Google to launch music search

by Mohit Jain | 11:09 PM in | comments (0)

Google is preparing to launch a new feature to its search engine which will allow users to discover, sample and buy songs on the search engine. Google will take help from startups iLike and LaLa, which will enable songs to be streamed on the Google page that will also include a "buy" button. Once user's click on that button, they will be taken to a variety of different sites, including Amazon.com and Apple Inc's iTunes Music Store, where they can buy music.



LaLa and iLike are privately held and were recently acquired by News Corp's MySpace social networking site. The new service will begin on October 28, according to Reuters. The new service will involve all of the major music labels - including Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music. The record music industry has been struggling with plunging sales and fewer media outlets to break new acts. It has high hopes on Google to increase the sales of the songs.

The labels are betting that by making it easier to search for music, they can increase the size of the digital market, which is currently dominated by iTunes, with about 70 percent of download sales. Also, Universal Music and Sony Music are partnering with YouTube to create a new music video service called Vevo, which is expected to launch in December.

Sell MySQL, Co-Founder to Oracle

by Mohit Jain | 11:09 PM in | comments (0)

MySQL Co-Founder Michael "Monty" Widenius has expressed his concern over the proposed Oracle-Sun merger and has suggested Oracle to sell MySQL to settle the merger. In a statement posted on his blog on Monday, Widenius said the European Commission is "absolutely right to be concerned" about the $7.4 billion takeover of Sun by Oracle, and he urged Oracle to sell MySQL to clear up any antitrust issues, according to CNET.



In his blog, Widenius asked Oracle "to be constructive and commit to sell MySQL to a suitable third party, enabling an instant solution instead of letting Sun suffer much longer." The famed MySQL developer, who departed Sun earlier this year, said that he wishes Sun "all the best, but MySQL needs a different home than Oracle, a home where there will be no conflicts of interest concerning how, or if, MySQL should be developed further."

"Letting Oracle have MySQL is worse than putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, because the hens are no threat to the fox, while MySQL makes Oracle lose customers and forces it to grant discounts to customers threatening to defect. Every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open-source challenger, and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice. This is highly critical because the entire knowledge-based economy is built on databases," said Florian Mueller, an EU policy expert who is a former MySQL shareholder and adviser.

The deal had received approval from U.S. Department of Justice in August but the European Commission opened a probe in early September, citing fear that Oracle's ownership of MySQL could pose a competitive threat. Richard Stallman, Founder of the Free-Software Movement, wrote an open letter to the EU on Monday opposing an Oracle-owned MySQL as a threat that would hinder its further development in the open-source community.

Meanwhile, Sun continues to suffer. Few days back the company announced that it would lay off another 3,000 employees, about 10 percent of its total workforce, over the next year. This latest round is in addition to 6,000 jobs cuts announced almost a year ago as part of the company's restructuring plan.

Now, a search engine for fun activities

by Mohit Jain | 5:10 AM in | comments (0)


A new search engine Goby.com has come up, which allows users to search for activity and help them find things to do in the city. Goby uses three boxes - What, Where and When - with drop-down menus to find results for your query. It crawls the Web searching from 500 sources and employs a part-human, part-machine review process to ensure first-rate results. Goby searches through over 200 categories, including live music, art exhibits, outdoor festivals, spas, bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants, according to Wall Street Journal.


Though Goby's query boxes ask users to enter What, Where and When, the When is always an optional specification. The What box opens five categories: things to do, food and drink, events, places to stay and, fall fun. Many of these open several more-specified subcategories. The Where box opens up a Map of the U.S to help users to search for location much more effectively.

Lists of query results are deliberately designed to show more than just Web links, like what Google often displays. Suggested activities are displayed in a numbered list on the left side of the screen, and a map with corresponding numbers is displayed on the right, moving along with your cursor as you scroll on the page. A blue flashlight tool on the map can be dragged anywhere to pinpoint exactly where you want to find activities. It also has a 'f Share on Facebook' option on all its search results.

Goby.com has been available to the public for only a few weeks and it is still working out some kinks. Goby still has many errors on its search result and sometimes the same results are listed four times in a row. Photos representing these activities are pulled in from source sites like bedandbreakfast.com as well as from Google and Flickr. While these images can help user save time, some of the results were not accurate. Also, the search engine currently only pulls out results from the U.S.

Goby does not let users build an itinerary. So if a user finds couple of interesting things or events on Goby, they cannot save it. The company says it plans to incorporate these features in the near future. It would be incredibly helpful if Goby had a mobile app. Goby says it is working on an iPhone app, which it expects to release later this year.

Goby just needs to be more accurate and expand to other country searches as well to completely become a fun activity search engine.

Google calls off plans to integrate Chrome in Windows 7

by Mohit Jain | 5:08 AM in | comments (0)


Google has called off its plans to fully integrate the Chrome web browser with Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system.The news has come after an announcement by the Mozilla Foundation that Firefox 3.6, the next version of the open source browser, would integrate with Windows 7 features such as taskbar thumbnail previews and jump lists, reports IDG.


According to reports in The Register, Google's internal issue tracking system signals that work on the features has been pushed back to version 5 of the browser. Chrome is currently on the 3.0 release, while version 4 is presently under development.

The work seems to be on progress regarding Google's Chrome OS. An early developer build of the operating system has been leaked on Google.

Facebook and Twitter CEOs agree on net neutrality

by Mohit Jain | 5:05 AM in | comments (0)


The CEOs of about 24 major technology companies including Facebook and Twitter have supported the initiative of net neutrality rules to the Federal Communications Commission in a letter. A number of House Democrats have already voiced their concern with the upcoming rule.


"We believe a process that results in common sense baseline rules is critical to ensuring that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, and global competitiveness," the CEOs wrote under the auspices of the Open Internet Coalition to Julius Genachowski, Chairman, FCC, reports PC World.

These cxecutives include; Evan Williams, Co-Founder, Twitter; Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook; John Donahoe, CEO, eBay; and Steve Chan, Founder, YouTube. Also, Google CEO Eric Schmidt who has long supported net neutrality signed the letter.

"An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail. This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to the larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity," the executives wrote.

The FCC is expected to introduce the formal rules regarding the net neutrality at its October meeting. Net neutrality is the concept that everyone should have equal access to the internet. In September, Genachowski proposed some additions in its internet policy principles. The first rule would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from discriminating against particular internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. It would also ensure that ISPs are transparent about network management.

The executives said that the openness of the internet has "fueled an unprecedented era of economic growth and creativity" and that these rules will help to protect that. The detractors such as some telecom companies and the wireless industry make a similar argument, but they say that an FCC rulemaking might actually repress innovation.

Other companies that signed the letter include Amazon.com, Digg, LinkedIn, OpenDNS, Zynga, Vuze, Skype, Flickr, Cbeyond, Craigslist, EchoStar Corporation, Mozilla Corporation, Sony Electronics, XO Communications, Expedia, IAC, One Communications, and TiVo.

Innovation at its Best - Google

by Mohit Jain | 9:53 PM in | comments (0)

Smart Internet search will be able to do with a mobile device in the NEAR future. A mobile device with Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, WiFi, google map (hopefully google earth), google search, image search like this way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot.



Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc.


It's got a scanner built in.


so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc. It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web. What do you think?


Indoor guide:Works in a building, airport, station, hospital, etc.

Automatic simultaneous translation: here Latin to English.


Search keyword: Helpful when you want to find out a word from a lot of text in newspaper/book.

Nutrition: This kind of function would be helpful for health freaks..


Getting data of a weather forecast, maybe this might be possible.

Now Flash on all phones, iPhone still blocks it

by Mohit Jain | 1:27 AM in | comments (0)


Adobe Systems has unveiled Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other internet-connected devices. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop operating systems (OS) including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010.

"With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are," said David Wadhwani, General Manager and Vice President, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide. It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year."

Flash Player 10.1 enables Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across devices. Using the productive Web programming model of the Flash Platform, the browser based runtime enables millions of designers and developers to reuse code and assets and reduce the cost of creating, testing and deploying content across different operating systems and browsers. Flash Player 10.1 is easily updateable across all supported platforms to ensure rapid adoption of new innovations that move the Web forward.

The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization. New mobile-ready features that take advantage of the device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation bringing creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience. Flash Player 10.1 will also take advantage of media delivery with HTTP streaming, including integration of content protection powered by Adobe Flash Access 2.0.

Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project. Open Screen Project is an industry-wide initiative, led by Adobe with the participation of other industry leaders, to enable the delivery of rich multi screen experiences built on a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications. Google is the latest to join the Open Screen Project. "We are excited to join Adobe and other industry leaders in the Open Screen Project," said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "This initiative supports our common goal to move the Web forward as a platform and to spur innovation in the industry through technology such as Adobe Flash."

"Adobe Flash technology provides a key experience on new Windows phones, enabling people to enjoy rich Flash based games, videos and other interactive Web content on the go," said Stephanie Ferguson, General Manager, Product Management, Microsoft. "We look forward to bringing in the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 to the Windows phone browser when it becomes available."
Adobe has said that the new Flash Players will also be available for iPhone developers but Apple still blocks flash to run on iPhone. Apple still maintains that Adobe Flash is too resource-intensive and has expressed concern about the performance impact it might have on the iPhone experience. Rather than embracing Adobe Flash Apple recommends that developers rely on different existing Web standards to deliver similar interactivity. Apple knows that if it allows flash then developers will develop iPhone application and pass it along on web and this will reduce the demand for applications from Apple store. Whatever may be the motive of Apple, it is soon running out of reasons to block Adobe.

More than 10,000 Hotmail passwords leaked on web

by Mohit Jain | 1:26 AM in | comments (0)

Microsoft has confirmed the rumors that password of thousands of Microsoft Live accounts have been hacked and posted on the web. The user name and password is posted on public upload website Pastebin.com. BBC News claims that it has seen a list of more than 20,000 more names and passwords that have been posted online. At first only Hotmail user names and passwords were leaked but now BBC says that the list contains e-mail addresses and passwords from Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other service providers also.

Neowin.net was the first to publish details of the original attack. It said the accounts were posted on 1st October to pastebin.com, a website commonly used by developers to share code. The Pastebin website is currently down for maintenance due to so much traffic on the site "Pastebin.com is just a fun side project for me, and today it's not fun. It will remain offline all day while I make some further modifications," said Paul Dixon, Owner of pastebin.com to Neowin.

It seems that the users of these accounts have been victims of a wide scale phishing scam. A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that the company doesn't store passwords in the clear and said its security team has been investigating the leak since this weekend. "Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers," she wrote in an email to The Register. "As part of that investigation, we determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts."

Many email accounts are often connected to bank accounts. Security experts are advising email users to change their password just as a precaution.

Gmail, Yahoo also hit by phishing scheme

by Mohit Jain | 1:25 AM in | comments (0)

Users of Google's Gmail and Yahoo Mail were also targeted in the large-scale phishing attack that harvested at least 10,000 passwords from Microsoft's Live Hotmail, according to reports on Tuesday.

Neither of the companies' U.S. representatives responded to requests for information. But in Europe, where most of the Hotmail phishing victims appeared to be located, a spokesman for Google confirmed the targeting of Gmail users.

"We recently became aware of an industry-wide phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for Web-based mail accounts including Gmail accounts," a Google spokesperson told the BBC.

The British network said it has seen a list of some 20,000 hijacked e-mail accounts that included accounts from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Comcast and EarthLink. The latter two are major U.S. Internet service providers.

"As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts," the Google spokesperson also told the BBC. "We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts when we become aware of them."

The intrusions, which fool users into giving their details to a dummy website, come amid a sharp rise in the number of phishing attacks. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group some 50,000 mass attacks took place in June 2009, almost double the number recorded in January.

Fathers of Internet awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics

by Mohit Jain | 1:23 AM in | comments (0)

The three Americans, who pioneered the world of computerized images and the fast communication through internet through their research, are the winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics. Prof. Charles K. Kao and Prof. Willard S. Boyle shared the award for developing fibre-optic cable and the sensor at the heart of digital cameras.

Charles K. Kao (75) was cited for discovering how to transmit light signals over long distances through glass fibres as thin as human hair. His 1966 breakthrough led to the creation of modern fibre-optic communication networks that carry voice, video and high-speed Internet data around the world.

Prof. Kao solved the problem of transmitting through miles of glass without having the glass itself absorb the signal. Corning Glass Works built on his ideas to create the first fibres that could be used for large-scale long-distance communications, making today's Internet possible.

Willard S. Boyle, 85, and George E. Smith, 79, were honoured for inventing the eye of the digital camera, a sensor able to transform light into a large number of pixels, the tiny points of colour that are the building blocks of every digital image.

Their charge-coupled device is found today in devices ranging from the cheapest point-and-shoot digital camera to robotic medical instruments equipped with video cameras that let surgeons perform delicate operations.

BlackBerry opens up for developers

by Mohit Jain | 1:17 AM in | comments (0)

Research In Motion has released tools which will better allow developers to create software for BlackBerry handsets.

The company said that the Widget SDK will allow developers to write applications for the BlackBerry using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Previously, Java had been the only supported language for BlackBerry applications.

The applications will be distributed through the BlackBerry App-World service. Large companies will also be able to use the BlackBerry Enterprise Server platform to internally distribute applications.

By opening up the SDK to new languages and formats, RIM hopes that developers will be better able to add content from outside sources such as web-based services.

Additionally, the company said that it hopes developers will better integrate web-based services into the built-in features on the BlackBerry, such as the email and calendar applications.

"BlackBerry Widgets open up a world of opportunities for developers to build and bring to market web applications for BlackBerry smartphones that offer advanced, integrated functionality and an always-on user experience," said RIM senior vice president of BlackBerry platforms Alan Brenner.

"We are very excited by the prospects of this new widget development platform which combines the ease of development of standard web languages with the rich functionality of Java development."

RIM said that it will offer a beta version of the SDK for developers immediately.

Microsoft tries to go open source through WebsiteSpark

by Mohit Jain | 1:30 AM in | comments (0)

Microsoft has launched WebsiteSpark program to encourage developers to use Microsoft tools for web development. It is an initiative designed to create a partner network and help enable business growth for professional web development and design companies with up to 10 employees and owners.

"Developers are the lifeblood of our business, and we are wholly committed to ensuring their success," said Bob Muglia, President of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business division. "WebsiteSpark makes Microsoft's Web development tools and support more accessible to developers and designers at small companies as they create inventive applications for the web. Our third Spark program, WebsiteSpark furthers our commitment to ignite innovation among key communities and individuals."

Microsoft is not well known when it comes to web development. Developers around the world prefer to use Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl, together known as LAMP. Although hesitantly but slowly Microsoft is trying to provide open source services. However there are limitations as well, the companies who can participate in the WebsiteSpark program must have only 10 people. The program gives thousands of dollars of technology away for just $100 at the end of three years, and then two options ($999 per year for everything or a scaled down $199 per year option) that aren't much expensive.

The benefits that will be available to these small companies are - Microsoft web design and development tools, including three licenses of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, two licenses of Microsoft Expression Web 3 and one license of Microsoft Expression Studio 3, four processor licenses for production usage to Windows Web Server 2008 and four processor licenses for production usage to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Web Edition. Also, these companies will have access to two technical support incidents and community support through connections with network partners, hosting partners and peers with complementary services and technologies.

These benefits will give a good opportunity for small businesses to flourish. But still there is a big difference in offering these freebies and to go open source. LAMP gives web developers control on source code and also on cost as they don't have to pay anyone. Web developer might choose Red Hat or MySQL for a support subscription but that is completely the developer's decision.

Another disadvantage of this program is that at the end of the three years, Microsoft doesn't require WebsiteSpark participants to buy anything, but if the start-up is successful, it faces big bills as it scales out its Microsoft technology. The company will have to continue using Microsoft technology for web development.

Many other big companies like Oracle are also trying to expand in open source. Oracle is interested in picking up MySQL, the leading web database. But Microsoft has no such plans as of yet. So it will have to rely on WebsiteSpark to be a success in this space.

IE8 is 10 times faster with Google plug-in

by Mohit Jain | 1:29 AM in | comments (0)

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is nearly 10 times faster than usual when Google's new Chrome Frame plug-in is partnered with the browser, benchmark tests show.

Computerworld conducted the tests, which showed that Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) with the plug-in is 9.6 times faster than IE8 on its own. The SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite was run three times each for IE8 with Chrome Frame, and IE8 without the plug-in, then averaged the scores.

Released on Tuesday, Chrome Frame lets IE utilize the Chrome browser's WebKit rendering engine, as well as its high-performance V8 JavaScript engine. Google pitched the plug-in as a way to instantly improve the performance of the notoriously slow IE, and as a way for Web developers to support standards IE can't handle, such as HTML 5.

The extra speed and HTML 5 support are necessary if IE users are to run advanced Web applications such as Google Wave, a collaboration and communications tool.

IE8's SunSpider scores with Chrome Frame running equaled Google's Chrome browser, a solid indication that the plug-in effectively turns any version of IE into the speed equivalent of Chrome itself. The Chrome Frame plug-in works with IE6, IE7 or IE8 on Windows XP or Windows Vista. It's available for download from Google's site.

Microsoft launches its free security software

by Mohit Jain | 1:27 AM in | comments (0)


Microsoft has finally released the much awaited free security software which it claims will protect computers against viruses, spyware and other malicious codes. "With Microsoft Security Essentials, consumers can get high-quality protection that is easy to get and easy to use, and it won't get in their way. Consumers have told us that they want the protection of real-time security software but we know that too many are either unwilling or unable to pay for it, and so end up unprotected," said Amy Barzdukas, General Manager for Consumer Security, Microsoft.

Almost 90 percent of the computers in the world use Microsoft Windows and through this software Microsoft wants to provide free protection to these computers. Microsoft said the software would be available on the website to anyone who wanted to use it. There is no registration required but the only condition involved is that the system should be using genuine Windows operating system. This free software is called as Security Essentials and is designed to run behind the scenes, defending machines against infection by malicious computer codes.

"Microsoft is helping to reduce some of the barriers that constrain consumers from running (anti-virus software)," said IDC Security Analyst Jon Crotty. "Microsoft is focused on the challenges that prevent consumers from running up-to-date anti-virus software today, particularly in emerging markets where there is a growing prevalence of malware."

However, there are many rival security companies which are raising concern over the defending capabilities of this software. Symantec says that this free software is lightweight and isn't tuned for new forms of attack being used by hackers. "From a security perspective, this Microsoft tool offers reduced defenses at a critical point in the battle against cyber crime. Unique malware and social engineering tricks fly under the radar of traditional signature-based technology alone - which is what is employed by free security tools such as Microsoft's," said Symantec.

There is also a concern that this software can be used as a platform by Malware writers to spread their content to larger audience.

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