technology

Google to replace HTTP and make web twice as fast

2009-11-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

Google's Chromium group has announced an effort to replace the traditional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) web browser language with a new protocol that supposedly boosts Internet browsing by up to 55 percent. HTTP currently is the protocol used by all web servers and browsers, hence the "http" in front of web addresses. But, as noted by Ars Technica, HTTP becomes inefficient when transferring many small files on many modern websites.

By contrast, Google's cleverly named SPDY protocol can compress and handle the individual requests via one connection that's SSL-encrypted. That allows higher-priority files to slip through immediately without becoming backed up behind large files.

SPDY has shown up to 55 percent web page loading when tested under lab conditions, and the Google team has released their source code for public feedback.

But Ars Technica raises some points of caution about the mandatory SSL encryption requiring more processing power from small devices and computers alike. Requiring SSL could also worsen the problem where server operators neglect SSL encryption and unintentionally encourage people to ignore warnings about unsecured websites.

Still Google's team recognizes these problems and has already proposed workaround solutions. An open approach has already proven a smashing success on Google's Android operating system, but redesigning the Internet's architecture will undoubtedly prove trickier in the days to come.

xp mode in windows 7

2009-07-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

. Essentially XP Mode provides Windows XP in a virtual environment into Windows 7 allowing you to run many of your favourite Windows XP applications. It seems like a good idea – rather than trying to make Windows 7 backward compatible with all manner of software products – simply provide Windows XP in its own environment. This also allows much freeing up of developers time to make further enhancements and refinements to Windows 7 – ready for its release.

As I am running Windows 7 in a virtual environment on my XP machine it will prove an even more interesting challenge and experiment to then run XP in a virtual environment on my virtual Windows 7 set up. I downloaded the 445 MB file onto Windows 7 then started the application installation process. The installation started pretty swiftly, created a virtual hard disk file for virtual Windows XP, registered the product and showed me where to find the created disk file.

What now I thought? There was no trace of it in the Start menu and double-clicking the created .vhd file did little to help.

Presumably we need to install a virtual manager, such as Windows Virtual PC Beta fromwww.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc a download of just under 5MB. Before installing Virtual PC Beta you need to ensure virtualisation is enabled in your BIOS.

After activating virtualisation technology on my laptop and local Virtual PC I set about attempting the install – the first warning returned was “Windows Update Standalone Installer – The update is not applicable to your computer.”

The first step was to run winver from the Start menu to find out the current version of Windows 7 which is reported as Microsoft Windows Version 6.1 (Build 7000). It was at this point the realisation struck me – I must still be running Windows 7 Beta even though I had already downloaded Windows 7 RC. Forty minutes later and I have a build of Windows 7 RC installed reporting Microsoft Windows 6.1 (Build 7100) and Virtual PC Beta installs just fine.

Post installation a new group appears under the Start Menu called Windows Virtual PC, under this a Virtual Windows XP is available.

I now have a Virtual Windows XP under Windows 7. Once I have given it a good run I will write a little more about it.

Happy birthday!! Sony Walkman turns 30

2009-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sony introduced its Walkman portable cassette player thirty years ago this week, kicking off a revolution in the consumer electronics industry by changing the way people enjoy music.

Until its introduction, the only way people could enjoy their own choice of music while on the go was to lug around a larger, heavier cassette player, but the Walkman brought music to the belt-clip, purse or pocket.

The first Walkman, the TPS-L2, cost $200 in the U.S., but despite the relatively high price tag the reception was enthusiastic. In 1980 The Wall Street Journal called the Walkman "one of the hottest new status symbols around" and noted that prospective U.S. owners faced a month-long wait because of a backlog in orders.

The player had several features that were innovative for the time including dual headphone sockets, independent volume control for the left and right audio channels and the distinctive orange "hotline" button on the top that faded the tape output and engaged a microphone so the listener could talk to someone nearby without stopping the music or taking off their headphones.

The design and much of the mechanics of the TPS-L2 was based on a model that came out in 1978 but was never branded as Walkman. The TCM-100 was a portable cassette recorder aimed at people who needed the ability to record audio clips on the go, such as business people and journalists. The TPS-L2 brought the technology to the mass-market.

With the success of the Walkman a product line was born that would go on to become one of the world's best-known brand names -- but that global branding almost didn't happen. Fearing that "Walkman" wasn't proper English, Sony initially chose the brand name "Soundabout" for the U.S. market, derived from the word walkabout, and "Stowaway" for the U.K. It wasn't until a year later, in 1980, that Walkman became the global brand name.

Within a few years the products were developing fast.

The WM-2, introduced in 1981, was notable for its styling, which was much more modern that of the TPS-L2 and also offered in several colors to suit personal tastes. By 1983, just four years after the launch of the Walkman, Sony introduced the WM-20, which was the same size as a cassette case. Then in 1984 the Walkman line expanded with the introduction of the D-50, the first CD Walkman.

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, Sony reigned supreme in the personal audio space. It sold hundreds of millions of Walkman players and was the standard by which most competing products were judged. However, things started to change with the arrival of digital music.

Sathyabama students to launch satellite in 2010

2009-07-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) will launch a nano satellite designed and developed by students of Sathyabama University
for free. The Sathyabama Satellite, with a payload of 10 kg, will study air and earth surface pollution.

"The satellite is being designed with support from ISRO and we will launch it when it is completed," said Madhavan Nair, chairman, ISRO, after interacting with students associated with designing the satellite at Sathyabhama University
on Thursday.

Speaking at the Graduation Day of Jeppiar College of Engineering, Nair said that ISRO and Sathyabama University had signed an MoU to support the design, development and launch of the satellite. A Space Technology Centre has been established to conduct advanced research in rocketry, satellites and space applications in university campus.

"The satellite is in the design stage and we will be able to complete the project, including fabrication, by June 2010," said V Kannan, head of the VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design department that includes a team of 27 students to build the satellite. The third-year engineering students were selected by ISRO after a screening process that included a written test and interview.

"It is impressive to see that the students developing the concept quickly. Their clarity of concept and commitment to completing the project by the end of the year is impressive," Nair said. He added that the 16 Village Resource Centres were performing remarkably well.

Earlier, A Sivathanu Pillai, chief controller, Research and Development, Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) inaugurated an aero hangar and two Cessna aircraft meant for students of aeronautical engineering at the university.

Jeppiar, pro chancellor, Sathyabama University said: "We are planning to buy a 15-seater aircraft soon. An air hostess training course will also be started to benefit students from rural areas."

Google tests cloud-based database

2009-06-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Google has released an early version of a new type of database whose approach to data management will be revolutionary, according to an analyst who has studied the technology behind it.

On Tuesday, Google quietly announced in its research team blog a new online database called Fusion Tables designed to sidestep the limitations of conventional relational databases.

Specifically, Fusion Tables has been built to simplify a number of operations that are notoriously difficult in relational databases, including the integration of data from multiple, heterogenous sources and the ability to collaborate on large data sets, according to Google.

"Without an easy way to offer all the collaborators access to the same server, data sets get copied, emailed and ftp'd -- resulting in multiple versions that get out of sync very quickly," reads the Google announcement, which has been largely overlooked, probably because it was made on the same day the company held a high-profile press event to launch its Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, which will make conventional databases go the way of the rotary phone, according to Stephen E. Arnold, a technology and financial analyst who is president of Arnold Information Technology.

Data spaces as a concept has been around since the early 1990s, and Google, realizing its potential, has been developing it since it acquired Transformic, a pioneer of the technology, in 2005, Arnold said.

Data-spaces technology seeks to solve the problem of the multiple data types and data formats that reside in organizations, which have to scrub the data and make it uniform, often at great cost and effort, in order to store and analyze it in conventional databases.

Data spaces envisions a system that creates an index that provides access to data in its disparate formats and types, solving what Arnold calls the "Tower of Babel" problem.

In the case of Fusion Tables, the technology should allow Google to add to the conventional two-dimensional database tables a third coordinate with elements like product reviews, blog posts, Twitter messages and the like, as well as a fourth dimension of real-time updates, he said.

"So now we have an n-cube, a four-dimensional space, and in that space we can now do new kinds of queries which create new kinds of products and new market opportunities," said Arnold, whose research about this topic includes a study done for IDC last August.

"If you're IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, your worst nightmare is now visible. Google is going to automatically construct data spaces and implement new types of queries," he said. "Those guys are going to be blindsided."

Microsoft to charge Europeans double for Windows 7

2009-06-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

European customers will pay up to twice as much for Windows 7 compared to U.S. users, even though the new operating system will ship without a browser in Europe, according to Microsoft.

When the company launches Windows 7 on Oct. 22, it will price Windows 7 Home Premium, likely the most popular of the three editions available at retail, at €119.99 in the European Union (EU) and charge £79.99 in the U.K., an EU member that has retained its own currency. Those prices are the equivalent to $168.66 and $132.14 U.S., respectively, at Saturday's exchange rates.

U.S. consumers will pay only $119 for the same software after a two-week pre-order sales discount expires July 11. That means EU residents will pay 41% more, and U.K. consumers 10% more, than U.S. buyers for Home Premium Upgrade.

Other editions will come with an even higher surcharge. Windows 7 Professional, the key retail edition for businesses, will sport a price tag of €285, or $400.60, and £189.99, or $313.84, at Saturday's exchange rate. In other words, EU customers will pay twice the $199.99 U.S. price; U.K. buyers will pay 57% more.

The top-end Windows 7 Ultimate, priced at $219.99 in the U.S., will cost €299 ($420.27), or 91% more, in the EU, and £229.99 ($330.36), or 50% more, in the U.K.

Some of the money Microsoft stands to make on the European editions of Windows 7 comes from the weak dollar. Last week, for instance, the dollar fell against the euro the most in a month, hitting $1.41 per euro.

According to Microsoft, it's also not reducing Windows 7's prices from Vista's current marks as much in the EU as it is in the U.S. Windows 7 Home Premium's EU price is down €6, or 4% from the same Vista edition, half the 8% cut that Microsoft made to Home Premium in the U.S. In the U.K., Microsoft left prices untouched; Windows 7 will be priced the same as Vista.

Europe's customers will be paying more for less, as Microsoft has decided to yank Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) from Windows 7 in an effort to head off EU antitrust regulators, who may still force the company to take more drastic measures.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that it was dropping IE8 from Windows 7 for customers in the EU, and would ship a browser-less edition, dubbed Windows 7E. Instead, Microsoft said computer makers could decide which browser or browsers to install.

But Windows 7E presents special problems for people who intend to upgrade existing computers from Windows Vista to the new OS. Because Microsoft won't allow EU users to do "in-place" upgrades -- which would leave some version of IE on the machine -- the company isn't selling "Upgrade" editions. Instead, it's selling the "Full" editions, which are usually more expensive, at "Upgrade" prices. (The prices quoted above, for example, compare U.S. Upgrade editions with EU Full editions, since the latter has been marked down.)

It's unclear whether Microsoft's move will mollify EU officials. Although most analysts saw yanking IE8 as a major concession, EU's antitrust agency hasn't exactly warmed to the idea." Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less," the European Commission said in a statement issued after Microsoft's June 11 announcement.

The EU's preferred solution seems to be a "ballot screen" that users would see the first time they try to connect to the Internet from Windows 7. Such a screen would presumably offer multiple browsers, including IE, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera. Microsoft and computer makers dread a ballot screen, analysts have said, because of potential support problems.

Users in the U.K., France and Germany will also be able to buy Windows 7 at steep discounts for a limited time starting July 15, a program mimicking the one kicked off last Friday in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The pre-order discounting will trim the price of Windows 7 Home Premium to £49.99 in the U.K. and €49.99 in France and Germany until Aug. 14, assuming supplies last. Windows 7 Professional's sales price will be £99.99 in the U.K and €109.99 in France and Germany.

Fixes in windows vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 (cpp)

2009-06-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

hello everyone .,

now with the release of sp2 beta windows vista and windows server 2008 are almost patched with every bug.

some of the major fixes include

some of the major fixes :

1. INTEGRATED hyper-V hypervisor

2.support for bluetooth 2.1

3.Native blu-ray disc burning

4.Reduced Windows Side Bar Resource hogging

5.Windows Search 4 (Microsoft's latest indexer which promises improved relevancy in search, broader indexing and Group policy integration)

6.On Installation of .net framework 3.5 service pack 1 we will notice shorter download and installation times with Vista service pack 2 or Windows 2008 service pack 2 .

7.Improved Power Settings for Windows Server 2008.

8.Spysweeper and ZoneAlarm now works with POP3 email accounts.

9.Support for new VIA 64-bit CPU Security

10.Windows Connect Now (WCN) wireless configuration.