By Jimmy Daniels of The Grid Live
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

From Robert McLaws and his blog Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET - Windows Vista Edition A .NET Developer’s Perspective on the Windows Vista Experience.

I’ve been defending Microsoft’s ship schedule for Windows Vista for quite some time. Up to this point, I’ve been confident that Vista would be at the quality level it needs to be by RC1 to make the launch fantastic. Having tested several builds between Beta 2 and today, I hate to say that I no longer feel that way.

Beta 2 was a disappointment on many levels. It was nowhere near as stable as it should have been, and was a huge memory hog. Later builds have improved stability and performance, and have introduced visual tweaks and enhancements that make Vista feel more like a finished product. But several events are conspiring to make life a lot more difficult for beta testers, and I foresee problems if they are not addressed.

Several teams are scrambling to get code checked in on time. I hate to use the Media Center team as an example, because they’re moving extremely fast and working very hard to get their product out the door. But I have to. Media Center has a ton of enhancements in Vista, and is being developed for technology that probably won’t even be on the market by the time Vista ships. They are working like crazy to meet their deadlines, and I don’t think that it can happen without sacrificing the quality of the product. Unless they plan on updating Windows Media Center frequently after RTM, it’s just going to cause problems. But don’t come down on that team… several events in the cable industry have hampered some of their work. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that the WMC team is the only one scrambling. They’re just the easiest example.

We Say: Well, I would hope they would delay it and make it better, I’m not going to use it until at least the first service pack anyway, and our organization will hold off as long as we can, until Windows XP is no longer an option. What do you beta testers think?

Added: Scoble says the same thing here. If this ships in October, I will recommend not installing it and waiting for the first service pack. There’s no way the quality will be high enough to trust it if it ships early. I hope Microsoft takes the time to do this right.

By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

Armor Holdings Inc. plans to start selling their “liquid armor” next year. From the Business Week article: “it’s a mix of polyethylene glycol, a polymer found in laxatives and other consumer products, and nanobits of silica, or purified sand. Together they produce a “sheer-thickening liquid” that stiffens instantly into a shield when hit hard by an object. It reverts to its liquid state just as fast when the energy from the projectile dissipates.”

Source: Gizmos for Geeks.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

E3 probably won’t mean anything to you unless you are a gamer, but it’s the Electronic Entertainment Expo, run by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is reportedly the world’s largest annual trade show for the computer and video games industry. Next-Gen.biz has a story that states the E3 has been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Well placed sources say the news that larger exhibitors were pulling out had prompted urgent meetings among publishing executives. They decided that, without the support of the larger software publishers and hardware manufacturers, there would be no point in continuing. ESA president Doug Lowenstein will likely announce the news some time within the next 48 hours, possibly on Monday. Source: Next-Gen.biz

We Say: If you’re a gamer, this is big news. Announcements always abound at E3, including, for example, this year, the Wii. We’ll see if this pans out.

Update: According to Ars Technica, what’s happening, rather than a complete cancellation of the show, is a downsizing. According to the article, the show will transition to a more “closed-door” event.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Makes me wonder if this is “planned obsolescence” or what. Yes, I realize that even if the iPod was designed for a longer life, it will most likely be technologically obsolete long before then, and most people will want to update. I was reading a Chicago Tribune article, which was brought to my attention by a follow-up Macworld UK article. The original article was about the problems that people seem to have with iPods, in terms of reliability. You might remember, for example, the article I wrote earlier about the nano’s seemingly fragile screen.

An Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Kerris, said iPods have a failure rate of less than 5 percent, which she said is “fairly low” compared with other consumer electronics. “The vast majority of our customers are extremely happy with their iPods,” she said, adding that an iPod is designed to last four years. Source: Chicago Tribune

We Say: My wife is really against change … if it works, don’t fix (or change) it. So despite any technical obsolescence she won’t change a gadget or electronic device she uses. Thus, the only way to get her iPod updated would most likely be this 4-year life. More thoughts here.

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Finally, what we’ve needed to happen is starting to happen, Zango affiliates are starting to come forward to let us know what Zango is asking them to do, case in point, recently, Zango denied targeting MySpace, saying “Those two test accounts were actually created by one of our developers who was exploring possible opportunities, but he didn’t realize it was Zango business practice not to target MySpace,” said Stratz. “He should not have been doing this, and we want to tell MySpace that we didn’t mean to target them.”

Well, who would’ve thought they were full of crap, here is a quote from an email telling affiliates exactly how to target MySpace. What would we do without the Paperghost?

3) Myspace profiles. From what I’ve seen, this really works. Put one of our videos on to your myspace profiles and all of your friends will see it. More profitably, go to a bunch of your friends who have popular profiles and pay them (it’s up to you so much. One of my partners said 5$..maybe offer to split the money with them?) to put a Zango video into their profile through your site. This will give you hundreds of extra installs a day (this probably works even better than having them on your actual site). Source: VitalSecurity

We Say: Why anyone would still partner with Zango/180Solutions is beyond me. Merchants, wake up, like Warner Bros finally has, don’t partner with adware like Zango and we’ll all be better for it. Just remember, they don’t care about the terms and conditions at MySpace and they certainly won’t care about yours.

By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

The Venetian Hotel and Casino will being field tests of mobile gaming devices this year. Yep, that’s right - now you can be gambling even when you’re in the middle of that 1 hour buffet line, or poolside or perhaps in the middle of your boring convention meeting. The gadgets will be converted PDAs with 3″x2″ color screens.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Well, it’s really to download it, not to use it. But the Office 2007 Beta has proved so popular that it has been downloaded 3 million times, and Microsoft says it needs to recoup its costs.

Consumers who download the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 will be charged $1.50 per download, beginning next Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

“Since the end of May, Beta 2 has been downloaded more than 3 million times…That’s 500 percent more than what was expected,” the spokeswoman said. “The fee helps offset the cost of downloading from the servers.” Source: News.com

We Say: Offset the cost of downloading? Hmmm … since Microsoft is really hot to spend whatever it takes to make Zune succeed, I’m just not sure about them really needing money to defray the cost of downloading. Sounds more like a way to add to the bottom line instead.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Gone are the days when if someone hit your car they would leave you a note (at least, a lot of people won’t do this any longer). TruScene aims to keep your insurance rates low by monitoring your car. You attach the device to your rearview mirror, and it films events from the front. It only has a 30 second buffer, but …

If a sudden jolt, or bump is detected by the device, then it saves those 30 seconds into its internal memory, giving you a view of the incident, and the moments preceding it. Source: Oh! Gizmo

We Say: Good, but most of my dings are on the side … and what about the rear of the car? Not sure just how useful this really is because of the coverage holes.