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Buzz Word of the day – Google Buzz!!!!

nic — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:15:39 +0000

Google, like someone arriving late to a party already drunk and boisterous but with a lot of party favors, is trying to grab some of that Web2.0 social glimmer by polishing up Gmail with Google Buzz. The app, which is integrated into Gmail, includes the best features of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other well-known social media offerings in a way that only Google could pull off. Buzz began rolling out to Gmail inboxes just minutes after a presentation at Google’s headquarters.

Buzz has its own user interface and leverages the data about you that’s already inside Gmail–for example, it automatically builds a friend list for you to follow by looking at those people you already e-mail and chat with. It also lets you to share pictures, videos and Weblinks–and comment, like or recommend them to friends. You’ll also be able to add Twitter updates, flickr images, and other external offerings (although Facebook was notably absent from the list of available services).

Buzz’s product manager Todd Jackson demonstrated the system, prominently noting that “the inbox is the center” of many people’s online social experience, before running through Buzz’s features. They include:

The ability to change privacy settings on each piece information that you share.
Connect to Picasa, Google Reader, Twitter, and flickr.
Status updates in your Gmail inbox, as well as replies from email.
Twitter-style @replies.
A recommendation engine so that you can spread good posts from friends-of-friends.

The Gmail inbox now includes real-time updating feeds from your Buzz friends, extremely similar to the way live Tweet updates get added to the top of key search result windows in Google’s search. It’s also a lot like Friendfeed, crow barred into Google’s own existing services–which is not wholly surprising since FriendFeed was started by Google employees before it was sold to Facebook in August 2009.

There are plenty of gems in the interface within the Gmail dashboard, like big thumbnail previews instead of tiny ones, different layers of sharing from public to private, and Buzz’s “recommended” list which suggests content you may like that comes from outside your normal friend pool. Fans of social networking will, however, quickly identify that most of these features are simply replicated from other services like Facebook’s email integration and Twitter–the controversial recommended Tweep list, most obviously–and even from inside Twitter’s third-party desktop clients (Tweetie for large thumbnail previews of shared images, for example.)

Will Google Buzz be able to catch up with the social media momentum that is currently led by Twitter and Facebook? Rolling out the service to more than 146 million monthly Gmail users certainly gives Google a running start.

iPhone Technology With World’s Most Expensive Christmas Card

nic — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:35:42 +0000

The crafty iPhone has designed the most expensive gift option on this Christmas for their fans:The iPhone Christmas card,for those who love to spend their money on technologies and innovations.This homemade Christmas card design features a built-in iPhone and holiday app. Weighing in at more than $100 (after you buy the phone and the app), it’s also one Christmas card worth tracking after it’s been sent.

Here’s a video added for you all to show its features:

Facebook Reconstructed Home page Undertest

nic — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:31:31 +0000

Oh!Don’t get perturbed by viewing just the headline.It’s not about the Lite version of Facebook that was released recently, but instead, a reconstruct of the main page. The new page will not be very different from the current one, but it does lack Facebook’s signature “Publisher” box by default and instead simply features an alternating title and a button (positioned to the top right of the news feed) with the text “Update Status” which when clicked, displays the publisher box.The design also features a new “Top News” link ,The link then switches to “Recent Stories” once you have clicked the “Top News” link which shows an overview of the top news on your news dines this will surely show the filters of the feeds or news that have received the most comments/likes.More precisely We are currently unsure if this is a site-wide change or if it is only being tested on a select few accounts. Do you see these changes on your news feed? If so, how long have you experienced the new design and what are your thoughts on the changes?
The Phrase below came from the Facebook :

“We are currently testing different designs of the News Feed and the home page with select users. The tests help us understand if we can make it easier for users to balance both the most important and themost recent information from people they’re connected to.”

Microsoft Throws Free Security Essentials Anti-Virus Software Live Incredible..

nic — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:45:27 +0000

Microsoft has just thrown the anti-virus industry a problem called Microsoft Security Essentials. The problem is the incredibly obvious one – it’s free.
What’s amazing is not that Microsoft is handing out something for free, but that it has taken them so long to get around to it. For at least the last four years since XP’s SP2 security makeover, it’s been obvious that anti-malware is not an optional extra with a PC but a core part of what makes it usable.
The clue to Essentials is in its name.This follows history. Once upon a time people bought TCP/IP stacks to get their computers to connect to the Internet until it was realised that this was a job for the operating system and was actually a necessity. Although Essentials isn’t tightly knitted to Windows, my prediction is that it will one day become so, just as the Windows 7 firewall and User account Control are now standard piece of its internal workings.What of the extraordinary number of other companies selling programs that do much the same thing? In the short term, some of them will also have to start giving away basic anti-malware programs too for fear that they will be pushed off the desktop. Longer term, the better paid-for programs will start adding more and more features to keep up market share.An increasing number already come with anti-spam (the one useful thing Essentials doesn’t yet do) anti-keylogging virtual keyboards, patching of third-party vulnerabilities, and some have started taking up ID theft protection. I can see encryption utilities entering the fray. The possibilities are myriad.
For sure, the Symantecs and McAfees will need better marketing to explain why all these extra bits matter because the average consumer has barely even heard of them never mind seeing it as a reason to spend money. That’s the biggest challenge – trying to explain why they need something that goes beyond what free programs will do for nothing.An interesting question is where all this leaves business customers. The majority of these have tended to stick to basic AV programs that can be centrally managed, but it’s hard to see how Essentials won’t have some sort of knock-on effect on this market too.Security software companies are an essential part of the microcosm of diversity that is essential to keep the security industry form lagging too far behind the criminals. But perhaps that’s the real problem that the arrival of Essentials points too. The idea of a security company is slowly becoming obsolete as these technologies reach closer to kernel level.

Testing Moves On For New Released Google Wave: Updating Through (Photos and Videos)

nic — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:33:48 +0000

Here comes The Web Giant Google again with an innovative and ambitious technology through which People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. It is an attempt to resume Internet communication, blending elements of e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, and workplace collaboration software into a single Web application. It was first unveiled at Google I/O in May before Web developers who were a bit dazzled by the possible uses of the technology. Actually Wave is much more complicated than Twitter, and that could well be a downside (remember, keep it simple, stupid). But there’s a difference between clutter and ambition, especially when you have the resources of Google behind you. Shooting for the Moon is a good thing, and Wave has a unique opportunity to do that. Many of the most ambitious projects often crash and burn — it’s the nature of high risk/high reward. But we’re still way too early in its lifespan to make that call for Wave. We can see the backlash already, and it should be given a chance. The end result could well be something that greatly benefits us all, but getting to that point, if it ever does, will take time. At present, however, Google Wave is one big bug bash, perhaps half a year away from launching as a stable product. Google engineers have solved many of the more persistent bugs that were hampering the product a few months ago, but there is still a long way to go and Wave should not be considered anything but a “Preview”. Still, that’s better than “developer preview,” the status previously attached to Wave that implied only hardcore techies should venture within.In addition to the developers and waiting list, Google also plans to open Wave up to a limited number of Google Apps enterprise customers for testing. A few companies, such as SAP and Salesforce.com, have already started playing around with the technology but Google is seeking feedback from other organizations on how Wave might work within their environment. It’s really Google Wave’s ambition that is a dual-edged sword. Because the team is trying to do so much with the product, there will be plenty of people who find it confusing and cluttered. And to some extent, they’re right. But anyone who labels it a failure at this point is either an ill-tempered person or an extremely shortsighted person claiming to have foresight. It’s a nice thought that every product should be a taut bundle of execution with an easy path to monetization. But the web, andreally the world, would be a much more boring place if that were the case.
Here’s a picture of what Google Wave can do:Provided by Google itself.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Google Book Search Pact under anti trust inquisition

nic — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:21:17 +0000

No question that the web giant Google has always pushed all the envelopes and continues to do so. But the book pact by Google, for instance has finally created an opportunity for anti-googlers to throw roadblocks at Google and knock them at every step either in legal or litigation arenas. An antitrust inquisition was posted by The Justice Department against the book’s pact and its services when two people reported who were familiar with Google book search pact with authors and publishers. The justice department communicated with Google and some of its critics to query about the pact which is an ambitious plan to digitize every book, famous or not, in any language, published anywhere on earth, found in the world’s libraries, as part of the company’s core mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful .The Department of Justice also refused to give any exegesis on the matter. Representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild did not return requests for comment. However as part of the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125 million payment to resolve claims, cover legal fees and establish a registry to enable rights holders—be they publishers or authors—to register their works and subsequently receive payment when their titles are used online.Google also says that the settlement is nonexclusive and structured in a manner to encourage competition. But this ambitious plan is just to share revenue through the services has done little to pursue some authors and publishers, who worry that it sets a new paragon for digital copyrights and gives Google broad licenses over a significant database of titles. The settlement, unveiled in October, seeks to resolve a class-action lawsuit that stems from cases filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in 2005 to stop Google from scanning books and making them searchable online. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleged that Google’s book search project violated copyrights. As part of the settlement, Google agreed to pay $125 million payment to resolve claims, cover legal fees and establish a registry to enable rights holders—be they publishers or authors—to register their works and subsequently receive payment when their titles are used online.Legal experts are in fear that the pact may lead Google too much power over distribution and pricing of works that are still covered by U.S. copyright law but whose rights’ owners are unknown, so-called orphan works. The web giant Google is standing tall against all its antagonist. That’s right, in spite of all it’s done to transform our world and define free, open digital space, nobody in the business seems to like the Google.

Does Yahoo deserves a seat at the grownups table

nic — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:33:05 +0000

Yahoo still feels it has a trick or two up its sleeve and deserves a seat at the grownups table with Microsoft and Google. Google is experiencing its share of success by providing a diverse platform of Web-based tools, and iGoogle seems to be its attempt at providing a portal-like experience that ties some its other products and services together.So, Yahoo has surrendered the actual crawling and indexing of the vast interwebs to Microsoft Bing, but it can still put its own shade of lipstick on that pig. RaghavanYahoo’s senior vice president of labs and search strategy made remarks as much by stating that Bing may be providing the engine, but Yahoo is still free to create its own ‘search experience’.Yahoo was one of the leaders of the web portal charge that more or less helped newbie users closed between spoon-fed Internet providers like America Online and venture out into the wild internet without having their hands held. The Internet audience has matured beyond the portal.Yahoo has indicated a desire to jump back into social networking. It had previously tried to be hip and trendy with the Yahoo 360 service which couldn’t compete with the likes of Facebook and MySpace and was eventually abandoned. The new Yahoo mail interface offers some Facebook and Twitter-like features, and now Yahoo has announced the purchase of Maktoob.com, the Arab world’s largest online community. Social networking is filled with its share of Goliath’s as well and is not a market for the faint of heart…or resources.The one area where there appears to be innovation and room for growth and competition on the Web is with the robust applications that let users work productively from the infamous ‘cloud’. Google has led the way in that area with Google Docs and other products. Google has already announced Google Wave which will provide a Web-based communications and collaboration platform. The thing is, while there is room for competition, Yahoo doesn’t have the intellectual or financial resources to fight that fight with Google.Can the Yahoo ‘search experience’ be compelling enough to compete with the vast resources of Microsoft and Google?The products and services in Yahoo’s arsenal are barely distinguishable from those offered by its rivals, and trying to dress it up pretty to cater to a shrinking audience of users who rely on portals to navigate the Web is a dead end business model.

Google has come up with translator toolkit for Online Translation

nic — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:02:23 +0000

Google has come up with a translator toolkit that combines the company’s machine translation technology with online tools for manually editing content.Earlier Google had brought up a product called Google translate which allowed users to translate and read Web sites and plain text in a number of languages. But the new product is all different and innovative . it is meant for users who want to edit and polish the translated text, and share or publish it, said Prasad Ram, center head and engineering director at Google India R&D, on Tuesday.This new product is developed in Google’s Indian R&D Lab Development . it will be known to be the latest of a number of tools developed by Google in India to improve access to content in local languages, Ram said.products like this are designed keeping in mind the problems in india but are useful for people throughout the world.By an arrangement with Wikipedia, users can download a Wikipedia entry into the translator toolkit, translate it into a local language using machine translation, correct and polish the translation and post it to the online encyclopedia.

Professional translators can also upload personal files to the translator toolkit, and use the toolkit provided by Google, which includes a glossary, and dictionary, among other features, Galvez said. The local file and the translation can be kept private. he added.

The editing can be done using a document layout that general users are familiar with.

Apple launches its World Wide Developers Conference[WWDC] with all fresh release

nic — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:55:55 +0000

Just 2 days after the release of the Palm (PALM), a solid Smartphone, Apple came up with the latest incarnation of its own category killer, the iPhone 3G S,it will be in stores lately this month. This version sports a faster processor, longer battery life, video recording, and a digital compass. It also comes with higher memory capacity than previous models.

Along with this Apple also released refreshed versions of its notebooks Along with the usual speed increases, the newer 13-inch and 15-inch models cost less and include SD card slots. The entire line is also using the same non-removable battery technology found in the MacBook AIR and the 17-inch model of the MacBook Pro.Listed below are the new announcements:

New iPhone hardware
New iPhone software
Extended preview of new operating system

Navy fans can stay up-to-date with the latest sports news: thanks to Twitter and Facebook

nic — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:09:42 +0000

With the Naval Academy Athletic Association latest announcement that it has launched pages on Facebook and Twitter the navy fans can stay up-to-date. Navy’s facebook page can be found at: Navy Athletics on Facebook. To join, fans can click on the Navy Athletics Facebook page and on the left side of the page, click on the “join group” link. Selecting the link will give you news, notes and promotions of Navy Athletics right on your Facebook page. The official Navy Athletics Twitter page will be updated throughout the year with breaking news, scores, in-game updates, announcements and the up-to-the-minute coverage of Naval Academy athletics.