Microsoft is the target of a new class-action lawsuit over its Fall Update for the Xbox 360, an update that caused “problems” on a small minority of systems. By “problems,” of course, we mean “total system malfunction.” Now, one California man is leading the legal charge against Microsoft after his own machine was “bricked” by the update.

According to a copy of the complaint seen by Ars Technica, Kevin Ray was a happy Xbox 360 player until November 1 of this year, at which point he updated his console with the Fall 2006 Update. After installation, his system was unusable, and Microsoft has allegedly refused to repair it unless Ray pays them $140. The class action, filed in a Washington federal court, seeks more than $5 million in damages and free repair of all Xbox 360s damaged by the update.

Source: arstechnica

Macworld features an article stating that the next version of Office for the Mac will not include Visual Basic scripting. From the article: ‘Microsoft Office isn’t among the apps that will run natively on Intel-based Macs — and it won’t be until the latter half of 2007, according to media reports. But when it does ship, Office will apparently be missing a feature so vital to cross-platform compatibility that I believe it will be the beginning of the end for the Mac version of the productivity suite…

Source: Slashdot

YouTube quietly added a new feature today to its popular user-generated video site today called Quick Capture, which allows users to record video directly to YouTube from webcams plugged into their computers. This new feature eliminates steps in the process of producing video content, making it easier than ever to publish videos to the web.

The Quick Capture tool uses an Adobe Flash Player API to connect to the user’s webcam. The user must first grant the Flash Player permission to use the camera and microphone—and must do so every time—before using the service. Once the user grants permission, he or she must then select the type of connection being used for the video and microphone: DV, FireWire, or USB.

Source: arstechnica