Wackao » Web Tech

Fear of Cloud Takes Microsoft to Web!

Ripul Kumar — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:52:54 +0000

Microsoft Office is now available online, this announcement has come a few days after Google Announced releasing of its Chrome OS which would be web oriented and would focus on Cloud Computing. The Concept in itself is a smart work that would reduce the dependence on our personal storage abd also provide portability .And for that you just need a web connection and a browser. This would seem as Google’s concept in building the Chrome OS but Microsoft known as a traditional company have now realised the importance of web and is embracing the concept.

The World of web is dominated by Google ( I am a Google Fan while some belive Google wants to take over our minds @#!) and the momentum is now shifting to the web. The emergence of Bing and now online Microsoft Office indicate this that big corporations are realising the importance of web.

But there is another side of the coin and that relates to security and this is where most of the research and time Microsoft would have to give to make online Microsoft Office a success.

Analysts have mostly given the thumbs up to Microsoft for moving some of its applications to the web, even if it might cost them dearly.The Wall Street Journal has estimated that offering free online software could “put at risk as much at $4bn (£2.46bn) in revenue”..as quoted by BBC

Microsoft will also host one Internet business version of Office at its own data centers, charging companies a yet-to- be-announced fee. Companies with premium service contracts will have the choice of running a second Web-based version from their own data centers at no extra cost...as Quoted by Reuters.
Moving online would not only help Microsoft catch up with the new trend but would also provide the much needed entry into the web world by enabling inbuilt support for Bing and other Microsoft Applications.

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Now Tweet with video’s – 12seconds

Ripul Kumar — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:47:55 +0000

12seconds is providing you a new way to Tweet, 12seconds allows you to upload a 12s video using your browser, mobile phone or any other video recording device you can record to 12seconds.tv. Your videos will be displayed in the public stream and in the streams of your followers. You can then share your videos with all your friends and family, post them to your Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed accounts and even embed them into your blog or websites.

Now 12seconds is launching its new iPhone app which would allow users to post video’s directly through their iphones.

You can get answers to all your querries on the Official 12seconds blog.
Follow Official 12seconds wordpress blog.
Official 12seconds Goole groups.
Follow 12seconds on Twitter

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Interesting: Bing Vs Google Video

Ripul Kumar — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:41:53 +0000

The video shows an interesting comparison between Microsoft’s Bing and Google, also the video brings us to another important point , Why does Microsoft Copies everything as if it belong to open source , and Why doesn’t Microsoft has its own ideas?

Check out the video below:

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Twitter Growth slows ,Paid Ads now available!

Ripul Kumar — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:28:50 +0000

Twitter which had an amazing 1448% growth rate year on year ,has finally started slowing down to about 7% per month starting from this year.Though twitter has been loosing new users at twice the rate as myspace or facebook but it still has a positive growth rate.Well this isnt bad considering the fact the user base that twitter has,the slowness can be contributed to the fact that Twitter might be reaching its full potential.

Twitter has now started showing paid ads on user’s home pages, these ads can range from language to zone specific.The ads have a heading and a short description and they can be identified by “Sponsored definition” written below them just as Google Ads.The new, paid ads have been placed in the same place as the previous, non-paid ads.

Bloggers have verified Twitter showing paid ads by changing language prefrences and the ads language also changes,

Check out the Sethsimonds blog .

YouTube Revives and Upgrades itself!

Ripul Kumar — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:49:24 +0000

YouTube is very soon going to get a new look, by July 15th all channels will be switched to the new look. Not only thelook , the size of the uploads would also be changed from 1Gb to 2Gb .Despite the size increase, the maximum length of a video remains 10 minutes. Now users would can upload their HD videos and we would be able to see better quality video’s on Youtube

Message from Brian Glick [ Product Manager Youtube]

“Just click on the “Upgrade my channel!” link on your Channel Design page (and note that you can switch back anytime until July 15). Keep in mind that new channels are still in beta for now, so there may be a few elements missing here and there. If you have questions, please visit our Help Center. Also, we’ve been sharing our progress and gathering feedback from users on a dedicated channels beta blog. Join in if you’re interested in learning more and want more frequent updates on our beta progress — and let us know if there’s anything that you’d like to see added to the new version of channels, too.”

Check out the Video below:

YouTube Official Blog

Youtube is also releasing channels for the News ,entertainment or sports . YouTube is seeing an increase in mobile uploads of videos. In the past six months, mobile uploads have increased by 1700%. Since just last Friday, the day of the iPhone 3G S release – the first iPhone with video, mobile uploads have increased by a whopping 400%.

The channels seem more like profile’s of a social networking site. Video’s are definitely the next thing on the internet as the growing popularity suggets and it seems like YouTube might just be on the right track.
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Bing Under Scanner for Plaigrasim!

Ripul Kumar — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:34:03 +0000

Plagiarism is something you dont expect microsoft to go about, as they themselves are againt the open source and it goes against their own standards. But today I was shocked when i read “ Copycats and Copywrite ” in the Guardian . Not only does Microsoft’s Bing looks simillar to Kayak which is specialised in travel and tourism. Take a look below:

Microsoft rejects the claims, saying “Bing Travel is based on independent development… any contrary allegations are without merit”.

Douglassims who first found this out displays this comparison and states “Perhaps Microsoft didn’t just copy Kayak. After all, if the task of finding flights is reduced to its simplest form then there’s not too much room for diversity of solutions. But I would like to understand better the legal limitations on look-alike and work-alike designs. If it’s okay, then why should I not just create an auction site exactly like eBay, except in plaid instead of yellow and white, or something like Amazon.com only named after a different river? Would that be okay?”

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Share/Transfer your pictures, videos, documents as large as 100MB for free.

Ripul Kumar — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:29:53 +0000

What is DROP?

Drop is a chunk of space which you can use to store and share anything.Be it your videos, docs, pictures,audio etc and that too without any registration, email address or any personal info.

What do people use drop.io for?

for real time project collaboration
privately sharing videos & photos.
transferring large files
quickly sharing documents among a group.
creating places to send comments, photos, documents while on the go or at a meeting.
coordinating group trips by creating a quick space where everyone can share travel plans and photos in real time
keeping a truly private journal and not have it on a computer hard drive or social network
as ‘tiny url’ for files

Steps to follow :

1.Just go to http://drop.io/

2.Name your drop in the space provided example http://drop.io/yourname

3.Upload the file upto 100MB (Can you do it on your mail..??? I can’t)

4.Click on create drop.

Your job is done..

Isn’t that simple!!!!

Now if you wanna share your files, docs, audio just give the URL (drop name in step 2) to your friend.Your friend can simply can go and checkout the files by entering the URL.Moreover you can give the password to the same so that it cannot be accessed by anyone else.

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Decision Making Engine: Hunch.com

Ripul Kumar — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:17:52 +0000

Even though Microsoft’s Bing.com states that it is actually a search engine,guess what a true Decision engine has been launched recently Hunch.com. The moment you open Hunch.com it starts displaying you simple questions which you can enter or make a search request from the top search box.The more questions you answer the more your profile page become relevant to you.
“Results are based on the collective knowledge of Hunch’s users. Hunch already has more than 2,500 possible topics, and Hunch users add new topics every day.”
My guess would be that Hunch.com basically uses a big database of questions and then tries to map then when a user asks a questions. The mapping then goes on and answers are given according to general public opinion.By stating this I do not mean that the question you asked was asked before or prepared already by hunch what i meant was that it would use certain algorithms which use AI[ Artificial Intelligence] and tries to map how a general human brain answers to questions and then you get your answers.

How ever on making a decision request it shows you multiple options which you may like or not, you can even add your answer into the options.

Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, who worked on Yahoo Answers before she left Yahoo and is now running product design at Hunch, says: “Yahoo Answers is not the answer.”

The Website is cool but needs more participation in order to become a complete decision making tool.

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