Google Voice Now Available for Mobile Phones

by Ryan Singel, wired.com
Google Voice is coming to cell phones, bringing with it cheap overseas calls, free SMS messages, instant translation of voice messages into text and a single phone number to control all of your phones.
The mobile version is currently only available for Android OS phones or Blackberrys, and you need to already have be one of its invitation-only beta users. That’s expected to change shortly when the service, built around its acquisition of a company called GrandCentral, opens to all.
When that comes, one would also expect an app for Windows Mobile phones and the iPhone. Google Voice comes with a panoply of features that no wireless carrier comes close to matching. Think of being able to program your phone to automatically shunt calls from your landlord to voice mail, but send calls from your spouse immediately to ring to all of your phones.
But really the mobile app is about two things: extending Google’s reach so that more of its users’ lives runs through Google’s all-seeing code where they can be served ads. And secondly, it’s a jab at the wireless carriers, which have long acted as if their subscribers belonged to them, charging entrance fees for outsiders to offer services to them.
Now Google has made a better phone service than any offering you can get from a traditional telecom. That’s an attempt to turn wireless carriers into dumb data pipes, since all a user now needs to get control over their voicemail, messages and phone number is install an application.
Telecoms will hate this product. It will cost them millions to duplicate its basic features, which they will have to do to compete.
Of course, if the phone companies had sat down five years ago and thought about what they could do to make phone service better, rather than more profitable, then companies like Google and Apple wouldn’t be so successful at demolishing their business models.

Space station pilots -interplanetary internet-

by Liz Tay, itnews
Disruption tolerant communications protocol being tested on the international space station. A new networking technology called Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) could give astronauts direct Internet access within a year.
The technology currently is being tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and could lead towards what has been dubbed the "Interplanetary Internet".
DTN communications protocol is a like TCP/IP, which defines how information is encoded and routed through a network.
However, while TCP/IP deals with a continuous end-to-end network of Internet hosts and computers, DTN deals with spacecraft whose communications may be disrupted as they travel.
DTN deals with disruptions by storing unsent data packets in a queue until conditions allow for them to be transmitted.
The so-called "store-and-forward" method could withstand disruptions of seconds, hours or even days, said Kevin Gifford, a researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is working with NASA to develop DTN.
Compared to the manually scheduled, point-to-point links that are currently used for communications between ground stations and spacecraft, DTN could lower costs and enable new, more complex space missions.
Depending on the physical wireless networking layer on which DTN operates, an Interplanetary Internet could transmit information at the speed of light, across "millions of miles", Gifford said.
In May, the researchers launched a DTN-enabled payload to the International Space Station (ISS), which is to be the first permanent node of the Interplanetary Internet. The technology currently is being tested in what Gifford called the "big five requirements for a network": routing; naming; addressing; security; and quality of service. By late 2010, DTN could enable astronauts truly to Twitter from space, Gifford said, referring to NASA astronaut Mike Massimino's recent foray into microblogging.
DTN could also be applied on Earth, to improve wireless Internet on aircraft, third world connectivity or for wildlife tracking, he noted, adding that the researchers do not have commercialisation plans.
"We're developing this as an open standard, much like TCP/IP. It certainly has commercial applications, but we're developing it for space."
"The fundamental DTN concepts of storing and forwarding certainly has worked," Gifford told itnews. "[But] DTN is in its infancy; it will be three to five years before it matures."
The researchers are currently in discussions with the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to install DTN on their respective ISS modules in mid-2010.

Virgin drops 50Mbits/sec broadband to £28

by Stuart Turton, pcpro
Virgin Media is knocking the price of its 50Mbits/sec broadband service down to £28 per month. The £28 offer will be available to new and existing customers who take a phone line with the service from 1 September. Those that want the broadband on its own will be paying £38.
Virgin says the price cuts are due to the completion of its DOCSIS 3 network, which triples the bandwith available to the company. "The synergies and cost efficiencies of completing work on the entire network means we can pass these savings onto our customers," a Virgin spokesperson claims. "It's not an introductory
Virgin Media says that its 50Mbits/sec service is available to around 12 million UK customers, and the price drop looks set to put pressure on BT, which is rolling out its 40Mbits/sec service to 40% of the country.
Alongside the price drop, Virgin also announced that it would be trialling a 10Mbits/sec upload service in the North East and Midlands area with the aim of exploring the public's appetite for "video conferencing, multiplayer gaming and home working."
Virgin was unable to confirm how many people will be involved in this trial, or the specific towns that will be involved. It's also launching a Virgin-branded netbook assembled by CMS, the company which manufactures the netbooks for Zoostorm. Dubbed the "Freedom" it will be available in Red and Black and is thankfully free of any other George Michael references.
The specification is fairly standard with a 10in screen complemented by a 1.60 GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM and a 120GB hard disk. The netbook will be available for free on a two-year broadband bundle.

Kindles Crack, Amazon Sued

by Jared Newman, pcworld
The irony is beautiful: To protect your Kindle, don't buy protection.
Those who opted for a $30 protective case with the e-reader are reportedly seeing the Kindle itself crack under pressure, and one customer is suing Amazon for his troubles.
Matthew Geise, executive director of a property management firm in Seattle, bought the second-generation Kindle for his wife, and the device's screen started freezing after cracks developed on the frame. He filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking more than $5 million in refunds, treble damages, and legal costs, The Seattle Times reports.
Brier Dudley, who wrote the story, doesn't specify the exact case model, but it's likely Geise is referring to the $30 leather cover that Amazon hawks immediately under the Kindle's "Add to Shopping Cart" button. The product has a 4.5-star customer rating, but on the low end, complaints of cracking abound.
"I loved this cover," wrote J. Nichols of Oakland, California. "It's high quality and attached to the Kindle securely. And then I noticed that the bottom hook was made in such a way as to crack the Kindle. Now my Kindle has a hairline crack in it which as you can imagine ticks me off."
Other customers reported similar problems, originating from where the hinges of the cover meet the device. A customer service representative reportedly told E. Priestley of Seattle that the damage is caused by resting fingers between the back of the Kindle and the cover, separating the two, and recommended putting a piece of Velcro tape in between to keep them together.
A customer service rep told Geise's wife that cracks are a common problem, but she would nonetheless need to pay $200 to get a replacement, because the damage isn't covered by warranty. The rep said the damage comes from improperly opening the cover backwards, which the customer denies doing.
Geise's attorney is Beth Terrell, who represented customers in a class-action lawsuit against Best Buy and Microsoft for unwanted MSN trials in Windows Vista. She estimates that "scores, if not hundreds" of Kindle owners have cracked frames.

BingTweets Blends Microsoft Bing, Twitter for Real-time Search

by Clint Boulton, eweek.com
Microsoft, Twitter and Federated Media meet in the middle for BingTweets, a real-time search mashup of the Bing search engine and Twitter Web service. The tool, Microsoft's latest attempt to move users from Google and Yahoo to Bing, culls trends from Twitter and filters them into categories such as Popular Now, People, Places and Products.
Microsoft impressed some folks in the blogosphere when it configured its Bing search engine to index Twitter tweets two weeks ago.
While Google and Yahoo weigh whether or not to index tweets, Microsoft moved to press its real-time search advantage with BingTweets, which fuses Bing search results and Twitter content. Microsoft partnered with media publisher Federated Media and Twitter on the site, which culls trends from Twitter and filters them into categories such as "Popular Now," "People," "Places" and "Products." Bing Director Whitney Burk explained the rationale behind BingTweets in a blog post July 14. "Many people share their thoughts on Twitter, and search engines don’t currently do a great job of capturing that real-time content," Burk wrote. "We designed Bing to help you make faster, more informed decisions, and, since people often turn to real-time content to help them make decisions, BingTweets was a logical next step."
The site is quite the mashup of Bing and Twitter and there is a lot going on with this site in a short space. For starters, the top left toolbar includes the Popular Now, People, Places and Products tabs. Directly underneath lies the Tweet stream from Twitter, and to the right of that is a pared down version of the Bing search engine.
Directly above Bing is a tweet toolbar to let users either post tweets to Twitter, or post them to some 45 content sites, including Facebook, Digg and StumbleUpon. Above the tweet toolbar at the top right is a search box to let users sift through Bing and Twitter for queries that aren't included among the hot topics.
In clicking the Popular Now this morning, the hot topic was last night's Major League Baseball All-Star game. Once that was clicked on, BingTweets began streaming all the current tweets on it in the tweet box, and the "All Star Game" popped up in the search bar in Bing to provide all of the latest news on the event. Above that, the Tweet toolbar displayed the prompt: "Check out BingTweets about All Star Game http://bit.ly/rtiCt #bing," which users can elect to post to Twitter or to the other content partner sites by clicking on the Tweet This or Share This buttons.
The site is no huge leap for Microsoft, but it puts another feather in Bing's cap versus Google and Yahoo, which Microsoft is chasing in the search market. According to the new June 2009 results from comScore, Google grabbed 65 percent of the U.S. search market share, Yahoo nabbed 19.6 percent, while Microsoft's share was 8.4 percent, up a quarter of a percent from May, before Bing launched.
Many analysts attribute Microsoft's uptick to curiosity about Bing, and do not feel Bing will ultimately rip the search crown from Google. JP Morgan's Imran Khan surveyed 750 people and found that 98 percent of people won't switch to Bing. Those who do switch will leave AOL and Ask.com, not Google or Yahoo.
"Of our total survey population, 25.8 percent of our respondents claim that they use AOL search less than before the Bing launch and 24.0 percent of our respondents claimed that they used Ask search less than before the Bing launch," Khan wrote. "Conversely, only 10.6 percent and 16.4 percent of the respondents claimed to use Google and Yahoo search less than before the Bing launch, respectively."
Ultimately, Khan found that most people are comfortable using Google and Yahoo, which means Microsoft would have to create a "markedly better product" and "significantly expand its distribution."
That's consistent with a June sampling from Web design firm Catalyst Group.

AT&T and Sony Ericsson launch phone with 8.1 megapixel camera

by Rachel King, zdnet
AT&T and Sony Ericsson are trying to get ahead in the mobile phone market by a tenth of a megapixel…and some other features too. Along with a Walkman-enabled phone, they’re releasing the Sony Ericsson C905a Cyber-shot. Built with a 2.4-inch scratch-resistant mineral glass screen, some advanced features include face detection, autofocus, xenon flash and GPS tagging. Photos will be stored to a Memory Stick Micro card, compatible up to 16 GB. That’s a lot of camera phone photos.
Interested in switching phones (and/or carriers) for a camera phone like this?

Microsoft Office To Launch For Free On Web

skynews
Microsoft is continuing to war with Google for internet dominance as it reveals the next version of its Office software will be available for free online
Office 2010 will feature free and lightweight versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, Microsoft revealed at a developer conference.
It is a direct challenge to Google's Docs range of productivity tools, launched three years ago.
Microsoft is also planning to allow users to co-author documents in real time - a similar move to Google's upcoming product Wave, the successor to Google Docs.
Office 2010, likely to be released early next year, is just the latest move in an ongoing battle between the two firms. Last week, Google announced plans to create an open-source operating system to directly rival Microsoft Windows. The software, called Chrome OS, will run directly from a computer's internet connection and will be totally integrated with Google's wide range of web services. Last month, Microsoft relaunched its web search service, called Bing, to make it more directly competitive with Google's search engine. Analyst Matt Rosoff at technology firm Directions On Microsoft said: "The fact that Microsoft is developing (an online document suite) at all is a response to Google. "This is a move that they probably wouldn't have made if they didn't have to, but there is enough competition bubbling up that they thought they needed a response."
On Monday, Microsoft also revealed plans to expand its MSN website to rival popular music streaming software Spotify. Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, told The Daily Telegraph: "Music is an important area for Microsoft. We are looking at launching a music streaming service imminently." The service, due to launch later this month, will allow users to listen to music for free. Spotify, which launched in March, offers millions of tracks from all the major record labels to be streamed for free with occasional radio-style adverts.

Microsoft's Bing gains on Yahoo, Google

reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's market share of the U.S. Internet search market increased modestly in June, the first month that it fielded its new Bing search engine, according to the latest data from research firm ComScore.
Microsoft captured 8.4 percent of U.S. Internet searches in June, up from 8 percent the month before, largely at the expense of rival Yahoo Inc, whose market share fell to 19.6 percent in June from 20.1 percent in May.
Market leader Google Inc's share
"Given all the publicity and advertising around Bing, we were expecting a month-on-month increase," said Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, in a research note issued soon after the figures were published.
"But we think it's too early -- need three to four months to call a trend -- and the June move wasn't material enough to make any definitive statements as to whether Bing is a search market share game changer," said Mahaney. "We continue to view Bing as a very solid product, but one facing a very large uphill battle."
Microsoft has been pouring investment into its money-losing online services business in an attempt to counter Google's dominance in the Internet search market.
There is still a possibility that Microsoft will strike a partnership with Yahoo to combine their online advertising strengths, after Microsoft's aborted attempt to buy Yahoo outright last year.
Microsoft shares rose 3.1 percent to $23.83 on Nasdaq. Yahoo and Google shares also rose.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Derek Caney and Gunna Dickson)

Sony VAIO VGN-NW120J - NetBook

Sony's VAIO notebooks have long been at the cutting edge of style, and the VGN-NW120J continues the trend. This sleek mainstream laptop features a cool textured finish and a nice, colorful 15.5-inch widescreen display, but at $799.98 (list), it is a bit more expensive than competing systems that offer similar components and features.
Product Description
Equipped with a whopping 320GB hard drive, fast 2.10GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and quad-mode wireless LAN card for rapid "hot spot" detection, the VAIO VGNNW120JW notebook computer was made for road warriors. Now mobile computing comes with all of the power and glory of a desktop, with the portability of a laptop, in a slim, lightweight package. Sony's energy-efficient XBRITE-ECO theater-inspired display casts movies - and other media - in the best light, while minimizing energy waste. MOTION EYE camera and microphone keep you in touch with friends and family on-the-go.

Order now by amazon...

Look other Netbooks...

Microsoft EU e-store collapses amid crush of Windows 7 pre-orders

by Gregg Keizer, computerworld
Microsoft's European online store crashed today under the load from customers eager to grab discounted copies of Windows 7.
During the outage, the site displayed a message that said, "Due to the eagerly anticipated Windows 7 pre-order offer, we're experiencing a higher level of demand on our website than usual. This means you can't access the site right now and we're sorry about that."
The store was briefly back online at 11 a.m. ET, but an hour later it had again gone down. According to a report by the BBC, Amazon's UK store claimed that it had moved more copies of Windows 7 in the sale's first eight hours than it did in the 17-week run of a similar pre-order offer in 2006 for Windows Vista.
The sale, a repeat of the U.S. pre-order deals that ended last Saturday, kicked off today when Microsoft offered heavy discounts on Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional in the U.K., France and Germany. The discounts are good through Aug. 14, or until supplies last.
That caveat came into play on Amazon.com's French and German stores, both which announced early Wednesday that they had sold out their allotments of the specially-priced editions. Amazon's German store, for instance, said today that it had exhausted its supply of the €49.97 Home Premium, and instead was taking new pre-orders at €119.97.
The sell-out of Windows 7 pushed Home Premium and Professional to the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively, on Amazon's French and German software bestseller lists.
Microsoft is selling Windows 7E Home Premium in the U.K. for £49.99, a 67% discount from the list price of £149.99, and selling Professional for £99.99, 55% under the usual £219.99.
European customers will receive Windows 7 in special editions, dubbed "E" for "Europe," that have been stripped of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). A month ago, Microsoft decided to yank IE8 from Windows 7 in an effort to head off EU antitrust regulators, who may still force the company to take more drastic measures.
Instead, Microsoft has shifted the responsibility for a browser to computer makers, who will decide which browser or browsers to install. The lack of a browser in Windows 7E shoved Microsoft's "Internet Pack" -- a bundle that includes both IE8 and Windows Live Essentials -- to the No. 2 spot on Amazon's German software bestseller list today. Amazon is charging German customers #8364;3.99 for the pack.
The introduction of Windows 7E has presented Microsoft with a major problem: Because it will block Vista users from doing "in-place" upgrades to Windows 7 -- to do otherwise would leave a version of IE on the machine -- the company isn't selling "Upgrade" editions. Instead, it's selling the "Full" editions, which are usually more expensive, at "Upgrade" prices.
The discounted prices for Windows 7 in the EU and the U.K. were for the Full editions, which Microsoft will sell at least through the end of the year. It expects to eventually solve the technical issues, at which point it will introduce its standard two-tier Upgrade/Full retail pricing.
Customers who pre-order Windows 7 won't receive their copies until on or after Oct. 22, the day that Microsoft officially launches the operating system.