NEW OPERA 10.50 BETA AIMS TO SURPASS CHROME

The Opera Browser made some serious headway in keeping itself relevant when it introduced a new JavaScript engine for its upcoming revision. The latest edition of Opera 10.50 beta 2 for Windows contains no new major features, some minor feature improvements, and is mostly a bug-fixing release that incorporates around 100 changes since the first beta.

Also, in an effort to prevent attention from drifting away from the Mac version of Opera 10.50, the publisher has also announced a new release candidate for the beta. While that milestone is unusual, it's not unheard of for browser publishers to do this. Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 beta 99 last summer, just prior to moving Firefox 3.5 beta 5 up to release candidate status.

Changes to the Windows version include what appears to be modest but detectable improvements to the new Carakan JavaScript engine. In tests limited because of time constraints, I scored the new Opera beta on the SunSpider JavaScript test. Over three runs, it averaged 386.4 milliseconds, compared to the 435.6 ms for the pre-alpha on the same computer. Opera 10.50 beta 1 scored just above 400 ms, albeit on a different computer. For comparison, today's update to the development version of Google Chrome averaged 416 ms over three runs on the SunSpider test on the same computer that Opera 10.50 beta 2 was tested on.

These tests are not absolutes, and even running the same test on the same browser will score differently depending on whether the browser is "warm" and in use or "cold" and freshly booted, but they do provide a snapshot that the new Opera engine is extremely competitive.

Other changes to Opera 10.50 beta 2 include a visual tweak for Windows XP users, moving the tabs on top for when the default Windows XP theme is used. Windows XP users who use "classic" mode won't see the change. An Opera Widgets panel has been added to the Opera user interface, and the RSS news reader and e-mail client have also received tweaks. The full changelog is available here.

While there are still minor bugs in ancillary features that prevent it from being a stable release, the core browsing features feel well-integrated and smooth.

The Mac release includes multiple bug-fixes from the previous pre-alpha version, including improvements to Carakan, typing speed tweaks, fixing the context menu in the Speed Dial feature, and crash fixes.

THE INTERNET WILL MAKE YOU SMARTER - EXPERTS

LOS ANGELES - An online survey of 895 Web users and experts found more than three-quarters believe the Internet will make people smarter in the next 10 years, according to results released on Friday.

Most of the respondents also said the Internet would improve reading and writing by 2020, according to the study, conducted by the Imagining the Internet Centre at Elon University in North Carolina and the Pew Internet and American Life project.

"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge," said study co-author Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Centre.

But 21 percent said the Internet would have the opposite effect and could even lower the IQs of some who use it a lot.

"There are still many people ... who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools," she said.

The Web-based survey gathered opinions from scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers, along with Internet users screened by the authors. Of the 895 people surveyed, 371 were considered "experts."

It was prompted in part by an August 2008 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly by technology writer Nicholas Carr headlined: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Carr suggested in the article that heavy use of the Web was chipping away at users' capacity for concentration and deep thinking. Carr, who participated in the survey, told the authors he still agreed with the piece.

"What the 'Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence," Carr said in a release accompanying the study. "The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking."

But Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, "People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory.

"For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support and Google comes through for me," he said in the release.

The survey also found that 42 percent of experts believed that anonymous online activity would be "sharply curtailed" by 2020, thanks to tighter security and identification systems, while 55 percent thought it would still be relatively easy to browse the Internet anonymously in 10 years.

AMAZON AND MICROSOFT SIGN PATENT DEAL

Bangalore: Microsoft and Amazon have entered into a patent cross-licensing deal, as part of which, Amazon will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money, reports CNET news.

The deal covers both Amazon's Kindle product as well as the company's use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft has maintained that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware.

According to CNET, Microsoft, which started an intellectual property licensing push in late 2003, has deals with scores of companies ranging from Novell to Samsung and Fuji Xerox. "We are pleased to have entered into this patent license agreement with Amazon.com," said Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez. "Microsoft's patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry, and this agreement demonstrates our mutual respect for intellectual property as well as our ability to reach pragmatic solutions to IP issues regardless of whether proprietary or open source software is involved."

YAHOO PARTNERS WITH TWITTER TO BOOST SOCIAL FEATURES

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc plans to integrate Twitter into its collection of websites, as the company seeks to enhance the appeal of its online properties with popular social networking features.

The partnership will allow web surfers to view the short, 140-character messages created by Twitter users, dubbed Tweets, directly within Yahoo sites as well as to publish their own Twitter messages without leaving Yahoo.

The move, which Yahoo announced late on Tuesday, comes a couple of months after Yahoo announced a similar deal with Facebook, the world's No.1 social networking site.

Earlier this month, Google Inc unveiled a new service dubbed Google Buzz that replicated many of the social networking features that have made services like Twitter and Facebook Internet success stories.

Facebook and Twitter - which said on Monday that users of its service generate more than 50 million Tweets every day - pose an increasing threat to established Internet giants like Yahoo and Google whose businesses depend on selling online ads to large audiences.

In January, Facebook overtook Yahoo to become the second most visited website in the United States, according to a recent report by web analytics firm Compete. A separate study by comScore showed Yahoo maintaining its No.2 rank with roughly 164 million unique U.S. visitors, while Facebook was the No.4 site with 112 visitors, behind third-ranked Microsoft Corp.

Yahoo said that beginning on Tuesday its Internet search engine results will display up-to-the-second Tweets about various topics, matching the so-called "real time search" capabilities that Google and Microsoft announced in their own respective deals with Twitter last year.

Yahoo also plans to display a live stream of Tweets within other online properties including its email service and sites devoted to sports, entertainment and finance later this year.

Yahoo executives said that the company was looking at ways to make Twitter messages relevant to each property, such as by customizing the selection of messages that appear alongside an article about a particular sporting event, for example.

"We believe that the content and context side of things is very unique," Yahoo Vice President of Communities Jim Stoneham told Reuters in an interview.

Yahoo would not comment on any financial terms involved in the deal with Twitter.

According to some media reports, Microsoft and Google paid a combined $25 million for the right to include Twitter data in their search results.

NOW,AN iPAD FOR TODDLERS!

Bangalore: Robert Eckert led Mattel has come up a Fisher-Price iXL Learning System, which has all too inevitably been hailed as the iPad for the fresh-out-of-diapers set.

It looks like a tiny computer and opens like a book. It has fat, colorful icons on the right side and buttons and a speaker on the other side. As per the expectation of today younger generation, there are apps for the new product: Story Book, Game Player, Note Book, Art Studio, Music Player and Photo Album software. Apart from all it has touch screen too. There's also scope for expansion for it as it has an SD card slot and a USB port. It is compatible with Mac and PC compatible.

The product is likely to go on sale in July and start at $79.99. Robert Eckert, CEO, Mattel said, "We have invested more research and development dollars into iXL than any other product in our 2010 Fisher-Price product line and it definitely shows."

oOFDM - A GREAT RELIEF FOR STRAINED BROADBAND NETWORKS

Monash researchers have developed highly effective optical fibre technology to dramatically enhance the capacity of strained broadband networks. It’s also expected to improve the download times across the world.

The innovative technology called optical Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing, or oOFDM has been pioneered by the Monash researchers Professors Arthur Lowery and Jean Armstrong.

The ADSL principles employed by the technology enlarge the data transfer capacity over the traditional copper and wireless broadband to optical fibre cables. It increases their data capacity tenfold!

This is what Professor Lowery says about the technology, “More and more people are accessing broadband internet and using it for data-heavy activities, such as video. This poses a major challenge to the existing optical fibre infrastructure unless the capacity or bandwidth on existing fibres can be augmented.”

“The appeal of oOFDM is that it offers an inexpensive means of dramatically increasing long-haul capacity from the current transmission rate of 10 Gigabits per second to more than 100 Gigabits per second, over new and existing optical fibre.”

Professor Lowery is also of the opinion that the innovative technology would make it feasible for the telecommunications carriers to provide the consumers with faster download speeds at economical rates. He says, “Standard data transmission is equivalent to transmitting a series of single notes, but oOFDM is more like transmitting the notes grouped together in a chord. Since more data is packed into the chord, more information can be sent that is less prone to technical issues, as each signal travels down the optical fibre.”

Besides, Professor Cornish says, “Monash University is developing the research solutions to the key challenges facing our world. We are proudly supporting Ofidium and TTCF in taking this ground-breaking research to market,”

Monash Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Edwina Cornish expect the Ofidium technology to produce revolutionary changes in global telecommunications.

The Monash University patent is commercialized by Ofidium Pty Ltd. The company has recently secured an investment of $250,000 from the Trans Tasman Commercialization Fund (TTCF). It’s a $30 million Fund based in Melbourne. TTCF has supported the University earlier also. However, it’s the first investment by TTCF into Victorian university research. Besides, Starfish Ventures has also backed the company.

GOOGLE OFFERS FREE ADVERTISING TO SMALL INDIAN BUSINESSES

Bangalore: World's leading search engine Google would offer free advertising coupons for small and medium businesses (SMBs) across the country, the global firm's Indian subsidiary said.

"All SMBs with online presence will be able to avail our advertising coupons worth Rs.2,500 by calling toll free number 1860 266 6622 and registering their websites with our AdWords platform," Google India online sales head Sridhar Seshadri said in a statement here.

As part of this novel initiative, Google India also launched a new service JumpStart to offer free expert support to help SMBs build an online advertising campaign for attracting new customers.

"The AdWords programme provides marketers a cost-effective platform where-in they can measure RoI (return on investment), monitor and optimise their campaign. SMBs can start advertising online with a budget as low as Rs.200 a day and grow it as per their business demand, thus having control over their ad-spends and flexibility," Seshadri pointed out.

The new service will provide a quick-and-easy way to SMBs to get their advertising campaign off to a good start. Google India specialists will work with SMBs to set up their AdWords account and build a customised campaign suitable to their business and budget.

The initiative received a good response when it was launched as a pilot project in Chandigarh recently.

The SMBs sector, which constitutes 80 percent of the country's industrial enterprises faces an uphill task for advertising due to prohibitive costs involved.

"Recognising this roadblock and the huge potential for SMBs to grow, the company launched offline and online initiatives to partner with them and educate these businesses about the power of internet advertising," Seshadri noted.

Google AdWords enables SMBs to target precisely, pay only for results, and stay firmly in charge of costs.

"We foresee a vast opportunity in the small businesses sector and are committed to extend support to all SMB advertisers to help them gain from the internet medium," Seshadri added.

GOOGLE ATTACKS TRACED TO CHINESE SCHOOL

A spate of Internet attacks that hit Google and other companies have been traced to two schools in China, according to reports, but Chinese sources have responded by denying knowledge of the strikes.

According to the New York Times, security experts investigating a string of hacking attacks on American companies have been linked back to their origins in mainland China.

The story, which quoted anonymous sources close to the investigation, said that the so-called Project Aurora attacks appeared to originate from Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School in Shandong province.

Jiaotong is well regarded as a centre for computer studies, and has an extensive information security programme that boasts “high-level talent” and has links to military projects.

Lanxiang, around 250 miles south of Beijing, is a prominent school that has developed some reputation for developing computer skills. The report suggested that intelligence agents working on the case had linked the strikes to a specific class taught at Lanxiang.

While the Chinese authorities have not commented on the report, a female member of staff from Lanxiang told the Guardian that the school was not aware of the attacks on Google.

MICROSOFT STEPS UP SEARCH ASSAULT ON GOOGLE

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp's assault on search engine leader Google Inc took a major step forward on Thursday as U.S. and European regulators cleared the software company's search partnership with Yahoo Inc.

The 10-year deal, struck last July, is the biggest effort yet by Microsoft to establish an online business to rival Google, an area where Microsoft has lost $5 billion over the last four years.

"Microsoft really has room to throw money at this," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "I think it can work. If they can make inroads in specific target areas, they could have something positive to report."

Microsoft has already made some progress with its search engine, Bing, picking up 3.3 points of market share since its launch last June. But Bing is not likely to "push Google off a very big pedestal any time soon," said Caughey.

The battle for online search ads is only one front on a sprawling war for revenue between Microsoft and Google, which also encompasses operating systems and mobile phones. But neither has yet managed to compete on equal terms in each other's core market.

"In terms of our modelling, we really don't see any impact from Microsoft-Yahoo on our Google numbers," said Clayton Moran, an analyst at The Benchmark Co.

"It doesn't change much in terms of the competitive dynamics of the industry right away," he warned. "From a Google perspective, looking out over the next couple of years, it's a nonevent ."

The deal, cleared unconditionally by the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission on Thursday, is not expected to impact Microsoft's bottom line, but could lay the foundation of a profitable online business.

"Really now, the goal is about share gain. If we grow share, we will grow our way into profitability, and we have confidence we can do that," said Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, who is charged with making Bing and the MSN portal a financial success, in an interview with Reuters earlier this month.

Microsoft shares rose 1.2 percent and Yahoo's rose 0.7 percent on Nasdaq, in a broadly higher tech market.

The Justice Department's Antitrust Division said the deal was unlikely to substantially lessen competition.

U.S. market participants had expressed support for the partnership as a way to create a more viable alternative to Google, the division said in a statement issued late Thursday.

Google, which did not oppose the partnership, did not comment specifically on the regulatory approval but said that there has always been "robust" competition in the search ad business. Its shares rose 1.1 percent.

HOW IT WORKS

The deal means Bing becomes the search engine for Microsoft and Yahoo sites, while Yahoo focuses on attracting big advertisers.

Microsoft will handle the automated auction of search ads for use on both companies' sites, and pay Yahoo a portion of search ad sales generated on Yahoo pages.

Microsoft is hoping that by making itself a single conduit for advertisers to access customers on both sites, it will become a credible alternative to Google.

Last month Yahoo handled 17 percent of U.S. Internet searches, while Microsoft took 11.3 percent, according to comScore. Theoretically, that would now give Microsoft over 28 percent of search traffic, against Google's 65.4 percent.

"At 30 points we are now a credible option, so that number matters," said Mehdi earlier this month.

Globally, Google is even more dominant, with 90 percent of the search market compared with 7.4 percent for a combined Yahoo and Bing, according to November data from Web research firm StatCounter.

FULLY COMPLETE EARLY 2012

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal was broadly expected to gain approval, but some had thought the companies might have to alter the deal's terms.

The partnership took months to hammer out last year. It followed Microsoft's aborted $47.5 billion Yahoo takeover attempt the year before. Google abandoned its own advertising deal with Yahoo in 2008, which Microsoft opposed, under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department.

Approval means Microsoft can begin the task of putting its Bing search engine into Yahoo sites. Neither company has laid out exactly how Yahoo's new search pages will look, but they will essentially be Bing searches with some customization of results by Yahoo.

The companies aim to get the partnership fully operational in the United States by the end of this year, with the transition of advertisers taking place before the holiday shopping season, if possible. The partnership should be globally complete by early 2012.

The deal had already been cleared by regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada, but needed U.S. and European approval to take effect. The companies said they are still working with regulators in Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

MICROSOFT INCLUDES SOCIAL NETWORKS INTO OFFICE 2010

San Francisco: Trying to make Outlook more users friendly, Microsoft plans to include social networking services into its latest generation Outlook email program, to be released with an Office 2010 set of applications later this year.

In a video posted at the U.S. software firm's website, Dev Balasubramanian, Outlook Office Group Product Manager said, "It really is about bringing friends, family, and colleagues into you inbox. As you communicate with them you can see their social activities; you can see all of the folks in your social network and it updates as you are reading your email."

Software that channels LinkedIn updates to Outlook inboxes was available online on Wednesday at linkedin.com/outlook for people dabbling with a test version of the popular email program. Now Microsoft is talking to Facebook and MySpace to do the same with content from those online communities. The LinkedIn connection to Outlook will allow people using the email program to stay in tune with any changes in job status, contact information, or affiliations being shared by friends at the career-focused online community. Elliot Shmukler, Product Management Director, LinkedIn said, "LinkedIn is all about your professional network. Outlook powers the professional inbox so the match is very clear."

Microsoft's announcement came shortly after Google fell into trouble with Electronic Privacy Information Center filing a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission calling for an investigation into whether the original Buzz wrongly disclosed too much information about people. Google Buzz was launched with a feature that automatically created public social networks based on the Gmail contacts people most frequently sent messages to. Electronic Privacy Information Center on Wednesday filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission calling for an investigation into whether the original Buzz wrongly disclosed too much information about people.

COMBINED PCs BEAT 2nd FATEST SUPERCOMPUTER

Washington: Legions of personal computers (PCs), engaged in a project to map the Milky Way, beat the world's second fastest supercomputer in sheer performance.

At this very moment, tens of thousands of PCs worldwide are quietly working together to solve the largest and most basic mysteries of our galaxy.

Enthusiastic volunteers from Africa to Australia are donating the computing power of everything from decade-old desktops to sleek new netbooks to help computer scientists and astronomers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute map our Milky Way.

Now, just this month, the collected computing power of these humble home computers has surpassed one petaflop, a computing speed that surpasses the world's second fastest supercomputer.

Since the project began, more than 45,000 individual users from 169 countries have donated computational power to the effort. Currently, approximately 17,000 users are active in the system.

The project, MilkyWay@Home, uses the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform, which is widely known for the SETI@home project, used to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Today, MilkyWay@Home has outgrown even this famous project, in terms of speed, making it the fastest computing project on the BOINC platform and perhaps the second fastest public distributed computing programme ever in operation (just behind Folding@home).

The interdisciplinary team behind MilkyWay@Home, which ranges from professors to undergraduates, began the formal development under the BOINC platform in July 2006 and worked tirelessly to build a volunteer base from the ground up to build its computational power.

Each user participating in the project signs up their computer and offers up a percentage of the machine's operating power that will be dedicated to calculations related to the project.

For the MilkyWay@Home project, this means that each personal computer is using data gathered about a very small section of the galaxy to map its shape, density, and movement.

In particular, computers donating processing power to MilkyWay@Home are looking at how the different dwarf galaxies that make up the larger Milky Way galaxy, have been moved and stretched following their merger with the larger galaxy millions of years ago.

This is done by studying each dwarf's stellar stream. Their calculations are providing new details on the overall shape and density of dark matter in the Milky Way galaxy, which is widely unknown.

The galactic computing project had very humble beginnings, according to Heidi Newberg, associate professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy at Rensselaer.

Her personal research to map the 3-D distribution of stars and matter in the Milky Way using data from the extensive Sloan Digital Sky Survey could not find the best model to map even a small section of a single galactic star stream in any reasonable amount of time.

"I was a researcher sitting in my office with a very big computational problem to solve and very little personal computational power or time at my fingertips," Newberg said.

"Working with the MilkyWay@Home platform, I now have the opportunity to use a massive computational resource that I simply could not have as a single faculty researcher, working on a single research problem."

Before taking the research to BOINC, Newberg worked with Malik Magdon-Ismail, associate professor of computer science, to create a stronger and faster algorithm for her project, says a Rensselaer Polytechnic release.

Together they greatly increased the computational efficiency and set the groundwork for what would become the much larger MilkyWay@Home project.

NOTEBOOK SALES SOAR AT THE COST OF DESKTOP COMPUTERS

Notebook computers (or laptops) are getting more popular — that too at the expense of desktop computers. Notebooks and netbooks taken together recorded a consumption of 11 lakh units for the first half (April-September) of financial year 2009-10, growing 43 per cent over the same period last year. However, sales of desktops stood at 26.1 lakh units, registering a decline of eleven per cent, according to MAIT, the apex body representing India's IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors.

The total PC sales between April and September 2009, with desktop computers, notebooks and netbooks taken together, were 37.1 lakh units, registering a growth of one per cent over the same period last fiscal. Given the current macro-economic conditions and conservative buying sentiment in the market, PC sales are expected to cross 73 lakh units in FY 2009-10, growing seven per cent, MAIT said.

Said MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta: "Although the sales growth was subdued in the enterprises, the overall consumption in the PC market was led by telecom, banking and financial service sectors, education and households segment."

He said verticals such as BPO/IT-enabled services, retail and the government, which traditionally account for significant proportion of the IT market, were very conservative in their IT spends in H1/2009-10. The first-half of the current fiscal also witnessed deviations from the traditional downward trend in pricing for IT products as the dollar continued to be significantly strong compared to the rupee.

"This was mitigated, to an extent, by price drops due to technology reasons and also due to intense competition. Going forward, with signs of revival in the domestic economy, we expect positive growth for PCs and other IT products for the fiscal 2009-10," Mehta said. The proportion of notebooks in the overall PC sales is fast growing as these have rapidly become more affordable.

SOON, GMAIL TO ALLOW STATUS UPDATES LIKE TWITTER

Bangalore: The rising popularity of status updates on Twitter and Facebook seems to have inspired Google. Google will soon allow users to share their status with other connections, just like on all popular Social Networking sites. Even though the news is not official, but the add-on is expected to be added as soon as this week, according to electronista.

Yahoo had done a similar revamp of its website to allow status updated. These updates also alerted users when their friends have uploaded photos to Flickr.

An unnamed informant says the new Google revisions will also allow users to share their YouTube and Picasa content. Gmail already lets contacts chat in the browser, set away messages and write short messages as their status.

BY 2012, HALF THE FIRMS TO TWEET: GARTNER

Bangalore: Gartner analysts have predicted that by 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use Twitter, and by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. According to Gartner, social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.

"The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities," said Matt Cain, Research Vice President at Gartner. "While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of premises - and cloud-based social networking services."

By 2012, more than half of the enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than five percent penetration. The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter, has led many organizations to look for an "enterprise Twitter," that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features to support internal use between employees. Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.

"A lot has happened in a year within the social software and collaboration space. The growing use of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by business users has resulted in serious enterprise dialogue about procuring social software platforms for the business," said Mark R. Gilbert, Research Vice President at Gartner and Co-chairman of the Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit. "Success in social software and collaboration will be characterized by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business."

WINDOWS AZURE FINALLY READY FOR CUSTOMERS

Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing service became generally available on Monday with very little flourish. And that might be because this first wave of Azure offerings is frankly a bit odd.

I am sure Microsoft will eventually figure out how to give its users options that are more obviously appealing (perhaps using Amazon Web Services as the model?), but in the near-term the options are not as clear as they could be.

It's still a positive for cloud enthusiasts that Azure has finally reached a place where Microsoft is comfortable offering it commercially. And if you're part of the Azure team, you have to be glad to have any solidification of just what the offerings are.

In many ways, Microsoft is applying the same enterprise architecture principles to the cloud--with pricing variables for consumption, storage, and even integration with other applications. This may not actually be wrong over time, but it forces developers and users to think through the usage of the cloud components that they have no experience with.

I suspect this approach is due to the operating system-centric view that Microsoft takes of pretty much all technology. After all, they do call it a cloud operating system and it looks as though everything on top forms the stack, leaving users to not have to think about the OS. Again, not necessarily wrong, but the platform hasn't yet been explained or marketed well-enough to see the results.

That approach is in contrast to AWS EC2 or Rackspace, as Om Malik notes, suggesting that compared to "infrastructure-as-a-service providers such as Amazon with Ec2 or Rackspace with its CloudServers products, Azure attempts to handle more of the actual management and provisioning of virtual machines for a user."

I highly doubt that Azure will have much effect on Microsoft's near-term or even medium-term revenue (either positive or negative). What's important is that Azure has put a stake in the ground for Microsoft to be a part of enterprise cloud discussions as well as opening up Azure to the developer masses who provide invaluable testing and feedback.

Cloud computing in general needs Microsoft to be a part of the ecosystem. And while I am not convinced Azure is anywhere near right yet, Microsoft has plenty of resources to put toward the effort. Let's hope it does.

OFFICE 2010 HITS THE RELEASE CANDIDATE STAGE

Microsoft has provided some early testers with a near-final "release candidate" version of Office 2010 as the software maker works to make the suite broadly available in June.

"Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the technology adoption program (TAP)," a Microsoft representative told CNET. "This is one of Microsoft's planned milestones in the engineering process; however (we) do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly."

A beta version of Office 2010 was released in November and had been downloaded 2 million times, as of last month.

The company officially started public testing of the product with a Technology Preview version that was released in July, although an earlier version of that code leaked out in May.

Office 2010 features a variety of improvements to each of the core programs, but maintains the XML file formats and ribbon interface introduced with Office 2007. Probably the biggest change is the addition of companion, browser-based versions of Excel, Word, OneNote and PowerPoint, known as Office Web Apps. Also, for the first time, Microsoft will offer both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the software.

Meanwhile, Windows enthusiasts have also spotted an update build of Windows 7--build 7700--making the rounds. According to Neowin, a Russian Web site has posted leaked screenshots of build 7700 of the operating system. However, it's not clear from the images just how much is new in that build.

GOOGLE SHOWS OFF CHROME OS TABLET IDEAS

Who could resist the months of hype that paved the way for Apple's iPad debut last week? Apparently not Google, which has shown its interest in tablet computing with its browser-based Chrome OS.

On Monday, Glen Murphy, a user interface designer for Google's Chrome browser and the Chrome operating system based on it, pointed to image and video concepts of a Chrome OS-based tablet that went live two days before the iPad launch. Apparently nobody noticed initially, because only now did Murphy tweet, "Apparently our tablet mocks have been unearthed."

The site also shows the array of devices Google envisions for Chrome OS.

"While its primary focus is Netbooks, Chrome OS could eventually scale to a wide variety of devices. Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power," according to the Chromium form factors site. Chromium is the name of the open-source developer project that underlies the branded Chrome product.

It's possible that Chrome OS could be an easier sell on tablets than on Netbooks, the class of device on which Google said it plans to launch Chrome OS. Netbooks often are used as general-purpose PCs, so the browser-based philosophy of Chrome OS is a more jarring transition.

Today's tablets, in contrast, tend to focus more on a collection of specialized uses such as reading books, surfing the Net, and chores that only require light typing. With that approach, Chrome OS' break from the PC world could be less jarring. The tablet market isn't as big as the Netbook market, though.

The ideas are only mock-ups, but Google has established itself as a real if not dominant force in the computing industry. Its Android mobile-phone operating system is increasingly influential, and its Chrome browser continues to steadily grow in usage.

Contd. with the remaining topic

While it's still too soon to tell if it can live up to the insane amount of hype that preceded its introduction, the iPad is, more than any other product the company has made, the quintessential Apple device.

From the almost entirely homegrown technology, to the addition of the books counterpart to its iTunes media hub, to taking a risk on the middle category between smartphones and laptops, the iPad completes the picture for Apple in a lot of ways.

Steve Jobs used "revolutionary" to describe his company's newest device Wednesday, and while that's more than a bit over-the-top, the iPad does epitomize Apple's evolution. Before he even introduced the tablet Wednesday, Jobs brought up Apple's three main sources of revenue: the iPod, iPhone, and Mac have made Apple a $50 billion company. By basically discounting the iMac and other desktops (which makes sense, desktops have been headed downhill for a while), he pressed the point about what Apple has become: It's "a mobile device company," he said. "That's what we do."

Though he didn't say it specifically, he meant it as opposed to a computer company--a name they dropped in 2007--and as opposed to just a hardware and software maker. With few exceptions, Apple makes portable media-centric devices, and of those, the iPad is the one that brings all of Apple's businesses together.

With the iPad, Apple has a device that rounds out the company's product line and also moves the company forward toward being the spoke in the wheel that is the world of media and technology. Making something that fits between a smartphone and a laptop has been a goal for the consumer technology industry for more than a decade. The most recent attempt has been the Netbook. The iPad easily makes Netbooks seem boring and staid, and too close to the same old form factor, the computer. The iPad is taking a different tack: taking tasks that were too big for an iPhone and puts them on a device that isn't pocket-sized, but is more convenient to carry around than a 13- or 15-inch laptop.

It's risky, of course, to try to jump start a category that has never been proven. But it's also part of Apple's M.O.: the company has a vision for the mobile computer and media industries, and a lot of confidence in its abilities.

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That extends to the company's manufacturing and design. Apple has positioned itself so that it has to rely on very few outside sources to create the device. Plus, any sort of content you want on the iPad has to be, with few exceptions, bought through Apple as the middleman.

Looking back now, we should have seen this coming over the past few years: Apple wanted a new way of building their MacBooks, so they came up with the manufacture process where it's cut from a single block of aluminum. They wanted to make their own chip, so they bought PA Semi and created the "A4," which notably cuts Intel out of the equation. They also have their own battery technology and are using IPS, or in-plane-switching LCD technology, for the screen that allows quicker response times for viewing video and wider viewing angles.

iPAD UNITES APPLE'S MEDIA AND MOBILE AMBITIONS

While it's still too soon to tell if it can live up to the insane amount of hype that preceded its introduction, the iPad is, more than any other product the company has made, the quintessential Apple device.

From the almost entirely homegrown technology, to the addition of the books counterpart to its iTunes media hub, to taking a risk on the middle category between smartphones and laptops, the iPad completes the picture for Apple in a lot of ways.

Steve Jobs used "revolutionary" to describe his company's newest device Wednesday, and while that's more than a bit over-the-top, the iPad does epitomize Apple's evolution. Before he even introduced the tablet Wednesday, Jobs brought up Apple's three main sources of revenue: the iPod, iPhone, and Mac have made Apple a $50 billion company. By basically discounting the iMac and other desktops (which makes sense, desktops have been headed downhill for a while), he pressed the point about what Apple has become: It's "a mobile device company," he said. "That's what we do."

Though he didn't say it specifically, he meant it as opposed to a computer company--a name they dropped in 2007--and as opposed to just a hardware and software maker. With few exceptions, Apple makes portable media-centric devices, and of those, the iPad is the one that brings all of Apple's businesses together.

MOZILLA RELEASES FIRST MOBILE FIREFOX BROWSER

Mozilla has been steadily creeping toward its goal of releasing the first Firefox browser for mobile phones. On Friday, Firefox 1.0 for Nokia's Maemo--previously code-named Fennec--arrived.

Firefox for the Maemo 5 platform has a few interesting conceits that set it apart from other mobile browsers, like Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Mozilla is banking on the uniqueness of its claim to fame--third-party, customizable browser extensions--to help its browser win mobile market share. Add-ons, after all, helped make Firefox the top browser alternative to Internet Explorer in the desktop space. To punctuate the importance of add-ons for Firefox's mobile browser, Mozilla also pushed out on Friday the general release of its bookmark and history-syncing extension, Weave Sync 1.0, for both desktop and mobile.

Mozilla's accomplishment with a mobile version of Firefox is a mixed one, and not only because Maemo is a platform relatively few people have heard of. Nokia's open-source, Linux-based Maemo operating system supports mobile Firefox on just two devices--the N900 and the N810, an Internet tablet. To make matters more limited, just two days ago Mozilla unveiled a third release candidate with a last-minute decision to pull wholesale support for Adobe's Flash plug-in from the build, citing unhappiness with the overall standard of quality. As an aside, this is apparently a sore spot for Adobe, who became miffed with Apple for excluding Flash in its new iPad device about the same time that Mozilla made its comment about degraded performance when visiting Flash sites.

Yet what kind of mobile browser would Firefox be if users couldn't watch videos or adequately view Web sites that heavily rely on Flash? Not a browser anyone could take seriously.As a workaround, Mozilla has released an add-on called YouTube enabler, that early adopters can install to view YouTube videos. Mozilla is hoping to work out other solutions for those who are wary of optionally installing the Flash plug-in, but still want to see select Flash-based content.

Luckily for Mozilla, a relatively small sliver of the mobile phone-toting population actually has one of the two compatible devices, so there's time to smooth out Firefox before it matures on another mobile platform. Windows Mobile is slated to be next, with Android to follow. You can download Firefox 1.0 for Maemo here, and read more details in Mozilla's blog post.