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Publishing label Rockstar Games has said the latest in its Grand Theft Auto franchise will be released worldwide on April 29th, following last year’s high profile delay of the franchise to concentrate on its multi-platform release. GTA IV, which was originally slated for release last year, is expected to be one of the top-selling games of 2008 and is likely to revive debate over the series’ depictions of sex and violence. The game will be released worldwide on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. After the date was announced, publisher Take-Two Interactive’s share price rose by more than 10 per cent. “We are so excited to be releasing ‘Grand Theft Auto IV,’” Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games, said in a statement. “We’ve pushed ourselves very hard to make something incredible, and hope the game sets a new benchmark for interactive entertainment.”The game, that is one of the most anticipated titles of 2008 for Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation was initially scheduled to be launched on October 16, 2007, but in August the Take Two officials decided that there is no way the development team could meet the goal of perfecting the engine in time to meet the deadline.Strauss Zelnick, chairman, Take-Two, then said, “Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous release on two very different platforms As for the story of the game, Rockstar has released so far three trailers. GTA IV is taking us to Liberty City (a fictional city based on New York city). There are several references to Liberty City on buildings and objects, as well as several distinct features that make the city a replica of New York, including the Statute of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge.The game though is looking like it is continuing to shape up with a great deal of polish to it, we will surely find out everything in April.

SEATTLE Microsoft Corp. is giving students free access to its most sophisticated tools for writing software and making media-rich Web sites, a move that intensifies its competition with Adobe Systems Inc. and could challenge open source software’s popularity.The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program.The company will also give away SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server Standard Edition.Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the company’s past efforts to arrange educational discounts for these programs limited the number of students who ultimately could use them. DreamSpark, as Microsoft is calling the free software offering, opens up access to many more students.It’s also good for Microsoft’s business, Gates added.”We give up some revenue, but we gain the fact that we’ll get the feedback of these students, get more courses to incorporate our tools into the programs and get more startups where kids are familiar with Visual Studio, Expression Studio and SQL Server,” Gates said in a phone interview.The program, which Microsoft says will put its software and Web development tools in the hands of 1 billion students, gives momentum to an attack Microsoft launched on Adobe Systems Inc. last year with the release of Expression Studio and Silverlight, its answer to Adobe’s market-leading Photoshop and Illustrator design programs and Flash, the technology behind much of the video and animation on Web pages.”It’s a brilliant strategic move on the part of Microsoft,” said Chris Swenson, a software industry analyst with NPD Group. “This is one of the core audiences you have to hit if you really want to make a difference in the rich Internet application market going forward.”Handing out free copies of Expression Studio to students today increases the chance that the next big Web 2.0 craze will be designed with Microsoft’s tools and accessed using the Silverlight plug-in, rather than with open source and Adobe technology.DreamSpark could also win a generation of programmers away from open source software, which companies from small startups to Google Inc. use as an affordable, flexible alternative to software from the likes of Microsoft and database maker Oracle Inc.Gates said students will want to try Microsoft’s tools because they’re more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites.But Gates said giving away Microsoft software isn’t intended to turn students against open source software entirely. Rather, he hopes it will just add one more tool to their belt.Giving away Visual Studio, meanwhile, will help ensure a steady stream of new desktop and desktop-Web hybrid applications Microsoft hopes will keep consumers hooked on Windows PCs, even as more programs migrate to the Web.The programs are available now to more than 35 million college students in the U.S., Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K.DreamSpark will open to high school students around the world starting in the fall and to college students in other countries in the next year.Microsoft said it is working with individual schools, governments and student organizations in each country on systems that confirm students are currently enrolled.

Natalia BessmertnovaMOSCOW (AP) - Natalia Bessmertnova, a Soviet-era prima ballerina who danced with the Bolshoi Ballet for decades, died Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the ballet said. She was 66.The spokeswoman, Yekaterina Novikova, would not specify the cause of death. Russian media have reported that Bessmertnova had kidney trouble.She was named a People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1976 and was a laureate of the Soviet Union’s Lenin Prize and State Prize.She was a gold medalist at the prestigious Varna International Ballet Competition in 1965 and was awarded France’s Pavlova Prize in 1970.Bessmertnova was a top dancer at the Bolshoi from 1961 until 1995, the year she and other performers staged a one-night strike after the ballet’s longtime artistic director Yuri Grigorovich, her husband, quit during a dispute with management amid plans for his replacement.The refusal to perform “Romeo and Juliet” prompted the first cancellation in the ballet’s more than two-century history.In addition to Juliet, Bessmertnova also danced the leading female roles in ballets such as “Giselle,” “Ivan the Terrible,” “The Angara” and “The Golden Age.”In recent years, Bessmertnova had worked with Grigorovich on projects such as the Benois de la Danse Prize, for which he was the chairman of the jury.—Grits GreshamNATCHITOCHES, La. (AP) - Grits Gresham, noted outdoorsman, writer and television personality, has died after a lengthy illness, his family said. He was 85.Gresham, who served as field host and producer for “The American Sportsman” television series on ABC, died Monday at his home on the banks of Cane River Lake.Gresham’s affable personality and love for the outdoors combined with his trademarks, a driftwood hat and white muttonchops, made him a recognizable figure around the world.Entertainers such as Bing Crosby, Burt Reynolds, Jonathan Winters and Andy Griffith joined him on hunting and fishing trips, as did Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner.—Alain Robbe-GrilletPARIS (AP) - Alain Robbe-Grillet, an avant-garde author who dispensed with conventional storytelling as a pioneer of the postwar “new novel” movement in France, has died. He was 85.Robbe-Grillet died Monday at Caen University Hospital in western France, where he had been admitted over the weekend for cardiac problems, hospital officials said.He was among the most prominent of France’s “new novelists” that emerged in the 1950s, which included Nobel Prize laureate Claude Simon, Michel Butor and Nathalie Sarraute. The group’s experimental works tossed aside traditional literary conventions like plot and character development, narrative and chronology, chapters and punctuation.A trained agronomist, Robbe-Grillet in the 1940s suddenly felt drawn to writing, he explained years later. He wanted to tell a story “beyond the norm, in which the hero struggles within unhinged space and time.” He also was a filmmaker.Robbe-Grillet’s best-known works of fiction included “Les Gommes” (The Erasers) of 1953, a novel about a detective investigating an apparent murder who ends up killing the victim - and seen as the debut of the “new novel.” Two years later, he won France’s Critics Prize with “Le Voyeur” (The Voyeur), about the world seen through the eyes of a sadistic killer.—Mickey RenaudWINDSOR, Ontario (AP) - Mickey Renaud, an ice hockey player with the junior league Windsor Spitfires, has died after collapsing at his home in Tecumseh, the team said. Renaud was 19.Renaud, a fifth-round draft pick by the NHL’s Calgary Flames, was taken to a hospital Monday with no vital signs and attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, team physician Dr. Roy Diklich said.Renaud was pronounced dead in the emergency room at Windsor Regional Hospital, the Ontario Hockey League team said on its Web site. An autopsy was scheduled Tuesday, police said.Renaud, the captain, was in his third year with the Spitfires and had 21 goals and 41 points in 56 games this season.The 6-foot-3, 220-pound center showed solid development last season, when he scored 22 goals and amassed 54 points in 68 OHL games.Mark Renaud, his father, played 142 NHL games with the Hartford Whalers from 1979-1980 through 1982-83, and 10 games with the Buffalo Sabres in 1983-84.

MILWAUKEE Gathering strength, Sen. Barack Obama collected a key labor endorsement and coaxed away one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s delegates on Friday, at the same time he criticized his rival for supporting legislation harmful to workers.”Her supporting NAFTA didn’t give jobs to the American people,” Obama said of the free trade agreement implemented while Bill Clinton was in the White House. “Her supporting a bankruptcy bill made it harder for people to get out of debt that didn’t help them with the bills that were stacking up on their desks.”Obama traveled across Wisconsin during the day, hoping to add the state to an impressive string of primary victories. At the same time, he hoped his second labor endorsement in as many days, would help him in Ohio, Texas and other primary states, and block Clinton’s efforts to establish a campaign firewall.The Illinois senator won the endorsement of the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union, one day after he collected the support of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a politically active union 69,000 members in Ohio and another 26,000 in Texas. The food workers also have 19,000 members in Wisconsin, which holds a primary Tuesday.Addressing voters in Wisconsin, Obama accused Clinton of lashing out at him as a cheap ploy to get ahead and being so divisive that she couldn’t pass her signature effort of health care reform.”Hollering at Republicans and engaging in petty partisan politics didn’t help health care get done,” he said. “The American people don’t want to play the same games. They don’t want the cheap shots. They don’t want the negative ads. What they are looking for are solutions and bringing people together.”Obama’s advisers say even though some of his supporters assume she is on the verge of collapse, it would be a mistake to underestimate the Clintons. They have proven their ability again and again to make a comeback when they were at their lowest.Clinton has suffered a spate of crippling developments - eight straight losses, campaign finance problems, a shake-up of her staff - but has fresh reason for hope in recent polls. A poll of Wisconsin voters released Friday found Obama with only a slight edge in a state he was expected to win.In Wisconsin, she’s airing ads criticizing Obama for refusing to debate her in the state - which Obama called a “curious argument” since they have two debates scheduled in the next two weeks. But he added more campaign stops before Tuesday’s primary to shore up his support.Recent polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania show Clinton with a more than 15-percentage point advantage. She’s pinning her campaign hopes on winning Texas and Ohio on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22.Obama’s support from SEIU and the 1.3-million member United Food and Commercial Workers a day earlier gives him an organizational boost in those critical states with large numbers of working-class voters. Sarah Swisher, a superdelegate and an SEIU member from Iowa City, switched from Clinton to Obama after her union’s endorsement.In the latest delegate count by The Associated Press, Obama had 1,280 and Clinton 1,218/Obama has cultivated an image of being above the fray, and his criticism of Clinton usually comes in the form of a response to her charges. But he’s not above upping the ante, as he did Friday during a stop in Milwaukee.During a news conference, he was asked about Clinton’s accusation that he watered down a bill regulating the nuclear industry. He pointed out that Clinton is criticizing him for a bill she voted for and touted on her Web site.”I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal,” he told reporters.At a subsequent rally at the downtown Midwest Airlines Center, Obama brought up her latest criticism of him as someone who gives a good speech but doesn’t have much action to show for it. Clinton told voters in Cincinnati Friday, “This primary election offers a very big choice to the voters of Ohio. You can choose speeches or solutions.”"She’s right,” Obama said in Milwaukee. “Speeches alone don’t do anything. But you know what, neither do negative attacks.”

Microsoft is giving itself high marks in its first year Vista security report, at least when comparing the OS first year vulnerability and patch statistics to its Windows OS predecessor and other modern workstation operating systems, such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Apple Mac OS.Microsoft employee Jeff Jones has published a Windows Vista one-year vulnerability report in his Security Blog that includes analysis of the company’s newest operating system alongside Windows XP and several competitors.During the Vista’s first year of availability, 17 security bulletins, patching 36 vulnerabilities, were released for the OS on occasions, according to Jeff Jones, security strategy director in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. Jones also found that a change to the way Microsoft handles patching has resulted in less work for system administrators on Vista compared to Windows XP.atch events [distributions of one or more bulletin] are an indirect measure of how the combination of product security quality and vendor update release policies and processes impact security administrators specifically, how many days in the year did the administrators have to mobilize to deploy one or more security updates, Jones said on his security blog. y analysis found that administrators were required to mobilize much less often for Windows Vista than any other product examined.The report has been criticized for not taking into account factors like software quality, administrative controls, physical controls, or just how damaging each exploit can be.Jones notes, however, that the report is not an attempt to prove which operating system is ore secure than the others, but rather an analysis on how Microsoft improvements to the security update process and development process have reduced the impact of security updates to Windows administrators significantly compared to its predecessor, Windows XP.Microsoft released Vista for enterprise clients, along with Office 2007, in November 2006. The home version was distributed two months later.

Visual WebGui, developer of the AJAX enterprise application development and deployment platform, has announced the availability of their browser-based solution.Visual WebGui is an open source framework, which is available for graphical user interfaces used for web applications. Visual WebGui, which is integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET framework, is expected to launch a Microsoft Silverlight compliant solution, supported by Microsoft.Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), is a combination of Javascript and XML technologies that allow the content of a web page to be updated without reloading the entire page, thereby enabling browser-based applications to behave like software applications.Visual WebGui solves the development setbacks associated with AJAX by providing developers with a Rapid Application Development solution with full Win Forms support. Visual WebGui is delivered with a designer, the application interfaces (WinForms designer), instead of Word documents (ASP.NET designer). This enables interfaces using drag-and-drop editing. Visual WebGui is available under LGPL.

BEIJING China’s work safety agency warned Monday that a new wave of accidents could be triggered as coal mines shut by the wintry weather resume operations.The State Administration of Work Safety warned on its Web site that the buildup of deadly gases, flooding and unstable power supply at the mines could all cause problems.Nearly 1,800 mines in the southern provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan - all hit hard by freak snowstorms - have accumulated gases because they were forced to shut down because of power cuts, it said. Another 600 mines have been flooded.”Because of the effects of the weather, many coal mines lost power and had to shut. Others closed over the Lunar New Year holiday, and small mines are starting to open again after the vacation, putting huge pressures on safety,” the agency said.”Power supplies to coal mines in disaster-hit provinces are not operating normally, leading to many hidden dangers,” it warned.Heavy ice and snow storms during January and through the Lunar New Year this month paralyzed much of China’s rail and road transport, froze power grids and stranded hundreds of thousands of people heading home for the holiday.In a related development, the agency denied that the current coal shortage was due to the closure of small, illegal pits.”China is not short of coal as the country turned out 2.53 billion tons last year, a rise of 8.2 percent year on year. Output could jump by 3.3 percent this year,” said agency spokesman Huang Yi in a recent online interview.Last month, the government reported that it had shut down more than 11,000 illegal coal mines as part of a two-year-old safety crackdown aimed at stemming the industry’s high death toll.China’s coal mining industry is the world’s deadliest, with accidents claiming nearly 3,800 lives last year, down 20 percent from 2006.China relies on coal to keep its economy steaming ahead, and mining operators routinely cut corners on safety to cash in on high prices and soaring demand.

Salesforce.com has extended its platform as a service offering with the addition of Force.com Development-as-a-Service - a new set of development tools and APIs that help enterprise developers harness the full potential of cloud computing. Force.com, which was first unveiled during the company’s Dreamforce conference in September, is built on the company’s proprietary Visualforce technology. It gives customers, developers and independent software vendors (ISV) the ability to create custom applications and user interfaces that can be accessed from desktop PCs, iPhones or retail kiosks using the Salesforce.com service.A new API will allow developers to access Salesforce metadata. Developers will be given full access to the platform, offering data that had previously been managed by wizards and setup tools. Salesforce also unveiled a new integrated development environment, and a service known as 慍odeshare which allows developers to collaborate remotely on a project. A new ’sandbox’ option allows developers to test applications in a protected environment. The new tools are part of a larger campaign to bring third-party developers onboard. Salesforce plans to promote Force.com with a global tour dubbed ‘Tour de Force’.Salesforce.com has also released a new pay-per-login payment option for users to access applications developed on its Force.com platform.An enterprise building a low-volume, occasional use application through Force.com, such as an online vacation scheduling app, faces a list price of USD 5 for each user login, but will only be charged 99 cents through 2008 in an effort to promote use of the new platform. More frequently used applications will carry a fee of USD 50 per user per month for an unlimited number of logins.

JBoss a division of Red Hat announced the Enterprise Application Platform in version 4.3, which is upgraded with messaging and Web services technologies. Various JBoss.org components have been integrated into JBoss Enterprise Application Platform v4.3 and are fully supported for use in both development and production.The platform provides open-source technologies for the development and deployment of Java Enterprise Application Services and integrates the JBoss Application Server with Hibernate Seam and for the development of Web applications. JBoss Messaging serves as a messaging architecture for JBoss 4.3 and 5.0. JBoss Web Services, another part of the platform, now supported, according to a press report JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web Services), a Web service API, the JAX-RPC 1.0 in the Java stack.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.