Microsoft Zune HD - Ready

The new Zune HD wireless media player connects you to a new world of entertainment. With built-in HD Radio™ receiver, HD-compatible video, multi-touch navigation, OLED screen, and games, Zune HD delivers the next level in music and video experiences.

The 32GB version holds up to 10 hours of high definition video, or 48 hours of standard definition video optimized for device, or 8,000 songs, or 25,000 pictures.1

Reasons to buy
•HD-compatible video:
Play high quality video on the go or on your HDTV.
Watch supported 720p HD movies, TV shows, and videos in high definition on your HDTV through the Zune HD AV Dock (sold separately).

•OLED touchscreen:
Get instant access to your content with multi-touch navigation.
With a 3.3-inch size and vivid 16:9 display (480 x 272 resolution), truer and brighter entertainment is at your fingertips.

•Internet browsing:
Surf the Web anytime, anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. Check email, traffic, and news with a full-featured optimized Web browser, including a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard.

•HD Radio: Get more stations and better sound, without fees. The new Zune HD gives you access to many local HD Radio stations for more sports, news, and music with crystal-clear digital sound at no extra cost.

•Wireless: Buy, stream, and update your music – and download free games – wirelessly via a Wi-Fi connection. You can also wirelessly sync your Zune HD to your home PC via your home network.

•Quickplay: Cut through the clutter and get instant access to your content with shortcuts to favorites, recently downloaded or played music, videos, and more.

Preorder is available from August 13, 2009 until September 15, 2009.

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MS Office 2010 Web - Powered By Silverlight

The most ambitious goal Microsoft is striving for with Office 2010 is making the suite available via a familiar experience across the PC, phone, and browser. The Office Web Apps will help in achieving this goal. Microsoft has emphasized time and again the Office Web Apps will work well across different browsers without any plugins installed, but that Silverlight will be used to improve the experience.

Microsoft hasn't given away all the details on how exactly that will work, but we now know that at the very least, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations will prompt the user to install Silverlight. On the Office Web Apps blog, the software giant did talk about the improvements that are seen in Word and PowerPoint, worth quoting in full:

How Does Word Web App Get Better With Silverlight?

•Faster load performance, since typically fewer bytes need to be downloaded before showing the document.
•Improved text fidelity at 100% zoom. This includes better text spacing and rendering.
•Greatly improved text fidelity at other zoom levels not 100%.
•Text will respect settings set in cleartype tuner, so you’re able to determine how much (if any) cleartype you’d like to see. The cleartype tuner is available on the web for older versions of Windows, and is included in Windows 7.
•Improved accuracy of hit highlighting in Find.
PowerPoint Web App Gets Better With Silverlight Too

There are some automatic benefits to having Silverlight installed when running the PowerPoint Web App. For example, animations smooth out a bit, and the slide will scale with the browser window size. However Silverlight is not required for rendering or animation.

In short, if Office Web Applications users can install Silverlight on the computer they are using, they will definitely want to. If they can't install Silverlight, like at an Internet Café, Office Web Applications will still work.

The Office Web Applications (browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote) were announced in October 2008 at PDC. In July 2009, Microsoft disclosed that the Office Web Apps would be available in three flavors: at no cost but with ads through Windows Live, on-premises for all Office volume licensing customers, and via Microsoft Online Services where customers will be able to purchase a subscription as part of a hosted offering.

Microsoft is planning on supporting Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5 on Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as Safari 4 on Mac. Testers will get access to the Office Web Apps in August and the final versions will arrive in the first half of 2010, when the whole Office 2010 suite is expected to arrive.

Google Caffeine

Over the past few months, Google has been working on optimizing its search engine architecture for better, faster results. For some this may seem ridiculous: isn't Google already the fastest and most reliable search engine out there? Perhaps, but Google isn't about to rest on its laurels; it's committed to evolution.


The secret project is named Caffeine -- a wink at its speed increase -- and is designed to "push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and other dimensions." Right now anybody can try out its coffee-amped powers. But don't expect a mind-blowing spectacle of change: Caffeine's tweaks are all under the hood. I Googled myself using both Caffeine and the ordinary search and found no difference between the two. "Most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we're opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback," Google wrote in a blog post.


If you're dissatisfied with your new and improved search results, Google wants to know. Check out the bottom of your search page and you'll see a link asking "Dissatisfied? Help us improve." Click there and submit feedback on Caffeine. Google is always looking to improve its systems -- hence why everything stays in beta forever -- and could use a shout-out.


Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer, worked on Caffeine before its release and gave some Q&A on his blog. Cutts even answers the question that is likely on many minds: is Google giving itself a makeover in response to Microsoft's Bing? The answer is no. "I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months," Cutts wrote. "I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we've done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward."


I'm not sure I believe that statement. Yes, Google has undoubtedly been working on Caffeine for months, but Microsoft has been building Bing for a while, too.


The test of Caffeine's success rests on whether or not people will care and understand, and if the changes prove more substantial than a few additional pages of faster results.

Try now Google Caffeine!

Mac Tablet Touted As Billion-Dollar Device

Apple's rumoured Macintosh tablet device could bring the company revenues as high as $1.25 billion, according to one noted Apple analyst.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggested that the device, which he estimates to arrive early next year, could account for up to 3 per cent of the company's 2010 revenues.

Munster estimated that the device would cost $600 retail and serve as a mid-point between the iPod touch and the MacBook notebook model. The analyst estimated that company could sell up to 2 million of the tablets over 2010, accounting for some $1.25bn in total revenue.

The tablet device, according to Munster, would be similar in function to the iPod touch and would run on a variation of the iPhone OS. The analyst suggested that the tablet would primarily focus on web and media-viewing features and would use the company's App Store to deliver software to the device.
An Apple tablet has been rumoured to be in the works for over a year. The company has long contended that it was not ready to get into the growing netbook market, saying that such low-cost systems lack the quality which the company desires in its offerings.

Windows Embedded @ Imagine Cup 2009

http://mrmubi.blogspot.com/2009/07/windows-embedded-imagine-cup-2009.html

Google Chrome - New Beta Released

Google has announced the availability of a new beta release of its Chrome Web browser. This version introduces several new features and user interface improvements, including support for a theming system that allows users to customize the browser's look.

Chrome was first released last year and hit 1.0 on Windows in December. Although the product was somewhat feature-anemic at launch, Google has been fleshing it out and adding a lot of useful features. The browser is attracting a growing number of users and is said to have overtaken Opera based on marketshare statistics published by several analytics firms. Google is building an entire operating system around the browser and is planning to thrust it into the fragmented netbook market later next year.

The new Chrome beta release brings significant improvements to JavaScript performance. Although Google adopted Apple's WebKit renderer, the search giant opted to build its own high-performance JavaScript virtual machine called V8. Google contends that the new and improved version of the V8 engine that is included in the latest beta is 30 percent faster than the one in the latest official stable version. This is a significant leap forward and it strongly confirms Google's assertion following Chrome's launch that V8 had plenty of room for further optimization.

The new beta also introduces support for themes. These can change the appearance of Chrome's chrome, including the tabs, the titlebar, the URL bar, the bookmarks toolbar, and the window frame. A Chrome design document draft has been published that describes how to create themes. Each theme consists of a JSON file that specifies the theme's graphical resources, colors, and positioning.

Google provides a gallery with some sample themes that can be used to test the system. Some of these, such as the Baseball theme, are rather exotic. To my eye, none of the sample themes really outshine the default look and feel, but the potential for customization will likely appeal to many users.

The browser's new tab page got a visual overhaul and now allows users to hide individual history items. The omnibox's built-in autocompletion got a subtle enhancement with the addition of icons that indicate the type of the individual autocompletion results. It's a nice improvement over previous versions and it helps improve the browser's usability.

The new Chrome beta delivers some HTML5 features, such as support for Web worker threads and rendering the

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Windows Phone Demo

In case you haven’t heard, Windows Mobile has been rebranded. The term “Windows Phone” is now the name for all devices formerly called “Windows Mobile.” Along with the new name, the phone is about to receive a whole new look, too. At a recent Microsoft event, there was a demo given that showed off the new features of the Windows Phone’s upcoming OS update, aka Windows Mobile 6.5.

With the redesign, access to missed calls, text messages, and the like are available from the phone’s lockscreen. With just a tap, you can see the calls or texts you missed without having to first unlock your phone and launch the appropriate application.

You’ll also notice the phone’s new UI looks a lot like that of the Zune mp3 players with links to music, the phone, voicemail, text, email, your calendar, favorites, and more.



Included wizards make the process of setting up email, Bluetooth, and other options easy, especially for first-time users who have migrated to the Windows Phone from a feature phone.

Tapping on the “Start Menu” button no longer takes to you a folder view but instead delvers you to the brand-new homescreen interface where 24-bit icons appear linking you to all the Windows Phone applications. You scroll through the list up-and-down instead of side-to-side, so the list actually appears as one continuous page as opposed to “pages” you have to flip through.



One of the new application icons is “Marketplace,” an Windows Phone App Store where you can download both free and paid applications for the device. As with most smartphone app stores, the available downloads are arranged into categories for easy browsing. There will also be sections featuring showcase applications, the most popular applications, and the newest applications.



Another application icon on the homescreen will point to the new “MyPhone” service – a feature which synchronizes all the data on your phone to the cloud. The service doesn’t simply back up your contacts, either – it’s a place to store other phone data like text messages, photos, and music, too. For anyone who’s ever had a phone get lost or stolen, knowing that your data is safely backed up is a major blessing. And unlike some other sync services, MyPhone is included with the device for no extra charge. From the MyPhone site on the web, you’ll be able to manage your media and share files with friends on social networking sites. You can even upload photos to the website to have them synced back to the phone. If your phone is ever lost or stolen, you can use the MyPhone site to remotely lock and wipe your phone.

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Toshiba Plans 64GB SDXC Memory Cards

Toshiba said Monday it expects to be the first to bring SDXC cards to market, with testing samples of a 64GB version shipping in November and the real thing shipping in the spring of 2010. Those dates will be key moments in what doubtless will be a gradual transition away from the prevailing SDHC standard.

SDXC backers promise higher capacities and data transfer speeds for SDXC, which is important for devices such as video cameras that can produce lots of data at a sustained rate. But initially, a new generation of Toshiba's SDHC line will match the SDXC's maximum 60MBps data-reading speed, and maximum 35MBps data-writing speed, the company announced, using a new high-speed interface called UHS104.

The fast new SDHC cards, though, will only be available in 16GB and 32GB models. SDHC tops out at 32GB, but the SDXC specification extends to 2TB. In addition, through use of Microsoft's exFAT files system on SDXC cards, individual files can exceed 4GB, which is important for longer videos.

Capacity is undeniably important when it comes to carrying your video camera around for extended periods of time. But do you really need all that Motransfer speed? Leaving aside the confusing muddle of minimum vs. maximum transfer speeds and certification, even high-definition video only pushes the envelope so hard.

For example, Canon's high-end 5D Mark II SLR, which can record 1080p video at 30 frames per second, requires only a relatively modest 8MBps write speed for its CompactFlash card; high-end CompactFlash today can handle 45MBps.

Of course, there's also the matter of transferring photos and videos to computers, a tedious task at best that benefits from maximum speed. But that's often constrained, though, by the card reader and its interface to the computer.

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Three Things to Know About Office Web Apps

A new post on the Office Web Apps blog discusses some of the major tenets that have been driving the design and engineering of this new service launching alongside the upcoming Office 2010 software. The post describes how the team focused on trustworthiness, the familiar Office user experience, and the high fidelity of the content provided by the Web Apps. From these notes, we can gleam a bit more insight into what the new Web Apps service is going to look like and how it will behave.

1. Web Apps Won’t Cause Data Loss and They Won’t “Mess Up” Your Documents
One of the problems with some online file viewers and editors today is that they can “mess up” your document when you go to save it online. If the service in question doesn’t support a particular feature, for example, it won’t know how to properly display it. That won’t be the case with the Web Apps since they’re specifically designed to work hand-in-hand with the desktop software. For example, if a user uploads a file with a watermark, a feature which the initial release of Office Web Apps won’t support the editing of, the user can still make changes to the file and resave it without the Watermark being removed from the document. In other words, your files are safe.

2. Web Apps Will “Feel” Like Office
The Office Web Apps will deliver a familiar experience to the end user by offering a recognizable UI with many of the same features including matching icons, the same commands, the Ribbon interface at the top, and more. However, the goal is not to create an exact replica of the Office software UI. Instead, Web Apps will take advantage of the web platform’s strengths.

Web Apps will also offer a similar experience to what you would have in Office, even though the effects of this may be subtle. To give an example, the blog post demonstrated the difference as to how Microsoft Word would behave when you hit “enter” in a table versus how a basic text editor would behave.


3. The Document Always Looks and Acts the Same
The Office Webs Apps will ensure that no matter what kind of file you’re working with, it will always appear the same whether it’s being viewed on the web or on the PC. Not only will it appear with the same formatting and layout, everything in the document will be consistent, too, whether that’s calculations, animations, pagination, etc. In this respect, Web Apps docs behave much like the Adobe PDF – always the same file no matter where it’s viewed.

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What to Look For When Buying Used

• Walk around the vehicle, looking for signs of body repairs and patches of paint that differ slightly from the original. Run your hand along the panels to check for any rough bodywork that may have been re-sprayed. Minor scratches and chips can be fixed but cracks and impact craters are another story.

• Telltale signs of repair include one headlight that looks newer than the other.
• Rust can be in hidden places, such as the inside of doors.
• Don't forget to look for rust spots underneath the car, and check for signs of oil leaks and other defects at the same time.
• If you can, bring a magnet with you when viewing the car. Run it along the bodywork. It will not stick to filler, telling you if any panels have been crash-repaired.
• Study the condition of the tyre sidewalls, and check the tread for signs of uneven or excessive wear. Check that all tyres are the same size, too.



Under the Bonnet
• Be brave and look under the bonnet. Corroded battery terminals or holding brackets, an oily engine, frayed wiring and cracked hoses are all signs of neglect.
• A coating of oil or sludge on the inside of the radiator cap is cause for alarm. To check this, remove the radiator cap and rub your finger along the inside of the cap to see if there are any substance buildups. There shouldn't be any.
• Remove the radiator cap and start the engine from cold. Look out for air bubbles surfacing in the water, which could indicate a defective cylinder head gasket.
• Check the oil level. To do this, remove the dipstick and clean the oil off with some tissue. Dip the stick back into the oil reservoir and gauge how much oil is in the engine. There will be a level indicator on the dipstick to tell you the required oil level. Low levels of oil indicate poor maintenance or a possible oil leak. This can be extremely expensive to repair and in a worst case scenario cause the engine to seize.
• Brake fluid levels are crucial if there is no brake fluid, the vehicle will be unable to stop. The brake fluid reservoir is located under the bonnet in the back right-hand area of the engine bay. Remove the rubber cap to show the brake fluid level. Low fluid levels could signal a leak.
• To check the shock absorbers, bounce the corner of the vehicle up and down several times when you release it, you should feel the vehicle bounce back twice, any more and you may need new shock absorbers.


On the Inside
• Check the brake and clutch pedals. If they look overly new they may have been replaced for the wrong reasons; if they look old and worn the car may have covered a bigger distance than claimed. They should have average wear for the claimed mileage.
• Ensure that all the controls (including heater, wipers and so on) are working as they should. Examine the windscreen, which is an expensive item to replace.
• Check to see if the oil, brake and battery gauges light up. Problems with any of the three could signify mechanical issues or owners' neglect.
• Check the headlights, brake lights and reverse lights before you take it out for a test drive. Also, test the horn and indicators.
• Observe the steering, clutch and brakes; the steering should not move more than two inches in either direction without turning the wheels; once you put the vehicle in gear, how far does the clutch rise before the vehicle moves? If it doesn't work until it returns to its original location, it may need an adjustment or replacement (replacing a clutch can be expensive).


The Test Drive
• The wheel should be in the correct straight-ahead position. Although correcting any deviations could entail no more than a slight adjustment, it could also indicate suspension damage.
• While the engine is running you should listen to see if it "idles" well. This means that there should be a constant and steady ticking over.
• Loud knocking or whines should be checked out by a mechanic. It may just need to be tuned; however, it could also lead to more difficult mechanical repairs.
• Observe whether or not it is easy to change gear. If you hear a grinding noise there may be transmission or clutch problems. If it is only happening on one gear, it is more likely to be the transmission.
• If the steering wheel shakes when making a turn, there may be a suspension problem. If all appears well, take the vehicle up to motorway speed and up some hills to test its performance. If the steering wheel vibrates at higher speeds, there may be an alignment problem.
• Press the brake pedal down fully and hold for just under a minute- it should hold firm. If it doesn't there could be a leak and you should drive with extreme caution. Check brakes at a slow speed to see if there is any pulling, screeching or sticking. If there is a pull, they may simply have to be readjusted; however, if there is screeching, it could mean the brake shoes are worn and need work. When it is safe to do so, check the brakes at higher speed for the same problems.

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