We're excited to release IE8 Beta 2 today for public download. You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. Please try it out!

You'll find versions for 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon.

While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2.

Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
View: Full Blog Post
News source: IEBlog

On Wednesday, the Mozilla organization released a maintenance, 3.0.1 version of their Firefox web browser.

This new version fixes several issues found in Firefox 3--including security and stability issues.

View: Release Notes
Download: Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Windows, English (7.8 MB) | Other Systems & Languages

News source: Mozilla

THERE ARE A ton of 'rumors' floating around about Nvidia giving up the ghost on its ailing chipset division. Nvidia is desperately trying to deny it, but don't believe the spin, the division is deader than an Nvidia mobile GPU.

Just over a week ago, Nvidia's maximum leader, Jen-Hsun Huang, held a meeting with Taiwanese mobo partners. He directly asked them if there was a reason why Nvidia should stay in the chipset business. You could hear the crickets chirp.

In mainland China. No one came up with a reason, so the division was officially killed, and the teams will be rolled into GPU projects.

Nvidia PR is having the proverbial hissy-fit, but ignore it, they do that a lot. The INQUIRER has talked to people who were at the meeting, and they confirmed the reports, and are dead convnced that Nvidia chipsets are a thing of the past.

This is not to say that there will be no new chipsets from today. Things currently done or almost done will be out, but new designs won't be started, and early-stage projects are not likely to continue. Deep breaths people, projects on the near term horizon are safe, or at least safe from that paticular axe.

View: Full Article
News source: The INQUIRER

The most true and holy Apple religion has decided that Intel's Montevina shall be excommunicated from the next version of the MacBook.

According to Apple Insider, Cappuccino could be using a chipset from a different company - or even an internally developed one - in the next iteration of the MacBook, which should appear in the next six or eight weeks.

Apple Messiah, Steve Jobs, who has been taking time off from performing his incredible shrinking miracle, has decided that while Intel's mobile Centrino chipsets have been pleasing in his sight, the Montevina version has fallen from grace.

Apple sauces say he things that Chipzilla's attempts at integrated graphics chipsets on Montevina are not as good as they should be.

The question is, what would Jobs' Mob be considering worthy to stick under the bonnet of its latest box of joy.

Apple Insider thinks the fruit-themed toymaker might have hatched a deal with AMD or Via for the new chipsets.

View: Original Article
News source: The INQUIRER

Earlier this week Microsoft posted details about their "new" operating system, codename "Mojave".

In reality, it's an experiment in which Microsoft disguised Windows Vista as codename "Mojave", so regular people who've never used Vista could see what it could and decide for themselves.

After they had seen this they were asked to give a rating out of 10. One lady, who had previously given Vista a 0 from just what she had heard, went on to give "Mojave" 10 out of 10. Clearly proving that what people hear about Vista isn't true.

Many of the group who were talked to decided that they would now go out and upgrade to Vista, so that shows Vista isn’t as bad as everyone says. Just everyone has the wrong perception.

View: The "Mojave" Experiment

View: Original Article
News source: iWinUX

Developers of new engine say it offers a more comprehensive way to search the Internet.

Anna Patterson's last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable - only this time it's not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced "cool." Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers - Russell Power and Louis Monier - searched for better ways to search.

View: Cuil Search Engine

View: Full Article
Source: CNN

Microsoft has just released Power Pack 1 for their Windows Home Server software. Similar to a service pack for other versions of Windows, the Power Pack includes a number of bug fixes and improvements designed to enhance the overall experience the consumer has with the software. The highlighted changes listed are as follows:

• Support for home computers that are running Windows Vista x64 editions
• Backup of Home Server shared folders
• Improvements to remote access
• More efficient power consumption
• Improved performance

Additionally, Power Pack 1 also includes for the bug described in KB Article 946676 in which files could possibly become corrupted on a Windows Home Server computer that contains more than one hard drive.

If you have Windows Update set to "Automatic", Power Pack 1 will be downloaded automatically and installed for you. The setup file can also be manually downloaded from Microsoft's website.

Download: WHS Power Pack 1
View: Original Post
News source: Neowin.net

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz is stepping down from the helm of the troubled chip company, and Dirk Meyer is taking over.

Ruiz announced the leadership change Thursday during AMD's second-quarter financial earnings conference call. He will remain as executive chairman, but Meyer will immediately take over as the sole executive leader of AMD. "The time is right to turn the company over to a new leader."

Ruiz announced last year that Meyer was the designated successor to the CEO position, but he also said that he planned to stay on the job through 2008. Amid continued heavy losses, however, it seems the situation was too much for the company's board of directors to bear.

Ruiz praised Meyer as he introduced AMD's third-ever CEO.

"He is a talented business executive who is known to make decisions quickly and just as quickly turn those decisions into action. In short, he is the right leader at the right time for this company," Ruiz said, in announcing his own departure from the executive chair.

Ruiz replaced legendary founder Jerry Sanders as AMD's CEO in 2002, after joining the company in 2000 as president and chief operating officer from Motorola. His tenure was a whirlwind that saw AMD leap from an afterthought among the world's top PC companies to a top player in the chip business on the strength of its Opteron processor, only to slide underwater once again after botching the introduction of a quad-core processor.

Meyer's engineering talents are unquestioned within the chip industry, having presided over several very important processor designs during the last 20 years.

"Dirk is an experienced and prolific engineer with over 40 patents and many chip designs to his name including the ground-breaking DEC Alpha processor," Ruiz said. "He led the design of our industry-transforming AMD64 architecture--and then took the reins of what was then the Computation Products business--doubling its revenue, expanding its customer base, partner and R&D footprint, and changing the face of the microprocessor industry as we know it."

View: Full Article
News source: CNET News.com

The iPhone's days of mobile web browsing superiority are numbered (if not over already). Today the first beta of the long-awaited Opera Mobile 9.5 has been released for Windows Mobile devices. I tested it out on my XV6700 and I can confirm that it is awesome. In fact, I am typing this news post with it right now!

If you have a Windows Mobile device, then you know what to do!

Download: Opera Mobile 9.51b1
News source: In-House

TrueCrypt 6.0 has been released.

This version introduces parallelized encryption and decryption on multi-core processors (or multi-processor systems). Increase in encryption/decryption speed is directly proportional to the number of cores and/or processors. For example, on a quad-core processor, encryption and decryption is four times faster than on a single-core processor with equivalent specifications.

This version also introduces the ability to create and run an encrypted hidden operating system whose existence is impossible to prove (provided that certain guidelines are followed), the ability to encrypt an entire system drive even if it contains extended partitions, a new volume format that increases reliability, performance and expandability, and more.

For a complete list of changes, see the version history.

View: TrueCrypt Version History
Download: TrueCrypt 6.0
News source: TrueCrypt