First screenshots of Google Chrome OS.. [Updated]
Jul 9th
Ask me about the Google Chrome OS, well I am so excited bout it, as I was for Chrome browser, even though I use Firefox but still excitement is always there. I just saw the very first screenshot of Google Chrome OS.
To me It’s hard to agree that are these the first Chrome OS shots, there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious one of the reasons is from where the screenshots emerged? Anyways we have to believe whatever it is.
Acer is one of the Google partners for Chrome OS, an employee there has claimed the screenshots of Google Chrome OS. Full installation is shown there, which took about 10 minutes. After installation was done, desktop to desktop reboot took about 25 seconds.
As for the desktop, it is minimalist: at the bottom of the screen is the Chrome Bar, which is the system’s dock, start menu. The glowing blue icon, which looks like the center of the Chrome logo, opens the main menu, and hides when not in use.
But the reasons why I am suspicious are that, from where these screenshots came up because just one day after the announcement; the shots could easily be mocked up in an existing Linux desktop environment; the shots don’t necessarily look like they were taken in an Acer conference room; and, most interesting thing is that the colors in the word “Google” are ordered incorrectly.
As this demo was carried out on a Acer Extensa 4620Z, which would accord with Google’s stated first target for the OS. Anyways according to me we have to wait what is the reality..
Update: As expected, there has been confirmation over the fact that these screenshots were fake and not real.
Google Image search gets the Usage Rights feature
Jul 9th
During the course of last month (June), Google announced their plans for adding options that would make is possible to search only those images that were licensed by Creative Commons. Creative Commons happens to provide various flexible licenses that allow content creators to share their works with the world. These options have been added to the advanced search page for Images: Google Advanced Image Search. The options include:
- Not filtered by license (Search for non licensed Images)
- Labeled for reuse
- Labeled for commercial reuse
- Labeled for reuse with modification
- Labeled for commercial reuse with modification
Google Image Search happens to be the first search engine to provide this interesting option.Yahoo happens to provide support for Flickr images only. Go ahead and give it a try and reuse material in a safe manner.
Is Twitter creating the playground for the spammers?
Jul 8th
First of all hats off and a huge thanx to Sam Diaz for sharing this important and interesting post with us. Are you guys familiar with Twitter the ever popular microblogging network. If the answer is yes, then you might also be aware of the url shortening services. Yes, Yes I am talking about the tinyurl and bit.ly. With twitter’s upper limit for the message to not exceed 140 characters, we are quite dependent on this service. Through these url shorteners, users mask their links into a shorter one and share their favorite articles, news and other stuff.
Well, Spammers seem to have realized the significant role these URL shortening services can perform in carrying out their nasty spamming plans. According to MessageLabs ( a division of Symantec), the use and presence of short urls in spam messages has taken a significant rise since the last few days. Now it appears in 2 percent of all the spam messages.
The company informs that these URL shortening services are allowing spammers to go past anti spam tools that keep an eye on all the web domains known for sending spam. As one can guess, these services allows spammers to trick the users into clicking on false links.
Now take this thing with respect to Twitter, you never know when you are clicking on a healthy or disastrous link, and to be honest, when using Twitter, we are least bothered.
If more and more spammers start using the URL shortening services for their evil purposes, the significance of Twitter will disappear very quickly.
Twitter has got to do something about it, otherwise its own existence comes into jeopardy. May be Twitter should increase the allowed message length permitting us to post the original link in its original length and format and eliminate the need to use URL shortening services. What is your opinion in this regard. Do share with us. Thnx in advance.
Missing Sync for Palm Pre 1.0 released
Jul 8th
Mark/Space has released “The Missing Sync” for Palm Pre 1.0, software to enable the Mac to sync data with Palm’s Pre smartphone.
The Missing Sync for Palm Pre enables Pre users to transfer music, ringtones, photos, contact information, calendar data and other content between the Mac and the Palm Pre. The software works with Address Book, Entourage, iCal, iTunes, iPhoto and other familiar software.
“Proximity Sync” technology enables the two device to synchronize data over Wi-Fi, so you don’t need to physically tether the Pre to the Mac using USB to exchange the data. You can customize what data gets synced, and you can also convert video to be played on the Pre.
This is the official release of the software, it was previously offered as a public beta. One feature added since the beta version is an integrated ringtone editor, which lets you convert non-DRM-encrypted music to a custom ringtone for your Pre.
System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later, iTunes 7.4 or higher, iTunes 5.0 or later, and a Palm Pre running ROM 1.0.2 or later.
New Sony’s netbook will be available by august 2009
Jul 8th
The Sony company-Japan has a great reputation in the electronics market worldwide. Sony just came up with a new product web page for the VAIO line-up of computers.
Its the Sony VAIO W series. As the web page is in japanese language the google translator is used.
The W series features a hardware that is commonly found in netbooks, such as the Intel N280 Atom Processor (1.66 GHz). The computer also had a pre-installed Windows XP with Service Pack 3.
The new W series will be in 3 colors, white, brown and a pink one. This new series features an ‘chiclet’ style keyboard similar to the CS series.
It seems that the touch-pad is off-centered, with the surface having some interesting artistic designs.
The chassis of W series is mostly made of plastic and looks ordinary for a Sony products.
The price of Sony’s VAIO notebook line is never listed as cheap or affordable. Even the modestly powered Sony VAIO P series retails for a US$1,000. It is debated when the P series was denied to be a netbook by Sony itself.
The W series seems more like a ‘netbook-styled’ than the VAIO P series and it is more likely that Sony will confirm it as a netbook. It has no ‘premium features’ like the P series.
Hardware, software specifications:
- Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 32 bit
- Processor: Intel N280 Atom processor (1.66 GHz) with Intel’s SpeedStep technology
- RAM: 1GB DDR2 533 MHz
- CPU: Intel GMA 950
- Display: 10.1 inch (16:9) WXGA 1366 × 768 with LED backlight
- Storage: 160GB HDD 5400 RPM
External Connectors:
- 2 X USB 2.0 ports
- SD/MMC reader
- Memory Stick Duo/Pro reader
- Audio-in
- Audio-out
- VGA output
- 10/100 LAN
Other major features:
- 802.11b/g/draft n wireless LAN
- Bluetooth 2.1
- ‘Motion Eye’ Web cam
- Intel High Definition Audio compatible
- Built in stereo speakers
- Built in microphone
- 3.5 Hours battery life
Sony representatives claimed that the W series will be available in August in the United States for $499.
What is Bing Downloader? Let’s try it out..
Jul 8th
Try out Bing Downloader if you are a huge fan of the Microsoft search engine Bing or enjoy looking at the wallpapers. Microsoft has made the deliberate decision to add a background image to their search engine by default.
Most likely to look different than their greatest rival Google. Some users have expressed the desire to download these background images to use them on their computer systems.
It is also possible to download the Bing background image manually.It depends on the web browser used. Firefox users can simply right-click on the image and select View Background Image to view the image in a new tab from where it can be saved to the computer system.
Bing Downloader is a small 10KB application written in C# can download images from Bing.com and store in your local PC. Just execute it everyday. As of now this is not a background app. It runs, downloads and archives the image and exits. The app requires .NET Framework 3.5.
Download BingDownloader now. The app creates files in “BingImages” folder with Pacific Date rather than the current system date. This is because bing.com images change every 12:00 AM Pacific time.
Click Here To Download BingDownloader
VLC Media Player 1.0.0 is out now
Jul 8th
The VideoLan team has announced the latest version of 1.0.0 of their media player VLC Media Player. The major release introduces bulky new few features, formats and codecs to VLC and major bugs are fixed.
The list of all the changes and additions that the developers have packed into the new release of the VLC Player including live recording, finer speed controls, new HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, Real video 3.0 and 4.0), formats, video scaling in full screen or zipped file playback. VLC Media Player can still play most video and audio formats out of the box without needing third party codec installations to do so.
VLC Player release is available for all supported operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and Linux.
Here is the list of other major features in newer version:
- Free, Open Source and cross-platform
- Independant of systems codecs to support most video types
- Live recording (just as of RealPlayer?)
- Instant pausing and Frame-by-Frame support
- Finer speed controls
- New HD codecs, New formats, New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
- Video scaling in fullscreen
- Zipped file playback
- Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
- MTP devices on linux
- AirTunes streaming
- New skin for the skins2 interface
Some questions regarding Google Chrome OS
Jul 8th
Just an hour ago I wrote about Google Chrome OS, but right after I published the post. I came across another post in which there were some questions regarding Google Chrome OS. There were 11 questions but I just selected some of them.
Google hasn’t revealed much in the way of specifics, but one thing is quite clear that OS is an open-source project based on its Chrome browser with a Linux kernel, and that it’s working with multiple hardware manufacturers to bring it to x86- and ARM-based netbooks in the second half of next year.
The first one I noted down was..
Why Chrome? Why not Android? Google Chrome OS is an extension of the company’s browser, not its mobile OS. Google is, making the browser an autonomous environment that renders OSes like Windows and Android superfluous. That is a way more powerful idea than putting a phone OS on a little notebook computer.
Second question is that
Google Chrome OS’s Security issues? Google has a shot at writing an OS that’s less likely to be rife with holes than Windows. I’m not sure if the fact that the company doesn’t bring up security as an issue in the blog post means anything.
Another important thing to notice is
Windows or Google Chrome OS? As it is crystal clear that Windows is the world’s most familiar operating system, with the largest library of apps and broadest hardware support. Google’s blog post sets the bar high in terms of ambition for what it’s trying to bring to consumers. It’ll have to deliver in spades to make Chrome OS netbooks truly appealing alternatives to Windows systems in the real world.
Google Chrome OS is there; but why no Chrome for OS X? The Chrome browser is impressive, but the company hasn’t even managed to get it onto OS X yet. When Google products are new, it’s often hard to tell whether the company sees them as core to its future or as quirky experiments.
Chrome OS versus Microsoft? If Chrome OS turns out to be one of the most massive hits that the tech world has ever seen, it’s not going to crush Windows anytime soon. Microsoft is intrigued but not alarmed by tonight’s news, and that it’s been expecting something along these lines.
There are some other things to notice are that What’s will deal with hardware? What’s the deal with software? What’s the UI going to be like?
Google Chrome OS; yet another threat to Microsoft
Jul 8th
Google Chrome was designed for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends.
Today, Google announced a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System.
Company said:
It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.
Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be launched at netbooks. Later this year code will be open-sourced, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
Key aspects of Google Chrome OS are Speed, simplicity and security. The OS is aimed to be fast and lightweight, to start up onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is simple and user experience takes place on the web.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year.
Google said:
The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.
For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies.
These apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.
Google Chrome OS is separate from Android. Google Chrome OS is for those who spend most of their time on the web, and is designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.
Get your hands on WordPress 2.8.1 Release Candidate
Jul 8th
As Ryan Boren reports, WordPress has released Release Candidate 1 RC1 of WordPress 2.8.1. RC1 is said to be the last stop before the WordPress team rolls out the final release.The 2.8 version fixed around 790 bugs or more and brought quite interesting new features.You can get the complete and exhaustive list of all the changes here. If you desire you can also have a look at all of the tickets that have been fixed in 2.8.1. Around 27 files have been modified since the Beta 2 of WordPress was released. The more noticable changes include:
- Change to the version.php file
- Change to the plugin-editor.php file
- Change to the theme-editor.php file
- Change to the edit-comments.php file
The download link for WordPress 2.8.1 RC1 is given below. Go ahead and give it a try.
