Innovations in the Software Industry

YouTube Doubles Video File Size to 2G

2009-07-03T06:30:00.002-05:00

Video-sharing site YouTube has allowed its users to post more high-definition (HD) video by increasing the size limit for uploads on its website.

YouTube, in a blog post, said the size limit for uploads to the site was being doubled from one gigabyte to two gigabytes. This increase would help you in uploading longer videos at a higher resolution as well as large HD files directly from your camera.

Along with increasing the file size from 1GB to 2 GB, Youtube have also implemented some new features which will make it easier for the users to share HD videos. The changes will allow users to share links directly to the HD version of videos, as well as to embed the HD version with ease.

Many of the users may be aware about how to do this previously, as it was possible. However, they have now publicly made these options clear and have integrated the HD embed code options on your blog or website.

Sputnik, Google's New JavaScript Test Suite

2009-07-02T04:45:00.003-05:00

Google engineers working on the Chrome web browser have announced a new open-source JavaScript testing and performance suite called Sputnik. The new test suite is intended to provide a comprehensive set of tests, more than 5,000 of them, and check compliance with the ECMA-262 JavaScript standard.

“The goal was to create a test suite based directly on the language spec that checked the behavior of every object, function and individual algorithm in the language. The task was given to a team in Russia – hence the name "Sputnik" – which went about systematically producing tests,” Christian Plesner Hansen, Google software engineer, writes. “Now that the test suite is complete we're happy to be able to release it as an open source project, under the BSD license. We hope Sputnik can be as useful to other implementers of JavaScript as it has been to us, particularly at a time where implementations change rapidly.”

The project was started soon after V8, Chrome's lightning-fast JavaScript engine, took shape and the development paralleled it. As the number of tests in the suite grew the team would test V8 to check if it complied or displayed unexpected behavior. Now that it is finalized Google is releasing it under the very liberal BSD open-source license.

Sputnik is built in python and to run it you need to install the environment so it might not be as user friendly as other JavaScript performance tests. However the suite is intended more for developers and focuses on compliance rather than pure performance measuring. With its goal of testing every function and object in the JavaScript language it could prove a valuable resource for browser developers aiming for standards compliance as well web developers trying to find out how various browsers differ in their implementations.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/

Flickr2Twitter : A New Lease of Life

2009-07-01T04:25:00.000-05:00

Flickr has released the long awaited feature for posting photos to Twitter. The built-in feature lets members tweet their photos. And also explains how to post photos from your phone, and how to tweet from Flickr. Users can also upload directly to Flickr and Twitter simultaneously, or tweet a photo already on Flickr, using a special short Flickr Url.

It is different from other photo tweeting services like TwitPic which lets you sign-in using your Twitter account. To use Flickr2Twitter, you first need to sign-in to Flickr, and then authorize the service to post to your Twitter account, which can be done from your settings page. Flickr2Twitter creates a shortened URL for your photos and post these as Tweet to your Twitter account.

To use this feature, you just need to authorize Flickr to access their Twitter account once. After you’ve allowed Flickr to use your Twitter credential, a new option in Twitter’s “Blog This” option will now include your Twitter account.Flickr would also give you the chance to compose the 140 character Tweet then append the URL of your photo.

Such an interesting combination, Flickr2Twitter, will surely benefit both Twitter and Flickr, but more so for Flickr, as Twitter’s popularity will bounce back to Yahoo’s photo uploading service. And moreover, this in a way adds a new lease of life to Flickr.

Palm Pre Vs. iPhone : Opt for a Best Smartphone

2009-06-30T02:54:00.001-05:00

iPhone faces heat from a new challenger in the market in shape of a slick new software with a cool design. Palm Pre is all set to to take over the market place and will surely outdo the hype created by the iPhone. It not only looks good, but also features applications that make it desirable to any device enthusiast. Its technical features goes well with its superior looks.

The Pre resembles the iPhone in terms of most of its features. And it even carries few innovative capabilities not seen on the iPhone, such as an actual QWERTY keypad and the ability to have multiple applications open at once. But for financially savvy shoppers, the Pre on Sprint's 3G network offers a value proposition that may just be enough to tip the scale when deciding between smartphones.

In terms of the upfront cost of the devices, the iPhone and the Pre are the same. But the Pre's initial monthly service starts at $70, whereas,s iPhone'ss AT&T unlimited plan at $100 a month. It's really the service contract from Sprint that sets the Pre apart from the iPhone from a cost perspective.

Both the Pre and the iPhone are good products. They both physically look good. They appeal to people's senses. They're easy to use. And both are very comparable, but the Pre on Sprint's network offers better value for many consumers. In short words Palm pre is the next alternative for iPhone, lets take a look on the some features of both smartphone’s.

1. Screen: Both phones have smultitouch Screens. The Pre’s glowy little “gesture area” has dropped the touchable real estate all the way down to the bottom of the phone.

2. Multitasking: In the case of Multitasking, Palm appears to be the clear winner, whereas, iPhone lags miles behind.

3. Developers : Again Palm pre is leading with WEBOS because it supports JavaScript, HTML and CSS. While Apple provides OS X-based SDK.

4. Web Integration: Palm Pre, again with WEBOS, supports to share your contacts of Facebook, Gmail, IM and and scanned for duplicates also. Truly Web Interface.

5. Applications : Here Apple gains the advantage of Third party applications Via App store or Cydia there are tons of free & paid applications available for iPhone while it may take time for Palm Pre to have this type of support.

6. Camera: The Palm Pre gains another advantage with the LED Flash for its 3MP camera, which iPhone lacks. Flash cellphone photos are ugly, but for a lot of people, they’re good enough.

7. Keyboard : Palm Pre has Physical QWERTY Keyboard while iPhone has pretty Virtual Touch keyboard. For the existing iPhone users, it’s a bit hard now to use QWERTY Keyboard so iPhone gains another advantage.

8. Battery: Apple’s comes with their non-removable battery while Palm pre comes out for a spare swap too.

9. Copy & Paste: The Pre supports this feature, whereas, iPhone still doesn’t and still this is not expected in near future.

Therefore with its agile and smart software, the Palm Pre has become a favorite of many already. The Palm Pre is the most interesting phone and has become a big challenge to the market leaders like the iPhone and the Android. So, to conclude it can be stated that Palm Pre is surely something to look forward to. And Apple must have to work on its Third version of iPhone to compete with Palm Pre other wise palm pre has the potential to grab a good amount of Smart Phone market.

iPhone 3GS : The Fastest IPhone Announced

2009-06-29T05:23:00.001-05:00

Apple launched the new iPhone 3GS on 8 June 2009 as a follow up to its popular iPhone 3G. With this Apple remains at the leading edge of smartphone innovation with the iPhone 3GS. Apple's iPhone has transformed how the world thinks of cellphones. Phone companies and hardware-makers follows the iPhone's touchscreen interface, easy access to the Internet, and bustling App Store.

The S is for "speed"
The iPhone 3G S is a major step forward in terms of the iPhone's technological underpinnings. Its processor runs at 600 MHz, compared to previous models' 412MHz. It's got 256MB of RAM, compared to 128MB in previous models. The lack of external changes belie what's going on underneath the iPhone 3G S's glass and plastic exterior. The iPhone's last upgrade added a faster cellular radio and a GPS chip, but otherwise, the iPhone 3G's internals were largely unchanged from the original iPhone.

From inside, the iPhone 3GS has been fully redesigned, with new core components (CPU, memory, integrated compass, video recorder) in different locations, no less. And together with the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade (which makes many compelling features available to existing iPhone customers), the iPhone 3GS stands tall. After pounding on it, you will find that at the full-subsidy prices, the 3GS is a surprisingly worthy upgrade for heavy users of the phone's Web and gaming capabilities, and for general-use apps--even if you're only jumping from the iPhone 3G. Not only do apps open faster, they respond faster, too.

Apple claims the battery's talk time over 3G should be about the same as with iPhone 3G (5 hours), and more than twice that (12 hours) over EDGE. For data, the company rates the battery at up to 9 hours time over Wi-Fi, and 5 hours over 3G.
One pleasant battery-related addition is a new Battery Status indicator, which you enable In General/Usage. It often left one wondering aloud why earlier iterations of iPhone couldn't do this seemingly basic task?

The iPhone 3G S boots faster than any other iPhone OS-based device, and launched every app in record time. Its Safari browser had the dramatically fastest JavaScript engine as measured by the SunSpider benchmark, and loaded Web pages dramatically faster as well. Every aspect of using the phone felt noticeably faster on the iPhone 3G S than on the iPhone 3G. Even actions that only took moments before now happen instantaneously.

The speed doesn't stop with app launches and fast-loading Web pages, either. The iPhone 3G S supports the new OpenGL ES 2.0 standard, meaning that a slew of iPhone game apps will be able to capitalize on advanced graphics features to create higher-quality graphics than have been seen on the iPhone up to now. But more important, the iPhone 3G S is just better when it comes to graphics.

The 3GS so far has generated very strong sales figures, as Apple says that it has sold more than one million 3GS models since its release on Friday. iphone is a significant improvement over the original iPhone 3G in terms of processing power, storage, memory and battery life.

Bing Vs. Search Engines : A New War About to Heat Up

2009-06-29T01:19:00.000-05:00

Microsoft launched Bing at the beginning of the month, after a lengthy development period and months of internal testing. And with the unveiling of Microsoft's new search engine “Bing”, the battle in the field of search engine has heated up. For Microsoft it is not just about reinventing its search engine, but also about delivering a new consumer brand. The search engine is pretty different in respect of user experience.

Bing is all about the users preferences. It is build with a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web. Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions. Usually search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they are unable to let them use the information they find. And now Bing is here to solve all these problems. Bing yields more relevant and more up-to-date search results.

Bing is not just about reinventing a search engine but it also promise a new brand in the market. Microsoft has acknowledged repeatedly that Live Search suffered from a branding perspective, and Bing is the answer.

Bing is positioned as a filter for the information overload users have to navigate with traditional search engines. Bing aims for an increased relevancy, a new way to organize search results, task simplification and greater insight.

It is a story of déjà vu all over again. Reinventing the search engine is an attempt to make some progress in the search engine wars. The question is whether Bing will actually end up making any difference?

The challengers in the field of battle plays out as follows. Google controls a gigantic chunk of it and is looking dangerously aggressive regarding those parts it does not control. Microsoft controls a very small section of the field, but has hordes of ammunition [cash] and is looking for a way to use it. Yahoo has its own section, but is under siege and appears ripe for the taking. This leaves Microsoft and Google as the two main predators.

The biggest thing about Bing is the new search parameters. Microsoft has actually tried to create a new niche search approach. The Bing search function is tailored to four verticals to enhance the search results. They include the buying decision, finding local businesses, making health decisions and planning trips. Put another way, the engine is designed to emphasize product purchases, health, local businesses and travel, which just happen to be four of the bigger niches on the web.

Google has always relied on the pillar of its search engine. Generally, Google is viewed as the best when it comes to producing quality results. Although the last Microsoft search engine, wasn't terrific, but wsith Bing, it hopes to change that.

Whether users will end up binging over googling will confirm or deny the relevance of Microsoft's efforts in search. Both the tools proves that the user experience for both searchengines is different, in many ways. Fact is Bing is hard on changing everything, and the Search Wars are heating up. Think on this.

The Mom Market

2009-06-27T01:16:00.002-05:00

Mothers are the primary shoppers in the most households and control 85% of household spending. Moms are considered as the most powerful consumers these days. Whether buying products for themselves, their families, their friends or their businesses, Moms are the muscle behind the economic indicators. Most businesses must try to market to moms, as they are the key decision-makers when it comes to plan or make a family budget. If you are not selling to women, and moms in particular, you are missing out on a huge section of the online shopping market.

Here are some useful tips on how companies can get on Mom’s radar.

Focus on networks When marketing to moms, you need to take advantage of the networks they build. Moms love to talk about what they're buying, so if you have a good product or message, the word will spread. Virtually all new moms join some sort of play group or support group, so it's wise to get your message across to these members.

Embrace technology Never before have so many moms researched a product or service online. Moms don't have time to go to stores to shop around, nor do they want to bring their kids to the store if they don't have to. A good website and high search rankings are essential to being found and reviewed by the mommy market. Ideally, moms should be able to easily purchase your product online.

Offer education. Moms use the internet to educate themselves. Offer valuable content that moms can reference as a way to bring them to your site. Moms spend more time online than they do in front of a TV.

Save them time Moms will all agree they need more time. Focus on the time savings benefits of your product or service, and it'll score points with moms. Moms are expert multi-taskers and crave the ability to do more in less time.

Get to the point Tied to lack of time, moms want marketing that gets to the point. Offer free shipping or a quick deal, but don't ask moms to spend time reading about your product or service. If you're offering a discount, show the price they'll pay. Don't ask moms to figure out what 10 percent off will be. If you have a product, show a picture; don't give a lengthy description.

Market to the individual. Yes, we're all moms, but we're also different. Some moms stay at home, some work at home, and some work away from home. Be careful that your marketing message doesn't make a blanket statement that would leave someone out. Don't assume all moms are home watching Oprah.

Word-of-mouth is a big deal with moms as they love to talk, compare, and share. In addition the Internet lets them extend the conversation beyond their local circle. If you’ve won the admiration of a mother, you can be assured she’ll spread the word. The right combination of print, electronic and online marketing enhanced with a strong public relations effort can mean millions to your bottomline.

Windows Mobile opens shots with Apple

2009-06-25T04:48:00.001-05:00

With Palm already in the market, it seems that Microsoft has also joined in the mud-wrestling contest by launching an updated Windows Mobile operating system.Microsoft is planning to release a new version of Windows Mobile. This one has some interesting features that might add to the aging mobile OS.

The system has an intuitive, finger-touch interface and online backup. Microsoft tells us it will be around in October. It will have a fair bit of difficultly as the market is now wide open with lots of different operating systems fighting for space. Microsoft has been mostly successful in the business community thanks to its PC-synchronisation and email server convenience.

Looking under the bonnet of Microsoft's developer tool kit, it appears that the cunning plan is to encourage developers to make it look as much like the iPhone as possible. The applications will be peddled through something similar to Apple's App store.

Microsoft does have some advantages. HTC has committed to 6.5 with the Pro2 and Touch Diamond2. So has Samsung with its Omnia Icon. But while most are looking for the main war to between Apple and Palm, it is likely that it will be decided between Microsoft and Blackberry. Business markets are always where the volume sales have been.

Read More here

Reinventing Web With Opera Unite

2009-06-24T07:49:00.000-05:00

The tiny Norwegian company, Opera software unveiled a new version of its software that's designed to give users more control over the information they upload and share via the Web. It enable simple sharing of personal computers' pictures, files or music with anyone on the Internet.

In a bid to "reinvent the Web", as said by the company, the new service is part of Opera's Web browser, enables direct downloading from personal computer to personal computer and removes any need for data storage at servers in the middle. Files can be viewed with any browser. Similar technologies have been available before for tech-savvy consumers, but these have required downloading separate software, paying usage fees, or a long process of uploading content -- limiting take-up of the services.

The new feature will be useful for Internet users who are uncomfortable sharing their files and interacting with friends over privately owned Web sites, which set their own rules for privacy, and can't always be counted on to store files permanently.

Opera Unite lets users set passwords for access to selected files on their computers. In addition, Opera Unite helps users save time they would otherwise spend uploading files to the Web or sending them in an e-mail. Users can choose from a number of pre-installed services to share files, photos, set up a chat room as well as create a personal Web server. Further services will be available to download and when the Opera Unite service officially launches could become a thriving community. The whole process is no more complex than adding a desktop widget.

Opera Unite is quite easy in operation. The product opens up many possibilities for close-knit personal communities. All users have to do to start one is send their address to others and watch them interact with the pages. Access can be public, limited to specific URLs or private, which lets only the creator access their own files, turning Opera into a useful storage facility for when they're away from the main PC.

Opera has a small share of the desktop browser market, but its mobile browser is the most widely used browser on handsets. Opera is a product that many have heard of and its unique features could help it capture a lot of market share and spark a new wave of personalized Internet. If you can handle the reliance on Opera's servers to handle the proxy side, Opera 10 is well worth investigating.

Feel a New Ambitious Wave in Google

2009-06-24T04:44:00.002-05:00

Greetings to Google Wave, a unique experimental service from the company that, according to many, has the potential to be the next big thing after e-mail and bundles instant messaging, photo sharing and other tools in sone application. This new Wave has been described as “a real-time communication platform which combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client”.

Google Wave is the creation of the same team that was behind Google Maps and the bunch seems to have run into something revolutionary, right from the outset! This five-person startup looks all set to be one of the most talked about Google products ever.

According to a Software Engineering Manager who introduced Wave at Google I/O, :
A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and more. In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the Web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave.

To simplify things, consider it to be an extension, or rather an evolution of existing e-mail, IM and file-sharing technologies. With Wave, users can share images, videos, converse in what Google terms a collaborative conversation stream.

In Google Wave users can create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content -- it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave to see how it evolved."

You can then refer back to a Wave to see the whole conversation and document thread. When a Wave is open on two users' screens, messages bounce right off Google's servers into another user's browsers to enable instant messaging-like communication.

Users don't even need to hit send to communicate their message as each typed character shows up in the other Wave user's browser less than a second after it's been typed. True real time.

You can also check a box to keep communication private until you're ready for the recipient to see what you've written. Want to add more participants to the conversation? Just drag and drop the contact into the browser window.

Another facet of Google Wave is that this happens to be an Open Source project, and more of a platform, less a finished product. So, what we're talking bout here is an entire new API that allows developers to do almost anything they please, like integrating a Twitter client, playing games on to a wave. From gaming or official work to a simple chat, the Google Wave might just change the way we communicate with our buddies, in the near future.

There are plenty of other features, all of which make the product more fascinating. Have you signed up for the test coming later this year? It's good to get in at the ground floor. The more you test it and give Google your precious feedback, the better the product should be in the end.

First Android Phone in India launched today

2009-06-23T03:13:00.002-05:00

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC launched India's first smartphone on Tuesday that will run on Google's open-source Android operating system.Sources tell ET NOW that Bharti Airtel will be the exclusive carrier for the device that is priced at around Rs 30,000.

The device is likely to provide stiff competition to existing smartphone handset cum application offerings such as Apple's iPhone and iTunes App Store as well as Nokia's N97 and Ovi Store. While both companies declined to comment, a spokesperson for Google told ET NOW that "Android is a freely available open-source platform that anybody is free to develop and use without Google's formal involvement".

The Android phone provides free 100 MB monthly download for Airtel customers.

The phone thus is clearly not going to be branded a 'Google Phone' like the HTC Dream was when it launched late last year in the US as the T-Mobile G1. Since that first commerially available model, HTC has also launched the "Magic" which is identical to the Dream except for a touch-screen keyboard instead of a sliding one.

The phone did not receive the same manic reception in the US as did the Apple iPhone but is expected to emerge as Apple's stiffest competition going forward. The G1's key feature was its ability to wirelessly sync with popular Google web applications such as Gmail, contacts, calender and Google Talk. Apple on the other hand has had little success in getting iPhone users to sync with its propreitary "Mobile Me" web services which are nowhere on the radar when compared to Google's web presence.

Android is a software platform for mobile devices, including netbooks, based on the Linux operating system and although it is officially administered by a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance, Google is the original creator and the unofficial 'anchor company'. Developers can write code for the platform using a flavour of the Java programming language developed by Google. Some open source evengelists have criticized Android for not being "100% open source" accusing Google of keeping some components of the code propreitary in order to control it.

Read on for more about launching of Android Phone at: Economictimes.indiatimes.com/

One Million Numbers Strong, Google Voice Prepares for Takeoff

2009-06-22T07:50:00.001-05:00

Earlier this year RWW reported that Google had made plans for the telephony service it acquired in July, 2007 called GrandCentral. GrandCentral was reborn as Google Voice,which includes all of GrandCentral's features and much more. Google Voice's free service will allow users to unify all of their phone numbers and transfer calls to all of their devices, convert voice calls to text messages, call multiple parties at once and make discounted international calls.

This week, John Fontana of Network World reported that Google has reserved 1 million phone numbers with communications and information services company Level 3. The company has not announced anything yet, but on the GrandCentral website it says "if you are a GrandCentral user, over the next few days you will be prompted to upgrade to Google Voice". These look like clear signs that it is getting ready to go live any time now, so check those emails and get ready to claim your number, they could go fast.

Google has continued to keep the old GrandCentral service, but has not allowed new users to sign up. Currently only GrandCentral users have access to Google Voice and new numbers are only available for American area codes. The GrandCentral users we spoke with love the service and are thrilled to try Google Voice. Our own Frederick Lardinois says it looks like a winner; "it takes the best features of GrandCentral and adds a number of important and interesting new features...clearly this is one of the most important products that Google has released in the last couple of months".

Judge for yourself. Below are three videos that show how easy it is to place calls, set up a conference call and how the phone calls are routed. There is some speculation about future integration with Android and we are certainly looking forward to that as well.

Read On To: http://www.readwriteweb.com

Analyst says iPhone to dominate in 2009

2009-06-22T06:36:00.000-05:00

The debut of the iPhone 3G S could allow Apple to sell 18.7 million iPhones this year for a 10 percent share of the market, a U.S. analyst said.

The 3G S debuted nationwide Friday with buyers enthusiastic but lines smaller than those that formed outside Apple stores for the first- and second-generation iPhones in 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

With the 3G S, iPhone buyers for the first time could pre-order online, which may have accounted for the smaller lines, the Times said.

Service costs may have been another factor, said Tina Teng, an analyst with iSuppli Corp. in El Segundo, Calif.

"That can put a cap on their growth," said Teng, who estimates Apple will sell 18.7 million iPhones in 2009 for a 10 percent share of the market.

Last year, Apple sold 13.7 million iPhones worldwide, capturing 8.4 percent of the so-called smart phone market, Teng said.

The iPhone itself costs $199 to $299 for new AT&T subscribers and current subscribers who are eligible for an upgraded phone.

Find More on : http://www.upi.com/Business_News

YouTube Adds the Wonder Wheel

2009-06-20T05:30:00.000-05:00

YouTube added the "wonder wheel" visualization tool for exploring related searches interactively. The feature has been launched last month for Google search and it's now available in a different context.

Type a general term in YouTube's search box, click on "Search" and then click on "Wonder wheel" to find some suggestions. As you click on the suggestions, YouTube shows the search results next to the wheel and it lets you go back to the initial search terms.

"The Wonder wheel visually presents connections between related searches and your search term as an interactive diagram. Click the different nodes in the diagram to see how searches can branch out," explains Google.

While the idea seems interesting, I didn't find the "wonder wheel" very useful. It only works for some searches and the suggestions aren't diverse enough.

Read More On : googlesystem.blogspot.com

Microsoft 'Morro' Nears Beta With New Name

2009-06-19T06:06:00.001-05:00

Microsoft's new effort at delivering a free anti-malware service now has an official name -- and the software giant has set a date for public beta testing of the software to begin.

The free service, codenamed "Morro," is currently in internal testing within Microsoft and will begin public beta testing in Brazil, Israel and the U.S. by June 23, a company spokesperson said in a e-mail .

And the new name -- drum roll please: Microsoft Security Essentials.

"Microsoft Security Essentials has been designed as a no-cost anti-malware solution that provides consumers with quality protection from threats including viruses, spyware, rootkits and Trojans," the spokesperson said.

Just over a week ago, Microsoft announced it was readying Morro for its beta debut.

At the same time, it also announced it would halt sales of its Live OneCare PC health service as of the end of June. During its three-year existence, Live OneCare had struggled to attract large numbers of subscribers.

Now, Microsoft Security Essentials will replace some of the functions of Live OneCare -- the ones related to end-user security. Live OneCare offers maintenance, backup and performance tuning in addition to security functions like antivirus and malware detection and removal.

Meanwhile, Microsoft officials have said that the goal of the new service is to make sure that most users have some kind of anti-malware protection even if they don't subscribe to one of the pay products from security firms.

The service will be hosted directly by Microsoft when it reaches general availability later this year.

Microsoft has put up a site where the beta test will be available. However, the site will not be live until about 9 a.m. Pacific time on June 23, the spokesperson said.

For More on Morro log on to: http://www.internetnews.com/security

Google and Facebook still biggest players in UK

2009-06-18T05:55:00.002-05:00

You can hardly call it "news" anymore but still... Hitwise has released new numbers showing that Google is still the biggest player when it comes to online in the UK.

The search engine not only is the biggest search engine with over 90% market share (.com and .co.uk combined), it's also the most visited site overall. Facebook is a very good second before the big gap with the others shows up. Google is biggest in almost every categorie with services like YouTube, Google Images and even Gmail accounting for lots of visitors.

In the top 20 websites visited last week (ending June 13th), Google takes up four different spots with Gmail and Image search for example also in the top twenty. The BBC is as always also very present with three sites in the top.

The top 20 also shows that both Gmail and Bing have a long way to go. Gmail still is small compared to Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) and Bing just entered the top 20.

When it comes to the search engines after Google looking at the last month Yahoo is still the strongest brand in the UK, followed by Ask and Bing. However if you only look at last week Bing surpassed Yahoo and went to the fourth spot with a marketshare of 3,11%.

Source For this Report: http://www.searchcowboys.com/research/671

Latest WordPress Mobile Adds Palm Pre Support

2009-06-17T06:10:00.000-05:00

When Palm’s Pre phone was finally unveiled at January’s Consumer Electronic Association’s (CEA) bash earlier this year, everyone knew it was going to create a stir.

With it, Palm introduced some very cool hardware and a new operating system that looks like it will be Palm's platform for mobile devices for the foreseeable future: webOS.

Now, with the phone on general release, Alex King of Crowd Favorite, a prodigious developer of WordPress (news, site) plug-ins, has released a new edition of his WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in that will allow Pre users with WordPress blogs to update and edit the blogs using Pre.

Apart from the added support for the webOS operating system — a Linux-based platform which leverages web standards for development – there are also a couple of other updates.

For one, it fixes a CSS bug that was referencing a non-existent image. For another it includes a new version of Carrington Mobile, the content management system theme framework for WordPress. This also includes updated README files and version 2.3 of the core Carrington framework.

Read More on : http://www.cmswire.com/cms/mobile

Android Sees Upgraded Google Maps

2009-06-16T05:44:00.000-05:00

It seems that Android mobile phone users can now enjoy an upgraded version of Google Maps for their handsets. According to the Mountain View-based company, the new version comes with improvements for Latitude, as well as with a series of new features, among which we can mention the fact that users can now perform voice searches in Google Maps.

In addition, Google Maps now enables users to find locations without entering the exact address, as the new version allows them to enter only simple items, like “windsurfing,” for example. The voice recognition software seems to be the great thing here, as Google states that it supports English in a number of different accents, including American, British and Australian.

While this sounds rather great, it will be interesting to see how it will handle regional accents. According to the guys at Android Authority, some British regional accents might cause problems, as they are “more pronounced in their dissimilarities with other English accents when compared to cross national accents differences.”

Other new additions to the Google Maps include improvements to the transit walking directions, which is stated to be able to offer directions for walking or using public transport in up to 250 cities. According to the search giant, the walking directions in Google Maps include pedestrian-only pathways and similar shortcuts.

One of the greatest improvements that the new Google Maps brings forth consists of a series of enhancements for Latitude for Android. It seems that Latitude can now flawlessly update while running in the background. In addition, Latitude includes a new feature, called “Updates,” which enables users to chat with their contacts in a way similar to Twitter.

Another thing that should be added is that those who would like to enjoy the new Google Maps on their Android-powered mobile phone will have to download it manually directly from the Android Market, as it won't be automatically pushed to the handsets.

Source for this news : http://news.softpedia.com/news

Facebook Rocks With a Different Look

2009-06-15T06:50:00.000-05:00

Everyone have probably noticed that Facebook looks different today. It all began when Facebook began accepting registrations at midnight New York time on June 13. Facebook debuted usernames for companies, individuals and groups, in order to finally enable everyone to grab an easy-to-remember, easy-to-share URL for profile or page on a first-come, first-served basis. Within 15 minutes, more than 500,000 user names were assigned.

The new service, which went live at 5am BST on Saturday morning, allows account holders to register more distinctive URLs for their profiles by choosing a specific username, which will then be displayed in the URL link to their profile.

People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names.

According to Facebook Inc., more than 3 million people registered user names in the first 12 hours after the social-networking site offered members the chance to claim a personalized Internet address.

Facebook, the most-popular social-networking site, introduces the new feature which is designed to make it easier to find people. Users that have claimed their names can direct friends to a simplified Web address, such as http://www.facebook.com/username. Previously, those addresses had strings of letters and numbers, making them difficult to remember. The change also makes it easier to find Facebook members through search engines such as Google Inc.

According to different reports, within seven minutes of the service being available, 345,000 users grabbed one and within 15 minutes, over a half million had, Facebook usernames.

Google to Launch a Microblogging Search Engine

2009-06-15T03:33:00.002-05:00

Google prepares to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from microblogging services like Twitter. Since it's very easy to post updates and the posts are usually very short, micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event.

Twitter's search engine has two important drawbacks: it's limited to Twitter and it sorts the results by date. While there are other search engines like Tweefind that try to sort Twitter posts by relevancy and search engines like Twingly that index multiple microblogging sites, none of them does a great job.

Much like Google Blog Search, Google's microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.

Here's the description used in Google's localization service:

"Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Microblog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."

In May, Marissa Mayer discussed the significance of Twitter for Google:

"What's really happening in Twitter is that there are a lot of clues in it in terms of what's happening that's interesting overall. It's similar to what we see in Google Trends, where people will often type what they're interested in into the search box, and we can make some predictions off of that. So we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we don't have any particular plans to announce."

For more updation on google news visit: googlesystem.blogspot.com

Faster & Easier Version iGoogle for Android and iPhone

2009-06-13T01:45:00.001-05:00

Google rolled out a new version of its iGoogle page ,for the Android and iPhone platforms. New features include the ability to access more of your tabs and improved gadget support for interacting with your content. After killing the special version of the iGoogle personalized home page for the iPhone and Android devices wayback in January, it created quite a bit of furore. Google at that time explained that they are looking forward to provide a consistent experience across all devices. For the last five months iPhone and Android users navigating to iGoogle.com saw the generic mobile version of iGoogle, a bare bones implementation that has the virtue of running on your old RAZR, but which unfortunately gave iPhone or G1 users an old RAZR like user experience.

This enhanced faster and easier version of its iGoogle page is a worthy replacement for the old iPhone/Android specific iGoogle with support for all desktop iGoogle widgets except those that are Flash based. Each widget appears as a large button initially, which when tapped expands to reveal its content. The new iGoogle is not the default, it’s offered as a “Try the new Mobile iGoogle!” option to iPhone and Android users (only) visiting iGoogle.com.

Everyone loves iGoogle because of the availability of the interesting information all day long. You can read a little bit of news here and there, glance at finance portfolios, take a look at the weather forecast, and then do a Google search. It doesn't require a big commitment of time and energy — it's simply there for us whenever we need it. This kind of availability is even more important on a phone, where it can take a long time to surf. That's why iGoogle is so convenient on mobile devices. When you're waiting in line, you can check iGoogle on your phone for a quick "info snack" — even in areas with mediocre network coverage. iGoogle now supports more gadgets, though Google is sure to point out that those gadgets requiring Flash still won't work.

This new version is faster and easier to use. It supports tabs as well as more of your favorite gadgets, including those built by third-party developers. There are a lot of powerful JavaScript capable browsers on devices other than the iPhone and Android that could possibly handle this richer iGoogle Mobile.

Next in the line is the new tabbed view. This lines up your content in a way that is easy to rifle through quickly to find exactly what you want.

For feed-based gadgets, this version has an in-line display of articles. Users can thus read their article summaries without having to leave the page. In addition to this, users can also rearrange their gadget order or choose to keep their favorite gadgets open in the browser. This will allow them to easily access the gadgets on their next visit.

The best part, Google claims is that none of these changes will alter the layout of gadgets on users’ desktop computer. They can now play around and tune their mobile experience. This new version of iGoogle for mobile is available in 38 languages. Users can visit the iGoogle website in their mobile browser and tap ‘Try the new Mobile iGoogle’ to use this tool.

Smart-phones: Silver Lining of Declining Handset Market

2009-06-12T04:16:00.005-05:00

The smartphone market is growing very healthily, as expected, 72% year on year. Changing consumer behaviors due to the ongoing global economic downturn is stimulating a renewed focus on smartphones, which analysts say would rule the declining handset market. Analysts expects sales of smartphones to grow 12-15 per cent in 2009. Smartphone offers advance capabilities, which could also be the reason for their raising popularity.

In terms of features, most smartphones support full featured email capabilities with the functionality of a complete personal organizer. Other functionality might include an additional interface such as a miniature QWERTY keyboard, a touch screen or a D-pad, a built-in camera, contact management, an accelerometer, built-in navigation hardware and software, the ability to read business documents in a variety of formats such as PDF and Microsoft Office, media software for playing music, browsing photos and viewing video clips, internet browsers or even just secure access to company mail, such as is provided by a BlackBerry.

One common feature to the majority of the smartphones is a contact list able to store as many contacts as the available memory permits, in contrast to regular phones that has a limit to the maximum number of contacts that can be stored.

The iPhone is drawing increasing competition from entrenched smart-phone makers anxious to emulate the upstart. The most significant of these is Palm's impressive new Pre, which is off to a good start with an estimated 100,000 approximately., so units sold since it was launched on June 6.

Apple's iPhone has become on of the world's most popular smart phones, just two years after entering the cellphone market. Its success has led rival phone makers to respond with formidable touch-screen devices of their own, including Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm and T-Mobile USA's G1 - which runs Google's Android software - and Palm's Pre.

Catching up in gaming segment, the introduction of devices like the iPhone, Android, and N-Gage has spurred domestic and overseas mobile games sales. Games sold through smartphone application storefronts accounted for 15 percent of all mobile games sales in 2008 in North America and Europe.

The innovation of competing devices and storefronts has the potential to boost the sagging mobile games market. Analysts find that growth in the operator-distributed mobile games segment has fallen to 7 percent in 2009, as compared to its peak of over 50 percent throughout 2004 and 2005.

Though it's believed that the new platforms will help grow the mobile games market as a whole, Android and Palm phone are likely to maintain their lead in the smartphone segment in the immediate future.

According to a report. "Whilst Nokia's N-Gage games platform and Google's application store Android Market also have the potential to grow the market for mobile games outside operators' portals".

The Java market continues to earn the largest revenue share in the mobile games industry. Smaller publishers will soon "reduce or abandon" development of games for release through operator-run portals, however, as smartphone platforms offer "a greater share of revenues, a more receptive audience, and a wider array of content."

Besides the game segment, Research In Motion is still by far the top seller of feature-packed smart phones, with a 55.3-per-cent share of the market, according to IT research giant International Data Corporation (IDC), but Apple is in hot pursuit. Whereas, Palm holds 3.9 per cent of the market.

Apple launches a New Smartphone : iPhone 3G S

2009-06-11T08:10:00.002-05:00

Apple announced the new iPhone 3G S at WWDC 2009.The new Apple Smartphone is twice as fast, with up to a 3.06GHz processor from Intel. Expandable memory up to 8GB--that brings lots of applause. It can fit up to 500GB inside and starts at $1,699. . In addition, gaming on the new 2009 iPhone has been given a nice speed bump. As the new and faster iPhone 3GS will be able to offer better support for online games, meaning that developers will now be working like mad to have these games made available on the iTunes App Store.

Most MacBook Pro customers have digital cameras today. They prefer popping out SD cards and putting them right into a laptop.There are ports on the sides, instead of an ExpressCard slot, there is a new SD card slot.

Apple is also updating the 17-inch MacBook, which has 2.8GHz of processing power and a 500GB hard drive but keeps the ExpressCard slot. The 13-inch MacBook is also getting an update. It will have seven-hour battery life now, and will also get a new high-color display, as well as the SD card slot now. It can now expand with up to 8GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive, and it has the LED-backlit keyboard.

A new logo has been assigned to QuickTime. It is now "super efficient" and has HTTP streaming. It will work with any Web server. With such a change, Apple decided to change the interface of the player as well. The onscreen controls disappear when you play content in QuickTime now.

With snow leopard you can magnify thumbnails and click through documents as thumbnails, and also play videos as thumbnails. In addition, You can also drag thumbnails into an e-mail message in Mail. By clicking Expose, you can line up all open windows on a cluttered desktop. With Dock Expose, you click and hold, and can see all open windows in each application. You can also draw Chinese characters with your fingers on the trackpad. The mail program is now faster. Users get few extra features in crash resistant, Snow Leopard. The new Safari 4 will ship for Leopard, Tiger, and Windows. Safari 4 is faster for HTML and JavaScript than Chrome 2, Firefox 3, and Internet Explorer 8.

Safari 4 lets the users track the top sites quickly. Get a grid of all the sites you visit the most. Safari 4's full-history search gives a Cover Flow view across all the sites you've visited. It also integrates spotlight search of browser history.
Apple also announced that iPhone 3.0 supports tethering--using the phone's Internet connection to add Web access for your Mac or PC. Tethering will work over USB cord or Bluetooth, and won't require any special software on the computer. The big news, though, is that although Apple has a number of carriers committed to supporting tethering, and AT&T isn't one of them.

You can watch TV shows, and purchase videos and audiobooks. There's also support for iTunes U, Apple's educational service that offers podcasts of university classes. Parental controls will be expanded to include movies, TV shows, and apps in the App Store. It can limit kids to rent G-rated movies, for instance, or only buy age-appropriate apps.

With a huge cheers from the crowd a new stunning feature called Find My iPhone was also launched. Find My iPhone is available only to MobileMe customers, but it will allow you to see on a map where your phone is. You can send an alert tone to your phone that will play, announcing that it's lost. It will play even if you left your phone in silent mode. If your phone is really lost, there's a remote kill switch to wipe your phone of all your data. This feature is pretty cool.

The new iPhone 3G S, where S stands for speed has the same design as iPhone 3G from last summer, but what's inside is entirely new. Messaging apps, games, and attachments all load faster. They've gauged the speeds measured on the iPhone 3G S using OS 3.0 software. The 3G S is ready for AT&T's faster 3G network, Apple says. As expected, there's a better built-in camera too--a 3-megapixel autofocus camera.

Google dangles Outlook sync in front of Exchange-using IT

2009-06-10T06:58:00.001-05:00

If your business is looking to trade running its own Exchange server for Google Apps cloud services, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook may ease the migration pain for those users that are more comfortable with Microsoft's Outlook client.

Google Apps is a set of tools that allows companies to move many IT services, such as e-mail and calendaring, to Google's online cloud resources. A new tool will allow those that rely on Outlook to easily migrate from an Exchange server to Google Apps with virtually no change from the end users' perspective.

Called Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, it allows "simple, two-click" migration of data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps. Then, instead of using Web versions of Gmail, Google Contacts, or Google Calendar, users can continue to use Microsoft's Outlook client to connect to those services. When not at work, users can still access e-mail, calendar, and contacts via Google's online interface.

"You get the cost savings, security and reliability of Google Apps," according to Google's product page, "while employees can use the interface they prefer for email, contacts and calendar." It can even allow users to create meetings and invite contacts whether they are using Google Apps or Exchange.

Google insists the tool isn't an admission that business users aren't interested in adopting Google Apps for some or all of their IT needs. By way of example, the search giant points to semiconductor firm Avago, which migrated to Google Apps in order to save $1.6 million a year in IT costs. The company gave its 4,100 users the option to move to Google Apps from its Exchange server, but about 12 percent simply chose the path of least resistance and continued to use the familiar Outlook.

"We look at [Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook] as a way to provide choice for users who like to do things the old, Outlook way," Google product manager Chris Vander Way told Reuters.

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook is available to those using the Premier or Education editions of Google Apps. It is not available to the free "standard" edition, which relies on display ads to pay for the service.

Source:http://arstechnica.com

Using Twitter and Facebook to Find a Job

2009-06-09T04:53:00.005-05:00

Brian Ward lost his job on a Friday afternoon. Eleven days later he had a new one. With nearly 1 in 10 people out of work and the typical job search lasting 12 weeks, how did the Cleveland-based software architect pull it off? In a phrase: online social networking.

Welcome to the new rules of the job hunt. Gone are the days of simply posting your résumé on CareerBuilder, e-mailing former colleagues and trolling company websites for open slots. These days, if you're serious about being hired, you really put your computer and PDA to work. That means getting word out on social sites like Facebook and MySpace, sending instant job-search updates via messaging feeds like Twitter, and meeting new people who might be able to lend a hand through Web-networking outfits like LinkedIn and Ryze.

Why? Because for all our technology, the best way to land a job is still by having someone who already works at a company mention your name. Each year, the staffing consultancy CareerXroads surveys large firms about where they find new hires, and since at least 2005 the top spot has held steady: some 27% come from referrals. (Job boards, by comparison, have fed firms a consistent 12% of new hires; the rest come from recruiters, company websites, etc.)

The difference today is that a lot more of those recommendations start with connections made through online networks. A recent report by market researcher Nielsen found that people now spend more time using social networking sites than they do personal e-mail.

By Barbara Kiviat for Time.com
Read full story on: www.time.com/time/business