Gadgety News

Yesterday the sound of the Zunepocolypse terrorised thousands of Zune owners.

Tears and the gnashing of teeth sent ripples across the interweblogosphere.

Microsoft blames a leap-year handling bug and that’s why the Zune 30GB failed.

They’ve provided a fix which will sort itself out today - January 1 2009.

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).

We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience.

Q: Why is this issue isolated to the Zune 30 device?
It is a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30 device.

Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation?
This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.

Q: What’s the timeline on a fix?
The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.

Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008?
There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.

Q: What is Zune doing to fix this issue?
The issue should resolve itself.

Q: Are you sure that this won’t happen to all 80, 120 or other flash devices?
This issue is related to a part that is only used in Zune 30 devices.

Q: How many 30GB Zune devices are affected? How many Zune 30GB devices were sold?
All 30GB devices are potentially affected.

Can’t wait to try out Windows 7?

Well, the Windows 7 Beta 1 that was to appear all public-like next month has been unleashed in a leaked stylee via BitTorrent.

The beta expires July 1, 2009, and from what I gather from various sources on the interweblogosphere, it’s a bit more stable than the versions people have been playing with over the last few months.

Don’t believe me?

ZDNet has had a blast with the beta over here, and remark:

This beta is of excellent quality. This is the kind of code that you could roll out and live with. Even the pre-betas were solid, but finally this beta feels like it’s “done.” This beta exceeds the quality of any other Microsoft OS beta that I’ve handled.

Head over to the links below to get a copy but remember you’re not actually supposed to have it yet!

My Digital Life via BlogsDNA via Technovedad via Download Squad

ZDNet

Windows will soon be running on the iPhone using Citrix Receiver.

This is a remote screen software that connects to a PC and gives you the illusion you are running Microsoft’s operating systems, including the much wanted copy and paste functionality.

Why is this useful? It will give you the ability to run full Windows apps in your iPhone over the network.

According to Citrix, you will have full Windows capability, including cut and paste inside Windows.

Now then.

Citrix via Slashdot

I just had to share this ‘assent of the console controllers’ diagram! (Don’t forget that you can revel in its full glory by clicking the pic )

I think that it’s worth pointing out that apart from the Atari 5200’s controller it seems that controllers went from basic to more complicated - although (ignoring Guitar Hero, etc) we’re yet to see as many buttons as that Atari beast managed to fit.

To accomodate all the new buttons and such the console controllers have also put on the pounds and grown in size. 

This is shown in the illustration above as all the hands are the same size and the controllers are to scale.

I assume that there’ll be a T-shirt, duvet cover and probably underwear featuring this fab picture in no time at all

Chewing Pixels via Offworld

Tut-tut Microsoft!

Recently voted most desired console, nay, present this Christmas Microsoft has kept a major failing under its hat.

Whilst the big M has said that their Xbox 360 was capable of scratching discs and offered a fairly limited exchange program for damaged games there seems to be documentation that proves that Microsoft has known about the problem since the 360 was released!

According to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft first discovered the problem in September or October of 2005 - they even sent a “team of engineers” to stores across the US to determine the best course of action.

It sounds like they came up with three options, two impractical non-starters, which left the expensive action of installing small bumpers in each and every console.

So Microsoft offered the disc exchange instead.

These unsealed documents apparently also revealed that some Microsoft employees thought that the warning labels on the console weren’t enough, and that the company has received complaints about the problem from more than 55,000 customers as of April 30th of this year!

There’s no word of any movement just yet in theses lawsuits but one, filed back in July of 2007, is seeking class-action status on behalf of everyone that’s bought an Xbox 360.

I’ll keep you 360ers informed!

Read

Virtual world Habbo polled 5,450 UK 11-18 year olds and discovered that the majority of them have placed a games console at the top of their Christmas list this year, with the Xbox 360 coming tops.

They also found that 39% had asked for a console or computer from Santa. This is quite a significant lead over mobile phones, coming in second with 14% and clothes and accessories in third with 13%.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the most desired with 20% of the votes followed by Nintendo’s Wii and PlayStation 3 winning 19% and 15% of the vote respectively.

Considering the news that Nintendo DS broke the sales record for hardware in the UK last week, it is rather surprising to see handhelds not coming out as more popular with young people, with only 2% wanting a DS and 1% wanting a PSP.

But, if those teens have been less than perfect they’ll have to figure out how to get used to the AR interactiveness of a lump of coal and a satsuma!

Microsoft seem to be working hard to level the playing-field after the Mac/PC ad campaign.

Most of you will have seen those “I’m proud to be a PC” but the latest thing straight outa Redmond is its own clothing line dubbed “Softwear”.

Microsoft has acquired the assistance of Crispin Porter & Bogusky in order to ensure the results actually score on the cool-ometer, and it has also hired rapper Common as a spokesman.

Would you buy one? Personally I’m digging the design but still not convinced.

Boy Genius Report

When Asus mentioned that they were gonna produce an Ultra Mobile PC that was going to be priced somewhere around the €500 mark I thought to myself, “well it had better be good”

Well, they’ve  done it and the Asus R50A is actually shipping at €1,475!

It’s up to whether you think that a pocket PC that runs Windows Vista with a 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor, a gig of RAM, a 32GB SSD hard drive, a 5.6” screen at 1024 x 600, three USB ports, a microSD slot, a wireless keyboard, and an external DVD reader / writer is worth the cash.

You get hooked up to all the good stuff via 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G.

All in all it reads like a netbook but in a hand held stylee.

If you wanna earn those Geek-Points and have the cash - well, why not eh?
Pocketables

Left 4 Dead – it’s almost here!

If you’re not familiar with the title let me tell you a little about it.

The ‘4′ in the name underlines that this is a 4 player First Person Shooter (FPS) (and not an homage to Prince’s whacky way of writing) and the ‘Dead’ bit is a nod to what will happen to you if you don’t work as a team.

Oh; and perhaps the fact that you’re fighting zombies!

The game comes from those great people, Valve (they gave you Counter-Strike and Half-Life), and is set in the immediate aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.

Theses zombies aren’t your Dawn of the Dead slow moving types – think more 28 Days Later. These deads move quick!

Thanks to “the AI Director” you can play the same level repeated times and it will be different each time you play – You’re actually meant to keep coming back, charging through each zombie-infested level again and again, in the company of your buddies.

The Director tailors the frequency and ferocity of the zombie attacks to your performance, putting you in the middle of a fast-paced, but not too overwhelming shooty-shooty-kill-kill game!

Obviously the other aspect to the randomness is your 3 playing partners – you know how it goes: One will go off on a killing spree leaving the rest behind.  We’ve all been there and/or been guilty of doing that

Most games it’s ok and you generally can get away with it but this game reminds you to stay as 4.

But even then you could be handling the zombie horde as a group when suddenly a molotov is thrown, or a cannister explodes, and everything is engulfed in flames! You watch in horror as one of your team is caught by a lasso-tongued smoker zombie and dragged off to their doom and then….then……I sharn’t spoil it!

Here’s a quick look at those bad-guys:

• Boomers: Big, fat explodey meatsacks. Players caught in the blast/vomit radius become a great big beacon for a huge, bonus wave of zombies

• Smokers: These use huge Gene Simmons-esque mouth-snakes to grab a player from a good forty metres away, rendering him helpless until his mates save him

• Hunters: Stupily fast undeads that’ll pin a player to the ground, again until a heroic buddy intervenes

• Witches: Tend to sing a lot and remain motionless until disturbed by light, noise or an errant gunshot. Their eerie song and simultaneous sobbing are by far the most terrifying thing in the game. Upon waking up, they’re a whirling dervish of destruction. Fight every instinct to shoot the apparently frail things and sneak around them.

• Tanks: Are armoured and rather large. You’ll hear them stomping towards you from about half a mile away. On Normal, they’ll fall over before they do too much damage. On Advanced, their hitpoints are such that it’ll be the shortest route to an endgame situation.

If you like gaming, killing zombies and having your mates join in the fun you will want to click this link and try on the demo for size!

The game costs $44.99 through Steam and is available for pre-order now (you get access to the demo straight-away) and the full game is released on November 18th.

Good luck - keep your friends close!

Like some scary sequel - Bill Gates returns

~insert onimous soundtrack using mainly flat 2s~

bgC3 is Billy Gates’ new venture and it has a federal trademark as a think-tank, covering:

• Scientific and technological services.
• Industrial analysis and research.
• Design and development of computer hardware and software.

The HQ is a small office near BG’s home and is said to be full of high tech toys including a Microsoft Surface used as a guest book.

Thing is - what does the C3 bit of the name mean?

What is he planning?

Should we be scared?

Is it gonna cost us money?

TechFlash via Valleywag

Ok, there’s been more than a couple of rumours flying around about the new lithe Xbox 360.

Couple that with the fact that there has been no official confirmation of any such device and so this news should be treated with your usual dose of scepticism.

This time though, the rumour has been credited to a proper Microsoft source, Microsoft India’s Retail Services Manager, Rahul Datta. According to this site, Mr Datta let slip that an announcement about the Xbox 360 Slim could be expected in December.  Ooopsy!

That was closely followed by a PR rep pouncing to undo the exec’s loose-lipped utterings.

He cooly stated that he had simply pointed out that the business is evolving and that there may be some kind of announcement (not necessarily related to this strange Xbox 360 Slim that everyone keeps on about) which might be made in a few months. Maybe. Perhaps. Kinda.

Sounds pretty promising, and Microsoft would want to keep a tight lid on such news when there’s the important business of Christmas to contend with.

The saga continues……………

(via ElectricPig)

Check out this logo!

16 companies have teamed-up for a GSM Association-led initiative to make mobile broadband a recognisable standard - nothing makes things more real than a logo

The team’s aim is to create a bunch of “always-connected mobile broadband devices delivering a compelling alternative to Wi-Fi”.

The first phase will see it pre-installed on laptops in 91 countries.

Launch participants include 3 Group, Asus, Dell, ECS, Ericsson, Gemalto, Lenovo, Microsoft, Orange, Qualcomm, Telefónica Europe, Telecom Italia, TeliaSonera, T-Mobile, Toshiba and Vodafone.

So - some big names in there.

The GSMA-created “Mobile Broadband service mark” is designed to help consumers easily identify a “ready to run” mobile broadband device.

More is promised from the initiative including “a whole range of previously unconnected devices – from cameras and MP3 players to refrigerators, cars and set-top boxes.”

If someone asked, “would you want your own supercomputer?” chances are you’d say “…err….yeah, why not?”

Well, that seems to be the thinking behind Cray’s ‘domestic’ offering as they appear to want One Supercomputer Per Home (kind of an upgrade to the OLPC).

The Cray CX1 Supercomputer comes loaded with Windows HPC Server 2008 and incorporates up to 8 nodes and 16 Intel Xeon CPUs (dual- or quad-core); additionally, it boasts up to 4TB of internal storage, 64GB of memory per node and interoperates nicely with Linux. The CX1 is said to be the most affordable supercomputer offered by Cray (not to mention the “world’s highest-performing computer that uses standard office power”).

Sounds fantastic until you see the price tag fluttering between $25,000 to well over $60,000.

NetworkWorld

Engadget have got a bit of insider knowledge that points at the Microsoft games console getting some price shrinkage.

A Woolworth’s employee scanned an upcoming retail catalogue pointing out promotional cuts from the normal, £160, £200, £260 prices for the Arcade, Premium, and Xbox 360 Elite consoles, respectively.

The new prices are £129, £169 and then £229 for the Elite.

Pic also from Engadget

Most leaks come from employees that are less than water-tight, clever marketing or just pure out-and-out rumours.

Microsoft has invented a new way of leaking insider knowledge.

Pocketpicks have spotted a Microsoft Job advertisement that manages to spill more product info than their average press release and waggle-tongued employees combined.

It reads:

“Do you dream about having a mobile phone based entertainment experience powered by a unified entertainment service across devices such as Zune, Xbox and PC? If yes, come join the Zune team! The Zune team is embarking on the mission to create a “Connected Entertainment” experience, realized through the Zune service, that spans multiple devices such as Zune, Xbox, PC and Mobile phones…”

So, the big M is beavering away on an online content portal to sync all of its current devices together and perhaps a Zune Phone?

Movie’s, music and TV shows are probably in the mix and combined with the ability to watch or listen to them on both Xbox, PC and Zune sounds a promising idea.

Thanks to those that mailed me with this and thanks to Microsoft for being so generous and Pocketpicks for being so eagle-eyed  :)

Pocket Picks

Sony Ericsson are following the iPhone’s lead and have today published their Software Developer Kit (SDK) for the lovely Xperia X1.

The X1 can be personalised through its neat nine panel user interface.

Developers can use the Windows Mobile SDK, free of charge, to produce a wide variety of panels.

The Sony Ericsson SDK for Windows Mobile 6.1 will be made available for easy download on the Sony Ericsson Developer World website.

The two main browsers at the moment are battling it out and we’ve gotten so used to seeing Firefox eating into Microsoft Internet Explorer’s market share.

Now along comes Google Chrome to upset this two-way fight.

Their shiny new open source browser will compete with the two afore mentioned tools and I’m guessing that they’re hoping to see it snapping at the other two’s heels and also eating into their slice of browser market pie.

It will be interesting to see how this lightweight and apparently fast browser will take off.

It will be launched as a beta for Windows machines only in more than 100 countries, although there are plans to release both Mac and Linux versions.

There’s been word for a while that the big M would be launching a SideWinder-branded keyboard by Autumn this year and the Redmond-based folks are keeping the hype alive with an all new September-bound board and mouse 1-2.

The SideWinder X6 is hailed as the “first gaming keyboard created by Microsoft from the ground up, and the only gaming keyboard on the market with a switchable key pad.”

 When not being used for hardcore gaming the key pad transforms into a fully programmable macro pad.

It’s also packing two-colour adjustable backlighting, mode switching and a $79.95 price tag.

The X5 mouse has no less than nine buttons (five of which are customisable), a 2,000DPI laser tracking engine, six DPI settings (totally adjustable on the fly) and a $59.95 asking price.

Engadget

If you are serious about Xbox gaming then keeping tabs on your ‘friends’ becomes essential.

How much practise are they getting in?  What’s their kill/spawn ratio like? How much time do they spend online?  All this becomes quite important.

Now you can check things like this whilst you’re wondering home back from the take-away.

iXboxLive is an unofficial application which was launched last week and plonks itself on your iPhone’s home screen and acts as a supergrass to ten of your virtual buddies.

Once you’ve added your prey…..errrr…..friends you’ll be able to see what game they’re playing, their gamerscore, their gamer profile picture and location. You can even see a list of games they’ve been recently honing their skills on.

It costs 59p over here in Blightyland. 

Such a small price to pay for this kind of insider information.

Go here and get sorted - iPhone App store.

You aint seen me.  Right?

Microsoft have announced the release of the 60GB Xbox trippling the Xbox’s usual 20GB drive while keeping the same £200 price tag!

The new model will be available from 15 August (Friday) and will replace all existing 20GB models.

Of course, there’s still the option of the Xbox Arcade, which lacks a hard drive, but packs a 256MB memory unit to store downloaded games and gamer profiles.

Yeah, it’s cheaper at £160, but won’t let you store downloaded films or music.

For those that haven’t met the crunch yet there’s still the Xbox Elite in its lovely blackness and strutting around with a 120GB hard drive and weighs in at £260.