ExploreMe: October 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit FULL High Compressed

Five Things You Should Know About Upgrading From XP to Windows 7

Now that Windows 7 is here, the three out of four users who have rejected Windows Vista and clung to the tried and true Windows XP can breathe a sigh of relief and consider moving to the new flagship operating system.

Upgrading or switching operating systems often comes with some trials and tribulations and the Windows 7 upgrade is no exception. Microsoft has tried to provide the tools users need to make the transition as easy as possible, but you may hit some snags. Here are five things you should be aware of as you upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7.

1. You can't upgrade directly. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not provided Windows 7 with the capability to upgrade directly from Windows XP. The explanation is that so much has changed between Windows XP and Windows 7 within the operating system kernel itself, the Registry, the drivers, etc. that trying to get from Point A to Point B just won't work.

That isn't as horrible as it sounds. Frankly, although in-place upgrades are convenient, experts always recommend doing a fresh install when moving to a new operating system in order to ensure the best performance and overall experience. Just think of it like Microsoft did you a favor by forcing you to do it the right way. You're welcome.

2. Or can you?? You can't get from Windows XP to Windows 7 directly, but there was a little known operating system that came out between the two. I know you have blocked out that part of your memory to avoid horrible Windows Vista flashbacks, but surely you could make the switch to Windows Vista if its only for an hour or two.

Windows XP users can work around the upgrade issue if they have a copy of Windows Vista. It doesn't even have to be licensed since you won't be activating it and won't have it loaded for more than a few hours-- well within the 30-day trial period. Just upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, then upgrade the Windows Vista system to Windows 7.

I make no assurances that this will go off without a hitch. I will add a disclaimer: refer to the first tip where I reminded you that it is recommended that you do the clean install.

3. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. If you bought your printer when Clinton was still in office, or your graphics card when Michael Jordan was still ruling the NBA, you might have a hard time finding software updates and drivers to make them work with Windows 7.

Thankfully, Microsoft has an app for that. Microsoft created the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor tool which scans your hardware and software and identifies any known compatibility issues. It provides guidance on how to resolve identified issues, and makes recommendations for what you should do to ensure a satisfying Windows 7 upgrade experience

4. Windows 7 Easy Transfer. Whether you do the clean install or some sort of crazy work-around to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, arguably the most important part is making you're your data and personal preferences stay intact. That's where the Windows 7 Easy Transfer tool comes in.

The actual file is migwiz.exe. You can find it on the Windows 7 DVD under Support\Migwiz. First you run it on your existing Windows XP system to migrate your user profile(s) to some external storage. Then, after Windows 7 is installed you run it again to import the user profile(s) to Windows 7.

One small caveat. If you have 32-bit Windows XP and you are taking the opportunity while upgrading to make the switch to 64-bit Windows 7 you might run into some problems. I was unable to transfer user settings from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system using this tool during a previous upgrade.

5. Security software. If you're running Windows XP I assume you have invested in some security software-- antivirus, antispyware, personal firewall, etc. Because of changes that Microsoft has made to protect the operating system kernel, those Windows XP-era security programs will most likely not work in Windows 7.

The good news is that the Windows 7 firewall is significantly better than the Windows XP firewall, and Microsoft provides adequate security protection for free with Windows Defender and the recently released Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus program. You may still want to explore alternatives and install more robust protection, but these tools should provide sufficient protection for the time being without costing you any money.

If you don't want to spend all that time alone, maybe you could throw one of the Windows 7 parties and you and all of your Windows XP friends can have ice cream and cake (or pizza and beer) while you make the transition.

Of course, you might better off to simply invest the extra money and get a whole new system with Windows 7 already installed. If you have held on to your computer hardware as long as you held onto the Windows XP operating system then you are really skewing Moore's Law and its time you upgrade.

Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.

Get Avira Premium Security Suite 3 Months Genuine License Free

Avira is offering a free 3 months valid license for Avira Premium Security License Suite. This is the Promotional offer by Ubisoft. The new Avira Premium Security Suite protects you in a comprehensive way against the dangers from the Internet. It offers you numerous advantages from the Avira AntiVir Premium. The Suite has an extra FireWall as well as an AntiSpam and a backup function in addition to the award-winning virus protection.

Grab the genuine license of Avira with the help of following steps :

1. Visit This Avira Promotional offer page
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2.Fill out the online form with your mail id and click on Request License now.

3.After submitting this form, you will get the Email from them including Genuine License key of Avira Premium Security Suite for 3 months.

4. Download the HBDEV.KEY to your local drive and Start Installation of Avira Premium Security Suite. If you don’t have it then you can download it from here.

5. That’s it. Enjoy.

Screenshot :

Now you’re good to go. Install the security suite and enjoy it for 3 months for free.

Links : Avira Promotional Offer Page | Download Avira Premium Security Suite

How to Defragment Hard Drives From The Command Prompt

Microsoft windows comes with a powerful defragmentation utility, there might be instances when you would want to defragment your hard drives using the command line. This is very simple and easiest way to fragment the local drives.Running the disk defragmenter in command-line uses less system rescources than the GUI version and often completes faster.

Follow the simple steps :

1.Open the start menu, and click on “Run”. After this, type in cmd . A command-line window will appear.

2.To run the Windows Disk defragmenter, simply type in defrag ie: If you want to defragment C drive then just type defrag c:

Microsoft has provided the additional parameters to simplified the Defragmentation of drives. So you can use this options in the command line.

Parameters :

/a : Analyzes the volume and displays a summary of the analysis report.

/v : Displays the complete analysis and defragmentation reports.

When used in combination with /a, displays only the analysis report. When used alone, displays both the analysis and defragmentation reports.

/f : Forces defragmentation of the volume regardless of whether it needs to be defragmented.

/? : Displays help at the command prompt.

Syntax :

defrag volume
defrag volume [/a]
defrag volume [/a] [/v]
defrag volume [/v]
defrag volume [/f]

Give a try to this simple method and Defragment your hard drives to increase the system performance.

Links : Microsoft’s Tutorial

Thursday, October 22, 2009

New Google Music service may be coming soon

Google might just be expanding its reaches to Music content too. Something that Google has been shy to comment on.

Now screenshots have begun to appear of what this service might look like, and as usual, it obeys Google's penchant for simplicity with a straight-to-the fact interface:

The service is likely to tie in with Lala and iLike as music sources, providing people with access to music on those services straight from Google, allowing them to get information about the song and artist, and buy it directly from a Google Search. Using the web-players from Lala and iLike it can even play back clips of the songs.

The ILike Player

The Lala Player

According to TechCrunch, the music service is likely to be announced by Google on the 28th of October.

Beautiful Aero Ultimate 7 RC 4 themes for windows XP

Beautiful Aero Ultimate 7 RC 4 Visual Styles with Superbar for XP by sagorpirbd
. Download Beautiful Aero Ultimate 7 RC 4 Visual Styles with Superbar for XP

Download Windows Media Player 12.0.7 For Windows Vista

Windows Media Player 12 will be the successor of Windows Media Player 11, WMP12 is to be released along with Windows 7. Misaki2009
has managed to pull the WMP 12 files from Windows 7 Build 7000. With following steps you can run WMP 12 on Windows Vista.

Steps
- copy wmploc.dll in C:\Windows\System32
- copy Windows Media Player folder to C:\Program Files

Download Windows Media Player 12.0 for Windows Vista

Or u may try this following Link:
http://hotfile.com/dl/14829823/7754c29/darkprince_Windows20Media20Player12.rar.html

A 128-bit Windows? maybe later!!!!

Despite 64-bit personal computers being available for over five years, and nearly every computer today supporting 64-bit computing, when it comes to software, 32-bit is till hanging on strongly.

The 64-bit hype is now over, the dreams of double performance, and terabytes of memory have now collapsed into the reality we see: that for an average user, there are few applications which can actually take advantage of 64-bit, and few programs currently need to address more than 3GB of memory. Windows 7, coming out at a time when it is hard to find a 32-bit processor in the market, still offers a 32-bit version, although it may be the last in its line.

Every day we see more software ported to 64-bit, but unless they are rewritten taking the new architecture into account, they will likely suffer a degradation in performance, not an improvement.

Now it appears that Windows 8 might be built for both 64-bit and 128-bit computers! But will the world even be ready for 128-bit by the time Windows 8 comes out, probably some three years from now? It is unlikely.

One could find mathematical applications even today which could greatly benefit from even a 256-bit computer, yet as an architecture for Windows, it doesn't make much sense. Even 64-bit processors and operating systems have been available for decades but they were confined to an esoteric audience.

The question then is, will the average Windows user even need applications which require 128-bit processors?

That's 309485009821345068724781056 terabytes of RAM! And numbers as large as 170141183460469231731687303715884105728!

We may find this an unusually large number, but we only need to look back two decades, when a 100MB hard disk would have been a myth! For now, we haven't even saturated the 16 million terrabytes promised by 64-bit architectures, or even the artificial 128GB RAM limit set by 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. The time will surely come, but it is not now.

It is more likely then that is about getting Windows ready for the eventual 128-bit shift, whether it is in the next seven years, or the next 17. As a means of getting ready for the eventual shift, this is a good plan indeed.

Most of the Windows code written today, will someday be a part of Windows 9 or 10, 11, or whichever it takes before we get 128-bit processors in the market. By already beginning to optimize the code for this future eventuality, we can be assured that when the 128-bit generation comes, Windows won't be caught with its pants down!

Boot Linux Over HTTP With boot.kernel.org (BKO)

This tutorial shows how you can boot Linux over HTTP with boot.kernel.org (BKO). All that users need is Internet connectivity and a small program (gpxe) to boot the machine. This gpxe program provides network booting facility. BKO allows you to boot into the following distributions: Debian, Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix, Fedora. BKO provides gpxe images for USB sticks, CDs, and also for floppies, i.e., you can boot from a USB sticks, a CD, or a floppy.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1. Getting BKO

Go to http://boot.kernel.org/ and download the appropriate gpxe image. If you want to boot from a CD, just download the CD ISO and burn it onto a CD, then boot from that CD. I want to use a USB stick here, so the procedure is a bit more complicated. I download the USB Image to my desktop:

You should now find the gpxe.usb file on your desktop. Now plug in your USB stick - its icon should appear on the desktop as well:

Next open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

In the terminal, run

mount

to find out the device name of your USB stick:

falko@falko-desktop:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/falko/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=falko)
/dev/sdf1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)
falko@falko-desktop:~$

In my case, it's /dev/sfd (mount point /media/disk).

Before we can transfer the gpxe.usb image to the USB stick, we must unmount the USB stick. Right-click its icon on the desktop and select Unmount Volume...

... or run

umount /media/disk

in the terminal.

Now we can transfer the gpxe.usb image to the USB stick as follows:

sudo dd if=~/Desktop/gpxe.usb of=/dev/sdf

That's it! We can now boot another computer from the USB stick.

2. Booting From BKO

Now insert your BKO medium (USB stick, CD, floppy) into the computer that you want to boot from BKO, and make sure that the BKO medium is the first boot device in the computer's BIOS!

This is how the BKO boot menu looks:

You can find some Live distributions under Live Images:

Currently, the following distributions are available as Live Images: Debian, Damn Small Linux (DSL), Fedora, Knoppix, and Ubuntu:

In this example, I want to start an Ubuntu 9.04 Live desktop (it doesn't matter if you select iscsi or iso):

The Live desktop will now boot (this can take some minutes because everything has to be loaded from the Internet):

Finally, you should see the Ubuntu Live desktop. If you want to install Ubuntu to the hard drive, simply click the Install icon and follow the instructions:

3 Links:
boot.kernel.org (BKO): http://boot.kernel.org/

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

A New Electronic Reader, the Nook, Enters the Market

As widely expected, Barnes & Noble unveiled its Nook electronic reading device at a splashy news conference on Tuesday to generally positive views from the publishing community, and offered some details about its whispered-about lending capabilities.

As much as anything, publishers seemed relieved that Barnes & Noble, which operates the nation’s largest chain of bookstores, had produced a credible alternative to Amazon’s Kindle. The Nook, priced at $259, went on sale Tuesday afternoon at nook.com, at a price that matched the latest edition of the Kindle. The Nook will ship starting in late November.

Amazon currently dominates the market for electronic readers. Estimates vary, but according to the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, Amazon has sold about 945,000 units, compared with 525,000 units of the Sony Reader.

Barnes & Noble opened an e-bookstore in July, and its editions, which are available in ePub and Adobe PDF versions, can be read on a variety of devices, including Apple’s iPhone, the BlackBerry, Macs and PCs. Barnes & Noble will continue to support those devices, as well as forthcoming e-readers from iRex and Plastic Logic.

But it is clear the company is trying to consolidate sales of e-books onto the Nook, which features a six-inch gray and white reading screen and a color touch screen control panel. In any of the chain’s 1,300 stores, consumers can download books on the Wi-Fi network. Outside the stores, consumers will access AT&T’s 3G network to download books.

One of the differentiating factors of the Nook is that customers can “lend” books to friends. But customers may lend out any given title only one time for a total of 14 days and they cannot read it on their own Nook while it is lent.

In an interview, William Lynch, president of Barnes&Noble.com, said the company would aggressively market the Nook within its bricks and mortar stores. The Nook also has software that will detect when a consumer walks into a store so that it can push out coupons and other promotions like excerpts from forthcoming books or suggestions for new reading. While in stores, Nook owners will be able to read any e-book through streaming software.

Post Ur comments....

FIFA '10 [Review]

It’s the fag end of the year and time for the two football video game giants – EA’s FIFA and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer – to pit their annual fruits of labour in the ever shifting race for the top spot. This year, EA Sports gets a head start with the European release of FIFA 2010. Many of us had forsaken FIFA as football game of choice; however, the last two installments in the series showed that developers at EA are finally beginning to understand the game. Let’s find out of FIFA 10 is another commendable effort in the progressive run of sequels or if this is a step backwards.

What’s in the game?

The most touted addition (or improvement as they like to call it) is the “360° Dribbling” system. At least in theory, this feature means greater control over the player with the ball. In my experience, however, dribbling in FIFA remains something of a dark art. Mastering dribbling (and the complementing skill moves) in FIFA seem to require ninja-like reflexes and skills while handling the game pad. If you ever find yourself looking for some close control to go past a challenging player, the only option seems to be unleashing a Skill Move. As the name suggests, these require just as much skill to pull off as their real-life versions. For a mere mortal such as myself, the most reliable way of taking shots at the goal is still pretty much about through-passes and outpacing your opponents with certain players. Crosses and often even short passes are still a case of hit-and-miss—an old grievance that players have had with FIFA that apparently remains unaddressed.

Another significant change with FIFA this year is the effect of a player’s current form on his performance and vice-versa. This effectively means that all the players in your team will have dynamic attributes. If you want to add some realism in the game, this makes a lot of sense. However, form of a player not only affects his mental attributes but also physical attributes such as sprinting, speed and ball control. Additionally, the effect form has on player stats is quite profound, at times changing them drastically.

The tackling system has become more effective at taking away possession of the ball. This is mainly because the game allows tackling from behind and mostly doesn’t trigger a foul: Referees seem to be quite inconsistent at calling foul on such tackles, so the best option for the player with the ball is to pass it, instead of shielding.

Single player career modes

Manager Mode and Pro Season (now called Virtual Pro) have been beefed up with some new features. The most apparent change in the Manager Mode is in the menu system and the overall interface. The core system, however, more or less remains the same and it is sometimes surprisingly restrictive and at times broken.

Pro career mode has been given a wider scope, allowing you to use your created player with other single player game modes such as Manager Mode and Kick Off in addition to online game modes. A scrapbook-like career tracker has been added to enhance this mode. Achieving certain milestones gives additional bonus to your players’ attributes and also unlocks additional game content such as football gear, goal celebrations and player traits.

Relegated

All the bells and whistles notwithstanding, after playing 70-odd matches, issues with the core system start to emerge. The game is not too bad, but I did have a few bad experiences with the Manager Mode and the Pro Season: The worst was losing my saved games in both these modes. Some other issues faced include the game locking up, several animation glitches and unresponsive game controls. I thought of browsing through the discussion forum on the official website to check if this was just a case of bad karma on my part. As it turns out, users have reported issues as severe as players just disappearing from the roster, only to find him playing for some other club. This is just one example, as one of the more resourceful users on the forum had compiled a list of minor and major issues reported about the game—the last count was almost 70 in Manager Mode alone.

Another old gripe with FIFA has not been addressed — replays cannot be saved on the hard drive and the only option is to upload them on the EA servers. With Xbox 360, that means you need to have a Gold account, which effectively translates into paying to save your replays. As if to add insult to injury, there are a couple of achievements that are unlocked on uploading a video and a screen shot.

Speaking of achievements, a majority of them are a repeat of last year, just like the commentary which has largely remained the same since FIFA 08 days. In a desperate plea for traffic and user-data, a new achievement is to visit the EA Football World website to create a Game Face and then to download it on you console. And oh yes, there is yet another achievement which is visiting the EA Store.

If you do not look beyond exhibition matches; play no more than three or four matches at a time, you may actually like this game. Overall though, FIFA 10 feels like a rushed product, at least rushed through the testing phase, if not the development one. There are some very prominent bugs in the single-player career mode that can be noticed after just a few matches. Even when considering a single match, the game mechanics do not allow for a free-flowing game: An aggressive defense system, a relatively inadequate dribbling mechanic, disappointing passing and crossing, and referees often getting in the way, make for a very stifled and ping-pong style of matches.

If you are like me and need a year-long football fix, then I would suggest holding on to your existing football game or maybe wait and hope for Konami to deliver.

Rating: 3/5

Details:

Genre: Sports

Developer: EA Canada

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platforms:

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PSP

Distributors:

PC Version – Excel Interactive

PlayStation and Nintendo – Milestone Interactive

Xbox 360 – Redington

Price:

Nintendo DS – Rs. 1,499

PC (Microsoft Windows) – Rs. 999

PlayStation 2 – Rs. 999

PlayStation 3 – Rs. 2,499

PlayStation Portable – Rs. 1,599

Wii – Rs. 1,999

Xbox 360 – Rs. 2,499

*reviewed on Xbox 360

Commens Plz!!!!!

NASA scientists ready to ‘cook’ water from soil on the moon

Interest in the presence of water on the moon has been high recently, what with Chandrayaan finding traces of it and NASA crashing a rocket into the satellite to confirm the same.

Dr. Edwin Ethridge holds his “moon in a bottle” experiment in his lab at the
Marshall Center. Ethridge's team has successfully extracted water from
simulated lunar soil using a standard one-kilowatt microwave oven. His research
is opening new doors of opportunity to harvest water from the moon to sustain
life and produce rocket propellant for future lunar missions

Dr. Edwin Ethridge was intrigued by NASA lunar missions in the 1990s which suggested the existence of ice within craters at the moon’s poles. After five years of research, using a conventional kitchen microwave and lunar soil stimulant, Ethridge and his team have literally cooked water out of the soil!

“Water is one of the most plentiful compounds in the universe,” said Ethridge, the principal investigator for the Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) project at the Marshall Space Flight Centre.

The extraction process has shown to be able to retain 99 per cent of the ice it targets. This new discovery could lead to the moon becoming a lunar outpost for further space exploration, as we could harvest water in the form of ice from the moon to sustain life and produce rocket propellant, Ethridge said.

“Finding water ice on the moon and Mars creates a potential for In Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU,” he added. ISRU is the use of resources found on other astronomical objects, like the moon, to complete a science mission.

HOW IT WORKS
To construct the lab experiment, the team used a standard, one-kilowatt microwave oven, a quartz container with a simulant and a separate liquid nitrogen-cooled container with a simulant to mimic the ground under the top layer of lunar soil, also known as regolith. They assembled a turbo-molecular vacuum pump to simulate the moon’s vacuum environment and sealed a vacuum line from the pump to the flask collecting the water, frozen from a liquid nitrogen cold trap. They placed both containers of simulant in the microwave and heated them for two minutes.

“Cooking” the simulant helped the team understand how the molecules in the soil react to microwave energy. The primary advantage of using that energy is that microwaves penetrate the soil, heating it from the inside out. The team found that when regolith is warmed from minus-150 degrees Celsius to minus-50 degrees, the water vapor pressure greatly increased. The simulated lunar vacuum drew the water vapor to the surface, permeating through the regolith particles. Then the water vapor collected on the cold trap and condensed back into ice. This process – called sublimation – uses heat to convert a solid into a gas and cools it to condense it back to a solid form without liquefaction.

WHY MICROWAVES
As the lunar regolith absorbs the microwaves, the energy is converted to heat. Heat is what is needed to vaporize the water, making the process energy efficient, Ethridge said.

“To extract the ice, we need to heat a large volume of regolith and the best way is using microwaves,” Kaukler added. “Solar heating is not an option because the ice on the moon is in the shadowed craters where there is no sunlight. In addition, because the regolith is a superinsulator, other heating methods like solar, laser or electric heating only heats the surface. Microwave heating allows for deeper penetration into the soil.”

The regolith simulant and the cold trap were weighed before and after the experiment. The team found that 95 percent of the ice added to the regolith simulant was extracted in about two minutes.

“Of the extracted ice, 99 per cent was captured in the cold trap,” said team member Dr. William Kaukler.

THE VARIOUS BENEFITS IT OFFERS
The extracted ice can be used for multiple purposes to meet human needs at a lunar outpost. Water also can be split into hydrogen and oxygen by a process known as electrolysis, which separates materials with the use of an electric current. Once split, the hydrogen and oxygen molecules could be used as a fuel or oxidizer.

“Having water, we can obtain oxygen and have the ability to generate rocket fuel. This makes the moon a more viable test bed for space exploration,” said Ethridge.

“With our experimental metrics using a one-kilowatt microwave, we found that if we could extract two grams of water ice per minute, we could collect nearly a ton of water per year,” he added. “That would meet the initial manned lunar outpost water resupply requirement.”

There are multiple benefits of microwave extraction of ice as well. Microwaves of lower frequency can penetrate a meter or more into the regolith and release the ice without digging or disturbing the surface.

“Eliminating the need to excavate saves equipment payload and more importantly, doesn’t kick up dirt that could adversely affect the astronauts’ spacesuits or equipment,” Kaukler noted.

Ethridge said his team is anxiously awaiting the findings from NASA’s Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission which impacted a lunar crater Oct. 9 in search of water. Spectral analysis of the impact plume will help quantify how much ice is hidden in the polar regions of the moon.

“It is very important to know how much water there is and how deep it is under the lunar surface,” Ethridge added. “Hopefully, LCROSS will find large quantities of ice and will help us know how much water we have to cook.”

Black hole created on Earth; Romulans expected shortly

If you're waiting to exact revenge on your ancestors you time might just be coming! Scientists over at CERN have succeeded in creating a black hole here on Earth!

Well, kinda. What they have managed to do is mimic the curvature of space time that exists around a black hole. This "black hole" which works for light of microwave frequencies mimics the the nature of black holes to trap light.

A black hole is essentially a mass which is so large and condensed, and with such a large gravitational pull that its escape velocity exceeds the speed of light! For Earth, the escape velocity is around 11km/second, as such any object moving faster than this speed will be able to escape the pull of Earth and will end up in space. In a black hole, the gravitation pull is large enough, that light, even at the speed of 299792458km/second is too slow to escape, and ends up in trapped in the black hole.

Don't expect a commercial time machine, or portals to alternate universes any time soon. The application of these pseudo-black-holes is in creating better and more efficient solar panels, a little exciting, but with some great practical applications. The device would "suck" all light around it essentially curving and warping light around the device and feed it to a solar cell at the core.

Even though the device can only work with microwaves right now, to make it work with visible light will be much more complicated due to the smaller wavelength of visible light and requiring much more fine manufacturing of the device's structure.

How cool would it be to have a black hole powered laptop computer! What's left now but to wait for those anti-gravity drives. I hope we didn't upset the Romulans!

Google to launch online book store in 2010, ‘Google Editions’, with half a million books

At the Frankfurt Book Fair on Thursday, Google announced to the world that it would soon be rolling out an online store for electronic books, or e-books, which would work with any device with a Web browser.

Currently, the two main players in the e-book reader market are Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader. The former has a proprietary format that it requires, while Sony is pushing for a more open database of books. Other players, such as Asus and Apple, have previously been reported to be working on touchscreen e-readers.

Reuters reports that the Web search giant said it would launch Google Editions in the first half of 2010, initially offering about half a million e-books in partnership with publishers with whom it already cooperates, where they have digital rights.

Readers will be able to buy e-books either from Google directly or from other online stores such as Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. Google will host the e-books and make them searchable.

Google has already come under some criticism and scrutiny for its project to scan and make all the books in the world freely available online.

OFFLINE ACCESS ENABLED
Tom Turvey, Google's director of strategic partnerships, now explains that the device does not need to be connected to the Internet to read the book after it was accessed once.

Once a consumer pays for and accesses a book online, it would be cached into that browser’s memory and accessible again offline at any time – a mechanism which ReadWriteWeb thinks would probably rely on Google Gears.

"As long as you can get onto the library, you can access it," says Amanda Edmonds, Google's director of strategic partnerships.

Google also said that it is not looking at anything on the hardware side of the e-book market, stressing that e-readers are nowhere in its current or future plans.

[Adobe MAX 2009] Adobe sneaks Flash content on the iPhone

As expected, this year's Adobe MAX 2009 has had its twists.

One of the most brilliant new feature announcements this MAX:
Adobe Flash Professional CS5 will be able to create native iPhone applications!

Yes, you read that right!

Apple's SDK terms prohibit the running of any runtime for executing custom code on the iPhone, and as such the Flash Player would need Apple's special blessing in order to come to the iPhone. Despite much enthusiasm, this has not happened yet, and while Apple is adamant on keeping the iPhone a Flash-free zone, Adobe has now found a way for Flash developers to target the iPhone while adhering to the iPhone SDK license.

Using a new functionality to be available in Adobe Flash CS5, any Flash content will now support being exported as a native iPhone application. Flash CS5 will be able to compile Flash content into native ARM code which can run on the iPhone directly instead of running on the Flash runtime. By modifying a Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) compiler to understand ActionScript 3, and utilizing the LLVMs ARM backend, Adobe were able to publish Flash content directly as native iPhone application which run without interpretation.

Flash content created this way will be able to use features provided by Flash API, the Adobe AIR API and also the native iPhone API (although native iPhone controls etc. will not be available). In fact, Flash content can even use the Open GL ES. Among some of the functionality missing (quite possibly in order to adhere to the SDK license), is the embedded webkit browser functionality in AIR, RTMPE, Loading external SWF files with ActionScript, PixelBender Filters, Microphone and video camera access.

These application will also be able to use native iPhone functionality such as multi-touch, screen orientation detection, accelerometer input, geo-location, copy/paste etc.

Unfortunately the iPhone browser will still remain a Flash-free zone, since the runtime will not be available. This is still good news though, especially for developers, since now you can have Flash content running on every major smartphone platform: Android, Symbian S60, Palm webOS, Apple iPhone, and Microsoft Windows Mobile!

3000 ICONS for u.....

Hi friends!!! I hv found some cool Icons for ur pc. Most of them r awesome and stunned me in their appearance>
I hope u too will feel Like Mine..

Download Link: http://rapidshare.com/files/295461714/3000icon.rar

Plzz post ur comments if u liked them....

Network Independent BlackBerrys Available in India

Now you can use the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and the BlackBerry Storm with all mobile service providers in India. These Open GSM models - The BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Curve 8520- are priced at Rs 20,500 and Rs 14,990 respectively.

The Canada-based Research In Motion launched the Blackberry Curve 8520 smart phone in India. The Blackberry Curve 8520, priced at Rs.15,990, will be available from Aug 7 through Airtel's authorised outlets.

Key Features
* Full-QWERTY keypad
* Wi-Fi support
* 2.0MP Digital Camera
* Video Camera Capabilities
* 256MB Flash Memory
* Wi-Fi® enabled
* Bluetooth® enabled
* Multimedia Player
* Wireless Email
* Organizer
* Browser
* Phone
* SMS/MMS
* Talk Time: 4.5 hours
* Standby Time: 17 days
* 320x240 pixel screen
* Displays over 65,000 colors
* 2.64" size
* 320 x 240 pixels Resolution
Airtel customers can sms 'BB' to 543210 to register to purchase the BlackBerry Curve 8520 and to get more information about the plans offered with the smartphone.

Learn English with Nokia

Do you know you can learn English with the help of your Nokia mobile phone ? 'Learn' English' is a part of Nokia Life Tools Educational service designed specially for the consumers in small towns and rural areas of the emerging markets in India.At present this service is available only on three Nokia compatible devices - Nokia 2330 classic, Nokia 2700 classic and Nokia 2323 classic. You can access this simple courses on English in your local language by subscribing at the cost of 30 rupees per month.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Get Comics on Your Mobile Phone

India's first-ever mobile comics portal, announced by Airtel, is all set launch on your GPRS-enabled mobile phone. The comics portal will provide subscribers with access to more than 300 Indian and international comic characters- Akbar, Birbal, Popeye as well as comics supplied by Amar Chitra Katha. Airtel subscribers will be charged Rs.10 per week for 10 comic strips, which is inclusive of data charges. Airtel customers may access the comics portal service by sending COMICS or COMIC to 54321.

World's first 3D camera launched in India

Fujifilm has launched world’s first 3D camera, FinePix REAL 3D W1,in India. This 3D camera allows users enjoy 3D images with naked eye without the need for wearing special 3D glasses. Fujifilm will also to launch FinePix REAL 3D V1, an 8-inch LCD panel to display 3D images and a 3D Print production technology to print 3D images. The FinePix REAL 3D W1 camera is priced at Rs. 39,999 in India.

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