It would appear that Microsoft haven’t learnt from its previous experiences. Working as a consumer IT technician during the release of Windows XP, we found it trivial to load up an XP Upgrade pack onto any system. This was possible as the upgrades to XP were merely full editions with a number of checking systems in place. Buy an upgrade, bypass the checks and install your new version of windows at half the cost.

Vista has been released for about two weeks now and guess what? Its happened again.
The Register reports on Marc Liron of www.instantvista.com and his technique to apply the same strategy to Windows Vista.

From the article.

“In short, all you need to do is delay entering your product key and delay validating your copy of Vista online until the setup is complete. For some reason, Microsoft has decided to allow users to install first and deal with the paperwork later. Simple in theory, although the details of exactly how to do this are a bit lengthy, and we strongly recommend following Liron’s step-by-step instructions linked above. But, in a nutshell, all you are doing is avoiding the traps that MS has set up to cancel the upgrade installation if an authorised version of Windows isn’t already present. If you dodge those traps, you can install a Vista upgrade on any machine, and later enter your product key and validate your copy normally.”

More Information:

The Register - How to install a Vista upgrade on any PC
Marc Liron Article, Step by step guide.

Slashdot is running a story today sourced from Live Science on the patent application of an Iris Scanning technology that could see large scale deployment in the future for advertising and tracking purposes. For anyone who has seen The Minority Report, this will be a familiar scenario.

From the patent application:

“…a system for obtaining iris biometric information includes an array of cameras defining an image capture volume for capturing an image of an iris; and an image processor, coupled to the array of cameras, for determining at least one suitable iris image for processing from the images generated for the image capture volume … A subject within the capture volume is repeatedly imaged to produce a plurality of images of the subject. The plurality of images are processed to extract at least one clear image of the subject’s iris.”

The usual, and agreeable, Slashdot sceptism can be found on the articles comments page