Microsoft has launched a brand new product category, known as surface computing, which it claimed will “break down traditional barriers between people and technology”, at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference in California today. Surface computing involves the ability to turn a surface into a dynamic, interactive interface. User interaction does not have to be through a keyboard or mouse but rather using a multitude of objects like a pen or even a cup or using fingertips.
Microsoft gave examples of the retail possibilities for this new technology. In the restaurant business, for example, if a customer leaves their wine glass down on a surface they would be provided with a list of recommended wines, food pairings or pictures of the vineyard it came from.
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said: “We see this as a multibillion dollar category and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror.
“Surface is the first step in realizing that vision.”
SiliconRepublic has the rest of the story
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Surface is what M$ did, hope it takes a breather and looks around!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Streetview, Where 2.0, Google style with love, from Google maps
O'Reilly radar's Brady Forrest reports that;
" This morning Google gave their 2D maps an incredible realworld addition. Its a street-view, that in certain cities, will let you get a street side view of the area you are currently in. This is not just a static, A9-style image. It will also let you move along the street in a smooth manner and even more amazing it will let you change your angle and continue moving that way. This will be formally launched at Where 2.0 later today."
So where is this where 2.0? you will be able to be there by HA ! Go. Check. It. Out. Now.
According to the same O'Reilly report, Immersive Media, a company that has an eleven lens camera capable of taking full, high-res video while driving along city streets, have made this possible. Each captured pixel that is geotagged and primed for consumer use. Their main clients up till now have been city planners and the defense industry.
You can read the complete O'Reilly article here.
More technical info is here!
Update: Michael T. Jones, Chief Technologist of Google Earth has informed the author that, "Only some of the Street View data is from Immersive, but not all of it. We have our own platforms and also license data from Immersive and others. San Francisco & South Bay are collected by us at greater resolution than Immersive."
You can learn more about all of this at Where 2.0.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Dell and Ubuntu (Linux) get noticed by Mass Media!
Dell, the world's No 2 computer maker, has begun selling laptops and personal computers pre-installed with Linux software - the free operating system that aims to challenge Microsoft's dominant Windows platform.
This is what The Independent had to say! The full article is here.
The Associated Press article had this to say;
Separately, Dell was set on Thursday afternoon to start selling consumer PCs running Linux, a free operating system that competes with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.
Dell had previously said it was planning to offer Linux PCs, without giving details. It will sell one laptop and two desktop models for $599 and up, depending on hardware options. The prices are slightly lower than similar models with Windows Vista.
Linux is distributed for free and is maintained by volunteers and companies who make money by offering technical support. Though it has a strong following among computer professionals and is widely deployed in servers, it has had little traction in replacing Windows on consumer computers. Dell started selling servers with Linux in 1999.
Well I think you will be able to pick up you Dell at Wal-mart as well according the same article.
So get ready to hear this on your TV news soon;)
Thursday, May 24, 2007
GMAIL increases attachment size to 20MB and more..
Just checking out what is new in GMAIL, my favorite online email program provided by Google, tellseme that they have increased the size of attachments to 20GB. All of you who have tried to send an attachment say 10MB have had their mail returned because the attachment was too big. If you had admin rights on the mail server you could have increased it but who has admin rights on a mail server that some other company runs?
So it is time to get an account at GMAIL if you are the type that need to send out large attachments. More than the attachments, there are a lot of other amenities that comes with GMAIL and once you are in, you may find it very useful email alternative.
Here is a blurb from Gmail itself;
Increased attachment limit-- 20 MB!
Now you can start sharing more of those home videos, large presentations and files you just can't seem to get smaller. We have doubled the allowable attachment size to 20 MB to make your Gmail space even more useful. Learn More
Gmail Theatre Presents...
Check out the Gmail features you know and love as you have never seen them before. Gmail Theater presents an ensemble cast of engineers in Attack of the Spam, The In-Boxer, The Isle of Lost Emails, and Chat in the name of Love. Watch all the videos on YouTube.
It's a Gmail party and everyone is invited!
You can still invite your friends to enjoy Gmail's spam protection, 2.8 GB free storage and other great features, but now you can also just tell them to visit www.gmail.com and sign up without an invitation.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
StarcraftII announcement and video
StarcraftII, starcraft II or Starcraft two was announced in Seol, Korea, by Blizzard Entertainment®.
Also Iwantmygtv has posted the following Video from youtube. But iwantmygtv has more videos to play. Head over there after reading.
iWantmyGTV: Starcraft2 announcement and video
SEOUL, South Korea – May 19, 2007 – Blizzard Entertainment® today unveiled StarCraft® II, the sequel to its award-winning real-time strategy game StarCraft, at the 2007 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event in Seoul, South Korea. The announcement took place inside the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, in front of thousands of attendees, who received a presentation that included a StarCraft II cinematic trailer and a gameplay demonstration by the development team.
Designed to be the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game, StarCraft II will feature the return of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg races, overhauled and re-imagined with Blizzard’s signature approach to game balance. Each race will be further distinguished from the others, with several new units and new gameplay mechanics, as well as new abilities for some of the classic StarCraft units that will be making a reappearance in the game. StarCraft II will also feature a custom 3D-graphics engine with realistic physics and the ability to render several large, highly detailed units and massive armies on-screen simultaneously.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
iGoogle, universal search and new ideas from google
While I am enjoying iGoogle's ever changing background images and the new interface's news feed showed me that Google's Universal search is going to through a lot of SEO folks off the mark and off the ground. They are supposed to be dropping whole lot of SERP off the list! Anyway SEO was not a problem for me.
but today I was playing around with Google labs experimental search! and I love time lines and I love mapping.
I spent a quite a long time a few years back tracing down a Linux time line, when SCO started it's Linux license saga. I wish I knew then, what I know today.
I fired up Firefox and typed following in to the address bar;
http://www.google.com/views?q=linux view:timeline
Viola! I have my Linux timeline.
I also typed;
................................ a lot of other stuff. A lot of timelines, maps and of course list views were created and admired!
I think it is time you headed over to Google Labs and Play!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
AMD says it's quad core, Phenom, is not a duct taped dual core, like Intel's
AMD claimed that it has an engineering advantage over Intel since its quad-core design uses a single processor die instead of Intel's approach of connecting a pair of dual-core processors -- what McNaughton called "duct-taped-together dual-dual core."
AMD's current line of desktop chips ranges from the high-end Athlon 64 FX to the Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 and entry-level Sempron. After launching Phenom, AMD will offer a high-end Phenom FX (in one or two quad-core chips), Phenom X4 and Phenom X2 (in quad-core and dual-core), Athlon X2 and Sempron.
Intel already sells chips for quad-core desktops Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor. So far I have been a fan of AMD for my processors such as 35 watt Athlon 64 X2. But I do have a server sporting a pair of Intel's Dual core xeons.
Links;
Computerworld Article
Monday, May 14, 2007
M$ and it's patents, Thank Novel for spreading the cheeks!
I have seen many a posts and news articles about M$ going after it's IP protection scheme. Hope it will be better than it did with SCO!
Perhaps the same legal counselors advised against attacking Lindows, lest it will lose the right to use Windows?
I hope it (M$) come clean and hit all these infringes right on the head. Perhaps that itself will break it's balls, err hands.
After WGA, $3 Vista and all those other deals it is seeing that nothing is working, Zune mangled by iPOD, XBOX man handled by WII and PS3. Now Vista not having a much vista in the OS field. I would love to see those patents spelled out.
After M$'s legal general Brad Smith gave a broad breakdown of the alleged violations during an interview with Fortune magazine, yet has not detailed any specific patents that have been violated. Smith said the Linux kernel violates 42 patents and the operating system's user interface violates 65. The Open Office application suite violates 45 patents and open source e-mail applications infringe on 15. Other open source software applications infringe on 68 patents.
Well one would think M$ invented computing and M$ certainly would like us to think so. I hope it will give us the same entertainment that SCO delivered us.;)
Links;
Groklaw tells it as it is
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Blogger is one now. Old blogger is gone for good!
Here is the New Blogger time line since the debut of Blogger beta. I have been through it and it was a good ride. Now it is time to convert all the old templates to new format.
I am wondering how much of work to keep all the configurations alive.
Read more at blogger buzz.
Blogger Buzz: Old Blogger is dead! Long live Blogger!
14 August 2006: The new version of Blogger launches as a public beta
23 August 2006: Blogger’s 7th birthday
30 August 2006: Edit HTML added to beta’s Layouts
2 September 2006: Login box fiasco solved
5 September 2006: Beta Known Issues blog launched
21 September 2006: Mobile posting added
4 October 2006: Picasa support added
26 October 2006: Week of Old Blogger meltdowns
2 November 2006: Beta declared “feature complete” with FTP support
10 November 2006: All new accounts created on Blogger in beta
12 November 2006: New mobile accounts created on Blogger in beta
11 December 2006: Team blogs allowed to switch to Blogger in beta
19 December 2006: New Blogger taken out of beta
4 January 2007: BlogThis! added
24 January 2007: Percentage of users required to switch to new Blogger
15 February 2007: All users required to switch to new Blogger on login
21 February 2007: FTP publishing reliability improved
4 March 2007: Performance problems with especially busy blogs resolved
28 March 2007: Offline process to move blogs from old to new Blogger begins
16 April 2007: 1000th Blog of Note
24 April 2007: All blogs moved off old Blogger, save [this] one
26 April 2007: Blogger Buzz moves to new Blogger, turns off lights on its way out
27 April 2007: DNS change to point www.blogger.com to new Blogger
4 May 2007: Old Blogger physically dismantled
Friday, May 04, 2007
After eating up your pocket and other hardware, Vista eats laptop batteries, now!
Could not resist to post this info as M$ is battling manufacturers users and bloggers on the power consumption of Vista.
My note book has a short battery life too, not because of vista but, AMD X2, 17" screen, dual 160GB drive in raid and 2GB memory, churning out stuff all the time. It used to run for about 2 hours! and now only one hour. Hmm. I only tested Vista before it was released! well got to update my Ubuntu 7.04 now.
May M$ is trying to stop users from spending time at Google! It does not matter any other way, people do not spend time at M$ LIVE sites.!
I am too tired to write, read all about Vista and battery life here at ZDNET
