Mozilla Firefox, the browser that is slowly taking over Microsoft's dominance, has released a new version, labeled 1.5, with a variety of improvements. Microsoft will likely take a good look at these improvements and include them in their Internet Explorer browser in the upcoming years.
Final countdown for Firefox 1.5 release - ZDNet UK News

Here's something interesting that I found today: iPod Mini's, which were discontinued with the introduction of the iPod Nano in September, are now selling for more than their original suggested retail price on eBay. They are even selling for more than iPod Nano's that have the same storage capacity. The economist in me says this only makes sense if people are buying iPod Minis as collectible items, or because they have some nostalgic feeling for the iPod Mini (it takes them back to a simpler time... 2004). The iPod Nano has more features than the Mini, and it's considerable smaller, although the Mini is still very small. Could people like the colors more? It's hard to tell exactly what is going on here, but it sure is telling when an Apple item that has been discontinued remains a hot seller during this holiday shopping season.
eBay – 4gb ipod mini, ipod mini and apple ipod mini items on eBay.com

It seems that many of the XBox 360 units that people fought each other to buy this past week have been a bit unstable. Many of them have had problems with freezing or crashing altogether. The link below shows a picture of what one such crash screen looks like. It is sort of the next-generation blue screen of death. Microsoft has officially stated that the launch went fine and only a very small handful of units are experiencing the problem. If that is so, then I have some very unlucky friends. In fact, I have yet to find one friend who purchased an XBox 360 and has not yet had one crash. Maybe my area just got a bunch of the bad ones, or maybe this is a serious problem. Microsoft is offering to fix bad units, and they'll pay for overnight shipping. They've got to do something, as the launch hype seems to be fizzling out and they need to stay strong through Christmas to avoid getting crushed by a superior PS3 next year.
Xbox-Scene News: Xbox 360 Crashing Like Mad?

Nokia has quietly discontinued development of products for their N-Gage portable gaming console. The N-Gage, which was released two years ago, never gained a foothold with the American market. The graphics were not as good as other gaming systems that came after it, such as the Nintendo DS Game Boy and the PSP, and the games just weren't there. I never owned an N-Gage, although I might think about picking one up if they show up on eBay for like $20 with a bunch of games. That's what happened to the Sega Dreamcast, and many of those games are still almost as good-looking as their PS2 and XBox counterparts.
Nokia lets the N-Gage die a quiet death

Here's a rather interesting look at the XBox 360 launch and how it compares to the Sega Dreamcast launch. We all know the Dreamcast eventually failed when the Sony Playstation 2 showed up and blew the competition away. Will the XBox 360 have the same fate?
Dreamcast 2.0 from 1UP.com

Some company named Atom Chip Corporation claims to have developed a laptop computer to be on show at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. What's so special about this computer? How about a 6.8Ghz CPU with 1TB of RAM (non-volatile, and yes that's a terabyte) and 1.99TB of storage space (yes, that's nearly two terabytes). Did I mention that this is in a consumer-size laptop? The hard drive is solid-state, which should make it much faster than current hard drives. I'm drooling all over the place. Gotta go get a rabies shot.
6.8Ghz laptop with one TeraByte of non-volatile RAM

The XBox 360 won't be released for several more days, but it's already receiving plenty of mediocre reviews from sites that received pre-release consoles. It seems the common complaints include a high price tag, very few games to choose from (for now), and hardware performance that is hardly awe-inspiring. It seems that XBox 360 games look no better than high-end computer games, and in some cases considerably worse. We may have reached a point where graphics cannot get much better, because we are having more and more trouble discerning the difference between an XBox 360 game and a game from the previous generation of consoles. The graphics gap is now longer big enough to create that "WOW" effect previous generations of consoles have caused. Now, to be fair, this is just one console from the next generation. Over the next year and a half the other two consoles, from Sony and Nintendo will be released. The Sony PS3 will use cell processors that will make it theoretically several times more powerful than the Xbox 360. Now we'll just have to see if they can make games that will take advantage of that and make us say "WOW" again.
Early Xbox reviews: so-so | News.blog | CNET News.com

As I've been blogging about all week, Sony has been making music CDs with potentially harmful rootkits that auto-installed on computers. They have finally issued an official statement regarding the issue, claiming that they were just acting in our best interests. They also note that the problem only occurs when the music CDs are loaded on a computer. Of course, they put the software on these discs so that this problem WOULD happen when we load it on a computer. This is not the unfortunate accident Sony is trying to play it off as. This was an intentional attempt to prevent consumers from ripping music CDs by compromising their computers, even if they had no plans of using the CD for anything other than legal purposes. This statement from Sony is not acceptable. Their software could cause serious harm to a computer or a network as a whole. Some businesses have already banned the use of any Sony music CDs in any company computer.
SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT - cp.sonybmg.com/xcp

The XBox 360 has hit the street, or at least the offices of the more popular technology sites. Gizmodo has done a quick little unpacked review of their system, which they picture side by side with other popular gaming consoles. They also note that the block thing attached to the power cord is HUGE, like the size of a brick huge. This should be taken into account when you are figuring out how to make space for this bad boy. You're dealing with a system about the size of an XBox, along with a brick on the power cord about the size of 4 PSP's.
Unpacking The Xbox 360 - Gizmodo

Think the Sony rootkit that has been distributed via Sony-produced music CDs has caused no harm? Think again. A hacker has mapped the destruction of the Sony rootkit, and found around 500,000 networks that contain at least one computer made vulnerable by the the rootkit, including government networks that could hold very important classified information. Sony's rootkit is not self-replicating, but it doesn't need to be when it is hidden on consumer items that people stick in their computer every day. So what's the solution to this menace and possible danger to American security? Don't buy music CDs made by Sony until further notice. I know, Sony will complain and the RIAA will blame their drop in sales on illegal filesharing networks, but you'll know the truth.
Wired News: Sony Numbers Add Up to Trouble

A week ago I told you about the rootkit that installs when certain new Sony-produced music CDs are played on computers. Sony, which is best known for it's Walkman and Playstation, is also one of the major music production companies in the world. It came as a surprise to many when, a few weeks ago, it was discovered that Sony was including a rootkit on its new music CDs, which is considered a form of spyware and could leave computers vulnerable to hackers. Sony included the rootkit because they wanted to prevent people from copying the music on the CDs and sharing it across the internet. Now it has been determined that not only was the rootkit unethical, but also copyright infringement. Sony stole much of the code for the rootkit from a version of Lame, which is software used for mp3 encoding. Lame is freely available, but users must give credit to the original creators (in this case, the people that made the Lame software) and they must make their implementation and any changes publicly available. Sony did neither of these things.

I felt this story was worth a second post because it really shows the hypocritical environment that Sony obviously considers every-day business practice. They call people who share music over the internet "criminals," but then they steal software and include it on their commercial releases. Why should anyone purchase music legally if it is going to do damage to their computer? Why should people who have purchased music legally have software installed on their computer without their knowledge, especially when that software infringes on copyright laws? I would rather go without the music than be subjected to this kind of thing. Here is a list of the CDs that contain the rootkit:
Music CDs That Contain the Sony Rootkit


De Winter Information Solutions - open solutions in an open world - Spyware Sony seems to breach copyright

A few weeks ago I wrote about a screenshot of a webpage that appeared to show Google was planning on launching a new service for visitors that would somehow integrate databases into their ever-expanding collection of information. Google has now confirmed plans to make this service public in the near-future. There is a lot of buzz about possible uses for this service, including a pseudo-ebay type of service, along with various clones of craigslist. This could be good news for Google (if they can find a way to make some money off of it) and very bad news for ebay, which would have a new competitor who could offer a better service, more exposure, and more money to work with.
All Your Google Base Are Belong To Us - Digital-Lifestyles.info

Rumors are circulating that the Playstation 3 will be region-free, meaning PS3 games from all over the world will work on your PS3 system. Sony already went region-free with the PSP, and I think they've realized it makes both their system and games more valuable to the consumer when they are available to the world.
T3 - PlayStation 3 region-free?

Our lives have just become a little better. Motorola is rolling out a new phone in the RAZR line-up, the Motorola RAZR V3i with iTunes software. Now you can listen to music on the go with the sleekest phone in town. The girls will want you, the guys will want to be you.
Amobil :: New Razr V3i with iTunes

For just $1,000 you can be the proud owner of a crystal-covered Sony DSC-T7 Cyber-Shot digital camera. This baby is 5.1 megapixels with a 2.5 inch LCD and a Carl Zeiss lens. Did I mention it's covered in crystals:
Sony Cyber-Shot Covered in Crystals - Gizmodo

A report from Merrill Lynch sums up the economic side of the console wars for the next few years. Microsoft will likely have a huge cost advantage over Sony, with the average Xbox 360 costing about $300 less to make than the Sony PS3. The PS3 will cost around $500 to make at its launch, meaning Sony will lose money on each console sold until they can bring their costs down significantly. The cell processor alone, which is not available on any computer platform at this time, will cost $160 each to make, and Sony is making them in house at a plant in Wappingers Falls, NY. These processors will be much more powerful than the $100 PowerPC chips in the Xbox 360. A recent demonstration showed the cell processor is capable of processing 48 streams of mpeg video at the same time, without any noticable lag. Imagine what that will mean for a video game system. The PS3 will also support Blu-Ray, the next generation type of media. The Blu-Ray drive costs $75 for Sony to make. The Xbox 360 will have an optional HD-DVD drive, but it will cost an extra $100 over the core system. I think it's a very poor strategy for Xbox 360 to launch with 2 seperate systems. Some people will buy the one with the HD-DVD, but enough people won't so that future uses of the HD-DVD drive will be limited. They should have either scrapped HD-DVD or included it on every system. In the end, Merrill Lynch concludes that Microsoft will win the next stage of the console wars. I'm not so certain. Microsoft has been pushing back many titles that were supposed to launch with the Xbox 360 launch in a few weeks. If they do not have a strong launch, they will not gain enough momentum going into the holiday season. They need to sell a lot of units before the PS3 has a chance to get to market next year. If there are any doubts in the consumer's mind about the quality of games coming out for the Xbox 360, they will probably wait for the PS3 launch.
Merrill Lynch: Users likely to prefer Xbox 360 over PS3 - Yahoo! News

Have you ever dreamed of having more of something than your friends? More baseball cards, more designer clothes, more data storage space. Of course, everyone wants to beat out their friends - and enemies. Now you can definately beat them in the data storage department with this terabyte server by Buffalo. Buffalo also makes a 600Gb and 1.6TB version, but this review is only of the 1TB one, which costs $999.99. It can be set up to back up all of your data, some of your data, or none of your data, depending on your needs. I know what you're saying, you don't have enough space in your room to store such a device. Think again, this thing is about the size of one of those Mini Macs, and it's probably smaller than your subwoofer. It's not all good though. It can be slow transferring data under the wrong conditions, and at $1 per GB it is more expensive than a homebrew server system, which would cost about half as much, as long as you know where to look. Conclusion: it's good for some, but most will be able to find better options out there.
Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: Give me a home where my MP3's roam

Your stupid parents are not the only ones who have fallen for the infamous Nigerian email scam. You all know the emails: A rich dignitary has died, I need your help moving his funds your country. I will reward you with millions of dollars as a reward, and all you have to do is send us some money to cover the standard transfer fees. Your parents fall for this trick all the time - it's the reason you ended up going to a public college. Now the King of Tonga, who is 87-years-old, has apparently fallen for the same dupe, except with his countries money. If he's making big decisions like this on his own, and he falls for fraudsters so readily, maybe he should just step down. The country could give him a nice estate and a big car, so he can plow through as many farmers markets as he wants for the rest of his life.
The Australian: Tongans fear scam on king [November 03, 2005]

Did you actually pay $14 so you could get that latest music sensation's new album the legal way? If that musician's music publisher is Sony, be wary of popping that CD into your computer. The latest CDs made by Sony have been installing rootkits onto their unsuspecting, legally-abiding consumer's computers. A rootkit is software used to conceal other software from security applications. They are commonly used by writers of viruses and spyware to hide their programs. It would be possibly for a virus writer to use the Sony rootkit to hide their virus. So what's the solution to this problem? Don't buy new Sony music CDs. Either download the songs from iTunes, or download them illegally with some other software. I know I shouldn't tell people to do this, but I don't care. What Sony is doing is harming the products legally purchased by the consumer. They have no right to do this, and you should not be paying for that privilege.
Sony installing rootkits? | News.blog | CNET News.com