Technology-The Road ahead

Intel Says ‘Hair Isn’t on Fire’ Over Tablets’ Impact

2011-01-08T01:53:00.001-08:00

Intel Corp., facing criticism that the personal-computer industry hasn’t responded quickly enough to Apple Inc.’s iPad, said concerns that tablets will replace PCs are overblown.

Consumers are buying iPads as a separate item, rather than swapping out their computers, said Tom Kilroy, head of sales at Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker. A typical iPad owner may delay buying their next laptop, but the lag is probably only about two or three months, he said. Intel expects PC sales to grow about 14 percent this year.

“Our hair isn’t on fire,” Kilroy said in an interview yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “If you talk to retailers, most of them will tell you that the people who are coming in to buy them are coming in to buy them as additional devices.”

While Intel’s chips run more than 80 percent of the world’s PCs, it hasn’t converted that into success in the tablet market. Earlier this week, Piper Jaffray Cos. analyst Gus Richard cut his rating on Intel’s stock, saying the company is missing the next wave of computing.

Shares of Santa Clara, California-based Intel fell four out of five days this week. The stock dropped 11 cents to $20.66 today on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Taken by Surprise?

Microsoft Corp. also has faced criticism that the PC industry was caught napping by the iPad, which debuted in April. Using technology from Intel and Microsoft, computer makers have struggled for a decade to produce a successful tablet. Apple sold 7.46 million iPads through September of last year, proving that the concept could catch on with consumers.

Rather than using Intel processors in the iPad, Apple opted for a chip design from ARM Holdings Plc, which mostly caters to the mobile-phone industry. Microsoft also is embracing ARM. The software maker announced plans this week for an operating system that will work with the company’s chips, a move aimed at tackling the tablet market.

Intel isn’t ignoring tablets, Kilroy said. Its processors will start appearing in a slew of new iPad competitors this year. Intel expects the market for tablets to range between 40 and 50 million devices in 2011, he said.

“We are not at all in denial saying that tablets aren’t a big thing,” Kilroy said. “It’s a big category and a growing category.”

Microsoft: Kinect Hacks Are ‘Cool’

2011-01-08T01:50:00.001-08:00

One of the questions I asked Dennis was what he thought of all the hacking of the Kinect that’s been going on in just the short couple of months since the motion-gaming system’s been out. To my surprise, he was pretty interested in what the hackers had been doing with Kinect. “It’s pretty cool to see what the community has come up with,” he said.

Indeed, it seems like every day, some smart, resourceful young hacker comes up with some neat new use for Kinect, from 3-D video capture toreal-time lightsaber action to controlling your “World of Warcraft” character with Kinect.

When the Kinect was first launched, Microsoft frowned upon hacking Kinect. But after the first few hacks began coming out, the company changed its stance to a more neutral position. “We don’t see any harm in it,” Dennis tells me, adding that the company will continue to evaluate what’s going on outside official Kinect limits. That’s not exactly a full out embrace of the Kinect hacker community, but it’s certainly an encouraging note to them.

Microsoft itself is constantly thinking about the different possible applications for Kinect, from academic to vocational to medical applications. I tell Dennis that Kinect will have to eventually move off of the Xbox 360 and officially be available for other systems and devices if that broad vision of Kinect applications is to come about. He agreed and it sounds like the company in the long term is considering that possibility.Reports suggest that Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer himself is thinking about supporting Kinect on the PC.

Dennis and I also talked about some of Kinect’s latest updates, including its latest facial expression tracking ability. In Ballmer’s CES keynote on Wednesday night, he showed off how Kinect could now track basic facial expressions, like matching mouth and eyebrow movement. Microsoft has been working on improving its facial tracking abilities, Dennis tells me. Before, it was simply facial recognition. Now, Microsoft is upgrading Kinect to be able to track dozens of points on a person’s face, enabling facial expression tracking.

The first application of expression tracking is “Avatar Kinect”, a new title on Xbox Live that essentially allows you, and a group of your friends as well, to host your own talk show through your Xbox Live avatars. Kinect tracks your expressions and actions, replicating those with your avatar. You can choose from different virtual settings too. Initially, you’ll be able to share recorded videos from Avatar Kinect with friends through things like Facebook or email. But one day, you might even be able to publish your own public video channel on Xbox Live, like you can do with YouTube, but with your avatar. Dennis says Microsoft is considering such an option, though the company would need to work out privacy and parental control issues first.

Finally, I asked Dennis what was in store for Microsoft’s game systems in 2011. He says to expect more games and more variety from Kinect, like educational games, fitness games, and even core games that appeal to Microsoft’s traditional user base.

How to Get Traffic to Frame Breaking Sites

2010-11-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have been exploring tons of traffic exchanges since past one year. Some are really bad and some don't meet my requirement.Loaded with features which are of not much use and false hits i ended up spending hours on the net without a good ROI.

One day i stumbled over sioniam.com. The first thing that came to my mind.."Aah.. another traffic exchange". Then i read through their content, getting 2 visits per site.This was new and that too on autosurf. "Hmmm.. interesting". The next item that captured my attention was "Get free hits" now that was surprising.. i've always got less than what i earned on other traffic exchanges. Now on to next one... get hits to framebreaking sites...this is it "This is the one i have been looking for .. yippeee". Not wasting a second, i registered. Now i get hits to sites like linkbucks,adf.ly,linkbee..etc. They also have tie up with 180 traffic exchanges which opens the door to advertise to millions of users.

This is how the site operates...

Manual Surf: The traditional surf with 20 secs timer.This gives enough time for our users to go through the site and comment.The exchange ratio is 1:0.75 ratio i.e you earn .75 when you visit a site and loose 1 when others view yours. No Ads. Auto Surf: If clicking is not an option for you, use our Auto surf. Start the surf and relax, sites will rotate automatically and earn you points with a 1:0.4 surf ratio. No Ads. Auto Surf- with Ads: This is auto surf with Ads and surf ratio of 1:2. So, for every site you visit you will earn 2 points and each hit will cost you 1. Points to Click & SilverSurfer: There is no traffic exchange site that accepts frame-breaking website. Add any frame-breaking or pop-up sites.This is 5:3 exchange ratio.Add your url shorten link here and earn tons of cash with our clicks. FREE...FREE Hits: Are you stuck in a busy life and can't spend time? Are you losing out on traffic and money?. Don't worry,we will provide FREE hits to your site. Just install a piece of our publisher Ads on your site and earn 20%- 60% of impressions it generates.Just add code, relax and see traffic grow.

Earn Cash: You can earn unlimited cash by converting your points to dollars.We have daily payouts with a minimum of $5.

I love the last part..though i was skeptical before. I found some payment proofs http://paid-to-click-site.weebly.com/updates.html and i did get paid :-)

If i have to summarize the 2 best things of the site...

1) Free hits... Add their code to your site and earn 20%-80% credits of impressions generated on their ad. The percentage varies based on the total number of hits generated.

2) Best customer support... the admin is very professional and responses are very quick. Though i didn't have much complaints but whenever i had it was dealt quickly,positively and in an empathize way.

This site truley rocks... Join now through this link click here or http://sioniam.com

Yahoo entering Social Marketing...

2010-08-19T00:27:00.000-07:00

Yahoo is gearing up to meet the giants in social networking and beat them to ground.

If you are wondering who the new Giant in the social networking is, it’s none other than Yahoo.With it’s already huge email subscriber base it expects to have a giant leap into social networking.Taking a step further than Google Buzz, Yahoo will let’s its 280 million e-mail users to exchange comments, pictures and news articles with details maintained in address books. These features will be turned on by default and users will have access to features automatically. Though users already involved in social networking might like this but others who signed up for the free service perhaps never imagining the people they e-mailed would become friends for sharing vacation videos, political causes and random thoughts throughout the day and users will have to manually unsubscribe from these features.

Privacy will be a big issue that yahoo needs to be watchful & thoughtful about. With recent Facebook incident, existing social networking have tightened up their Privacy standards with various tools/features.To allay privacy concerns, Yahoo said it would give users a week’s notice before launching the new features and provide a single button on the site for opting out entirely.Though yahoo ventured into social network earlier with connections and friends it couldn’t set its USP and tap a sizeable user segment. With this new initiative yahoo wants to turn this failure a big success.They are trying to capitalize their exisitng Email user base and also partner with Yahoo Finance, Facebook,Flickr and Twitter.

Starting 7th June, users will see notifications about these changes.User who don’t want to participate can click one button on the settings page to opt out. Or they can customize each piece of information a Facebook update or a comment on a Yahoo news story to either be shared with Yahoo e-mail contacts or Facebook.With Yahoo gearing up, google needs to watch out and be more aggresive with it’s not so successful Google buzz.

Android gaining momentum with tablet P.C makers.

2010-07-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

More than 95% of the P.C’s are shipped with windows operating system. But there seems to be a swift shift which might turn the tables around. Android originally developed for cell phones in gaining preference with computer makers wasting no time putting it to use in other devices. Several hardware makers have shifted to Android this year.

Windows is too big and it’s too full featured for smart(net)books and primarily for tablets. android comes to their rescue and has stabilized enough in the pat year for hardware makers to unite behind.Android has become the fastest growing mobile operating system in the world and, in fact, it has surpassed iPhone in terms of growth and in terms of users

With iPad’s success it’s proven that tablets are the future of computer industry. Apple sold 1 million iPads during the first four weeks it was on sale, winning praise from users for its sleek and intuitive user interface, as well as its long battery life.Android and Windows7 will need to match Apple’s success, it might not be easy but with right modifications to these operating system it will be the clash of the Titans

Google is all geared up optimizing Android’s capabilities,like perforamnce & graphics, to be a good tablet operating system. Microsoft on other hand will not be sitting idle. With huge success of Windows7, with great graphics and performance inbuilt are trying their best to optimize it for smartbooks and tablets.Based on current market, Windwos Xp has been a sure winner with 90% of the netbooks shipping with Windwos xp. It will be an interesting battle to watch out for in the days to come

Top blackjack myths unveiled

2010-07-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

A large number of players who prefer online casinos to brick-and-mortar gambling houses often lose their money because of believing in various myths and rumors that spread around the web. If you don't want to make part of that number you have to be cautious about the most common myths blackjack players tell about when playing online.

Myth #1: Card counting is not required

Those of you who have spent a bit of time at the table know that card counting is the most basic winning strategy, and the myth tells that you don't need it to win at the game.

Fact #1:

It's almost impossible to beat the dealer if you don't know what cards are remaining in the deck. That's why players use card counting in order to raise the odds of winning against the house. If you have read about a strategy that doesn't tell you to count cards then it's definitely not a strategy that will help you win in the long run. Card counting isn't as complicated as some players think it is, there are ways you can easily count cards and raise your chances of winning, and that's definitely what you want in the end, right?

Myth #2: In order to win you need only the basic strategy

You don't need any complicated strategies in order to win, you just need to learn the basic strategy that is available even at online casino sites and you will win for sure.

Fact #2:

Most players who use only the basic strategy lose nearly all of the time. That's because in most cases the basic strategy is given directly at the online casino's site and there's no sense for the casino to post such things other than increasing their in-house odds and fooling players. There are numerous books on blackjack winning strategies that are based around the very same basic strategy and not that many players can say that these tips have helped them. In order to win you will need something more effective in raising your odds at online blackjack than the basic strategy.

Myth #3: Get as close to 21 as you can in order to win

This is probably the most common myth among those who have only started to play blackjack and are new to the game. This is a popular misconception because blackjack is also sometimes called as the game of 21. And assuming that's the main goal of the game, new players believe that it's crucial to get close to 21.

Fact #3:

The main goal of the game is not getting close to 21. In order to win at blackjack you have to beat the dealer's hand, have a larger count with the cards you have than the house has. No matter if it will be 13 against 9, you will still win if it's your count that's larger. Many rookies make the common mistake and try to get as close to 21, taking more cards and busting their chances by going beyond 21. Leave the number behind and focus on the dealer's hands - that will give you much greater chances of winning.

Blackjack tournaments: online vs real world

2010-07-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

The popularity of blackjack tournaments is constantly increasing and it's no big surprise that many online casinos offer more tournaments with larger prizes on a regular basis. And by "regular basis" we mean the possibility to take part in an online tournament virtually at any time of the day. However, you have to understand that there are substantial differences between online and land based tournaments, and knowing these differences is very important for any blackjack player

A large part of players get involved into tournaments because of the adrenaline rash and the intensity of playing with other participants head to head. Those who regularly take part in such tournaments say that it's a real pleasure to sit with other players at the same table, watching them make their bets, following their expressions and feeling the real excitement of a challenge that is just not the same when you play one on one with a dealer. Tournaments represent a real challenge and test of skills for any player, especially when it comes to the elimination rounds. The way the people interact and get involved in the drama is something that can be as valuable as the prize itself. No wonder that there are so many blackjack tournament games even on the TV these days.

Of course, these feelings are a bit hard to experience when it comes to playing blackjack online. Web-based tournaments just can't bring the excitement of a real life tournament because it's just you and your computer, no one else. Of course, you can play a tournament with players all over the world instantly by joining any big online casino tournament but that can be hardly compared to seeing a real living person next to you. Still, it's a matter of personal choice and preference, because some players are in for the excitement and emotions, while others are in just for the playing experience and the prize.

What makes online blackjack a really interesting feature is that it lets players all over the world put their skills to the test and win real money in a tournament against other players. There's no need to enroll in special events or even leave your home - everything you need to play a game is within your reach and it's only you and your skills that really matter. For those, who don't excited by the thrill of a real tournament or those who aren't just confident in their abilities this is probably the best way to enjoy real professional poker.

One can say that it all depends on how introvert or extrovert a person is. If you're seeking attention and love seeing another person near you get nervous when you hit blackjack, then you will definitely find online tournaments boring and lacking the real excitement of the game. But if you jut want to win and don't care about who's sitting next to you and don't want to be distracted from your strategy then playing online seems like a perfect choice for you. Of course, the best way is to try both things and define what works best for you.

The slots operators are threatening to sue

2010-07-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Just as we all used to follow the form of horses - think the Great Depression and the success of Seabiscuit to see we all love a champion - the latest form book covers the race among US states to balance their budgets. Of course, everyone has been focussing on California with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the charge to the winning post on getting the budget signed into law. He has enough strength for arm twisting and 'gator wrassling to bulldoze the bill through. But Pennsylvania is just as interesting with the Governor's office matching California's use of IOUs by refusing to pay funds to the four state universities. Probably someone somewhere is running a book on which US state will be the first to declare itself bankrupt. These would be the front runners among an alarming number of states lacking initial prudence and the political will to raise taxes, to cut spending, or both.

Anyway, the real point of interest in Pennsylvania is the growing threat of litigation from the group of license holders who run slot machines. When the licenses were first issued, the state sold maximum exclusivity for a high fee (that's $50 million a license). The enabling law is very clear. No other gambling outlet will be allowed to compete directly with the market for slot machines. At the time, this looked a good deal for both sides. Gambling was a popular activity and the state benefited from a generous input to its finances. Fast forward and the recession has forced people to cut back on their discretionary spending. This means less money to spend on trips to gamble. Ironically, the casino operators to benefit from this have been online. Had it not been for the changes in the law making it difficult to move money into and out of the online casino accounts, they would have cleaned up. So this leaves the current license holders under pressure with building work on some of the proposed casino and resort sites put on hold. While the government finds an expanding black hole eating up its cash reserves as tax revenue falls. The state's answer is proposals to increase the number of slot machines allowed in the existing resorts and to license new resorts. To the existing license holders, this looks like plans to allow direct competition from new operators. They are up in arms with their attorneys slavering on the end of a short leash, just waiting for the chance to sue.

There's no doubt slots still represents a pot of gold for both the license holders and the state. The machines are still a big draw even though the recession is biting hard. But this plan looks like an expansion too far. The average spend has dropped. If the state increases the number of machines, this will only spread the same amount of money around more machines. It's not going to increase the size of the spend. This leaves the state with a growing hole in its accounts and the existing license holders with a good case in contract and constitutional law. With the online casinos introducing new slots games every month and keeping up player interest, this is no time to be fighting over a reducing market in the real world.

Your Webpage Speed to Determine Your Success

2010-06-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

It’s all about speed,Google a synonym for speed will be ranking your webpages based on the speed of your webpage.It has already generated the impact with its fast Web applications,search, web applications and services and wants to generate the same on the webpages it ranks to enable users to land on the desired page sooner.

Google has said,it has begun considering site speed as one of many signals it uses to determine the relevance of a Web page in search results.Web sites that fail to optimize for fast loading now face a greater likelihood of being ranked lower on Google search results pages.

Don’t be too worried, speed will not carry as much weight as a page’s relevance and note that less than 1% of search queries are impacted by the change.Based on a study faster sites create happy users and studies show that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don’t just improve user experience; recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed.

Users can check on free tools like Alexa , to evaluate the speed at which their Web sites load.Other being PageSpeed ( Firefox and Firebug), YSlow from yahoo, WebPagetest ( Google).

The first victim’s for this would be the sites in English and those which comeup in googl search

Windows 7 catalyst for Virtualization

2010-04-08T02:48:00.000-07:00

With most of the CIOs thinking about desktop virtualization a good boom is expected in the virtualization market and this year could set the stage with projects to pilots small deployments.Based on a survey,among 800 businesses worldwide 31% plan to implement VDI in 2010( double of last year), 37% are planning to go for application virtualization( 15% from last year) and 30% of organizations plan to deploy hosted critical desktops in 2010.

The flip side to this is 2/3 rd of customers either won’t deploy desktop and application virtualization this year, or are undecided.There is still skepticism about the technology’s counterpart on the desktop with critical failures of desktop which could land users in dead water.Besides, this also required significant IT staff training.Some early adopters say they have saved money by prolonging the life of PCs or using less expensive thin clients, and that hosting desktop images in the data center improves manageability and makes it easier to restore an employee’s desktop in case of device failure.

With many businesses planning to upgrade to the Windows 7 operating system, IT departments are taking a closer look at virtual desktop models. They understand they have to retool their desktop infrastructure. That’s causing them to put everything on the table, including desktop virtualization.

Though Windows 7 is acting like a catalyst,even those who adopt desktop virtualization aren’t likely to virtualize their entire desktop infrastructures right away.But the next step of desktop evolution has a good kick-start with windows7 and it’s matter of time when desktops will be rarely found.

Microsoft recruited top-notch guns for Waledac takedown

2010-03-02T03:37:00.002-08:00

DG News Service - Four days ago, top-notch computer security researchers launched an assault on Waledac, a highly sophisticated botnet responsible for spreading spam and malicious software.
Today, more than 60,000 PCs worldwide that have been infected with malicious code are now under the control of researchers, marking the effort one of the most highly successful coordinated efforts against organized cybercrime.
Microsoft revealed on Wednesday that it gained a court order that compelled VeriSign, the .com registry, to remove 277 ".com" names from its rolls, effectively cutting off communication between the Waledac's controllers and their infected machines.
The legal action is unprecedented at the domain name level, said Andre M. DiMino, co-founder of The Shadowserver Foundation, a group that tracks botnets and helped take down Waledac. In June 2009, a federal court ordered the shutdown of 3FN, a rogue ISP supplying connectivity to botnets such as Pushdo and Mega-D, but this appears to be the first major action at the domain-name level.
"It's definitely pretty groundbreaking," DiMino said. "To disable and disrupt a botnet at this level is really pulling the weed out by the root."
But behind the scenes, Microsoft's legal action was just one component of a synchronized campaign to bring down Waledac.
Last year, researchers with the University of Mannheim in Germany and Technical University Vienna in Austria published a research paper showing how it was possible to infiltrate and control the Waledec botnet. They had studied Waledac's complicated peer-to-peer communication mechanism.
Microsoft -- which was annoyed by Waledec due to its spamming of Hotmail accounts -- contacted those researchers about two weeks ago to see if they could perform their attack for real, according one of the University of Mannheim researchers, who did not want to be identified.
"They asked me if there was also a way besides taking down those domains of redirecting the command-and-control traffic," said the Mannheim researcher.
Waledac distributes instructions through command-and-control servers that work with a peer-to-peer system. Led by a researcher who did his bachelor thesis on Waledac, the action began early this week.
"This was more or less an aggressive form of what we did before," the Mannheim researcher said. "We disrupted the peer-to-peer layer to redirect traffic not to botmaster servers but to our servers."
At the same time, Microsoft's legal efforts brought down domain names that were used to send new instructions to drones.
The result has been dramatic: Up to 90 percent of the infected machines, which amount to at least 60,000 computers, are now controlled by researchers, half of which are in the U.S. and Europe and the rest scattered around the globe.

Microsoft, comScore Strike Targeting Pact

2010-03-02T03:37:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has entered an exclusive partnership with comScore, which will provide its ad sales team with the ability to target specific consumers of packaged goods products, as well as other consumers who share their characteristics.

The year-long exclusive deal will see Microsoft tap into comScore’s new Audience Advantage platform, which was rolled out earlier this week. Essentially, the arrangement should bolster the targeting capabilities of the Microsoft Media Network; sellers will be able to locate a brand’s actual consumers on the network by marrying offline data from a third-party loyalty-shopping company with online data from comScore (a database of 350,000 anonymous users). That same brand can also theoretically reach a far larger audience of "look alike" consumers—users who share similar traits—on Microsoft’s network using comScore’s audience modeling tools.

The new partnership is specifically designed for the consumer packaged goods category, which is still underrepresented in the online advertising space. Both Campbell Soup Company and Alberto Culver have signed on to use the targeting tools.

“If you sell a certain product to an 18- [to] 34-year-old female demographic, this allows us to get a little bit closer,” said Microsoft Advertising director James Colborn. “This is a tool that can better inform a standard media buy. We can find people who look like your shopping target.”

The new tool should also provide Microsoft a leg up in the competitive and cluttered ad network space. “This is a differentiator,” said Colborn. “We really wanted to be first to market.”

Microsoft’s Audience network has climbed from 15th place to 5th over the past year among comScore’s network rankings, reaching 165.5 million unique users as of December. The network includes inventory on both Microsoft’s own properties and sites owned by major media companies, such as Viacom.

Microsoft, UW partner for cloud-services integration

2010-03-02T03:36:00.001-08:00

Here's a fun statistic: A University of Washington study found that when freshmen arrive on campus, each already has an average of 3.5 e-mail addresses.

That's just the start of it. More than 64,000 UW students and faculty have Facebook accounts, said Terry Gray, associate vice president of technology strategy at the university. Of course, thousands of Huskies are on Twitter, Gmail, YouTube, Windows Live, Skype, GoToMeeting, Yahoo – shall I keep going?
Each service requires its own authentication, or username and password. And unless you use the exact same info for each Web site – bad idea! – you have to remember all of that mumbo-jumbo.
A solution?
The UW's IT staff and Microsoft are working together on single-sign-on technology through Live@edu, Microsoft's student-oriented hosted e-mail, communications and collaboration service similar to the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). (By the way, Ron Markezich, corporate vice president for Online Services, on Wednesday said Live@edu will soon be branded something along the lines of BPOS@edu.)
The technology, currently in testing, will allow UW and non-UW researchers to collaborate and also allow students to connect to third-party online services through their UW NetIDs.
"We concluded that cloud computing is actually a pretty big deal," Gray told an audience of public-sector CIOs on Thursday at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. "It's a tsunami that can't be stopped, so we had a decision to either surface it or drown in it."

Nick Eaton/seattlepi.com

During a conference workshop for public-sector CIOs, the UW's Terry Gray shows off just a small part of the complex world of cloud services.
Click to enlarge

From the outside looking in, the technology isn't very sexy. In fact, in its current implementation the Identity Federation service looks like – well, is – a log-in page.
But there's a lot of complexity under the hood – lots of acronyms. It works through claims-based Federated Identity Management (FIdM) in Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), and through Active Directory (AD) via Active Directory Federation Services (ADFSv2 – formerly codenamed "Geneva"). Outside of a Microsoft-based undercarriage, SAML/Shibboleth federation supports OpenLDAP.
I'm stopping because my head is hurting. If you want more information on the technical aspects, go here or here.
Dave Fisher, senior program manager for Microsoft's Live@edu team, said the technology will be broadly available by late 2010.
"We have the technologies, they're real, we're putting this together," he told the workshop audience Thursday, "and we're looking forward to offering these to all of you, to all of our customers."

Evolution of Windows

2010-02-10T10:31:00.001-08:00

Facebook beats Twitter,Blogging, preferred more by young adults

2010-02-05T01:37:00.000-08:00

According to Pew Research Center Study ( a Washington, D.C., nonprofit think tank) released on wednesday,Teenagers and young adults spent less time blogging during the past three years as social networks like Facebook became more popular.

The study was designed to gauge the online habits of America's "millennial generation," a demographic group that is considered a bellwether of the nation's future technology trends.Twitter, has failed to catch on with the vast majority of younger teenagers, according to the Pew study of social media and mobile Internet use among teens and young adults.

The results indicate blogging has become so 2006, when 28 percent of the two groups studied, teens 12 to 17 and young adults 18 to 29, actively blogged.

By the fall of 2009, that percentage dropped off to only 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults as blogging "lost its luster for many young users," said Amanda Lenhart, one of the report's authors.

Lenhart said one reason for the shift might have come from the rapid ascent of Facebook over MySpace to the top of the social media charts in the past year. The MySpace format encourages members to blog, while Facebook instead features short status updates, she said.

Palo Alto's Facebook was used by 73 percent of young adults, compared with 48 percent for MySpace and 14 percent for the professional network LinkedIn, based in Mountain View.

About 52 percent of those surveyed had memberships in more than one social network, up from 42 percent in 2008.

Meanwhile, only 40 percent of adults age 30 and older used social media sites in 2009, although among that group, blogging activities increased to 11 percent from 7 percent three years earlier.

Twitter usage, however, showed the opposite trend. Only 8 percent of online teens said they had ever used the San Francisco microblogging service, a result that reflects previous research that indicated Twitter - unlike other online technologies - is not being driven by younger audiences. Teens clearly preferred sending text messages - 66 percent - to tweeting.

The Pew study found 19 percent of the adults polled used Twitter or similar services to post or view online status updates, although Lenhart noted the questions posed to that group were not the same asked of the younger group, so the results might not be exactly comparable.

The study also found:
-- 59 percent of young adults owned a video game console like a Microsoft Xbox or Sony PlayStation, and 22 percent owned a portable gaming device like a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS. The percentages were even greater for teens - 80 percent had a game console and 51 percent owned a portable.

-- Almost 4 in 5 teenagers, 79 percent, owned an iPod or MP3 player.

-- Of teens, 62 percent went online to get news of current events or politics.

-- More young adults, 66 percent, owned a laptop computer than a desktop, 53 percent.

And 81 percent of young adults who went online did so wirelessly, compared with 63 percent of adults age 30 to 49 and 34 percent of adults 50 and older.

"Young adults have really created this detached, mobile lifestyle," Lenhart said.

For the study, 2,253 adults age 18 and older and 800 teenagers age 12 to 17 were interviewed last summer.

Previous Pew results released from the same research found that 15 percent of teens sent or received sexually suggestive messages, called "sexting," and that 1 in 3 teens have sent text messages while driving.

Axe effect: It'll clean your balls

2010-02-01T02:37:00.000-08:00

A must see very funny video from Axe detailer

Windows Mobile 7.0 to be released..

2010-02-01T02:18:00.000-08:00

Microsoft will show off the next version of its mobile operating system next month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the company's chief financial officer said in an interview with Fox Business Network on Friday.

No surprise – Microsoft has already set a Windows Mobile news conference for Feb. 15. But the Redmond-based company never went so far as to explicitly say it would talk about Windows Mobile 7

Why iPad cannot succeed

2010-02-01T02:10:00.000-08:00

As much of the world ooh'd and ahh'd at Apple's new iPad on Wednesday, many in the tech industry scoffed at what they see as the new tablet's big downside: the inability to directly install third-party applications; everything is filtered through the Apple App Store.

Courtesy of doubleTwist
Who's Big Brother now, Steve? Click to enlarge
Among the hoards of tech journalists and Apple fanboys at the iPad launch in San Fransisco were protesters from the Free Software Foundation, which advocates against digital restrictions management (DRM).

"This is a huge step backward in the history of computing," the foundation's Holmes Wilson said in a news release. "If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad."

Did Apple CEO Steve Jobs forget about the warnings of "1984" – not just the George Orwell novel, but the iconic commercial that positioned the Apple Macintosh as humanity's way out from under Big Brother?

As the tablet-computer race finally heats up after a decade of cold reception, Microsoft may – and probably will – get a boost from its core base of partners. While a company must seek Apple's first-hand approval to get a product in the App Store, all it has to do to get its product on a Windows 7-powered tablet is, well, release it.

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shows the new HP Slate computer and e-reader during his keynote address at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show on Jan. 7 in Las Vegas. Click to enlarge
While none of them got anywhere close to the amount of hype Apple ingeniously (Cupertino never even acknowledged the thing) achieved for the iPad, there is a good handful of slates already being sold by manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. Microsoft has a solid hand in that market because they run Windows 7, which natively supports touch screens.

The limitation, however, is that Windows 7 was not engineered specifically for touch-centric user interfaces. The iPad's operating system, based off of the iPhone OS, was made for touch screens from the get-go.

Right now, UI design likely will be the iPad's advantage when it is released in two months. But Windows tablet PCs, if they're sold at the same price point, will have much more flexibility when it comes to third-party software – even though there are more than 140,000 options in the Apple App Store.

"Your computer should be yours to control," said Peter Brown, the Free Software Foundation's executive director. "By imposing such restrictions on users, Steve Jobs is building a legacy that endangers our freedom for his profits."

As such, the release of the iPad, which some have speculated could fundamentally change the personal-computing industry, might not do that at all. It's an unproven market, and it's unknown what types of apps will be popular on a tablet – and even what the primary use of a tablet will be.

Courtesy of Apple
The Apple iPad. | View photo gallery
Apple launched the iPad with a healthy and proven ecosystem of apps. But if people end up using tablets as replacements for their laptops, the flexibility of Windows machines could be a big draw.

And the hybrid laptop-tablet PCs, though more expensive, could prove to be the perfect middle ground, said Steve Kleynhans, an analyst with the research firm Gartner.

"If it really does become a strong ecosystem around this device, as happened with the iPhone and took a chunk out of Windows Mobile devices, that'll be a struggle" for Microsoft, Kleynhans said. "A lot of these apps seems cute on the iPhone, but blow them up to the size of this device, they might seem a little lame."

Google stops support to I.E 6

2010-02-01T02:08:00.000-08:00

The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work "properly" with the browser.

It recommended individuals and firms upgrade "as soon as possible".

Google threatened to withdraw from the Chinese market following the "sophisticated and targeted" attacks, which it said originated in China.

Hackers used a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser to target the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

'Key functionality'

Following Google's revelations, the French and German governments advised their citizens to switch to a different browser until the hole had been closed.

Microsoft reacted by quickly updating the browser, nearly three weeks ahead of its regular security update.

However, Google has now said it is going to phase out support for the browser "starting with Google Docs and Google Sites".

It said that as a result, some "key functionality" of the applications would not work when used with IE6.

Google Docs is the firm's answer to products such as Microsoft Office, whilst Google Sites allows people to create web pages.

"The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice," wrote Google's Rajen Sheth in a blog post.

"Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively."

Threat downplayed

Around 20% of web users still use the nine-year old browser, including many UK government departments.

But many developers want to see the browser phased out as soon as possible.

The online campaign ie6nomore, supported by more than 70 web firms, says that because the browser does not support modern web standards it restricts what developers can do and is "holding the web back".

Microsoft has said that it will support the browser until 2014.

Microsoft has released a fix for Internet Explorer and recommended that customers install the update as soon as possible or update to the latest version of the web browser for "improved security".

Microsoft normally issues patches monthly but the high-profile nature of the attacks led it to act more quickly.

Market share

The UK government played down the threat and said there was "no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure".

However, Microsoft took the unusual step of patching the hole nearly three weeks ahead of its regular security update.

The new patch is available via the Microsoft Update site and will also be fed out to those who have their machines set to update automatically. All versions of Internet Explorer will receive the update.

Microsoft has admitted that it has known about the vulnerability "since early September" 2009 and had planned to patch it in February.

The bad publicity has allowed rivals such as Firefox to gain market share.

According to web analytics company StatCounter, Firefox is now a close second to Internet Explorer (IE) in Europe, with 40% of the market compared to Microsoft's 45% share.

In some markets, including Germany and Austria, Firefox has overtaken IE, the firm said.

Mozilla, the foundation behind Firefox, has just released the latest version (3.6) of the open-source browser.

Oracle geared to beat Microsoft Office

2010-02-01T02:04:00.000-08:00

With its acquisition of Sun Microsystems complete, Oracle intends to go after Microsoft's lucrative Office franchise, the company revealed yesterday. While Oracle had been quiet about its intentions for supporting Sun OpenOffice, the company disclosed plans for a forthcoming upgrade called Oracle Cloud Office during a five-hour briefing at its Redwood Shores, Calif. headquarters.

Cloud Office will support the Open Document Format (ODF) and will offer Web-based creation of documents, spreadsheets and presentations and will link to the Oracle Collaboration Suite. The company did not say when it will release Cloud Office.

"We're going to focus on enterprise customers," said Edward Screven, Oracle's chief corporate architect, speaking at yesterday's briefing. "We're going to build integrations between business intelligence and OpenOffice [and] between our content management solutions."

OpenOffice is Sun's standards-based office productivity suite and will be managed as an independent business unit, where Oracle will retain Sun's development staff and support teams. "We're going to continue to develop promote and support OpenOffice, including the OpenOffice.org community edition, he said.

Cloud Office potentially could represent a formidable challenge to Microsoft as it gets ready in the next quarter to release Office 2010. "A company with Oracle's money and clout behind it will make it interesting to watch," said Burton Group analyst Gary Creese.

"Though Sun has long supported OpenOffice, it has always somewhat struggled. Oracle has a much larger footprint, if they choose to they could probably drive a lot more customers to this new offering, but I think the jury is still absolutely out on how all these new competitors to Office will fare."

Web-based creation, editing and sharing of files is a key feature Microsoft is touting for Office 2010. That feature is a central attraction of Google Apps. IBM's Lotus group last week at Lotusphere said its Symphony suite will support Web clients this summer.

Still Creese said many enterprises remain reluctant to move away from Office for two primary reasons: concern about the sharing of file formats and a richer set of features. Nevertheless, many organizations that remain committed to Office aren't ruling out lower cost alternatives for users who don't require the high-end features in Office. "Some organizations are looking at segmenting some users who could suffice with less expensive alternatives," he said.

One area where Office 2010 will have particular appeal is in shops that intend to migrate to SharePoint 2010, Creese added. "Office 2010 is very much built as a front-end to SharePoint 2010," he said. "For others, the reason for upgrading is less compelling." However for those with Office 2003 and are faced with having to upgrade, it would make sense to move to Office 2010, he added.

Bing couldn't resist copying Google and Yahoo

2010-02-01T01:51:00.000-08:00

In its apparently unending quest to develop features that will allow it to compete more frontally with Google, Bing now allows you to track your rapidly declining net worth in more detail than ever before.

"Given the recent shock to our financial system we have seen more and more people interested in keeping track of what is happening with their money and with the stock market," Theo Vachovsky, Bing product manager, wrote in a Jan. 28 posting on the Bing Community blog. "Thus we developed an in-depth 'stock and funds pages' which covers most US stocks and funds."

Entering a stock ticker in Bing's main search box will result in an "Investor Data" tab appearing in the left-hand file bar. Click on that to display a page of financial data, displaying key metrics about the company. It's very reminiscent of what you find on Yahoo Finance, Google Finance and similar pages.

I've been testing it out for the past few minutes, and it seems to work consistently for major companies such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and, of course, Microsoft (MSFT). It doesn't seem to offer an "Investor Data" tab for Berkshire Hathaway, whose recent Class B stock split transformed it from "completely unobtainable" to "really expensive," but that could either be mistyping on my part or an odd kink in the system.

The ultimate beneficiaries of all this back-and-forth (or rather, feature add-on after feature add-on) are searchers themselves, who now have a greater degree of choice between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google when it comes to trying to discover information. I find in the course of any given day that I hop between all three sites--Google for news and searches, Bing for things like travel, and Yahoo for finance--in order to find the data I need. I'm just wondering whether the world's search engines will continue this trend of imitating one another into the future, or if at some point they'll begin to diverge with radically different offerings outside of core search.

Google couldn't resist to copy I.E8 features for it's new version of chrome.

2010-02-01T01:49:00.001-08:00

Google yesterday announced it has added several new security features to Chrome, including two that were first popularized by rival Microsoft in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) last year.

The newest "stable" build of Chrome -- Google's term for a production-quality edition -- includes five security additions that target Web developers who want to build more secure sites, said Adam Barth, a software engineer on the Chrome team.

Of the five features, two are notable because they're already part of IE8, a browser many consider behind the times -- and one that has trouble keeping up with competitors, such as Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox, which are upgraded more frequently.

Chrome now supports "X-Frame-Options," a security feature that helps sites defend against "clickjacking" attacks, Barth announced.

Microsoft added an anti-clickjacking feature to IE8, although one of the security researchers who first reported the problem the year before, said IE's new feature would have "zero impact" on protecting users.

Clickjacking was first used in September 2008 by Robert Hansen, CTO of SecTheory LLC and Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of Whitehat Security, to describe browser-based attacks that tricked users into clicking on site buttons or Web forms. Such attacks hide malicious actions under the cover of a legitimate site, and theoretically can be used to empty online bank accounts, secretly turn on Web cameras or change a computer's security settings.

The other Chrome security feature inspired by IE8 is cross-site scripting protection. "In Google Chrome 4, we've added an experimental feature to help mitigate one form of XSS [cross-site scripting], reflective XSS," Barth said. "The XSS filter checks whether a script that's about to run on a Web page is also present in the request that fetched that Web page. If the script is present in the request, that's a strong indication that the Web server might have been tricked into reflecting the script."

Cross-site scripting attacks were prominent in 2008, less so last year, and are often used by identity thieves as part of a broader phishing campaign.

Barth acknowledged that the XSS filter now in Chrome resembles the one in IE8, as well as the NoScript add-on for Firefox. The difference, Barth argued, is that Chrome's filter comes courtesy of WebKit, the open-source browser rendering engine that is the foundation of Chrome as well as Apple's Safari. Because the XSS filter is integrated with the engine, said Barth, it "can catch scripts right before they are executed, making it easier to detect some tricky attack variations."

Apple iPad Vs Amazon Kindle

2010-02-01T01:34:00.000-08:00

When Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs showed off the new iPad -- complete with built-in bookstore -- on Wednesday he praised Amazon.com Inc. for pioneering the electronic book business with its popular Kindle reading device.

But moments later, the compliment took on an ominous tone when Jobs added, "We're going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further."

At first glance, the multimedia iPad -- with its fast, colorful touch screen and built-in Web browser and video player -- would seem to outshine the slower Amazon device.

"It's like comparing Kansas and Oz," Stacey Higginbotham wrote on the GigaOm blog in a post titled "Will the iPad kill the Kindle? In a word, Yes."

But not everyone is ready to let the Kindle burn.

The Kindle "is optimized to do one thing and do it very well, and that is reading," said Jagdish Rebello, an analyst with market research firm iSuppli. "If the user is interested in buying a device for books, the Kindle is a no-brainer."

Amazon's blockbuster product didn't become the world's most popular e-reader for nothing, analysts said. It boasts a relatively long battery life, a free wireless connection to Amazon's extensive online bookstore, a screen that's supposedly easy on the eyes -- and a relatively palatable price. The Kindle costs $259, while the entry-level iPad will retail for $499.

Although Apple wouldn't comment on the price of books in its new store, some screen shots the company displayed at its introductory news conference showed prices ranging upward of $14.99, a detail Amazon pounced on.

"Kindle editions of New York Times bestsellers and most new releases are only $9.99," said Drew Herdener, spokesman for the Seattle online retailer.

It also remains to be seen whether Apple will be able to offer the range of titles its more established competitors now do. Amazon's bookstore features more than 400,000 Kindle-ready books.

To compete, Apple announced its online iBookstore, with titles supplied by Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster Inc., Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers and Macmillan.

But other major names such as Random House Inc., publisher of Dan Brown's bestselling "The Lost Symbol," were not in the mix.

Since the Kindle was launched in late 2007 its advocates, including Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, have said that to reproduce the quiet, solitary experience of reading a book, e-readers should not tempt users with a panoply of digital distractions.

The iPad, on the other hand, is by design a multimedia device, equipped with dozens of entertainment features and primed to offer thousands more in the form of add-on applications.

Critics say that's not going to help anyone get to the end of the chapter.

"If you like your kids, get them an iPad so they can play games," said Russ Wilcox, the head of E Ink Corp., which created the digital paper technology used by the Kindle and many other e-ink-based readers. "If you love them, get them an e-reader so they can actually read."

Wilcox also pointed to the iPad's weight: At 1 1/2 pounds, it's more than twice as heavy as the standard 10-ounce Kindle. "It's going to be noticeably too heavy to use for extended reading," he said.

The Kindle and other low-power e-ink readers also retain a distinct advantage in the battery department. A single charge will allow one week of continuous reading on the Kindle, while the iPad's glowing screen and powerful internal computer will deplete its battery in closer to 10 hours.

A perhaps more dubious strike against the iPad is that the light from its screen could put strain on users' eyes after prolonged periods of use. Electronic ink, which was created to mimic the visual properties of a printed page, has been praised by critics and consumers as being more eye-friendly.

But the science does not yet support the idea that backlit digital displays are bad for your eyes, said Ivan Schwab, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis.

The idea that computer screens cause eyestrain "is more hearsay and anecdotal," he said. "I don't think the screen is any more toxic to the eye."

And, Schwab noted, whereas many people have no choice but to stare at a computer monitor for hours a day at their jobs, readers can rest their eyes at any time by putting their book down.

But even if the iPad turns out to be the "Kindle-killer" that some are predicting, Amazon has a backup plan: The online merchant, which already has a free application that lets its customers read books bought from its Kindle store on the iPhone, says it will have a version for the iPad shortly.

Microsoft Earnings: Beats expectations

2010-02-01T01:26:00.000-08:00

Profit in the quarter, the second of Microsoft's fiscal 2010, surged to $6.66 billion, or 74 cents a share, up 60 percent from the same quarter in fiscal 2009. Analysts had expected 59 cents a share.

Thanks to consumer demand for Windows, sales reached $19.02 billion during the quarter, which ended Dec. 31, a 14 percent increase from $16.63 billion in the same quarter in fiscal 2009.

"They're really blowout results in a way," said Sid Parakh, analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen. "It's a very clean and massive beat" of what Wall Street was forecasting."The consumer market for PCs and Windows 7 PCs has been very strong, particularly in emerging markets," said new Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein, who described demand as "exceptional."
The quarter's sales results include $1.71 billion of deferred revenue from the Windows 7 upgrade program and presales of the operating system to computer makers before the software launched in October. Adjusted for that revenue, second-quarter sales were $17.31 billion, or 60 cents per share.

The quarter's sales results include $1.71 billion of deferred revenue from the Windows 7 upgrade program and presales of the operating system to computer makers before the software launched in October. Adjusted for that revenue, second-quarter sales were $17.31 billion, or 60 cents per share.

The Microsoft Business Division, which makes Office software, saw sales slide 3 percent to $4.75 billion. Operating income fell 0.4 percent to $3.01 billion. The unit is working on Office 2010, a new version scheduled to start selling in June. Consumer purchases of Office rose 12 percent, but sales in this division have fallen behind the sales rate of computers

The Microsoft Business Division, which makes Office software, saw sales slide 3 percent to $4.75 billion. Operating income fell 0.4 percent to $3.01 billion. The unit is working on Office 2010, a new version scheduled to start selling in June. Consumer purchases of Office rose 12 percent, but sales in this division have fallen behind the sales rate of computers

While Bing has been gaining share in the search-engine market, it remains a small player. Its 10 percent share compares with Google's 65 percent. Microsoft hopes an imminent search partnership with Yahoo will win regulatory approval, which would make Bing a stronger secondary player.

Sales in the Entertainment and Devices division, which makes the Xbox video-game console, fell 11 percent to $2.9 billion. Microsoft sold 5.3 million Xboxes during the quarter, a 13 percent year-over-year drop. Operating income rose 188 percent to $375 million, however, thanks to a better handle on Xbox production costs, which widens Microsoft's overall profit margin slightly.The division also is making money from Xbox Live, an online gaming service that has grown by 35 percent to 23 million subscribers. Xbox owners are buying an average 8.8 games per console.
Later this year, Microsoft plans to start selling Project Natal, a gesture sensor that can replace the handheld controller in some games.

Overall, the company is keeping a tight rein on cost controls, with operating costs expected to stay at $26 billion to $26.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Some expenses did rise during the quarter, including $290 million in legal expenses and $59 million in severance costs.On Dec. 31, Microsoft had $36.1 billion in cash and short-term investments, compared with $31.4 billion six months earlier.

Microsoft released results after the markets closed. Its stock fell 51 cents to $29.16 in regular trading. Shares climbed as high as $30.17 in after-hours trading then dropped to $29.10.

Microsoft: Project Natal to give $1 billion.

2010-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's motion-sensitive video-game code-named "Project Natal" is making the Video-game enthusiasts look forward for its release.

Analysts made a series of assumptions,$85 retail price for the camera-based system and estimated that Natal will boost Microsoft's revenue by $1.7billion in its 2011 fiscal year (which begins in July 2010) and $2.3 billion in its 2012 fiscal year.

The Goldman Sachs analysts obviously believe consumer demand for the motion-sensitive Project Natal device will be big. In a note to clients, they say they expect Natal to reach a 56 percent "attach rate" less than two years after its launch, meaning that more than half of new and existing Xbox 360 owners will buy Natal for their consoles. By comparison, they say, Nintendo's Wii Fit achieved a 41 percent attach rate over a similar time period.

"Xbox has been predominantly targeted towards a more hardcore gaming demographic, which is different from the family oriented approach of Wii and Wii Fit," they write, adding that "Natal now adds a hook for the more casual gamer."

Cumulative sales of the Xbox 360 were 39 million worldwide at the end of 2009. Project that out to 2011 and 2012, take into account the analysts' estimates of attach rates for Natal, multiply the result by their $85 price assumption, and you can see how they start getting into the realm of billions of dollars in revenue. On Microsoft's bottom line, the analysts predict that Natal will translate directly into increases in earnings-per-share of 4 cents (2 percent) in fiscal year 2011 and 7 cents (3 percent) in fiscal year 2012.

"Internally, Microsoft views Natal’s introduction as significantly extending the lifecycle of Xbox 360 to 10 years (until 2015), which is double the average for consoles," they write. "If this is the case this could have significantly positive ramifications for the longer-term margins of [Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices] group."

Microsoft itself hasn't talked in detail about the financial potential of Natal, which is expected to be released under a different name. However, the question is likely to be asked by analysts on the company's post-earnings conference call Thursday afternoon, now that Microsoft has confirmed a fall release.

Natal will use its camera-based system to let a user control the action on screen by moving around, without the need to hold a controller. It's part of the company's shift toward "natural user interfaces." Nintendo's Wii popularized the idea of motion controls with its Wiimote and companion nunchuck. Sony last week delayed, until fall, the release of its new PlayStation 3 motion controller

Apple Tablet iSlate demo

2010-01-22T06:15:00.000-08:00

A demo of how an Apple tablet would be like...

This is based on WSJ's idea of how it would look like..

Apple Event:Launch of Tablet(iSlate),iPhone 4.0 on 27th January

2010-01-19T01:29:00.000-08:00

According to Fox news, Apple would launch the the most awaited products iSlate ( Apple tablet), iPhone 4.0(software)and iLife 2010 on it's reported 27th January event to be held at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco at 10 A.M PST.Now that invites have been sent across with specific hints ("latest creation") to Apple tablet,
the dates for it's release would be something to look out for.

Based on speculation the new product will come with a 10 to 11-inch touch screen—which would make it closer in size to Apple's line of MacBook laptops than its smart phone.NO Keyboard...NO Mouse....Based on the speculations, this will be little larger than Amazon Kindle.

Apple Tablet is targeted at it's very stable iPod and iPhone market segment,it's a
multimedia device and would be capable of playing music,watch movies,T.V,surf internet,play games and maybe read electronic books and newspapers. It would be compatible with iTunes,iMac and friendly to its developer community.Though there is no official word on the price, it is speculated to be around $1000.But Analysts believe around $500-$700 to competitive pricing considering the touch screen products from HP,Toshiba and the readers like Kindle from Amazon

With this release from Apple, Amazon and HP will find themselved in a highly competitive eBook world iswith Apple,Amazon.There are reports that publishing companies are already in talks with Apple for content distribution.

Smart-Sign Technology from Microsoft-Intel

2010-01-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

Microsoft & Intel have come up with an innovation to create new forms of digital signs using Microsoft software and Intel chips.This new technology would provide retailers to control the market offerings for consumers.This is also a good pitch for the companies to counter the web-based advertising which is seeing a downfall in the recent times.

These new devices are equipped with cameras and specialized software to recognize the age, gender and height of people in front of them and gather information to map these to the likeness of the products.This data is passed anonymously to advertisers to help them plan marketing pitches which would help companies to re-evaluate their marketing strategies for specific user segments.Drawing parallel to the online advertising where users preferences,returning patterns and purchase history are evaluated these systems would project the products that would most appeal to them.

“If a user touched an item, for example, the sign could send the user's smart phone a coupon with a discount on the item and a map to its location in a store... current camera technology and the distances involved would not allow scanning of users' irises. But the technology can distinguish what they viewed, he said. Facial recognition can identify customers if they've allowed the retailer to photograph their face previously, Mr. Bukshteyn added.” (WSJ)

The primary issues are the accuracy and privacy.Customers and retailers are wary about technologies that might track their movements or display information about customer's shopping habits, Ms. Baird said.

Microsoft and Intel said,Though current technology isn't capable of identifying individuals,it can analyze viewers features and determine gender when they looked at the display.Future efforts in this direction could make individual identification possible.

Is Internet Explorer heading for extinction??

2010-01-13T00:42:00.000-08:00

I have been following the browser war for years through market share reported by marketsahare.hitslinks and the decline of I.E's share from 95% in 2004 to 63% in Dec,2009 does hint a browser towards extinction.

It was surprising to see an article on computer world indicate the market share of IE at 80% from a research on Devil's mount Xpnet date..

- 80+% of 22,0000 PCs run Internet Explorer (IE) on a workday, typically for much of the day.This data is pulled from the iexplorer.exe process running in tasklists
- Between lot of overlap of Firefox and Chrome by the users puts the shares at 20% for Google Chrome and 50% Firefox.

This shows that IE still has a good grip in the enterprise and internal organizations and it's no dinosaur heading for extinction.

"The idea that IE will go away is far fetched," Barth said. "People who say those kinds of things simply don't have a grasp on the internal organization of enterprises, or the bureaucracy of companies. Until enterprises flush out the internal applications that rely on IE, that use unsupported and undocumented layout commands, IE isn't going anywhere. And those dinosaur applications are almost impossible to get rid of. Barth acknowledged that XPnet's methodology counts instances of the IE process that may not be directly related to browsing, which may inflate its numbers somewhat. "The IE engine is often embedded in other applications, and sometimes is used for custom application front ends, like online help systems," Barth said. "The fact is that [IE's] tentacles permeate so many layers of Windows. So when Microsoft says it's painful to remove it, they're not kidding." (computer world)

Bible:Centuries older than thought,confirms what we already know

2010-01-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

An Israeli professor has decoded the Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old piece of pottery, which he says provides evidence that parts of the bible were written hundreds of years earlier than suspected.

It suggests writing of the Bible began during the era of King David, four centuries earlier than previously thought, experts say.The ink inscription on clay is the oldest Hebrew writing yet found, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Friday.

This was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley in Israel, it was dated to the 10th century B.C( making the shard about 1,000 years older than the Dead Sea scrolls).The inscription relates to "slaves, widows and orphans,"(not common in non-Israel cultures at that time) said Gershon Galil, a professor at Haifa University who deciphered the early form of Hebrew.

Galil says the inscription disproves the current theory that claims the Bible could not have been written before the sixth century B.C. because Hebrew writing did not exist until that time.

This clearly is shown n the movie "King David" where David asks his scribes to document.So this basically confirms what we already know :-)

Office 2010: 4 versions between $99-$499

2010-01-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

Adapting to the ever changing user needs, Microsoft has revisited it's user segments and has come out with 4 different version of it's new yet to release Office 2010.

$99- Office Professional Academic,for college use.
$149- Office Home & Student - Word,Excel,PowerPoint,OneNote. This can be installed on 3 computers at home.
$297-Office Home and Business,this includes 4 core + Outlook.
$499-Office Professional, Licensed to be installed on 2 computers.

Moving towards the cloud/service pattern, all these versions are compatible with the online office,providing access to the web apps.

This is a strategic move targeting Google and Zoho online versions. Capitalizing on the existing huge Office desktop user base, Microsoft is influencing it's users to get into the habit of using their online version through the desktop versions. With 90% of companies using Office desktop edition for now it looks they will succeed.

Chance pe Dance

2010-01-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Watch Chance pe Dance online..full continuous movie, print is very good will post excellent print in 3 days.

If you need a break while watching this 2+ hr movie click on the link for latest technology updates from Google,Apple & Microsoft..Technology or check out the ads.

Windows7: Lots of God Modes, but Beware of Crash

2010-01-07T10:31:00.001-08:00

Windows7 ships with lot of God Modes not just one.This surely is not a Win7 exclusive feature as Vista was shipped with these undocumented feature.This feature is to give developers ability to discover the internal settings and play around. This also enables them to build more customized products for the system.

This new breed of windows does show a shift to be more developer friendly...hmmm Windows-developer friendly? ..good to see an awaited change.

But some Vista users have experienced some weird problems and crash issues with the computer while using the Godmode, it might happen on Windows7 too as MSFT couldn't resproduce the problem in Vista which effectively means they didn't fix it and it could happen on Win7. So all you adventorous people out there..do get the Microsoft PSS number handy before you start playing... it will save some time.

And guess what...there are more God Modes in Win7 for us to discover, it's like Pandora out there..For the current list of GodModes from CNET..

{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}
{0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428}
{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}
{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}
{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}
{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}

Append the strings post the dot in . < >

By the way.. does Apple have a GodMode... naah :-)

Apple iSlate to be released in March 2010.

2010-01-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

This has been a rumor since years,very soon it's going be a reality.The most awaited iSlate will hit the market in March.From iPod to iPhone to iSlate apple has surprised the computer world with it's striking products.Both iPod and iPhone have sold tens of millions of units.

Wall Street Journal:

"While the device's ship date hasn't been finalized and could still change, people briefed on the matter said the new product will come with a 10 to 11-inch touch screen—which would make it closer in size to Apple's line of MacBook laptops than its smart phone."

NO Keyboard...NO Mouse....Based on the speculations, this will be little larger than Amazon Kindle.

(Courtesy:LAtimes)

iSlate is targeted at it's very stable iPod and iPhone market segment,it's a
multimedia device and would be capable of playing music,watch movies,T.V,surf internet,play games and maybe read electronic books and newspapers (like in Harry Potter...nah). It would be compatible with iTunes,iMac and friendly to its developer community.

Apple will surprise us with this device, just like iPhone makes us feel, we didn't even know we wanted this so badly.

So what's the price??? Though there is no official word on the price, it is speculated to be around $1000.But Analysts believe around $500-$700 to competitive pricing considering the touch screen products from HP,Toshiba and the readers like Kindle from Amazon.

Most Searched Key Words: Bing and Google

2010-01-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

The Most searched categories from Bing is here.According to its list of the top Bing search topics in 2009.
Yeaaa...I was hoping 'New Moon' to be on top...

The overall Top 10 list:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Twitter
3) Swine flu
4) Stock market
5) Farrah Fawcett
6) Patrick Swayze
7) Cash for Clunkers
8) Jon and Kate Gosselin
9) Billy Mays
10)Jaycee Dugard
(More info on Bing searches in 2009 is available in this Bing Community Blog post.)

That makes us think, what's on Google...Here you go(as of today)

1. tebow cam
2. ephesians 2 8 10
3. webbootie.com videos
4. hgtv.com/dream home
5. kurt westergaard mohammed cartoon
6. hgtv dream home
7. beardtard
8. of the whale
9. jaws
10. dennis haysbert
11. muhammad cartoon
12. irish atheists
13. horse sense
14. mn lottery
15. mennonite
16. atheist ireland
17. reggie lewis center
18. kristina colombia
19. lady antebellum
20. fahrenheit 451

Now Why is ephesians 2:8,10 ranked 2..(see Below)

Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9)Not of works, lest any man should boast. (10)For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Veer movie

2009-12-31T21:30:00.000-08:00

Watch Veer online from any of the 7 locations..

Link1:- Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

Link3:-Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page...

Link4:-Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

Link5:-Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

Link6:- Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

In-Parts:-

Part1:- Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

Part2:-Click on pic below to watch and maybe on an Ad on this page..

TugofWar: Google, Microsoft & Baidu for China

2009-12-29T19:56:00.000-08:00

Post an initial successful stint in the U.S market with around 10% market share, Microsot gears up to beat the next big economy in the world:China. China being the fastest growing economy provides a distinct advantage to MS against Google in form of Baidu.Baidu being the search leader both Googleand Bing would be competing to bite the share off the pie.

U.S market was primarily domincated by Google and Bings marlet share of 10% indicates a competitive product from Microsoft. With Search dominated by Baidu in china, gives equal oppurtuniy to both the compete for new user base.

It would be more exciting than "trojan War" to see Google and Bing take over Baide to become market leader