It was October 22^nd, 2009 when Windows 7 was officially launched and it would be some good day in 2012, when Microsoft Windows 8 is launched, hopefully.

Taking three years leap into the future, (and ignoring the doom that 2012 spells over the world) as the roadmap suggests, we would be seeing Microsoft launch another operating system, a successor to Windows 7, to delight us.

The Microsoft roadmap (pictured below) suggests that Microsoft has clearly exercised the trend of launching every major release with a four year gap from the previous one.

Windows 8 : Road map To Success ?

What could Windows 8 probably be? Would it be just another Windows OS with further refined Windows 7 functionality in a different cover or would Microsoft take chances in going unconventional to develop the Windows 8 OS as a breakthrough to the regular lineup and still keep the hold on software market.

Featured : Microsoft OS Releases Chart

If my predictions aren’t too exaggerating, people wouldn’t prefer to buy an OS in 2012, a time where almost 90 percent of the software around the universe should be open source. Who knows if Google Chrome OS would take over Microsoft’s long-celebrated Windows OS by 2012.

Microsoft can also go to the extent of making it completely a Web OS or team with an open source party, otherwise, to live up to open source markets that will lead in 2010, presumably.

Only time and official confirmations will tell. Meanwhile, let’s roll back into the present and you can pop in a comment if you have some good stuff in mind. We would always appreciate it.

California became the first state to impose energy consumption restrictions on BIG and small screen Televisions.

This is not only done to keep the carbon footprint in control but also to bring down the cost of energy consumption for consumers. The California Energy Commission made it mandatory for TV manufacturers to reduce electricity consumption by 33% by 2011 and 49% by 2013.

The new standards are expected to save more than $8 billion in over 10 years and given the current state of California’s economy $8 billion is HUGE money.

As expected Consumer Electronics Association disagrees with the Commission’s findings and issued the following statement.

“CEA is extremely disappointed in the CEC’s decision to regulate TV energy use. Simply put, this is bad policy—dangerous for the California economy, dangerous for technology innovation and dangerous for consumer freedom. Instead of allowing customers to choose the products they want, the Commission has decided to impose arbitrary standards that will hamper innovation and limit consumer choice. It will result in higher prices for consumers, job losses for Californians, and lost tax revenue for the state.” [Link]

Energy-efficiency experts and environmentalists applauded the policy and expected the new standards to trigger new innovation and offer more choice to the American consumers. The most optimists experts expect the new policy to be adopted by commissions and policy makers around the world.

“With today’s pioneering decision, California is once again leading the way on energy efficiency standards. The newly adopted California TV standards will be the most advanced in the world. If history repeats itself, we expect many policy makers around the world to establish similar standards in the not too distant future.” [Link]

The future of this policy remains to be seen as CEA plans to go the legal route to oppose this policy from coming into existence.

Do you think CEA is reasonable in opposing this policy or is CEC being too ambitious?

For any gadget, tech specs, design, and all the ‘blah blah’ factors do a lot of publicity. But what does excessively more is just not these factors. Applications are the next big thing that attracts the users, and they bring the jail-bound features of the device to a very much explorable mightiness.

And everyone knows how Apple managed to pile up more than 100,000 applications for the iPhone – just another reason why some iPhone owners love their gizmo, and even Droid, which just broke out of the shell has somehow managed to count on more than 12,000 apps for its Android platform.

Do you see Palm even anywhere close to any of these? No. Because, Palm Web OS Development Tool, Palm Mojo SDK, is something quite new to application developers and does not seem to be interesting enough to draw the developer crowd.

Palm phones are different from the rest, because they feature Palm’s unique WebOS which is quite an isolated platform for application developers to venture in.

Palm Ares : Black Fate or Bright Future?

Palm, lately, took some  pain to understand the need of the hour and has planned to introduce a Web-based development environment for WebOS applications, called Ares. It (Ares) was first demonstrated publicly at the Open Mobile Summit Conference in San Francisco, yesterday.

Palm Ares is Palm’s way of roping in more developers to build applications for both Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Ares will allow developers to integrate various components in a drag-and-drop fashion using JavaScript to build applications easily.

Palm’s new WebOS development tool, Ares, should do some good to the snail-slow growth of its application catalog. There is a word in the air that Palm Ares SDK, which was reportedly released to a select group way back in April and later publically announced in July, has been downloaded innumerous times since then.

The Palm Ares SDK (software development kit) will not require the developers to make any configurations or downloads to develop the applications. Instead, environment will include debugging tools and mechanism for developers to share libraries and APIs.

Within the phone emulator in Ares, developers can see what the application will look like in both portrait and landscape view. When the application is finished, the developer can package it up, download it to a phone to try it out, share it with friends or submit it to Palm’s application catalog.

Now that seems like Palm is getting firm on its feet to make a good business with everything that should contribute to keep it going. Palm Ares SDK should be working fine on Firefox and Safari and the full version release is slated to go on air later this year.

When it does, we are eager to see the applications count multiply in thousands. Meanwhile, we’ll think over if Apple iPhone is the chosen one that deserves the crown for owning largest application catalog or is it somebody else (in your dearest vicinity)?

Tags: Palm Ares, Palm Ares SDK, Palm Mojo SDK, Palm SDK, Palm Web OS
]]> http://tnerd.com/2009/11/07/palm-ares-palms-new-candy-to-attract-application-developers/feed/ 0 http://tnerd.com/2009/10/31/google-insights-lady-gaga-costume-tops-the-charts-for-halloween-costumes-queries/ http://tnerd.com/2009/10/31/google-insights-lady-gaga-costume-tops-the-charts-for-halloween-costumes-queries/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:42:28 +0000 Abbas http://tnerd.com/?p=6704 Google just published a list of most popular searches related to our favorite holiday, Halloween. This lists is based on the information from Google insights.

The post carries several lists based on US, UK & Canada. There’s also a list for most Movie related queries, Dog related queries, Vampire and Kid related queries.

Following list shows the queries from the overall top US query list.

1. Lady Gaga Costume
2. Halloween Costumes 2009
3. Michael jackson Costume
4. Zombie Costume
5. Kids Halloween Costumes
6. Couples Halloween costumes
7. Couple Costume Ideas
8. Vampire Costume
9. Mario Costume
10. Group Costume Ideas

Now thats quite a list, it does give you a good idea of what to expect from the party tonight. Click here to see the rest of the lists published on Google blog.

With almost 70% of the IT leaders choosing Microsoft, the results failed to surprise me. Also, the results of these polls do more good than harm to Google. Here is why!

Microsoft has been a market leader in providing enterprise solution to the IT leaders across the world. The company has seen its share of highs and lows in the technology sector and while they have learned from their mistakes and delivered in the toughest situations, it just wasn’t good enough for the 30% of the poll participants who decided to go Google.

Anyone who remotely knows about Google and Google’s enterprise technology and initiatives will tell you that this poll came a little too early than it should have. Google hasn’t done much when it comes to enterprise solutions, except the enterprise search. The company is just getting started with its “Google Apps” initiative which is primarily targeted at education and business organizations.

Like any other company Google is evolving everyday with every interaction it has with the clients and customers. There lies a great potential for Google and threat for Microsoft in the 30% that is ready to go with Google’s business technology already.

While Google has speedy deployments, simpler and cheaper solutions going for its advantage Microsoft is known for its serious, versatile and high delivering business products such as exchange server and Microsoft office, etc..

The most visible factors going against Google are 1) Long lasting beta label. 2) Moving too quickly into too many directions, 3) No trust in cloud based solutions, etc.. and when it comes to Microsoft, it is simply too expensive for some.

Following are few quotes from the IT leaders who either chose to go with Microsoft or Google.

• “Microsoft. Mostly a case of the devil whose enterprise business model you know, versus the devil you don’t.” (Patrick Gray, President of Prevoyance Group)
• “Google seems to be moving too fast into too many areas. I don’t think they really have a focus on security and trust. Microsoft learned that lesson in a most painful manner. Google seems to have the same irreverence that Microsoft had in their earlier days.” (Matthew Metcalfe, Director of IS for Northwest Exterminating)
• “Microsoft. Google, to me, tends to be intrusive and to urge the consolidation of data in remote locations, often before such a move is proven safe or secure. Microsoft just wants our money.” (David Wilson, Director of IT for VectorCSP)
• “Microsoft. We are not, nor will we be in the foreseeable future, involved in the ‘cloud’ as an integral part of our internal IT offerings.” (David Van Geest, Director of IT for The Orsini Group)
• “Google. Because between the two, so far, Google hasn’t screwed me with ‘comply or die’ campaigns and there seems, for now, to be an effort on cross platform compatibility on Google’s part, whereas Microsoft wants to be all or nothing.” (Martin Szalay, Director of IT for FWE Co)

Things are poised to change in the time to come where not everything will be in the cloud as Google may want it but not everything will be on the desktop either as Microsoft desires. Products like Google Gears and Office Live are best examples of how technology will sync the information online and offline.

That said, Google will certainly gain more market share and pose a bigger threat to Microsoft as they aggressively more into the business and enterprise sector. The future is bright!

Click here to know more about Google’s enterprise solutions.

Image Credits: Adpulp and TechRepublic

Google

It (Google Audio) is aimed at bringing music streaming and free music downloads to the world, several web sources have confirmed it but Google. Google will be allegedly integrating direct music search and stream feature in its already dynamic Google Search. What does that mean? Simple, it is.

When you are searching for a song in Google, the incarnation of Google Audio will let you directly stream or listen to free music you have searched for besides allowing you to download (unconfirmed yet) the same directly from Google .

Google Audio is in collaboration with other three music giants including the social music discovery site iLike, LaLa and MySpace. This means, you’ll now be able to search for music and directly stream (or download) it from Google.

Google Audio : Coming Soon

Maybe, Google Audio will include services for streaming music from Pandora and imeem or it may also include “buy” links to download music from Amazon. But sadly, even this is just an unconfirmed word (say rumor).

Official confirmations from Google or other parties involved in the web service have not surfaced yet, so, you’ll probably have to hold back for a little while, until Google Audio is on air (reported launch date is 28^th of October, this year).

Depending on the license each service has for a particular song, Google Audio’s playable search results will include either a 30-second sample or the entire song. Lala, for instance, already has licenses that allow visitors to third-party sites like Facebook, Pitchfork Media and Billboard to stream any of its 8.5 million songs once, in its entirety, for free, and will almost certainly do the same on Google.

Google Audio : Let’s Spin A Track

Google already dominates the web world with about 70 percent of its shares for search engine and the launch of Google Audio will do nothing but improve Google’s market exponentially in embarking towards a musical future, hopes high, if they could integrate it with the Android OS for providing music services just like Apple iTunes does.

We are afraid you’ll have to wait until we garner more information on Google Audio from some official sources. I’m already sensing the Please don’t stop the music vibes. Are you?

Tags: Download Music, Google Audio, Google Music Search, Google Search, Google Web Service, Listen To Free Music, Music Streaming
]]> http://tnerd.com/2009/10/24/google-audio-google%e2%80%99s-music-service-coming-soon/feed/ 0 http://tnerd.com/2009/10/18/the-windows-7-download-story-free-download-xp-mode-for-windows-7-on-october-22/ http://tnerd.com/2009/10/18/the-windows-7-download-story-free-download-xp-mode-for-windows-7-on-october-22/#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:37:25 +0000 Shahbaaz http://tnerd.com/?p=6283 Besides the much anticipated Windows 7 official release, Microsoft’s latest OS, October 22 brings us another important reason to course the scheduler. Guess what?  XP Mode for Windows 7 download is scheduled to go live the same day. Mark it up!

The Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 OS has completed its final stage of development and the download will be aired through Microsoft Download Center on October 22^nd.

So, what is this XP Mode on Windows 7?

Well, if you somehow ignored the hint in its name, let me expound on what it actually is. Microsoft Windows 7 OS will no doubt have Microsoft’s latest OS technology and superior performance.

Besides this, the new OS is likely to drive in compatibility glitches with hardware biased to support Windows XP. To avoid this, Microsoft found an ultimate solution and calls it Windows 7 XP Mode.

Demo : Windows 7 XP Mode

“Windows XP Mode is designed to provide small business and mid-sized businesses running Windows 7 Professional (or higher) the ability to run Windows XP productivity applications that may not be natively compatible with Windows 7” quoted the Microsoft Press Release.

Windows 7 XP Mode is basically designed for small and medium size businesses which usually find using Windows XP relatively comfortable when compared to newer version of Windows. Ultimately, these businesses refrain from updating to the higher version of operating systems like Windows Vista or Windows 7.

So, the induction of a new XP mode in Windows 7 is more or less Microsoft’s ways of boosting Windows 7 sales or better said – Microsoft ‘s decent strategic approach favoring customer care and consumer interests.

“Windows 7 has a strong compatibility story with Windows Vista, and many applications that currently run on Windows XP-based or Windows Vista-based PCs should just run natively on Windows 7 – allowing you to take advantage of better performance, better management and better security built into Windows 7.”

The Good ? It’s a free download. The Bad? It’s not absolutely free. You’ll need to have a purchased copy of Windows 7 or higher for using the XP Mode on your Windows 7 OS. And make sure, your system has hardware virtualization enabled to support XP mode because some vendors usually disable hardware virtualization for slated reasons.

New Features in Windows XP Mode RC

Based on feedback from the Windows XP Mode beta, we’ve made several improvements to the usability of Windows XP Mode for small and medium-sized business users:

• You can now attach USB devices to Windows XP Mode applications directly from the Windows 7 task-bar. This means your USB devices, such as printers and flash drives, are available to applications running in Windows XP Mode, without the need to go into full screen mode.
• You can now access Windows XP Mode applications with a “jump-list”. Right click on the Windows XP Mode applications from the Windows 7 task bar to select and open most recently used files.
• You now have the flexibility of customizing where Windows XP Mode differencing disk files are stored.
• You can now disable drive sharing between Windows XP Mode and Windows 7 if you do not need that feature.
• The initial setup now includes a new user tutorial about how to use Windows XP Mode.

For further information and technical details on Windows 7 XP Mode, click here.

Click here to buy Windows 7 (pre-order).

Besides this, the first Microsoft Store which is in the final stages of its touch up is supposed to go live reportedly on or after October 22 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hopefully, this will contribute to ascend public interest in Microsoft’s hardware products like Zune HD, Xbox 360 and so on besides boosting up software sales.

Good Luck, Microsoft.

Tags: Buy Windows 7, Download Windows 7, Microsoft Store, windows 7, Windows 7 Download, Windows 7 Official Release, Windows 7 XP Mode, Windows XP Mode, Windows XP Mode RC, XP Mode for Windows 7
]]> http://tnerd.com/2009/10/18/the-windows-7-download-story-free-download-xp-mode-for-windows-7-on-october-22/feed/ 0 http://tnerd.com/2009/10/16/google-reports-a-strong-8-growth-qq-stocks-trading-at-3-higher-after-market/ http://tnerd.com/2009/10/16/google-reports-a-strong-8-growth-qq-stocks-trading-at-3-higher-after-market/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:11:56 +0000 Abbas http://tnerd.com/?p=6415 Google just announced its earnings beating the analysts’ expectations. Google reported $5.94 billion in earning for Q3 which shows an 8% growth Q/Q and 7% Y/Y.

Early this month Google had already started hiring in several locations including its centers in India and California. This was a clear indication of a strong quarter and powerful earnings.

The call simply echoed the optimism towards the future and emphasized the fact that the hardest part of the recession was over.

In Eric’s words “We’re going to continue to invest in long-term growth,” he said. “We’re going to invest in people. We’re already stepping up our hiring.” This is a clear indication that Google putting recession in its past and moving forward achieve new goals.

Google stock fell 1% towards the closing bell and rose 3.2% at $547 so far after the earnings were announced.

Click here to download the earnings presentation and here for the press release

Rechargeable batteries get bulkier by the inch as their performance stats increase. To reduce the size of the battery and increase the power supply, a team of researchers lead by Kwon at University of Missouri have been working on a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient than the conventional battery types.

Kwon and his team has encounterd a new method of building batteries that use nuclear technology and yet are reportedly safe for use. The primary requirment? Extracting maximum power from least possible sized battery using nuclear energy to improve battery life.

“To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density,” said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. “The radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries.”

The radioisotope battery uses a liquid semiconductor instead of a solid one (that most of the batteries use) and is reportedly smaller than the size of a penny. This nuclear powered battery can be used to safely power various micro/nanoelectromecanical systems (M/NEMS) once it is developed.

“People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” he said. “However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems.”

“The critical part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said. “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.”

As a future proposal, Kwon would experiment to make this battery using different materials and shrink its size to make it “thinner than the thickness of human hair”. Is it when we hear these sort of things that we say that we are striking into future technology at nuclear speeds?

Click here to view the Press Release.

Tags: Good Battery Performance, improve battery life, Radio Isotope Battery, Rechargable Batteries
]]> http://tnerd.com/2009/10/15/a-radio-isotope-battery-to-power-electronic-devices-soon/feed/ 0 http://tnerd.com/2009/10/09/female-and-student-bloggers-can-win-a-trip-to-vancover-or-las-vegas-with-microsofts-winter-game-contest/ http://tnerd.com/2009/10/09/female-and-student-bloggers-can-win-a-trip-to-vancover-or-las-vegas-with-microsofts-winter-game-contest/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:52:07 +0000 Abbas http://tnerd.com/?p=6240

Microsoft just announced a contest for Female bloggers and College students (US residence only!) winners of this contest will be sent to Vancouver Games or International Electronics Show in Las Vegas to cover the events live using Microsoft tools.

Interested candidates may click here to register for the contest, registrations close on 1st of Nov, 2009.

Make sure you take enough time to fill in the form as what you write in there will decide if you will be one of the winners. Uploading your blogging area picture and adding your social media profiles carries additional points and might put you ahead of others in the race!

All the applications will be filtered and brought down to 10 semi-finalists after which public votes will be invited to name the winners. Public voting is expected to open around 9th of November and users can go to http://www.officewintergames.com/ to vote for the semi-finalists.

Winners will be given Acer Aspire laptops loaded with Office 2010 Professional to meet all the needs of the bloggers.

Click here to register… Good Luck!