IF Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick gets his way, we'll all be paying an extra ten quid for our video games in the next few years.

Many presume that this hike is simply the first stage in next-gen console rollouts, as prices for launch titles of consoles have tended to be pricey in the past. However these price changes are here to stay. "We've said we're to going sell those products at higher price points until... the market forces us to sell them at lower price points, which we don't think is likely," Kotick said in a presentation at the Banc of America conference in San Francisco on Monday.

The Asia Times reports that programmers are very very important people indeed, which of course is a platitude.

According to its report, Sea Code has bought an ocean liner registered in the Bahamas, and will outsource coding services just on the brink of USA Maritime limits. Nothing illegal about that.

The highly outsourced programmers, or developers as we're supposed to call them now we're in the 21st Century, can view the United States with envy, offshore.

But with presumably endless supplies of free alcohol, none of them need to worry about the fractious H1-B visa, which has, rather mysteriously, become hard to obtain.

After installing the first beta release of the upcoming Windows client, some testers noticed suspicious network traffic to their machines. Concerned about a possible attack, these people last week contacted the SANS Internet Storm Center.

After investigating the traffic for SANS, Bakos found the culprit: a peer-to-peer networking feature that is turned on by default in Vista Beta 1, released last month. The feature uses a new version of Microsoft's peer name resolution protocol (PNRP) and connects to other beta machines as soon as an Internet connection is available, he said.

It does go against Microsoft's "secure by design, secure by default and secure in deployment" principle, which the company adopted as part of its broader security initiatives. The principle calls for delivering products in locked-down mode, with features turned off.

The peer-to-peer feature is meant to enable connections between Windows computers without the need for a central server, so that they form a "peer-to-peer cloud."

Turning the feature on by default is risky in a range of ways, Bakos said. The system opens a connection to the Internet using a protocol that has not yet been vetted for security issues. Also, the peer-to-peer service functions as a directory of connected computers and could aid attackers in finding targets.

An unpatched flaw in a core component of Windows 2000 might be exploited to launch computer worms, security researchers warns. The flaw was discovered by security research firm eEye Digital Security. The firm is witholding details pending the release of a software patch. Microsoft is investigating the issue, which is complicated by its decision to wind down support for the operating system.

Mainstream support of Windows 2000, which is still widely used in corporate environments, came to an end at the start of July 2005. Microsoft released a final update rollup for Windows 2000 on 28 June, just two days before expiration of regular support.

One of the 'features' touted on the new Microsoft Vista (nee Longhorn) operating system is the Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM).

In a nutshell, unless you have a display device that is equipped with specific technology intended to foil recording, the operating system will degrade the image quality so bit for bit copies cannot be made. Sounds good, right? Well, considering that almost NO monitors are currently shipping with this technology, it means that if you want to view a movie off a HD-DVD as it is encoded, or stream HD content from a Blue-Ray disk to a display, the operating system will kill the video outputs and give you nothing. If you are lucky enough, like me, to have a projector that can handle RGB signals or DVI inputs, you can get a signal but it will be run through a downscaler then an upscaler to reduce the quality.

Wow. If I am running a projector or a TV off video outputs I'll see nothing? If I am lucky enough to have a set that will allow for RGB or DVI I can pay for the privilege of having my 720p or 1080i signal degraded to DVD quality or less? Where do I sign? Paid a premium for a graphics card with component output to reap the rewards of that Hi-Def set? Too bad. Isn't technology wonderful?

Virus writers have created proof of concept viruses targeting the scripting language behind prototype versions of Vista, the next version of Windows. An Austrian virus writer has published five simple viruses targeting Microsoft Command Shell (MSH), the command line interface and scripting language, in a virus writing magazine. None of these pieces of malware have been named as yet [How about phista - Ed?].

As MSH (codenamed 'Monad') is scheduled to ship as the default shell for Windows Vista (which was released in beta form last week), these five items of malware could be classified as the first viruses for Windows Vista. However anti-virus firm F-Secure is careful to note that it's still uncertain whether or not MSH will ship with Vista or not. MSH is a replacement for shells such as cmd.exe and command.com and although currently slated for inclusion in Vista it may end up in products such as the next version of Microsoft Exchange instead.

Microsoft's bid to refuse access to updated versions of Windows has been foiled by hackers.

The Vole had demanded that those who wanted Windows updates, other than security improvements, had to download an Active X program that sniffed their operating system to see if their OS had been pirated.

It took about 24 hours for hackers to come up with a solution involving IE script, the hackers claim.

Vista is in Latin a great but rather indeterminate noun. The word indicates a landscape, so that if you were taken to the top of a mountain, for example, you might exclaim to your companion: "Sheesh! I spot a tiny vole in the vista ahead!"

Then there's the Spanish "Hasta La Vista". According to Google translate, this means "good bye", as in English, "ta ra!" or "Terminator" [shorely termites? Ed.] as the Americans call white ants.

In Italian, apparently, "vista" means "sight", a function of them things most anthropoids have two of in front of their faces.

In French, "vista" means "vista". But the INQ has to report that in the proto European language Sanskrit, Vista means something far more ugly than any of these.

Is it possible to make money off a product that millions have downloaded for free? The new owners of WinZip Computing hope so.

Technically, WinZip charges $29 for the program after a 30-day free trial. Unfortunately, the honor system doesn't work as well as it used to. Few customers end up paying for the program.

Vector will try to change that by reminding users a little more firmly that the software costs money, as well as likely coming out with features that only paying customers can download. Vector also signed a marketing and distribution agreement with Google.

Microsoft's delayed Longhorn operating system appears to be taking a page from the Unix management book by curbing user's administration rights.

Speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide partner conference on Sunday, Nash indicated the architectural change is part of a move to improve security of desktop systems by limiting the ability for end-users to install applications or for malware to take control of a machine, turning it into a zombie.

The move mirrors techniques used in various versions of Unix and Linux to create more limited variations of "the God user" or root account. This account provided a single user with total control of, and access to, an entire system's resources. Sun Microsystems, in particular, has touted very sophisticated user access controls with its new Solaris 10 operating system. This lets government agencies, for example, store information of different classification on the same computer, as the OS controls who is authorized to see the data.

Nash said a key Longhorn feature would be increased "granularity" in administration capabilities "so people need a lower level of privilege to install applications and printers. When a higher level of privilege is required, we can elevate that. You can use Longhorn in a very effective way without being an admin."