30 March, 2004

ZDNet India : Google takes searching personally:
"As the search wars intensify, Google hopes that making a personal connection with its visitors will give it an edge.The company launched a test version of its personalized search"

The company launched a test version of its personalized search engine on Monday, part of its effort to tailor its search results to users' preferences. Google also plans to e-mail registered users of personalized search with the results of their queries.

The Mountain View, Calif., company introduced testing tools for its Personalized Web Search and Web Alerts on Google Labs, its public developmental playground.

Garcia said she would like to see Google increase the complexity of personalization it offers. The company could encourage greater use of the system by adding more depth in customization, such as providing more localized options and a larger range of buttons for finding content aimed at children and teenagers, she said. The system currently lets people highlight what state they're most interested in; by taking that down to the city or town level, Google could have even brighter prospects, according to Garcia.

"I could see people using this as an alternative to existing yellow pages and directory listings, if Google pushes it to the metro level," Garcia said. "There's also a huge opportunity to attract more local advertisers when that happens, and as much as this is a tool that caters to end users, I think it plays very nicely into that equation."

26 March, 2004

ZDNet India : Microsoft looks to unite PC, Xbox games:
"Microsoft announced a new set of development standards and tools Wednesday intended to cover both PC games and titles for the company's Xbox console."

...Another "smart" move by M$ !
ZDNet India : Google talks without the browser
Google is not the obvious company to telephone when you are looking for directions to a restaurant or hotel, but the popular search engine's development team is hoping that its emerging voice search facility may over time completely change the concept of a search engine.

23 March, 2004

ZDNet India : 'Witty' worm infects, dies quickly
Using a manner of infection similar to the fast-spreading Slammer worm, the Witty program compromised more than 20,000 machines in less than an hour."Because it crashes the machines eventually, (the worm) died off really fast," Ullrich said. He estimated that almost 30,000 computer had been infected by the worm, and most of them had crashed because of file corruption within 30 minutes of being infected.

An unknown author created the worm about two days after news of the flaw became public, in what may be the fastest turnaround of malicious code writing to date. "It is the only time that I can think of that this had happened so quickly," Ingevaldson said. "This was surprising. We didn't think we would see something that could come up this big and fast."
ZDNet India : Tech giants abuzz over VoIP for cell phones:
"Sun Microsystems and other tech giants are calling Internet phone technology the cell phone industry's next big thing, saying it will help solve old problems and create new servi"

VoIP is a technology for making phone calls via IP, the world's most popular method for sending data from one computer to another. After years of overpromising and underdelivering, VoIP is generating significant interest among telecom carriers, corporations and consumers, thanks to significant improvements in quality of service.

Carriers are already embracing VoIP as a way to cut traffic costs on international and long-distance calls, and it is expected to eventually replace the public switched telephone network, as big phone companies convert to IP-based fiber-optic networks. Currently, about 10 percent of all international voice traffic is classified as VoIP, although less than 1 percent of those calls are initiated on a VoIP phone.

15 March, 2004

ZDNet India : U.S. Army to Gates: Halt the free software: "Microsoft has been mailing free copies of its pricey Office productivity software to government employees, but CNET News.com has learned that at least two federal agencies are warning recipients to return the gifts or risk violating federal ethics policies."

Bill sure is smart. :p

11 March, 2004

Cooool !
DiscT@2 technology

After several years in development, it was in the summer of 2002 that Yamaha Electronics introduced its innovative DiscT@2 technology. This allows a CD-RW drive's laser to tattoo graphics and text onto the unused outer portion of a CD-R disc, thereby providing a far more professional looking disc labelling system than possible by use of stick-on labels or felt-tip markers.