The retail version is not even out the door yet, but Microsoft is already starting to prepare the first major update for its new Vista operating system, according to a letter the company sent this week to business customers.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 “will be a standard service pack that will include security updates, hotfixes, as well as limited other changes focused on improving quality,” according to the letter, which Microsoft sent to customers enrolled in its Technology Adoption Program.

The letter said Microsoft wants feedback on Vista SP1 from program members “to help us prepare for its release in the second half of CY07.”

To be eligible to participate, customers must be willing to deploy pre-release builds into production environments and report back on the results. “Issues will surface from the deployments as well as throughout the program as end users test its limits through their day to day activities,” the letter stated.

The letter also indicates that Microsoft would like participants to make their operations available as case studies to the media and analyst for stories about the Vista update.

Source: Dark Reading

Microsoft is looking to supplant the ubiquitous JPEG with an image format of its own–and it’s hoping the debut of Windows Vista will help do the job.

In 2006, Microsoft began promoting its own image standard, formerly called Windows Media Photo but renamed HD Photo in November. The company makes no bones about its ambitions: “Our ultimate goal is that it does become the de facto standard people are using for digital photos,” said Josh Weisberg, Microsoft’s director of digital imaging evangelism.

“HD” doesn’t actually stand for “high definition,” but it’s supposed to connote the better image quality that comes with HD TV. Rico Malvar, a Microsoft Research director who helped develop the format, said that compared with JPEG, HD Photo preserves more subtle details, offers richer colors and takes up half the storage space at the same image quality.

Source: News.com

A German court has sentenced a software dealer to nearly three years in prison for distributing Microsoft Corp. products with forged licenses.

The dealer, a 42-year-old Turk, was arrested in June 2006 by German police for selling Microsoft products with falsified licenses on a large scale, Microsoft Deutschland GmbH said Thursday. He had been held in custody until the court ruling, which ended with a sentence of two years, 11 months in prison.

After eight days of hearings, the district court in Bochum, Germany, found the Turkish dealer guilty of reselling 18,555 products with forged licenses to other dealers who were unaware of the illegal activity. The court referred to the dealer as a “clever offender” who was driven by greed. The dealer was not identified.

Source: Yahoo

AMD’s ‘Barcelona’ 65nm quad-core server processors will lick Intel’s four-core Xeon 5300 series, out-performing its rival by up to 40 per cent, the chip maker claimed this week, according to a variety of websites briefed by the company.

Maybe, but since no one can actually buy a Barcelona-based machine, the point’s moot. By the same token, AMD’s rival could claim it will ship a chip that outperforms Barcelona by a similar margin, and we’re sure it will. Still, AMD can at least put a time frame on Barcelona’s release: it’s due mid-2007.

Source: Reg Hardware

Microsoft announced Friday that it would be launching a “Starter Edition” of its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, geared toward customers in developing countries.

It’s a similar concept to the Starter Edition of Windows XP that Microsoft launched in June 2003: a version of the operating system that can run on lower-end processors, in location-specific languages, with extra help tutorials bundled for customers who may be using PCs for the first time. The Vista Starter Edition will be launched alongside the main Vista product on January 30.

Source: News.com

PC users only have to wait a few more days, until January 30th, to get their hands on Vista — Microsoft’s eagerly anticipated upgrade to its Windows XP operating system. But in the midst of all the bells and whistles surrounding the release, a handful of industry insiders who have been working with Vista have already reported a number of compatibility issues. And bloggers are taking note, as well.

Analysts confirm that there are indeed some issues with software compatibility and there are bound to be more. Whenever a new operating system comes into play, users should expect it won’t be smooth sailing at first. Thus, it comes as no surprise that bloggers are busily posting problems and gripes.

Source: Yahoo

A substitute teacher in Norwich, Conn., faces up to 40 years in prison because of pornographic images that popped up on her classroom computer in 2004. Several students at Kelly Middle School in Norwich saw the images appear.

The teacher, Julie Amero, was convicted by a jury earlier this month on four counts of risk of injury to a minor. She is slated to be sentenced on March 2 in Norwich Superior Court.

Source: News.com