Finally Windows Live Spaces now supports Flash-based video which means finally we can share video from YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, MSN Soapbox and all the other video sites. Simply sign in to your Windows Live Space, make a new entry (or an existing one if you’re feeling adventurous), copy in the “embed” part on the same page as the video itself, click on “Embed videos” in Windows Live Spaces, and paste it into the box.

It’s really as simple as that - go to Windows Live Spaces or check the screenshots to see more.

As I was watching BBC News 24, I’d realised that they’ve updated a whole load of stuff. They’ve updated what their screens look like (removed the clock and shrunk the main headlines scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen), whilst removing the huge red bar stating the news story they are reporting it on.

I first received the news that they would be updating their idents and visual graphics on-screen a few weeks ago and as a keen BBC News 24 viewer, I was rather pleased. They’ve also updated the BBC Media Player which went from being packed full of links and information to being simple, redesigned and much easier to watch. Check the screenshot below - click to expand it on screen.

As we were expected, Windows Live Mail was upgraded to M9 (Milestone 9) last night. Some changes include:

• Much faster loading and advanced Firefox compatibiity (works fully in Firefox 2)
• The Classic Mode will be the default view from Hotmail users - brand new users won’t be taken to the fully AJAX’d page but to the Classic interface for “ease-of-use” purposes.
• A new Today page rolls out, including what would be on your Today page in Windows Live Messenger.
• Recent Updates now added as a tabbed page on the Today page allowing you to switch to what’s changed (blogs, contacts and newsletters etc.)
• Search bar at the top of the page updated and tweaked slightly for the other themes.
  
• New icons added to the right click menus, and generally the right click menus have been added and updated.
• In Classic view, the top menu bar with “New, Reply, Forward and Delete” have been added to the bottom of each message for ease-of-use for longer messages.

Check the new interface here at Windows Live Mail, or click here for a screenshot.

MySpace is being sued by the families of five teenage girls who it is claimed were sexually assaulted by men they met through the social networking website. The negligence and fraud suit against the popular site, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, was filed at a court in Los Angeles.

It comes after a similar lawsuit was filed by the parents of a 14-year-old American girl last year. Last year, MySpace increased security measures to protect its younger users. In April 2006, the website hired a former prosecutor in the US Justice Department’s internet child exploitation unit, Hemanshu Nigam, as its chief security officer.

It also made it impossible for users aged 18 and above to contact 14 and 15-year-old members, unless they knew the younger person’s email address. The girls involved in the latest lawsuits were all aged between 14 - the minimum age for a MySpace account - and 15.

“In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,” said Jason Itkin, a lawyer for one of the firms representing the families. However Mr Nigam said that “ultimately, internet safety is a shared responsibility”.

“We encourage everyone to apply common sense offline security lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart web practices,” he added. News Corporation’s shares rose 1.7% in Thursday trading. It bought MySpace for $580m (£333m) in July 2005.

Source: BBC News

As written on OmniNerd by tomtolman…

“Since the iPhone announcement earlier this week, Apple has enjoyed a massive wave of free publicity from bloggers. Engadget’s live reporting alone had 10 million page views.

Turns out Apple is not happy about all the publicity. Someone has created a skin for Windows Mobile phones that looks very similar to the new iPhone user interface. Shortly after Paul O’Brian posted a link on an xda-developer forum to the interface, he got a cease and desist letter from Apple’s lawyers. The lawyers warn, “The icons and screenshot displayed on your website are copyrighted by Apple, and copyright law explicitly prohibits unauthorized display and distribution of copyrighted works. Apple therefore demands that you remove this screenshot from your website…”

Michelle Arrington of TechCrunch has accused Apple of going after the wrong person, “If Apple wants to go after the guy that made the Windows Mobile skin that looks like the iPhone, fine. But to bully bloggers who are simply reporting on this is another matter.” Arrington speaks from personal experience. In August Apple challenged him for embedding a YouTube video link to Mac OS X 10.5. In addition, Apple’s challenge raises a question if bloggers are permitted to post screenshots of the iPhone as thousands have done without concern from Apple’s lawyers. This news comes as Cisco is suing Apple for using the iPhone name which they claim to have trademarked in 2000.”

pr0xy k1ll3r (LiveandBeyond.com):

“I don’t think Apple is winning any goodwill by doing this. They do have the right to be protective about their product but not in this manner. Why not send a cease and desist letter to Google, as Google does link these blogs through it’s search engine?

Go after the creator of the Skin and ask him politely to remove it and not bully or harass bloggers who talk about or link it. Can these bloggers dissolve the product that is already uploaded on a server they have no control on?
Shame Apple.. Shame!”

Despite the fancy UI and all the buzz created around Apple’s iPhone here is the low down on why it sucks…

‘Z’ had posted about the iPhone earlier. It was quite a short post, maybe it doen’t deserve a big post so I have tried to keep this one to the minimum.

1. It will be a closed platform running software approved by Apple only. That means Apple will get a huge cut from selling the software through its iTunes store. It may even charge a dollar per ring tone.
2. It does not have 3G, but will have EGDE (2.5 G). EDGE is so 2006. 3G is faster but eats up the battery life, and apple may not have a good battery in place to support 3G.
3. You cannot have an extra battery for iPhone. It is sealed. wtf? You can’t carry an extra battery?! Or do you have to send it back to Apple to change it so that they can charge you more money for it. What about when the phone hangs up, as most smart phones do? The best solution is to remove the battery and restart again as none of the buttons or touch screen buttons work. Let me see how they get around this problem…
4. The Price: $499 (4GB) or $599(8GB) with a two year contract, by the time the contract is over your iPhone will probably be scratched all over like the Nano or be made obsolete by better phone on the market. Think at the pace at which the gadget market is going. 4Gb in 2008 - 2009 ? CRAP!!!
5. Other reasons are poor battery life, no expansion slot, what is the RAM, Processor speed and other technical details?

uhm.. Let me see how Steve Jobs thinks he can capture 1% of the mobile phone market with this high priced phone that only high-end users can afford. Who knows, maybe he can but only by riding on the current popularity of the iPod…

I know Windows Live pretty well to be honest. I’ve been there from the very beginning – the Live Sessions in London, the Live Dinner a few months later, I’ve been to conferences and talked with other influentials about where MSN is going and what Windows Live means to the public – even part of the team on the Windows Live services at Microsoft. But over the last few weeks I’ve really been thinking about Live and what it is, and unfortunately a few home truths hit me.

What is Windows Live?

Unfortunately this question is asked far too much – people still don’t really know what Windows Live is. They get the idea it’s something from Microsoft hence the Windows title, but other than that it’s bewildering. The Windows Live Ideas page (branching off from the homepage for pre-released Live software) has this:

“Windows Live™ is a new set of Internet software and services designed to put you in control of the information, relationships and interests you care about. Windows Live will make it easier for you to connect with people, and to quickly find the information you need, more safely and securely, whether you’re on your PC or on the go. And it’s evolving every day—with your feedback, it will just keep getting better.”

I say that it’s a near-replacement for MSN. Many technical evangelists say that it’s not a replacement – I’m partly inside and I say that to some degree it really is. MSN has been around for many years now (over 11 years at least and counting) and it’s starting to get old and decrepit. To tie in with the release of Windows Vista, most of the services turned “Live” to give them a breath of fresh air, some new graphics and new features and a whole load of new advertisement prospects. I do believe that Windows Live is a bridge between the operating system and the Internet and in a few months time, a bridge between Windows Vista and the Internet which is brilliant actually. New users will have all these different software’s available to play with and to make their life easier in the form of Windows Live.

Where MSN stands in all this

MSN is still staying around. Just because some of the old MSN services have been bumped up to a Windows Live product doesn’t mean they all are – some still speculate at which existing products will be bumped up and which will be bumped off, but that’s not too important now. MSN has a huge directory of services available called the MSN Directory which hasn’t been updated for a long while since Messenger and Spaces are in there under the MSN title and are even linked into the respected msn.com address. However a good 80% of these services will still be MSN as they aren’t services being provided, more rather portal pages and information. It’s hard to tell which services will be ported over, but expect new things from MSN such as the Soapbox beta which enables users to upload and share their media with other people; but also expect new things to come out of Windows Live such as the OneCare brands.

Who uses Windows Live?

“Live” seems to be the big thing coming out from Microsoft and there are many different angles to see it from. Windows Live is created and aimed at the general public but not businesses, unlike Office Live which is aimed at small businesses trying to get out there in the online world to promote them and to increase sales. Xbox Live is designed for gamers who want to play online with others and share statistics and information on games and Zune Live is for those wanting to buy music and check out the digital music scene. That’s all good and well and all, however people simply don’t know enough about Windows Live.

The core Windows Live services are Live.com, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live OneCare and Windows Live Spaces – that’s a fair comment to make and they’re probably the most used services. If we take these one by one: MSN Messenger was used by around 10 million users in the UK which is 1 in 6 people. On one sunny June 19^th of this year, Windows Live Messenger was unleashed. From that point on it was rather quiet; there weren’t any automatic upgrades, there certainly was a huge song and dance about it seeing as this was the first major Windows Live release but not many people knew about it.

The client was finished and released but the backend stuff was far from finished. For some unknown reason the launch went ahead, knowing full well that the servers wouldn’t manage and they didn’t. Connection problems, sign-in problems, message sending failures it was absolutely appalling, many people asked if this was meant to happen and many asked whether this will be what the rest of the Windows Live services will be like. Thankfully no less than two months later it was fixed with a new build of the client being released and all the issues being fixed and sorted out (even the Messenger team in Redmond admitted that something wasn’t right on their blog) – the day that Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812 was rolled out was the day that Windows Live really started.

Windows Live Mail is being used by hundreds of thousands, even running into the millions of users worldwide. Why? Because of a small green button which appeared in the millions of MSN Hotmail users’ inbox. If you exclude the Windows Live Ideas site, then the chances are without this little green button that a very, very small percentage of Hotmail users would have even known about the Mail beta. I honestly think that a lot of users will only realise that Hotmail has gone is when Windows Live Mail gets released to the web and replaces Hotmail for good. The chances are that this will cause some panic and confusion. No doubt once the switchover happens there will be a sudden rush of users to their once-called Hotmail accounts and they’ll see a new interface and be utterly flummoxed. Will the servers be able to handle it? The live.nl email addresses system failed within a couple of hours, Messenger crumbled when the new software was released, will this go the same way?

Windows Live OneCare – something which has turned the Windows Live services around and for the better. The OneCare application is a pleasure to use (although it does eat up memory on your computer – not as bad as some of the other solutions out there though), the service works well and it’s easy to use for even the most basic user. The Safety Scanner online also provides people with access to a web based, no-strings-attached version of the application which lets them perform most of the tasks that OneCare does but free of charge. The Family Safety beta isn’t doing too badly – the system works rather well and appears to be “foolproof” which is obvious a step in the right direction. Microsoft seem to be making a huge effort in making people safer online – with more and more users being on a constant broadband connection to the Internet which makes them more prone to attacks than those who dial-up to a narrowband or indeed a broadband connection. All this seems to be coming around for Windows Vista which is said to be the most secure operating system from Microsoft to date, so with all these efforts it’s hard to tell whether they wish to make Vista more secure or are late in rolling out these security features to those who use Windows XP. Nevertheless, it’s a very important step to be taken and they are doing excellently to make users safer online and children safer using the World Wide Web.

Windows Live Spaces has done amazingly well for itself. As far as I can see, it’s  the biggest success that Microsoft has created except for the Windows operating system. I was speaking to another employee in late August about the success of Spaces and it literally came down to the one button in MSN Messenger 7.0. There were very little advertisements at the time, very little marketing done, but with a brand new version of the Messenger client which was used by millions of users worldwide, people noticed this new button in their main conversation window saying “My Space”. All it took was the curiosity to click on it, make a Space and check out what you can do with it. A year later when Windows Live Spaces was rolled out, the numbers had reached over 6 million users in the UK and over 120 million users worldwide.

Windows Live.com - an incredibly well built website which has taken a long time to really start. But what’s the point? Google’s homepage is a search box, and Microsoft have finally realised the potential behind this simple thing. Keep it simple, and they’ve finally followed suit. The search box on Live.com is all it’s about - trying to entice people away from Google’s personalised homepage with it’s own set of gadgets, widgets and feeds and whatnot. It’ll be interesting where this one leads, as Live.com has full compatibility with most of the G0ogle gadgets but it takes longer to load. I don’t know whether it’ll be a hit or a flop - hopefully it won’t be a flop because I don’t think that Microsoft could take such a blow to one of it’s core services. It’s like everyone deciding to use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office.

The big shake-up

Since Steve Berkowitz joined Microsoft, things around Live have changed a lot. Without going into pointless detail, because of him things haven’t been released on time and things have been slow in terms of development. He screwed up Ask.com and now he’s come to screw Windows Live up. He was even considering dropping the “Windows” part of “Windows Live”. Live on it’s own wouldn’t sound as good as Windows Live because you know there’s an association between the operating system and the web based services.

Even though there are many different areas of Microsoft being focused on, for the launch of Windows Vista comes the Live suite of products - the whole point of Live is to bring the operating system and the Internet closer and to make the user’s life easier. But with all this reshuffling going on, people moving from department to department, other services taking literally years to take off and other hidden (and sometimes less important) Live services being rolled out quietly, this is the last thing the suite of products needs. A big bang and a big hello for each service, being rolled out at once to the public.

Part 2 coming soon

Basque in the glory that is Windows Home Server…

This is the iPhone from Apple. Ridiculously overpriced, too flimsy (I’ve tried one) and they don’t even have 3G. Thought I’d change the background image on the phone though as they’re all the same everywhere else on the Internet

Click to enlarge

The British Security Service (MI5) now have an electronic mailing system to offer British citizens living in the United Kingdom updates on the current national threat level.

Source: MI5
“The current national Threat Level system was introduced in July 2006. If you subscribe to this e-mail list, you will be alerted if the threat level changes.

Our prime concern is to ensure public safety. Please note that there will therefore be occasions when, for operational reasons, a delay is necessary between the threat level being changed and the public being informed.”

Simply signup from the website to receive updates on the “What’s New” section to keep you informed of what MI5 is doing to protect the United Kingdom and updates to the website, and also changes in threat level. Currently the UK is at “severe” after the suspected plane bombings earlier in Autumn 2006. The threat level has stayed the same ever since whilst the perpertrators were being investigated for plotting to detonate liquid explosives over the Atlantic between the UK and the US.

Anyone in the UK who is concerned regarding national security should use this service to get the latest updates.

Sign up for email notifications from MI5