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| The competitor to Windows says its browser is the most stable browser on the market. |
| Monday, March 24, 2008 |
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A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer. The program's creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company's trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development. Until now, the company has discouraged average Internet users from moving on from Firefox 2, which was launched in October 2006. "In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there," Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview. Key rivals to Firefox are market leader Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple Inc's Safari browser. Engineers at Mozilla are still putting the finishing touches on the software and hope to release the final version of Firefox 3 by the end of June, Schroepfer said. Mozilla is in a battle with Microsoft, which unveiled an experimental version of its Internet Explorer 8 in Las Vegas earlier this month and is looking to expand its presence on the Web through its bid to acquire Yahoo Inc. Additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet. Mozilla also says Firefox 3 uses less computer memory than Firefox 2. Until now Mozilla has discouraged the typical computer user from exploring these new features. But its developers said on Thursday that the situation has changed and that they will be revising their Web site. As of Thursday afternoon, the Web site still stated: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 beta 4 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only." But they said that as they concluded their fourth round of tweaking their software, they determined it was ready for prime time. A fifth round of changes, due to begin within the next few weeks, will involve "tuning the visual look and feel of the program" and further improving its stability," Schroepfer said. Source: eWeek
Labels: Firefox, Industry News, Mozilla |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 9:30 PM |
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| Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 for 2010 – No Word on Windows 7 M2 |
| Friday, March 14, 2008 |
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Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public. According to the leaked information on the next iteration of the Windows platform, having just reached M1, the final version of Windows 7 was to be wrapped up the end of 2009.
Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that Windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started. The debut of Windows 7 development was indeed connected with the release of Windows Vista, but this aspect only contributed to the confusion because the latest Windows client was launched to businesses in November 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. So in this context, the finalization of Windows 7 could just as easily be aimed for the end of 2009, as well as 2010.
Well, this is no longer the case. Microsoft explained that it would deliver Windows 7 three years after the consumers launch of Vista. "We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release," a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to Softpedia via email. Windows Vista Consumer GA means nothing more than the general availability of the operating system. In this regard, Microsoft has merely reconfirmed what it has in fact said since mid 2007, that Windows 7 is planned for 2010. Recently, the Redmond company has delivered a build of Windows 7 for review to the U.S. antitrust regulators. This was made public via the "Joint status report on Microsoft's compliance with the final judgments."I contacted Microsoft and asked whether the new version of Windows 7 was still M1 or if the company has reached Milestone 2 (M2). The leaked timetable for Windows 7 had M1 set to expire in March, and M2 to be delivered in March/April. Outside of the confirmation quoted above, Microsoft did not comment on Windows 7 M1, M2 or the potential antitrust issues that would be generated by the connecting of Windows 7 with Windows Live Wave 3.
Source: Softpedia |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 12:17 PM |
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| Gates no longer world's richest, falls to 3rd on Forbes list |
| Saturday, March 8, 2008 |
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March 06, 2008 (IDG News Service) Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates fell to third place on Forbes' 2008 list of the world's richest people after 13 years at No. 1, due largely to Microsoft's bid for Yahoo Inc., Forbes said. The magazine, which puts out an annual list of the world's richest people, said Gates' decline was because of a slide in the value of Microsoft shares from Jan. 31, the day before the company announced a $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo, to Feb. 11, the day Forbes calculated stock prices into its valuations. Had Microsoft shares not declined so much, Gates would have been in a close race with investing mogul Warren Buffett, who is a close friend of Gates, for the top spot on the list, Forbes said. Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway, took over as the world's richest man this year with an estimated $62 billion fortune, while Mexican communications industry leader Carlos Slim Helu came in second with $60 billion, Forbes said. Gates' fortune was valued at $58 billion. Microsoft helped put Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest ever billionaire, on Forbes' list. The founder of popular social networking Web site Facebook is worth $1.5 billion, according to the magazine, based on a calculation involving Microsoft's $240 million investment last year for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. Zuckerberg ranked 785th overall on the Forbes list. Other U.S. technology industry leaders toppled down the rich list. Larry Ellison, CEO and founder of Oracle Corp., fell to 14th place on the Forbes list, from 11th last year, while Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen tumbled to 41st place from 19th place last year. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page retained their titles as the richest young people on the Forbes list, coming in at $18.7 billion and $18.6 billion, respectively. They ranked 32nd and 33rd overall. The remaining top 10 richest people in the world are mainly in heavy industry and commodities, according to Forbes. The next three richest men are all from India. Fourth place, Lakshmi Mittal, is a steel magnate, while fifth place Mukesh Ambani is in petrochemicals and his brother, sixth place Anil Ambani, is in power and communications. Oleg Deripaska of Russia made much of his fortune in aluminum, putting him in the ninth spot. Retail titans took two of the top 10 spots. Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden took seventh place on the list, while the founder of German discount store Aldi, Karl Albrecht, took 10th. Indian real estate developer KP Singh came in eighth on the list. Source: Computerworld
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| posted by TechFreeks @ 1:59 AM |
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| Google Calendar Sync |
| Friday, March 7, 2008 |
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I've suffered major headaches trying to sync all my calendars. I used the Microsoft Outlook calendar on my desktop computer at home, but since I wanted to be able to access my schedule from anywhere, I also kept a copy of it on Google Calendar. When I traveled, I'd import my Google Calendar data into my laptop's Outlook calendar so I could access it offline. This was not only annoying to maintain, but also quite error-prone. If I made updates on any of the copies of my calendar, I had to make sure to make those same exact changes to the other copies, too.
This was my life for a whole year before we started working on Google Calendar Sync, a 2-way synching application between Google Calendar and the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. I was probably the most excited person on the team when we started developing it, because now I can access my calendar at home or on my laptop, on Google Calendar or in Outlook. When I add an event to the Outlook calendar on my laptop, Google Calendar Sync syncs it to my Google Calendar -- and since I also have Google Calendar Sync running on my desktop, the event then syncs from Google Calendar to Outlook calendar on my desktop. All of my calendar views are always up to date, and I can choose whichever one I want to use.
Source: GoogleLabels: Google, Industry News |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 12:38 AM |
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| Shifting Google Gears to mobile |
| Thursday, March 6, 2008 |
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Ever use a mobile web application and suddenly lose your cell connection? That's happened to me many times. If you've shared my pain, you'll be excited to know that we've launched Google Gears for mobile, which lets users access Gears-enabled mobile web apps offline. Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.
Take Zoho and Buxfer, for example: Zoho is a powerful suite of web-based productivity applications, while Buxfer is an innovative personal finance web application that helps you track your money. With Google Gears for mobile integrated into mobile Zoho and Buxfer, you can now access these web applications even when your phone is disconnected from the mobile web. Stuck on a plane? No problem — you can still read your docs on your mobile with Zoho Writer Mobile offline. Want to buy that new plasma TV, but can't remember how much is in your account? Check your balance with Buxfer's mobile web application, even if there is no cell phone signal. Try them out on your Windows Mobile 6 device by going to m.buxfer.com or mobile.zoho.com.
When you first access mobile Buxfer or Zoho Writer on your Windows Mobile device and go offline, you will be asked to install Google Gears for mobile. Once installed, Gears sits happily on your phone helping you stay connected to your data -- even when you lose your network connection.
If you're a developer who's interested in creating mobile web applications using Google Gears for mobile you can find out more information on our developer site. Finally, if you're not a Windows Mobile user, stay tuned -- we're working to roll out Google Gears for other platforms with capable web browsers, including Android.
Source: GoogleLabels: Google, Industry News, Mobile |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 11:47 AM |
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| Database Survey Gives Oracle The Lead In All 13 Categories |
| Wednesday, March 5, 2008 |
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The survey compared Oracle with DB2, MySQL, Informix Dynamic Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase Advanced Server Enterprise.
In its first survey of database preferences, market research firm Evans Data found that Oracle leads in user satisfaction in performance, security, and 11 other categories. At the same time, it found IBM's DB2 tied with Oracle for one top score and ranked number two in several of the remaining categories. Microsoft's SQL Server showed high user satisfaction in ease of database management and modeling tools, but fell behind in scalability and performance. "The most glaring item that we took away from this research is that in 23 years we've never had one vendor come out number one in all categories," Evans Data CEO John Andrews said of Oracle's ranking in an interview. The report becomes public Tuesday. In a few categories, the open source system, MySQL, trailed most of the five commercial systems with which it was compared. But high user satisfaction in several categories indicates that Sun Microsystems may have gotten its money's worth when it paid $1 billion for the database's parent company, MySQL AB, last month. MySQL was second only to Oracle in multiplatform support, an important factor in hosting Web applications. When it came to the all important "performance" category, it ranked higher than Microsoft SQL Server, Informix, and Sybase. The results, however, are measures of user expectations for each system, not frequency of use or a neutral metric of actual performance, Andrews cautioned. "Sun has publicly stated they will do very little to change the open source database or its business model. The two companies have a good match in culture and offerings, and we predict Sun will successfully integrate MySQL and the union will be a benefit to both companies," the report predicted. In most cases, the 1,470 respondents to the survey were users of several database systems and were comparing systems as they rated each in 13 categories as excellent, very good, adequate, or needs improvement. Evans Data then assigned a numerical value to the ratings and plotted the results. The complete survey results may be downloaded from http://www.evansdata.com/reports/free-report.php. The survey was conducted in December 2007. Oracle lead in performance ratings, followed by DB2 Universal Database, MySQL, Informix Dynamic Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase Advanced Server Enterprise. In scalability, Oracle lead, followed by DB2, then PostgreSQL took over the commanding position of the open source systems, followed by SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, and MySQL. Andrews said MySQL's adoption is predominantly among workgroups and smaller businesses with less expectation of scaling up to very large databases. When it was pointed out that Google, Facebook, and Slashdot were all MySQL users, Andrews said: "Some of these giant Internet entities have demonstrated that MySQL can scale, if you have the know-how." Oracle lead the security category, with its ability to automatically store data in encrypted form and to maintain an Audit Vault of information drawn from the operating system, database, and any other auditing source. DB2 was number two followed in the third position by PostgreSQL, with its "robust security layer," said Andrews. Number four was SQL Server, followed by Sybase, MySQL and Informix. Atomicity is the quality of "all or nothing" when it comes to capturing a transaction. It's important for the integrity of the database to confirm that all parts of a transaction have been committed to the system, not just a fraction of them. Oracle was tops in atomicity, followed by DB2, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL and Informix. In multiplatform support, Oracle once again lead the category, followed by MySQL. Informix was tied with MySQL, with PostgreSQL holding down the fourth spot. DB2 landed in the fifth slot. Sybase was sixth and SQL Server seventh. "This is where Microsoft SQL Server really falls down and that's becoming more and more of a problem as the frequency of Microsoft-only shops declines," said the report. An increasingly important category for databases that are intended to serve Web applications is XML data handling. Again, Oracle and SQL Server lead the category, followed by DB2. But the open source systems, MySQL and PostgreSQL made up the sixth and seventh ranks, respectively. Informix and Sybase occupied the fourth and fifth positions. When it comes to management tools that come with the database, Oracle lead, followed by SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, Sybase, and Informix. Bringing up the rear was PostgreSQL. "PostgreSQL, which has a large community of open source developers to create tools for it, does not provide them with the database," the report noted. In another category, the ability of a system to maintain the integrity of the data through system failures, incomplete backups, or storage failures, is known as durability. Oracle once again lead, followed by DB2, SQL Server, Informix, PostgreSQL and Sybase, with MySQL holding the bottom rank. In quality of data modeling tools, Oracle lead, followed by SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Informix. Oracle offers both the Designer modeling tool and JDeveloper with design tool elements. Microsoft offers Visio modeling from its acquisition of Visio tools several years ago. Under Microsoft ownership,"the Visio technology has evolved until Microsoft has some of the world's best modeling tools." In a bar graph showing how the seven systems compared on a point basis after including all categories, Oracle lead with a rounded off score of 2,500; DB2, roughly 2,200; SQL Server, 2,000; MySQL, 1,800; Informix, 1,775; PostgreSQL, 1,750; Sybase, 1,600. The survey sought responses from 1,470 developers and IT managers in North America (420), Asia Pacific (500), Europe/Middle East/Africa (400), and South America (150). About one third were enterprise database users; one third were database consultants, value added resellers, and system integrators; and a third were other types of organizations, including academic institutions, OEMs and ISVs.
Source: InformationWeekLabels: Database, Industry News, Oracle |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 10:03 PM |
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| Intel's ultramobile chips get a step closer with Atom branding |
| Tuesday, March 4, 2008 |
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Intel's Silverthorne and Diamondville chips will be called Atom and the company's Menlow platform for ultramobile computers will be renamed Centrino Atom when these products hit the market, according to a company spokesman.
The creation of the new processor brand sets the stage for the tiny, low-power chips' upcoming release, and marks the opening salvo in a concerted push by Intel to make ultramobile computers a mainstream product segment.
Several versions of the Atom processor are on track to be delivered to during the first half of this year, according to Danny Cheung, an Intel spokesman in Singapore.
The processors are made using Intel's 45-nanometer process, and will run at clock speeds up to 1.8GHz. Slower versions will also be available, but Intel isn't saying what the slowest clock speed will be. Pricing for the chips has yet to be announced.
The chips, which measure less than 25 square millimeters, have a thermal design power (TDP) of between 0.6 watts to 2.5 watts. That number refers to the maximum sustained power that users are likely to see with the chips, not the maximum amount of power the chips can consume.
The small size of the Atom means 2,500 of them can be produced on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer, allowing Intel to sell them at a low price while maintaining high margins.
While Intel hasn't announced a specific date for Atom's release, Mobile Internet devices based on Centrino Atom will hit the market in the beginning of the second quarter, Cheung said.
Mobile Internet device, or MID, is the term Intel uses to describe some, but not all, devices that are generally referred to as ultramobile PCs. Prototype MIDs shown by Intel typically include touchscreens or slide-out keypads and the company envisions these devices running Linux instead of Windows. Centrino Atom will include a single-core Atom processor, formerly called Silverthorne, as well as the Poulsbo chipset and a wireless chipset. Intel has yet to announce the formal name of Poulsbo, which packs a Northbridge and Southbridge chipset into a single package to reduce size and lower power consumption. Not all Atom processors will ship with Poulsbo. Some versions of the chip, known by the code name Diamondville, will ship with two-chip chipsets. These processors, which will be available in single-core and dual-core versions, are intended for low-cost notebooks, like Asustek Computers' Eee PC, and inexpensive desktops, respectively. Intel refers to these devices as netbooks and nettops to differentiate them from mainstream desktops and notebooks. To further separate these product segments, Intel has set guidelines for device makers that limit the features of Atom-based devices, preventing the chips from being used in notebooks with a 15-inch screen instead of a Core 2 Duo processor, for example. Low-cost notebooks and desktops based on Atom will hit the market sometime during the third quarter, Cheung said, adding Intel also expects to see demand for Atom processors in consumer electronics and embedded applications. Intel expects low-cost computers will appeal to first-time computer buyers in emerging markets as well as users in more mature markets looking for a second computer. Source: Infoworld
Labels: Industry News, Mobile |
| posted by TechFreeks @ 5:31 PM |
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