The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta has this week been put through to the release candidate stages. After trying the last few Beta builds i agree that the service pack is a worthy upgrade and as you would expect it fixes a fare amount of bugs and makes Vista preform a little faster. The RC was release to 15,000 testers as part of a private beta program. I will be writing a full review when over the weekend when i manage to get a copy of the service pack installed.

The guys at Mozilla have released the very first Firefox 3 mockup screen shots.

Looks

In these screenies Firefox has a complete UI overhaul and it looks fantastic! surprisingly it looks a lot like a vista application and more like IE than Firefox. Many are hoeing that this concept will stick around and become the default Firefox 3 theme for vista. Even still I am sure someone out there will create this theme for Firefox 2.

New Features

Private Browsing
Browse the web without cookies, temporary files or history being stored on your computer.

Places
A great new feature that stores bookmarks, history, and other information about Web pages. You will be able to add tags and index your content.

Bookmark Manager
Speaks for itself, basically sort and manage all your bookmarks.

Malware Detection
Firefox will now block sites that have been known to contain Malware, it will show a dialog asking if you want to proceed (see screens)

Mozilla is working alongside Google to develop this feature.

Content Handling
After downloading a file, you can now select the associated program to run that file from within the downloaded files box. 

Microformat Detection
You can now interact with microformat content.

Screenshots

The blacked out address bar lets you know your in private browsing mode:

The new places feature:

Bookmark Manager service:

 The Malware detection engine in action:

Content Handling in action:

The important thing to remember is this is very early stages and this stuff is not final and it also explains why the UI may look a little rough round the edges but if Mozilla go with this, the cool new features and that great UI Firefox 3 should be fantastic in my opinion!

The Xbox 360 Elite is an updated version of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has added some much needed features into its games console such as HDMI support and a larger 120gb Hard Drive on the down side theres still no HD-DVD Drive integration witch is a shame and theres also no Wifi built in, the Elite comes in a new sleek black design complete with black controllers and accessories. The console is going to be quieter and a lot more cooler witch is needed with a console that sounds like a planes lifting off every time you turn it on. No official pricing has been released as of yet but the Elite is not a replacement for the Xbox 360 Core and Premium system, they will be sold as well as the Elite. Overall the 360 Elite is a good buy if you haven’t got an Xbox 360, but if you already own one theres no point and i don’t see no reason why Microsoft wont ship a 120gb hard drive accessories for non-elite customers, especially with IP-TV on its way.

Click the thumbnails for larger views

Adobe have updated there flagship products giving us new features and Vista support. There is also a lot of new products that are in development, and they are looking great! with programs such as Adobe Soundbooth (an audio production program) on the way I’m excited to see what adobe has for us.

Trial versions of a select few of these programs are available the Adobe website, but if you want to get stuck into the big stuff like Photoshop CS3 and the new SoundBooth you can download beta versions from the Adobe Labs site.

Keep checking this site for Tryouts of the latest Adobe products http://www.adobe.com/products/

and if you want to test out some BETA versions visit http://labs.adobe.com/

Here is a list of whats New and Upcoming in the Adobe software range:

Photoshop CS3
InDesign CS3
Illustrator CS3
Bridge CS3
Adobe Version Cue CS3
Adobe Device Central CS3
Flash CS3
Dreamweaver CS3
Fireworks CS3
Contribute CS3
After Effects CS3
OnLocation CS3
Soundbooth CS3
Ultra CS3
Encore CS3
InCopy CS3
Acrobat 3D Version 8
JSEclipse
kuler
LiveCycle Data Services 2.5
Apollo
Digital Editions

Note: Both standard and professional version will be available, The Adobe Suites will also be available such as Adobe creative Suite CS3 Professional.