After sending out invites to test Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 last week, Microsoft has given its beta testers their first build of SP1. The build number is 7601.16562.100603-1800, meaning it was compiled on June 3, 2010 at 6pm, according to the German enthusiast website WinFuture. The last build that we got wind of leaked in May, and was compiled on April 21, 2010. Broader testing of SP1 should begin later next month.

-arstechnica

Mirrors are as follows:

32 Bit , torrent ~ 64 Bit: Part1 & Part2 , torrent

Updated mirrors may be found in comments section of RLSLOG

Changelog below:

Changes specific to Windows 7
 Additional support for communication with third-party federation  services:
 · Additional support has been added to allow Windows 7 clients to  effectively communicate with third-party identity federation services  (those supporting the WS-Federation passive profile protocol). This  change enhances platform interoperability, and improves the ability to  communicate identity and authentication information between  organizations.
 Improved HDMI audio device performance:
 · A small percentage of users have reported issues in which the  connection between computers running Windows 7 and HDMI audio devices  can be lost after system reboots. Updates have been incorporated into  SP1 to ensure that connections between Windows 7 computers and HDMI  audio devices are consistently maintained.
 Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents:
 · Prior to the release of SP1, some customers have reported difficulty  when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents (documents containing  pages in both portrait and landscape orientation) using the XPS Viewer,  resulting in all pages being printed entirely in either portrait or  landscape mode. This issue has been addressed in SP1, allowing users to  correctly print mixed-orientation documents using the XPS Viewer.
 Changes common to both client and server platforms:
 · Change to behavior of “Restore previous folders at logon”  functionality
 · SP1 changes the behavior of the “Restore previous folders at logon”  function available in the Folder Options Explorer dialog. Prior to SP1,  previous folders would be restored in a cascaded position based on the  location of the most recently active folder. That behavior changes in  SP1 so that all folders are restored to their previous positions.
 Enhanced support for additional identities in RRAS and IPsec:
 · Support for additional identification types has been added to the  Identification field in the IKEv2 authentication protocol. This allows  for a variety of additional forms of identification (such as E-mail ID  or Certificate Subject) to be used when performing authentication using  the IKEv2 protocol.
 Support for Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX):
 · There has always been a growing need for ever more computing power and  as usage models change, processors instruction set architectures evolve  to support these growing demands. Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) is a  256 bit instruction set extension for processors. AVX is designed to  allow for improved performance for applications that are floating point  intensive. Support for AVX is a part of SP1 to allow applications to  fully utilize the new instruction set and register extensions.
 · Changes specific to Windows Server 2008 R2
 Dynamic Memory:
 · Constraints on the allocation of physical memory represents one of the  greatest challenges organizations face as they adopt new virtualization  technology and consolidate their infrastructure. With Dynamic Memory,  an enhancement to Hyper-V™ introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1,  organizations can now make the most efficient use of available physical  memory, allowing them to realize the greatest possible potential from  their virtualization resources. Dynamic Memory allows for memory on a  host machine to be pooled and dynamically distributed to virtual  machines as necessary. Memory is dynamically added or removed based on  current workloads, and is done so without service interruption.
 Microsoft RemoteFX:
 · Businesses are increasingly looking to leverage the efficiency and  cost savings that can come from a virtualized desktop infrastructure.  With the addition of Microsoft RemoteFX in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, a  new set of remote user experience capabilities that enable a media-rich  user environment for virtual desktops, session-based desktops and  remote applications is introduced. Harnessing the power of virtualized  graphics resources, RemoteFX can be deployed to a range of thick and  thin client devices, enabling cost-effective, local-like access to  graphics-intensive applications and a broad array of end user  peripherals, improving productivity of remote users.
 · RemoteFX can function independently from specific graphics stacks and  supports any screen content, including today’s most advanced  applications and rich content (including Silverlight and Adobe Flash),  ensuring that end users maintain a rich, local-like desktop experience  even in a virtualized thin-client environment.
 · RemoteFX also adds mainstream USB device support to virtual desktop  computing, including support for USB drives, cameras and PDAs connected  to the client device. RemoteFX also provides a platform for hardware and  software partners to enhance RemoteFX capabilities in a variety of  possible host, client and network configurations.
 · To use RemoteFX, the virtualization server must be running Windows  Server 2008 R2 with SP1, the virtual machine must be running Windows 7  Enterprise with SP1 or Windows 7 Ultimate with SP1, and the remote  client computer must be running either Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1  or Windows 7 with SP1. To connect to the virtual machine, the remote  client computer requires an updated version of Remote Desktop Services  (included in the service pack for all editions of Windows 7).
 Enhancements to scalability and high availability when using  DirectAccess:
 · DirectAccess is a new feature in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008  R2 operating systems that gives users the experience of being  seamlessly connected to their corporate network any time they have  Internet access. In Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, improvements have been  made to enhance scalability and high availability when using  DirectAccess, through the addition of support for 6to4 and ISATAP  addresses when using DirectAccess in conjunction with Network Load  Balancing (NLB).
 Support for Managed Service Accounts (MSAs) in secure branch office  scenarios:
 · SP1 enables enhanced support for managed service accounts (MSAs) to be  used on domain-member services located in perimeter networks (also  known as DMZs or extranets).
 Support for increased volume of authentication traffic on domain  controllers connected to high-latency networks:
 · As a greater volume of IT infrastructure migrates to cloud-based  services, there is a need for higher thresholds of authentication  traffic to domain controllers located on high-latency networks (such as  the public Internet). SP1 allows for more granular control of the  maximum number of possible concurrent connections to a domain  controller, enabling a greater degree of performance tuning for service  providers.
 Enhancements to Failover Clustering with Storage:
 · SP1 enables enhanced support for how Failover Clustering works with  storage that is not visible for all cluster nodes. In SP1, improvements  have been made to the Cluster Validation and multiple Failover Cluster  Manager wizards to allow workloads to use disks that are shared between a  subset of cluster nodes.

Music and Piracy Infographic

New logo: Bottom

Additionally, Google has taken steps to redesign their logo (right).

Having read an article years earlier, which I do not have time to research and link back to, I can speculate with certainty that a long time (months) was taken on simply deciding the strength of the bevel or the tone of the blue (or green, red).

For further reading check out the official google blog.

To summarize what the video says, Battle.net will be just like steam, with a friends list and invites. Your achievements will be new avatar pictures, how cool!!!! (not. unless you like pokemans). And you’ll pretty much need to be online, even if you are playing single player; the reasoning for this is that your stats and saved games will be stored with battle.net, that you’ll be able to talk with your firendslist, and that whatever points you earn will go toward a new avatar (basically a 128×128 gif).

In the past, Battle.net was presented as a multiplayer option off to the side, off of the main menu of Blizzard Entertainment titles. That is all changing. With the new Battle.net experience, the service and the game are now interwoven into one experience. Whether you are in single-player or multiplayer StarCraft II, you are always connected, and enjoy a bevy of new and enhanced functionality.

Battle.net and StarCraft II are designed to be seamlessly connected. That means even if you’re playing solo you will still view the latest news, receive game and content updates, and be able to see your friends’ status and chat with them. But this new interconnectivity between the game and the service goes even deeper than that. Now, each player will create a StarCraft II Battle.net character. This character serves as your single persistent identity across the service. Everything you do in the game — win/loss record, achievements, unlockable rewards, friends list, and more — will be saved to your character profile for you and your friends to see. Even your save game progress in the campaign can be synched to Battle.net. Say you upgrade your computer and re-install the game; once you connect to Battle.net, you can continue the campaign right where you left off. This is especially useful if you play on more than one computer, because all your data will be carried over for you via Battle.net.

Tickets are avaiable at $50, and $60 walk-in. You can volunteer or buy a ticket.

We’ll be covering the event live, and keeping an extra eye out for anyone trying to sniff our packets. If anyone wants to join us, drop a line below.

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.POST-RTM.7700.X64.RETAIL.ENGLISH.DVD-WZT

FILE: 7700.0.100122-1900_x64fre_client_en-us-GRMCXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

SIZE: 3,231,166,464 byte

SHA1: C0CB719B781D49B39D8CC93A27F990A366B8E4C7

MD5: EBEB8AEC73339536564D26DB584A9474

CRC: B3F323D6

On January 30th a supposed leaked Microsoft roadmap made its way to the internet suggesting that Windows 2008 is geared for a 2011 launch.

Neowin’s Tom Warren has speculated that the jump from 7600 to 7700 may suggest some kind of early milestone towards the Windows 8 alpha and beta stage.

UPDATE 1/7/2010: It appears as though Technorati is inching forth, but the backlog which they are developing far outweighs the amount of blogs being approved.

UPDATE 1/7/2010: An employee, Phillip Winn, who is a senior web developer has taken up a PR stance and resumed replying to the thread. It appears as though Technorati is inching forth, but the backlog which they are developing far outweighs the amount of blogs being approved.

Technorati has been an authorative and integral part of the blogosphere, positioning itself as a benchmark and indexed search engine for blogs in the start of the Web 2.0 boom. This was then, however, and how fast things change…

In October to November of 2009 a peculiar problem arose, the real-time search engine of Technorati was no longer indexing new blogs. According to some wizardly mathemagic a new blog is created every second and Technorati, as a search engine, is not indexing any of the 26,000,000+ new blogs which were created in the past 2+ months, according to math.

But Technorati’s inactivity does not end here, a brief look over Get Satisfaction, Technorati’s official support forum, shows an utter lack of support resolution. Technorati employees are no longer offering support or resolutions. A thread, created by an employee in early November, claims that Technorati is hard at work “drastically speed[ing] up the blog claim review process”, DW provides further analysis. Fair enough; however, after my detective analysis I noticed that the last post from both employees comes on November 25th, the one year anniversary of 2008 Technorati layoffs, where their high performers were replaced by lower paid and lower skilled workers. No posts were made after the 25th.

A review of their official blog quickly sets off new alarms, the last update was on 10/21/09, something about manually sifting out all the Acai berry and make money at home crap from their entire index while working on a brand new clean data set. Prior to this date the format seems to be two posts per month, after this date there are no posts.

Lets leave their domain for a second, and look at Technorati from a 3rd perspective…

Traffic Trends.

Checking Google Trends shows an obvious decline, with some empty blocks. I downloaded the CVS and removed Jun 29, 2008 to Feb 15, 2009 as it would upset the graph. I put the data into a scatterplot and added a trend line, which forecasts Technorati’s coming demise.

Now, if we move from Google’s trendlines and check out Alexa’s more detailed stats (alexa only tracks users who have the Alexa tracking cookie, afaik). Technorati’s search volume, visitor count, and total reach is dropping faster than the 911 stock market.

So what does all this mean?

Technorati is on life-support, its pre-built scripts and algorithms are able to pull content from other sites and generate a dynamic page without human input. Search engines supposedly place higher value on websites listed on Technorati, which is terrible. Technology strategists at Tequinox have written Technorati an open letter warning of impending doom if they choose to continue these fraudulent lending business practices.

If you want to take action, DIGG THIS STORY, the more people see it the more pressure there is on Technorati to take action.

I will go ahead and point to the obvious; if you want an unclogged network do not force iPhone users to stick with it. You can’t have two things at once, pick priorities; though it seems AT&T intends to nibble what it cannot eat, and keep it on a 2 year contract of sub-par service and coverage.

Operation Chokehold, purpose and reasoning: Proposed by Dan Lyons Operation Chokehold will attempt to take down, or at least cripple, the AT&T data network. Keep in mind, voice services will remain operational, so the 70-something percent of cell phone users AT&T owns will remain able to make calls.

On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time (GTM -8), we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every smartphone user turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!

Some things to keep in mind:

• Remember to turn OFF your Wi-Fi during that hour. There would be NO point browsing YouTube in the office or home and using your Wi-Fi without knowing.
• If you have enough upstream bandwidth at home try using Orb or AirVideo or a similar app to stream a movie for an hour. If not, try MediaFly which will let you download mostly the same video podcasts as your iTunes app without a 10mb limit.

More sources of discussion on the subject may be found at neowin, fakestevejobs, Gizmodo. I will keep this page updated with latest developments.