It may not be one of the sexier changes Microsoft has made in Windows 7 beta, but the company has changed the way the operating system handles disk defragmentation. Microsoft developers Rajeev Nagar and Matt Garson have written a lengthy post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog explaining how fragmentation occurs, how modern hardware like high capacity hard drives changes things, and how Windows 7 differs from Windows Vista and Windows XP when it comes to defragging your hard drive.

In addition, the defragmentation window now has more detailed information about the running jobs. Windows 7 also has automatically scheduled disk defragmentation jobs, so users do not need to set it up themselves. The ability to defragment multiple hard disk partitions simultaneously is also added to the new system.

Microsoft has not forgotten the solid state disk users (which may not be so many now, but hey, they do think for the future): because there is no need to defragment flash memory, defragmentation on these volumes are turned off by default. Additionally, they state that continued write access to flash disks could actually shorten its life. Interesting huh?

Via: [DownloadSquad]

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Sony places a lot of hope on its videogame division as its electronics business is suffering terribly due to the global economic crisis. Sony projected last spring that its games division would finally make a profit since launching the PS3 in 2006.

Earlier this month, I reported that by 2010, Sony plans to eliminate 8,000 jobs (four percent of its global work force). This is certainly the result of a tail spin of poor electronics sales.

Here’s where Sony probably went wrong.

A pricey console featuring fancy components is backfiring on them as this recession continues to spiral out of control and people are less inclined to drop money on the priciest gaming console. And why should they?

An entry-level PS3 model costs at least $150 more than the Wii or the cheapest Xbox 360, right? And although the PS3 has Blu-ray functionality that isn’t in the Wii or the Xbox 360, it’s still a bitter pill to swallow when parents just want to buy a respectable video-game console for their kids. Besides, the cost of actual Blu-ray players are relatively inexpensive, and you still can get one with an Xbox 360 for cheaper than what it would cost you to buy a PS3. Dang!

We also know that Microsoft helped its sales of the Xbox 360 when it slashed the price this past fall and bundled games, too. Nintendo kept the Wii’s price at $249 but cranked out more consoles taking care of the shortage problem.

Let’s also be frank…Sony hasn’t had the great exclusive titles it enjoyed with the PlayStation 2. Microsoft has its heavyweight giants Halo and Gears of War franchises. Nintendo’s big money makers are mostly in-house games. While Sony used to have a stronghold of exclusives, clever Microsoft found a way to get game publishers to launch biggies simultaneous with Sony.

Lastly, the PS3 just costs way too much to make. Last week, I told you Sony found a way to take the console which once took $840 to manufacture, and make it for $448.73. Granted, it still loses money on every PS3 it sells because it retails at $399, so Sony is going to have to cut the price to help boost sales.

Let the numbers speak for themselves. Since its launch, the Wii has sold nearly 35 million units, the Xbox 360 has sold 22 million, with the PS3 trailing at 17 million. Let’s get even more specific. Last month, in the US, the Wii sold 2 million, consumers bought 836,000 Xbox 360′s, and only 368,000 PS3′s were purchased.

While Sony’s best seller last month (according to The NPD) was Call of Duty: World at War…dang again! The Xbox 360 version sold twice as much.

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Konami sure knows how to cause a stir. An update to the official Konami’s Kojima Productions website seems to suggest that Metal Gear Solid may finally make its way to the Xbox 360. We will admit that this might be a bit of stretch but the black and green coloring of the symbol-filled website is reminiscent of the colors used to advertise the Xbox 360. The Universal symbol for Power, which is prominently displayed on the front of the Xbox 360, is now front and center on Konami’s website. Rumors that the Playstation exclusive title will jump ship to the Xbox platform have been floating around for a while now, so such an announcement is not completely unexpected. Wild speculation continues to run rampant though, with Kotaku interpreting the “i” to mean iPhone, DSi, or Wii. The upside down “i” is used in PSP-based Metal Gear Acid so the new announcement may be related to that game and not the console version, Metal Gear Solid. Kotaku also points out that the URL contains the phrase “mgst” which could mean Metal Gear Solid Touch? Konami has been silent on the matter saying that it does not comment on speculation and apologized for providing only the “standard line” as a response. All we can deduce with some degree of certainty is that Konami has something new on the horizon for the Metal Gear franchise and it wants everyone to start talking about it. We will happily oblige them. Any gamers out there? Feel free to chat this up in the comments – additional rampant speculation is not only welcome, it is expected.

[Source: Kotaku and Planet Xbox 360]

Visit Konami site to see for yourself.

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According to Wired’s post, you should be aware that you’ll have to uninstall the beta in order to install SP2 final once it’s released. Currently Microsoft is anticipating doing that some time in April 2009.

If you’re looking for more details before grabbing the file, check out PC World’s article Vista SP2: Six Things You Need to Know.

Downloads for both 32 and 64-bit users are available at the Microsoft Download Center. Instructions are also available here for users wanting to install SP2 through Windows Update.

[Source: Wired]

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Microsoft is on the move to produce a smart phone based on their Zune.

Microsoft is in the works to produce the new smart phone with the new technologies they had bought in February (as we can remember, Microsoft had bought Sidekick smart phone manufacturer Danger in February), which will bring together Zune and Sidekick technology, and be named “Pink”. Also Nvidia’s computer-with-one-chip Tegra is involved.

A prototype of the device will either be shown to the public in January at the “Consumer Electronics Show”  in America or the “3GSM” in Spain.

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Google vice president Sundar Pichai said in a interview that Google’s one and only browser Chrome will be out of beta status in January, heating up the browser battle.

“We didn’t show ourselves much because the software was still in beta, but as soon as we are out of the beta, we will be blowing a tremendous marketing-advertising wind that you will be blown out of your mind,” said Pichai, giving more juicy news: “We will try to make deals with computer manufacturers to make computers with Chrome pre-installed on operating systems come onto the market.”. Pichai also said that they were working on Linux and MacOS versions of the browser.

As you know, Google has a habit of getting into an area after others and dominating it. And again as we know, that Internet Explorer having the 70 percent of the market is only because most of the computer users are using Windows not even knowing what they are doing and Internet Explorer coming bundled with it. Lets see what will happen while IE8 launch is already delayed.

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Because the version of the Windows 7 that was presented for the developers became easily downloadable by the BitTorrent users too, now there is nothing disclosed about Windows 7. While the version that was sent to the developers had many stability problems and restricted features, looking at the first reports we can see that improvements in ease of use, performance and battery longevity for portable systems have been made. Knowing that Windows 7 is an operating system based on Vista, Windows 7 is the cleaned up, polished and optimized version of the previous OS.

ASUS had announced that they would be providing Eee PC with Windows 7 in mid-2009. Seemingly, the date that ASUS aimed for seems pretty probable.

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