Internet Explorer 8! Here! Well almost!
With days in hand till its self imposed deadline, Microsoft releases the second beta version of Internet Explorer 8. The company refused to set a date for the release of the final version.
The new IE8 is faster than the previous Internet Explorer and is apparently more stable. The Internet Explorer 8 also is equipped with several accelerators that help users search a street address, a definition or a translation. The visual search will also help find items on eBay, Wikipedia, Google or YouTube.
The InPrivate option is a new option saves none of the pages you visit and no cookies! Which received heavy criticism from the media, and was described as a ’porn-mode’, Microsoft replied swiftly and said it is a useful tool for moments like searching for a present without ruining the surprise.
After Firefox 3.0’s record breaking success the Internet Explorer 8 has to be beyond expectations to keep Microsoft’s name in the Internet Browser market.
Comcast Users Restricted!
Comcast, one of America’s largest Internet Providers, has announced that it will place limitations on users to prevent them from exploiting the service.
From the first of October this year comcast will place a limit of 250 GB per month per a resiential user. The limit should not really affect many since statistics show that only 1% of internet users exceed that amount every month. An average user is believed to use only 2-3 GB. Jennifer Khoury a Comcast spokesperson said 250 gigabytes was about 100 times the typical usage.
So whats the big fuss if it wont affect most of us! While it may be true that 250 GB is excessive at the time it may not be the case in a few years. As technologies advance over time, and internet entertainment continues to replace television the limit is going to affect a larger percentage of users. Cisco, a technology company, stated in a report “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”
S. Derek Turner is the research director for the nonpartisan media policy group Free Press, he believes the limit is a method of restricting the increasing demand of online video. He said “As media companies put content online, consumers can bypass the cable companies and get their content directly from the Internet, a 250 gigabyte cap may seem very high — and it is for today’s Internet use. But it’s essentially the equivalent of four hours of HD television a day.”
This could be method used to restrict internet piracy, so lets hope for the best and prepare for the worst!
Faizan Zakir Cyberzest.com
Veoh Victory, a Victory for Most!
A federal Judge has dismissed an infringement of copyright lawsuit against video sharing website Veoh. The case was brought by the IO group, which accused the website of having content that belonged to the group. Veoh sought refuge under the DCMA’S safe harbour provisions. In order to be protected under the provisions, the service provider must: have no knowledge of, or receive no benefit from the infringing activity; have a copyright policy which is readily available to users; and have a method in place for dealing with copyright issues.
Judge Howard R. Lloyd words were “The record presented demonstrates that, far from encouraging copyright infringement, Veoh has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its Web site and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its Web site,”
Io also reasoned the DMCA safe harbor was irrelevant since Veoh transcodes every uploaded video into Flash. But Judge Lloyd rejected this too.
The news is good for Veoh and oddly even better news for its competitor Youtube, the world’s largest video sharing website. Viacom launched a lawsuit against Google after it took over the video sharing website on the basis of copyright infringement. The lawsuit seeks $1billion in damages, and yesterday’s ruling does indicate that Google will have a strong case.
Email Statistics
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According to IDC, over 6.62 trillion business emails will be exchanged this year. Given the dependence on messaging systems, it is increasingly being made the target for attackers to propagate spam (approximately 80% of email is spam),
Virus reaches space!
None of us doubt the potential of computer virus’s these days, but one virus has amazed even the most experienced computer users. It will be the first virus to cross the atmosphere into space. NASA has confirmed that some laptops on the international space station are infected with the W32.Gammima.AG virus, which is a worm and its function is to steal usernames and passwords for online games.
The virus will not affect any of the International space station’s operations. The W32.Gammima.AG was first discovered by Symantec a year ago. It affects Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP operating systems. Symantec says the virus spreads by copying itself to removable media.
NASA said the investigation about how the virus got onto the ISS laptops will be carried out but the cause may not be made public due to security reasons.
The potential a lot of virus’s have, and how vulnerable such large and sophisticated systems are, are the facts that have made the security industry the fastest growing in the IT field.
World’s Cheapest Laptop
Zenith Computers today announced the launch of a new laptop and desktop under the brand name ‘EcoStyle’. The Zenith EcoStyle laptop is priced at approx $350, will be the lowest priced Windows OS enabled laptop in the market; while the desktop PC will be available at a highly competitive market price of $220 The EcoStyle PC and laptop will be available across India in time for the festive season. Zenith’s chain of 800 authorized dealers and 350 exclusive showrooms will stock these computers. Read more
Breaking Free from the Desktop
Imagine a world where from any computer in the world connected to the internet you can access your desktop environment complete with your software which only your desktop had through a simple login and password. Or on the other hand imagine an office where every PC everyday has a unique desktop with new, pristine components each time they log on. All this and much more is what Virtualization promises as the need for computing increases, the world wide web holds the key to information and the internet connectivity gets better and faster by the day virtualization is a topic on every CIO’s lips.
“Desktop virtualization is a rapidly expanding new market with tremendous upside potential” says Gordon Payne, senior vice president and general manager, Citrix Systems. Gordon does have a point considering the virtualization industry is going on an upsurge like never before. According to a report research company IDC predicts that by 2010 there will be 41 million physical servers deployed worldwide, a 700% increase since 1995. The servers currently deployed as virtualized are 22% and that number is projected to reach 45% in just 12 months.
Why the shift to a virtual environment can probably be understood if the problems of desktop management are considered. Desktop management today is manual, time-consuming and expensive. Ensuring data security and regulatory compliance is complex when desktops are distributed over a geographical spread. While traditional desktop management tasks include installing and maintaining hardware and software, spam filtering, and administering user permissions besides data security being a major area of concern in desktop environment. Virtualization promises to do away with all this completely and make work flow simpler by easer access to applications, softwares alongwith better data security and backups. Also as the need for high end computing increases virtualization keeps the computer as simple and application free as possible.
All this has created a huge virtualization opportunity and it’s perhaps the best news for virtualization companies like Citrix Systems, Vmware and more. Consider the case of Citrix Systems which had in the recent years enhanced its virtual infrastucture solution portfolio through acquisition of Xensource, last month announced a series of applications around virtualization. Their desktop delivery solution XenDesktop promises an “unparalleled end user experience”. So bullish are they on virtualization that an entire portfolio of end to end virtual applications to infrastructure is ready to be served and customers seem more than willing to try out the new virtualization dish. Their XenDesktop product line offers customers a choice of five different editions with varying levels of functionality designed to make desktop virtualization a mainstream reality for customers of all sizes. This includes a free version and goes upto Enterprise and Platinum editions for high end customers. If companies like Citrix are on the backend infrastructure and applications, on the other end are companies that are betting their new apps on virtualization. Companies like Microsoft, Google to Dell or just about any IT giant are now riding the virtualization wave.
To get a better perspective lets understand on a basic level how virtualization and virtual desktop works. Here is a primer. Normally you a user load the software through a CD/DVD or download it from the internet. The software resides on the hard disc of your computer. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create reside on your computer and through email or through applications like Microsoft’s Shared View or Google Docs you can share them. If your hard disc crashes or there is a hacker attack on your system all data is lost. Now take this to the enterprise level where there are 1000’s of computers and information creation, sharing and security is of vital concern. So is the concern for software availability, licensing, updation and much more. Imagine if all this could happen from a cloud meaning all information of your company created by 1000’s employees resides in a data center and can be accessed or shared as per need. Or from the same cloud if software could be served to your computer. In other your words you simply login through a user name and a password on any machine and you could get your applications, documents and everything else you may need. As an enterprise all it requires is a creative IT department and in effect all people in the organization can actually be served a new computer virtually each time they logon.
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How big is the virtual desktop market? Souma Das, Area Vice President, Citrix India calls “The online desktop as ‘the next big thing in IT revolution’. With around 40 million internet subscribers in India, there is a huge opportunity. Desktop virtualization is the next level of innovation at Citrix.” Smaller companies like Nivio.com too are betting on the market based on a consumer driven model which aims at the common man, students, mobile professionals or just about anybody.
It isn’t just software companies that are betting on virtualization hardware companies are at it too. Hardware companies like Wyse, HP and others hoping virtualization will drive thin client sales. Consider the case of HP 2533t Mobile Thin Client which is probably betting on a totally new segment of consumers. Like laptops fitted with Windows of Linux operating system the virtualization market is going the same way. HP is supporting Citrix’ XenDesktop on its industry-standard ProLiant serevers and Compaq thin client.
Word processing, email, and now even all the software getting virtual. What next? Will it be the OS?
Puneet Mehrotra was recently in Houston to view Citrix’s virtualization initiative
Map your world with Google
Understanding that people know their neighborhoods best, Google today announced the launch of Google Map Maker (http://mapmaker.google.com) Map Maker empowers a user to improve the breadth and depth of available mapping data. The product also introduces peer moderation allowing users to review the data their peers have entered to ensure map quality and accuracy.
A global product conceived and developed by the Google at its India development center Google Map Maker allows users to add or edit features, such as roads, businesses, parks, schools, apartment buildings, localities and more. With Google Map Maker tools, users can add detailed information about these locations and this user- created geographical content is updated and made visible immediately to all other users.
“Google Map Maker solves an inherent need especially for countries such as ours where maps data is sparse. This product embodies our passion to empower people everywhere, to share knowledge of the places they know best by creating maps,” says Dr. Lalitesh Katragadda, Software Engineer and Creator of Google Map Maker.
“This is a great achievement for our engineering team. India is a challenging market – but one that has inspired us to really focus on creating technology that addresses real issues around local content and usability” said Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D. “This launch is the reinforcement of our commitment to bring more useful information to people around the world and especially in hyper-growth countries like India where maps are changing on a daily basis given the rapid pace of infrastructure development,” he added.
This mapping product is particularly relevant for a countries where relevant satellite maps don’t exist. A recent case is of Burma where due to non availability of proper maps rescue operations were hindered. A product like this helps map vast territory, varying geographies also connects language and cultural diversity. NGOs can benefit from it by effectively mapping challenging belts in the rural and sub-urban areas.
Google Map Maker is available in 57 countries in Asia, the Island Nations, and the Caribbean.
Mobile Advertising – Current and Future Trends
Which one of the following sentences makes the most sense?
1. Hollywood is going to shutdown in 2008
2. The 3G Network is obsolete
3. Mobile Advertising is an emerging potential revenue market
I would say #3, if anybody disagrees with me please write me with your comments, but for now, I’m going to take a stand on #3
Mobile Advertising Market
Mobile phones have become a part of every human’s daily life. Recently, technology giants such as Microsoft and Google have launched into the emerging Mobile Advertising market to pursue a piece of the mobile ad revenue pie. From a subscribers viewpoint the most popular and simultaneously annoying method of advertising for subscribers is SMS advertising. Advertisers run ad campaigns with varying ad types; text, fullscreen or banner ads to target different age demographics, gender and location statistics obtained from user profile information. This targeting method is accomplished through various mediums such as WAP, SMS, MMS and also through mobile email client applications such as Consilient Push.
WAP advertising is one of the break-out advertising mediums as many subscribers use their mobile phones for internet access due to competitive and very affordable data plans offered by their mobile carriers. The traffic generated on each carrier’s WAP portal is now much higher than any other medium which leads to a high revenue generating source.
WAP advertising Technology
The mobile advertising technology used to deliver ads to the subscriber has grown quite sophisticated, allowing advertisers to target specific users by numerous targeting parameters to deliver a much more focused advertising campaign. When the subscriber visits the carrier’s WAP portal page, the WAP gateway communicates with the ad server and obtains the ad image source URL and then sends this information to the mobile device for the device browser to make a request to fetch the image source of the ad. The advertisements are served with varying types of user actions for that particular ad. Click-to actions can include: Click To Call, Click To Email, Click To SMS, Click To Browse, Click To Download and Click To Chat. Also the ads will be served based on a priority ranking system. In addition, the advertiser’s budget capping for impressions and clicks will also be taken into account, set by the advertiser for each of their advertisements.
There are other ways of presenting the advertisements such as eCoupons, live streaming video etc. Recently, many mobile carriers have launched into this market relying on the ad revenue model to offer some of their services for free. This helps to build a huge subscriber base quickly and allows publishers to publish their campaigns and associated advertisement’s.
From a subscriber’s point of view, they enjoy the free services provided by the carrier, at the cost of receiving a few advertisements on their phone which is probably just a minor inconvenience to get the service for free. WAP advertising is even more preferable as this method of advertising doesn’t choke subscriber’s mobile message Inbox unlike SMS advertising.
In my next article, I’ll discuss the technology involved in the advertising concept followed by some of the more popular advertising solutions and their technology.
-Anu works in Canada and is an expert in developing advertising applications for mobiles. Besides that she loves cooking geek!
Battle of Asian Giants enters www China blocking Indian Cos
Talking about emerging asian economies Tringme’s founder Yusuf Motiawala sent this today.
“It’s all about India-China relation and how China doesn’t return India’s hospitality. Take for instance our company, TringMe. TringMe, as you may know is a very successful startup operating globally. TringMe’s user-base comes from all over the globe and is extremely popular in China : we have a large number of paying customers in China including a Chinese social network with 3 million users using our services. Now all of a sudden, Chinese government decided to block TringMe, how fair is it? Infact, several loyal users from China wrote to us about it and we have been trying hard to help them out. They form a significant part of our user-base and have been key to our success so far.”
“We do not have any offensive content that could be deemed inappropriate for such a irrational decision. All that we try to do is enable voice and telephony from internet. Our company’s charter is to establish ourselves as the de-facto web-based voice and telephony platform. Given that over a fifth of the world population lives in China and that our valued customers in China are caught unaware, a decision like this continues to affects companies like us who are really trying to bridge the digital divide and unify the various forms of voice communication devices.”
“Chinese products have found in-ways into all markets of the world. While India continues to promote Chinese products everywhere, either it is a local market, electronics store or even a government organization like BSNL that introduces Chinese Telecom products into every home (as DSL modems), China apparently has no qualms in blocking an Indian company entering their market. We find this unfair, obtrusive and request help from media houses like you to voice our opinion to a global consumer.”
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