By Mike Snider, USA TODAY  Halo 3 launched straight into the stratosphere Tuesday. 

First-day sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 space adventure totaled $170 million in the USA. It was the most successful video game rollout in history and, the company boasted, topped the $151 million Spider-Man 3 made at the box office in its opening weekend in May.

TECHNOLOGY LIVE: Share your thoughts on ‘Halo 3′

Though not quite a fair comparison — each game costs $60 or more, most movie tickets are $10 or less — the early sales are “spectacular,” says Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter. He estimates 2.5 million copies were sold starting with midnight store promotions coast to coast, meaning one-fifth of all Xbox 360 owners bought a copy in the first 24 hours. “I would guess that the number is 1 million higher in a week, and double by year end.”

GameStop’s Bob McKenzie calls Halo 3 the biggest title in the history of the 4,400-store chain. And Best Buy’s Brian Lucas says: “It’s safe to say Halo 3 is on track to be probably the biggest gaming title that we have ever seen. It’s definitely a phenomenon.” FIND MORE STORIES IN: Spider-Man 3 | Microsoft X Box | Halo | Microsoft’s Xbox | Wedbush Morgan Securities Though Microsoft would not disclose exact numbers of units sold, the company did note that more than 1 million gamers had gone online to play Halo 3, the most activity ever on the Xbox Live gaming network. Game prices ranged from the standard $60 edition to a $130 Legendary edition with a helmet-shaped case and two bonus discs. REVIEW: ‘Halo 3′ lives up to the hype 

Some of those who splurged on the more expensive versions discovered scratched discs when they opened the package. Microsoft says that the issue, in which the discs become loose in the box, affects a small fraction of games and directs buyers to xbox.com/support to get a replacement. Based on early response from reviewers and fans, the Mature-rated game is getting a hero’s welcome. It earned a 96 out of 100 from Metacritic.com’s cumulative analysis of 32 reviews.  “I loved it,” says Miguel Chavez, 39, of Whitestone, N.Y., an administrator for fan site halo.bungie.org. “I thought it was a great capper (to the trilogy). A lot of things get answered, yet enough is left open. Who knows if we will see (the hero, Master Chief) again?” Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2007-09-26-halo-release_N.htm for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/web/web_designing_multimedia.htm 

Posted by Stephen Shankland 

A bug in Excel 2007 reported earlier this week may be ugly, but it’s only skin deep, Microsoft said late Tuesday. 

With the bug, results that should have been shown as 65,535 showed instead as 100,000, and a related problem cropped up with 65,536, Microsoft’s David Gainer said in a blog posting. But the problem affected how Excel showed the number, not in what the spreadsheet software actually “knows.” “This is an issue in a function that puts numbers in cells, so the values in Excel’s memory are actually correct,” Gainer said. “Any calculations based off that cell will be accurate too.”  That’s still a problem, of course, but it might be comforting to know that it’s not as likely to creep outward from one result to the next. 

A repair is in testing now. “We’ve come up with a fix for this issue and are in the final phases of a broad test pass in order to ensure that the fix works and doesn’t introduce any additional issues–especially any other calculation issues,” Gainer said. “This fix then needs to make its way through our official build lab and onto a download site–which we expect to happen very soon.” 

He didn’t try to downplay the problem, as Intel once famously did with the FDIV calculation bug in some early Pentium processors, but he did indicate it’s not widespread. “Of the 9.214*10^18 different floating-point numbers that Excel 2007 can store, there are 6 floating-point numbers (using binary representation) between 65534.99999999995 and 65535, and 6 between 65535.99999999995 and 65536 that cause this problem,” Gainer said.  Floating-point numbers are those described with two components–the first between 1 and 10 and the second an exponent of the power of 10. So, for example, 2.6^10*2 is 2.6 * 100, or 260.

Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9785728-39.html?tag=nefd.blgs 

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Updated Office suite is scheduled to debut early next year at Macworld Expo.

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:00 AM PDT

Microsoft Corp. has named the date on which Mac OS X users can get their hands on the latest version of its Office suite.

“Office 2008 for Mac” will be launched on Jan. 15 in the U.S. — that’s the first day of the Macworld Expo event planned for San Francisco — and it will be launched in other major markets during the first quarter, the company said.

Three versions of the suite will be available: the basic package includes all the Office applications. The “home and student edition” is targeted at consumers and includes a three-user license. The “special media edition” comes with all Office software and the “Expression Media for Mac” image management application.

The basic edition will cost US$400, the home and student edition will cost $150 and the special media edition will cost $500. Upgrade packages from Office 2004 to the basic edition will cost $240 and to the special media edition will cost $300. Upgrade details to the home and student edition were not disclosed and an upgrade may not be available. Pricing is in line with the current prices for Office 2004.  From Tuesday, Microsoft is also offering customers in some countries who buy Office 2004 an upgrade to Office 2008 for only the price of shipping, handling and taxes. The launch of the Mac version will come a year after the latest version of Office was offered for the Windows operating system. Office 2008 for Mac will support the Open XML file format and the package will be a Universal Binary that runs on both Power PC and Intel-based Mac computers. Versions will be available in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137637-c,microsoftoffice/article.html 

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By Roy Mark
September 21, 2007 

Microsoft and Philips claim new testing shows no interference between unlicensed broadband use and television channels.  

Based on a new round of field trials, Microsoft and Philips are asking the Federal Communications Commission to renew testing on devices that can access the Internet using empty buffer spectrums—known as white spaces—between television channels. 

Microsoft and other members of a powerhouse group of technology companies called the White Spaces Coalition covet the spectrum as an alternative to telecommunications and cable companies delivering Internet connections. Broadcasters, in particular, are opposed to the concept, fearing unwanted and harmful interference with their signals. 

In July, the FCC put a damper on the whole idea when it said testing on a prototype supplied by Microsoft failed to consistently sense or detect TV broadcast or wireless microphone signals. The White Spaces Coalition said the FCC inadvertently used a defective device.

In new testing, though, Microsoft and Philips claimed success.

“In over 1,000 measurements, made in many varied locations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California, the test devices were 100 percent successful in detecting television stations’ [signals],” Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., said in a Sept. 21 statement.

 Microsoft and Philips said in the FCC filing that their finding “significantly expands previous testing beyond the laboratory to the field, further confirming that unused TV spectrum can be used to bring the benefits of high-speed Internet access to more Americans, without interference to the signals of incumbent licensees.”  

Source: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2186762,00.asp

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T-Mobile’s new BlackBerry Curve 8320 could be the hit handheld of the fall season.

By Sascha Segan 

On the heels of AT&T’s uninspiring BlackBerry 8820 comes what may be the hit BlackBerry— even the hit handheld—of the fall season. Today, T-Mobile announced the BlackBerry Curve 8320, which combines the popular BlackBerry Curve cameraphone with the ability to make calls over 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi networks. 

The 8320’s Wi-Fi calling feature is part of T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home system, which charges an extra $10 per month for unlimited calling from Wi-Fi areas. While you can use public unencrypted networks, call quality is much better at home using a specially-tweaked router that T-Mobile sells for $49 (with a $50 rebate, so it’s essentially free).

When I reviewed Hotspot@Home, I experienced trouble with handing off calls between Wi-Fi and cellular networks—but that was months ago, so I’m looking forward to seeing if handoffs have improved.  The Wi-Fi can also be used for e-mail and Web browsing, but it doesn’t improve BlackBerry Internet performance much, as its system is already optimized to work well over slow networks. Otherwise, the 8320 is a Curve, which is a good thing.

 When I looked at the Curve for AT&T (review coming soon), I found it to be one of the best smartphones available—combining terrific phone performance, excellent e-mail, surprisingly good MP3 and video options (including support for real music player headphones) and a 2-megapixel camera. AOL, Windows Live and Yahoo! IM clients come built-in on T-Mobile’s version of the phone. Plus, it features a 3.5mm headset jack, so you can use real music player headphones. We’ll have a review of the new T-Mobile Curve next week. The T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8320 will cost $249 with a two-year contract, and it goes on sale today. Choose from a new golden color or a more traditional silver hue.

 Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2186717,00.asp 

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