A little unexpected gift from Microsoft this evening, DirectX9 has shown up and is available for download from the official website through one of those fun web download interface apps. Feel free to share any benchmark speed bumps in 3DMark or whatever games you're playing, results seem to vary pretty wildly so far. Thanks 3DChipset update: It seems that MS has pulled the file for now, but ya never know it may show up again in a few hours, as things like this tend to happen.

..for more than $1 billion. Sun is saying Microsoft has made Windows XP incompatible with Java, which is "extensive anticompetitive conduct". The company now wants to force Microsoft to include Java with XP and Internet Explorer. Thanks Captain Cobra. Update: More is up at CNet (thanks TheOccifer). CNet's article contains this little gem

"It is ironic that we spent three years in litigation with Sun over their attempt to stop us from shipping Java in Windows, and now they are complaining that we are not shipping it by default in Windows XP," said Jim Cullinan, Windows XP lead product manager.