People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests.

Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans.

Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said.

Source: BBC

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a “female” android called Repliee Q1.

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.

Repliee Q1 is not like any robot you will have seen before, at least outside of science-fiction movies.

She is designed to look human and although she can only sit at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body, powered by a nearby air compressor, programmed to allow her to move like a human.

Source: BBC

The long-awaited first beta for the Windows Vista client release, which was formerly known as Longhorn, officially goes live Wednesday, hitting some 20,000 technical beta testers.

Microsoft also Wednesday released the first beta of the as-yet un-renamed Windows “Longhorn” Server to a limited number of participants in the technical beta program, including hardware manufacturers, OEMs, independent hardware vendors, system builders, independent software vendors and developers.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant also made Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 for Windows XP available to IT administrators, developers and enthusiasts for testing and evaluation through the technical beta program and MSDN.

With the beta releases the company also announced official names for the operating system’s presentation and communication subsystems, formerly known by the code names “Avalon” and “Indigo,” respectively.

According to sources, Microsoft will officially name Avalon the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Indigo the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Source: eWeek

Altova, creator of XMLSpy®, MapForce®, introduced AltovaXML™, an XML standards processor that includes the same XSLT 1.0, XSLT 2.0, XQuery, and XML validation engines that drive its own XML development tools.

Software developers can download AltovaXML from the Altova Web site at no cost and use it within their own custom applications royalty-free.

XML-based applications often require the use of an XSLT engine for performing transformations, an XQuery engine for executing queries, and/or an XML validating parser for well-formedness checking and validation. AltovaXML provides developers with an XSLT 1.0 engine, XSLT 2.0 engine, XQuery 1.0 engine, and XML validating parser together with COM, Java, and .NET interfaces so that it can be used from a variety of applications. Developers can also call its functionality from the command line.

AltovaXML™ is an entirely free download that includes the Altova: XML validating parser, XSLT 1.0 engine, XSLT 2.0 engine (schema-aware), XQuery 1.0 engine.

AltovaXML™ includes COM, Java, and .NET interfaces so that it can be used from a variety of different applications. You can also call its functionality from the command line. There is no license keycode required to activate AltovaXML™, and you may use it in your applications royalty-free.

AltovaXML™ features include: Well-formedness checking, Validation based on DTD or XML Schema, XML transformations via XSLT 1.0, Schema-aware XML transformations via XSLT 2.0, XML queries and transformations via XQuery, Command line operations, COM interface, Java interface, .NET interface

Computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW - news) on Tuesday said quarterly net income fell 85 percent from a year ago in which results were boosted by its legal settlement with Microsoft Corp., but results were better-than-expected and it set plans to cut its work force by 3 percent.

Shares of Sun rose 3.6 percent in after-hours trade on the earnings news and the move to slash 1,000 jobs which will result in a charge of about $100 million over the next four quarters.

Source: Reuters

Vista Beta 1 has yet to debut. But Microsoft is trickling out (inadvertently or not) more new information on what to expect in its pending Windows and browser releases.

In preparing for the imminent Beta 1 release of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.0, Microsoft posted to the Web new information about new features expected in the pending product releases.

Microsoft made available on Tuesday two separate privacy notices, providing information about data that Microsoft intends to collect during the beta testing process. Those documents also include information on some of the features, including many security-specific ones, set to be included in Vista and IE 7.0.

Read all about it here