got this from mess.be: EXCLUSIVE: New Messenger Plus! 3.50 feature REVEALEDdwergs says:   I’m very excited and proud to exclusively announce the new “killer feature” Patchou has been working on for two months (which is a lot more than the time spent on anything else in Messenger Plus! since its creation). Get ready for Custom Emotion Sounds… to be included in the Messenger Plus! 3.50 release in March 2005! The Custom Emotion Sound feature brings sound integration in MSN Messenger to the next level and allows you to add and send any sound you want to your contacts....

Computers are getting faster all the time, or so they tell us. But, in fact, the user experience of performance hasn’t improved much over the past 15 years. Peter looks at where all the processor time and memory are going. About 10 years ago I remember people complaining that Microsoft Word was too slow on the Mac. You could type faster than the processor handled input on such a large application. Imagine my disappointment when I recently discovered that the same thing still holds true. Similarly, my first computer with a hard drive loaded a small command-line utility in under a second...

The Plasticsmith announces the release of a line of products designed exclusively to enhance Apple’s new Mac mini. The mini Grand Stand gives the mini a protective covering while supporting an LCD or CRT monitor. Available in clear acrylic or steel finished to complement the mini, they are both sleek and attractive as well as functional and space-saving. For the more contemporary look, the acrylic model offers an elegant enclosure for the mini. It measures 11� wide by 9� deep by 2-1/2� high and is made of 3/8� acrylic with richly polished...

Java creator James Gosling this week called Microsoft’s decision to support C and C++ in the common language runtime in .NET one of the “biggest and most offensive mistakes that they could have made”. Gosling, who is currently CTO of Sun’s Developer Products group, made the comments as part of his speech to developers at an event in Sydney earlier this week. He further commented that by including the two languages into Microsoft’s software development platform, the company “has left open a security hole large enough...

A French court on Friday ruled against Google in a trademark infringement case brought by Louis Vuitton Malletier, in the latest legal setback to the search giant overseas. The Paris District Court has sanctioned Google and its French subsidiary from selling search-related advertisements against trademarks owned by the luxury fashion designer, which sued the search giant in early 2004. The court charged Google with trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and misleading advertising. Google was ordered to pay $257,430 (200,000 euros). The ruling comes on the heels of another French court...

A few hundred movies on an optical disc? That’s the goal of the Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) Alliance. Six companies, including Fuji Photo and CMC Magnentics, have formed a consortium to promote HVD technology, which will let consumers conceivably put a terabyte (1TB) of data onto a single optical disc. A TB-size disc would certainly compress movie collections. The consortium said an HVD disc could hold as much data as 200 standard DVDs and transfer data at over 1 gigabit per second, or 40 times faster than a DVD. HVD is a possible successor to technologies such as Blu-ray and HD DVD....

Computerworld.com reports: The internet telephony David expected to slay the telco Goliaths, Skype, has added a critical feature missing on its voice over IP freeware: voicemail. Existing users are asked to try out Skype Voicemail for free over a period of a month through emailed vouchers. After the free month has passed, Skype will charge for the voicemail service at a rate yet to be determined. Voicemail testers will need to use the latest beta version of Skype for Windows. While Linux and Mac OS X users cannot try out the voicemail yet, they can leave messages on Windows Skype users’...

Slashdot reports: CD copy-protection specialist Macrovision is to work with Microsoft to ensure their respective DRM and anti-rip technologies are interoperable, the two companies said this week. Sounds straightforward enough, but the deal runs deeper. Microsoft agreed to license a number of Macrovision’s patents, in particular those relating to analogue copy protection technology and more recent extensions to that system that cover video-on-demand, pay-per-view content and support for the US ‘broadcast flag’, which determines whether consumers will be able to record digital...