Blizzard, best known for their Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo series (who are also responsible for that phenomenon World of Warcraft), has recently announced they are going to cut back support for older Windows-based operating systems. Resource allocation is a real problem; the opportunity cost of having engineers working on ensuring that their most recent updates and recent remasters aren't breaking support for older operating systems always comes at the cost of work on newer OSes.

As such, in a blog post on their forums, Blizzard has announced that starting in October of this year, "we will begin the process of ending support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm." They went on to explain this decision, in that "Microsoft ceased mainstream support for these versions of Windows in 2009 and 2012, respectively, but since a decent portion of our audience was still using them at the time, we continued supporting them. However, there have been three major Windows releases since Vista, and at this point, the vast majority of our audience has upgraded to one of the newer versions." And if you're thinking that this isn't true end of life for these systems when it comes to Blizzard game support, think again: "The games will not run on these older operating systems once they are no longer supported, so we encourage any players who are still using one of the older OSes to upgrade to a newer version. We'll be rolling out this change on a staggered schedule, and will post further notices as we get closer to making the change for each game."

NVIDIA has today made available a new beta-tagged graphics driver, the GeForce 310.61 which is a small update from the GeForce 310.54 offering improved compatibility for PlanetSide 2 and Hitman: Absolution.

The GeForce 310.61 Beta supports GeForce 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 Series cards and is available for Windows 7, 8 and Vista, in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

Valve is releasing the Source Filmmaker (SFM), the movie-making tool Valve uses to make movies inside the Source game engine. SFM has been used in quite a number of Valve trailers. SFM is currently available in beta. To apply, simply visit the official website with a computer that already has Steam installed on it. "Initially, we are limiting the number of beta users, but soon we will release the SFM to all users on Steam for free," Valve's FAQ explains. At launch, SFM will only work within Team Fortress 2, meaning fan-made Half-Life movies using SFM won't be possible for a while. However, Valve notes that "users familiar with modding with the Source engine will be able to mod the SFM build of TF2 to create new worlds."

If you're interested, here's what you'll need for Filmmaker:

-OS: Windows 7 / Vista (Windows 7 64 bit suggested)
-Processor: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 (or higher) or AMD64X2 (or higher)
-Memory: 2GB (4 GB suggested)
-Hard Disk Space: At least 15 GB of Space
-Video: NVIDIA GeForce 200 series card or better, or AMD Radeon 3000 series or better (NVIDIA GeForce 400 series or AMD Radeon 5000 series preferred)
-Monitor: 1366 x 768 (1920 x 1080 suggested)
-Audio: DirectX 9.0c compatible
-USB headset with mic (suggested)

Microsoft Windows Vista is out of its "mainstream support" from today. Users will continue to have free access to security updates, but those without a commercial support contract will have to pay for bug fixes or other patches. This phase between end of mainstream support and end of support is called "extended support", and for Vista, it will last till 2017. The decade-old Windows XP, on the other hand, will see Microsoft pull the plug on its support no later than in 2014.

Since the GTX 680 will be launched later today, NVIDIA has decided to go ahead and publish the first (official) driver that supports its Kepler-powered card. Known as 301.10, this driver is WHQL certified, it only knows the GeForce GTX 680 (you'll need a modified inf file for 'expanded' support), and is bundled with the PhysX System Software v9.12.0213 (plus HD Audio v1.3.12.0).

GeForce 301.10 WHQL (Windows 7/Vista 32-bit) / GeForce 301.10 WHQL (Windows 7/Vista 64-bit)

In addition to releasing the Catalyst 12.1 suite, AMD has today rolled out another graphics driver, a preview version of the Catalyst 12.2 which is set to come in WHQL-tagged form next month. Recommended for 'gamers', this preview release includes all the updates of Catalyst 12.1 as well as the following:

- AMD Eyefinity 2.1 technology enhancements
- Additional resolution support: Users can now choose from a larger set of resolutions when running AMD Eyefinity
- Dynamic Configuration Changes: Switching between different display configurations will occur automatically when physically plugging/un-plugging displays
- HydraVision enhancements: The Windows Task bar can now be moved and resized based on users preference
- Profile Manager improvements: Increased support for Display Groups (including 5x1) and Extended configurations within the Profile Manager

The Catalyst 12.2 Preview Driver can be downloaded (for Windows 7 and Vista) from this page (Radeon HD 7970 users need not click, this driver doesn't support their card).

The latest beta drivers and the first in the 290 series have been released by NVIDIA today, supporting all graphics cards since the venerable 6-series. Their main new feature are official support for enabling ambient occlusion settings in the control panel separately for specific games and enabling NVIDIA Surround on the new X79 SLI-certified motherboards. Ambient occlusion (AO) is settable for uber-popular games The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. So, what does AO do? We'll let Andrew Burns of NVIDIA explain:

If you're unfamiliar with Ambient Occlusion, it is most easily described as a way to make in-game shadowing more realistic, and therefore better.

What he doesn't say of course, is how it kills your frame rate, especially on lower end hardware. Anyway, there's all the usual goodies in this release: 3D Vision game profiles for games such as MW3, Diablo 3 & LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (yes really). There's a HD audio update and nine fixes too, including one for random flickering of the Windows boot logo as it's loading or fading away and a fix for the mouse cursor flickering and shaking in games such as Crysis 2 & Deus Ex when SLI is enabled when using 3DTV Play. The NVIDIA product release page is here and they have a snazzy-looking driver selector here. The release notes follow.

Well, this 11.11 release doesn't list any performance improvements unfortunately. It contains just one new unexciting feature and a few fixes, but still has quite a long list of known issues. The new feature is Adobe Flash Player 11 hardware accelerated graphics support, including the A-series and E-series APUs. Fixes include things like Rage texture corruption, bezel compensation working correctly in Far Cry 2 and a screen tearing fix for displays in clone mode. Therefore, if your setup is working fine, there's no rush to update to this driver in case it breaks something. Note the following CAP 1 profile updates added to this release:

- Battlefield 3: Tweaks to the CrossFire profile
- Global Ops: Commando Libya: Improves CrossFire performance
- Driver San Francisco: Disables CrossFire

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 11.11 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

DOWNLOAD: Release Notes

For years Apple Mac users have felt smug that their computers didn't need any security software installed, unlike their poor Windows counterparts which were always coming down with a cold. This they believed is because their beloved operating system is inherently more secure than leaky old Windows (which it used to be). This smug feeling has been especially strong over the last decade, since the release of Mac OS X in 2001, as it's based on Unix which has always had security baked into it. They therefore felt safe from the multitude of viruses, keyloggers, trojans and various other nasties that the bad guys like to infect operating systems with. However, there have been successful attacks in the past on every Apple Mac operating system since the first one in 1984, just nowhere near the number of attacks as on Windows. Of course, what Windows users, Linux users and other OS users have also been saying for years is that Apple's operating systems simply weren't popular enough to bother with and aren't particularly secure. After all, the hackers do this for fun and financial profit, so why aim for a little teeny tiny target, when you can aim for a big, fat one like Windows?

Microsoft's first attempt at replacing XP with Vista failed miserably, since Vista had many initial issues and was so poorly received, that the brand was irrevocably tarnished. However, Microsoft's second attempt with Windows 7 has been very successful, since it has always worked very well, even during its development phase and is well liked. Now, if figures from Stat Counter are to be believed, then Windows 7's share of the market has climbed to 41.64%, while Windows XP has dropped to 37.20% - still a hefty percentage and one that Microsoft will be keen to see drop to zero as soon as possible. This means that Windows 7 is now finally the most popular Windows version after almost two years since the retail version was released on October 22nd 2009, with Windows 8 due out likely in summer 2012.

Rovi Corporation today unveiled Roxio Game Capture and Roxio PC Game Capture, two affordably priced products that offer a straightforward way for gamers to quickly and easily capture and share PC and console game play videos.

In-product tutorials help everyone get set up quickly and immediately begin to capture and showcase their latest campaigns, adventures, ball skills, and race sequences. Gamers may use the products to post their high scores, tips & tricks, game reviews, or even a feature-length movie, or Machinima, based on game play footage. See the products in action here.

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the availability of its two new SuperSpeed Universal Serial Bus (USB 3.0) xHCI host controllers (part number, µPD720201 and µPD720202) for electronic devices such as PCs and digital TVs that feature faster effective data transfer speeds and reduced power consumption in low power mode.

The µPD720201 and µPD720202 devices make it easier for system designers to build electronic devices combining high-speed data transfer, compact size, and extended battery life. In addition, Renesas Electronics device drivers for Microsoft Windows with a proven track record, and device drivers with Linux support, are available for the µPD720201 and µPD720202 host controllers at no cost.

HP today revamped its corporate and enterprise (C&E) and small and medium business (SMB) notebook PC lineup with new technology aimed at boosting performance and productivity, while offering an enriched and sophisticated industrial design that improves notebook quality and reliability.

The company's new FORGE design framework ensures HP business notebooks embody a timeless construction, with precision-engineered durability features that are designed for maximum reliability and with the environment in mind. Precision aluminum-alloy hinges, cast titanium-alloy display latches and the HP DisplaySafe frame are a few of the design highlights behind the FORGE approach.

NVIDIA today released a new version of its GeForce driver suite. Version 196.21 is WHQL signed, and brings in a number of changes including SLI multi-GPU optimisations for several new and upcoming PC games, updates to the PhysX system software component, and a number of bug fixes as described in the Release Notes documents (for Windows 7 and Vista, and Windows XP). The GeForce 196.21 WHQL driver suite provides system software for NVIDIA GeForce desktop and mobile graphics processors, NVIDIA ION platform, along with Graphics Plus components such as CUDA, PhysX, 3D Vision, etc. A list of changes in the new version is as follows:

• Adds SLI and multi-GPU support for many top new gaming titles including Avatar Demo, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, City Bus Simulator, Dirt 2, Ferrari Virtual Race, GREED: Black Border, Mass Effect 2, Mortal Online, Ninja Blade, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Demo, Planet 51, RUSE, Serious Sam HD, and Wings of Prey.
• Upgrades PhysX System Software to version 9.09.1112.
• Includes numerous bug fixes.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 196.21 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

AMD published its near-monthly installment of the ATI Catalyst Software Suite, which provides essential drivers for the company's ATI Radeon graphics processors, AMD 7-series chipset IGPs, ATI multimedia products, and the AMD FireStream GPGPU processors. Version 9.11 announced today, comes with the same hardware support base as the older version, includes two new features, and carries the usual application-specific fixes.

New features include GPU Acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta, and High Quality downscaling for video transcoding MSE. The release of ATI Catalyst, according to AMD, supports the new Hardware Acceleration features of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the H.264 format. Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth video playback, reduce system resource utilization, and preserve battery life. Hardware acceleration is supported on all existing Radeon HD 5000 and HD 4000 series graphics processors. The release of ATI Catalyst includes an enhancement for the ATI Video converter for users transcoding high quality interlaced content (1920x1080i @60i videos) down to small resolution progressive content (320x240 @30p - iPod videos as an example), by maintaining high visual quality when down-scaling by a significant amount and converting interlaced video content to progressive. For a list of minor issues fixed in the release, refer to the Release Notes document.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.11 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

NVIDIA seems to have a big update for its GeForce driver suite underway, with the bump in version number from the 186 series to 190. The first release in the series carries the unsupported beta tag. Version 190.38 beta introduces a series of changes as indicated in the release notes documents (for Windows 7, Vista, and XP), though the list of supported NVIDIA products remains largely unchanged from its previous release. Important changes are as follows:

• Adds support for OpenGL 3.1
• Adds support for CUDA 2.3 for improved performance in GPU Computing applications. See CUDA Zone for more details
• Adds a new user-controlled power management setting for GeForce 9-series and later graphics cards. This option allows users to set a performance level for each DirectX or OpenGL application
• Includes several new control panel features and numerous bug fixes. More information can be found in the release documentation

The supported products list includes the newly introduced GeForce GT 100 series, GeForce G 210, and ION LE (which is a lite version of the ION mGPU).

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 190.38 BETA for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit

NVIDIA's upcoming beta driver suite has been leaked by sections of the Chinese media. The new driver, GeForce 186.24 (6.14.11.8624) is dated 23/06/2009, and follows the release of 186.18 by over two weeks. Due to the lack of a release-notes document from NVIDIA, not much is known about this released except that it expands the supported products list significantly, adding several IGPs and some GPUs belonging to the new 40 nm GT21x series. Be cautioned, this is a beta release that does not originate from NVIDIA's website, and is not guaranteed.DOWNLOAD: GeForce 186.24 BETA for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit

AMD announced the availability of ATI Catalyst version 9.6 driver suite, that provides driver support for ATI Radeon series graphics processors (driver version 8.62), Hydravision, AMD Southbridge/Chipset driver, and Catalyst Control Center (version 8.62). The new version brings along the following application-specific performance increments:

• Company of Heores - performance gains of up to 25% for the ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series, and performance gains of up to 10% for the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series.
• Crysis Warhead - performance gains of up to 11% for ATI CrossFireX configurations.
• Crysis - performance gains of up to 13% for ATI CrossFireX configurations.
• World in Conflict - performance gains of up to 30% for settings are were previously CPU limited.

The Linux version of this driver suite adds production support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) and SLED 11. It also provides early support for RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.8.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 9.6 for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 64-bit

Release Notes can be read here

Varlink, the York based mobile computing and data capture specialist distributor, is delighted to introduce the Trimble Yuma rugged tablet computer, an extremely rugged IP67 device that brings full office capabilities to the field in an all-in-one mobile package with its Microsoft Windows environment and wireless capabilities. The Yuma is designed to operate in any outdoor environment - no matter how extreme.

The Yuma's rugged tablet package features Microsoft Windows Vista Business, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, GPS and two geotag enabled cameras. The Yuma also features a 7" sunlight-readable WSVGA touch screen display.

Soon after becoming the first to be out with a portable desktop alternative featuring the Intel Core i7 processor, SmoothCreations dished out another of its kind, this time a portable workstation named Bulldozer. The company is looking to target two classes of consumers with this product: gamers, and graphics professionals, who will take advantage of its hardware for high-definition gaming or CAM/CAE/CAD, medical imaging, forensics, government or military use. The applications are broad thanks to the hardware, which just might come at the expense of a little portability.

The Bulldozer features a 17-inch screen with a native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels. Under its hood is a Core i7 (models 940 or 965 XE) or Xeon X5580 processor. Up to 16 GB of memory can be opted for, along with up to 1.5 TB of storage thanks to three SATA HDD bays. A Blu-Ray combo drive provides removable storage. Connectivity options include WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, and Bluetooth 2.0. Graphics is care of NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 with 1 GB of memory. Depending on the application, 64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, or RedHat Linux could be opted for. Its pricing is not known.

Across generations of its Windows operating systems based on the NT architecture, Microsoft has been courteous enough to pack application compatibility layers that let users run applications in compatibility modes for older versions of the OS. The company seems to be taking this to the next level with Windows 7. The release candidate of the OS slated for April 30, will pack an "XP mode" virtualization feature. The feature quite literally runs a Windows XP environment inside a sandbox complete with support for applications such as Internet Explorer 6, etc.

The environment will work on a virtual machine created by Windows 7. Native Windows XP applications you install in the environment, along with your documents and settings will further be accessible from the host OS. Client variants of Windows 7 may feature a Hyper-V hypervisor that handles applications such as these. The feature makes Windows 7 especially something to look forward to, for those complaining lack of Windows XP features. In short, it's the OS some probably clung onto, and refused to move to Vista, running as an application.

Less than a week since they released the 185.66 BETA drivers (which in themselves superceeded the 182.50 WHQL and 185.65 BETA drivers in the space of 24 hours), NVIDIA has released yet another GeForce BETA Driver of version number 185.68. From these latest BETA releases, it seems NVIDIA has dropped support for the 8-Series graphics cards which as of now are only supported using the 182.50 WHQL driver. With the recent release of so many driver revisions from NVIDIA, it could be their answer to what EVGA were trying to do with their SLI Enhancement Patches, to keep up to date with the latest releases. This driver supports GeForce 9-series, 100-series, and 200-series desktop GPUs, the only documented change in this version over the 185.66 BETA drivers is:

• Optimized performance for the PC game The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

DOWNLOAD: GeForce 185.68 BETA for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit | Windows Vista 64-bit

Tomorrow Microsoft will launch both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta for everyone, Corporate Vice President of Windows Product Management Mike Nash announced. Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta are major updates to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 respectively. They provide customer with all the fixes found untill the moment of their release and in addition SP2 will contain changes focused on addressing reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. For more information, please read the release notes for both service packs. Starting today, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the beta service packs. Beginning Thursday, Dececember 4, the beta will be available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). To find more information about the CPP program, please click here. Mike Nash also added that Microsoft is tracking to ship the final version of Windows Vista SP2 in the first half of 2009.

Windows Vista Team Blog posted today some good information on the next service pack, second in row, for Windows Vista.

We are committed to continually improving Windows, and we've been getting some questions about the timing of the next service pack for Windows Vista. Following the success of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 last spring, we have been working hard on Windows Vista Service Pack 2. As a part of the development and testing process, we're going to start by providing a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers with Windows Vista SP2 Beta for evaluation next Wednesday, October 29. The final release date for Windows Vista SP2 will be based on quality. So we'll track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date for the release.

Windows Vista SP2 Beta will contain previously released fixes focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues.

After much anticipation from Gamers and Enthusiasts, the 64-bit Windows Vista drivers are now available for OCZ's ground-breaking Neural Impulse Actuator (the nia). New drivers have been in constant development since the release of the nia, and with this latest availability gamers using 64-bit Vista can now fully integrate the nia into their systems as a revolutionary new gaming device.

"The migration to the Vista 64 environment with the unified ver. 2.0 software suite required a complete recoding of the human interface device library, but in view of the increasing acceptance of 64-bit computing, the effort was worthwhile," commented Dr. Michael Schuette, VP of Technology at OCZ Technology. "Adding the 64-bit executable into a unified driver package to embrace Windows XP-32, Vista -32, and Vista-64 once again demonstrates OCZ's commitment to the cutting-edge gaming community that is our most loyal customer base."