Microsoft To Gamerscore Cheats: Knock It Off Or Else

By Susan Arendt

Many 360 owners consider their Gamerscore to be a badge of honor and are willing to do just about anything to pump it up, but Microsoft's Major Nelson says you'll be sorry if you stoop to cheating.
In a recent blog post, he explains that "If you decide to employ some nefarious techniques to artificially increase your Gamerscore or obtain achievements by manipulating the Xbox software without playing the game, bad things will happen." Bad things like your Gamerscore being removed, leaving you unable to re-earn the Achievements you once had. Or, worse, your account and/or console might be banned from Xbox Live.
The Major also cautions against giving anyone your Live ID and password, because if said person decides not to give it back, the only solution is to cancel that ID for good, which means bye-bye Gamertag and Gamerscore. In short, don't cheat and don't be dumb with your info. And that's one to grow on.
Xbox Live account sharing and Gamesave tampering (don't do it) [Major Nelson

New Treats and Tiny Tweaks Make Mac OS X Leopard Spot-On

By Scott Gilbertson

The iPhone might have grabbed all of this year's headlines, but Leopard may well prove to be Apple's most revolutionary product release of 2007.
The next version of the Macintosh operating system, Mac OS X 10.5, nicknamed Leopard, will be made available to retail customers around the world Friday. It will cost $130 for a single-user license or $200 for a five-user family pack.
The software release is the first major upgrade to Apple's operating system in more than two years. It boasts 300 new features and enhancements.
While many have criticized Leopard's new features for being mere gloss and polish when compared to features introduced in previous releases, Leopard isn't necessarily all about radical new tricks. Rather, its real potency lies in its ability, through technical enhancements and subtle usability refinements, to turn ordinary users into power users.
It's these well-though out incremental advances that will make Leopard more appealing to everyday users. Leopard's enhancements should also appeal to Windows users on the fence about switching to the Mac. With Leopard, Windows switchers aren't newbies; they're masters of the Mac.
Leopard does have some standout "big features" -- the Time Machine automated data backup system and the Spaces desktop manager come to mind -- but along with those additions, many of the smaller, oft-neglected features of OS X have new life breathed into them.
Take Cover Flow, for instance. Once limited to iTunes, Apple has modified the feature to fit the new Finder, giving it an expanded purpose in a new context.
In its Finder incarnation, Cover Flow lets you visually browse or "flip through" your files. Where Cover Flow in iTunes simply presents an alternative method of skimming your music collection, Leopard adds the Quick Look feature. This lets you preview your files -- flip through multi-page documents or watch video files -- without opening a second application. Now it's possible to quickly scan a huge folder full of images to find the picture you want.
The Finder also has a revamped sidebar, another feature borrowed from the iTunes sidebar. Items are grouped into categories, and there are pre-defined, date-based file searches just like the ones iTunes offers for your music library.
Power users will argue that it's always been possible to do these things by tweaking custom searches and adding elements to the Finder sidebar. But that's exactly the point -- Apple has rolled up such three-step customizations and made them the default view.
Apple's love affair with iTunes makes other appearances in Leopard, too, such as the iLife Media Browser, now integrated into the system-wide Open panel for opening new files. The new "unified" look of applications windows, which eschews the former brushed-metal skin, was also first seen in iTunes several versions ago.
But Apple isn't just turning OS X into iTunes -- the company's definitely "thinking outside the jukebox."
Spotlight, the desktop search and application launcher, now includes the ability to search network drives, look up dictionary definitions and perform mathematical calculations directly in the Spotlight search bar.
A revamped Wi-Fi menu helpfully divides open hotspots from password-protected ones, making it easier to find open public networks. Apple's Dictionary application now also offers direct access to Wikipedia entries.
Another change in Leopard that may not be grabbing headlines are the host of new security features, including memory randomization. Called by "Library Randomization," it protects against buffer-overflow attacks, all too common in the Windows world, by which hackers can inject malicious code into your system.
Other protections against intruders include application sandboxing, which tightens controls over what applications can and can't do so hackers can't exploit them, and application signing, which provides a way for both Apple and third-party apps to verify their validity.
Leopard also brings Mac OS X up to date with current standards. It's the first Mac OS X to be a fully POSIX-compliant Unix system, which eases application-development woes. It also features native support for document standards like the OpenDocument Format (ODF), and Microsoft's Office Open XML.
In the rush to get Leopard out the door, Apple has given third-party developers precious little time to ensure their applications work on the final version. Mozilla has warned that Firefox still has a few issues under Leopard, and Adobe says it hasn't fully tested its Creative Suite 3 on the new OS. Many other smaller developers report that they still aren't sure how their applications will perform. The cautious might wait a few weeks to upgrade.
Still, that won't stop the masses of early adopters. And for good reason -- not only is Leopard fully of eye candy, it's perhaps the most thoroughly thought-out OS release from Apple yet.

First Look: Hulu Combines Ease of Use, Content, Advertising

By Terrence Russell

Broadcasters can't deny that video-sharing sites like YouTube have promotional potential, but NBC Universal and News Corp. have had enough. Hardly impressed with YouTube's attempts to placate copyright owners like themselves, the two media giants set out to create their own online distribution platform, called Hulu, which launches to a limited audience today.
For NBC and News Corp. the hook was simple enough. By pooling their content (along with shows from cable channels including Bravo, E!, the SciFi Channel, USA and others) on their own website, they could create a relatively safe haven from piracy while still getting their hottest shows in front of an internet audience. From that central idea, the assembled parties designed Hulu, drawing on the elements that made broadcast television a success -- a closed platform, and regularly updated content and advertising.
Based on our test drive, it seems like Hulu got most of the formula right.
The user interface is what we've come to expect from web video players -- slick and Flash-based. Viewing content works almost exactly as it does on YouTube. The control panel is hidden; you roll the mouse over the player window to reveal options to share the video via e-mail, get its URL, embed it into your own site, or "pop out" the player into its own window. Our favorite (and the most superfluous) command was the option to "lower the lights." Once you toggle that option, the browser window surrounding the video goes from white to dark gray to add emphasis to the onscreen action.
Despite the familiar interface, the most glaring difference between Hulu and its would-be peers is the lack of an upload option. Since the site is a promotional tool for its owners, the focus is entirely on distributing premium content. There's no option for users to upload content, remix it or produce their own mashups. On Hulu, the networks are running the show.
Hulu hosts an impressive list of shows (and even a few movies), but there are quite a few shortcomings. For instance, only the current seasons of popular shows like Heroes and House are available. And Hulu does not allow you to download video to your computer for later viewing. If you want to delve into previous seasons or download content for keeps, you're better off purchasing the DVD or trying your luck with iTunes.
From NBC and News Corp.'s perspective, of course, Hulu's killer feature is advertising. Previously, when NBC's Saturday Night Live short "Lazy Sunday" saw viral success, NBC lost ad revenue. As users bootlegged clips and uploaded them to YouTube, NBC was left out of the clickthrough loop.
Hulu aims to rectify that by accompanying its full-length content with an omnipresent yet relatively low-key ad scheme. Whether we were viewing episodes of NBC's hit series The Office or a montage of footage from The Simpsons, there was some sort of advertising appearing alongside. While watching a short clip like SNL's "Dick In a Box" we saw banner ads above the top of the player, right next to a brief synopsis and run-time information. But for longer videos, like a full episode of Heroes or a full-length film such as Weekend at Bernie's, we saw a mixture of banner ads and pre- or mid-roll ads, which appear in the video stream itself.
Even with its mid-roll ads, Hulu seems to keep its web audience in mind. For instance, while watching The Simpsons we saw three ads for Axe body spray over the course of an episode: One right after the title sequence, another about a third of the way in, and then a final ad right before the end of the show. The good news for viewers is that the ads are brief (30 seconds or less) and are clearly marked in the timeline. The end result plays out relatively seamlessly -- even when the clip is embedded in a third-party site.
Hulu's executives have already stated that they wanted to scale back advertising compared to broadcast content. We're not sure what to make of that sentiment (since the whole point was to reclaim ad revenue), but they apparently keep to their word. For example, we saw the Axe ads the first time we watched a Simpsons episode, but on subsequent viewings the ads didn't play, even though they were highlighted in the timeline. This is because Hulu inserts its ads based on the total viewing time you've spent on the site, so if you've watched 10 brief clips, you're not going to get ads every time. But if you're watching longer content back-to-back, you may encounter ads more often.
Overall, Hulu is a well designed, easy-to-use video site with some popular content. It's also a clear compromise between the expectations of viewers raised on a diet of YouTube clips and the economic needs of a raft of blue-suited entertainment executives. Whether it satisfies both parties over the long term remains to be seen.

Napster Launches Web-Based Client, Heads For Facebook

By Scott Gilbertson

Napster is re-inventing itself yet again as it attempts to compete with iTunes and others in the online music business. The new Napster 4.0 sees the company ditching its desktop application in favor of a browser-based client in an effort to expand its market.
That should be good news for Mac and Linux users who have, until 4.0, been locked out of Napster’s Windows-only model.
The web-based client will let you access your music from a wider range of devices — at the very least, you can fire it up on any computer desktop. As Napster chief operating officer Christopher Allen tells Reuters: “with this new platform Napster can easily be integrated into consumer electronics devices or integrated into other Web sites such as social networking sites.”
Is Napster headed for your Facebook page? It certainly sounds like it, though no further details have been announced.
Napster’s service will remain subscription-based, with prices at $10 to $15 a month. You can still listen to samples for free, but you’ll only get 30 seconds snippets. The new web-based player sits in a pop-up browser window and behaves more or less like clients from Last.fm or Pandora.
Napster claims around 770,000 subscribers, but lags far behind industry leader iTunes. Now that Amazon has gotten into the digital downloads game, the market is increasingly crowded.
Napster tries to offer the best of both worlds — allowing streaming audio in the new web-client and subscription-based downloads — but clearly most people seem to prefer the iTunes/Amazon buy-single-tracks model.

Microsoft Live Workspace: Store Files Online, Edit On The Desktop

By Scott Gilbertson

Microsoft has finally announced its entry into the burgeoning online office market by releasing details about a new service dubbed Office Live Workspace.
The service may seem like an odd entry into the online office apps game, seeing how it is clearly meant to compliment, not replace, Microsoft Office. In other words, don’t come to Office Live Workspace looking for an online version of Word. The new service is essentially an online storage mechanism with the ability to share documents, not a true online office suite.
Office Live Workspace is expected to officially launch sometime later this year. It will let you store, access and share up to 1,000 documents in an online workspace. It will reportedly synchronize contact, schedule, and event lists with Outlook and the company is marketing the service as an “online companion to Microsoft Office.”
For now, the service and space for 1,000 documents will free. There's no word on pricing (tiered or otherwise) or additional storage options.
To actually edit the documents, users will need to have some sort office suite installed on their PCs. Longtime Microsoft watcher, Mary Jo Foley, reports that “third-party-developed office programs like OpenOffice, StarOffice and more, as well as Office XP,” will all be candidates for document editing. Of course, as you would expect, Office 2007 will work best with the new Live Workspace feature.
Looking over the new Workspace site it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t intended to compete with Google’s Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), but rather is aimed at home and small business users. There’s nothing even approaching an actual online editor and, frankly, not much to compel anyone to use the new services. In fact, the only thing truly interesting about Office Live Workspace is what it doesn't do: create and edit docs in the browser.
There's also no clear attempt to lure enterprise businesses to use the product -- a fact which underlines Microsoft's unwillingness to let go of the desktop client model for office software among the Fortune 500 set. But why should it? The customers its most afraid of losing to competing webapp office services aren't big businesses but small businesses. So, it's dreamed up a product to satiate their need for hosted, web-based group collaboration product without compromising its grip on office software sales.
Given that dozens of small startups, as well as big names like Google and Adobe, are constantly innovating with new offerings in the online office market that put browser-based editing tools at the fore, Microsoft’s latest announcement smacks of a "me too" grasping at straws from the company that should be leading the way.

Social Capital To Show Its Worth at This Week's Web 2.0 Summit

For the last few months there's been a lot of talk on the net about the Web 2.0 Address Book -– a technology that knows where you are and what you are doing.
It's also sure to be a hot topic at the Web 2.0 Summit, the annual web services conference taking place in San Francisco this week.
Yet to be invented, the Web 2.0 Address Book would be a unified contact list linking everyone you know across all of the social networks you belong to. It would link all your computers and devices, and know where you are at any given time.
So, rather than somebody calling you or sending you an e-mail, your friend would just browse their list and click on your name.
Wherever you are, the communication reaches you via the most convenient and appropriate means. If you're walking on the beach, your iPhone rings. If you're at your desk, you get an e-mail. If you're in Tokyo, you're probably asleep, so you get a voicemail.
This nebulous idea for a product has been dubbed the Web 2.0 Address Book by technology publisher and conference co-chair Tim O'Reilly.
Blogger Chris Messina, another Web 2.0 guru, has called the hyper-connected state it creates "the socialization of presence."
Since the most important social tools in our lives -- our telephone, e-mail and instant messenger -- are already becoming connected, such a vision may not be too far off if only the current generation of social software were open enough to grant us access to our data wherever and whenever we want.
While the Facebooks, MySpaces and other social networks are more than happy to consume all of a user's precious data about themselves and their friends, few services let the users take it out. Instead, that user data is treated like hard capital and used to lure advertisers and to fuel a platform for applications.
"If Microsoft Outlook or Yahoo Mail said, 'You can't get your data out and take it with you,' that would seem absolutely ludicrous," says Joseph Smarr, chief platform architect of Plaxo, a web service which lets users aggregate friends' contact information from their various social networks.
"And yet, that's essentially what's happening on a lot of these social websites."
Web 2.0 Summit program chair John Battelle, who picks the show's speakers in addition to playing the roles of host, interviewer and emcee on stage, considers the topic one of this week's primary points of discussion.
"One of the big themes of the conference is so-called 'social capital,' the information about yourself and about your network of contacts that you're willing to share," he says.
Battelle has organized several sessions to debate who should maintain greater control over that social capital -- the user or the web service to which they belong.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the first speaker of the event on Wednesday afternoon, will be discussing his company's platform and the lack of openness some people claim it has. In a dinner session on Wednesday evening, Battelle will moderate a conversation with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and News Corporation chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, whose company owns MySpace -- another site where people have a lot of social capital invested.
On Thursday, Six Apart open platforms tech lead David Recordon and LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick will both take the stage to lobby for a new approach to social networking which ensures users total portability of their data. Wednesday morning, Plaxo's Smarr will moderate a workshop cataloging the efforts being made to bring greater levels of user accessibility to social networking data.
Google vice president of search products Marissa Mayer will be on hand as well to discuss how her company is allowing users greater control over their medical data in its new Google Health service.
"This topic is primary to this year's conference," says Battelle. "We're going to be discussing it quite a bit, and I can't wait."

IMAP, YouMAP, WeMAP: Mail Protocol's Proponents Argue for Better Support

By Paul Adams

With Gmail's adoption of IMAP, one of electronic messaging's best-kept secrets has been thrust suddenly into the spotlight. But IMAP's inventor says the move, while overdue, doesn't deserve the fanfare it received.
Mark Crispin, an often outspoken purist when it comes to e-mail implementations, had a typically-for-him dubious reaction to the announcement of Gmail's added support for his protocol.
"I am very pleased that Gmail intends to adopt IMAP," he says. (Note his word choice: "intends.") "I feel that their current server should be considered to be a 'work in progress' and not as a viable 'ready for prime time' IMAP server."
Crispin says if he were to rate Google's current implementation of IMAP, it would be "quite damning."
"The consequences of the current server being presented as a completed product would be far worse than their not doing IMAP at all."
Google announced Oct. 24 that it would add support for IMAP to Gmail, one of the most-requested enhancements to its massively popular web-based mail service. Gmail, like similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo, has previously only used the more popular -- but much less useful -- POP protocol.
As with many things Google, Gmail's IMAP implementation is not quite finished. It lacks a few important features, and in our initial tests, we found it to be painfully slow.
When asked to comment on Crispin's criticism, the Gmail team offered an oblique response.
"Our primary focus is on our users and the user experience," a Google spokesperson says, "and we're focused on building the features that are most important to our users. We'll be updating our IMAP implementation as we go, in response to how our users use it and what they request."
However, even non-compliant support for IMAP is encouraging to users like Nancy McGough, who maintains a list of IMAP e-mail providers, and shares in the frustration of seeing the 22-year-old protocol so marginalized. McGough was losing hope earlier this year. She posted on comp.mail.imap: "My guess is that (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) will not (support IMAP). My prediction is that they will support annotating messages and that will be another step towards the death of IMAP."
But now it seems likely instead that Gmail's role as a trendsetter, as well as the proliferation of mobile e-mail, will give IMAP the boost it deserves. Although McGough, a self-described "privacy nut," distrusts Google's motives -- "They want to profile you," she says -- the latest move gives her hope for the future of the medium.
"Now that Gmail is supporting IMAP, I predict that Yahoo Mail and Microsoft will, too," she says.
With POP mail, you're responsible for keeping copies of your messages on your own computer. If you have more than one computer, or a mobile device, you have to manually synchronize everything -- or, more commonly, just live with a disorderly array of inboxes. "I'll just forward that to myself at work" is the battle cry of the POP mail user, a phrase which makes IMAP devotees shake their heads in pity.
With IMAP, everything lives in perfect sync on the server. Flag a message as "to-do" on one machine and the change is reflected everywhere else simultaneously. In an era of mobile devices, POP is a sadly inadequate relic.
E-mail providers have been loath to adopt the superior protocol, in part because it requires a significant storage commitment on the provider's side. With POP, on the other hand, the user carries the burden of keeping all the mail locally.
For ad-driven web-based e-mail like Gmail, there's another hitch. "Companies are worried that, because IMAP syncs so well, users will turn to mail clients rather than the web interface, which means a drop in advertising revenue," says Keith Coleman, product manager of Gmail.
It's a reasonable fear, and Google deserves an optimistic round of applause for taking the leap.
IMAP is unquestionably miles better than POP, but McGough's hopes extend further.
"We need e-mail messages to be linkable, annotatable and access-controlled," she says. "Basically we need all our e-mail in a wiki with multiple levels of access control (private, various groups and public). I think that's going to happen soon. I'll be brave and say within a year!"

IMovie Comes To Windows, Courtesy of Adobe

By Michael Calore

Hell hath frozen over again. Apple's celebrated video-editing program for mere mortals, iMovie, is coming to Windows! Better yet, it’s the old version of iMovie, before Apple stripped out all the features in iMovie '08.
Well, actually, it's not iMovie at all, but a program so close it might as well be. It's the new version of Adobe's Premiere Elements, which simplifies the often-mystifying video-editing and publishing process with tools aimed at nontechnical consumers.
The functionality in Adobe Premiere Elements 4, a Windows-only download available Monday for $100, is comparable to that of Apple's iMovie, which is made only for Macs. The two applications are so similar, they feel like siblings -- albeit those born on different platforms.
Like iMovie, Premiere Elements 4 makes it easy for you to edit camcorder footage -- complete with music, titles and transition effects -- then share your creations on a DVD or upload the video directly to YouTube, all in about an hour.
Adobe usually releases its software on both platforms, but chose to make Premiere Elements a Windows-only release because of iMovie's dominance on the Mac -- it's bundled free with every new machine. Apple also publishes Final Cut Pro, a popular video editor for professionals, and Final Cut Express, a “prosumer” version.
"We saw that Apple was meeting the video-editing needs of both consumers and professionals on the Mac," says Jim Mohan, Adobe director of product management for digital imaging and digital video. "Combined with (Apple's) smaller market share, that left a very narrow window for us."
But with last month's release of iMovie '08, that window was unexpectedly opened a little wider. Faithful iMovie '06 users upgrading to the new iMovie '08 found the software undercooked. Apple dropped some of iMovie's more-advanced features in an attempt to make the application easier to use, leading many angry customers to brand the release a downgrade rather than a step forward.
According to Mohan, if Adobe could have predicted Apple's move, his team would have explored a Mac version of Premiere Elements more thoroughly.
As things turned out, Windows users now have little reason to feel left out of the Mac's much-vaunted video-editing capability. Premiere Elements fills the gap quite nicely for the Microsoft crowd.
The software is remarkably easy to use, but it also offers more-advanced tools than those found in rival video-editing apps for Windows, like Roxio Easy Media Creator, Sony Vegas and Windows Movie Maker.
Premiere Elements has two work modes: The Sceneline offers a high-level view of the video you're editing, and the Timeline offers more-complete control over your movie.
In the Sceneline, clips can be reordered by dragging thumbnails, and you can select the portions of each clip you want to use.
In the Timeline, Premiere has support for a whopping 99 audio and video tracks. Everything is adjustable, from brightness and color balance to soundtrack audio levels.
Like its other consumer-level tools, Adobe has replicated much of the functionality of its professional offerings, but the controls have been greatly simplified from complicated palettes to a few sliders and checkboxes.
There are also hundreds of video effects to choose from, including image-softening and a grainy, black-and-white-film look. The latest plug-ins from Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects are also supported.
For those not fond of extensive hands-on tweaking, there are ready-to-go movie templates to choose from.
Just choose a theme (like Comic Book or the American Idol-esque Performance Star), and everything about the movie is generated for you: titles, transitions, effects, and intro and outro sequences. If you don't like the results, you can adjust them and preview your changes.
When it comes time to export, movies can be burned to a DVD with customizable menus, or uploaded straight to the web.
There's a function to export your video directly to YouTube. Unlike iMovie, which exports using the H.264 codec, Premiere Elements has the ability to send your video to YouTube using the site's native Flash video format. The video isn't re-encoded when it lands on YouTube's servers, so there's none of the quality loss inherent in cross-encoding.
If you'd rather post your video on your own website, Premiere Elements can generate a stand-alone player and upload the result to your site by FTP.
Premiere Elements supports all HD resolutions -- 720p, 1080i and 1080p -- and most consumer high-def file formats.
One gaping hole is a lack of support for AVCHD, the new high-def video format favored by the latest high-end consumer camcorders. Mohan says AVCHD support is planned for a later release.

New Treats and Tiny Tweaks Make Mac OS X Leopard Spot-On

By Scott Gilbertson

The iPhone might have grabbed all of this year's headlines, but Leopard may well prove to be Apple's most revolutionary product release of 2007.

The next version of the Macintosh operating system, Mac OS X 10.5, nicknamed Leopard, will be made available to retail customers around the world Friday. It will cost $130 for a single-user license or $200 for a five-user family pack.

The software release is the first major upgrade to Apple's operating system in more than two years. It boasts 300 new features and enhancements.

While many have criticized Leopard's new features for being mere gloss and polish when compared to features introduced in previous releases, Leopard isn't necessarily all about radical new tricks. Rather, its real potency lies in its ability, through technical enhancements and subtle usability refinements, to turn ordinary users into power users.

It's these well-though out incremental advances that will make Leopard more appealing to everyday users. Leopard's enhancements should also appeal to Windows users on the fence about switching to the Mac. With Leopard, Windows switchers aren't newbies; they're masters of the Mac.

Leopard does have some standout "big features" -- the Time Machine automated data backup system and the Spaces desktop manager come to mind -- but along with those additions, many of the smaller, oft-neglected features of OS X have new life breathed into them.

Take Cover Flow, for instance. Once limited to iTunes, Apple has modified the feature to fit the new Finder, giving it an expanded purpose in a new context.

In its Finder incarnation, Cover Flow lets you visually browse or "flip through" your files. Where Cover Flow in iTunes simply presents an alternative method of skimming your music collection, Leopard adds the Quick Look feature. This lets you preview your files -- flip through multi-page documents or watch video files -- without opening a second application. Now it's possible to quickly scan a huge folder full of images to find the picture you want.

The Finder also has a revamped sidebar, another feature borrowed from the iTunes sidebar. Items are grouped into categories, and there are pre-defined, date-based file searches just like the ones iTunes offers for your music library.

Power users will argue that it's always been possible to do these things by tweaking custom searches and adding elements to the Finder sidebar. But that's exactly the point -- Apple has rolled up such three-step customizations and made them the default view.

Apple's love affair with iTunes makes other appearances in Leopard, too, such as the iLife Media Browser, now integrated into the system-wide Open panel for opening new files. The new "unified" look of applications windows, which eschews the former brushed-metal skin, was also first seen in iTunes several versions ago.

But Apple isn't just turning OS X into iTunes -- the company's definitely "thinking outside the jukebox."
Spotlight, the desktop search and application launcher, now includes the ability to search network drives, look up dictionary definitions and perform mathematical calculations directly in the Spotlight search bar.

A revamped Wi-Fi menu helpfully divides open hotspots from password-protected ones, making it easier to find open public networks. Apple's Dictionary application now also offers direct access to Wikipedia entries.

Another change in Leopard that may not be grabbing headlines are the host of new security features, including memory randomization. Called by "Library Randomization," it protects against buffer-overflow attacks, all too common in the Windows world, by which hackers can inject malicious code into your system.

Other protections against intruders include application sandboxing, which tightens controls over what applications can and can't do so hackers can't exploit them, and application signing, which provides a way for both Apple and third-party apps to verify their validity.
Leopard also brings Mac OS X up to date with current standards. It's the first Mac OS X to be a fully POSIX-compliant Unix system, which eases application-development woes. It also features native support for document standards like the OpenDocument Format (ODF), and Microsoft's Office Open XML.

In the rush to get Leopard out the door, Apple has given third-party developers precious little time to ensure their applications work on the final version. Mozilla has warned that Firefox still has a few issues under Leopard, and Adobe says it hasn't fully tested its Creative Suite 3 on the new OS. Many other smaller developers report that they still aren't sure how their applications will perform. The cautious might wait a few weeks to upgrade.

Still, that won't stop the masses of early adopters. And for good reason -- not only is Leopard fully of eye candy, it's perhaps the most thoroughly thought-out OS release from Apple yet.

The Wired News Editorial Team

If you feel your privacy at work has been eroding lately, it's probably more than just your imagination. Experts say companies are under increasing pressure to monitor employees electronically, and workers should assume they are being watched.
Concerns about liability in harassment suits, skyrocketing losses from employee theft, and productivity losses from employees shopping or peeping at porn from their cubicles have led to an explosion in the number of companies conducting some form of electronic monitoring on their employees.
Over the past year, the battle of security vs. privacy in the workplace has been heating up.
A study (PDF file) published in April 2000 by the American Management Association pushed the issue into the headlines last spring. The study found the number of companies conducting some form of "active monitoring" of their employees had jumped from 45 percent in 1998 to 74 percent in 1999. E-mail monitoring rose from 27 to 38 percent over the same period.
International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that corporations worldwide spent $62 million on Internet filtering and monitoring software in 1999. An IDC study predicts that figure will rise to $561 million by 2005.
New products such as Raytheon's SilentRunner allow companies to monitor absolutely everything passing over their network, from e-mails to instant messages, in any language without the end user's knowledge.
In response to rising concerns over increased employee monitoring, Congress considered legislation last year requiring companies to notify employees if they are being watched. The bill, called the Notice of Electronic Monitoring Act (NEMA), died in committee but is expected to be reintroduced this year.
California Governor Gray Davis vetoed similar state legislation twice. Only Connecticut currently requires employers to notify their workers of monitoring.
According to Michael Overly, partner in the Internet law group at Foley & Lardner and author of E-Policy: How To Develop Computer, E-Policy, and Internet Guidelines to Protect Your Company and Its Assets, a worker's right to privacy is technically protected under state law, but there's a catch.
"All states have a right to privacy based on a 'reasonable expectation of privacy,'" Overly said. "But the courts have said that if there is a written policy notifying employees of monitoring, there is no expectation of privacy."
This means that if an employee is led to expect something is private, such as e-mail communications, then that privacy cannot be violated. But, if the company informs its employees that, for example, e-mail sent over the company's network is monitored, then the employee can no longer claim an "expectation of privacy." In short, once the company stakes its claim over its cyber-dominion, its employees have no right to privacy there.
"I tell employees that if they want to have a truly private communications, don't have them from work," Shanti Atkins said.
Atkins heads content development for Employment Law Learning Technologies, a consulting firm that helps corporations create privacy policies that reduce their risk of getting sued for invading their employees privacy, or, on the other hand, for not doing enough to protect them from harassment.
Corporations are really in a bind, Atkins said. They can be sued either for violating an employee's privacy by exercising too much control over electronic communication or Internet use, but also for not exercising enough control and allowing workers to be subjected to harassment.
Atkins said the key for successfully managing the balancing act between privacy and security is for firms to make clear to their employees that their privacy at work is limited.
"Lowering expectation of privacy is the No. 1 thing they can do to protect themselves from privacy litigation," she said. "It's not really about Big Brother watching. We've seen e-mail evidence becoming hot evidence in harassment suits, and employers have a duty to be sure harassment isn't being propagated."
While acknowledging that the risks of liability facing employers are real, Deborah Pierce, a privacy attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cautioned employers against using security and liability concerns as an excuse to subject their employees to demeaning levels of surveillance.
"By constantly monitoring, what kind of an environment are you creating there? Companies need to weigh that in their equation," she said. "It boils down to human dignity. People just don't want to be watched all the time, and happy workers are productive workers," she said.
But workers may also have to pay a price to maintain the right to anonymous e-mail. Overly said harassment of corporations and individual employees in the workplace from anonymous e-mail accounts is a growing problem without a clear solution.
"One disgruntled employee can cause harm to a huge corporation with one free e-mail account," he said.
He cited one case at a manufacturing facility in the Midwest where every single female employee received threatening e-mails through an anonymous account. The messages were disturbing enough -- "I'm gonna get you when you walk to your car," etc. -- to throw the whole factory into turmoil.
A company's good name is easy prey as well. Overly estimates his office receives three calls a week from companies that have been victimized by anonymous e-mail communications. A typical tactic involves doctoring an abusive message to make it appear as though it was sent by the company, then sending it out to thousands as spam.
"There's nothing like getting a call from an executive saying they're getting 50 complaints an hour from people who have received a fraudulent harassment e-mail and having to tell them there is nothing they can do to stop it," he said. "That's what has so many people upset."
There is something companies can do: tighten control over what is sent and received over e-mail. If a corporation's own e-mail can be submitted as evidence in harassment cases against them, it has an incentive -- some say even a legal obligation -- to keep tabs on what their employees are writing and receiving through e-mail.
Two recent Supreme Court decisions found that once a case of harassment comes to an employer's attention, the company has to try to stop the abuse and work to make sure it doesn't happen again. Otherwise, the company can be held liable.
"The decision essentially says that an employer may have a defense (against a harassment suit) if it can establish it used reasonable care to prevent what happened and acted promptly to remedy the situation," Overly said.
This burden accounts for part of the explosive rise in the use of filtering and monitoring software, he said. The latest trend is to implement software that will stop potentially abusive e-mail messages before the damage is done.
"If you look at every single harassment case, it involves a supervisor harassing an employee. It's hard for the employee to go over their head." Microsoft, he said, is developing a product that an employer can use to block messages with content the company deems offensive from ever reaching its employees.
Brian Burke, who analyzes the filtering market for IDC, sees similar corporate concern over workplace use of the Internet. This has motivated companies to move away from simply filtering Net content and toward what IDC calls Employee Internet Management (EIM).
Filtering is "negative," Burke said, meaning it allows everything through except for sites on the filter's block list. But the pace at which new websites are created means that filtering programs demand constant updating. Burke sees the trend moving away from this method of controlling access and toward a more "positive" model.
While "positive" access control sounds good, what it means, essentially, is telling employees which sites they can visit -- with access blocked to all others. This is opposed to allowing nearly unlimited Internet access with only pornography or other particular sites blocked. In short, if Burke is right, EIM is another sign of reduced electronic freedom at work.
The overall message to employers from ELT's Atkins is cautionary: "This tech revolution has opened a can of worms, and you better be careful."
If the explosion in monitoring is any indication, employers are getting the message. Workers sending personal e-mail or surfing the day away may be wise to heed the same advice.

Microsoft Spins 'Xbox 360 Arcade' As Family-Oriented Package

By:Chris Kohler

Microsoft's very, very late official announcement of the Xbox 360 Arcade model should have been a total anticlimax, and it is, except for the fact that they're spinning hard to position it as a "family" system.
The Xbox 360 isn't just for shooting people in the face, they say! You can play E-rated games, watch Blue's Clues and The Backyardigans on Xbox Live, and everyone can decorate the Xbox together with blinking red lights and popcorn strings!
Nope, the Xbox 360 is just for shooting people in the face. Kids and families are buying Wii this holiday, and I don't think a unit at a slightly lower price with a silhouette of a skateboarder on it is really going to change that. Microsoft made a huge concerted effort to make the 360 the hardcore gamer's console of choice, succeeded, and now seems to wish maybe they hadn't.
The full press release is below.
Microsoft Launches New Xbox 360 Console for Families
New console includes five games, wireless controller and storage to save games — all for the incredible value of $279.99
REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 22, 2007 — Just in time for holiday, Microsoft Corp. today released a new Xbox 360® console that delivers games and content to everyone in the family for an incredible value of $279.99 (U.S. estimated retail price)*. Available in stores beginning today, Xbox 360 Arcade console is the first Xbox 360 console to include five family-friendly games, a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory useful for storing games and entertainment content. At $279.99, the Xbox 360 Arcade console will include five best-selling games: “PAC-MAN Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.), “Uno” (Carbonated Games), “Luxor 2” (MumboJumbo), “Boom Boom Rocket” (Electronic Arts Inc.) and “Feeding Frenzy” (Sprout Games).
“As families gather together this holiday, it’s the perfect time to launch a new low-priced, high-value Xbox 360 that plays games, TV shows and music for everyone to enjoy,” said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing, Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “In addition to offering an incredible all-in-one package for families to get right into the fun, the Xbox 360 Arcade system features the industry-leading Family Settings, which allow parents to control what their kids are watching and playing — and we know how important that control is to families around the world.”
Karen Dodge, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer at Toys “R” Us, added, “We are excited to offer this new gaming experience to our customers — children and families — who can now enjoy the fun of Xbox 360 together. Many of this holiday season’s hottest items provide Internet connectivity, and with the online entertainment options available through Xbox LIVE®, Xbox 360 Arcade offers families a great mix of online content and traditional gaming in one console.”
The news of Xbox 360 Arcade comes as part of a broader initiative by Microsoft to bring the Xbox 360 experience to families everywhere. Microsoft also announced today that it is significantly expanding its catalog of high- and standard-definition family fun content that is available on demand direct to the consumer’s living room. This includes the addition of everyone’s favorite characters such as “Bugs Bunny” and “Daffy Duck” from Warner Bros., which will be delivering the first ever “Looney Tunes” cartoons for download on Xbox 360, starting today. In addition, Nickelodeon is adding three new shows to its already large library of more than 300 episodes of TV shows on Xbox LIVE, Microsoft’s premier online gaming and entertainment service, with the inclusion of “Blue’s Clues,” “The Backyardigans” and “iCarly.” “SpongeBob SquarePants Underpants Slam™” (THQ Inc.) and “SHREK-N-ROLL™” (Activision) games will also be available exclusively on Xbox LIVE Arcade, the place to download games for Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE, adding more fun for everyone in the family.
Microsoft’s commitment to family entertainment is complemented by the largest next-generation library of “E”- and “T”-rated games, more than 200 in all, available at retailers nationwide this holiday, including “BEE MOVIE™ GAME” (Activision), “Guitar Hero III®: Legends of Rock” (Activision), “Naruto: Rise of a Ninja” (UbiSoft Entertainment), “Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action” and “Viva Piñata®: Party Animals.”

Sonos Digital Music System Upgrade Solves Two Major Problems

Today, Sonos, which sells a wireless home entertainment system some have compared to the "iPod Home" device Apple never made, announced a slew of new stuff: a new version of its Sonos software that adds a long-awaited Search function, partnerships with Best Buy (brick-and-mortar distribution) and Napster (music service compatibility), and a new hardware product called the ZoneBridge that will solve one of the biggest problems people have had with Sonos's systems, that they forced you to connect one ZonePlayer directly to your router in order to set up Sonos' private mesh network in your home.
The compact (4.3" x 4.3" x 1.6") ZoneBridge eliminates the need to use a ZonePlayer for that connection, making the whole system more economical and effective and eliminating frustration on the part of users who wondered why they needed to buy two ZonePlayers in order to use one of them in their living room. The ZoneBridge will be available tomorrow in approximately 600 Best Buy locations for $99.
Using the new Sonos 2.5 software, users will finally be able to search their own library for music rather than having to browse for it, as well as the massive online catalogs of Rhapsody -- and now Napster -- if they subscribe to one of those services. Users search using the scrollwheel on the color WiFi remote control, but you don't need to type out the whole search term, because Sonos returns matches after you've only typed in a few letters, just like iTunes, Winamp, and other jukebox software.
Sonos told me that they're excited about adding Napster even though its catalog differs so little from that of Rhapsody because the service is available in other countries; Sonos will support Napster users in Canada, Britain, and Germany.
Other minor upgrades include scrolling text, support for more zones, and a revamp of the "add to queue" feature that had generated thousands of posts on the company's support forum. Some users had complained that when they added an album to the queue, it was added to the end and then randomly shuffled. The new software has four options for adding music to the queue: Play Now, Play Next, Add to End of Queue, or Play Next and Clear Queue.
All of these new features will be available to anyone who owns a previous Sonos Digital Music System via a software update; they expect 10,000 users to download the software tomorrow -- something the Sonos representative referred to as "the beauty of including software in a home stereo."

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/10/sonos-digital-m.html