Dean Takahashi, the intrepid Mercury News reporter and author of Opening the Xbox has caused quite a stir in the video-game market by not only claiming Microsoft is planning an iPod killer - the Xplayer, (no real surprise) but that J Allard, the boy wonder of Xbox and Microsoft’s internet strategy is leading the charge. In a bid to capture the huge audience for handheld entertainment gadgets, Microsoft is designing a product that combines video games, music and video in one handheld device, according to sources familiar with the project.

The Microsoft product would compete with Sony, Nintendo and Apple Computer’s products, including the iPod. And Microsoft has some of its most seasoned talent from the division that created its popular Xbox 360 working on it. Game executive J Allard leads the project, and its director is Greg Gibson, who was the system designer on the Xbox 360 video game console. Bryan Lee, the finance chief on the Xbox business, is leading the business side of the project.

While details are sketchy, the pedigree of the people in charge of the business show how strategic it is to Microsoft’s future.

Allard, a 36-year-old progammer who became famous for prompting Bill Gates to take the Internet seriously, commanded much of the hardware and software teams who put together the Xbox 360. Lee, a longtime entertainment executive, joined Microsoft as finance chief for the Xbox a few years ago.

The handheld project is still in its early stages. Microsoft is still figuring out which strategy to pursue in music technology, according to sources familiar with the matter. The code name for its music service, which would be the equivalent of Apple’s iTunes, is “Alexandria.” In an interview with Business Week in January, Xbox corporate vice president Peter Moore said “it can’t just be our version of the iPod” and added the Xbox brand “is an opportunity” if Microsoft decides to enter the mobile entertainment competition. He declined to comment on the rumor about the handheld. But sources familiar with the project confirmed its existence within the Xbox organization.

What remains to be seen is when Microsoft will launch the device. Gibson may not need a large engineering team to run the project. But his group of hardware engineers only became free last fall, when most work on the Xbox 360 was completed. It could be 2007 before the device hits store shelves. That gives rivals such as Sony, Nintendo and Apple considerable time to consolidate their position and come up with their own new gadgets in the meantime.

Xplayer - Xboy from Microsoft - Mockup - of course.

Electronic Design have details on the new Samsung i310 8-Gbyte hard disk embedded phone. It looks as though Motorola will need to up the ante with their iTunes capable phones and increase the 512MB capacity to a couple of gig to remain at the top of the cell-phone ladder. In addition to the kick-ass drive, the i310 comes with a 2Meg camera, document viewer and TV output - who needs a laptop?

Increasing memory capacity in their cellular phones is a goal that Samsung has been working toward for years now. The company launched two previous models with a 3-Gbyte hard drive and one with a 1.5-Gbyte hard drive. Muzib Khan, vice president of product management and engineering at Samsung, said the company opted for hard drives because they fulfill a need by consumers for more storage without compromising the size of the phone.

“Hard drives allow more memory in the smallest space,” Muzib said. “Hence, they are very attractive for large data storage.”

According to PC Magazine, the number of cell phones with hard drive-based memory is expected to increase over the next several years. The magazine reports that Cornice, a U.S.-based compact storage solutions company that recently debuted a line of durable micro hard drives, expects the market for cell-phone hard drives to grow 325% between 2004 and 2009.

The i310 features a 2-Mpixel digital camera with flash, microSD slot, document viewer and TV output. It runs on Windows Mobile 5.0, which allows users to view and transfer files and carry their music library with them. USB 2.0 Plug & Play allows the phone to serve as a removable hard disk.

Microsoft product managers will be high fiving all over the Redmond campus today as Sony Corp. said it would delay the release of its new PlayStation 3 video game console until early November because development of some of the technology was behind schedule. The PS3 launch date has been the subject of heavy speculation in the industry as expectations are high for the machine, which will have cutting-edge technology and is expected to enable users to play games and movies as well as download videos from the Internet.

“When we initially announced our plans to launch this spring, we had expected the standardization work on all of the technologies to be completed by last August, but there were improvements that were decided on since then,” said Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony’s game division.

“We wanted to be sure to include all future technologies that are available now,” he said at a business briefing for software developers as he apologized for not updating the industry sooner.

The PS3 launch date has been the subject of heavy speculation in the industry as expectations are high for the machine, which will have cutting-edge technology and is expected to enable users to play games and movies as well as download videos from the Internet.

Microsoft will probably have 10,000,000 Xbox 360’s in homes by the time the PS3 hits the shelves… Hmm, I wonder if the worm just turned…

Here’s how the decades have been ruled by the consoles:

The New Generation:

My laptop, a Dell D600 is slower than an ZX Spectrum running Jet Set Willy with only 16k of RAM. Part of this reason is the large list of programs running in the background, here’s a list of some of the bad boys: RTVSCAN.exe, svchost.exe, ifrmewek.exe, spoolsv.exe, ntaskldr.exe, aim.exe, lsass.exe, fgrd.exe, carpserv.exe, smss.exe. Quite what these programs was beyond the scope of my little brain, so I did a bit of Googling and came up with a breakdown of what they do, whether I need them, and how I can remove them from my laptop!

Here’s the worst Offenders on my little laptop:

RTVSCAN.exe
rtvscan.exe is an executable of the Symantec Internet Security Suite. It is responsible for the execution of real-time virus-scanning in order to detect virus infected files as they enter your system. This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated.

svchost.exe
The Svchost.exe file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder. At startup, Svchost.exe checks the services part of the registry to construct a list of services that it must load. Multiple instances of Svchost.exe can run at the same time. Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services. Therefore, separate services can run, depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This grouping of services permits better control and easier debugging.

ifrmewrk.exe
Frmewrk.exe is a process associated with the Intel PRO/Set Wireless softwareand provides additional configuration options for these devices. This program is non-essential process to the running of the system, but should not be terminated unless suspected to be causing problems.

spoolsv.exe
spoolsv.exe is a Microsoft Windows system executable which handles the printing process to your local printers. This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated.

Note: spoolsv.exe is also a process which is registered as the Backdoor.Ciadoor.B Trojan or the Iambigbrother spyware. The Ciadoor Trojan allows attackers to access your computer, stealing passwords and personal data. It is a registered security risk and should be removed immediately.

ntaskldr.exe
Ntaskldr.exe is the Notes Task Loader in Notes 6 Client and Notes 7 Client; it is the replacement process for all Notes R5 Client tasks, such as nupdate, namgr, nhldaemn, naldaeam, etc. In Notes R5 Client a separate process runs for each individual Notes task.

Ntaskldr.exe is a single process that runs on Windows operating systems, and carries out the various tasks by spawning threads instead of loading individual processes. The executables corresponding to the Notes 6 Client on the Processes list/tab of the Windows Task Manager are Nlnotes.exe and Ntaskldr.exe.

aim.exe
aim.exe is the AOL Instant Messenger. It is used to connect with other AOL Instant Messenger online for instant messaging.

lsass.exe
lsass.exe is the Local Security Authentication Server. It verifies the validity of user logons to your PC/Server. It generates the process responsible for authenticating users for the Winlogon service. This process is performed by using authentication packages such as the default Msgina.dll. If authentication is successful, Lsass generates the user’s access token, which is used to launch the initial shell. Other processes that the user initiates inherit this token.

carpserv.exe
Associated with Zoltrix modems - enables the internal modem speaker (so you can listen the dial-up sounds for example). Seems to be for laptops only.

smss.exe
smss.exe - This is the session manager subsystem, which is responsible for starting the user session. This process is initiated by the system thread and is responsible for various activities, including launching the Winlogon and Win32 (Csrss.exe) processes and setting system variables. After it has launched these processes, it waits for either Winlogon or Csrss to end. If this happens “normally,” the system shuts down; if it happens unexpectedly, Smss.exe causes the system to stop responding (hang).

Southpark, possibly the coolest TV show on the airwaves (outside of Entourage, of course), today announced Singer Isaac Hayes is to stop providing the voice for a character in cartoon South Park because he objects to its “inappropriate ridicule” of religion. Hayes, 63, who is the voice of the lustful Chef, has been a regular on the show since its US TV debut in 1997. Of course, the irony is that Hayes only became an objector when his religion, Scientology was featured…. Oh man, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are probably laughing hard.

But co-creator Matt Stone said Hayes had “never had a problem” until the Scientology Church, to which Hayes belongs, was parodied. The show was insensitive to “personal spiritual beliefs”, said Hayes.

“There is a place in this world for satire but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs begins,” he said. Co-creator Stone said Hayes would be released from his contract and had the best wishes of the South Park team. Stone said: “In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews - He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.”