Bill Gates has said that Windows 7, the successor to Vista, could be released sometime in "the next year or so". We guess this means in 2 years because he went on to say that the new version is scheduled for 2010. Microsoft's estimated release dates are notoriously optimistic, so it's certainly unlikely to be within the next year. Bill Gates did not reveal any details of changes or novel features to the operating system, although he did say that he was "super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways". The Developer Programme for Windows 7 has already been started ...

A domain name has just been sold for an incredible $1.3 million. Chris Clark registered the domain "www.pizza.com" in 1994, just when the World Wide Web was starting up. Since then, he has paid around $20 per year to keep the registration. He sold the domain by auction to a bidder who has not been named. Chris Clark from North Potomac in Maryland, was quoted as saying "It's crazy! It's just crazy!" He also added that "It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure". Originally, he had hoped that www.pizza.com would help him to get a contract with ...

Computer monitors use more energy to display white pixels than black. Other colours use varying amounts of energy between the limits of black and white. This is the theory proposed by Blackle (www.blackle.com), who have come up with a black search engine. It's a front-end to Google, but with a black background, hence the name. Heap Media, the company behind Blackle claim that by making Google searches using a black background, Internet users could collectively save thousands of kilowatt hours in electricity. According to EnergyStar, a typical monitor displaying a full screen of solid colour might use the following amount of ...

Slysoft claims that the latest version of its AnyDVD program lets users make copies of the new high-definition movies on Blu-ray discs. Sony, who launched Blu-ray's BD+ anti-piracy system in 2007, claimed that it would take 10 years for it to be cracked. SlySoft claim that they had cracked BD+ as early as November 2007, but they waited until the High Definition format war was over before releasing a product. The developers of BD+ say that the system will react to attempts to break it and that they can re-lock copied discs, making them unusable in the future. SlySoft say that they ...

In just 40 minutes on a sunny day in the UK, we receive enough energy from the Sun to provide the country’s entire energy requirements for a whole year. That's a pretty amazing statistic!  it makes me wonder why we're not doing more to make use of that free energy.  We're trying to build fusion reactors - why don't we use the one we've already got? Of course, there are two big problems with this;  the first is capturing that energy, and the second is storing it. We can not cover the entire UK with photovoltaic cells or heat exchangers, but there's no reason why individuals cannot put them on their property. Even on overcast days, we are still receiving energy, and water heaters that use the sun as their energy source do work rather well. Photovoltaic panels are becoming ...