Microsoft is hoping to release SP2 for Vista and Server 2008 before it releases a Windows 7 beta later this year, reports claim.

The company has created a Knowledge Base article documenting the new updates, although details of expected features and release dates are currently thin on the ground.

It is thought, however, that several hardware manufacturers have already received advance copies of the software, expected to include Hyper-V and several security fixes.

Google has put itself in charge of policing Android devices. The search giant is retaining the right to delete applications from Android handsets on a whim.

Unlike Apple, the company has made no attempt to hide its intentions, and includes the details in the Android Market terms and conditions, as spotted by Computer World:

Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement … in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion.

Such a mechanism also implies that Android devices will be regularly reporting back to Google to download the latest list of unapproved applications.

Searching the Internet may help middle-aged and older adults keep their memories sharp, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles studied people doing Web searches while their brain activity was recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans.

“What we saw was people who had Internet experience used more of their brain during the search,” Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging, said in a telephone interview.

“This suggests that just searching on the Internet may train the brain — that it may keep it active and healthy,” said Small, whose research appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Playboy Enterprises Inc, which publishes the world’s most widely read adult entertainment magazine, will stop making DVDs to save about $12 million a year, and focus on distributing its content online, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Shutting its DVD operations will cost 80 jobs and $2 million in restructuring charges, according to the filing on Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

An e-mail snafu has led to the leak of Microsoft’s decision to shutter its MSN Groups service, according to LiveSide.net. It’s not a surprise, as MSN Groups was one of the last vestiges of Microsoft’s Web services strategy pre-Windows Live.

MSN Groups will be closing on February 21, 2009. It’ll be replaced with a new service, Windows Live Groups, which debuts on November 17.

A combination of weak consumer spending and a peak in manufacturing capacity will push prices for flat-panel TVs down to unprecedented lows this holiday season, according to analysts.

David Barnes, analyst at NPD Group’s DisplaySearch unit, said prices look set to decrease rapidly starting on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, and lasting through next year.

It’s even possible that 32-inch LCD TV sets, which now usually cost $600 to $700, will go as low as $350 in stores. That’s a significant level: It’s close to the long-run average price for a TV in the U.S., Barnes said Tuesday.

He believes these smaller sets will be the big sellers this year, as consumers, and possibly also credit-card companies that had fueled big-ticket spending, tighten their belts.

“We’re about at the point where the 32-inch set will be the commodity,” Barnes said Tuesday.

Larger 40- or 42-inch sets are already dipping below the $1,000 level, another important psychological barrier.

Barnes’ colleague Paul Gagnon said the industry is coming out of a period of rather tight supplies of LCD panels, but more factories are now coming on line.