Singer and actress Hilary Duff is the latest star to be immortalized as a Barbie doll by toymakers Mattel.

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Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to give up acting for a time after the hit movie "Titanic". DiCaprio was back to being considered a "another piece of cute meat" after the 1997 film's spectacular box office success, an image he had wanted to get away after his days on the cover of teen magazines.

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Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit made the announcement at the annual MacWorld Conference in San Francisco, where Apple has announced new products like it's long-awaited iPhone.

Roz Ho, general manager for the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit, tells Microsoft's PressPass, "The new version of our productivity suite is designed to work seamlessly for users on either Intel-based Macs or PowerPCs."

"Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is expected to be available in the second half of 2007, and will provide Mac users with tools designed to be simple, intuitive and easily discovered - to help them work smarter and more efficiently. We are excited to get this next version out as another example of our team's dedication to building leading-edge products for the Mac platform."

As for the future, Roz Ho says, "Compatibility is a top customer concern, and the work that we are doing with the new XML file formats, layout engines and graphics handling will drive improved file compatibility. Customers know they'll have more than the ability to open and share data, they know they can trust the data will appear the way it was intended."

"We'll keep working with Apple to identify new technologies that will benefit our customers, including new opportunities that will arrive with Apple's Leopard OS. We'll also continue to collaborate closely with other Microsoft teams to develop new and creative ways to deliver answers to common productivity problems."

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However, critics say that the much-delayed release of the new Windows actually hampered PC sales, as buyers didn't want to have to pay to upgrade their hardware or Windows once the new version came out.

Gates tells reporters however that "People who sell PCs have seen a very nice pick up in sales," since its January release, adding that the company has seen "better than expected feedback" about the product.

However, according to Bloomberg, research firm NPD Group Inc. said on Feb. 15 that first-week retail sales of Vista lagged behind those of Windows XP by 32 percent. 

The service allows users with the Xbox gaming console, or its newer version the Xbox 360, to play over the internet. It also features a marketplace to purchase "arcade" games, TV shows, videos and other downloadable content.

According to Microsoft, there are over 160 high-definition video games for its Xbox 360, which is available in over 37 countries.

Microsoft says, "following the launch of the Xbox Live in November 2002, gamers have spent over 2.3 billion hours on the network playing games online with their friends around the world. This is equal to 95 million days of gaming or over 260,000 years. With our top title, Halo 2, which is being played on both the Xbox and Xbox 360, gamers have spent over 710 million hours playing online with over a half a billion games played."

However, gamers are also using the console as a media player, with "more than 70 percent of Xbox Live members downloading content; driving more than 135 million downloads since the launch of Xbox 360."

Popsugar caught Lindsay Lohan recently wearing a black and white Chanel minidress that was identical to one Cameron Diaz wore to one of the many premieres of “The Holiday” last year and is taking a poll as to who wore it better:

 

 

I couldn’t tell you, really. Cameron is much hotter in it, that’s for sure, but she’d be hotter in just about anything than Lindsay. Not that I’d throw either out of bed or anything.

Fashion-wise, I’d say that black shoes are a better choice–score one for Lindsay–but those tan heels are kind of hot. Especially with that set of legs coming out of them. Score two for Cameron.

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Hidden fingerprints can now be revealed quickly and reliably thanks to two developments in nanotechnology. The thing is that they have invented an easier way to reveal hidden fingerprints, but the explanation is rather vague. The main point is that the experiments are not very stable at the moment, but with its development this technology will probably help in discovering many criminal mysteries.

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An increase in malware originating from China has not gone unnoticed by security researchers, according to the site ITWeek. The aggravating software has been increasing over the last three months, to the point where some unlucky persons may be getting some every day. Individuals interviewed for the article are seeing an increasing sophistication and independent use of rootkits, new to the Chinese malware scene. 'China has traditionally been a hotbed of password stealers who go after log-in names and passwords for online games such as World of Warcraft. The criminals are after virtual currencies and goods which can be sold on auction websites.' These new types of software are actually encrypted, and can prove hard to dismantle."

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An International Herald Tribune story talks about NASA's answer to the movie 'Armageddon'. Specifically, they've outlined a plan to deflect a planet-killer asteroid. "In 1998, Congress gave NASA's Spaceguard Survey program a mandate of 'discovering, tracking, cataloging and characterizing' 90 percent of the near-Earth objects larger than one kilometer (3,200 feet) wide by 2008. An object that size would probably destroy civilization. The consensus at the conference was that the initial survey is doing fairly well although it will probably not quite meet the 2008 goal." With this tracking system in place, scientists are hopeful an intervention could be staged before any grim choices have to be made. Assuming they have the money and manpower needed for the effort, NASA has actually outlined a pair of procedures that dove-tail with each other: "First we would deflect the asteroid with kinetic impact from a missile (that is, running into it); then we would use the slight pull of a 'gravity tractor' -- a satellite that would hover near the asteroid -- to fine-tune its new trajectory to our liking. (In the case of an extremely large object, probably one in 100, the missile might have to contain a nuclear warhead.) To be effective, however, such missions would have to be launched 15 or even 30 years before a calculated impact."

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We've all heard about BitTorrent going legit this week with legal movie and TV show downloads. Ars Technica took a look at the service to see how usable it was and ran into a few snags, including not being able to download or even open the video files on some computers. However, the ones that they did manage to open varied a lot in quality. Overall, they blame DRM: 'Without knowing whether browser compatibility and dysfunctional video files are a rare occurrence or not, it's hard to say whether BitTorrent's service is a good one overall. Our initial experiences have been disappointing and frustrating, and guess what the culprit is once again? DRM. Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases is not clear, but whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable.'"

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