Today Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser that offers the best solution for how people use the Web today.

It can be downloaded in 25 languages at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 starting at noon EDT on March 19. Internet Explorer 8 is easier to use, faster and offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people’s increasing concerns about online safety. A new study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. shows that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78 percent are more likely to choose a Web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago.

In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers; cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.

Gamesindustry.biz has interviewed Microsofts VP Chris Lewis who says their upcoming OS refresh Windows 7 will actually be a boon for PC games:

Q: PC gaming is still pretty popular for certain genres, so how do you feel that the Games For Windows campaign has progressed – is there more development planned there?

Chris Lewis: We’re happy there, and we’re very mindful that there’s a strong and vibrant PC gaming community out there. Not all console games lend themselves to the PC – when it is appropriate we bring games to both platforms, when it’s not we don’t, and that will continue to be the case.

Ultimately we’re a Windows and PC company at heart, and that’s not going to change, and the development on both platforms will remain central and important. The business ebbs and flows, and there will be times when we do more on one platform than the other, but they do co-exist very nicely, and as a company we’re in a pretty unique position that we have a strong legacy on PC.

We now have a similarly robust position on console, but we’re excited about all screen sizes, whether they be phones, consoles via the television, or PC. We’re uniquely placed to offer a very rich experience on all of those screen types to consumers, and we’ll continue to invest across all platforms.

We remain focused on it, you’ll see more from us there in the future, and long may that continue.

Q: Are you aware of any changes in the next Windows platform that are specifically aimed at the gaming community?

Chris Lewis: Windows 7 will be great for games, undoubtedly. It’s all good news – it’s even more robust, it’s quicker relatively, and the early testing cycles are proving very promising overall. I think it’ll be nothing but good news for PC gamers, but we’ll have more to say on that later on this year.

WinSCP is an open source SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager functionality. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol.

Changelog:

* Increased socket internal buffer size for SSH. It should improve transfer speed. Thanks to ultramage. 615
* Environment variables are resolved in path to external editor. 563
* Include/exclude masks can be used when moving files between local and remote directories. 536
* Add to Bookmarks and Refresh commands added to context menus of panel path labels. 624
* Change: With FTP protocol, passive mode is used by default. 165
* Change: Links to website and help are no longer created in start menu folder. 616
* Autocomplete disabled for most of the combo boxes. 619
* SSH core upgraded to the latest development snapshot of PuTTY (2010-09-27, revision 9010). It brings following

changes:

o Improved port forwarding robustness.
o When disconnected because there are no supported authentication methods left to try, the error message contains the list of methods sent by the server.
o Standard GSS libraries are now loaded from standard locations rather than using the default DLL search path.
o Other small bugs fixed.
* SSL core upgraded to OpenSSL 1.0.0a.
* Bug fix: Error when refreshing panel content. 617
* Bug fix: Error when more background transfers finish at the same moment. 622
* Bug fix: Script does not abort after receiving no answer for prompt, when running in batch mode. 623
* Bug fix: Main window appeared in background, when prompt for master password appeared during authentication. 629

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Jen-Hsun Huang stated over at the GPU Technology Conference that CUDA (the general-purpose computing language for NVIDIA GPUs) will be ported directly to x86 chips. The approach developed with the Portland Group will let systems without NVIDIA cards handle the code. It will work best with multi-core processors and is seen as ideal for servers.

A timetable isn’t yet available for when CUDA will be ready to make the switch or which platforms will have direct access to x86. Both Mac OS X and Windows have native CUDA support and may get the added support relatively soon.

The move is potentially a hedge against universal standards. Both Microsoft’s DirectCompute and the more universal OpenCL don’t require a graphics chipset to run. Concepts of general-purpose computing languages came about to help calculate physics and other advanced math in parallel rather than depend solely on a single stream of code.

If you don’t have a GPU cluster handy, you can run your CUDA code directly on the CPU for testing and debugging, and even deploy it to users who don’t have suitable GPU’s. Of course, you’ll need the GPU for optimum performance, but it makes CUDA not just an NVidia technology, but a technology that runs on any computer.

Mind you that it was confirmed that this will not be a free offering, but rather a commercial product marketed and sold by PGI.

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework, that plays most multimedia’s files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.

New Features

Demuxers:

* Avformat fps displaying fix
* TS, fix an issue where some programs would get dropped (fixes DVB issues too)

Audio filters:

* fix timestamps handling on some filters that provoked issues when playback of mono streams, especially on Windows

Windows:

* fix a bug in direct3d video output with old nVidia drivers that broke video playback with overlay (YUV-RGB)
* fix console output encoding

Interface and extensions:

* Youtube and other scripts updates
* Misc fixes in Qt4 (especially VLM and EPG dialogs) and MacOS interface

Features u.a.:

* MPEG (ES,PS,TS,PVA,MP3)
* AVI – MPEG-1/2, DIVX (1/2/3), MPEG-4 ASP, DivX 4/5/6, XviD, 3ivX D4
* ASF / WMV / WMA – WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1 1, 2 1 1, 2 1 1 WMV 1/2
* MP4 / MOV / 3GP – Sorenson 1/3 (Quicktime)
* OGG / OGM / Annodex
* Matroska (MKV) – H.261 H.263 / H.263i H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC
* Real – Real Video 1/2
* WAV (incuding DTS)
* Raw Audio: DTS, AAC, AC3/A52
* Raw DV
* FLAC
* FLV (Flash)
* MXF
* Nut
* Standard MIDI / SMF
* Creative™ Voice, Cinepak, Theora, Dirac / VC-2, MJPEG (A/B), DV (Digital Video), On2 VP3/VP5/VP6, Indeo Video v3 (IV32)

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For those who love, care and cradle Betas .. Firefox 4 Beta 2 has been released, based on the Gecko 2.0 Web platform, has just been released for consumption.

Windows, Mac and Linux versions are all available in a total of 24 languages. Beta 2 brings a new look to Firefox 4 (with tabs now on top by default), a new ‘App Tab’ feature, and features various performance improvements over the previous beta. Mozilla warns that some add-ons may not be compatible with this version of Firefox.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Looks like we might see a final version of Microsoft’s Windows 7 sometime next week. If the rumors running around the internet are true, and the final RTM (release to manufacturer) is leaked then it is possible that the work will get its first real glimpse of the Vista Replacement around the 13th of this month.

Windows 7 has received much better initial press than its predecessor Windows Vista despite sharing the same Kernel and many other “under the hood” features.

Pre-Sales of Windows 7 have sold out in many countries and the RC 1 download had enough demand to force MS to upgrade their download servers.

Read the whole story here.

While the upcoming Windows 7 operating system has been getting most of the spotlight recently, Microsoft just went ahead and made Vista Service Pack 2 ready and downloadable for the general public.

This is the final version, not beta and RC builds which have been floating around the past couple of months or so.

Hardware ecosystem support and enhancements

- SP2 adds support for the 64-bit central processing unit (CPU) from VIA Technologies, which adds the ID and vendor strings for the new VIA 64-bit CPU.

- SP2 integrates the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1 and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration. Bluetooth v2.1 is the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology.

- SP2 improves performance for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode.

- SP2 includes updates to the RSS feeds sidebar for improved performance and responsiveness.

- SP2 includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray Disc media.

Operating system experience updates

- SP2 includes Windows Search 4.0, which builds on Microsoft’s search technology with improved indexing and search relevance. It also helps find and preview documents, e-mail (including signed e-mail messages), music files, photos, and other items on the computer. The search engine in Windows Search 4.0 is a Microsoft Windows® service that is also used by programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote® 2007. Auto tuning Diagnostics in SP2 now interprets current network conditions when implementing Windows scaling. This feature includes full netsh support.

- SP2 improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in the area of content protection for TV.

- SP2 removes the limit of 10 half open outbound TCP connections. By default, SP2 has no limit on the number of half open outbound TCP connections.

Go and grab the 32-bit version or 64-bit version. You can read the notable changes in SP2 here. Keep in mind both versions will also patch up Windows Server 2008 as well as Vista.

The second Service Pack for Windows Vista should be available within a couple of weeks. DailyTech wrote today that Microsoft has delivered the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) Escrow build to Connect beta testers. Windows Vista SP2 will add Blu-ray recording, WiFi updates, and various bug fixes and tweaks.

The new service pack delivers many much anticipated features, along with numerous tweaks and bug fixes which should strengthen the Vista experience. Among the hottest additions in the new pack is the ability to record in Blu-Ray format for the first time in Windows. Other key additions include Bluetooth v2.1 connectivity, Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration wireless functionality, faster Wi-Fi resume times after hibernation, Windows Search 4.0, and the ability to configure the maximum number of TCP connections.