Last week it was announced that the beta testers taking part in the invite-only Windows Technical Beta Program on Connect would not be recieving a complimentary copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, as was the case with the Windows Vista beta program, however today Brandon has announced that Microsoft have changed their minds:

Last week, I blogged that members of the Windows Technical Beta Program would not be receiving a complimentary copy of Windows 7. Normally I hate to be wrong but in this case, I’m stoked that I am.

To show our appreciation, members of the invitation-only Windows 7 Technical Beta Program will be eligible for a free, final copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. For more information on how to take advantage of this, refer to Paul’s post in the .Beta_Program newsgroup for details.

Tell Paul that Brandon sent you - and be sure to thank him!

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Certainly good news for the testers and honestly not something I was expecting given that the majority of testers only saw a single beta and a single release candidate - constantly running behind on inferior builds to what the Chinese and Russian pirates were racing to leak first!

You have to wonder if they will be cancelling any of their super-cheap Windows 7 pre-orders? Although to be honest the initial pre-order price was a steal as those prices have now already gone up several times already.

:source: News Source: Windows Team Blog via Neowin

Nero is now offering a limited version of it's software for free.
I assume it is probably just the burning ROM but that is the only part of Nero some people want.

What’s better than free? Free forever! Nero offers you the chance to enjoy Nero’s world-renowned data disc burning and copying features for an unlimited time, absolutely FREE!
Enjoy basic data burning and copying capabilities for your CDs and DVDs from the world’s most trusted digital media brand, Nero.

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:source: News Source and Download: Nero 9.4.12.3 Free

Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked, and can be permanently activated with OEM style instant offline activation which will pass Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation, before even any Windows 7 is officially released according to Windows 7 release schedule. All hell breaks loose when a Windows 7 Ultimate OEM DVD ISO from Lenovo been leaked and posted on Chinese forum. The ISO was quickly grabbed to retrieve boot.wim, which was then used to retrieve the OEM-SLP product key and OEM certificate for Windows 7 Ultimate.

Microsoft has updated the the SLP (System-Locked Preinstallation), a procedure that used to preactivate Windows operating system for mass distribution by major OEM (original equipment manufacturers), to version 2.1 to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 while provided backward-compatibility for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 activation. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 OEM activation is provided by SLP 2.0. SLP 2.1 requires SLIC imprinted in BIOS to be updated to SLIC version 2.1 too, which contains new Windows Marker.

:source: News Source: My Digital Life

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVD's, VCD's, and various streaming protocols.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.

VideoLAN is pleased to announce the release of the second version of the Goldeneye branch of VLC:1.0.1!
3 weeks after the release of 1.0.0, and with almost 14 million downloads, this minor version fixes most of the notable bugs and regressions that were present in the 1.0.0 version.
Notable fixes and improvements include:

fix flv and mpeg2 seeking,
fixes for wmv, wav, rtsp and ssa support,
fixes for Qt and Mac OS X interface,
fix an integer underflow in Real pseudo-RTSP module,
updates of some translations,
port of the ZVBI module to Windows for full teletext support and
codecs updates for Windows and Mac OS X versions

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:software: Download: VLC
:source: Source: VLC Homepage

I thought with the launch of Bing.com, Microsoft wouldn't pursue this avenue but apparently I was wrong.

Microsoft Corp. has finally roped Yahoo Inc. into an Internet search partnership, capping a convoluted pursuit that dragged on for years and finally setting the stage for the rivals to make an all-out assault against the dominance of Google Inc.
The 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet's second-largest search engine audience, adding a potentially potent weapon to the software maker's Internet arsenal as it tries to better confront Google, the leader in online search and advertising.
Google tried to stop Yahoo from falling into Microsoft's camp. Last year it formed its own proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo, only to be forced to retreat from that alliance after U.S. antitrust officials threatened to sue.

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You can read more at the link below!

:source: News Source: WFAA