TiVo, the time-shifting digital video recorder that became a household name in the US, will come to Australia in 2008.

For a small subscription fee plus the price of the hardware, Australians will be able to pause live high definition TV, fast-forward ads, record shows and series from any of the free-to-air digital TV channels, and access broadband content such as video-on-demand.

The company today announced a partnership with the Seven Network, which will build the digital platform behind the service.

Seven CEO David Leckie said the move would "vastly extend" the overall viewing experience of television viewing.

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Source: SMH

Microsoft doesn't want you to pirate their software, but if you must choose between illegally installing Windows or a competitor's operating system, Microsoft would prefer that you choose them. While the company obviously won't endorse the illegal use of software, it does believe that piracy can result in profit.

At the Morgan Stanley Technology conference last week in San Francisco, Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes commented on the benefits of software counterfeiting. "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else," he said. "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software."

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Source: Ars Technica via Flexbeta

WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. To view .hlp files on Windows Vista, you need to install this application.

Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) is a Help program that has been included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. However, the Windows Help program has not had a major update for many releases and no longer meets Microsoft's standards. Therefore, starting with the release of Windows Vista, the Windows Help program will not ship as a feature of Windows. If you want to view 32-bit .hlp files, you must download and install the program (WinHlp32.exe) from the Microsoft Download Center.

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The World Wide Web Consortium has announced plans to create a new HTML standard and to enhance the XHTML specification. The move to update HTML comes as a nod to the developer and design communities as well as the browser manufacturers. The W3C is issuing a call for participation in the working group that will oversee the new standard, and although the list of participants has yet to be made, browser vendors who are members of the W3C include Apple, Mozilla, Opera and Microsoft. In fact, Chris Wilson, platform architect of the Internet Explorer platform at Microsoft, is the co-chair of the new working group.

And the W3C is inviting not only the browser vendors, but also application developers and content designers to help design the next version of HTML by participating in the new W3C HTML Working Group.

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Source: eWeek via MSFN

Here is Episode 39.1 of our weekly PodCast, Hospitalised.

The topics covered in this episode are:

- Sony developer begs fans to hold off on buying God of War 2
- Command and Conquer 3 demo
- ATI R600 Graphics card has been delayed again
- Interview with Matt Groening on the Simpsons movie, and the return of futurama
- State bans youtube in schools – but not for what you think!

You can subscribe to the PodCast by putting this link into your iTunes / PodCast program: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AustechNews.

Download: Episode 39.1: Hospitalised (30:10, 13.8 mb)
View: AusTech News PodCast Forum

A genuine crack for Windows Vista has just been released by pirate group Pantheon, which allows a pirated, non-activated installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly activated and made fully-operational. Unlike cracks which have been floating around since Vista RTM was released in late November, this crack doesn’t simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks – it actually makes use of the activation process.

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Source: APC Mag via Flexbeta

Why pay $20,000 for a commercial link to run your television station when a $10 kitchen wok from the Warehouse is just as effective?

This is exactly how North Otago's newest television station 45 South is transmitting its signal from its studio to the top of Cape Wanbrow, in a bid to keep costs down.

45 South volunteer Ken Jones designed the wok transmitter in his spare time last year when he wanted to provide wireless broadband to his Ardgowan home.

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Source: New Zealand Herald via Flexbeta

March 11, the new date on which Daylight Saving Time (DST) will take effect in the U.S. and a growing number of other countries, is fast approaching. And Microsoft is working overtime to get the message out that users need to patch a bunch of their Microsoft products, from Exchange Server, to Windows Mobile, in order to head off date-change headaches.

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Source: ZDNet via Flexbeta

Earlier this week, Microsoft published a list of 800 applications that should run properly on its new Windows Vista operating system. On its Web site, Microsoft says the number of applications certified for use with Windows Vista is constantly growing and that its list "will be update weekly."

Virtually all of Microsoft's own offerings are on the list. Also included are a host of business and security applications from vendors ranging from Intuit to Trend Micro. Desktop applications from Google made it in, but some of the world's biggest software companies, including Adobe Systems, IBM, and Symantec didn’t make the cut. Tech industry analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group blames the fact that IBM and Adobe are becoming increasingly competitive with Microsoft in the desktop applications market. Also absent from the list is any software from Apple. Enderle thinks Apple has purposely chosen not to make some of its more popular applications, such as iTunes, Vista-compatible.

View: Applications that Microsoft has approved for Vista
Source: InformationWeek via Neowin

After spending nearly 3 years in a detention center fighting his extradition from Australia, a leader of notorious warez group ‘DrinkorDie’ was yesterday arraigned before a U.S. District Court to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & a $500,000 fine.

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Source: TorrentFreak via Flexbeta