TechBulletin

When Google Base was launched,Google also had a payment service in the works.The payment service worked by using your Google Account to save your credit card information so you could easily purchase NBA broadcasts, TV shows, and other content available from the Google video store.

Google recently announced that one of its aims with Google Accounts was to make it possible for its users to pay for items online.Google appears ready to take that step, allowing users to buy and sell on Google Base by using their Google Accounts.

Google has launched their own What You See Is What You Get(WYSIWYG) webpage editor.It’s easy to use and works well on both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Opera is not currently supported.

This new tool is especially useful to those who do not know HTML. The service allows to upload files including HTML documents.

The goal of this project is to give users the tools they need to create static pages rather than ones that are frequently updated like blogger.

If Google’s Page Editor becomes sucessful then the next step by Google might be to offer domain registration and DNS services so people can hook up a domain to their brand new webpage.

The final Windows Vista Editions are:

• Windows Starter 2007
• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Basic N
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Business N
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Vista Enterprise

The news of the SKUs can be found on the beta pages of Windows Vista help.The N stands for the media player free versions of Vista which will be sold seperately in Europe.

Seagate has announced a new 1-inch 12GB hard disk that is substantially smaller and faster than its current top of the line 8GB model. The ST1.3 series 12GB disk is 23 percent smaller, has a 50 percent greater capacity, and consumes 30 percent less power than its predecessor. The disk is designed for use in mobile phones and portable media devices. The drive is the second Seagate model to use perpendicular recording, and the first to do so in the 1-inch category.

The drive’s small size of 40×30x5 mm allows for more streamlined media devices and is suited well for clamshell and candy bar style mobile phones. As part of its G-Force Protection system Seagate will also offer an optional drop sensor which will increase shock resistance 33 percent and help the drive survive a 1.5 meter or roughly five foot fall onto concrete or ceramic surfaces when properly mounted inside a device. In addition, Seagate’s RunOn technology will keep the track heads aligned when the device is in motion.

The ST1.3 begins shipping in the third quarter of this year.

Source: Techtree.com

With the Xbox 360, selling like hot cakes everywhere, Microsoft is one big happy company. However, the same cannot be said for Sony corp. After the phenomenal success of the world’s best selling console the Playstation 2, sony have moved on to the next version of the ultimate console. Already having the lost the race to the 360, Sony is extremely tight-lipped about the features of the new console and also about various other aspects especially the accurate price.

However, other people familiar with the gaming industry are claiming that the price of the PS3 will be around $800-900, a $400 dollar difference from the $399 of the simple 360. Though there are even some predictions that the PS3 may retail for around $2700, the $1000 tag seems to be the top-most limit which no console maker will dare tread, even though Sony with it’s PS3 has enjoyed fame before it’s release.

A couple of questions here. Why is sony being so tight-lipped about the PS3? They have also fired a member of their PS3 dept, who had leaked news about the console. Is it because they are utterly lagging behind their developmental schedule? Or is this is just a marketing gimmick? Or is this because they’ve just messed up everything. Moreover, the price of the PS3 and it’s difference from the 360, may just take the cake away from Sony. Though this might not make much of a difference in US, parts of Europe and Japan, the main difference will be in other places where people don’t spend $1000 for a console, places which currently may not be a big market but which may prove decisive for the future, having lots of potential. So, will it be difference?

Google launched Gmail for your domain. It let’s your domain members to have email accounts powered by Google’s Gmail.

Gmail for your domain is currently available as a limited beta. The students of San Jose City College are among the first beta users.

You can give each of your website members a 2GB storage email account, which is as great as Gmail. The email address is based on your domain such as yourname@yourdomain.com.

Opera released a technology preview of Opera 9,codenamed Merlin. The new Opera 9.0 preview version contains features such as

• Opera Widgets - Similar to Yahoo! Widgets, Opera Widgets are small AJAX applications that provide specific functionality like
  getting your favorite news, converting currency and so on. Opera has posted documentation on Opera Widgets not only how to use them but also how to make them.
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Philips Polymer Vision has made progress in the area of rollable displays for the mobile-device industry.The new 5-inch PV-QML5 rollable display has a decreased radius of curvature, improved operational and mechanical lifetime and paperlike viewing contrast. These are major steps forward compared to the world’s first rollable display prototype introduced by Polymer Vision in February 2004. The company says that current process and yield improvements will enable production within two years.

What do you want from Yahoo! to use it as your primary search engine (and dump Google) ? Yahoo! sent the survey to 5 percent of Yahoo Mail users.

The Pentium Chronicles - The People, Passion And Politics Behind Intel’S Landmark Chips

Robert Colwell, the project manager of Intel, jots down his experiences and experimentations in guiding the design team of the famous microprocessor Intel-P6. The author goes down his memory lane, presenting his creation in the domains of engineering and managing without transgressing the layman’s realms. Such a perfect miscellany of his experiences finely blended with humor and reality is a sumptuous feast for engineers and project managers.

Behind every successful project, there’s a team that racked their brain for the conception and behind it laid incidents and experiences that are sweetly recalled by the members.

A new Gmail feature just announced allows you to chat with your friends from right inside Gmail. There’s no need to load a separate program or look up new addresses. It’s just one click to chat with the people you already email, as well as anyone on the Google Talk network. And now you can even save and search for chats in your Gmail account.

Without doubt, the hottest thing EVERYWHERE now is CoComment. You’ve not yet heard of it, I’m surprised! Everybody and I mean everybody is enjoying CoComment and already it is being hailed as the biggest web 2.0 innovation of this year. Scobleizer, TechCrunch, BlogHerald, Problogger and half the other bloggers in Town are enjoying it and it’s striking Memeorandum, Blogniscent and many other tech news sites.

CoComment is owned and run by the Swiss Innovation Company - SwissCom Before I post, what’s hot about CoComment, let me just tell you how to register. CoComment is invite only, meaning only if someone gives you your 16-digit invite code, you can register. But the guys at CoComment unlike Google, seem to be very kind.

1) Goto CoComment.com
2) In the right hand side bottom menu, check out the option called Get Notified
3) Enter Your Email Address and Submit 4) Check your Email in 2 minutes, click on the invite and register.

Though the notified button says “You don’t have an invitation code? If you’d like to be notified when coComment is freely available, please give us your email address and we’ll let you know:“, the invite is sent instantly to you, so there is absolutely no need for the Beg, Borrow, Steal routine here. Anybody can register and after this, I seriously find no need for an invite. Back to CoComment itself.

What exactly is CoComment? It is a simple Web 2.0 Online tool made using Ajax (Duh!), PHP and some other languages. Now let me ask a question. Are you a person who follows more than 8 blogs and regularly comments on all the blogs you visit? Have you ever felt annoyed when you have to Load a post about 20 times to see whether another user has commented on it? Have you ever wanted your users to see the comments that you have made elsewhere? Do you want to keep track of all the places that you’ve commented recently but have no idea as to how?

“Mimic” is the new feature that was launched for MSN Messenger recently.

It is an add-on that is for people that enjoy playing pranks on their friends. This new feature is also good for people that just want to pretend they are someone they’re really not. Along with this feature there are 8 different “personas” to choose from.

At this point it hasn’t been clarified as to when “Mimic” will be available for Windows Live Messenger. After the Windows Live Messenger team released the “Music Mix” feature to work with MSN, we can only hope that they add “Mimic” soon to Live Messenger!

February 1, 2006. Firefox 1.5.0.1 is a stability and security update that is part of our ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers. We recommend that all users upgrade to this latest version.

Here’s what’s new in Firefox 1.5.0.1:

* Improved stability.
* Improved support for Mac OS X.
* International Domain Name support for Iceland (.is) is now enabled.
* Fixes for several memory leaks.
* Several security enhancements.

Download it here