Microsoft yanked the release of XP SP3 at the last minute due to compatibility issues.  Many users have been refreshing the newest downloads page on Microsoft’s Download Center often to see when it officially was released.  Refresh no more because it’s not coming until further notice.  Apparently the compatibility issue affects Microsoft’s Dynamics Retail Management System(RMS).  Additionally, Vista’s SP1 also seems to affect the software as well but that’s long been released.  Again we wait at the whim of Microsoft.

–Update–

Softpedia.com has a download link that claims it is the final version of XP SP3, but Microsoft’s download site still does not have it readily available.  Windows XP SP3 download here.

Today is April 29th, the day Microsoft said XP SP3 is available.  I have yet to see it on the Microsoft Download site but I will keep checking.  If anyone has a link to it please reply with it in the comments section.  The new service pack offers 1,100 hotfixes and patches.  Quite possibly the definitive reason for a lot of users to stay with XP until Windows 7’s release.

The P2P throttling plot thickens!  Gizmodo reports that Azureus/Vuze said earlier today that AT&T is pulling a Comcast by resetting Torrents.  This seems to be a pretty shady business practice that more and more ISP’s are found to be doing.  Can the consumers fight back?

“A month after releasing its plugin that detects if your ISP is performing reset voodooon your torrents, Azureus/Vuze is claiming AT&T hexes them with the same reset TCP packet curse as Comcast, despite AT&T’s explicit statementsotherwise. AT&T denies the accusation and points out a flaw in the plugin’s method, that it can’t tell the difference between naturally occurring TCP resets and artificial ones generated by an ISP. Azureus, while admitting the issue, still says AT&T is full it.”

VoIP Provider JaJahjust landed a deal with Yahoo to offer its VoIP services to current Yahoo users via the Yahoo Messenger.  JaJah’s existing VoIP userbase consists of 10 million subscribers.  So the additional 97 Million Yahoo users should add a nice revenue boost.  Skype finally has some sizable competition.  TechCrunch Reports:

“Under the deal, JAJAH will provide its proprietary telephony infrastructure, payment processing, and customer care to Yahoo Messenger users using the platform for receiving calls from the PSTN network, or for making calls to land lines and mobile phones.

The announcement coincides with JAJAH moving into new territory as an indirect to consumer provider as well as its direct to market service. Yahoo is the first major U.S. technology customer/partner of JAJAH’s Managed Services and JAJAH told TechCrunch that they expect to announce new partners including landline operators, cable companies and mobile carriers in the coming weeks.”

As if the Web 2.0 arena needs to get anymore bloated.  Especially with MySpace launching their MySpace Karaokeservice today.  BeamMe.info offers links on websites to text message information straight to your cell phone.  BeamMe.info works by web site authors placing a link to the BeamMe.info website next to information they would otherwise write down or email to themselves.  TechCrunch Reports:

“The service comes in two flavors: ad supported or paid. The free ad supported version means end users also get an advertisement with the SMS they receive. The paid version sees website owners paying for every SMS sent by their users; the price ranges from a couple of cents through 20 cents per SMS depending on the country a user is sending the SMS to.

The service has built in spam protection, with limits per IP address and account holders are able to limit the number of SMS messages sent to the same phone per day.”

AMD in a surprising move announced today that they will have at least one 45nm processor released before the end of Q2 2008.  The next two 45nm processors won’t be released until the end of this year.  It looks like AMD is following Intel’s lead in this aspect.  Release the high end expensive processors first, then the more affordable mainstream processors later.  Taken from The Reg:

“First up, there’s the successor to the current Phenom X4 9750, a 125W beast that will be superseded later this quarter by a 45nm version of the chip. The new 9750 will only consume 95W. So say said industry sources, cited by a variety of Chinese-language websites.

The current 9750 is clocked at 2.4GHz, and contains 2MB of L2 cache and and 2MB of L3 cache. Its successor is said to contain 6MB of L3 and be clocked in the 2.4-2.7GHz range, which suggests to us it’ll have a model number somewhat higher than 9750.”

Yet in other news, AMD Phenom’s have reportedly hit a compatibility glitch.  Issues arise from the Phenom 9750 & 9850 125W models to work properly with the 780G chipset.  AMD just can’t seem to get a break.

Another blow to AMD’s ego, Cray’s latest and greatest has been centered around AMD Opteron processors. But now Intel has gotten into bed with them to start selling Xeon based systems for future hardware architectures.  Beginning around 2010, Cray will be releasing their new Cascade computer systems and they will be using Xeon processors this time around.

Cray Inc. is a supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington.  The US Department of Energy has been known to use Cray’s supercomputer systems at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory utilizing 50 teraflops of speed.  Additionally, Sandia National Laboratories also uses the Cray Red Storm supercomputer capable of performing 41.5 teraflops.

News has rippled through the Internet that Foxconn, the hardware company behind the first iPhone is prepped a 3G model for late May.  Gizmodo reports:

“The China-based Commercial Times has reported that Foxconn, the company behind the first iPhone, is prepping a 3G model for late May. With Apple’s anticipated announcement expected at WWDC in early June, Foxconn is preparing for shipments of three million 3G iPhones during that month. And through the product’s lifespan, the manufacturer anticipates shipping 24-25 million 3G iPhones. So does that mean we finally have a better rumor on our hands? UNCONFIRMED: APPLE PREPPING 4G iPHONE.”

Sony predicts that August will be their black month for the Playstation 3. Rising up out of the red and into the break even point earlier than expect is great news for Sony’s shareholders. Right before the beginning of this year holiday shopping season, which of course will send them sailing into the green, is music to shareholders ears. Grand Theft auto IV(GTA IV) will be released tomorrow(Tuesday) and is dubbed to be the fastest selling video game to date. While cracked versions have hit the underground scene for the past week, everyone will be rushing to the video game stores to pickup this hot new game.

Analysts previously predicted the break-even point for the PS3 for November of this year. Sony (SNE) is currently up 0.44%, so it appears that this news, so far, has not affected their stock price. The Inquirer reports.

Apple has refreshed their iMac desktop lineup with the new Intel Penryn processors.  The Penryn chips are 45nm process that provides increase onboard L2 cache memory along with lower power consumption.  The Reg reports:

“The standard three iMac configurations again include a pair of 20in, 1680 x 1050 models and a version with a 24in, 1920 x 1200 display. Moving up the line, the Core 2 Duos are clocked at 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz, respectively. All three CPUs sit on 1066MHz frontside buses and contain 6MB of L2 cache.

Curiously, Intel’s price list doesn’t currently include 1066MHz FSB Core 2 Duos that also contain 6MB of L2, so these are either 1333MHz desktop parts underclocked, or 1066MHz ‘Montevina’ laptop processors that Apple’s got ahead of the upcoming Centrino 2 launch.

Despite the faster FSB, the iMacs still come with 800MHz DDR 2 memory; 2GB of it in all but the entry-level configuration, which has 1GB. All three desktops have dual-layer multi-format 8x DVD writers, and 250GB or 320GB of 7200rpm SATA hard drive storage.”

Intel has been eating away at AMD’s market share ever since the introduction of the Core 2 Duo processors in 2006.  More so since the introduction of the Quad Core Xeon processors but AMD has to try something.  AMD has announced as part of the business class platform, they will be offering the Athlon X2, Phenom X3 Tri-Core, and Phenom X4 quad core processors.  AMD also extends the processor warranty from 1 year to 3 years and guarantee the new part will be available for 2 years.  You can read the rest of the news release at The Inquirer.

Western Digital seems to think they can come into the enterprise market with their shiny new VelociRaptor drives.  WD has announced they will be releasing an SAS version of these new hard drives specifically aimed at the enterprise market.  Unfortunately, my personal experience with the 74GB and 150GB Raptors in RAID configurations has been grim.  Even Supermicro’s engineers recommend staying away from Raptors for RAID configurations in their servers.  They’re just too flaky to work properly in the array.  Hopefully Western Digital iron’s out these kinks and can become a contender in this growing market to add some competition.

The RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis doesn’t like touchscreens, he personally has never been able to type on it and reports that none of his friends were able to type on them either.  But that  doesn’t seem to be stopping RIM from designing a new BlackBerry with just that, a Touchscreen model.  The Blackberry 9000 is dubbed to come out later on this summer and has been called the “Apple Killer” or A.K. for short.  Hopefully the CEO’s hatred for Touchscreen’s will push their engineers to revolutionize this industry, although I won’t be holding my breath, at least not for the short term.  As with most new model’s they seem to carry extra overhead baggage such as glitches and incompatibility issues.  But as we have seen with the iPhone & iPod it usually takes a couple of generations before they get all of the kinks out.  Gizmodo reports.

Steve Ballmer recently hinted that if there’s enough public outcry they may delay the end-of-life cycle for Windows XP.  Dell is the first PC retailer that confirms they will be offering Windows XP as an option for their machines.

“Dell will take advantage of a licensing option in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate that lets PC makers provide XP under the Vista license, which Microsoft calls a “downgrade” license. (Enterprises with site licenses have these same rights with any version of Vista.) In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim a Vista sale.”

I seem to be talking more about Nvidia lately than any other company.  They just can’t seem to stay out of the headlines.  Anyways, Nvidia seems to have an answer for ATI’s upcoming Radeon HD 4800, the GeForce 9900.  ATI’s new 4800 toy may threaten Nvidia’s performance dominance in the PC market and they just can’t have that.  The rumor has itthat Nvidia will be pushing the release date up to July of this year for the GeForce 9900 series.  So even if the ATI 4800 card overruns the fastest unit from Nvidia’s arsenal they won’t let it stand for long.