Microsoft Hohm Released

Today, Microsoft announced Microsoft Hohm. That's Hohm as in H + OHM, the unit of measurement for electrical impedance.

Microsoft Hohm is a free web based application (running on the Windows Azure platform) that enables consumers to better understand their energy usage by utilizing advanced analytics licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy to provide home owners with personalized energy-saving recommendations.

The beta is now available to all residents in the United States with plans to roll out internationally over the next year and beyond.

Troy Batterberry joined me in the studio to walkthrough Microsoft Hohm and explain how the service can help you reduce your energy consumption, lower your carbon footprint and save some real money.

Sign up & more info: www.microsofthohm.com

Axum Available for Download

A new version of Axum is available for download now.


What is Axum?

Axum is an incubation project from Microsoft’s Parallel Computing Platform that aims to validate a safe and productive parallel programming model for the .NET framework. It’s a language that builds upon the architecture of the web and the principles of isolation, actors, and message-passing to increase application safety, responsiveness, scalability and developer productivity. Other advanced concepts we are exploring are data flow networks, asynchronous methods, and type annotations for taming side-effects. Axum Lite: Contains the Axum command-line compiler and Axum runtime as well as the sample projects. Programmer's Guide: Use this simple and easy to follow programmer's guide to learn how to create safe, scalable, and responsive applications with the Axum language. Language Specification: A detailed specification of the Axum language.

Morro, aka Microsoft Security Essentials Beta

You may have heard rumors lately about “Morro,” the new no-cost anti-malware solution being launched by Microsoft. Now called “Microsoft Security Essentials,” the program will launch into a limited beta today at www.microsoft.com/security_essentials. The first 75,000 visitors to that site will have the opportunity to download and install the new software for free. (This will be available in English to the U.S. and Israel and in Brazilian Portuguese in Brazil.)

For those wanting to run Microsoft Security Essentials, you’ll need to have either a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows XP SP2 or higher, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. The software will not come pre-installed on the Windows 7 OS so you will still have a choice as to which anti-malware program they want to run. However, it will be made available as a download (but not through Windows Update) for those looking for a free and trustworthy solution which you can run without worrying about registration or renewals. Security Essentials users will also have access to free community and email support.

The security features in the new software include real-time protection, a dynamic signature service, and rootkit protection. If an infection is found, users will be prompted to fix it by pressing an action button which will appear on the screen. The process is designed to be a “one-click fix” so it’s extremely easy for anyone to use.

The program has also been made lightweight so as not to slow down your system as many anti-virus software applications have done in the past. To accomplish this, it implements features like CPU throttling, idle-time scanning, smart caching, and active memory swapping. Those last two make it so that signatures not in use don’t take up space in the available memory, a feature which makes Microsoft Security Essentials ideal for older PCs as well as today’s less powerful netbooks.

You can learn more about Microsoft Security essentials here.

Robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

A powerful robotic lunar scout, NASA's first in more than a decade, arrived at the moon early Tuesday on a mission to seek out potential landing sites and hidden water ice for future astronauts.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) fired its thrusters at 5:47 a.m. EDT (0947 GMT) in a 40-minute maneuver to begin orbiting the moon. It is NASA's first unmanned moon shot since 1998.

"We are in lunar orbit," said LRO project scientist Richard Vondrak at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We're not going past the moon. We're there to stay."

About the size of a Mini Cooper car, the $504 million LRO probe launched toward the moon on June 18 and spent four days in transit - about a day longer than astronauts on the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The robotic probe is expected to spent at least one year mapping the moon for future manned missions, as well as several more years conducting science surveys.

"LRO has returned NASA to the moon," a flight controller said as NASA's LRO mission control center erupted in applause. The probe's lunar arrival comes just under one month ahead of the 40th anniversary of NASA's first moon landing by Apollo 11 astronauts on July 20, 1969.

The spacecraft carries seven instruments to map the moon in unprecedented detail, seek out water ice hidden in the permanent shadows of craters at the lunar south pole, and measure the temperature and radiation hazards future astronauts may face. The names of 1.6 million people are also riding aboard LRO as part of a public outreach program.

LRO is currently circling the moon in an extremely elliptical orbit that brings the nearly 2-ton probe within about 124 miles (200 km) of the lunar surface at its closest and reaches out to 1,863 miles (3,000 km).

"It went like clockwork," said Craig Tooley, NASA's LRO project manager. "In the end, it went exactly as planned."

Over the next few days, more thruster firings should fine-tine the spacecraft's flight path until it reaches its planned observation orbit of between 31 and 135 miles (50 to 218 km). Two of LRO's seven instruments, a pair of radiation sensors, scanned the space environment between the Earth and the moon, with the remaining five instruments to be activated in the next few weeks.

The first images from the powerful camera aboard LRO should be beamed back to Earth in the next few weeks, mission managers said.

"This whole new moon we're ready to see is out there waiting, and this mission is going to go get it," said Jim Garvin, NASA's chief scientist at Goddard.

A second unmanned spacecraft, the $79 million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), also launched with LRO and is expected to slingshot past the moon later today at about 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT). The spacecraft and an attached empty Centaur rocket stage will fly by the moon and shift into a polar orbit that will ultimately end in an Oct. 9 crash into a shadowed crater at the moon's south pole to probe for hidden water ice.

NASA plans to release live video from LCROSS as it flies past the moon at a distance of about 5,592 miles (9,000 km), mission managers have said.

See more at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528410,00.html

Powerful Features of HTML 5 - Google I/O 2009

This is very interesting overview of how much powerful HTML 5 is going to be.
Google, Mozilla, Opera and Safari are working together to bring more power to the web.

Here is an over view of video, but i will highly recommend that you should watch the full video.

1) Canvas
In HMTL 5 how easy it will be to control the graphics of browser simply with Java script.
There will be Full 3D objects support.

2) Videos
In HTML 5 there is a new tag called video in order to simply play a video. You just need to specify the URL of video browser takes care of the rest. Plus many more features.

3)Geo Location
In HTML 5 browsers will be able to track you location not only by IP. But also using Wifi connection or Cell phone ID & mobile network .

3) Offline Availability of Web Data (App Cache Database)
HTML 5 has built in support of application cache in case you are disconnected or go offline you will be still able to interact with you apps.

4)Background Process
Most powerful thing in HTML 5 is that you can create background process, so that user experience is smooth.

5)Google Web Tool Kit
Google web tool kit is easy way to go ahead with HTML 5 as along with other more features it automatically take care of web browser and render the Java Script accordingly.

6)Google Web Elements
I think its very good idea that applying AddSens, Youtube Video Embed technique to all other services of googles like google news etc.