See what happens after when the iPhone’s stopwatch reaches 1,000 hours…

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In a surprising move, Microsoft has said that it will lower the prices to several different versions of its latest version of its operating system, Windows Vista.

For those in the US, it’s only cutting the higher-end versions of Vista, but only those that are used for upgrading a version from an earlier copy of an Windows OS. Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299 and Home Premium falls to $129 from $159.

Other countries will also see the price cuts, while Microsoft is elimnating the names of “Full” and “Upgrade” versions between Home Basic and Home Premium in emerging countries to convince many users to use genuine software.

It has surprised analysts by the news.

According to CNET News.com, Vista’s sales have been badly trailing those seen in XP for the first six months. This could be due to the price or that you will need a new computer or buy new computer parts to get Vista running in top condition. It is rare to have a computer that will have a Base Score of 5.

Price cuts have been rare in Microsoft’s case, with many retailers opting to do small price cuts as specials. However, this will change the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) to the amounts mentioned. Microsoft did the same thing to its Windows XP Media Center Edition. Initially pitched as an high-end version above XP Pro, it lowered its price to be higher than XP Home and not XP Pro. That move has seen an increase of sales and also saw XP Media Center being the dominant consumer version.

Vista’s code was finalized in late 2006, however it held back the retail launch until January 2007. It has currently sold more than 100 million copies, but is trailing behind XP’s sales in its early days.

quarterlife was set to become the first show to crossover from the web to mainstream television and it failed, with only a measly 3.86 million on NBC. Rivals ABC and CBS had higher numbers, but all were less than 10 million.

Now Marshall Herskovitz, the creator of quarterlife, has gotten his wish as the show is now being moved to sister station Bravo, after recent comments he made that the show would work better on cable.

An air date is unknown, but the 5 unaired episodes can be seen on the show’s official website where it’s being split up into five 10-minute parts per episode. The show is expected to finish in March online.

A second season is unknown, but is unlikely.

However, it is not all bad news for NBC Universal, as MSNBC’s final 36 minutes of the Democratic debate and the 24-minute “The Post-Debate Navel-Lint-Picking Show,” with Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman were ranked no.1 for all of television, according to the Washington Post.

The European Commission has fined Microsoft for 899 million euros last night after Microsoft failed to comply with its 2004 anti-trust lawsuit.

This fine adds to the 499 million euros that it has to pay to the European Commission, after finding it was abusing its dominance.

The new penalty is a sum of daily fines between June 21, 2006 and October 21, 2007 - after it was found that it was putting rivals unreasonable prices to get access to Microsoft’s source code.

The controversial R18+ rating for games may not go ahead at all as it is still opposed by at least one state attorney-general, a spokesperson has confirmed.

The issue has sparked many debates over the course of the election year and even beyond that. It became an issue in 2005 after it was raised in the Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG). The issue will be raised up again on March 28th.

Currently, any game that exceeds a rating of MA15+ will be automatically be refused classification and can’t be distributed, imported or sold in Australia. The classification system can be modified if there is an agreement from the federal and state and territory attorneys-general.

However, the South Australia’s Attorney-General’s spokesperson has said that he will maintain his long-running opposition to the proposed system. As well, he will not consider the rating even if there are measures to protect children from being exposed to adult content.

“The Attorney-General remains very firmly opposed to introducing an R rating for computer games in Australia,” the spokesperson said to News.com.au.

Comparing it to international video game rating system, most have an adult or 18+ category.

The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) has called for “more consistent rating system to bring Australia into alignment with the rest of the world”.

The numbers of people downloading and uploading this year’s controversial drama Underbelly has now crept into the thousands and is growing, with more episodes being added that have yet to air on Nine and its affiliates.

This latest controversy could see the government trying to block the offending sites, or even worse - shut down the internet, which will never happen.

The series is currently banned in Victoria due to a Supreme Court ruling that it could prejudice an upcoming murder trial, and won’t be shown on satellite Nine affiliate Imparja as it also broadcasts in that area.

Currently, episodes one to nine of the 13-part series are now up for download on a variety of sites, including The Pirate Bay, Mininova and ISOhunt. Nine has broadcast only three, with the fourth airing tonight.

According to News.com.au, more than 3000 users were attempting to download episode seven this afternoon. These copies are known as “screener” versions of the series. These versions were specifically made for people in the television industry.

The Nine Network has said that it will consider legal action, and is still in the process on finding out how copies of the series got into the hands of underworld figures, including Roberta Williams, the former wife of Carl Williams.

The Commonwealth Bank is trialling the brand new Adobe Air as it hopes that it would dramatically reduce the time to approve the home loan and its dependence on proprietary software.

A few thousand CBA brokers will be armed with laptops that would be able to capture the home load application offline and transfer the data when online within 20 seconds.

They have been trialling the new technology created by Adobe for nearly eight months. CBA solutions architect Andrew Clark told Australia IT that they chose Air has it works across many operating systems and to reduce the reliability on proprietary software from Microsoft and others.

It hopes to launch the application by next quarter, he said yesterday after the launch in Sydney for the Adobe product.

Air, or Adobe Integrated Runtime, enables developers to create rich web applications mimic their desktop counterparts. Adopters include the New York Times, eBay, Nickelodeon, BBC and Nasdaq.

The upcoming release of the iPhone in Australia could be illegal under current trade practises laws, according to a group of law researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The current legal hiccup could delay the arrival of the iPhone to Australia to another few months, as Apple are having exclusivity deals with mobile carriers, saying it is anti-competitive.

“The iPhone is breaking new ground in using technology to restrict customer’s choice in technology markets,” said QUT law researcher Dale Clapperton.

The findings come from an analysis over the iPhone in relation with Australia’s competition laws by Dr Clapperton and fellow expert Professor Stephen Corones. Their findings were then published in the QUT Law and Justice Journal.

The findings come as a response to Apple’s current arrangement with AT&T in the US, O2 in the UK, T-Mobile in Germany and Orange in France.

If Apple was going to release it in Australia, they might have to provide the phone unlocked or even offer it to both Singtel for Australia and Asia, and Telstra in Australia; meaning that Optus and Telstra would be able to sell the iPhone. This might also include the other mobile carriers, including Vodafone and 3.

This could see Australia being the first country in the world to offer the iPhone on different carriers without resorting to “crack” the iPhone.

The iPhone could be sold exclusively to Apple and then would allow SIM cards from all the mobile phone carriers in Australia.

Apple Australia has refused to comment on this new revelation.

The long-running debate over whether the OLFC should establish an R18+ classification for computer games will be discussed over an upcoming Standing Committee of Attorneys-Generals (SCAG) meeting.

Currently, the highest rating is MA 15+ and anything over it is then classified “Refused Classification”, meaning it can’t be sold or distributed. Since the introduction of having television, cinema, video games and DVD classifications to be the same; the highest is R 18+; except in television, where it is AV 15+.

There is another classification level titled X 18+, but that cannot be sold in the states, but can be imported from or bought from the territories or from the internet.

The very debate was last touched on at a SCAG meeting in November 2005, but decided that further evidence was needed for such a rating was required.

However, it is unlikely that a decision will be made to include the R 18+ to the video game classification system anytime soon. Currently, there is no timeframe or deadline for when a decision would be made.

Even though both News. Corp and Google are trying to make sure that the Microsoft/Yahoo merger doesn’t go through, Fox Interactive Media is rumoured to have been in negotiations with Microsoft to take over from the advertising deal with Google on its properties.

The Google-Fox deal was announced in August 2006 which saw Google being obligated to make a minimum revenue share payments to Fox Interactive Media of at least $900 million based on Fox achieving certain traffic and other commitments, but the original deal was done in a hurry. In February 2007, the company was rumoured to be working on a final agreement even though the ads have already been served.

In Google’s haste to keep the deal, according to TechCrunch, they may have paid more than they should.

FIM has two different ad partners, both being Google and Microsoft. This is due to Fox Sports being tied to Microsoft’s MSN portal, and will either be a separate website or replace Fox Sports if the Microsoft/Yahoo deal goes through. This applies to MSNBC, but it most likely replace Yahoo News as Microsoft owns 50% of the site and 18% of the television network, with the remaining shares are owned by NBC Universal.

Since the deal is “confidential”, we don’t know about the termination clauses in the existing agreements, with TechCrunch reporting that Google is appearing that it wish it never had enter that deal.