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Windows 7 eclipses Vista on Steam, 64-bit dominating 32-bit

February 9th, 2010

We already know that Windows 7 is growing faster than Vista was when it was released, but how fast are gamers adopting it? Pretty darn quickly, according to January 2010 data from Steam, the leader of the digital distribution market. Last month, the percentage of users on Windows 7 eclipsed the number of users on Windows Vista. Windows XP is still leading the pack, but it is under the 50 percent mark:

Data source: Steam

It’s also worth noting that Windows 7 is the first version of Windows where gamers are adopting 64-bit faster than 32-bit. In fact, there are more users on Windows 7 64-bit than any other flavor of Windows, except for Windows XP 32-bit. Overall, XP dropped 2.63 percent from the previous month, Vista dropped 2.8 percent, and Windows 7 gained 5.47 percent. At this rate, we would expect Windows 7 to take the crown before the end of the year.

Each month, Steam collects and compiles data about the hardware and software its customers are using so that game developers can ensure they are making good decisions about what technology should take priority in their support plans. If you’re wondering, Intel is still beating AMD and NVIDIA is still beating ATI. To check out more details and the rest of the statistics, which are primarily hardware-based, head over to the link below.


Online ad improvement seen in IAC’s 4Q loss

February 9th, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Internet company IAC/InterActiveCorp lost $1 billion in the fourth quarter because it wrote down the value of its search business, but the results beat expectations and offered the latest indication that the online advertising market is improving....

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Iran’s resistance keeps up cat-and-mouse Web game

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Space Shuttle Endeavour Blasts off

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Disney, Google eye stake in China bus media firm

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Google cuts fee to break Nexus One contract

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Mozilla dropping 10.4 support with next Firefox release

February 8th, 2010

The next major release of Firefox will not be compatible with Macs running Mac OS X 10.4, also known as Tiger. This comes from a mozilla.dev.planing discussion on Google Groups started by Josh Aas, a Mozilla-employed developer working on the project. The change will go into effect later this year when the browser's Gecko rendering engine makes the jump from 1.9.2 to 1.9.3.

The Mozilla Foundation estimates that there are currently about 1.4 million Tiger users using Firefox 3.5 every day and approximately 36,000 using version 3.6. Those numbers total a little under 24 percent of daily Mac Firefox use.

According to the discussion, Mozilla stopped supporting Tiger on mozilla-central, the most "cutting edge" repository, in September of 2009. Much of the old code was left, however, in case Mozilla had a change in heart. The decision means that the code specific to the old operating system will be removed soon, along with any hope of future 10.4 support.

Users of the open source Web browser who are still using Tiger will be able to continue to use Firefox 3.6 for as long as they want, but the browser will stop receiving updates "several months" after the release of the next major update. This means that any security issues found in the browser after that date would be unlikely to be addressed by the team, and, in turn, left unpatched.

Unsurprisingly, there is a vocal minority speaking out against the move. Individuals with older hardware are no doubt concerned that their old hardware will become even more obsolete and less usable as the rest of the world soldiers on. Mozilla isn't concerned however, citing past data that shows no significant market share loss occurs after support for an older version of the Mac OS has been dropped. The company also claims that it usually supports older versions of Mac OS X longer than most companies. 


Electronic Arts shares dive on weak outlook

February 8th, 2010 NEW YORK (AP) -- A disappointing outlook from Electronic Arts Inc. sent shares of the video game publisher sharply lower Monday, a sign that significant cost-cuts and layoffs have not ended the company's slump....

Electronic Arts shares dive on weak outlook

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What Would You Ask Steve Jobs?

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Silicon: It’s good for you, especially in beer

February 8th, 2010

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MySpace Music experiments with audio ads

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