Recharge your gadgets without wires

A Pennsylvania based company, Powercast, came up with an impressive product to cut the wires on small to medium gadgets and let the recharge happen wireless. That is a pretty cool concept and the good thing about this is that they just didn’t come up with the concept but they’ve made that concept into a product and have successfully signed agreements with more than 100 companies including the electronics giant Philips.

Here is how it works…A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Read more about this cool stuff here.

Technorati Tags: Recharge over the air, Wireless Recharge, Gadgets, Recharge, Wireless Electricity, Cool Gadget, Powercast, Cool Product, Innovative Product

Vista’s successor now known as "Windows 7″ due out within three years

Microsoft announced the big news at Microsoft Sales Training Conference in Orlando, FL. The big news was what was previously been called as “Vienna”, the next major version of Windows, will now be called “Windows 7″ and would be due in the next 3 years time frame.

Source: Engadget

Tags: Windows, Windows Vista, Windows Vienna, Windows 7, Microsoft, News

Mapplets: Google Map Gadgets

Google just released a new feature to its Google Maps called Mapplets. Mapplets are simple/small gadgets that can be embedded into the Google Maps. Mapplets can be found under “My Maps” if you are signed-in to Google network. There are bunch of Mapplets that Google has put out to begin with including, Real Estate Search, Photos, Gas Prices, Distance Measurement Tool, Earth as Art, and Crop Circles. But when you click the “Add Content” button you get a much bigger list of all the available Mapplets and I’m sure if you don’t find the one you are looking for it would be available soon.

To check out Google Mapplets you would, obviously, have to visit Google Maps.

Tags: Google, Google Maps, Mapplets, Google Mapplets, Breaking News, New Features

Microsoft to break open a trend in Vancouver, Canada

I’m not sure if the mainstream media and the public is fully aware of the US Immigration fairlessness and the hardship legal immigrants face before getting past the immigration gate. One good example is the latest fiasco by the USCIS/DOS on it’s Visa Bulletin game. You can read a little bit about this fiasco from here. It looks like not just the poor legal immigrants but the employers as well go thru this hardship it seems and one good example is this move by Microsoft to open up a development center in Vancouver, Canada.

Read the full story from here.

Tags: Microsoft, Immigration, News, Development Center, Canada, Vancouver

Video: Google CEO interview at the World Economic Forum

Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO talks about the latest hot topic about Google – Personalization and Privacy – in this video from the World Economic Forum meeting.

Watch it from here if you can’t see the below embedded video player.

Technorati Tags: Google, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, World Economic Forum, Video, YouTube Video, Interview, Google CEO Interview

2008 Honda Accord – Sneak Previewed

AutoBlog has sneaked some pictures which it claims are of 2008 Honda Accord’s.

Isn’t that looking great (I mean without those bumper cover stickers)?

tags: Honda, Honda Accord, Car, Sneak Preview, Sneak, New

Leopard and iPhone – Delayed

Initially it was Leopard (the latest Apple Mac Operating System) that was delayed until at least October 2007 because Apple was leveraging engineers from the Leopard team to focus on the iPhone delivery.

But rumors are popping out on the net cloud that the iPhone could also be delayed. It looks like the extra features in the iPhone software is taking a huge drain on the battery life and that’s a huge concern for Apple given that it’s a phone and on top of that it’s $500 with a contract.

I was kinda’ waiting for this iPhone to hit the market in June so that I can think about having one once my Cingular contract gets over. But now given this concern about the battery life I would rather have to wait and decide.

tags: Apple, iPhone, Leopard, Breaking News

Discover Card – 5% Cash Back at Circuit City, CompUSA and more stores

Discover Card is giving 5% Cash Back during the months of April and June 2007 when you shop at participating stores including Circuit City, CompUSA, Apple Store, and more.

Log in to your Discover Card account and click on “CashBack” in the left column to see all offers.

Eligible cards:
Discover More Card (previously named as Discover Platinum Card)
Discover Student Card

tags: Deals, Discover Card, Cash Back Bonus, Save at Circuit City, Best Deal

Google Voice Local Search

If you are on the road or at a place where you don’t have internet access but you carried your phone with you and want to find a business to the locality, you’ve got a solution now. GOOG-411 from Google helps you find businesses based on city, state or category. Even it connects you to the phone number listed for that business.

Try it out.

PS: Keep in mind that it’s still in experimental state.

tags: Google, Google Labs, GOOG, GOOG-411, 411, Google Voice Local Search, Tools, Tips and Tricks, Useful Tip

Recharge your gadgets without wires

A Pennsylvania based company, Powercast, came up with an impressive product to cut the wires on small to medium gadgets and let the recharge happen wireless. That is a pretty cool concept and the good thing about this is that they just didn’t come up with the concept but they’ve made that concept into a product and have successfully signed agreements with more than 100 companies including the electronics giant Philips.

Here is how it works…A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Read more about this cool stuff here.

tags: Recharge over the air, Wireless Recharge, Gadgets, Recharge, Wireless Electricity, Cool Gadget, Powercast, Cool Product, Innovative Product

Why Google is again the #1 place to work for?

Fortune magazine again nominated Google as the best place to work for. It is just so unique of a company that offers that much perks and challenge mixed together. That would be fun and motivating.

This video quantifies that Google could be on the top of the list for quite sometime to come.

Note: If you can’t view the video above then here is the link to the video.

tags: Google, Fortune Magazine, Best Companies to work for, Best Company, Video, Google Campus

Microsoft: Don’t use pirated softwares, if you do, use our’s

Microsoft has finally decided to deal with the devil on it’s own turf. They are now suggesting that you don’t use pirated softwares of theirs but if you do use pirated softwares they want you to use Microsoft’s softwares. The motivation behind this scheme is that even if your current version of the software is pirated you may be tempted to buy a future version of the software when it comes out. Even though it is just a “IF SO” kind of thing they just don’t want to miss out on that customer base.

Source

tags: Microsoft, Piracy, Pirated Softwares

Viacom Slaps YouTube with $1 Billion Lawsuit

Viacom, the sole brand owner of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and a whole lot of world famous entertainment brands, have decided to slap YouTube with a $1 billion lawsuit. We all know that people turns to YouTube for copyrighted content most of the time and the biggest hitter on this ordeal was Viacom. Given it’s diverse brands it was no surprise that Viacom took the biggest hit and now since they know the financial power of Google they wanted a share on that.

My question was, what if this has happened a year before Google bought YouTube? I’m sure Google must be aware of this risk.  

Read the full story here.

tags: YouTube, Google, Viacom, Lawsuit

WordPress 2.1.1 has been hacked, advised to upgrade to 2.1.2

It’s been a breaking news on the blogosphere. That’s no surprise given the popularity of WordPress blogging platform. They just (few days back) released the latest version of WordPress 2.1.1 and that had some good stuffs that must have got attention of some of the bloggers to upgrade.

To their surprise, it’s been revealed that the copies they’ve downloaded might not be the genuine copy. Someone (?) had hacked into their servers to modify the release bits to include backdoors. So whomever have downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 for the past few days are advised to upgrade to WordPress 2.1.2.

Given the severity of this stuff, they’ve even established an email address, 21securityfaq@wordpress.org, that you can use if you have any questions regarding this. 

Source: Matt at WordPress

Google Maps now has traffic information as well

Even though I like MapQuest better than Google Maps (alternating routing is MapQuest’s major advantage), I do acknowledge the fact that Google Maps revolutionized the online mapping segment. Google just silently released a new feature, Traffic, to their Google Maps. You should be able to see a “Traffic” button on Google Maps if it’s available in your area.

Google Traffic is color coded. If you see RED, it means that there is less than 25 MPH traffic flow.  YELLOW means that there is 25–50 MPH traffic flow. GREEN means the traffic is flowing at more than 50 MPH. 

Initially, Google released this feature to San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Dallas, covering each region. Now they have released this feature for more than 30 major US cities.

Check it out, if it’s available in your area.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Maps, Google Traffic, Breaking News

Yahoo integrates Yahoo Messenger with Yahoo Mail Beta

Yahoo is in the process of releasing a killer feature on their Yahoo Mail (beta) platform, to integrate it’s ultra-famous Yahoo Messenger with Yahoo Mail. The way they are doing it makes it even neat. What that brings to user experience is that a single platform for both mail and messaging. Google tried that a while back but it wasn’t a huge hit with the users as Yahoo Messenger seems to still rule the instant messaging world.

I use Yahoo Messenger a lot and I love it. And then I use Yahoo Mail as well. So we are talking about 2 applications and so 2 windows on your precious Windows Taskbar real estate. With this integration you’ll be able to see the online status of your contacts from the Yahoo Mail and if they are online you can ping them to get them involved in a chat session. That will open up a new web tab within the Yahoo Mail window (this tab is not a browser tab, don’t get confused with that) and you can have a hierarchical view of the conversation. The neat thing about this whole thing is that you can convert the whole chat session into an email and have a record of what you said or embarrass your buddies, however you wanna’ do it.

This new service from Yahoo is not yet available to the whole public. The requirement is that you have to use their new Yahoo Mail Beta (not the traditional one) and keep your fingers crossed. If you see an online status icon next to your contacts name on the email then you are all set to chat within the context of Yahoo Mail.

Good luck.

tags: Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Mail Beta, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger Integration, Yahoo, New stuff from Yahoo

Flaw found in Office 2007

The consumer version of Office 2007, which launched only four weeks ago, is designed to withstand higher scrutiny by malicious code writers, as Microsoft subjected the software to code auditors as part of its security development lifecycle.

But researchers at eEye Digital Security found a file format vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, which could be exploited to let an outsider run code on a compromised PC.

“We were surprised we could find a flaw so quickly (after Office 2007 launched) and one that was part of their core products,” said Ross Brown, eEye’s chief executive.

An attacker could create a malicious publisher file, he said. Once the recipient opens the file, he or she could find the system infected and susceptible to a remote attack.

Researchers at eEye used a standard process of code auditing in discovering the vulnerabilities, Brown added. He noted that Microsoft either did not do a “good job” with its code auditing, or it may not have had enough people working on such a task.

Microsoft, meanwhile, said it is investigating eEye’s report of a possible vulnerability in Publisher 2007 and will provide users with additional guidance if necessary.

Executives at the software giant have recently said they expect security challenges to keep emerging, as an increasing number of devices connect to the Internet.

No public exploits have been reported in circulation for Publisher 2007 and, given Office 2007’s recent release, the flaw may hold little attraction for attackers who may wish to concentrate on software that is in greater distribution, eEye said.

Source

tags: Office, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 2007, Bug in Office 2007, Error, Bug

Interactive Map at Weather.com

I’m not sure how many of you use Weather.com but I do use it almost daily. I stress the word “daily”. Even though it’s not that accurate in getting the accurate weather information I still feel that it’s worth a service to check for every day.

Even though I like the service pretty much, I wasn’t been a big fan of their map (I like their “Map in Motion” a bit). Lately, without any headlines, they came up with a neat map, based on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, that has some good sense of interactivity. You can drag the map as you do in Virtual Earth/Google Maps. They also have provided us with quite a bit of controls to control the map. Looks pretty good. If they could make sure that the projections they make are also accurate then this would be one “heck of a” service.

Check it out from here.

tags: News, Weather, Weather.com, New Feature, Interactive Map

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is available for free download

If you are into virtualization then you should give a good hard look into the Microsoft’s latest in the virtualization arena, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Microsoft just released Virtual PC 2007 and is available as a free download. Of course, you’d need a machine with some spare memory and hard disk space to handle the extra load of the virtual PC.

Here is what you need to install Virtual PC 2007 on these platforms,

Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition

64 MB – Memory

500 MB – Hard Disk Space

Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me)

96 MB

2 GB

Windows 2000 Professional

96 MB

2 GB

Windows XP Home Edition

128 MB

2 GB  

Windows XP Professional

128 MB

2 GB

Windows Vista Enterprise

512 MB

15 GB

Windows Vista Business

512 MB

15 GB

Windows Vista Ultimate

512 MB

15 GB

OS/2 Warp Version 4 Fix Pack 15, OS/2 Warp
Convenience Pack 1, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 2

64 MB

500 MB

Download it from here.

Technorati tags: Virtual PC, Virtual PC 2007, Virtualization, Microsoft, Free, Free Download

MSN Soapbox is now public beta

You must not have noticed this but Microsoft just moved it’s YouTube competitor Soapbox service from private beta to public beta. So what does that mean to you and me? It means that they are done with a smaller user base testing and now they want to expand that user base to a larger scale. That’s a step forward.

Soapbox

Technorati tags: Soapbox, MSN, Microsoft, YouTube Competitor

GMail is now open to the public

Gone were the days where you have to wait for someone to send an invitation to create an account for Google’s best application so far, GMail. Google just announced that they are making GMail open for anyone to enroll without any invitations. Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Calendar and few other Google web applications are an added bonus that you can access with the GMail account.

Sign-up for a GMail account.

Technorati tags: Google, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Account

Virgin America flies high tech

You have to watch this video to see what Virgin America has to offer for the tech enthusiasts. I’m a bit confused about the mood changing lights. Whose mood it depends on? May be they should make it clear.

Here is the video,

If you are not able to see the YouTube player above you can click on this link to view the video.

Technorati tags: Virgin, Virgin Atlantic, Airline, Tech

iPhone Prices May Go Down

Apple Inc. will have plenty of room to eventually reduce the retail price of its upcoming iPhone, according to preliminary gross margin estimates by a market research company.The iPhone, the combination cell phone-iPod media player that Apple unveiled last week, will yield gross margins of more than 50 percent at the current set of retail prices, iSuppli Corp. said in an analysis of presumed component and manufacturing costs.

The 4-gigabyte version of the iPhone, with a retail price of $499, will cost Apple $245.83 to make, iSuppli estimated. The 8-gigabyte version, priced at $599, will cost Apple $280.83.

”With a 50 percent gross margin, Apple is setting itself up for aggressive price declines going forward,” said Jagdish Rebello, a director and principal analyst with iSuppli.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

“Since Apple will face stiff competition in the cell phone market, the company may need to cut into its margins to reduce pricing in the future”, he said.

The Apple iPhone, which was announced by CEO Steve Jobs last week, will be available starting in June exclusively through AT&T’s Cingular Wireless. Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million units in 2008, or about 1 percent of the market.

That goal ‘’seems attainable,” Rebello said.

Source: WindowsX

Technorati tags: iPhone, iPhone Price Reduction, Apple, Apple iPhone

Windows Vista Speech Recognition Hole

Microsoft has confirmed an issue with the Windows Vista Speech Recognition feature.

An issue has been identified publicly where an attacker could use the speech recognition capability of Windows Vista to cause the system to take undesired actions. While this is possible there are a number of factors that make this “attack” very hard to pull off.

In order for the attack to be successful, the targeted system would need to have the speech recognition feature previously activated and configured. Additionally the system would need to have speakers and a microphone installed and turned on. The exploit scenario would involve the speech recognition feature picking up commands through the microphone such as “copy”, “delete”, ”shutdown”, etc. and acting on them. These commands would be coming from an audio file that is being played through the speakers. Of course this would be heard and the actions taken would be visible to the user if they were in front of the PC during the attempted exploitation. It is not possible through the use of voice commands to get the system to perform privileged functions such as creating a user without being prompted by UAC for Administrator credentials. The UAC prompt cannot be manipulated by voice commands by default. There are also additional barriers that would make an attack difficult including speaker and microphone placement, microphone feedback, and the clarity of the dictation.

The flaw is being regarded by many as a non issue.

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, Bug, Speech Recognition, Microsoft

Video of Bill Gates on The Daily Show with John Stewart (Comedy Central)

It’s hot news everywhere on the internet, Bill Gates appearance on The Daily Show with John Stewart. Even though I didn’t get a chance to watch it live on TV yesterday I can still watch the video archive, thanks to ComedyCentral.com. They’ve put out the video for the public.

Here is the Part-1 of the video archive for those of us who missed the live show,

And here is the Part-2 of the video,

In case if you are not able to see the embedded videos here are the URL’s for both the parts,

Part-1

Part-2

(If you use Firefox and if you are not able to see the video on the page that comes up after you click on the above link please make sure to click a similar image on that page to get the video loaded. It seems like an issue with their plugins that forces you to click these extra steps. Sorry for any inconvenience.)

I really liked the moment when John asked about Bill’s pet name and there was a little lag time when the world’s richest man realized that it was a plot to get his password. Even though I’m sure he won’t have his pet name as the password but that was a nice play in context from John.

Technorati tags: ComedyCentral, John Stewart, Bill Gates, Bill Gates appearance on The Daily Show, Video of Bill Gates on The Daily Show, The Daily Show

Microsoft Pumps $500 Million Into Vista Marketing Campaign

We all know that Microsoft is good at marketing it’s products even if they are a bit less than sublime. Now, how about $500 million budget for the grand mela? That sounds a stretch too far since the PC’s that will be shipping from now on till for some time is going to carry Vista by default. But…hey…it’s Microsoft, the hefty.

Read the full story from here.

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, Vista Marketing, 500 Million Marketing

Windows Live Messenger is out of beta

The revamped Windows Messenger, Windows Live Messenger is out of it’s beta life. Here is an overview of the features of the new Windows Live Messenger,

Call their phones. Call their PCs.

Call your friends’ mobile or landline phones.* It’s affordable, both within the US and internationally. And calling someone’s PC is always free.

See them on the screen

Show and tell: Grab a webcam and start a video conversation within minutes.

Share stuff

Set up a Sharing Folder with a friend. Drop in photos and other stuff, as many as your computer can handle. See your Sharing Folder even when one of you is offline.

Now: Talk to your Yahoo! friends, too

The world’s largest IM network has just gotten bigger—and better. With Windows Live Messenger you can now connect with your Yahoo! IM contacts.  Forget about using multiple accounts to talk to your friends—IM them all with Windows Live Messenger. 

…and much more. Check it out from here.

Get the Windows Live Messenger from here.

A while back I’ve blogged about an awesome Windows Live Messenger extension pack Messenger Plus Live! that extends your Windows Live Messenger experience. Take a look at that blog post here. Download the Messenger Plus Live! extension from here.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Messenger Extension Pack, MSN Messenger

Windows Vista Updates are out already

Microsoft just made available the updates for it’s to-be-released-tonight Windows Vista. As soon as you buy-it-and-install-it-tonight you can get the updates using Vista’s “Windows Update Client”. There are 22 updates altogether, if you don’t see all 22 of ‘em you should use the “Check for updates” option.

Here’s the breakdown of the 22 updates,

• 5 Updates for both 32bit and 64bit flavors of Vista (KB930857), (KB928089), (KB929427), (KB931573) & (KB929735)
• 15 Language Packs (Chinese Hong Kong, Chine Simplified, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish)
• 2 Ultimate Extras (BitLocker and EFS enhancements & Hold Em Poker Game)

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, Windows Vista Updates, Windows Updates for Vista

New Windows Vista home page for Vista launch

Microsoft is prepping itself for the flagship Windows Vista launch by giving Windows Vista home page a redesign. It now has a bigger Vista Orb that animates along with it’s Vista launch slogan “The Wow starts now”. The menu bar got a Windows Media Player 11 skin. Overall it looks great, just in time for the launch event.

Visit the new Windows Vista home page.

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, New Windows Vista Home Page, Vista Launch, Redesigned Vista Home Page

Bill Gates to appear on "The Daily Show" for Vista launch

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday, January 29, the eve of Microsoft’s Windows Vista launch.

The Daily Show, while taped earlier in the evening, airs at 11 p.m. EST, which is an hour before Vista’s official midnight launch.

Source: CNET News

Technorati tags: The Daily Show, Bill Gates, Vista Launch

Google’s Video Search Engine

It seems like Google is finally trying to make something out of it’s mammoth acquisition of YouTube. They started integrating stuffs from YouTube into its video search results as it starts to build a comprehensive video search and content platform. 

Read the full story from here.

Technorati tags: Google Video, YouTube, Video Search

Google Adsense competitor Yahoo Panama is ready for the prime time

Until now the pay-per-click terrain is completely dominated by the mighty Google Adsense program. With the acquisition of Overture back in 2003 Yahoo thought it can step into that terrain but lack of development and integration efforts made Yahoo to fall behind Google.

Now, Yahoo is planning to release their own version of pay-per-click program Panama by February 5, 2007. Initially they planned to release Panama by March 2007 but they’ve pre-empted their plan to release it by February 2007 itself.

Source: vnunet

Technorati tags: Google, Adsense, Google Adsense, Yahoo, Panama, Yahoo Advertising, Yahoo Panama, Advertising, Pay-Per-Click

Microsoft to support Windows XP till ~ 2014

With Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows Vista in the horizon of getting to the user’s hand near soon it is obvious that we tend to think what will happen to it’s second best (claims to be) operating system Windows XP.

Well, Microsoft announced before that they will end any mainstream support of Windows XP by April 2009. Now they have announced that they will provide an extended support program which will add an additional 5 more years of support and that translates to ~ April 2014. And they say they will provide the support for the Home and Media Center editions of Windows XP.

Source: PC Pro

Technorati tags: Windows XP, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Media Center, Windows XP Support Terms

Faster Windows Live Mail M9

Microsoft has updated its Windows Live Mail service to M9. New features include:

• Much faster loading and advanced Firefox compatibility (works fully in Firefox 2)
• The Classic Mode will be the default view from Hotmail users – brand new users won’t be taken to the fully AJAX’d page but to the Classic interface for “ease-of-use” purposes.
• A new Today page rolls out, including what would be on your Today page in Windows Live Messenger.
• Recent Updates now added as a tabbed page on the Today page allowing you to switch to what’s changed (blogs, contacts and newsletters etc.)
• Search bar at the top of the page has been updated and tweaked slightly for the other themes.

Not all the servers have been updated as of yet. Use the link below to access Windows Live Mail using the bay117 server.

Access the fastest Windows Live Mail from this bay117 server. Believe me…it’s really fast.

Source: Neowin.net

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Windows Live Mail, Faster Windows Live Mail

WordPress 2.1 "Ella" released

WordPress just released it’s latest stable version 2.1, code named “Ella”, named after Ella Fitzgerald. Here is a list of features that’s been bundled with the new release,

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
• New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
• Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

Get WordPress 2.1 from here.

Technorati tags: WordPress, WordPress Latest Release, WordPress 2.1, Blog Platform

240 U-Turns from PA to NJ

This is pretty scary. Try to get gDirections from Google Maps from this location “19020″ (its in PA) to this location “1579 US-1 (S), North Brunswick, NJ 08902″.

Believe it or not…Google Maps says that there are 240 U-turns you have to make before you reach the destination.

Believe it from here.

Technorati tags: Google Maps, 240 U-turns, Amazing Directions

A new ‘iBook’ from Google?

Google is plotting to do for books what the iPod has done for music: make them purchasable by download to a portable access device. Could civilization as we know it be under threat?

The UK’s Times newspaper reported that “Google is working on a system that would allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry.”

It quoted Jens Redmer, director of Google Book Search in Europe, speaking at ‘Unbound’, an invitation-only conference at the New York Public Library, saying: “We are working on a platform that will let publishers give readers full access to a book online.” Redmer said that the project was likely to come to fruition “sooner rather than later”.

The Times said the initiative would be part of Google’s Book Search service and its partnership with publishers, which makes books searchable online. Readers are then linked to sites such as Amazon where they can buy a physical copy of the book.

The news immediately lead Sunday Times commentator, Bryan Appleyard to bemoan the fact that: “We are, it seems, about to lose physical contact with books, the primary experience and foundation of civilization for the last 500 years.”

Read the full story from here.

Technorati tags: iBook, Google, Google’s Secret Work

Internet Explorer 7 Hits 100 Million Installs

Microsoft announced Friday it has hit the 100 million installation milestone for Internet Explorer 7, a figure that makes the new browser the second most used behind IE6. Web analytics firm WebSideStory reports that 25 percent of all Web surfers in the United States are now running IE7.

“We expect these numbers to continue to rise as we complete our final localized versions, scale up AU distribution, and with the consumer availability of Windows Vista on January 30, 2007,” wrote IE group program manager Tony Chor on the IEBlog. Because IE7 is built into Windows Vista, Microsoft expects adoption rates to jump further as consumers upgrade. Already, Microsoft is preparing to discuss the next version of Internet Explorer at the company’s MIX conference that begins April 30.

Source: BetaNews

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7, IE7, Statistics

Microsoft to build $550 million data center in San Antonio

Microsoft today announced plans to build a 550 (M) million dollar data center in northwest San Antonio.

The site will house Microsoft’s growing online services. The 400,000-square-foot facility will be the software giant’s first major data center in Texas.

The complex will house tens of thousands of computers for delivery of products like Microsoft’s Windows Live services, which include everything from instant messaging to mail.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Data Center, San Antonio, Texas

Download (in iPod format) Steve Jobs Keynote video from MacWorld 2007

Steve Jobs’ MacWorld Expo 2007 Keynote video was streaming at Apple’s website. You know that. But who wants to watch the keynote in the computer? What happened to the Apple frenzy, iPod?

Here is a location from where you can download the keynote video in m4v format (widescreen - 680×360) and can carry it in your iPod.

Pre-download Warning: The video file size is around 1.2 GB and you might want to be little diligent while downloading.

Download it from here.

Technorati tags: Apple, Macworld, MacWorld 2007, MacWorld 2007 Expo, MacWorld 2007 Video, Steve Jobs Keynote at MacWorld 2007

Verizon FiOS goes 50 Mbps

GigaOm reports that, under competitive pressure from local cable competitors like Cablevision, Verizon is fighting speed with speed. The company just announced that it is now offering connection speeds of up to 50 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 5 Mbps upstream over its FiOS network.

Though there isn’t any explicit detail of what the pricing might be, it is for sure to be super expensive. I have a 5/2 Down/Up speed and I pay 45 bucks a month. I’m sure it won’t be 10 times of what I pay now but certainly it would be expensive.

That tells me that I’ll just stick with what I get from my FiOS. It is indeed sufficient for my regular usage.

What is your opinion? What kind of service/speed do you have/prefer?

Technorati tags: Verizon, FiOS, Verizon FiOS

Indian man sends 182,689 SMS messages in one month

This is a pretty silly Guinness Record; you’ve gotta read this.

Engadget reports that an Indian man, Deepak Sharma, went on record with the Guinness Book for having sent the most SMS messages in a single month: 182,689. We’re not sure if that’s total, or unique messages, but if you’d like us to break that down for you, that’s about 6,100 messages a day, 253 an hour, 4.2 a minute, or a new one every 14 seconds or so.

So basically this guy gave up a month of his life sending texts—way to go, dude. His other reward? A 1,411 page bill (don’t worry, he has an unlimited texting plan)—compare that to, say, Joyce’s Ulysses (speaking of Guinness books… aw come on!), which is a mere 780 some-odd pages, though every bit as difficult to read through.

Update: Deepak Sharma aims to increase the number to 300,000 in the coming month.

Crazy…isn’t it?

Technorati tags: Mobile, Text Messages, Guinness Record

A day in the life of a "Googler"

CNN has a nice video clip of a day in the life of a “Googler”. As you might know, Google is the #1 in the list of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies To Work For in 2007″. And this video quantifies why they are at the #1 position.

View it here.

Technorati tags: Google, Googler, CNN, CNN.com, CNN.com Video, Video, Fortune Best Companies to work for in 2007

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Hello iPhone!

At it’s annual Macworld expo in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced their latest gizmo, iPhone. Yes, you read it right…a phone from Apple. The pretty neat thing about this phone is that it has a nice built-in web browser that’s almost as functional as it’s PC counterpart. The next neat thing I like the most is that it allows you to have widgets which are pretty handy to have some much needed information on the go at the fingertip.

The phone, which runs the Mac OS X, will come in two models — a $499 version with 4 gigabytes of flash memory and a $599 one with 8 gigabytes of flash memory. And one more interesting fact, my cell phone service provider Cingular is the official partner. Yeaaaaayyy!!!

Take a look at here for an introductory video.

No…it doesn’t come with that extra black border

Technorati tags: Apple, iPhone, MacWorld

Test Drive a Windows Vista near you

Do you want to test drive the latest OS from Microsoft, Windows Vista, without downloading the mammoth ISO files from those beta releases? Microsoft Virtual Labs is having a solution for you, Windows Vista Business Test Drive. Yes, it’s a hosted Vista that you can try without any risk or overhead.

Update: The last time I’d checked this web site it was down for updates, at least that’s what it said.

Feel like giving it a try? Click here.

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, Test Drive Vista, Microsoft Virtual Labs

What’s next Microsoft?…Windows Fiji and Windows Vienna

Having the count down already started for the consumer release of Windows Vista, what’s next in the line cooking up there at Redmond? Windows Fiji and Windows Vienna. That’s right. These are the Windows version on the queue to be in line for the subsequent releases.

On a gist, Windows Fiji will be either an update or a service pack to the current version of Windows Vista. This release should have features that didn’t make it in time for the Windows Vista launch.

According to Wikipedia here are some of the rumored features to be included in Windows Fiji.

• The user interface will be updated with things that were originally promised for Vista, along with a more powerful sidebar, which will be more than just a dock for widgets
• .Net Framework will be updated to 3.5 or 4
• WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders
• All bundled application will be updated to newer versions
• Tighter integration with Windows Live. Probably through ‘Codename Nemo’, a media center application that’s integrated with Messenger, Spaces, and probably lots of other Windows Live Services
• We might see Monaco, a music authoring tool, similar to Apple’s Garageband
• Default playback of HD-DVD, Vista currently identifies these disks but cannot play them without an external decoder
• A more advanced speech recognition software
• The system will be made more secure
• New themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything

If Windows Fiji is an update to the current Windows Vista, Windows Vienna is a complete revamp of the way Windows works and behaves. I particularly like the concept of “pie” menu instead of the traditional one (yeaaaay!!! more screen real estate).

Cybernet Technology News has a nice article with screenshots.

Disclaimer: As I’ve said it’s all in a very early incumbent stage and things might change drastically as the development progresses (like Windows Vista).

Technorati tags: Windows, Windows Fiji, Windows Vienna

Microsoft’s Free Ferrari Laptop Giveaway

You must have heard this…it’s one of the hot news in the blogosphere. “Microsoft is giving away some of the powerful laptops around, loaded with Vista, to some of the bloggers”. That’s the story.

Lately, the blogosphere was packed with the leaders of the blogosphere talking about whether it’s ethical to accept such an offer, is it okay to keep the gift or just give it away etc.

Robert Scoble thinks that it’s an awesome idea from Microsoft to giveaway the preloaded Vista laptops. Joel at Joel on Software says that Scoble was wrong and Microsoft in essence was bribing the bloggers to write about their product. It’s kind of a war of opinions flying around in the blogosphere.

I think it might not be an awesome idea but at the same time it might not be considered as bribing. Microsoft was not forcing you to write about their product and you are not obliged to write about just because you’ve accepted the gift. They say it would be nice if they review about it but they don’t force you to do so. It’s not a cheap marketing for them as well because the bloggers who’ve got the gift was already blogging about Microsoft products. So it’s not in anyway a cheap marketing campaign.

It might not be an awesome idea because it might trigger a biased blogosphere as bloggers might target that niche to be in line for the next years gift. The reviews might be one sided and might not be true enough. That way it wasn’t a great idea to send a gift preloaded with a specific product (particularly your own).

But I would take it as being a gift from Microsoft for writing all year about their product.

PS: Sorry for not posting to my blog for a while. I wasn’t in a position to post to my blog these days. I hope I should be able to resume my regular posting habit from now on.

Technorati tags: Free Laptop, Microsoft, Microsoft Free Laptop Giveaway, Robert Scoble, Joel On Software

Firefox 2.0.0.1 update is available for download

Mozilla today silently released a patch version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1. The update is not available yet on the Firefox homepage but you can get this update thru their FTP servers.

This update includes some major bug fixes and some fixes to memory leaks. Here is a complete list of bugs that are fixed in 2.0.0.1.

Firefox team indicates that some of the memory leak issues are because of the Adobe Flash Player issues and they suggest to download the latest Adobe Flash Player (version 9.0.28.0).

Download Firefox 2.0.0.1 (Direct Link – Approx. 5.8 MB)

Technorati tags: Mozilla, Firefox, Firefox 2.0.0.1, Adobe Flash Player

Best Buy made $43 million profit in unused gift cards in 2006

Yahoo News reports that the leading retailers are making huge profits on unused gift cards. How much?…for example, Best Buy made $43 million in profit in fiscal year 2006 on unused gift cards. That’s amazing.

Read the full story here.

PS: I have 2 of my Best Buy gift cards sitting on my wallet for a while now. My 2 cents!!!

Technorati tags: Best Buy, Gift Cards, Yahoo News

Redesigned Digg.com

Digg.com just unveiled a revamped Digg.com design which among other things makes uses of the screen real estate to deliver more content. They’ve added 3 major Digg categories, News, Videos and Podcasts (which is still in beta as they’ve unrolled). The overall look and feel of the site looks great..

Digg founder Kevin Rose has blogged about this at his Digg The Blog and has posted a short video that summarizes the new design features.

Visit Digg.

Technorati tags: Digg, Digg.com, Redesigned Digg.com, Digg The Blog, Kevin Rose

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Released

Scott Guthrie announces that, Visual Studio team shipped the final release of Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 yesterday. It is available for immediate download in all 10 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and both traditional and simplified Chinese). 

This SP release is a pretty major service pack release and incorporates a lot of bug-fixes and feedback from customers. Included with the service pack are the support for VS 2005 Web Application Projects (which is also made available as a separate download back in May). It also contains a number of design-time performance optimizations and fixes across the product.

You can download and install it here.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio.NET IDE, Visual Studio 2005, Service Pack, VS 2005 SP1

Microsoft launches a redesigned Microsoft.com site

Yes, on December 14th Microsoft.com has launched the newly redesigned site.

I think the site deserves a redesign and that was due for a while. The site looks good overall but the page background color is very plain (no patterns) and the Microsoft logo and the page image (the big one) takes up too much space for me to scroll down to see the page content, on a 1280 x 800 screen resolution.

Visit Microsoft.com to see the new design.

For Q&A on the redesign, visit this page.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Microsoft.com, Microsoft.com Site Redesign, New Microsoft.com site

Google lets you register your domain for $10 per year with "Google Apps For Your Domain" feature

Last August Google announced the availability of “Google Apps for your domain”. Here is a quote from Google of what the “Google Apps for your domain” feature is.

Google Apps for Your Domain lets you offer private-labeled email, IM and calendar accounts to all of your users, so they can share ideas and work more effectively. These services are all unified by the start page, a new addition to this service, a unique, dynamic page where your users can preview their inboxes and calendars, browse content and links that you choose, search the web, and further customize the page to their liking. You can also design and publish web pages for your domain.

Until now the feature was only available to the people who already own a domain, who wanted to add Google Apps to their domains.

Now surprisingly Google added a new cool feature to it that lets people who don’t yet have their own domain to register new domains for $10 per year. Google has partnered with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two leading domain registration services, to offer domains for $10 per year. And what’s further cool is that it includes “private registration”. Private registrations helps protect your personal information by not publishing your private information to the Whois database.  

Make use of the service here.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Apps, Domain Registration, 10 per year domain registration, GoDaddy, eNom

Amazon To Sell Wii and PS3 Soon

TechCrunch reports that Amazon will soon be selling the frenzy Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 consoles. Amazon sold out Wii consoles on the first day of its release in less than one minute and has not been able to keep PS3 in stock consistently at all. Even though its not clear when Amazon will take the orders again for Wii and PS3, as per TechCrunch it would be soon.

Read the source of the report here.

Technorati tags: Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, Amazon, Amazon.com, TechCrunch

Google releases Google Toolbar 3 Beta

Google announced on Tuesday the availability of it’s new Google Toolbar 3 Beta version. The new beta version is packed with handy features that makes downloading Google Toolbar 3 Beta a smart thing to do. Here are the new features at a glance.

• Custom buttons
• Send To
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Bookmarks
• Google Account Sign-in
• Enhanced Search Box
• Google Safe Browsing
• AutoFill
• WordTranslator
• Subscribe to Feed
• Send with Gmail
• Custom Layouts
• AutoLink
• SpellCheck
• PageRank Display
• Highlight Search Terms
• Word Find Buttons
• Auto Update

Here is the full list of the new features.

for Firefox 1.5+ versions.

For Internet Explorer 6.0+ versions please use this link to download the toolbar.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Toolbar 3, Google Toolbar 3 Beta

Yahoo to integrate Instant Messaging with Yahoo Mail

In the next two months Yahoo is going to integrate instant messaging with the Yahoo Mail platform. With the new beta platform already being popular among the users this will add a new boost to the already popular email client.

Unlike Gmail with Talk, Yahoo is planning to tightly integrate instant messaging into the UI framework itself to give the users a unified look and feel as Yahoo Mail Beta.

Here is a picture for you to visualize on what that means.

Hope it doesn’t slow down the Yahoo Mail performance. We have to wait and see. But I think this step forward is in the right direction as many times it happens that users can access Yahoo Mail but couldn’t get to the messenger at some places, for example at work. This will greatly resolve that issue.

Technorati tags: Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo, Yahoo Mail and Messenger Integration

Channel9 is getting a redesign

I’m a regular viewer at Channel9. I keep hitting that site at least once a day. It has such great content in video and what I like the most is that they’ve put a human face to the otherwise hidden development team at Microsoft. Even though it had great content I never liked the design of the pages. It always looked to me like they were stuck with the <tr><td> world.

I was surprised to see that they are working on a new redesigned Channel9 which looks much better than the old design. Here is what the home page looks like. (click on the image below for the full image. If you cannot see the image click this link for the full image.)

I particularly like the new layout and also the many different download options. It looks like with the new design you can download Channel9 videos to your iPod, PSP, Windows Media Player and guess what, to Zune as well. That’s plenty of options and surely will make the life of the viewers a lot easy.

Thank you Channel9 team. Keep up the good work.

Technorati tags: Channel9, Channel9 Redesign

Office 2007 Released To Manufacturing (RTM)

It seems like by last Friday, November 3rd, at approximately 2:30 PM Microsoft Office Team has signed off on build 4518.1014 as the 2007 Microsoft Office system and has released it to manufacturing.

How you can get Office 2007?

Office 2007 products will be available at retail by early 2007 so you’ll be able to get your hands on them soon. Business customers will be able to get Office 2007 through the volume licensing program before the end of this year.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Office 2007, RTM

del.icio.us tags: Microsoft, Office 2007, RTM