Primal Wireless Headset for Xbox 360

Rude Gameware wants to be strong with Xbox 360 gamers with the release of their new gaming wireless headset. The Primal Wireless Headset has a range of over 25′ feet with a wireless mic.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Confirmed by Ubisoft

Ubisoft has confirmed to IGN the title of the next Assassin's Creed game.

A purported GameStop reservation placeholder card for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has been leaked early by an employee. Ubisoft said the image below is authentic and that they'll have more information next week.

The game will be released this fall for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The details listed on the back of the card align with what Ubisoft has already confirmed, such as the inclusion of Ezio and the location, Rome.

"Live and breathe as Ezio, now a legendary master assassin, in his struggle against the Templar order. Lead your own brotherhood of Assassins and strike at the heart of the enemy. Rome," the card says, according to Kotaku.

"And for the first time, take part in an innovative multiplayer layer allowing you to embody an assassin of your choosing and define their killing style. A never-before-seen online multiplayer experience. Lead your own brotherhood of assassins, as Ezio, and conquer Rome."

Pre-ordering the game at GameStop will give you an exclusive multiplayer character. No details on who that might be. It's expected Ubisoft will announce its fiscal quarterly results later this month.


Via IGN

Windows Vista Exec’s Solo Album Almost As Good As Vista

Former Microsoft Windows executive Jim Allchin, who left the company in early 2007, has had enough time on his hands to release a solo guitar-and-vocals album, “Enigma.” It hit iTunes on Tuesday, and some comedian at Apple had the foresight to put it into the “What we’re listening to” featured section in Apple’s music store. The music speaks for itself, but the reviews are incredible. Guess which reviewers work for Microsoft and which don’t.

Allchin’s guitar work is a Claptonesque tour de force. A refreshing and inspired first effort from a brilliant engineer now channeling his passion in a new creative direction. Overtones of the Allman brothers in their prime set Allchin apart as a bluesman to be reckoned with. Eager for more.

I’ve never heard of this guy (or whoman?) before or heard more than 11 seconds of one of his songs but this stuff is crazy good! Endigma Machine is rad! Buy this album RIGHT NOW like I”m going tto. :^)

This is literally one of the, if not THE, worst albums I’ve heard. I’d say it’s the “Ishtar” of music, but that would be doing a grave disservice to “Ishtar”. I cringe when I hear this, and I’m at a loss for words to describe why it’s so bad.

Is iTunes offering just anyone the opportunity to sell their crap on their sight…this is not Craig’s list!

Come on guys. The good reviews here are obviously from within the Washington state area, if you catch my drift. Jim, go back to management.

Source: businessinsider

Microsoft sued over Windows Update

An Israeli firm has accused Microsoft Corp. of using its technologies in key components of Windows Update, court documents show. BackWeb Technologies Ltd. filed its lawsuit in San Francisco federal court on Friday, charging that Microsoft’s Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) infringes on several of its patents. BITS, which debuted in 2001 in Windows XP and is baked into Windows Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008, is a file-transfer service that can throttle back download speeds so they don’t affect other network chores. Because of its duties — it also resumes interrupted downloads — BITS is a core part of Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services, and other Microsoft update and patching products.

In 2007, as part of Vista, Microsoft updated BITS to Version 3.0, adding peer-to-peer characteristics that let PCs on the same subnet transfer files to and from peers.

BackWeb’s lawsuit alleges that Microsoft’s BITS infringes on four of its patents, the oldest granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1999, the newest in 2003.

“[The patents cover] unique and novel methods and processes for transmitting digital information in background mode over a communications link between a computer network and a local computer and throttling the transfer speed to create minimal interference with other processes communicating over a communications link,” BackWeb’s filing read.

“Microsoft manufactures, uses and sells products that infringe the three Transparent Update Patents,” BackWeb charged. “With the introduction of BITS Ver. 3.0, Microsoft has also infringed BackWeb’s ‘289 Patent.’”

That fourth patent, issued to BackWeb in 2002, deals with what the company said is a technology “for distributing data packages across a hybrid peer-to-peer network.”

BackWeb asked the court to force Microsoft to stop infringing its patents and to triple any damages because Microsoft allegedly knew that it was abusing BackWeb’s patents when it created BITS.

Microsoft declined to comment on Tuesday. “We have not yet been served,” said company spokesman David Bowermaster, “so it would be premature to comment.”

BackWeb was not immediately able to provide answers to several questions, including whether the company had been in licensing talks with Microsoft prior to filing the lawsuit, and if so, why they might have broken off.

Coincidentally, Microsoft recently settled another patent-infringement case with PalTalk Holdings Inc., a New York-based company that had demanded $90 million in royalties over Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming service. Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed, but the deal two weeks ago brought a trial to a quick close.

BITS has been in the news before. In 2007, for example, hackers used the technology to sneak malware past firewalls.

Source: computerworld

Windows 7 “should do a lot better” than Vista

With the positive reaction to the Windows 7 beta coming from various places in the media, many have started to wonder how well Windows 7 will fare once it ships. While it’s still too early to know for sure, certain well-known groups have already made a point to voice their opinion about what will happen next. For example, a while back, I asked Michael Silver, Research VP of Gartner, how he expected to Windows 7 to perform compared to Windows Vista in both the consumer and business markets.

“It should do a lot better,” he told Ars. “Vista has such a bad reputation that it would be hard for Windows 7 not to do better, though Vista’s reputation is a lot worse than the product. Vista adoption is especially low in business—ISVs will eventually look to reduce or drop support for new applications on Windows XP and that will help push organizations to Windows 7 more quickly. Still it will take organizations 12-18 months from the time Windows 7 ships until they are ready to deploy it in large numbers, meaning broad adoption for enterprise begins in 1H11.”

Two weeks ago, Silver released a report titled Windows 7 Won’t Need SP1, but Will Still Need 12 to 18 Months Before Deployment Begins in which he dived deeper into what business users should expect. The most interesting conclusion he came to was “Don’t use SP1 as a milestone to deploy a new version of Windows, but plan to deploy SP1 as part of the initial deployment,” an obvious attempt to destroy the rule of thumb of “wait till SP1 for any new release of Windows.” That would have made Microsoft happy, but Silver still recommends waiting at least a year. Expect Redmond to be giving a completely different recommendation to businesses in the coming months.

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Source: arstechnica

Apple Iphone new Concept design

While the world is waiting for the announcement of the next generation Apple iPhone, I decided to showcase iPhone concept designs.

Fix 8100030d Messenger Error

When you are trying to sign in Windows Live Messenger you are getting an Error Code 8100030d.

Symptons:
Signing in to Windows Live Messenger failed because the service is temporary unavailable. Error Code 8100030d,
Causes:
The system clock or date may be set incorrectly.
The Dynamic Link Library (DLL) softpub.dll, may not be registered on the system.
Internet Explorer may be using an invalid proxy server.
Zone Alarm is running.
Solution:
- Double click on the clock in the taskbar and make sure the system clock is set correctly.
- Disable Zone Alarm
- Register softpub.dll using the regsvr32.exe tool.Click Start, and then click Run.
- In the Open box, type regsvr32 softpub.dll and then click OK.
- Do the same for the following regsvr32 wintrust.dll, regsvr32 initpki.dll, regsvr32 MSXML3.dll.
- Restart Windows Live Messenger.