The rejection of Microsoft's appeal to the European antitrust ruling against it means that there remains, at least in theory, a significant threat to Microsoft's way of doing business: bundling new features and products into its dominant Windows operating system.

In the United States, the Bush administration chose to settle the Microsoft antitrust case without challenging the company's freedom to put whatever it wants in its operating system. But in Europe, Microsoft's bundling practice became a key element in the European Commission's antitrust suit.

I think many readers will agree that The Inquirer sums up this story quite nicely with the title 'Sony finally goes mad'. At the God of War II launch showcase, Sony has managed to pile yet more controversy onto itself by inviting members of the press to reach inside a warm goat's carcass to eat offal (internal organs) from its stomach (although the offal itself was prepared beforehand). Not only did Sony arrange this grotesque 'sacrifice' for the event, but it then went on to publish it in the Official PlayStation Magazine. Guests were encouraged to compete to see who could eat the most offal, whilst other activities such as topless girls dipping grapes into guests' mouths, throwing knives at targets and pulling live snakes from pits were all on the agenda.

A spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare said "We are always opposed to any senseless killing of an animal and this sounds like a gruesome death. We condemn Sony's actions. It is stupid and completely unjustified." The event was held last month in Athens, and Sony has now commented "It has come to our attention that at the God of War II launch showcase, an element of the event was of an unsuitable nature. We are conducting an internal inquiry into aspects of the event in order to learn from the occurrence and put into place measures to ensure that this does not happen again." The magazine has now been recalled and will not hit UK shelves, but anyone who is subscribed to it will already have been sent a copy. If you wish to see the picture, here is a link to the censored version (the original apparently had the goat's head hanging by a thread of tissue with blood dripping out) - it's still a bit gory so isn't suitable for the main page.

You'd think that after America and Europe get a price cut for the Sony PlayStation Portable, the rest of the world would be entitled to the same treatment. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Sony market in Australia has no imminent plans of changing the PSP price. Sony claims that they are not changing the price now because they are currently investigating the Australian markets, to figure out exactly what the new price should be set to. Time will tell what's actually going to happen with Sony in Australia.

Recently, it seems like the encyclopedia anybody can edit, Wikipedia, has been getting a lot of bad press. Following the recent New Yorker interview fiasco where one of Wikipedia's chief editors blatantly lied about their identity, Wikipedia has been scrutinized on just about every one of their articles. Enough history. Wikipedia recently wrote that Los Angeles comedian Sinbad had died from a heart attack in their article on him. People started noticing Wikipedia's extreme error right after Sinbad started getting phone calls and e-mails asking where his funeral would be. Wikipedia has since fixed the article, locked it to editing, and hopes that everyone can forgive them. Incidents such as this make people wonder whether they should really trust Wikipedia as much as they probably do. This also brings the validity of Wikipedia as a source for, say, term papers and other school projects, into question.

Three days after being released, the first major flaw has been published for Windows Vista. For anyone with speech recognition enabled, malicious websites or audio files could potentially give commands to hijack the PC and tell it to delete files. It works by playing commands such as shutdown, copy or delete through the speakers which could then be picked up by the microphone, causing the computer to carry out certain tasks. Microsoft admits that the exploit is "technically possible" but doesn't see it as a major problem. This flaw is more down to new features than problems with the coding of Vista, and it shouldn't be a problem for most people.

People who bought "The Descent" on Blu-ray hoping for a high-definition movie experience were sorely disappointed if they had a standard Blu-ray drive. While PS3 users watched away, people who had spent hundreds of dollars more on a standard Blu-ray drive could only stare at a blank screen. The problem has to do with the way Lions Gate Entertainment encrypted the Blu-ray. Lions Gate Entertainment used BD-Java technology, which is not compatible with any Sony or Pioneer stand-alone Blu-ray player. Sony is expected to patch the problem early this year.

Apparently Sony may have been using a new tactic with the release of its PS3. Some of the demo units supposedly have a feature which means that the console will freeze or turn off after a while and is not a faulty machine. Although this isn't confirmed, rumours are saying that Sony decided to have in store PS3s that crashed sometimes to try and prevent people coming into shops and taking control of the PS3 all day rather than buying one for themselves. However, some shop assistants are thinking the console is broken so not even turning it on, which can't help sales much. If this is true it's certainly an intriguing new approach, but not one that's likely to be particularly successful.

Well, whilst being filmed at least. The Asimo is Honda's super-advanced android, you've probably stumbled upon it on TV now and again. Anyway, at a recent demonstration the Asimo seemed to stumble on a set of stairs, falling straight onto its back, with his mechanics quick onto the seen to put a screen in place and see to its injuries. You just can't help but laugh when something designed to mimic human behaviour takes it a step too far. You can see the video via Engadget.