Intel Microelectronics Philippines and local PC makes, including Villman Computer Systems, PC Express, Silicon Valley, Thinking Tools, TQM and Digital Playground, introduced the home entertainment PC, a computing device that is set to enhance the Philippines' home entertainment experience.

The home entertainment PC is based on Intel's latest processors such as the high-performance, dual-core Intel Core Duo processor or the Intel Pentium M processor. It brings together the Windows XP Media Center Edition and the PDP (plasma display) or big screen LCD, making the personal computer the center of the home entertainment system. The home entertainment PC is among the most advanced consumer-related technologies for viewing a wide range of digital movies, TV, music, games and photographs.  "We believe the home entertainment PC will help spur the widespread adoption of the digital home platform in the Philippines," said Ricky Banaag, Country Manager, Intel Microelectronics Philippines, Incorporated.

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RP Software Piracy Rate Remains at 71%
The software piracy rate in the Philippines remained at 71% in 2005. However, losses to the industry went up from US million to US million (Php 3.9 billion) last year. These are among the findings of an annual global personal computers (PC) software piracy study released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).  The 71% piracy rate also reflects the rampant and continued use of illegal software among corporate end-users.

Global losses from software piracy amounted to billion in 2005, an increase of .6 billion over the previous year. In countries with very large software markets, comparatively low piracy rates can amount to huge losses. While the United States had the lowest piracy rate of all countries studied at 21 percent, it also had the greatest individual losses - .9 billion. China saw the second highest losses at .9 billion with a piracy rate of 86 percent, followed by France with losses of .2 billion and a piracy rate of 47 percent.

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First Virus for OpenOffice Found
Kaspersky Lab has found the first known virus for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org called 'Stardust.'   Stardust is the first virus capable of infecting StarOffice and/ or OpenOffice. It is written in Star Basic. It downloads an image file (with adult content) from the Internet and then opens this file in a new document.

Stardust is a pure proof-of-concept; it doesn't contain any malware payload except loading a picture via link on an attacked computer.  OpenOffice will not provide any patch for the issue, saying it does not consider the proof-of-concept macro virus a problem.

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Microsoft Will Take Adobe Out of Office
Microsoft announced that it will remove support for saving files in PDF from Office 2007, as well as dropping its own rival format XPS from the productivity suite and Windows Vista after a breakdown of talks between Adobe and Microsoft.

The breakdown started when Adobe wanted Microsoft to charge for the PDF feature, which Microsoft was not inclined to do.  The tussle may lead to Adobe filing an anti-trust action against Microsoft.

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Nintendo Wii Named Best of Show for E3 2006
The Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2006 has awarded Nintendo its highest honor. Nintendo's upcoming Wii(TM) console won the Best of Show award, as well as the Best Hardware award. Nintendo's Wii Sports title won the Best Sports category, Excite Truck(TM) for Wii won as the best racing game and The Legend of Zelda®: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS won as the best hand-held game of last month's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

Nintendo won five Game Critics Awards, more than any other publisher or hardware manufacturer. The Game Critics Awards are issued annually by an independent group of journalists from 37 leading North American media outlets that cover the video game industry in newspapers, in magazines, online and on television.

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Red Hat Launches Mugshot Project
RedHat recently announced their entry in the social networking space by launching the MugShot project that will allow users to share music, video, images and other entertainment content.

Mugshot will work on both Windows XP and Linux based computers.  Mugshot project manager Donald Fisher said the Mugshot project will encourage those unfamiliar with open-source software to use it and they want to encourage developers and designers to think about new ways to approach digital entertainment.

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Google Adds Chat to Gmail
Google recently added a new feature called Reply by Chat into its Gmail offering.  This new feature allows you to discuss an e-mail with the sender if he/she is online, and is using a Gmail account.  Gmail's chat feature allows you to chat with other people that have a Gmail account. It interacts with the whole Google Talk network, so it can be synchronized with that particular program.

The Reply by Chat feature is located at the bottom of the specific e-mail, beside the Reply, and Forward buttons. If the recipient is online, the button to Reply by Chat is green, notifying you that the individual is available to chat. If the individual is not online, the area will be grayed out and state that the person is not available to chat.

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Oracle Buys 20th Company
Oracle announced that it will expand its supply chain planning applications with the acquisition of Demantra, a leading provider of demand-driven planning solutions.  It is Oracle's 20th acquisition since buying PeopleSoft.

Demantra offers solutions for demand management, sales and operations planning, and trade promotion planning and optimization. Together with Oracle's existing supply chain and ERP applications, customers can more proactively manage complex, global supply chain operations.