareness of this problem online and on message boards, it seems as though the mainstream media—and I include myself—hadn't really covered this heavily. Did you feel as though on the PR side that this was coming to a head or a reckoning at all?

No.

Or did you feel like, "Hey, we've dodged a bullet on this so far—let's take care of this now"?

No. This is not about PR. This is not about making us look good. This is about doing the right thing. If you're going to worry about PR, you probably wouldn't do it five days before E3. If you're worried about PR, you'd wait until people went on vacation, I don't know. We needed to make that sure we did the right thing.

Is there any one thing that you can trace the three red lights back to? Because there's been a lot of scuttlebutt on the Internet that it has to do with the epoxy that was applied to key components; that it was either insufficient, or that it was too close to a heat-producing component that was causing that epoxy to warp and chips to come loose. Is there anything that you can say specifically about what's been causing the problem?

No, not really. And you know me; I'm not going to pretend to be technical on this issue, but it's been a multitude of problems. There's no one specific problem that we can point to and say, "That problem causes three red lights." It's different factors, different environmental issues, it's a completely different thing. As we go on in the coming weeks, there may be more information that we're willing to share, but right now, our goal is to make sure that we do the right thing as quickly and effectively as possible. And regardless of what's caused the three red lights, we're going to take care of you.

Can you say whether it was a flaw in the design or the manufacturing?

No. I can't say that, no.

In terms of reimbursing people, is that going to be a check, is that going to be Microsoft Points—how are you handling that?

[Laughs.] Not Microsoft Points. Real U.S. dollars, British pounds, European euros. Whatever it is that we charged you, you'll be reimbursed back in real currency. Not that Microsoft Points aren't real currency, N'Gai, but no, we're not going to credit your Xbox Live account with Microsoft Points.

And just to be clear, this refund program dates back to the very first Xbox sold?

If you had three red lights, and you paid to fix it out of warranty—because we would have taken care of you in-warranty, obviously—then we're going to pay you back. Now that's going to take us a little while, because we've got to go through and cut checks and what have you, and it's global. But we're going to pay you back.

Did you consider a recall?

No. This is not a recall issue. This is not a systemic problem, this is not a safety issue, this is a completely voluntary action on our part. Nobody's forcing us to do anything here. We're just trying to do the right thing.

Lastly, when you realized, "This is what we're going to have to do," how did you feel?

I feel bad. I feel bad for the consumers that we haven't taken care of, because they're a really loyal and passionate bunch. You know Xbox Nation. I feel bad—more importantly, perhaps today—I feel bad for the people here in Redmond, because you don't like to do this stuff. I don't like to cause the corporation this kind of a financial hit. But it's the right thing to do. I can tell you that everybody here is very supportive of doing the right thing here, regardless of the cost. Today, I feel bad for the people who work at Xbox, because I'm sure that people are going to look at this and feel real bad about what's going on today. I'd like to think that by the time we get to E3 and we show that the business fundamentals are incredibly strong and the business is strong going forward, that people are going to feel a little better. But it's kind of a sad day here today.

Real quick: are you still going to be profitable for the next fiscal year?

Yes. sir. Yes indeed. Absolutely.

DNA :: Discovery could help bring down price of DNA sequencing

In May, Nobel Laureate James D. Watson, the scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA, became the first person to receive his own complete personal genome -- all three billion base pairs of his DNA code sequenced. The cost was $1 million, and the process took two months.

A million dollars for a map of all your genes is way out of reach for most people. The National Institutes of Health would like to bring it down to $1,000 by the year 2014, but plenty of technological hurdles remain before you’ll be able to secure your genetic blueprint for this more affordable price.

One promising method for speeding up DNA sequencing, and thus reducing its cost, is nanopore sequencing, where DNA moves through a tiny hole, much like thread going through a needle. The technique can detect individual DNA molecules, but the DNA gallops through so fast that it is impossible to read the individual letters, or bases, and determine the sequence. (The four letters of the genomic alphabet are A, T, G and C, each representing one of the base nucleotides that make up DNA.)

Using a theory based on classical hydrodynamics, a Northwestern University researcher now has explained the nature of the resistive force that determines the speed of the DNA as it moves through the nanopore, which is just five to 10 nanometers wide. (One nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) This understanding could help scientists figure out how to slow the DNA down enough to make it readable and usable -- for medical and biotechnology applications, in particular.


Sandip Ghosal, associate professor of mechanical engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, is the first to apply classical hydrodynamics to the interaction of DNA with a nanopore. The findings, an important step toward achieving single-base resolution in nanopore sequencing, were published in the June 8 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters (PRL).

DNA is pulled through the nanopore’s channel by an electric force, but there also is a resistive force,” said Ghosal, sole author of the PRL paper. “My idea was that the resistance was coming from fluid friction, which could explain the speed measurements taken in experimental studies.

In Ghosal’s explanation, the DNA pulls some of the fluid surrounding the molecule through the channel with it. The lubrication forces arising in this fluid layer create the resistance that opposes the electrical pulling force. Ghosal’s calculations in the PRL paper show that his theoretical model is consistent with experimental results and explains the DNA’s speed.

"the mechanics of DNA translocation will allow scientists to make alterations, to figure out how to apply more friction,” said Ghosal, who has proposed using a coating on the channel walls to slow down the flow of the DNA.

UK court jails trio who incited terrorism over Web

LONDON - Three men have been sentenced to a total of 24 years in prison after admitting to inciting terrorism over the Internet in the first case of its kind in Britain, police said on Thursday.

The men, said by prosecutors to have close ties to al Qaeda, pleaded guilty to inciting acts of terrorism "wholly or partly" outside Britain via Web sites which advocated killing non-Muslims.

Moroccan-born Younes Tsouli, Briton Waseem Mughal and Jordanian-born Tariq al-Daour changed their original "not guilty" pleas more than two months into their trial which had begun at Woolwich Crown Court in east London in April.

Tsouli, 23, of London, was jailed for 10 years; Mughal, 23, of Chatham, Kent, for seven-and-a-half years and al-Dour, 20, of London, to six-and-a-half years.
London police said the men had set up Web sites, using stolen credit cards and identities, to promote al Qaeda propaganda, including the beheading of Western hostages.

The material was crafted to help recruit suicide bombers in Iraq and elsewhere "who may be prepared to kill so-called disbeliever enemies on a global scale", the police added in a statement.

It was the first time anyone had been prosecuted in Britain for using the Internet to incite terrorism, said Peter Clarke, head of London's Counter Terrorism Command.

"These three men, by their own admission, were encouraging others to become terrorists and murder innocent people," he said.

"This is the first successful prosecution for inciting murder using the Internet, showing yet again that terrorist networks are spanning the globe."
In another unique aspect of the case, detectives said Tsouli and al-Daour had never met and had only communicated online.

Prosecutors said the men had also kept car bomb-making manuals and videos of how to wire suicide vests. Other documents included "The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook" and "The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook'.

Tsouli, the suspected ringleader, used the online identity "irhabi007" -- the Arabic word for terrorist, followed by the code number of the fictional British spy James Bond.

He was responsible for setting up an Internet chat room forum used by al Qaeda supporters from which explosives and weapons manuals could be downloaded.

Googley-eyed on Wall Street

Another day, another new all-time high for shares of Google (GOOG). The world’s top search engine shot up more than 1.5 percent Thursday morning and crossed the $540 barrier for the first time.
Google has gained nearly 15 percent since reporting its first-quarter earnings in April and has surged more than 535 percent since its initial public offering in August 2004.
How much further can the stock go in the near-term? I recently wrote about a couple of analysts who have price targets well north of $600. And the top tech strategist at investment bank Cowen has argued that Google, which now trades at about the same valuation as Apple (AAPL), is actually the better bet on the mobile Internet mania that has been fueled by the launch of Apple’s iPhone.
And given the recent market share gains in search that Google has made against the likes of top rivals Yahoo! (YHOO) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) MSN, Google is likely to report monstrously strong results for the second quarter on July 19.
One analyst I talked to Thursday afternoon, Martin Pyykkonen of Global Crown Capital, made a great point about how Google’s stock, despite its big run, is still reasonably priced. Even at $540 a share, the stock is trading at just 28 times 2008 earnings estimates. That’s not nearly as frothy as the valuations some other once hot tech stocks traded at during their peak growth periods.
“Google is trading at a much lower multiple than classic growth stocks like Microsoft and Cisco did in their heydays,” Pyykkonen said.
Another analyst I spoke with Thursday morning agreed that Wall Street’s optimism for Google is not misplaced. Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research who does not own Google and whose firm has not performed investment banking for the company, said there are several good reasons behind Google’s recent stock surge.
Chowdhry said Microsoft’s agreement last month to change the desktop search function on its new Vista operating system is a key victory for Google. Google had complained to the Department of Justice that Vista’s original desktop search function did not allow for competing technologies like Google’s to be used as a default desktop search.
Microsoft, in a joint filing with the DOJ, said that in its first service pack release for Vista, computer makers as well as individuals will have the option to choose a default desktop search program other than Microsoft’s. Chowdhry said this is importnant for Google since it should enable the company to gain more market share in desktop search.
Chowdhry added that Google’s new Universal Search features, which the company unveiled in May, should further Google’s lead in search over the coming months and years. With Universal Search, Google intends to meld results from a variety of different sources, such as videos, images, blogs, maps and books, into a single unified set of results.
“Google has leapfrogged the competition because of Universal Search. Google has the pulse of the Internet. I don’t believe any of the competition is as close to understanding the Internet as Google. Yahoo is totally clueless and Microsoft is totally confused,” Chowdhry said.
Both of these developments are likely to have more of a long-term positive effect on Google. But looking at earnings estimates for the second quarter, it seems safe to say that Wall Street is also anticipating great near-term results from the company.
According to Thomson First Call, analysts are forecasting that Google will report sales, excluding revenue it shares with affiliates, of $2.67 billion, a 60 percent increase from the same period last year, and earnings of $3.58 per share, up 44 percent from the same period last year. By way of comparison, analysts predict Yahoo’s revenues to increase just 11 percent and that profits will be unchanged from a year ago.
The risk, of course, is that Wall Street’s expectations may be too high for Google. But so far, Google has had no problems hurdling over the high bar analysts set for it.
In the first quarter, Google surpassed consensus estimates by 11 percent. It seems a safe bet that Google won’t disappoint during the second quarter either. The company has only missed the Street’s estimates once since going public.

Apple shares at new high on iPhone sales prospects

NEW YORK - Shares of Apple Inc. rose more than 4 percent to an all-time high on Thursday as investors bet on strong demand for its media-playing iPhone and speculation mounted over plans to sell the device in Europe.
Analyst estimates for iPhone sales in its first weekend run as high as 700,000 units, beating many investors' expectations, and some now expect the momentum to continue. The device went on sale last Friday.
AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. provider for the phone, said it had virtually sold out of the device in that time, though neither company has provided sales data.
"What happened was the launch went even better than what was in people's expectations," said Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest Securities. "People who had sold the stock or shorted the stock bought it back."
Apple shares had risen more than 30 percent in the months ahead of the June 29 launch, leading some investors to prepare to sell on the idea the shares would grind to a halt or decline immediately afterward. But those early predictions have been turned on their head.
"The stock is obviously anticipating very very strong sales for the iPhone and very good follow-through sales," Hargreaves said. "The stock isn't going to be a one-month wonder."
Investors are also eyeing Apple's move into new markets for the iPhone, a device some analysts predict will become as significant to the company's business as its signature Mac computers or best-selling iPod digital music and video player.
Apple has said it will start selling iPhones in Europe this year and in Asia in 2008, but gave no further details.
European media reports this week have said Apple may be close to deals with carriers in France, Germany and Britain, a three-country strategy that would mimic the launch of its popular iTunes online music store in Europe in 2004.
In Europe, wireless operators including Vodafone Group Plc, T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom and Orange, owned by France Telecom have been cited as potential iPhone partners.
Telefonica's 02 said on Thursday that it had not signed a deal with Apple after reports that it was poised to clinch the first European agreement in what would be a blow to Vodafone, which operates in multiple countries.
"It would be a somewhat of a disappointment" if Vodafone did not reach a deal with Apple since it is such a large carrier, Hargreaves said.
Hargreaves has a 12-month price target of $130 for Apple. That does yet not include full expectations for events such as widening iPhone's U.S. distribution to electronics retailers, including Best Buy.
Hargreaves said he expects Best Buy to start selling the phone in time for back-to-school shoppers.
Investors are also keeping close watch for news on how quickly Apple is able to replenish stocks of the phone and indicators of its financial impact. Research firm iSuppli said on Tuesday the phone would generate a 55 percent profit margin, after hardware and manufacturing costs.
Apple shares closed up $5.58, or 4.4 percent, to $132.75 on Nasdaq after trading as high as $132.97 in the session. AT&T shares fell 54 cents, or 1.3 percent, to close at $40.96 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Video game trade show to focus on price, new games

SAN FRANCISCO - The video game industry gathers for its annual expo next week, and anticipation is running high that cheaper hardware and a host of keenly awaited new games will fuel the strongest sales in years.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is also a chance for investors to look under the hood of a $30 billion global industry that rivals the movie and music businesses as it expands beyond a traditional audience of teenage boys.

This year's E3 is forgoing the huge crowds, gaudy displays and scantily clad "booth babes" of years past in favor of smaller, more dignified proceedings scattered among venues in the Southern California seaside city of Santa Monica.

The biggest expectation is that Sony Corp. will slash the price of its PlayStation 3, which is stuck in last place among new gaming machines due to its $600 cost and thin line-up of games.
However, if Sony did cut the PS3's price by $100 as most expect, the impact could be blunted if Microsoft Corp. responded by trimming prices on its own Xbox 360, which comes in three models now costing from $300 to $480.

"The biggest potential would be maybe announcement of price cuts for both the PS3 and the 360," said Mike Hickey, an analyst with Janco Partners.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. almost certainly won't tinker with its prices. Its Wii console is enjoying runaway success, outselling rivals by several times due in part to a $250 price that hits a sweet spot of mass-market affordability.

Instead, Nintendo may announce new features for the Wii or unveil a redesign of its popular DS handheld gaming device.

"The only thing I think Nintendo may announce is a headset and microphone for the Wii. They are also inching their way into online gaming. They are not as focused on communications as they should have been," said Peer Schneider, vice president of content publishing for IGN, a games-oriented Web site.

Price cuts for two of the three consoles may be just the thing to juice sales and build a larger base of hardware ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season that accounts for more than half of the industry's annual sales.

But Evan Wilson, an analyst with Pacific Crest, said Sony may not cut prices until just before the holidays. Sony loses several hundred dollars on each PS3, and management's drive to get the giant electronics company back on track financially may force it to stay the course on price.
"Any meaningful price cut on the PS3 would drag down the profitability of the game unit," Wilson said.

ROCKBAND VS GUITAR HERO III

Many are looking forward to checking out a dizzying array of new games at E3 that analysts think will mark a turning point for the industry after a longer-than-expected transition to new consoles.

"The migration to next-gen consoles has taken longer than expected, which is prolonging the early stages of this product lifecycle," analyst Eric Handler wrote. "But an increasing slate of games being readied for market offers the potential for strong growth."
A small sample of the titles expected to grab the spotlight this year includes "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Bioshock" from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., Sony's "Killzone," Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," "Rockband" from Electronic Arts Inc. and rival music game "Guitar Hero III" from Activision Inc..

"Last year was all about hardware. This year is software, and software drives hardware," Hickey said. "In a few years they'll be selling software to a gigantic installed base and at a higher price point. The economics are phenomenal."

The new game titles could be a catalyst for publisher shares, many of which have traded flat to lower this year.

Wilson, of Pacific Crest estimates industry total revenue could jump 20 percent in 2007.
The fast growth is drawing increasing attention. Lehman Brothers recently began covering four major U.S. video game publishers, saying that returns in the industry were better than in all other media and entertainment sectors.

Electronic Arts and Activision are two favorite picks by analysts due to their broad array of games and strong movie tie-ins.

Investors have frowned upon publishers that are overly reliant on one or two hit games, such as Midway Games Inc., which has dropped 10 percent this year and Konami Corp., which has shed 23 percent.

A file photo of visitors playing with Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game consoles during the opening day of Madrid's International Data Processing, Multimedia and Communications SIMO Fair November 7, 2006. Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday 'an unacceptable number of repairs' to its Xbox 360 will force it to take a charge of more than $1 billion for its most recent quarter, and it announced a new, extended warranty for the video game console.

Xbox 360 repairs will cost Microsoft $1B

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it expects to spend more than $1 billion to repair widespread hardware problems in its Xbox 360 video game console after a large number of them broke down.

Microsoft said it would extend the warranty on the Xbox 360 to three years after too many of the consoles succumbed to "general hardware failure," but the company provided few other details about the extent of the problems.
"We don't think we've been getting the job done," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, which also makes the Zune digital music player. "In the past few months, we have been having to make Xbox 360 console repairs at a rate too high for our liking."
Bach said the company made some manufacturing and production changes that he expects will reduce Xbox 360 hardware lockups, but he declined to identify the problems or say which others might remain. Microsoft said it will record a charge of up to $1.15 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended June 30, to cover the additional costs associated with the warranty extension.
The software maker also said sales of the console fell short of expectations for the fiscal year that just ended.
Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, estimates that Microsoft's entertainment and devices division has lost more than $6 billion since 2002.
Microsoft has written down larger amounts in the past — more than $10 billion in the late 1990s related to investments in telecommunications companies, and more than $5 billion related to antitrust issues — but a $1 billion write-down for one division in one quarter is significant.
"It suggests the problem is pretty widespread," Rosoff said.
Microsoft will pay for shipping and repairs for three years, worldwide, for consoles that experience hardware failure, which is usually indicated by three flashing red lights on the front of the console, something gamers sometimes refer to as "the red ring of death." Previously, the warranty expired after 1 year for U.S. customers and 2 years for Europeans.
Microsoft also will reimburse the "small number" of Xbox 360 owners who have paid for shipping and repairs on out-of-warranty consoles, Bach said.
In June, bloggers speculated that the Xbox 360 return problem was getting so severe that the company was running out of "coffins," or special return-shipping boxes Microsoft provides to gamers with dead consoles. "We'll make sure we have plenty of boxes to go back and forth," Bach said in an interview.
Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said in a conference call that the company sold 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles since the product's November 2005 launch, missing a target for 12 million units by the end of the fiscal year.
Microsoft's entertainment and devices division reported an operating loss of $315 million on $929 million in sales for the three-month period that ended in March.

Microsoft Apologizes For Silence On Windows Extras


Director Barry Goffe said work was continuing on the remaining offerings, which would be available by the end of the summer.



Microsoft has apologized for its silence on delivering all the add-ons promised in January to people who bought Windows Vista Ultimate, the premium version of the operating system.
To date, Microsoft has delivered four sets of "Extras," Windows Hold'EM, 16 Language Packs for the Windows multi-language user interface, Secure Online Key Backup, and the Windows BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool. Missing are an expected full range of Windows DreamScenes, which are full-motion video desktop wallpapers; and the remaining 20 Language Packs. (An initial Dreamscene content pack was released earlier this year and is available here.)
Barry Goffe, director of said Thursday on his group's blog that work was continuing on the remaining offerings, which would be available by the end of the summer.
"We apologize for taking so long to provide a status update to customers," Goffe said.
Microsoft also plans to deliver additional add-ons over the next couple of years. "We cannot identify dates or provide details at this time -- but one we ship Windows DreamScene and the remaining Language Packs, we will provide more information about the next Extras," Goffe said.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates unveiled Extras in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev. The downloadable features are meant to enhance the premium version of Vista with business-oriented and consumer-friendly tools.
Extras are among the perks Microsoft gives to buyers of Vista Ultimate, which carries an upgrade price of $260. The premium OS targets sole proprietors and small-business owners who want to do work and personal tasks on the same PC.
BitLocker in Vista Ultimate is considered a major enhancement because it provides whole disk encryption for a PC's hard drive, a feature increasingly applied by enterprises to lock down data. This is important to protect information in mobile PCs that might be lost or stolen.