Google has it's Google Wave and Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind. Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it will launch its long-awaited Windows Azure cloud computing system on Jan 1, as it looks to take advantage of the growing interest in internet-based software and services.
Azure, which provides an online platform for software developers to create their own programs, and space for customers to store data, was rolled out for experimentation a year ago.
The service will go fully live at the beginning of next year, Microsoft's chief software architect Ray Ozzie told the company's annual software developers conference on Tuesday.
The first month of the service will be free, and billing will start in February, said Ozzie.
Microsoft is expected to be a big player in the cloud computing market -- broadly the trend toward running software in remote data centers and accessing it over the Internet -- but has lagged behind pioneering rivals such as Amazon.com Inc, which already sells cloud-based storage, and Google Inc, which offers a range of free, online software.
It is possible for a PC to boot up under 10 ten seconds? All this while, PC users using Windows operating system has to wait for more than 10 seconds for the PC to completely boot up. And this might changed soon. New Google Inc software will start up a computer as fast as a television can be turned on, the search company said on Thursday as it showed off its Google Chrome operating system designed for PCs that do their work on the Web.
Google gave the first public look at its Chrome OS four months after declaring its intention of developing the PC's main software, a move that pits it directly against Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc.
True to Google's Internet-pedigree, the Chrome OS resembles a Web browser more than it does a traditional computer operating system like Microsoft Windows, matching Google's ambition to drive people to the Web -- where they can see Google ads.
Google said the software will initially be available by the holiday season of 2010 on low-cost netbooks that meet Google's hardware specifications, such as using only memory chips to store data instead of slower hard drives, the current standard.
Netbooks running Chrome OS will only be able to run Web applications and the user's data will automatically be stored on the Web in the so-called cloud of Internet servers, Google executives said at an event at the company's Mountain View, California headquarters on Thursday.
"It's basically a Web browsing machine," said Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li, referring to the netbooks powered by Chrome OS.
Such a machine is made for a world of near-constant, extremely fast Web connection, without the type of software that made Microsoft famous, since most of the work would be done by big machines on the Web which take directions and send information to relatively uncomplicated devices like a Chrome PC.
Sundar Pichai, vice-president of product management for Google's Chrome OS, said that computers running Chrome OS will be able to start in less than seven seconds.
"From the time you press boot you want it to be like a TV: You turn it on and you should be on the Web using your applications," Pichai said.
MORE WEB USE DRIVES MORE GOOGLE ADS
Google said it is giving away the software for free, similar to its Android smartphone software, with the idea that improving the Web experience will ultimately benefit its Internet search advertising business, which generated roughly $22 billion in revenue in 2008.
"They're doing it to get further and further entrenched in whatever people are doing to go online, whether that's a browser, an operating system or in applications," said Todd Greenwald, an analyst with Signal Hill Group.
"If Chrome is the OS then the attach (access) rate on Google searches will be a lot higher," he said.
But analysts noted that the differences between conventional PCs and Chrome OS netbooks might give some consumers pause.
"If they view it from the conventional perspective, then it falls short," Gartner analyst Ray Valdes said of Chrome OS, citing its lack of compatibility with traditional software and its limited offline capabilities.
Google officials said Chrome OS netbooks will be able to provide some functions when offline, but that the product was primarily designed to be connected to the Internet.
But Valdes said if Google can deliver on the products' promises, such as fast performance, then consumers may view Chrome OS netbooks as distinct class of products with attractive benefits.
"I think that it's initially going to appeal to small subset of the general consumer population," said Valdes. "The question is can they build on that and expand that over time."
Google made the computer code for the Chrome OS available to outside developers on Thursday, allowing developers to tinker with the software and potentially design new applications to run alongside it.
With Chrome, Google is seeking to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Corp's Windows, which runs on nine out of 10 personal computers.
The Chrome OS also challenges makers of traditional, desktop software, including Microsoft and its lucrative Office suite of productivity software, since Chrome OS only runs Web applications.
Google's Pichai, noted during a demonstration on Thursday, that Chrome OS-based PCs would be interoperable with Web-based versions of software, such as Microsoft's online version of its Excel spreadsheet.
Google said all data in Chrome will automatically be housed in the so-called cloud, or on external servers, but also cached on the computer's internal hardware to boost performance.
If a person loses their netbook, Google Engineering Director Matt Papakipos explained, they can buy a new one, log in and within seconds have a machine with access to all the same data as their previous device.
"What really makes this a cloud device is that all the user data is synced back to the cloud in real time," said Papakipos.
Still not sure why Google is building its own operating system? It created this animated video to try to explain why the Web needs a new OS, and why that OS should be Chrome.
China has promised severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 flu after a medical expert said suspect cases may have been held back by local governments. China H1N1 death toll stand at 53 and considering the size of their population, that figure is ridiculously low. Thus, all this while, H1N1 death in China could have been unreported, not tested or misdiagnose.
The Health Ministry said China had adopted a new H1N1 accounting method earlier this month. If a person was confirmed with H1N1 and then died, the case should be reported as death from H1N1, whether or not there was another condition.
"People responsible will be punished if reports of H1N1 virus cases are held back, lied about or delayed," said Deng Haihua, spokesman for China's Health Ministry, according to a notice on the ministry's website (www.moh.gov.cn) seen on Friday.
Zhong Nanshan, respected by many in China for his candour and work fighting "severe acute respiratory syndrome" (SARS) in 2003, said he did not believe that the national H1N1 death toll of 53, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported on Thursday.
Zhong, who is now a doctor based in southern province of Guangdong, said that "some areas have not been testing deaths from severe (pneumonia) and treating them as cases of ordinary pneumonia without any question".
The H1N1 flu strain affects the respiratory tract. Patients who become severely ill or die typically suffer from pneumonia, either brought on directly by the virus or due to secondary bacterial infections.
The previous method attributed the death to previously existing conditions but not to H1N1, thereby reducing the number of cases reported as H1N1 death cases, a separate notice on the Health Ministry's website said.
A ministry official told Reuters it would no longer issue cumulative tolls, only new cases and deaths.
That will make it difficult to determine the actual extent of H1N1 deaths in China, which based on previous figures had been statistically much lower than in other countries.
Bank heists used to be a common crime among robbers looking for quick cash. However, of lately, even electronic gadgets are being hijacked and converted to cash. Over the weekend, someone used a fire ladder to climb to the roof of a huge warehouse in Willebroek, a Dutch-speaking municipality in the Belgian province of Antwerp, cut a hole in the roof, and made off with 3,000 to 4,000 brand new Apple iPhones.
The crime, believed to be the largest iPhone heist to date, was discovered Monday morning and had the earmarks of an inside job. The hole in the roof was cut directly above the location where the iPhones had been stored. Police have launched an inquiry.
The warehouse belonged to Ceva Logistics, a U.S.-owned transport company with headquarters in the Netherlands. Company officials were reported to be "seriously annoyed" but would not comment.
The iPhones were on their way to Mobistar, Apple's exclusive Belgian carrier. Mobistar had been having trouble meeting demand for the popular phones, but Patti Verdoodt, a Mobistar spokesperson, told De Standaard that their supplier had been contacted and a new shipment would arrive well in time for the holidays.
"We have the serial numbers of the stolen iPhones block[ed] anyway so they cannot be used," said Verdoodt (Google translation). But because Belgium is one of only three countries in Europe that sells iPhones without a SIM-lock, that would not prevent the thieves from fencing them for use on another carrier's network.
There is some disagreement in the Belgian press about how many iPhones were taken. De Standaard put the number at nearly 4,000. Gazet van Antwerpen put it at more than 3,000. Both papers agreed that the street value of the loss was about 2 million euros ($3 million).
Thousands of stargazers stayed awake overnight for what was forecast as an intense Leonid meteor shower over Asia this year, but the show fizzled rather than sizzled for many viewers – partly due to cloud cover.
One group of about 30 amateur astronomers had some luck during their vigil at the Siriska wildlife sanctuary, nearly 150km south of New Delhi – counting 78 Leonids during a four-hour period.
“There was no moon in the sky, which is good for observation,” said Yogeshwar Kanu Aggarwal, a member of the Space Science Popularization Association of Communications and Educators. “We could see flashes of light for almost 10 seconds as bright as star Sirius.”
All across Asia, viewers stayed up until the early hours of Wednesday to catch a glimpse of the Leonids, which are bits of debris from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Appearing like flashes of light in the sky, NASA scientists had projected there would be up to 300 raining down every hour compared to a typical night when there about eight an hour.
A cloudy sky disappointed thousands of skygazers in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Pawan Sharma, a 36-year-old photographer, could only spot two shooting stars, one of them big enough to be seen streaking across the sky in a window between the clouds.
In Nepal, cloud and fog cover over much of the Himalayan nation blocked views of the meteor shower.
Jayanta Acharya, astronomy professor at Katmandu’s Tribhuwan University, said he woke up early to view the meteor shower from the rooftop of his house in Katmandu.
Twitter is temporarily conked out. Not that it happened frequently but I just want to post this keyword "Twitter Service Temporarily Unavailable" and see if this blog can get some visitor inquiring on the mentioned keywords.
503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
I just hit the above error minutes ago. Twitter server could be extremely busy or someone is hacking into their system. Every time I tried to login, it return to the same Login page (sign in page).
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