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Netscape founder impressed with Google Chrome

Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape has been offering his opinion on what he thinks about the new Google Chrome web browser. His first thoughts are that he is suitably impressed by Google’s efforts.

During a conversation with Portfolio magazine contributing editor Kevin Maney, Andreessen said that any desktop application that has not been implemented on a web browser before is now going to be implemented in this browser.

The Netscape founder said that he was blown away by the speed of Google Chrome, along with its radical & innovative JavaScript engine. Andreessen also said that Firefox and Internet Explorer will now have to compete actively with Chrome, as a result will help to boost the browser as a whole.

Read the full interview at Gigaom

What new products will Apple introduce on September 9?

A number of sources across the Internet are buzzing about the new range that Apple will introduce come September 9. Kevin Rose from Digg has gotten in on the action. Rose is speculating what he thinks the new products will be.

The first product that Rose believes that Apple will introduce is a revamped iPod Nano. He also assumes that Apple will tweak their iPod Touch as well as launching iTunes 8.0.

Many iTunes users are hoping that the new version will offer a number of price cuts. As usual this is all speculation as Apple’s Steve Jobs keeps things close to his chest.

What else do you think that Apple has in store for us on September 9; my money is on some tweaks to the Mac as well as the iPod. What they will do with these products I do not know.

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What would you like to see from Apple come September 9?

Microsoft and Novell address growing customer demand

Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing an incremental investment in their relationship to meet accelerating customer demand for their business model solution, which is designed to build a bridge between open source and proprietary software to deliver interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind for organizations operating mixed-source IT environments Read more

Rat’s brain used in robot to help Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s

Love them or hate them rat’s could end up changing the lives of thousands of people who suffer from Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. Researchers at the University of Reading in England have developed a small robot that is controlled by the brain of a rat.

Well when I say a rat’s brain I mean a Petri dish full of rat neurons. These neurons are able to remotely steer the robot via Bluetooth wireless signals. Professor Kevin Warwick said “If we can understand some of the basics of what is going on in our little model brain, it could have enormous medical spin-offs.”

The team at the University of Reading had to dissolve a fetal rat’s brain, which they then placed in into an electrode-ringed Petri dish. These cells then reassociated themselves with each other, they then begun to fire electrical signals randomly.

The electrical pulses that were sent through the ring of electrodes managed to calm the neurons down, after a period of time those cells then began to learn patterns among the external pulses.

The team hopes that by understanding their findings will help them to shed a bit of light on neurodegenerative disorders; this includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

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IBM says Windows free computing by 2009

IBM have said that they want Windows free computing, this is something that they are working on with three major Linux distributors, Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat.

They aim to achieve a Vole-free personal computing world by 2009 however; this is a tall order. All four of these companies are in collaboration with each other and are working on the development of a PC which will come pre-loaded with Linux, IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS), Lotus Notes, Symphony and Sametime.

Consumers as well as independent software vendors will then be encouraged to develop applications that will run on this new PC. This will be done via Lotus Expeditor; this is a software framework which is based on the open source Eclipse programming model.

IBM Lotus Software vice president, Kevin Cavanaugh has said “The slow adoption of Vista among businesses, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux.”

It seems that more and more PC customers are asking for a computer that does not have any Microsoft software in it. It looks as though IBM has listened to them; let us hope that this collaboration works and all four companies can come up with something that consumers have been waiting for.

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Can Apple 3G iPhone beat Blackberry Bold and HTC Touch Diamond?

We have three phones and three good ones at that and call this a debate or just a general what is the best model one way or another surely there must be a clear winner, the only people that will let us all know is you the people who will buy them. You will read below all about the Apple 3G iPhone, the Blackberry Bold and the HTC Touch Diamond where I will talk a little about each phone with specs and pictures and I will put across what I feel is the best, although you may agree or disagree with my review, feel free to leave your opinion.

Let me start with the much talked about Apple 3G iPhone, we all know by now that this device will be launching in June sometime and apparently is launching at the WWDC conference but is this the phone of all phones? The Apple 3G iPhone will come in three sizes which start with 8GB for $399 then there is the 16GB version for $499 and the one I would choose which is the 32GB version for $599, you must remember that the 32GB Apple 3G iPhone has not yet been confirmed as far as we can tell. So far what we know is that Apple are going to trim off a stunning 2.5mm off the current iPhone’s case which will give the 3G iPhone a very slim advantage over most phones similar to this one, the casings material may be different as well. The Apple 3G iPhone will boast an Infineon-based S-GOLD3H 3G chip which will be able to get HSDPA speeds up to 7.2Mbps (Not in America though), there were talks of a front facing video-call camera which may be supported by the supported by the Infineon S-GOLD3H 3G chip and speculated by Kevin Rose but this is just a rumor at the moment. We all know the main specs of the Apple 3G iPhone so I will move onto the next phone. Possible photos of the Apple 3G iPhone.

The next muck talked about phone is the Blackberry 9000 also known as the Blackberry Bold which is out now, this is a brand new messaging smartphone which will deliver so much more than any other smartphone messenger. I will talk a little about the specs but you can see the full specifications below this information, The all new BlackBerry Bold features a stunning and yes large TFT display with the same half-VGA resolution as the Apple iPhone’s (480 x 320 pixels) plus has a cool full QWERTY keyboard. The Blackberry Bold will run on the latest Blackberry OS 4.6, it has 1GB built in memory plus a microSD memory card slot which supports 8GB microSDHC cards plus there is promise of 16GB support. The 624MHz processor will run smoothly we have been told, just so you get an idea of the size it is the same size as the Blackberry 8830. The Blackberry Bold is apparently the first Blackberry smartphone to feature tri-band HSDPA support besides the quad-band GSM/EDGE one and with integrated GPS receiver and Wi-Fi you know you are getting something special. Check out the main specifications of the Blackberry Bold below.

Blackberry Bold Specifications -
2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, 3G Network UMTS 850 / 1900 / 2100, Full QWERTY keyboard, Trackball navigation, Wallpapers, MP3 & Polyphonic Ringtones, Vibration, 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, Photocall & Phonebook, Call records, 128 MB built in memory plus microSD (TransFlash), microSDHC, up to 8 GB Card slot, 1 GB storage memory, 624 MHz processor, GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps, EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps, 3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps, WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0, BlackBerry OS, SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging, HTML Browser, Games, 2 MP Camera - 1600×1200 pixels, video, flash, Built-in GPS, BlackBerry maps, Media player MP3/WMA/AAC+, Video player DivX/WMV/XviD/3gp, DataViz document viewer/editor, Java, Organizer, Calculator, Voice dial, Built-in handsfree, Voice memo, Stand-by Up to 310 hours plus Talk time Up to 5 hours, 114 x 66 x 14 mm and 133 grams in weight with battery.

Last but not least we have the HTC Touch Diamond which is without a doubt a stunning cell phone and features the impressive HTC Touch 3D interface (aka HTC Manila), HTC Diamond is truly touch-optimized which will be favored by the masses. The HTC Touch Diamond is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro and has a stunning 2.8-inch VGA display and with a size of only 11.5mm thin this will be the phone we can see many people choosing, it also has the built in accelerometer which is basically the same as the Apple iPhone, just a re-cap of what the built in accelerometer is. Basically it allows screen auto rotation, so turn the phone and you get landscape and then turn it back and you get portrait. You will get a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus plus Wi-Fi and a GPS receiver.

The HTC Touch Diamond has 192MB DDR SDRAM, runs on a Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz processor, FM radio with RDS plus 4GB of storage memory (no memory card slot). I really do like this phone but there are downsides, shame really because this is a sexy phone but in reality there has to be downsides to everything. The downside is the tri-band-only GSM support, yes there will be two versions one for Asia and Europe plus another for America, the other downside has to be the small 900 mAh battery. The HTC Touch Diamond will be available in June 2008 in Europe and Asia, and other regions at the end of the year. Please do check out the full specifications below.

HTC Touch Diamond Specifications -
2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 for Europe/Asia - GSM 850 / 1800 / 1900 for Americas - 3G Network HSDPA 2100 / 900 for Europe/Asia - HSDPA 850 / 1900 for Americas, 2.8 Inch TFT Touchscreen Display with 65K colors & 480 x 640 pixels, TouchFLO 3D finger swipe navigation, Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, Touch-sensitive navigation control, Handwriting recognition, Vibration, MP3, WAV, WMA & Polyphonic (40 channels) Ringtones, Phonebook & Photocall plus Call records, No Card slot but does have 4 GB user available memory, 192 MB DDR SDRAM, 256 MB ROM, Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz processor, GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots) 32 - 48 kbps, EDGE Class 10 - 236.8 kbps, 3G HSDPA - 7.2 Mbps, WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, miniUSB, Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS, SMS, MMS, Email & Instant Messaging, HTML & WAP 2.0/xHTML Browser, Games, 3.2 MP Camera with autofocus, video plus secondary VGA videocall camera, Built-in GPS with A-GPS, Voice memo, Java MIDP 2.0, Pocket Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, PDF viewer), Stereo FM radio with RDS, Built-in handsfree, MP3 player, Up to 285 hours standby time, Up to 5 hours 30 minutes talk time, 102 x 51 x 11.5 mm and 110 grams in weight with battery

My personal opinion – This is a difficult one really, at the moment I am personally using the Apple iPhone and swear by it so sometimes when you love using something so much you become biast, personally the best looking phone without any doubt in my mind has to be the HTC Touch Diamond but it is the hope of a 32GB Apple 3G iPhone which sways me towards that. I do not have a lot of experience with any BlackBerry device but this Blackberry Bold seems like a very good business phone. The tri-band HSDPA support and Wi-Fi makes this a good contender, personally just going on the looks the BlackBerry Bold is off my list.

So that leaves me with the Apple 3G iPhone and the HTC Touch Diamond, I do love the look of the HTC Touch Diamond much more than the iPhone but it is the iPhone I would personally go for because I know how it works, how it acts and how easy it is to use and the fact 32GB storage within.

Please let us know what you would choose out of the Apple 3G iPhone, Blackberry Bold and HTC Touch Diamond. Can the Apple 3G iPhone beat Blackberry Bold and HTC Touch Diamond?

Microsoft Corp announced it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).
“We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole. Our goal in pursuing a combination with Yahoo! was to provide greater choice and innovation in the marketplace and create real value for our respective stockholders and employees,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

“We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners. While Yahoo! would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals,” Ballmer said.
“We are investing heavily in new tools and Web experiences, we have dramatically improved our search performance and advertiser satisfaction, and we will continue to build our scale through organic growth and partnerships,” said Kevin Johnson, Microsoft president for platforms and services.
Below is the text of the letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang.

May 3, 2008
Mr. Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Jerry:

After over three months, we have reached the conclusion of the process regarding a possible combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!.
I first want to convey my personal thanks to you, your management team, and Yahoo!’s Board of Directors for your consideration of our proposal. I appreciate the time and attention all of you have given to this matter, and I especially appreciate the time that you have invested personally. I feel that our discussions this week have been particularly useful, providing me for the first time with real clarity on what is and is not possible.
I am disappointed that Yahoo! has not moved towards accepting our offer. I first called you with our offer on January 31 because I believed that a combination of our two companies would have created real value for our respective shareholders and would have provided consumers, publishers, and advertisers with greater innovation and choice in the marketplace. Our decision to offer a 62 percent premium at that time reflected the strength of these convictions.
In our conversations this week, we conveyed our willingness to raise our offer to $33.00 per share, reflecting again our belief in this collective opportunity. This increase would have added approximately another $5 billion of value to your shareholders, compared to the current value of our initial offer. It also would have reflected a premium of over 70 percent compared to the price at which your stock closed on January 31. Yet it has proven insufficient, as your final position insisted on Microsoft paying yet another $5 billion or more, or at least another $4 per share above our $33.00 offer.
Also, after giving this week’s conversations further thought, it is clear to me that it is not sensible for Microsoft to take our offer directly to your shareholders. This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer. Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo! undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.
We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:

• First, it would fundamentally undermine Yahoo!’s own strategy and long-term viability by encouraging advertisers to use Google as opposed to your Panama paid search system. This would also fragment your search advertising and display advertising strategies and the ecosystem surrounding them. This would undermine the reliance on your display advertising business to fuel future growth.

• Given this, it would impair Yahoo’s ability to retain the talented engineers working on advertising systems that are important to our interest in a combination of our companies.

• In addition, it would raise a host of regulatory and legal problems that no acquirer, including Microsoft, would want to inherit. Among other things, this would consolidate market share with the already-dominant paid search provider in a manner that would reduce competition and choice in the marketplace.

• This would also effectively enable Google to set the prices for key search terms on both their and your search platforms and, in the process, raise prices charged to advertisers on Yahoo. In addition to whatever resulting legal problems, this seems unwise from a business perspective unless in fact one simply wishes to use this as a vehicle to exit the paid search business in favor of Google.

• It could foreclose any chance of a combination with any other search provider that is not already relying on Google’s search services.
Accordingly, your apparent plan to pursue such an arrangement in the event of a proxy contest or exchange offer leads me to the firm decision not to pursue such a path. Instead, I hereby formally withdraw Microsoft’s proposal to acquire Yahoo!.
We will move forward and will continue to innovate and grow our business at Microsoft with the talented team we have in place and potentially through strategic transactions with other business partners.

I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares. By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table.
But clearly a deal is not to be.
Thank you again for the time we have spent together discussing this.
Sincerely yours,

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

Nintendo Wii helps senior citizens with Physical therapy

When getting older Physical therapy can sometimes be a daunting and painful task for many senior citizens but with the help of the Nintendo Wii they can now play golf, tennis and other sports without having to go out.

Kevin McNamara who is the administrator of Corvallis Manor which is a nursing home and rehabilitation centre said that “It’s something fun. It’s something different than a normal workout.”

I have worked in many care homes and I can tell you that most of the homes would welcome the Wii console and the residents would love it. Some of them believe it or not have more energy then us younger generation.

Should care homes have the Wii console as standard?

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XO Move Motorcycle is the real Transformers Concept: Do you like it?

Take a look at this cool motorcycle concept which is definitely the real Transformer, and we say this because it does actually transform.

The XO Move Motorcycle is unique especially when it is parked because it can transform into the locked position for security. It will adjust for the riders needs; it can carry one or two persons and has a variable wheel base to make it more stable on the roads. The designers of the XO Move Motorcycle are Josson Thomas, Camile Baron, Damien Grossemy & Kevin Lecoutre.

Hey Megatron you better watch your back mate.

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Britney Spears and Kevin Federline to get back together

It has been reported that Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have been secretly meeting in the hope getting back together. It’s said that they are planning a quiet getaway after they spent Easter together.

A source said that “They saw each other on Easter. That meeting went so well that Britney and Kevin have agreed to take a trip away from the glare of Hollywood to work on their relationship. Kevin wants to take Britney away to see if there is anything to salvage between them. When he suggested it to her, she told him she was ready to go anytime he was.”

Kevin has also revealed that he would always love Britney and hoped she would get back on track soon.

Do you think that they should get back together?

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Last 30 News & Products: 03-04-2008

Last 30 News & Products: 04-02-2008

Official News: Asustek rolling out ASUS 8.9-inch Eee PC with touchscreen & GPS possibility

At last official confirmation on the second generation ASUS 8.9-inch Eee PC, this new laptop will feature 8.9-inch touchscreen display and possibly GPS.

ASUS VP of Sales Kevin Lin has said that the starting price of $500 the Eee PC will be shipping as early as May or June 2008 in either 8GB to 12GB capacities and it could possibly have GPS support.

Now if they do plan on releasing it then this means it is about the same time when they release the E-DT (desktop PC) priced at US$199

The new second generation ASUS 8.9-inch Eee PC will have Intel’s low-cost notebook platform and will be upgraded from 512MB to 1GB, SSD (solid state drive) capacity will be upgraded from 4-8GB to 8-12GB.

Source - DigiTimes

Video of Boston Red Sox opening day March 25, 2008

Today was the Boston Red Sox Opening Day and they defeated the Oakland A’s, 6-5 in Tokyo. Below we have two videos, the first shows Manny Ramirez as he reacts after hitting a 10th-inning, two-run double, the second video shows Kevin Youkilis talk after the Red Sox came from behind to beat the A’s. Watch the videos and share your opinion of the game.

Source: Boston.com

Court Orders Britney Spears to Pay Kevin Federline’s Legal Fees

According to reports a court has ordered Britney Spears to pay ex-husband Kevin Federline $375,000 to cover legal fees in their child custody case.

Apparently The Los Angeles court commissioner ruled that the actions of Britney was the cause of a number of delays in the case, and as such she should carry the cost

Kevin and Britney where married for three years and divorced July 2007. Kevin was award primary custody of their two children in October 2007

Yesterday it was also reported that another judge has extended a temporary restraining order against Britney’s former manager, Sam Lufti for one month.

Do you think that she should have to pay the fees?

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Britney Spears has been given $1,500 per-week debit card allowance

It has been reported that Britney Spears has been given a $1,500 per-week debit card allowance by a Los Angeles judge at an estate conservatorship hearing on Monday.

As her court-appointed conservator, Britney’s father Jamie fought for the allowance, explaining the cash would give the singer more freedom.

Meanwhile, at a separate hearing concerning Britney’s ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband Kevin Federline, her lawyer Stacy Phillips objected to her client paying Kevin’s $500,000 legal bill.

Stacy told the hearing that Britney has already spent over $1 million for custody of her two sons and shouldn’t have to pay her former spouse’s legal expenses too.

Do you think that it’s right her dad has control over her estate?

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Rock Band Mod giving you Beatbox Control

Some gamer named Kevin Child has managed to modify his Rock Band game, this great mod allows for beatbox control. This has been achieved by using a Thumper vocal-percussion mike; to activate this you just use the pedal trigger.

Check out the video of this Rock Band Mod beatbox control, man the guy is bad at playing the drums, and lets not get started how poor the sound of the bass is when you activate the beatbox.

University Gives Freshmans iPhone

I think that this is a great idea by Abilene Christian University, each freshman who joins the school in the autumn will receive an iPhone or iPod Touch so that they are able to receive Read more

Britney Spears Gets To Spend Time With Her Boys Today

Britney Spears was given back her visitation rights yesterday which allow her to see her boys in a therapeutic setting.

And today is the day she gets to see her boys for the first time Read more

Kevin Federline’s Acting Career Boosted By Custody Battle

Kevin Federline’s custody battle with Britney Spears is said to be doing wonders for his acting career.

According to his lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan after Read more

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