Because of EU competition regulations, Microsoft have said that UK Windows users will not be able to upgrade their existing installations of Windows to the new version, Windows 7, which is due to go on sale on the 22nd October.

However, the news isn’t all bad… In the UK, Windows 7 will be sold at around half the normal retail price for the first few months after release.  As us Brits aren’t going to be offered any upgrade options, Microsoft have said that they are trying to avoid penalising Windows users who would have been eligible for the less expensive upgrade version by selling us the full version at a reduced price.

Leila Martine, Windows marketing leader for Microsoft in the UK has been quoted by MSN UK Tech & Gadgets as saying “We know that there are a number of customers that will just want the upgrade. It’s a lower price and they don’t need the full version…”

“A consumer, irrespective of whether they are upgrading or putting it on a seven-year-old XP computer, can get Windows 7 for £79.99. That’s our way to ensure our customers are not being negatively impacted.”

The deal will bring the cost of a full version of Windows 7 for someone in the UK roughly in line with what an American customer will pay for the upgrade version, $119.99 (£72).

When the introductory offer expires on December 31, Home Premium (the edition targeted at home users) will sell for £149.99.  Meanwhile, the Home Professional edition (targeted at business users) will rise from £189.99 to £219.99 and Ultimate (the most complete package) from £199.99 to £229.99.

IBM has announced that it plans to invest $100 million over the next five years into a major research effort which aims to advance mobile services and capabilities for businesses and consumers worldwide.

They are investing to create technology in its labs that bring simple, easy-to-use services to the millions of people who have bypassed using the personal computer as their primary method of accessing the Internet, and instead use their mobile devices for managing large forces of enterprise field workers, conducting financial transactions, entertainment, shopping, and more.

Low cost, high bandwidth, wireless access, and PC-like information processing power are accelerating the promise of the mobile phone as a compelling platform for accessing information services. Mobile phones now outnumber traditional telephones, and the opportunities for growth in mobility are enormous.

According to IBM’s Institute for Business Value, the number of mobile users will grow by 191% from 2006 to 2011 to reach approximately one billion users.  ”Mobility and the associated analytics will change virtually every enterprise business process,” said Paul Bloom, chief technologist, IBM Telecom Research. “It will change the relationship between enterprises and their customers, their employees and their partners, enabling them to do business in more intelligent, efficient ways.”

The BBC News website reports that Microsoft is trialling free anti-virus software internally and said the beta version would be released “soon”.  Called Morro, the software will tackle viruses but lack the broader range of utilities, such as parental locks, found in paid-for security suites.  Morro will be Microsoft’s second venture in the highly competitive security market.

Microsoft’s first attempt revolved around the Windows Live OneCare service that did not succeed in turning many customers away from rivals such as Symantec and McAfee. Microsoft plans to discontinue Live OneCare once the Morro software is ready. No specific date has been given for when Morro will be released, but in the past Microsoft has said it would be out by the end of 2009 at the latest.

The Register reports that Dell have generated more than $2M in revenue directly through promotions on its @DellOutlet Twitter feed, and an additional $1M was earned from people following links on Twitter to purchase a system elsewhere on Dell’s website.

“I started tweeting for the U.S. Dell Outlet in June of 2007 based on a suggestion from a colleague who learned about Twitter at the SXSW Interactive conference, and the response had been very positive. But I knew we could do more. So I started tweeting more regularly and doing more Twitter-exclusive offers, which created more buzz and helped us to grow our follower base (we’re now over 600,000). Our followers responded by re-tweeting @DellOutlet messages to their followers, and our numbers rose even more.” writes ‘Stefanie N’ on the Direct2Dell blog.

An article over on the BBC News website reports that European buyers of Windows 7 will have to download and install a web browser for themselves.  Bowing to European competition rules, Microsoft Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer.

The company said it would make it easy for PC makers and users to get at and install the web browsing program.  In response the European Commission expressed scepticism over the move and whether it would allay accusations of Microsoft abusing its market position.

In early 2008, Microsoft was fined 899m euros (£765m) by the European Commission for anti-competitive behaviour over bundling in the media player and browser into Windows.  In January 2009, Brussels reached a “preliminary view” that Microsoft was denting the chance for true competition by bundling its browser software in with its operating system.

Microsoft is due to defend itself against the charges in a hearing.  If Microsoft fails to convince the Commission that it is not harming competition could mean more fines and enforced changes to the way it does business.

The Register Hardware has recently written an article about how you can use your iPhone to take photos which can be used as evidence in court cases, effectively just like having a lawyer inside your iPhone!

Shoot & Proof, developed by French firm Codasystem, works with your iPhone’s camera to help you capture photographic evidence of everything from, say, a recently rear-ended car, to that delivery which arrived smashed to bits.

Each image can, Codasystem has claimed, be used as legal evidence because a whole gamut of information, including a time stamp, watermark and snapping location, is automatically recorded when you take the picture.

The application records the photo’s location using a mix of GPS and WiFi or GSM base-station triangulation.

And the jury won’t have reason to believe that you’ve tampered with the photo, because Shoot & Proof images are automatically uploaded onto Codasystem’s servers for safe-keeping.

Take a look at the Codasystem website for more information.

A series of press releases from Apple have announced the following new offerings from the technology giant:

• iPhone 3G S – dubbed ‘the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet’, they say it is ‘packed with incredible new features including improved speed and performance – up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G – with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control’.  The new iPhone 3G S includes the new iPhone OS 3.0, apparently with over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS*, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard and more.

  If you have your eyes on the ‘old’ iPhone 3G, you may be pleased to learn that Apple are now offering the iPhone 3G for just $99 USD for the 8Gb model.
   

• Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Apple say that Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies, out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange and new accessibility features. Snow Leopard will ship as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users in September 2009 for $29 USD.

  New features include 64-bit system applications such as Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari, Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster, Time Machine with up to 50% faster initial backup, and more.

• Safari 4 -  available for Mac and Windows PCs and introduced as a beta in February of this year, Safari 4 features the Nitro engine which runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3.  Safari 4 makes browsing more intuitive and enjoyable with innovative features, such as Top Sites, Full History Search and Cover Flow, and support for modern web standards like HTML 5 and advanced CSS Effects.