t’s still early on to tell whether this is actually true, but HD DVD cracker muslix64 is back, and with the help of another anti-DRM cracker, Janvitos, claims to have also broken the Blu-ray’s implementation of AACS. Although their protection does not yet account for BD copy-protection, they claim to have been able to implement the same key-grabbing known-plaintext attack as muslix64 used to crack HD DVD in order to successfully to crack Blu-ray without even using a disc or drive (apparently they just used a raw encrypted data file and nothing more).

Source: Engadget

You have to be seriously freaking into Vista if you’re even thinking about the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition (seriously, we didn’t even think Microsoft was capable of a title like that), but at least the price is on target ($259) and they claim it’s signed by the man himself, Billy G.

Something tells us it’s just an embossed signature print or something along those lines, but either way it’s down to you and 19,999 others prepared to get their fanboy on with the latest, greatest version of Windows.

Source: Engadget

Google Checkout has had a modest start since its launch in June of 2006, but it has a long way to go before overtaking—or even competing—with PayPal, according to a new report by investment firm J.P. Morgan Securities. J.P. Morgan surveyed approximately 1,100 customers about their online shopping habits and found that Google Checkout had a relatively quick market penetration of six percent despite having only been open for eight months. However, the company appears to be having some problems with customer satisfaction that could hold Checkout back from growing its market share.

Source: arstechnica

Google is plotting to do for books what the iPod has done for music: make them purchasable by download to a portable access device. Could civilisation as we know it be under threat?

The UK’s Times newspaper reported that “Google is working on a system that would allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry.”

It quoted Jens Redmer, director of Google Book Search in Europe, speaking at ‘Unbound’, an invitation-only conference at the New York Public Library, saying: “We are working on a platform that will let publishers give readers full access to a book online.” Redmer said that the project was likely to come to fruition “sooner rather than later”.

Source: iTWire

By a unanimous vote, the IEEE’s 802.11 working group has sent Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n WiFi spec out to the entire membership of the IEEE for approval. If it is approved by the membership, Draft 2.0 wil then become the basis for the final 802.11n spec.

802.11n has been hailed as an ideal, easy-to-use home networking solution because of its speed and backward compatibility with the slower 802.11b and 802.11g wireless networking spec. 802.11n will have a maximum throughput of 600Mbps, but will typically operate at 200Mbps, about twice that of wired 100BaseT Ethernet and nearly four times the maximum of 802.11g.

Its relatively high speeds have networking companies excited, as there’s enough bandwidth to easily stream high-definition video wirelessly.

Source: arstechnica