Monthly Archives: March 2011

35 posts

ASUS Announces Eee Pad Transformer Tablet

Technology

ASUS has announced the launch* of the Eee Pad Transformer, the best tablet choice for users looking for media consumption and mobile productivity in an elegant yet versatile design. The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer features the powerful and responsive Android 3.0 operating system, an optional expandable keyboard docking station, and ASUS’ intuitive Waveshare user interface that results in an exciting portable tablet for content creation, social communication, high-definition media playback and smooth realistic game play.

Powered by the NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 dual-core processor, the Transformer browses the web at blazing speeds, providing snappier response times and excellent multi-tasking performance. An IPS (in-plane switching) Panel made from durable and scratch-resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass is viewable at angles up to 178°, perfect for sharing your favorite photos, web pages, work documents and more with co-workers, friends or family next you or across the room. The 10.1” IPS panel features LED backlighting that provides brilliant and vivid colors at a 1280×800 resolution, perfect for viewing high-definition movies and other media content.

Built-in SRS Sound technology provides a dynamic 3D stereo audio experience, with maximum bass response and a wide sound field from the discrete speakers housed in a thin 0.51” thick chassis that only weighs 1.49lbs. A 1.2MP front-facing camera is perfect for video conferencing while the rear-facing 5MP camera can shoot and record HD video, which can be played back on HDTVs via the mini HDMI output port, making the Eee Pad Transformer a true mobile entertainment device.

Transform from pad to notebook mode with optional keyboard docking station
The Transformer sets itself apart from other tablets on the market by featuring an optional docking station. This unique docking station provides access to a full QWERTY keyboard along with unique Android Function keys, instantly turning the Transformer into a mobile content creation device.

A touchpad, 3.5mm audio jack, two USB ports as well as a built-in SD Card reader for easy file sharing and storage expandability makes the Transformer a versatile media hub. The docking station also extends the Transformer’s 9.5 hours** of battery life up to 16 hours**, so users can use it all day for work or play. In addition, the ultra-convenient ASUS WebStorage* with one year of unlimited storage space provides worry-free cloud computing.

Android 3.0 OS melds with ASUS’ Waveshare UI for a unique user experience
Google’s Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a revolutionary operating system specially designed and optimized for tablets, which enables users a rich web experience for on-the-go web browsing, social media activities, video playback and casual gaming. Supporting Adobe® Flash® 10.2*** and the ever growing Android Market, media entertainment is just a finger swipe away. The convenient ASUS Launcher also allows users to easily launch software, manage content and access online services and connect devices with a few simple taps, while ASUS’ Waveshare Interface hosts a variety of unique applications* such as MyNet, MyLibrary, MyCloud and more.

MyNet easily streams digital media wirelessly within home network devices so HD videos or music can be played on devices such as an HDTV or desktop PCs for an even better experience from the Transformer. MyLibrary consolidates downloaded books, magazines and newspapers in to one easy to browse profile while MyCloud is a total cloud solution, providing access to digital content such as music, videos and files from the cloud anywhere, anytime. Users can even use MyCloud to remotely access and control any PC or Mac system and access applications or files to extend the versatility of the Eee Pad Transformer experience.

Google App Engine Gets Search Feature

Internet

Google has announced that it’s cloud platform App Engine has a new search feature that can be used to build notification, monitoring, or filtering services.

Google App Engine allows developers to build and host cloud-based applications on the same systems that power Google’s own applications. To build applications, developers use the App Engine SDK for either Python or Java. The release also introduces a new Blobstore writing feature, the experimental release of the Prospective Search API in Python, and a few goodies for Task Queue and Cron users.

You can serve your app from your own domain name (such as http://www.example.com/) using Google Apps. Or, you can serve your app using a free name on the appspot.com domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization.

Read more: http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/03/announcing-app-engine-143-release_30.html

Download: http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html#Download_the_Google_App_Engine_SDK

Google Launches +1 Search Recommendations

News

Google have recently started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites—in Google search results.

Google have announced taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1—the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.

Google said they will be slowly rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. If you can’t wait to start seeing +1’s, we’ll soon let you opt-in to the launch by visiting our experimental search site. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web).

More: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/1s-right-recommendations-right-when-you.html

Gmail Ads That Learn From Your Inbox

News

Google has announced Gmail ads that learn from your inbox. Users will be able to opt out of the new signals system on the Gmail settings page.

“Soon we’re going to try a similar approach to ads: using some of the same signals that help predict which messages are likely to be important to you, Gmail will better predict which ads may be useful to you. For example, if you’ve recently received a lot of messages about photography or cameras, a deal from a local camera store might be interesting. On the other hand if you’ve reported these messages as spam, you probably don’t want to see that deal.

Only a few users will notice the change to begin with, but as we improve it we’ll roll it out more widely. As always, ads in Gmail are fully automated-no humans read your messages- and no messages or personally identifiable information about you is shared with advertisers.”

More info: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=1217362

MySql Hacked With Sql Injection

Technology

MySQL.com database has been compromised by a blind SQL injection, reports techie-buzz.

The vulnerability for the attack, completed using blind SQL injection and targeted servers including MySQL.com, MySQL.fr, MySQL.de and MySQL.it, was initially found by “TinKode” and “Ne0h” of Slacker.Ro (according to their pastebin.com/BayvYdcP dump of the stolen credentials) but published by “Jackh4x0r”.

The stolen database contain both member and employee email addresses and credentials, as well as tables with customer and partner information and internal network details. Hashes from the database have been posted, with some having been already cracked.

Read more: http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/mysql-com-database-compromised-sql-injection.html

Baidu Developing New Web Browser

Internet

Search engine, Baidu, is developing its own web browser in an effort to cement its hold over China’s Internet market, reports PCWorld.

“Starting this month, Baidu began testing an early beta version of the product within the company, according to an industry source familiar with the browser. The browser is built to be integrated with the company’s search applications. Baidu has also incorporated its “box computing” strategy into the design, a concept which allows users to not only search for results, but also execute commands like launching an application in the browser, or directly accessing an online service.”

Baidu holds a 75.5 percent share of China’s search engine market.

Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/223453/chinas_baidu_testing_new_web_browser.html#tk.rss_news

Microsoft Buys IPv4 IP Addresses

Internet

Microsoft has agreed to buy 666,624 IP addresses from bankrupt Canadian company Nortel for $7.5 million. This works out to $11.25/ip, writes Milton Mueller.

“Wake up call for our friends in the Regional Internet Registries. Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications equipment manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, has succeeded in making its legacy IPv4 address block an asset that can be sold to generate money for its creditors. The March 23 edition of the Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Report has reported that Nortel’s block of 666,624 IPv4’s was sold for $7.5 million – a price of $11.25 per IP address. The buyer of the addresses was Microsoft. More information is in its filing in a Delware bankruptcy court.”

More: http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-March/034547.html

Chrome 11 Beta Gets HTML5 Speech Input API

Internet

Google has launched Chrome 11 browser with some new features, one of which is added support for the HTML5 speech input API, enabling you to talk to your PC.

With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you.

Speech input test site: http://slides.html5rocks.com/#speech-input

The Chrome 11 beta also offers a sneak peek of GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, said Google.

More info: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/03/talking-to-your-computer-with-html5.html

Android Market Gets Application Stats

Technology

Google has added an application stats dashboard to Android Market. The new dashboard summarizes each app’s current download numbers, as well as each app’s distribution across Android platform versions, devices, countries and languages and shows aggregate distribution for all app installs from Android Market

“Application Statistics is a new type of dashboard in the Market Developer Console that gives you an overview of the installation performance of your apps. It provides charts and tables that summarize each app’s active installation trend over time, as well as its distribution across key dimensions such as Android platform versions, devices, user countries, and user languages. For additional context, the dashboard also shows the comparable aggregate distribution for all app installs from Android Market (numbering in the billions).”

More: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/application-stats-on-android-market.html

Artists Using Facebook and Social Media to Connect and Market Work

Media

Artists are using Facebook and other social media to connect and market their work according to an article on USA Today.

“Many artists say they value the beauty of Web surfing and discovering a gem of a painting, the pleasure of meeting other creative souls they might otherwise never have known, and debating critics and bloggers. But they also see the limitations of the virtual world and grapple with how much time to spend online away from their studios.”

Full article: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-03-17-facebookartists17_CV_N.htm

Google Updates Chrome Browser Logo

News

Google has updated the Chrome browser logo with a non-shiny version.

The comes after an all-blue version of the new logo showed up for Chromium, the open-source foundation of Chrome, a week ago.

Google have also updated the Dev channel to 11.0.696.12 for Macintosh, Windows, Linux and Chrome Frame platforms, in which the following bugs were fixed.

New York Times Chrome app crashes on the Chorme Dev Channel (Issue 75563).
Sync login dlg is truncated (Issue 72490 ).
Status bar / target URL not shown when hovering over links(Issue 75268).
Several known crashes (Issues 75171 and 75443 and 75828).
Bookmark focus is not lost when moved away from the bookmark bar (Issue 75367).
Tooltips from browser tabs are persisting for too long (Issue 75334 ).
Content settings updates don’t reflect the current Incognito session(Issue 74466).
NewTabPage is not updating when a new theme is applied (Issue 74311).
fixed download requests in chrome frame which occur in response to top level POSTs (Issue 73985 ).
Chrome locks up on form submit, constantly duplicating autofill settings to blame(Issue 74911).

Dev Channel info: http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel

Twitter Offers HTTPS Tweet Option

Internet

Twitter has added a user setting that lets you always use HTTPS when reading and writing on Twitter.com. Twitter is adopting the encryption protocol, in steps.

For some time, users have been able to use Twitter via HTTPS by going to https://twitter.com. Twitter have made it easier for users to do this by adding the option to always use HTTPS.

To turn on HTTPS, go to your settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS,” which is at the bottom of the page.

“There are also a few instances where turning on HTTPS in your settings does not force HTTPS. For example, when accessing Twitter from your mobile browser, you need to go to https://mobile.twitter.com to use HTTPS for now. We are working on a solution that will share the “Always use HTTPS” setting across twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com, so you don’t have to think about which device you’re using when you want to check Twitter. If you use a third-party application, you should check to see if that app offers HTTPS.”

More info: http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/making-twitter-more-secure-https.html