Google’s +1

See +1's

Sometimes it’s easier to find exactly what you’re looking for when someone you know already found it. Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want them, in your search results.

The next time you’re trying to remember that bed and breakfast your buddy was raving about, or find a great charity to support, a +1 could help you out. Just make sure you're signed in to your Google Account.

Show +1's

In order to +1 things, you first need a public Google profile. This helps people see who recommended that tasty recipe or great campsite. When you create a profile, it's visible to anyone and connections with your email address can easily find it.

Your +1’s are stored in a new tab on your Google profile. You can show your +1’s tab to the world, or keep it private and just use it to personally manage the ever-expanding record of things you love around the web.

Now watch movies through Facebook, courtesy Warner Bros

Now you'll be able to watch movies through Facebook. Yes, you have read it correct. Warner Bros is going to make some of its films on the popular social networking site. The service will initially be available in the U.S.

Facebook Credits, a virtual credit which has been mainly in social games so far, will be used for consumers to pay for the movies, said Warner Bros. According to it, this will open up a new source of revenue for the social network site.

Facebook's revenue mainly comes from online advertising. It takes 30 percent of the revenue from sales by third parties on the website using Credits.

"The Dark Knight" is the first movie available on the Warner Bros Entertainment page on Facebook. In the coming months, there will be additional titles available for rental or purchase. For 48 hours, the rentals cost 30 Facebook Credits or $3. However, can pause and restart a movie whenever they log back in.

Ref : Silicon India

Google Fast Flip

Google Fast Flip is an online news aggregator from Google Inc. that mimics the experience of flicking through a newspaper or magazine, allowingvisual search of stories in manner similar to microfiche. It was launched in beta by Google Labs at the TechCrunch 50 conference in September 2009.

The site presents images of stories from Google's news partners, which can be clicked on to navigate to the story on the news provider's own website. Stories can be scrolled between using the mouse or cursor keys. The presentation of stories uses a similar algorithm to Google News, but stories can be ordered by publication as well as by subject. Krishna Bharat of Google News has said that "Fast Flip is mostly for longer shelf-life content, the kind of content you want to recommend to other people." Fast Flip was created after Larry Page "asked why the web was not more like a magazine, allowing users to flip from screen to screen seamlessly." Fast Flip is available on iPhone and Android mobile devices.

Users of Fast Flip are able to follow friends and topics, find new content, and to create their own customized magazines around their searches.

At launch, there were 39 mainly US-based news partners. Google says it will share the majority of revenue from contextual adverts with its news partners.

Fast Flip has been praised for allowing visual, fast and serendipitous browsing of news stories, but it has been criticized as being a novelty, anachronistic, as it emulates print media, limits navigation and presents few news sources, and as being more focused on the needs of publishers than of readers. Its visual search has been compared to the beta visual search of Microsoft Bing and to The Onion's microfiche iPhone app. Fast Flip has also been cited as a demonstration of Google's power in the news marketplace; by setting up another news interface that uses publishers' content without returning much value.

More Details Click Here : Google Fast Flip

Source : Wikipedia

Google Cloud Print

Google Cloud Print makes printing more intuitive, accessible and useful, by allowing you to print to your printers from Google Cloud Print enabled apps on any computer or smart phone.

To connect your printer to Google Cloud Print, you will need to install the latest developer version of Google Chrome on a Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 computer that's connected to your printer. Once installed, enable the Google Cloud Print connector in Google Chrome.

For More Details Click Here

Google Cloud Print

Source : Google Code Labs

Google body browser

Google body browser is a website, which allows user to navigate through 3D anatomical model of human body. Several layers from muscle tissues down to blood vessels can be made transparent to allow better study of individual body parts. Most of the body parts are labeled.

Check this here:
Google body browser website

Google's new Smartphone Nexus S launched with Gingerbread

Google has launched its new flagship Android phone the "Nexus S" made by South Korea's Samsung. The new phone is the first device to run Android 2.3, codenamed "Gingerbread".

The Nexus S will be made available in the U.S. from December 16 from Best Buy stores and from December 20 at Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy retailers in Britain, said Google Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin. He further added that Nexus S delivers unfiltered access to the best Google mobile services and the latest and greatest Android releases and updates.

The new phone is a slab-style, 1-GHz smartphone like Samsung's popular Galaxy S line. It has 5-megapixel rear-facing and VGA front-facing cameras, 16 gigabytes of internal memory and HD video playback and 720-by-480 video capture. It works on both T-Mobile's 3G network and AT&T's 2G EDGE network.

The Nexus S spotlights key features in Google's Gingerbread OS, including support for near-field communications (NFC), built-in voice-over-IP calling, faster speed, better power management, more sensors and front-facing cameras. NFC chips store personal data that can be transmitted to readers.

Nexus S will cost $529 unlocked, or $199 with a two-year T-Mobile contract.

Source : SiliconIndia

Meet The New Twitter

 

Gmail Priority Inbox

New Feature In Gmail

Automatic sorting

Gmail uses a variety of signals to identify important email, including which messages you open and which you reply to.



Sections keep you organized

Incoming email gets separated into sections: important and unread, starred, and everything else. Don’t like these? Customize them.



Predictions improve over time

Over time, Priority Inbox gets better at predicting what’s important to you. You can help train it using the buttons.

Now share your location with friends on FB

Facebook has introduced a new location-based functionality called 'Facebook Places'. Now Facebook users will be able to add their current location to their status updates via Facebook Places.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook, highlighted the three main uses of Places, "Help you share where you are, help you find where your friends are, and discover new places around you."

You can also add places and can check-in at places. However, Facebook does not show you nearby places, but places it thinks are relevant to you.

Also photo tagging has been incorporated with Places. You can "tag" friends that are with you at a specific location. Thus, everybody doesn't have to check-in on their own. Implementation of tagging seems to be one of the best features of the platform.

The privacy controls for Places comprise of removing check-in and the "Here Now" button is activated only after you check in. You are notified when you are tagged and you can only tag your friends. You can also remove tags or turn off being tagged in Facebook Places. You also have the option to report a place on the iPhone if it's inaccurate or don't want it on the system.

Another interesting feature of Places is "Is this your business?" It allows owners to claim a business page. So, something is there for the business owners as well.

Facebook has kept developers in mind as well while creating Places. There's a Read API for reading check-ins and learning more about check-in pages. There's a Search and Write API for making check-ins and searching through them.

Ref: Silicon India

TCS to introduce cloud computing for SMBs

As an attempt to make the information technology services affordable for the SMBs in the country, India's leading IT company TCS is set to launch a new project, a cloud offering. The offering is expected to launch by September, writes Achalla Venugopal from WATBlog.com.

This cloud service aims to lower the cost of ownership by 35-40 percent. The traditional licensing model will be replaced by a monthly subscription model. The IT stack includes hardware, networking and software. New customers will be locked in for three years. TCS plans to focus on the domestic market with this offering first and then later expand to overseas markets too.

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources.

The service is expected to be a major growth engine for TCS. It can revolutionize the way Indian SMBs do their businesses providing them the same IT infrastructure which they could otherwise not afford. This offering which has yet not been branded is also been talked about as the last big-ticket project from Ratan Tata.

Bangalore IT firms logs out due to nationwide shutdown

Hundreds of IT firms, including Indian bellwethers Infosys Technologies and Wipro will remain closed Monday due to the nationwide shutdown against the hike in fuel prices.

"As a precaution, we have given Monday off to our employees working in the Bangalore campus. They will compensate by working on Saturday (July 10)," Infosys Chief Executive Krish Gopalakrishnan told IANS.

The global software major, however, made arrangements for employees working on essential projects and business process outsourcing (BPO) services to work during the day, when the shutdown will be observed from dawn to dusk.

"We have made arrangement for those software engineers handling key projects for overnight stay and transport to essential staff on day shift," Gopalakrishnan said.

The $4.8-billion Infosys has its largest software development park in the electronics city, about 30 km from here, where about 16,000 employees work in its sprawling campus.

Similarly, Wipro, which has two software development parks in the electronics city and on the city's outskirts, declared a holiday, directing its employees to report for duty July 10 in lieu of Monday.

"We have declared a holiday for our employees July 5 in view of the nationwide shutdown. They have been asked to work July 10 though it's a weekend," Wipro Executive Vice-President Suresh Senapaty said.

The country's largest IT bellwether - Tata Consulting Services (TCS) was yet to decide whether to give off or not to its employees working in the Bangalore software development centre at Whitefield, about 20 km from the city.

"We will let you know later. There is no decision yet. In case we decide to declare holiday, the employees will be duly intimated by e-mail and sms," a company official said.

Due to uncertainty of public transport by the state-run Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation (BMTC), hundreds of small and medium enterprises in IT and biotech sectors have extended the weekend holiday to their employees up to Monday.

"With auto-rickshaw and taxi associations deciding to not to ply in support of the shutdown, we have asked our employees to stay back in the absence of official information on public transport being available," Deepk Chandra of a start-up IT firm in the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) said.

As a precautionary measure, several multinational firms have also decided to give an off Monday and ask their employees to compensate by working on a Saturday.

Source : SiliconIndia

Add Background Images to Google's Homepage

Google's homepage has always been simple and uncluttered. Those who wanted to customize the homepage with gadgets and themes had to switch to iGoogle, the personalized Google homepage. Lately, Google's homepage has changed a lot: the search box is bigger, there's a fade-in animation and a new logo, doodles are more interactive.

Inspired by Ask.com's themes and Bing's wallpapers, Google will allow users to add a background image to the Google homepage. "We're introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos," explains Marissa Mayer.

Google says that the new feature will be gradually released in the US and it will soon be available outside US. A lot of people use Google as their homepage and many would like to customize the homepage. I'm not sure it's a good idea to add visual clutter to the Google homepage and to make it load slower, but iGoogle, Bing and Ask.com have a lot of happy users.

Google TV: Now Web On TV

Google the internet giant is out to expand its kingdom to the living room with an ambitious new service that lets people mesh television viewing with surfing the Web. Google TV, which has developed in partnership with technology titans Sony, Intel and Logitech and launched on Thursday.

Google TV, is powered by Google's Android software and Chrome Web browser, can be accessed using upcoming Web-enabled televisions from Sony or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing TV sets. Sony and Logitech said the sets and boxes will be available in the United States in time for the year-end holiday shopping season and be rolled out internationally next year.

Google TV, which promises to extend the Internet search and advertising giants reach into the lucrative TV ad market. Initially, advertising served on Google TV will be the same as seen now by television viewers or Web surfers but the Internet firm said it is pondering ways to tailor advertising to the platform.

Source : SiliconIndia

Top 10 IT Certifications In Demand

IT certifications have always been popular among IT pros to bag the right job or seek the right jump. With the economy back in green, IT jobs too are back. Keeping this in mind, technology research firm Foote Partners recently listed IT certifications that could be considered "hot" in the coming months.

1. VMware Certified Professional: With virtualization technology becoming hot, it is little surprising that VCP program is in demand. Research shows that enterprises often face lack of required expertise specific to virtualization.
2. Certified Information Systems Auditor: CISA is a professional certification for Information technology audit professionals sponsored by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). Candidates for the certification must meet requirements set by ISACA.
3. GIAC Security Audit Essentials: This is for professionals planning to enter the information security industry who are tasked with auditing organization policy, procedure, risk, or policy conformance.
4. Certified Information Security Manager: CISM is a certification for information security managers awarded by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).
5. Check Point Certified Security Expert: Designed for experienced security professionals, Check Point CCSE certification is claimed to be one of the most respected vendor-specific security certification. CCSE is an advanced Core security certification built on CCSA NGX, confirming in-depth skills and expertise in managing and supporting Check Point products
6. Check Point Certified Security Administrator: Another Check Point-specific certification, CCSA aims to validate a security administrator's ability to maintain day-to-day operation of vendor's security solutions and ensure secure access to information across the network.
7. Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (Security): MCSE certification provides an individual's skills in designing, implementing, and administering infrastructure for business solutions based on Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.
8. Certified Wireless Security Professional: CWSP is claimed to be an advanced level certification that measures the ability to secure any wireless network. A wide range of security topics focusing on the 802.11 wireless LAN technology are covered in the coursework and exam, which is vendor neutral.
9. GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst: GCIA is an information security certification entity that specializes in technical and practical certification as well as new research in the form of its GIAC Gold program. SANS Institute founded the certification in 1999.
10. Cisco Certified Network Professional: Another vendor specific certification, Cisco Certified Network Professional or CCNP aims to validate the ability to plan, implement, verify and troubleshoot local and wide-area enterprise networks and work collaboratively with specialists on advanced security, voice, wireless and video solutions.

Source : Silicon India

Touch Magix

TouchMagix is a next gen digital media that engages consumers in a whole new experience that involves interaction.

Touch Magix based in Pune, a city 120 miles south-east of the Indian commercial capital, Mumbai. TouchMagix is a product of the TechnoKarma Labs, an incubator that was established in 2002 with a vision to design and deliver world-class innovations to masses. We are a team with diverse experience in technology, gaming, advertising and marketing. We love to build products that enable brand owners to engage their consumers in an interaction that will make an everlasting impact in the consumers mind.

TouchMagix is lead by Anup Tapadia, who had bagged 2 master degrees in Computer Science at the age of 21 ! Anup is an alumnus of University of California, San Diego. At age of 14 he became the world youngest professional to pass the Microsoft Certifications (MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA). Bill gates, Azim Premji, Raghunath Mashalkar and many others have written and appreciated his achievements in the field of technology and science. Anup started his first company at the age of 16. Anup has a vision to make India an innovation hub to develop world-class products and start-ups.

Preview

TouchMagix Preview
Uploaded by touchmagix. - Technology reviews and science news videos.

 

Ref:Touch Magix

Internet Explorer 9 goes for HTML5, partially

Microsoft has announced that the new internet explorer will have many features supporting HTML5, which will make browsing internet a speedy experience. "HTML5 will enable a new class of applications," says Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft's Internet Explorer General Manager, speaking to the press at the company's Mix10 conference in Las Vegas, according to The Register.

But there are many features that are not supported by IE9. Like the Canvas element. "All the graphics that run in IE9 are GPU-powered, they are hardware accelerated. We said there'll be updates to the preview and we'll see what else is coming in the next preview," says Hachamovitch.

Microsoft will also have to deal with the issue of video codecs, which has left the Video tag without any officially standardized codec. Replying to this Hachamovitch says, "For IE9, the demonstration that we gave involved the H.264 codec, which is a great industry standard for video, and we will support the H.264 codec. If I made a list of all the things for the HTML5 spec to do next, it's not clear that the HTML5 video codec would be near the top."

The IE9 preview does a better job with the Acid3 standards test than earlier versions, but at 55 per cent, it remains poor, considering that some other browsers pass completely. Hachamovitch is defensive about the test and says, "The Acid3 test is something that some folks use as a proxy for standards support. It's 100 tests. It exercises about a dozen different technologies, some of which are under construction, some of which are less under construction. The most important thing: as IE9 supports more of the markup that developers actually use, the score will continue to go up, as a side effect."

The new IE9 will not be supporting Windows XP. "Building a modern browser requires a modern operating system. There are facilities in Windows Vista and Windows 7 around security, for example the integrity-level work that gave us protected mode. There are performance improvements, there is graphics infrastructure to take advantage of the GPU, that doesn't exist in previous operating systems," says Hachamovitch.

Microsoft will be using Silverlight more extensively in IE9. This might work well for Microsoft but also might slow up the speed of the browser.

Ref:

 

EARTH HOUR

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.

Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Europe to Asia to the Americas will stand in darkness. People across the world from all walks of life will turn off their lights and join together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet. So sign up now and let’s make 2010 the biggest Earth Hour yet!.

It’s Showtime! Show the world what can be done.

Google plans superfast internet

San Francisco: Google plans to build a fiber optic broadband network that will connect customers to the internet at speeds 100 times faster than most existing broadband connections in the US, the company announced on its corporate blog.

"Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make internet access better and faster for everyone," two Google product managers, Minnie Ingersoll and James Kelly, wrote in the blog post Wednesday.

They said that Google plans to build and test the network in trial communities around the country starting later this year and that the tests could encompass as many as 500,000 people. They cited 3-dimensional medical imaging and quick, high-definition film downloads among the applications of such high-speed internet access.

"We'll deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fibre-to-the-home connections," the post said. "We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."

"We're doing this because we want to make the web better and faster to everyone," said Kelly, who also promised that the network would operate on open access network, in which users could choose various internet providers and which would not give preference to any one kind of content. Kelly appealed to local officials who were interested in having their community participate in the trial to contact the internet giant.

The announcement continued Google's recent initiative to expand into market sectors beyond its core web search specialty. In the last year it has made a splash in the mobile phone market with its Android operating system and Nexus One handset, and Tuesday announced a social networking feature aimed at taking on Facebook and Twitter.

While broadband industry incumbents may fear the entry by Google, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski welcomed the move, the Washington Post reported.
"Big broadband creates big opportunities," he said in a statement. "This significant trial will provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed internet apps, devices and services."

Ref:

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa formerly known as Burj Dubai, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m (2,717 ft). Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009 and the building officially opened on 4 January 2010. The building is part of the 2 km² (490-acre) flagship development called Downtown Burj Khalifa at the "First Interchange" along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architect and engineer is Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP (Chicago). Bill Baker, the Chief Structural Engineer for the project, invented the buttressed core structural system in order to enable the tower to achieve such heights economically. Adrian Smith, who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006, was the Design Partner on the project.
The primary builder is South Korean Samsung C&T, who also built the Taipei 101 and Petronas Twin Towers, followed by Belgian group Besix and Arabtecfrom UAE. Turner Construction Company was chosen as the construction project manager. Under UAE law, the Contractor and the Engineer of Record are jointly and severally liable for the performance of Burj Khalifa. Therefore, by adoption of SOM's design and by being appointed as Architect and Engineer of Record, Hyder Consulting is legally the Design Consultant for the tower.
The total budget for the Burj Khalifa project is about US$1.5 billion; and for the entire new "Downtown Dubai", US$20 billion. Mohamed Ali Alabbar, the CEOof Emaar Properties, speaking at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat 8th World Congress, said in March 2009 that the price of office space at Burj Khalifa had reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and that the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, were selling for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²). The completion of the tower coincided with a worldwide economic slump and overbuilding, causing it to be described as "the latest ... in [a] string of monuments to architectural vacancy."
Ref : Wikipedia

2011 Cricket World Cup

The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup will be the tenth Cricket World Cup, and will be hosted by three South Asian Test cricket playing countries; India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It will be Bangladesh's first time co-hosting a Cricket World Cup. The World Cup will use cricket's One Day International format, with fourteen national cricket teams scheduled. to compete. The World Cup will take place during the months of February and March 2011, with the first match being played on 19 February 2011.

The World Cup was originally to have been hosted by Pakistan as well, but in the wake of the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka national cricket team in Lahore, the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab, the International Cricket Council (ICC) were forced to strip Pakistan of its hosting rights. The headquarters of the organising committee were originally situated in Lahore, but have now been shifted to Mumbai. Pakistan was supposed to hold 14 matches, including one semi-final. 8 of Pakistan's Matches have been awarded to India, 4 to Sri Lanka and 2 to Bangladesh.