Apparently, an insider inside Microsoft has said that the successor to Windows Vista has a brand new codename.

We’ve already had the suggestions of ‘Blackcomb’ and ‘Vienna’, but this time the future of Windows is going to be called Fiji.

Obviously, this is a codenamed (like the ‘Longhorn’ codename for Vista), and will not reflect the final name for the product.

Freedom to Tinker have a blog post about how HDCP copy protection works and how it might be possible to break it. HDCP copy protection is the next-generation copy protection used in high definition media setups (for example, HD DVD and Bluray discs to HDTVs) which will prevent the media content being copied through the cable using a device.

It is a bit complex, but in this article it has been distilled down quite well, so if you’re fairly technically competent and have reasonable maths skills, you might be able to get the gist of it.

The remaining question is, how long will HDCP last before a mainstream crack becomes available? The Content Scrambling System pioneered on DVDs promised a lot, but it wasn’t long before people just copied the protection codes from a legitimate DVD player and created decryption software.

Mozilla have released a small update to their flagship Firefox browser.

The new update, version 1.5.0.2, includes some important security fixes, some bug fixes and on the Mac OS X Platform, Firefox is now a Universal Binary (it runs on both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs).

If you’re a Firefox user, get it now.

You can now officially buy a .eu domain name (if you live in Europe, of course). According to BBC News, the ’sunrise’ period where companies can snap up domain names with their trademarks in has passed. So, go out and buy the really good .eu domain names while they last. Because, they won’t.

Germany have registered the most .eu domain names so far, followed by the Netherlands, France and then the UK.

Just a quick follow up from the post about Apple Boot Camp. UNEASYSilence have a really cool video on how Apple’s Boot Camp bootloader is installed. It’s about 8 minutes long.

Apple have officially released Boot Camp, a public beta version of a patch to make Intel-powered Macs to run Windows. Yes, you read that correctly, Apple released a patch to run Windows on the Mac.

The patch works a bit like the hacked-up bootloader for Windows XP, developed by some enthusiasts to try and get Windows running on some Macs, which was largely a success. Boot Camp, however, provides a GUI (graphical user interface) for installing Microsoft Windows alongside Mac OS X. From the official Apple press release:

Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in ‘“Leopard’,” Apple’’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

So in Mac OS X Leopard, you will have a dual boot system built directly into the Mac operating system. Apple go on to say that:

“Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’’s superior hardware now that we use Intel processors,” said Philip Schiller.

This seems quite a big step to take for Apple, who seem to be embracing the idea that people will switch to Mac if they can run their Windows applications at the same time. Robert Scoble (a Microsoft employee) seems to think that Apple are listening to bloggers, and have made this decision as a direct result of what people want, thinking it might boost Mac sales.

Will it boost Mac sales, and get more people using Macs? Or will people just buy nice-looking hardware to run Windows on? It seems only time will tell what this momentous move by Apple will do for it, or against it. No official word from Microsoft about this yet, but I’ll follow up when there’s news.

Google has launched Related Links today in the Labs. It had been seen around the place before, but it’s now official. It allows site owners to put different variants of this box on their site.
[picture off Google Blogoscoped because I couldn't get JavaScript to work on Blogger]

It’s not a particularly exciting launch, but it will probably have a reasonable takeup. For Google it’s quite a good move. They get (all but) free advertising for their searches and news, which in turn gains them market share and converts into ad revenue. Philipp at Google Blogoscoped reckons that Google might look at putting AdWords on there at some point in the future, but I doubt that, as it would deter many publishers from using them and Google will already be getting some ad revenue from the search result page ads. It’s more likely that they will put an optional Froogle module on it.

Apple have just released an update (10.4.6) to their Mac OS X system for users of the latest version, Tiger (version 10.4.x).

It fixes some bugs, patches some security holes, improves some of Mac OS’ featurs and includes a whole new version of their iSync application. It’s been released for both Intel and PowerPC-powered Macs, not as a Universal Binary, but as two separate downloads.

Apparently, it spooked one PowerBook user, as the PowerPC version of the update restarts the Mac twice, where the Intel version restarts only once.

Apple users can get the update through Mac OS X Software Update or from the Apple website.

[Picture from winsupersite.com]

As part of Microsoft’s new ‘Windows Live’ marketing push, they are marketing a new complete security solution for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista, called Windows OneCare Live. It will provide antivirus, firewall , antispyware and backup capabilites, all easily accessible to view and control from one OneCare centre. The beta is free (US only, however) and apparently gets you a discount on the product when it does finally come out.

This looks like Microsoft branching out into the (large) sphere of Windows security products out there. It looks like they will try and take on the big players like Symantec and McAfee, and are marketing OneCare Live as a separate product, as the EU would not be happy if Microsoft included it in Vista.

(On a completely different topic, there’s a very complete list of all April Fool’s Jokes this year here on Wikipedia).

Engadget is reporting that the Revolution will have an SD card slot, as well as a USB socket to enable external hard drives.

It doesn’t look like the Revolution will have all the media features of the Xbox and PS3, but it will be significantly cheaper, and the lack of an internal hard drive or massive media support is probably part of an attempt by Nintendo to keep costs to an absolute minimum, enabling them to significantly undercut their competitors and market using a ‘just games’ approach. It’s their best chance of success, ‘cos the Revolution certainly can’t compete with the other two on power.