Google's step towards Advanced Image Search Technology

Last week at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing, Google engineers presented a paper which will be applied on PageRank system of finding relevant pages to improve the accuracy of image search in Google. This new technology is called VisualRank.


The paper, titled "PageRank for Product Image Search," (PDF) was published by Yushi Jing and Shumeet Baluja of Google. In this paper, they discussed about using a 'visual link structure' in PageRank system and it also proposed to move away from the current search system.

In the proposed system, a numerical weight would be assigned to each image and, according to the paper, ranking would occur based upon "expected user behavior given the visual similarities of the images to be ranked.

Continue at PC World

Guinness World Records needs GTA IV

World record bible Guinness World Records is keeping a very close eye on GTA IV in case, just maybe, it breaks a record or two.

It will be watching the release of Grand Theft Auto IV as a potential record-breaking phenomenon".

Should Rockstar's sequel indeed establish any new records - like 'Most hyped game ever' - it'll be keeping its predecessors company, as the series is no stranger to the pages of Guinness World Records.

Source: CVG

Microsoft re-launches AdLabs

The Computer Giant suppose to have re-launched and placed all of its search marketing tools into those labs.

AdLabs seems to be a innovative tool for search marketers, webmasters and anybody who has some interest in how people are involved into searching. The data comes straight away from Microsoft's own search engines.

Intel's Mini-ITX motherboard

Intel has unveiled two Mini-ITX-based motherboards, Elko and Fly Creek, for entry-level PC and multimedia PC markets, respectively. Elko will adopt Intel's 945GC chipset, while Fly Creek will adopt its G35 chipset featuring the GMA X3500 graphics core for better multimedia performance.

Continue at DigiTimes

AMD releases more 3X core Phenom’s

After the launch of B3 TLB fixed X4 Phenom and two B2 BIOS patched X3 Phenom, AMD has decided to add 3 new models to its 3X core Phenom line-up; which are:

• X3 8450 (2.1 Ghz) $145
• X3 8650 (2.3 Ghz) $165
• X3 8750 (2.4 Ghz) $195

There will be an overhead for Intel's dual core series as retail will have something to leverage against.

They have got some great prices with the slogan "If I can’t afford a quad I’ll go with three cores instead of two.”

Source: Neowin

Microsoft launches Albany (Software Subcription Service)

Its been swapping around for sometime, Microsoft launched a software subscription service, code-named Albany in a beta form.

Albany includes Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (which contains Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote), Windows Live OneCare, and Windows Live Mail, Messenger and Photo Gallery, with a single installer.

Security software is one of the key feature where a subscription model is common, so including OneCare is not a bad idea.

In a press release, Microsoft Group Product Manager Bryson Gordon said:

We’re breaking new ground by delivering Microsoft Office in combination with security and communication tools, plus ensuring our customers are on the cutting edge with the very latest versions. We found from our research that when you bring these categories together and keep them automatically updated, a subscription model makes a lot of sense.

At the same time, we are definitely not straying from our traditional software sales model. There will always be a significant number of users for whom purchasing a perpetual license to the latest version of Office is still the best choice. “Albany” just gives customers more choice and addresses the needs of those customers who value having the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office.

What's unclear is the pricing which Microsoft hasn't announced yet.

Paypal won't block Safari

PayPal (an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet) owned by eBay Inc. said that, it has no plans to block Apple's web browser, Safari from accessing the site.

"We have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, including Apple's Safari, from our website," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail late Friday.

Paypal mentioned that it supported the use of Extended Validation SSL Certificates. Browsers which support, will highlight the address bar in green when users are on a site and those which do not support these certificates will face the difficulty to access the site.

"By displaying the green glow and company name, these newer browsers make it much easier for users to determine whether or not they're on the site that they thought they were visiting," said Paypal.

They described the battle against phishing as a "fast-moving chess match with the criminal community".

Source: BBC News

Vista and XP vulnerability report for 1 year

The report has been issues compiling the starting year's worth of security vulnerability found in Windows Vista comparing with Windows XP.

Here are a few highlights :

Metric	Windows Vista (year 1)	Windows XP (year 1)
Vulnerabilities fixed	36	65
Security Updates	17	30
Patch Events	9	26
Weeks with at least 1 Patch Event	9	25

These figures may be interesting until you include a cost saving implications of reduced patches. According to a customer, each patch has cost him £30K, so reduction in patches would have delivered a direct £480,000 this year saving to him running Windows Vista over Windows XP. Then there is the incalculable reduction in corporate risk from this reduction in vulnerabilities.

Continue at Technet Blogs

Digital Subscriber Line of PTCL is suspended

The DSL for PTCL has remained temporarily suspended in the provincial metropolis. Number of clients from public and private sector told that it was the third time that this service has got down for unknown reasons.

The support team has claimed that service is out of order because of some technical faults.

Source: Brecorder

Red Hat Drops Plans For Consumer Desktop Linux

Red Hat Inc. (a major Linux distribution vendor) dropped its plan that was disclosed last year to develop a Linux OS for consumer PCs because of Microsoft's dominance in the market.

"The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't provide a practical alternative," Red Hat officials stated in a blog post on Wednesday.

According to the research group, Linux shares 1.2% of the desktop market in United States.

However, they will continue to develop the Desktop for its Enterprise Linux and Red Hat has no plans to abandon its Global Desktop program (RHGD) but they are developing Linux-based desktop OS for low-cost PCs.

Indeed, Microsoft is trying to capture these markets. Redmond earlier this month announced that it would extend the life of Windows XP but only for low-cost systems which are not capable of running Windows Vista.

Source: InformationWeek

Skype with iPhone, Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile

Variety of known messenger applications (MSN, Yahoo!, AOL etc.) along with Skype has been developed by Fringe. It brings VoIP to "open" versions of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and will also work with Symbian S60 or Windows Mobile operating system as well as with the Sony Smartphones.

According to the company, the new pre-release version of the software "is designed to both answer demand from iPhone-owning would-be Fringsters and at the same time enable Fring to learn about user experience, benefit from early feedback, and influence the R&D process of the full release version." A proper version of the software will be available later this year.

Fringe provides PC-Style status indicator to display the current status of contacts. Its all free, but users may have to pay more for voice chat etcetera because of data volume.

Microsoft Users Rallying To Keep Windows XP

Users are drumming up petitions, blog posts, and Web sites aimed at trying to convince Microsoft to continue support for Windows XP, which Microsoft plans to discontinue on new computers beginning June 30.

They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.

No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.

"It sort of hit us that, wait a minute, XP will be gone as of June 30. What are we going to do?" Galen Gruman, a long-time journalist said. "If no one does something, it's going to be gone."

Source: Yahoo!

Microsoft introduces Traffic Jams avoiding tool

To avoid traffic jams in 72 cities of United States, The Computer Giant has planned to introduce a web-based service for driving directions called Clearflow.

Clearflow has been developed by the researchers of artificial-intelligence at Microsoft Research laboratories. The system is intended to reflect the complex traffic interactions that occur as traffic backs up on freeways and spills over onto city streets.

The system will be available for free on http://maps.live.com and drivers will be entertained by its more accurate, alternative route information which is attuned to current traffic patterns on both freeways and side streets.

Continue at New York Times

Google and Yahoo to share web ads

Yahoo and Google, the world's two biggest search engines, have announced a two-week experiment that will see them share advertising space. During the pilot, Google will be able to place ads alongside 3% of search results on Yahoo's website.

It has been said by the Analysts that the main reason of designing this move is to frustrate Microsoft, which offered Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.6bn).

New York Times reported that Microsoft and News Corp. are focusing on a joint bid for Yahoo. The concept is to combine three of the world's most visited websites: MySpace, Yahoo and MSN.com.

On the other hand, according to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo is seeking for Time Warner's AOL deal to keep out of Microsoft's hands.

"It looked like Microsoft had all the cards, Yahoo is at least now able to use this for leverage to get Microsoft to pay more," said Cowen and Co-analyst Jim Friedland.

Source: BBC News

Flickr can video too!

Yahoo's Flickr has launched a video service for only 'pro' accounts. Users can upload upto 90-second video clips. The video limit is negligible if we compete it with other online video sharing websites like Google's Youtube.

Adobe rolled out Media Player 1.0, based on its Air platform. Adobe’s Media Player 1.0 makes online video available outside a browser.

Flickr was a groundbreaking Web 2.0 site when it launched but relatively quiet since it was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. Pro accounts start at $25 a year and offer unlimited uploads, although no individual video can exceed 150 megabytes.

Read the whole story at source

Yahoo! wants more money

The Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc., sent a reply to Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.

The letter states, "At the same time, we have continued to make clear that we are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders. Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo!, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders."

Further, it says, "We consider your threat to commence an unsolicited offer and proxy contest to displace our independent Board members to be counterproductive and inconsistent with your stated objective of a friendly transaction."

In short, either Microsoft pays more for a peaceful takeover, or prepares itself for a corporate war.

Read the whole letter at source.

Superfast Internet is coming soon!

The scientists who pinoeered The Internet have now built a 'GRID' (lightning fast replacement) which is capable of downloading the heavy amount of amount in seconds.

Grid will be ten-thousand times faster than a typical broadband connection. Through grid, the transmission of Halographic images will be possible, it will also allow instant gaming with thousands of players and offer high-definition video telephony for a price of a local call.

“With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University said.

The power of Grid will be seen this summer after a 'red button' day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

Source: Times Online

Ballmer sets deadline for Yahoo

Yahoo has three weeks to accept the Microsoft's 31-a-share cash-and-stock offer. It is stated in the letter which was been sent to the Yahoo's board of Directors.

"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors," Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft wrote.

If Microsoft don't get reply till the deadline, then the offer will be reduced.

"That action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal."

As of now, the letter is being reviewed by Directors.

Full story at source.

Windows 7 ScreenShot Gallery

Folks, if you are a Microsoft fan and want to explore the next version of Windows then check out its gallery and find out how does it look like!

Gallery Link: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/win7_6519.asp

Pizza.com for $2.6m

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Microsoft will not extend availability of XP

Microsoft announced yesterday the worldwide extension of the availability of Windows XP Home for an emerging, new class of mobile personal computers commonly known as ultra-low-cost PCs, or ULCPCs. Windows XP Home for ULCPCs will be available until the later of June 30, 2010, or one year after general availability of the next version of Windows.That extension does ot apply to other editions of Windows XP; such as Professional, Tablet and Media Edition.

Source: Neowin

55 Anti-Islamic Websites hacked by Saudi Hacker

A Saudi Hacker 'Sniper Axe' came up with a new war against web media, dutch sites, for retaliation of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) peace be upon him after watching the movie "FITNA" that offended islam, lauched by Deputy right-wing Dutch extremist and their Great Ilders.

The aim of the operations targeted data centers of major Dutch companies, named "Data Center", which host the major functionalities for dutch websites on the Internet.

He recorded todays dawn hacking and destortion of more than 55 Ductch sites that support the International Dutch websites "NL" on the site ZONE-H.org.

It is noticed before that the hacker "Sniper Axe" had destroyed much of Danish sites after publication of abusive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) peace be upon him.

So finally we got someone having web media war against Dutch and Danish sites.

Together for support of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

By: Abdulaziz Albloshi

Google Docs: Your Offline Office

In the next few years, Google Docs user will be able to access their documents offline. As of now, only Word Processor is accessible offline while Spreadsheet and Presentation documents are expected to become same.

The new Google Docs are based on GearLibrary (Google's tool that allows web developers to synchronize online data with the local hard drive). However, Google's competiter Microsoft, also offers web-based Office Live Workspace.

All the online application providers must ensure the security and liability issues that help in access the documents from any computer around the globe.

Google Docs' fans will surely appreciate this new change.

Please let me know how comfortable are you with shifting your documents from desktop to the Internet?

Source: Washington Post