Microsoft releases security updates for XP and Vista

The Divx team is again giving away their Divx 6 Pro software for free in a DivX Pro holiday download. All you need to do is download the Divx 6 Pro version and enter your email address to receive the serial number which will unlock the Pro features of the Divx software.

The Divx Pro version has several advantages over the normal Divx version: The DivX Converter, which is the official DivX video creation software application is included as well as the DivX Pro Codec which gives you higher performance and more encoding options.

Divx 6 Pro retails for roughly $20 so make sure you grab your copy before the offer expires. Divx 6 Pro can be downloaded for Windows and Macs, the process is similar although Windows users download Divx 6 first while Mac users have to enter their email address to receive the download instructions.

It seems that the download is also available in four languages including English, German, French and Japanese.

{via Download Squad and ghacks}

Google on the iPhone and iPod Touch

Users know exactly the difference between surfing web on a computer browser and on a mobile web browser. Due to the small size and low performance of mobile web browsers they often do not let you use the features of a site exactly the way you could have used them on your computer browser.

Smart Phones like Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone have made mobile web surfing more fun and realistic but they still lack some basic features.

Steve Kanefsky, a software engineer of the Google Mobile Team has made life easy for all the iPhone users around the world.

Now through the Google iPhone Application, users can easily access all their Google services (Google Search, Google Suggest, Gmail etc) and can interact with them just like they would on their computer browser.

This application is not limited to the iPhone users only. iPod Touch users can take advantage of this new application and can surf the web with more easy now.

This application has been made purely using the AJAX technology offered by the iPhone Safari Browser.

Just point your browser to www.Google.com on your iPhone and experience the new interface.

Here you go with some screenshots of Google Suggest and Gmail on iPhone.

{via sizlopedia.com}

Xbox 360 finally supporting Divx and Xvid

I’m still puzzled as to why it took so long to add Divx and Xvid support to the Xbox 360 and wondered if Microsoft did not ask the users before they produced the Xbox 360 about the features that the users wanted to see. My old Xbox is playing all of those files without a problem and the main reason why I did not make the switch to the new Xbox 360 was, among other things, the non existent support for Xvid and Divx movies.

What I like is that the Xbox 360 plays those movies from CD or DVD instead of streaming them over the network. I’m not that up to date when it comes to modchips for the Xbox 360 and possibilities to add a bigger hard drive to store files on it, but I’m sure some of you know the answer.

I would replace my old Xbox with the new Xbox 360 if I could use it as a media center again. I’d also like to know if the noise of the Xbox 360 has been finally reduced or if it is still that loud which would be another drawback.

Divx is supported back to version 5.0 which means that most movies should play just fine on the Xbox 360.

{By Martin via Ghacks}

High Quality Videos Coming to YouTube Soon

Speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference Youtube Co-founder Steve Chen said that Youtube will at some time in future stream high quality videos. Although YouTube’s goal, he said, is to make the site’s vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer’s Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if they want it.

Steve Chen said that the high-quality streams will be available in the next months, but only for some of the videos. This is probably the reason why YouTube’s bulk uploader increased the size limit for a video from 100 MB to 1 GB.

YouTube probably has the lowest quality videos on the Web today thanks to the Flash 7 Technology. According to Wikipedia,

“YouTube’s video playback technology is based on Macromedia’s Flash Player 7 and uses the Sorenson Spark H.263 video codec. (…) [The video] has pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 and runs at 25 frames per second. The maximum data rate is 300kbit/s.”

Steve Chen also confirmed that in YouTube’s internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was uploaded it. However, he said, a large portion of YouTube videos are pretty poor quality to begin with — 320 x 240. Streaming them in high-quality mode isn’t going to help much. So expect the rollout of High Quality Videos to be pretty slow from Youtube since the existing setup is working well for them, so this is just an experiment.

[via dailyApps]

PS3 Celebrates its First Birthday

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today celebrates the first birthday of its PLAYSTATION 3. Launched one year ago in North America, PS3 has revolutionized the industry with its Cell Broadband Engine technology which gives the system tremendous computational power; Blu-ray Disc capabilities which provides state-of-the art graphics and unrivaled storage capacity; and free access to PLAYSTATION Network where PS3 users can experience online gaming, connect with other PS3 users as well as download games, movies and other content from the PLAYSTATION Store.
In its first year, more than 200 software titles have been released for PS3 and more than 60 million pieces of content have been downloaded from PLAYSTATION Network worldwide. Also, through the continued support of and dialogue with PS3 users, remarkable hardware advancements and features have been added to the system through firmware updates making it the most advanced computer entertainment system on the market today.
When we designed PS3 our goal was to introduce a system so technically advanced that it could stand the test of time and could take the industry in a whole new direction, which for PS3 was high-definition entertainment said Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA. While we're excited by the progress we've made this first year, we know that like our other platforms, the best is still yet to come, especially given our new hardware and software line-up, and that PS3 will continue to take the industry to new heights for years to come. PS3 is the first gaming system to provide a disc capacity of 50GB thanks to its Blu-ray Disc functionality. Current PS3 first party games are currently in the 20GB range, well north of the threshold of HD-DVD or DVD, allowing for unmatched potential for games, movies and other media.

[via sohood.com]

Orange to sell 49 eur/month iPhone contract-paper

PARIS, Nov 23 (Reuters) - French telecoms operator Orange will offer a two-year service contract for a minimum of 1,176 euros ($1,754) with the Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iPhone, which it will start selling in France on Wednesday evening, Les Echos said.

The newspaper said on Friday Orange had briefly leaked details of its terms of sale for the music-playing, Internet-browsing device on its Website.

France Telecom (FTE.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) unit Orange declined to comment.

Apple sold 1.1 million iPhones in the United States between the end of June, when it first went on sale, and the end of September, beating analysts' forecasts. Thousands of customers queued for days to be among the first to buy one.

The company aims to sell 10 million of the devices by the end of 2008, representing about 1 percent of the total mobile phone market, but industry watchers are unanimous that the iPhone's impact is far greater than its market share suggests.

As well as raising the bar for other handset makers with the iPhone's many media features, Apple has broken with tradition by making exclusive deals with one carrier in each country, beginning with AT&T (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in the United States.

In Germany, Apple's exclusive sales partner T-Mobile (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) was forced by a court this week to offer customers iPhones that are not locked to the T-Mobile network.

But the 999 euro price at which it will offer unlocked phones, compared with 399 euros with a contract, makes the move almost meaningless.

In France, Orange will also offer the iPhone without a service contract but Les Echos said the price, like in Germany, would be significantly higher. Orange has said the starting price with a contract will be 399 euros.  Continued...

[via Reuters]

1,400 Wii consoles sold in ten minutes on Amazon

It's the Wii console's second Christmas out and there a strong sense of déjà vu in reports that talk of internet-breaking sales as punters go mental for Nintendo's console.
Amazon apparently sold 1,400 consoles in just ten minutes, when stock was renewed last week. A similar picture is painted at retailers across the country, as the widely sold-out Wii becomes harder to find with every passing day.
The craze has predictably pushed up prices of the console - some are selling on eBay and Amazon (second hand) for over £300. Just as Reggie said would be the case, there just aren't enough consoles for everyone.

It's not that Nintendo isn't making many - on the contrary the company is said to be pumping out 1.8 million units a month. That's not enough to satisfy demand, but retailers are pretty happy about it.
The chief executive of Woolworths, Trevor Bish-Jones, told the Telegraph: "There is a steady flow of Wiis into the country between now and Christmas. It will not be enough to meet all consumer demand but is sufficient for retailers to enjoy good levels of sales in the run-up to Christmas."
We at CVG could only find select shops that still had Wii consoles in stock, and that was because they were bundling the console with fives games (that you probably don't want) for £400. No thanks.

[via computerandvideogames]

iDesktop.tv the new YouTube?

So what is iDesktop.tv?

iDesktop.tv is an incredibly cool dynamic web 2.0 application, with a terrific modern design, for searching, watching and downloading videos from the richest online video archive, YouTube.
This is basically adding functionality and experience to what "should be" there. The possibilities of the site reach far beyond that. It gives you the chance to create your own environment for watching video clips, saving them and sharing them with friends.

What makes iDesktop.tv unique?

Designing iDesktop.tv we followed one primary idea - to bring normal desktop application experience to the browser - windows that can be dragged, resized, minimized in a tray, drag'n'drop of videos between players and results, standard menus - all with one goal - to make the richest web application for viewing and managing video content! You will be amazed by the flexibility and fabulous design of the website. It is user friendly and easy to navigate but also has great functionality.

Video to Android - The Google Phone

Below is the video from Sergey Brin, where he begins by explaining how excited he is about Android. Yet, I don't see the excitement, not a smile, not any body movements, nothing. If you are excited about something, SHOW IT. The other guy who follows Sergey also seems bored with the whole thing. Scoble calls the $10M a bribe, I wonder more if indie developers will care seeing as tho there was no passion in any of these videos. Naturally corporate and startups will get their developers working on apps for this new OS.

So to sum up Android: It's a Google OS which is "open" to anyone to create whatever they want with. I can only guess that phones that support Android will ship with lots of fun Google apps pre-built.

Here is Sergey's intro video to Android:

[via Centernetworks]