Sorry, this is old news (it happened while I was away), but I think it is definitely worth commenting on. A few days ago,
Google acquired Measure Map, an stats service for blogs. On the face of it it is hard to see why Google would be interested, as they already own an extremely powerful web stats service, Google Analytics, and it could be hard to see what Measure Map adds to Google. There are two answers to this question.

Firstly, I have applied for an account for Google Analytics for this blog, which I do not have yet. When I get it and start using it, I will be getting great information but far more than I actually need. The vast majority of features will be completely useless for me. As Google Analytics is completely free, Google is bearing the probably substantial cost of collecting and presenting all of the stats and providing all the features which I don’t need. Therefore a cut-down service such as Measure Map provides both the features I need at a far more realistic cost for Google. As it is cut down, the UI (user interface) will also be much cleaner, and thus easier to use, which will have a good impact on the popularity of the service with non-tech bloggers.

The other reason which I cannot claim as my own, but I have seen on other blogs, is that the Measure Map service has a very good AJAX UI. That could be very valuable to Google Analytics. Although it would be very resource-intensive, imagine how cool live updating stats would be. However, it is hard to see a practical use for them! I’m sure Google are just pleased to get good AJAX engineers on board though, as it looks like the use of AJAX can only increase.

PS: AJAX stands for Asynchrous Javascript And XML. Basically, it is a way of updating the data on the webpage without having to reload the whole webpage. When used well it can be extremely powerful, and is being increasingly used in services such as Webmail (eg Gmail and Windows Live Mail beta) with much success.

Hi, there. I’d just like to say before I start this post, thanks to Huw for accepting me as a regular member of the Gizbuzz team. I hope I can help bring Gizbuzz’s readers some of the best tech news first, and have fun doing it.

Back to the story, Sony have admitted that the release of their PlayStation 3 console may be delayed due to the fact that the specifications for the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) copy protection technology intended for the Blu-ray format are not finished yet.

Currently, Sony aim to have their next generation console on the market by the end of the Spring, in order to compete with Microsoft’s already released Xbox 360 console.

It will be interesting to see who wins the war of HD-DVD versus Blu-ray, especially considering that Microsoft have officially stated that they will support the rival HD-DVD format.

I’ve just got back from my trip, and read all the great posts Peter’s been doing on the blog. In fact, they’re so good, I’ve just added him as a member of the blog, so his posts will become a regular feature. Sorry to him that all his posts have been credited to me - it’s because he was submitting them via email to blogger, as that was the only thing I could manage to set up from my phone (I had no access to a computer).

Hopefully I’ll be posting again shortly when I’ve read up on the latest tech news, and I know whats going on.

The OSx86 Project, a site dedicated to news about running Mac OS X on generic Intel hardware have removed some posts on their forum after they included links to a hacked patch for Mac OS X 10.4.4 that allowed it to be run on generic x86 hardware. According to their site, a lot of tech news sites, including good old Slashdot, claimed that the whole of OSx86 Project had been shut down, whereas what actually happened, according to this post by OSx86 Project, is that they agreed with Apple to take down certain forum posts after a forum member linked to the hacked OS X files.

They state that:

This site was not founded to be a "watercooler for hackers" as CNet posited. Instead, it was simply meant to be welcoming Mac community for switchers and experts alike.

Nvidia have revealed that they will release its next generation video card for the mid-range market, the Nvidia Geforce 7600, by the end of March. They have also stated that their new top-end graphics cards, the Geforce 7900 GT and GTX series just beforehand (the current guess is around the 9th of March).

The graphics card market seems to progress faster than any, even by the computing industry’s standards. It will also remain to be seen what ATi, Nvidia’s arch rival can challenge with.

Peter

Just a quick follow-up from this post, it seems that The Register think that this was all an over-exaggerated story posted by the BBC. I thought it did seem a bit outrageous to deliberately put a backdoor in an operating system supposed to secure up the Windows platform.

Don’t worry, Huw will be back soon I’m sure.

Peter

According to many sources including BBC News, a worm is spreading via the Apple iChat IM application. It poses as screenshots of the new version of Mac OS and calls itself latestpics.tgz. In order to get infected, a user would have to receive the file and then actually extract the contents of this archive and then run an application inside it. The application poses as a JPEG image (by using the default JPEG icon) but is actually a PowerPC-compiled binary application (so doesn’t work on the new Intel Macs presumably, or does it successfully emulate?). What it then does is does a Spotlight search to find the last four recently used applications and infects them. Then it tries to send itself to all your iChat contacts. But that’s all it does, no deleting of files or anything. Well, actually according to the stuff I’ve read, it seems to be so badly written that it unintentionally breaks some apps that it tries to infect.

It doesn’t seem that bad to me; I guess it’s just hit the news because viruses and worms are so rare on the Mac platform.

Peter

It is official. The new version of Office, until now only known as the rather boring ‘Office 12′ has been named as Office 2007. How original(!) Nevertheless, the new UI (two links there with screenies) does look quite cool, although it will take a bit of getting used to for a lot of people.

And from the looks of it there are going to be lots of versions, I’ll round up the main versions of the whole suite here.

Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007

This looks like the natural successor to Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition (the version I have), but they’ve dropped the ’students and teachers only’ requirement.

• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• OneNote

What? No Outlook? This looks interesting, as I use Office Outlook 2003 all the time for my primary email account. Result: people switch to Thunderbird? And do I really need OneNote? Well, only time will tell.

Microsoft Office Basic 2007

An OEM only version this one, so will only come bundled with a new computer (well, that’s the idea anyway).

• Word
• Excel
• Outlook

But no PowerPoint? Actually, there was no PowerPoint in Office 2003 Basic either…

Microsoft Office Standard 2007

Your bog-standard retail-available version of Office.

• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Outlook

Microsoft Office Small Business 2007

Basically, it’s standard plus Publisher and some small business stuff.

• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Outlook (with Business Contact Manager)
• Publisher

Microsoft Office Professional 2007

We’ve seen this version before, so not much to say here.

• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Outlook
• Access
• Publisher

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007

A volume licence only version, so it’s going to contain the following.

• Everything in Office Pro but also with:
• Office Communicator (business IM client)
• InfoPath

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007

Wow, this is like Vista Ultimate Edition, but for Office. Apart from the fact that this is again, limited to volume licence purchase only.

• Everything in Office Pro Plus, as well as:
• OneNote
• Office Groove (P2P collaboration)
• Server-based content management, forms management, and information rights and policy capabilities (so it’s all the data protection stuff introduced in Office 2003, right?)

That’s it for the Office suite as one, but there is a whole round-up here (it’s what I’ve said and a bit more).

Congratulations, by the way, if you’re still reading here.

Peter

OK, this post is going to make me look paranoid since this is my second post about privacy issues. Nevertheless, I think it’s worth blogging about.

According to BBC News , the UK government are in talks with Microsoft because they’re scared all the new encryption features in Windows Vista will stop them from accessing suspects’ files. So, and I quote from the news story:

Cambridge academic Ross Anderson told MPs it would mean more computer files being encrypted.

He urged the government to look at establishing "back door" ways of getting around encryptions.

Peter

Here’s an interesting service for all you webmasters out there. It’s called Browsershots, and what it does is it will take a screenshot of your site in a number of common browsers on all platforms so you can test whether your site renders properly in other browsers. It’s very useful for those of you who have only got access to one operating system or are unable or unwilling to go installing millions of browsers. The only downside with Browsershots is that it usually takes an hour or more to produce all of your screenshots, so best to set it, bookmark it and come back later. With me being a bit of a Linux geek (hey, I use Windows as well), I get access to most of these browsers anyway, but the one thing I do find it useful for is Safari. I don’t have a Mac and can’t afford to go and buy dedicated hardware just for Safari. (Yes, I know Konqueror uses the same rendering engine, I’m making a point here.)

However, if you do need an instant Safari check (but only Safari, mind) there is another great service called SafariTest. This has the benefit of being pretty much instant and this does help when you have multiple pages that you want to check. So give these services a look if you’re into building your own websites, because you should always build with cross-platform compatibility in mind.

Once again, it’s Peter, aka strategyoracle aka hybrid posting again.