We assume Apple will provide iPhone’s 64-bit Windows compatibility with software updates.

Source

“Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features, including a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new way to organize files; an updated Finder featuring Cover Flow™ and a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application; Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac®; Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which easily allow users to communicate even more creatively,” according to Apple.

Leopard also features the new technologies that take full advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware: full native 64-bit support to enable applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while still running side by side with existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers; easy multi-core optimization and scheduling to take advantage of the latest Intel hardware; and Core Animation, helping developers easily create animated user experiences as amazing as Leopard’s Spaces and Time Machine in their own applications.

Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to ship in October and will be sold for a suggested retail price of $129 for a single user license.

Source

PLD is an independent, RPM-based distribution using an advance package manager called “Poldek” and designed for users who aren’t afraid of the command line. The new stable release provides a choice between kernels 2.4.34.2 and 2.6.16.45 with built-in virtualisation support (Linux VServer), together with over 13,000 RPM packages, including X.Org 6.9.0, KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.14, Xfce 4.4.0, OpenOffice.org 2.1.0, etc.

Source

Source

Source

“Our latest development release (1.3.0) is the very first to be based on a stable release of Debian, the recent Etch release. This means that users should be able to add any packages they need from official Debian mirrors, including security updates, without breaking their systems. The forthcoming 64 Studio 2.0 release will retain compatibility with Etch, to create a long-lived and stable creative desktop. New packages in this release include Ardour 2 beta 12 and Xara. The serious bug with sample rate setting for USB audio interfaces in the 1.2.0 release has been fixed”, 64 Studio’s team says.

DistroWatch - 64 Studio

“Ubuntu is the award-winning Linux distribution for the desktop, laptop, thin client and server which brings together the best of open source software every 6 months. Ubuntu 7.04 desktop edition includes a ground-breaking Windows migration assistant, excellent wireless networking support and improved multimedia support,” the press release says.

“In the coming months, many individuals and businesses will be making the decision to upgrade their existing computer systems and their operating systems,” said Jane Silber, director of Operations, Canonical Ltd. “With added features to both the desktop and server editions, Ubuntu 7.04 is the most user-friendly version to date and is ideally suited to anyone who wants to make the switch to Linux and join the community of Ubuntu users. In fact, with this version of Ubuntu, it is easier than ever to move away from proprietary platforms.”

At the same time as Ubuntu, the project also will release new versions of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, specialized versions of Ubuntu which include the KDE desktop environment and educational applications, respectively.

You can get the latest Ubuntu 7.04 via its web-site.

ForceWare 158.18 (Updated April 18, 2007) Release Highlights:

• Added NVIDIA SLI profile for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
• Adds support for GeForce 8600 GTS, GeForce 8600 GT, and GeForce 8500 GT, GeForce 8400 GS, and GeForce 8300 GS GPUs.
• Increased performance in 3D applications.
• PureVideo HD support.
• Add support for forcing Vertical Sync in DirectX applications.
• Updated NVIDIA Control Panel with improved user interface.
• Numerous game and application compatibility fixes.
• This driver supports the following 3D features:
Single GPU support:
- DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
- DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8 series GPUs
- OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
NVIDIA SLI support:
- DirectX 9 support for 6/7/8 series GPUs
- OpenGL support for 6/7/8 series GPUs
• DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be available in a future driver

NVIDIA ForceWare 158.18 for Windows Vista 64-bit can be downloaded from Company’s web-site.

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring, which is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, integrates the latest innovations in the fields of office suite applications, Internet, multimedia and virtualization technologies, according to Manriva’s team.

It includes WengoPhone, an open source software developed by OpenWengo that uses the open SIP protocol to provide competitive and high quality phone calls; Google Picasa, an application for organizing and editing digital photos, and Google Earth, the famous virtual globe; Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is compatible with the Wii™ remote. Users can therefore use it instead of a regular joystick on Linux games; Drakvirt, a Mandriva-developed configuration tool to help users configure virtualization; as well as updated and improved versions of the Mandriva configuration tools.

Metisse is not a 3D desktop…

However, the key innovation of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is Metisse, the unconventional new window environment developed by the French In Situ project. Metisse is designed to implement highly innovative features which improve the usability of the desktop, giving you completely new ways to interact with your system! Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring also provides the newest versions of the Compiz and Beryl 3D-accelerated desktops. Together, Metisse, Compiz and Beryl - with the convenient Mandriva configuration tool - make Mandriva Linux the must-have distribution for cutting-edge graphical technologies.

Join the FON community with Mandriva!

Mandriva and FON, the largest WiFi community in the world, have teamed up to develop DrakFON. This application allows Mandriva users to easily install the FON firmware on any compatible WiFi router and convert it into a FONspot, thus enabling the user to share his/her WiFi with the FON Community and in return to connect for free to more than 100,000 FONspots around the world. DrakFON can also be downloaded for free on FON’s website.

Four virtualization technologies

With Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring, users can manage their IT infrastructure by running many virtualized Linux and Windows® operating systems simultaneously on a single physical machine powered by Mandriva Linux. 2007 Spring integrates four major virtualization technologies: VirtualBox, VMware, Xen and QEMU with KVM.

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring provides users with all the latest key open source desktop environments and applications such as X.org 7.2, KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, OpenOffice.org 2.1, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0

Also, 2007 Spring has a special focus on notebook power management, featuring new graphical desktop applets (KPowersave and GNOME Power Manager), better frequency scaling (frequency is adjusted on demand), new suspend tools framework (from freedesktop.org), bootsplash support when hibernating and intensive hardware testing to improve support on a wide range of laptops.

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is available in five editions: Free (the purely free Mandriva Linux), One (the live/install CD), Discovery (for Linux beginners), Powerpack (for advanced users) and Powerpack+ (for small businesses).

Mandriva

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 includes a number of updated software packages from previous version, such as the K Desktop Environment 3.5.5a (KDE), an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 2.14, the Xfce 4.4 desktop environment, the GNUstep desktop 5.2 and X.Org 7.1.

There are also new OpenOffice.org 2.0.4a, GIMP 2.2.13, Iceweasel (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3), Icedove (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5), Iceape (an unbranded version of Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.8), PostgreSQL 8.1.8, MySQL 5.0.32, GNU Compiler Collection 4.1.1, Linux kernel version 2.6.18, Apache 2.2.3, Samba 3.0.24, Python 2.4.4 and 2.5, Perl 5.8.8, PHP 4.4.4 and 5.2.0 and Asterisk 1.2.13.

This free Linux distribution now comes with “out-of-the-box support for encrypted partitions”, as well as with a newly developed graphical front-end to the installation system translated to 58 languages.

Also beginning with Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, the package management system has been improved regarding security and efficiency, the Debian Project team says.

You can get Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 download information here.

CentOS is built by recompiling source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

You can download it here and read its release notes here.

The company says the Leopard’s launch is delayed, because it had to borrow engineering and QA resources from its operating system team in order to finish software for iPhone device on time.

“iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October,” Apple published.

The Voodoo ISO images for i686 and x86_64 are ready for download at Arch Linux download page.

Arch Linux team has also announced that this Linux distribution is changing its name to Ark Linux.

Changelog of Arch Linux 0.8 ISO (compared to 0.7.2 install iso):

- to boot the ISO 96 MB RAM are recommended,
it breaks somewhere between 80 - 90 MB RAM.
(calculated like this: kernel image + initrd size + decompressed initrd)
- dropped install floppy support
- switched from busybox to archboot usage
- Updated packages (including linux 2.6.20.4)
- Full mkinitcpio support
- Installation on PATA and IDE possible (PATA is default now)
ide-legacy option included for old IDE subsystem
- All parameters initcpio understands, new ISO does understand
- Usb devices (keyboards/cd/dvd) should now work as they should
- Usage of hwdetect/udev autodetection during boot
- added memtest86+ to iso
- added installation support on cciss devices
- pacman is included to allow installation of any other needed package
in install environment.
- added /etc/rc.d/ and /etc/rc.conf support
- added arch network support, including ssh,telnet and portmap services
- added vpn support
- added framebuffer modules to install environment
- added cpufreq support
- added iptables support
- added grub and lilo to install environment
- custom config files support:
any media with /config directory and files will be copied to /etc/
install environment
- loading packages as addons during boot:
any media with /packages directory including pacman packages will be
installed during bootup.
- links and naim included to be able to communicate over the internet.
- added kexec support

Changelog of new setup (compared to 0.7.2 setup):

- added some information dialogs
- added some confirmation dialogs
- added set root password
- removed all kernel24 stuff
- switched to initcpio only support
- added locale-gen file for editing
- only show devices that are usefull in mountpoints selection,
partitioning and network
- possibility to select dm and md devices from setup
(creation of lvm and md still needs to be done by hand!)
- mkinitcpio autoconfiguration. This includes HOOKS autoconfiguration
and hostcontroller configuration: ide/scsi/sata modules are put into
MODULES= in mkinitcpio.conf to ensure right loading order and avoid
device-swapping
- network modules are put in the MODULES=() in rc.conf - again, this is
done to avoid random swapping of multiple network interfaces
- added http:// net install support

This release of the AMD Catalyst Linux Graphics Driver software suite, aimed for ATI Radeon, ATI Mobility Radeon, ATI FireGL, and ATI Mobility FireGL GPUs, introduces the Beta version of the AMD Catalyst Control Centre: Linux Edition to replace the FireGL Control panel.

It resolves the issue found on certain notebooks using AMD ATI GPUs.

“The screen no longer turns black if the X-Server is terminated from the text console. This condition was known to occur only on certain laptop configurations,” according to Release Notes.

Download ATI Proprietary Linux x86_64 Display Driver 8.35.5 - For Intel EM64T and AMD64 Platform Architecture

ATI Catalyst 7.3 introduces OpenGL CrossFire support for the entire ATI Radeon X1000 product series under 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. Users will see significant performance gains in a number of applications when running in CrossFire mode under Windows Vista, according to Release Notes.

“Catalyst 7.3 includes CrossFire enhancements for Windows Vista that enable the Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) CrossFire rendering mode by default, enabling performance benefits for all AFR compatible applications immediately (including newly released applications that have not been officially profiled for CrossFire). Future Catalyst releases will add further CrossFire performance gains once new applications have been profiled specifically for CrossFire”, AMD ATI says.

It is claimed that Dark Messiah Might and Magic performance improves 12.5% or greater on all Radeon X1000 series configurations when running in CrossFire mode under both the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. Larger gains of 60% or more can be seen on high end products.

The resolved issues for the Windows Vista Operating System include fixes for 3DMark2006, as well as for Call of Duty, Call of Duty - United Offensive, City of Heroes, Doom 3, NBA Live 07, Never Winter Nights and Never Winter Nights - Shadows of Undrentide.

The Catalyst 7.3 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows XP is also released.

Download Catalyst 7.3 Display Driver for Windows Vista (64 bit)
Download Catalyst 7.3 for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

“Analysts, however, are concerned that Apple has yet to publicize the promised “secret features” of Leopard. Apple is expected to highlight Mac OS X Leopard at ths year’s annual developer conference in June,” Associated Content reports.

The rumors about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard delay started last week when Digi Times reported that it will be postponed to October 2007 to allow Apple to make new 64-bit operating system support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp software.

“Mainstream users are best served with the 32-bit applications of Windows Vista and will experience the greatest compatibility with peripherals, applications, and improved features. The use of 64-bit implementations of Vista should be based on need. If you have a special application or operational requirement today that mandates this extended version of Vista, proceed ahead; just be sure to research and resolve potential conflicts and remedies first. Windows Vista 64 will gather increased momentum and acceptance; however the practical return on investment may be years away. As with any new product offering, the key will be testing the Vista environment with current application prior to making an upgrade decision,” Array System’s says in analysis on Microsoft’s 32-bit and 64-bit Vista.

Array Systems

“Did you buy Vista x64 but find that almost nothing will play in MediaCenter? Do you want to watch your favorite video’s in MediaCenter? These package is tested on Vista Ultimate x64. It is a fully functional standalone installation,” the publisher’s description says.

More Info and Download

Sabayon Linux 3.3 - New Features and Improvements

• Sabayon Linux kernel sources based on 2.6.20 featuring wireless-dev, unionfs, squashfs 3.0, Afatech 9005 support, MacTel enhanced support
• Both systems completely recompiled with new LDFLAGS that give an extra performance boost and reactivity
• Featuring both software raid support and dmraid 1.0
• GeeXbox has been updated to 1.1rc1 waiting for the upcoming 2.0 release.
• Gentoo Portage import freeze was on the 20th of January, 2007
• Complete artwork redesign to meet the new marketing strategy
• Faster boot time thanks to massive startup optimizations
• Created the basis to the yet highly experimental eINIT support trough the selection of the accelerated init system using (accel_init=/sbin/einit)
• Featuring HAL 0.5.9 and D-Bus 1.0.2 for an out-of-the-box laptop experience
• X.Org 7.2 featuring AIGLX and Composite support
• Beryl 0.2.0r2 supporting XGL, AIGLX and NVIDIA Composite extension
• NVIDIA Drivers 9755 and 9631 (legacy - automatically triggered - to disable append nvidia=disablelegacy to the boot prompt. To force 9631, append nvidia=forcefail instead) sporting our runtime linking feature
• Support for the latest NVIDIA GPUs like GeForce 8800 GTX
• ATI Drivers 8.34.8 sporting our runtime linking feature
• ATI GPU detection improved for X600, X700, X8xx video cards
• Metisse 0.4 Technology Preview ONLY for GNOME and KDE desktops
• Outstanding wireless support thanks to the drivers imported from the wireless-dev linux kernel git tree (sporting the cutting edge DeviceScape IEEE802xx stack) and to a much more integrated NetworkManager stack
• Outstanding NTFS support in read/write mode thanks to NTFS-3G 1.0
• Fonts rendering highly improved on all the Desktop Environments (fonts look sharp and clean now)
• The award winning Acceleration Manager has been rewritten using Qt 4.2 and it’s 2x times faster than the old one (latest release is 1.3.2)
• KDE 3.5.6 with Sabayon Linux integration patches
• GNOME 2.16.2 with a highly improved Sabayon Linux integration
• New Games on the DVD! (removed Quake4 and added Sauerbraten - aka Cube 2 - and Battle of Wesnoth)
• Get Live Help extended to the shell using irssi (you can run “get-live-help” without X.Org, chat with us and get helped, LIVE!)
• New Virtualization Support stack featuring: KVM-12 (fully supported), libvirt and Virt-Manager GUI (Technology Preview ONLY)
• Music Edition is now enabled by default (you’ll hear a nice music made by Tryad on Jamendo.org during the Live boot - CC License)
• Sabayon Linux Installer is now about 25% faster on fresh installations and 10% faster on upgrades
• 6th Sense Install upgrades now could be considered much more ironed out and tested but still EXPERIMENTAL
• New users creation after install will have the new Sabayon Linux default look
• Automatic and out-of-the-box video card auto-reconfiguration after install: if you’ll upgrade your PC to a new video card, the system will auto-reconfigure X.Org automatically
• Finally we have a LVM Management GUI imported from RH - system-config-lvm
• Language Configuration Helpers have been rewritten and ironed out
• Mozilla applications language autoconfiguration now works nicely
• Added Safe Internet Browsing Helpers to easily enable/disable Tor/Privoxy stack after install on GNOME, Ephipany, KDE, Konqueror, Mozilla applications and Opera. See /sbin/safe-browsing-setup
• Netscape Flash now works out-of-the-box on Firefox, Konqueror and Opera browsers
• Tons of stability fixes.

Sabayon Linux 3.3

“A short and incomplete list of changes since 0.6rc2:

* Linux 2.6.20.3
* We are proud to be one of the first distributions to ship the stable GNOME 2.18
* Fixed a few bugs in XDM

If you didn’t follow the changes during the pre/rc releases, here are the most important changes since 0.5:

* Up to date base system: Glibc 2.5, Binutils 2.17.50.0.6 with DT_GNU_HASH support, DBUS 1.0 and Python 2.5
* Up to date desktop packages: KDE 3.5.6, XFCE 4.4, Beryl 0.2.0, OpenOffice 2.1, Firefox 2.0.0.2 and GNOME 2.18
* All installed-by-default packages using Java are now built using gcj/ecj, the original binary javac is only provided as an alternate compiler.
* Setup: speed improvements, support for more custom action, tftp installs and usb sticks are now supported.
* Full support for Xgl/Beryl in KDE
* Documentation: it is more than two times longer than it was until now.”

Frugalware Download Page

“The sources pointed out that the launch delay is not due to software design problems with Leopard but instead is attributed to Apple’s plan to have its new OS support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp. Boot Camp is an Apple software application that currently assists in the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple’s latest OS. The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share,” Digi Times has learned at industry sources.

Apple was previously expected to ship it’s Leopard OS in spring this year.

Digi Times

“The new version of the definitive burning application for Linux OS added Blu-Ray and HD DVD data recording support as well as an improved graphical user interface (GUI) that is similar to the current Nero Burning ROM 7 edition. In addition to Blu-ray and HD DVD burning capabilities, Nero Linux 3 will also natively support 64-bit systems, as well as Unicode in all languages currently supported in Nero 7. Many Linux distributions will be supported in the new upgrade including Red Hat Enterprises, Fedora Core, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Linspire,” and Mandriva After Dawn reports.

A beta version of Nero Linux 3 is expected to be available at the end of March 2007.

After Dawn

NVIDIA’s latest Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver supports both desktop and notebook-use video cards. You can download the driver at company’s official webiste.

Microsoft explains that the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo is a compatibility designation for applications and devices that have passed a rigorous testing program on computers that are running Windows Vista. The technical requirements for this designation target four core areas: reliability, security, compatibility with Windows Vista and future operating systems, and installation and removal.

The “Works with Windows Vista” logo is a compatibility designation that is designed to encourage Windows Vista compatibility for the current generation of Windows-based applications. To receive this designation, software companies test their applications to make sure that the applications meet the program’s guidelines.

However, there are many applications that are compatible and work well with Windows Vista but that are not listed in this compatibility list, because such applications have not yet gone through the Windows Vista logo program or are still going though this program. The new applications are continually being added to the program, Microsoft says.

You can see the Microsoft’s list here.

Also, at Iexbeta.com there is a Windows Vista RTM Software Compatibility List, maintained by users’ community, with 32-bit and 64-bit applications listed.

Release Highlights of the ForceWare 100.65 include:

- WHQL Certified driver for GeForce 8800, GeForce 7 series and GeForce 6 series GPUs
- Beta driver for NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS GPUs

ForceWare 100.65 driver incorporates the following features:

- Single GPU support
- DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
- DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
- OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
- NVIDIA SLI support
- DirectX 9 support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
- OpenGL support for GeForce 8800 GPUs
- DirectX 9 and OpenGL NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs and DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8800 GPUs will be available in a future driver

Microsft says DirectX 10 features enhanced 3-D graphics-rendering capabilities and helps noticeably improve your computer’s in-game and multimedia performance.

According to the reports, many of the PC games scheduled for release in 2007 have been designed to exploit the new features of DirectX 10. It is not known if these games will be released for 64-bit operating systems.

The ForceWare 100.65 for Windows Vista 64-bit can be downloaded at NVIDIA’s official web site.

Along with support for Windows Vista 64-bit as a host, VPC 2007 compared to previous VPC 2004 also includes support for 32-bit Vista as a host and as a guest OS. The performance is also improved compared to Virtual PC 2004, Microsoft says.

The Virtual PC 2007 1.0 can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft’s official web site.

It is reported that an older version of software - when running a PC with the 64-bit version of Windows - collected the serial number of the PC’s main circuit board and settings stored in the PC’s BIOS, which contains code for controlling keyboard, display, disk drives and other important functions.

“The collection of such data is not unusual, particularly by digital rights management software that is used to enforce copyrights and ensure programs are being used in legitimate ways by customers. But the information is supposed to be converted to a string of numbers that uniquely identifies a system but can’t be reverse-engineered to reveal specific details of the PC,” Associated Press reports adding that the identifying information, if it isn’t scrambled, could give a savvy hacker a glimpse into the heart of any computer.

However, the software was upgraded last week, Skype Chief Security Officer Kurt Sauer said. The new version correctly generates the numbers - called a hash - on all versions of Windows, said Lars Jolstad, EasyBits’ vice president of business development.

Sauer and Jolstad said Skype never used the data collected.

Other reports say that this security issue was caused by Skype’s component called Extras Manager. It offers access to a number of partly non-free add-ons, for collaboration, data transfer, and games between callers.

Links: Mercury News | Heise Security

CyberLink Software Encoder 1.1 offers native 64-bit support for PCs using the Windows Vista operating system. The benefits include better multi-tasking with less loading on system resources, as same as creation of larger, higher-quality, video files achieved by using more memory made available on 64-bit systems, according to CyberLink.

The 64-bit Encoder 1.1 also provides more accurate recording of TV content, ensuring fewer jitters and frame drops, creating files that deliver a smoother viewing experience, the Corporation says.

The new encoding software is optimized for dual-core processors from Intel and AMD.

“With real-time encoder CyberLink Software Encoder, users can record TV programs while performing other tasks,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. “Optimization for Windows Vista and the latest processors ensures processing-intensive TV recording is performed with minimal burden on a computer’s CPU, delivering smooth DVD-quality video, while ensuring enough processing power for other common tasks.”

The CyberLink Software Encoder meets the requirements for the Windows Logo Program (WLP) for Windows Vista.

CyberLink

CryptoExpert creates encrypted virtual disks and these disks are visible as usual disks with drive letters. It uses four powerful encryption algorithms to encrypt your data: AES, BLOWFISH, CAST and 3DES, which are world’s standards of encryption. CryptoExpert 2007 PRO supports 256 Gb and larger encrypted drive.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit CryptoExpert 2007 PRO Trial free download, as same as full versions priced at $59.95, are available at SecureAction’s website.

“Earlier antivirus product versions are not compatible with Vista because of the operating system’s new architecture. With Maintenance Pack 2, Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 will be fully compatible with both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. At the same time, Maintenance Pack 2 includes all the features and additions that were included in the first Maintenance pack, including full-scale support for Windows XP 64-bit Edition, extended on-demand scanning functionality, a number of improvements to the proactive defense module and protection of Windows Task Manager against injection of malicious dynamic-link libraries (dll),” the company’s press release says.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 protects the computer against penetration of malicious programs, while Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 is an integrated solution that protects the PC against all types of IT threats, including malicious programs, spyware, hacker attacks, network fraud and spam. It is explained that the antivirus component of Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 includes all the capabilities of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0.

Kaspersky Product Updates

According to the CompUSA’s product pages, Windows Vista Basic, Home Premium and Business ship with 32-bit DVD only, while the Ultimate comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

CompUSA.com: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - 66L-00002 - Software » Operating Systems » Windows
Windows Vista Basic, Home Premium and Business all ship with 32-bit DVD and information on obtaining 32-bit CDs or a 64-bit DVD, additional fees may apply.

CompUSA.com: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate - 66R-00002 - Software » Operating Systems » Windows
Windows Vista Ultimate ships with 32-bit and 64-bit DVD and information on obtaining 32-bit CDs, additional fees may apply.

The Vista Ultimate is priced at $399 at CompUSA, but it can be found at Amazon for $378.

Some of the highlights are freebsd-update, which provides officially supported binary updates for security fixes and errata patches, experimental support for CAPP security event auditing, OpenBSM audit command line tool suite and library, KDE updated to 3.5.4, GNOME updated to 2.16.1, csup integrated cvsup client now included, disk integrity protection and authentication added to gel, and many driver updates.

FreeBSD 6.2 is available for different 64-bit and 32-bit platforms.

More info and download: http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

“Without an exception, they all think it’s too early and the drivers won’t be that polished for 64 bit either. AMD and Intel have CPUs which can support 64 operating systems but the drivers are still lame, unpolished and slow compared with 32 bit,” the report says.

Intel also said that Vista 32 is fine as it will address 2.75 or 3.25GB from the 4GB of memory, if provided.

The Inquirer

The 64-bit version of SimplyMEPIS offer the same advanced hardware autodetection, multimedia integration, and easy-to-use installer that is included with the 32-bit edition, the company claims.

“We have tried to make the 64-bit edition of SimplyMEPIS look, feel and function the same as the 32-bit edition,” said distribution founder and chief maintainer Warren Woodford.

But there are also a few differences, such as lack of some extra multimedia codecs that are not yet available in 64-bit versions.

The ISO image is available for download in the ‘testing’ subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber’s Site and at MEPIS public mirrors.

MEPIS

“It’s definitely a ‘when’ question, not an ‘if’, and there are a lot of factors involved,” Byer said in his blog.

But, he reminded that a 64-bit version of Photoshop would have to be a completely separate binary from the 32-bit version, causing an extra cost.

“A separate binary has a huge cost associated with it (in terms of features we can’t do because we have to spend resources elsewhere). Quality assurance is a big part of that - you essentially have to dive in and test every corner of the app for each binary, across the matrix of supported operating systems - but there are also many ancillary pieces that add to that cost as well. And given that a Universal Binary application really is two separate binaries smashed together (and accounting for the kinds of issues that an application can have going from big endian (PPC) to little endian) we already had a lot of extra cost going through this cycle. Adding the cost of adding a 64-bit version to the mix of things that were already on the have-to-do list - especially in light of the very limited benefits - and doing a 64-bit version this cycle really became an unreasonable thing to think about it,” Byer explained.

He assumes that number of Photoshop customers running the 64-bit Windows Vista will be very small over the next couple of years. Also, since Macintosh OS X 10.4 isn’t fully 64-bit - many of the libraries an application would need to be fully 64-bit aren’t available, so Mac users currently could not run a 64-bit version of Photoshop, even if it is available.

Scott Byer’s Blog

“Overall, performance feels improved with the latest build of Leopard but stability remains a significant issue, even with such basic items as System Preferences or Preview. Apple has also curiously removed keyboard navigation from Spaces in 9A321, suggesting bugs remain to be ironed out with that feature, as well,” according to the report.

Think Secret also provides Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 9A321 screenshots.

Apple previewed Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, the sixth major version of Mac OS X, to its third party developers in August this year. Apple announced that it is scheduled to ship in spring 2007.

The Leopard offers 64-bit computing along with 32-bit legacy support without emulation.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit tests were done on a budget AMD Sempron 2800+ powered desktop PC, featuring Asus K8U-X motherboard with 512MB of main memory.

The 32-bit Windows Vista Ultimate achived 99.8 GeekBench points, while the 64-bit version of the same OS gained 110.7 points. The higher number of points is better. This Windows Vista 32-bit vs 64-bit benchmark consist of measuring integer performance, floating point performance, as same as memory and stream performance.

GeekBench

Technalign has partnered directly with Canonical and is using Kubuntu/Ubuntu as the base. Pioneer is a derivative of Ubuntu and not a fork.

The commercial versions have minor differences between the free version. Individuals may choose from either the free version or a boxed set available from the over 600 Technalign partners in the US and Canada. The boxed set, of course, comes with support while the free version is supported via the community on the TaPioneer website. CrossOver Office is included with several of the boxed sets allowing the end-user the ability to run their favorite Windows applications.

Pioneer EX, or Extended, will be available in the next several weeks as a beta. Plans for Pioneer on Apple G3, G4, and G5 processors is expected shortly as well.

TaFusion

You can watch the webcast here:
http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx

Old page version: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today announces business availability of Windows Vista, the 2007 Office system, and Exchange Server 2007 at a press conference in New York City. The webcast begins at 7:35 a.m. PST / 10:35 a.m. EST.

You can watch it in your Media Player by clicking here:

The company says users currently must use 32-bit Flash Player in 32-bit browser to view Flash content on a 64-bit operating system. In 64-bit Windows Vista both 64-bit and emulated 32-bit Internet Explorer are installed by default. Linux users must install 32-bit browser and 32-bit Flash Player plug-in on their 64-bit operating systems.

Since 64-bit Linux users downgrade their browsers for years in order to use Flash, and since Microsoft’s 64-bit Vista (retail) and Apple’s 64-bit Mac OS X Leopard operating systems are scheduled to ship in January and spring 2007 respectively, we hope that 64-bit Flash will be released by then.

“Because of a Microsoft request, the many versions of the Windows Vista operating system are not currently available for pre-order at Amazon.com. They are estimated to be available January 30, 2007, and you can sign up at right to be notified via e-mail when Vista becomes available for pre-order. If you’ve already pre-ordered Vista at Amazon.com, your order will be fulfilled when the software is available”, the Windows Vista product pages at Amazon.com say.

Since August, when the pre-order offer started, there was no information about which listed Vista DVD is 32-bit and which is 64-bit version. There were only different Vista editions, such as Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate, as same as offered corresponding upgrades from XP.

It was reported earlier this week that Windows Vista will ship on a single DVD, in either a 32- or 64-bit configuration, while users of Windows Vista Ultimate will get both versions.

Washington Technology reported that Vista will ship on a single DVD, in either a 32- or 64-bit configuration, while users of Windows Vista Ultimate will get both versions.

It was reported earlier that Microsoft will be shifting its products to 64-bit only.

The benchmarks were done on a budget configuration, featuring AMD Sempron 2800+ processor, Asus K8U-X motherboard, and 512MB of DDR memory. We have benchmarked with Sempron clocked at default 1.6GHz, as same as with 30% overclocked CPU using JumperFree configuration in motherboard’s BIOS.

The results are in seconds. Lower is better.

Using Zlib and AMD Sempron processor at default 1.6GHz, a 64MB of data was compressed for 4,28 seconds in 64-bit mode, which is for 21,4 percent faster than the same operation in 32-bit environment. After overcocking, the 64-bit Zlib test was done for 3,27 sec, which is faster than 32-bit compression for 23 percent.

The MD5 sum for 312MB of data in 32-bit Ubuntu was generated for 6,69 and 5,4 seconds at 1.6GHz and 2.08GHz clock speed, respectively. It’s faster than the same operation in 64-bit environment for 18,9 and 19,3 percent.

Blowfish benchmark shows 32-bit’s advantage compared to 64-bit for 4.2 percent at both processor clock speeds.

We made these Ubuntu 6.10 Linux 64-bit vs 32-bit benchmarks using the simple Hardinfo application, which can be easily obtained via Synaptic Package Manager. The Hardinfo also provides CPU Fibonacci and SHA1 benchmarks, but on our machine Fibonacci showed 0.00 result on both 64 and 32-bit Ubuntu, while the application crashed during the SHA1 test in 64-bit.

Here is a simplified list of listed Windows Vista versions.

See full list here: Windows Vista Pre-Order

“Any next-generation high definition content will not play in x32 at all. This is a decision that the Media Player folks made because there are just too many ways right now for unsigned kernel mode code [to compromise content protection]. The media companies asked us to do this and said they don’t want any of their high definition content to play in x32 at all, because of all of the unsigned malware that runs in kernel mode can get around content protection, so we had to do this,” Riley said during the TechEd 2006 in Sydney.

But, Anderson says “it is up to the ISVs providing playback solutions to determine whether the intended playback environment, including environments with a 32-bit CPU, meets the performance requirements to allow high-definition playback while supporting the guidelines set forth by the content owners”.

“No version of Windows Vista will make a determination as to whether any given piece of content should play back or not”, Microsoft PR manager tells CNet.

Dean Pullen in his article for The Inquirer sees Leopard’s non-emulated support for 32-bit applications and drivers as a great advantage compared to 64-bit version of Windows Vista.

“Note that the non-emulated support in OSX is for applications and drivers. 32-bit programs on Vista 64 need to work on WOW emulation to run in Vista, and 32-bit drivers are a no-no. Lack of driver support is the main reason Windows XP x64 hasn’t been widely adopted, and why the Vista fudge will ensure hardware incompatibilities between the two Windows versions remain for sometime to come.

This is quite a boon for OSX, and one that should be highlighted frequently and often,” says Pullen.

64-bit Leopard knocks spots off Vista

Apple’s pointed new features of Mac Leopard operating system includes Time Machine, a new way to automatically back up and restore everything on Mac, and Spaces to instantly switch between groups of applications required for various tasks. There are also improvement to Spotlight, a search feature, and improved iChat, as well as a new Dashboard feature that will contain around 2,500 Widgets. So called Core Animation developer tool, which will be part of the updated Mac OS X, can be used to create motion graphics with only little coding.

Leopard is scheduled to ship in spring 2007.

Apple - Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek

“3ds Max 9 software’s 64-bit architecture makes it easier to work with the huge datasets required for next-generation digital content creation”, says press release.

Autodesk anticipates 3ds Max 9 is expected to be available in English in October 2006, and in additional languages in the future. The Autodesk suggested retail price for 3ds Max 9 software is US $3,495 and price to upgrade from 3ds Max 8 to 3ds Max 9 is US $795.

3ds Max 9 Now Supports 64 Bit Technologies

This new level of support will be featured at SIGGRAPH ‘06, July 30 through August 3 at the Boston Convention Center, where 3Dconnexion’s award-winning products will be featured in the Guerilla Studio and the company’s booth #2306.

“We’re pleased to see that 3Dconnexion is among the early supporters of 64-bit technology, so when new applications and CPU upgrades become available, customers who use them with 3Dconnexion’s input devices will won’t suffer any interruption in their workflow. 3Dconnexion’s 64-bit support contributes to the designer’s ability to get the most from the power that the 64-bit architecture provides for working with data-intensive applications such as 3D animation and CAD,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, located in Tiburon, California.

3Dconnexion’s Support for 64-Bit Computing Enhances Interaction with Large Datasets; 3Dconnexion Navigation Input Devices to be featured at SIGGRAPH ‘06 Guerilla Studio and in Booth #2306 at Boston Convention Center

Pragma FortressSSH Server 5.0, FortressSSH ClientSuite 5.0 and Pragma TelnetServer 7.0 will support the new Microsoft Vista and Longhorn operating systems. Pragma’s products allow enterprises remote access and management to computers in their companies. Customers have a reliable way to utilize system administration, application delivery and secure encrypted file transfer throughout computing environments with Pragma’s product suite.

“We wanted to maintain our market leadership in the telnet and SSH space, and believe that being the first to announce 64-bit compatibility demonstrates our commitment in this area,” said Andrew Tull, Pragma’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Pragma Systems Introduces 64-Bit Versions of Product Suite: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance