The Battle of the Browsers will revive again as the new contender joins in. If you think that we have enough Internet browsers as it is, think again. Google is not going to let Mozilla and Microsoft take all the glory for themselves.

Google Chrome is ready to be released from Google’s arsenal of fast apps on September 2, 2008. This new browser from Google is designed to be fast, simple and clean, just like the Google Homepage. The philosophy behind the development of this new browser is to make things clean and simple, take away all the unnecessary stuff and let the user do the important stuff like browsing, chatting and sending emails. Google Chrome gets out of the way so you can surf the Internet or write those emails. Most of the components in Chrome is from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Webkit, but will remain open-source, and participation from community to help build this new browser is encouraged.

From Chrome’s official blog:

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

Google also takes the road less traveled in introducing their new app - this time they have used comics in introducing their new open-source browser. Not very typical way of introducing a new app but indeed very unique. The comics about Google Chrome can be found here.

For now, Google Chrome is available only for Windows but time will only tell when there is going to be a version for Linux, which I am willing to wait patiently. As for the number of choices that we have for browsers, all I can say is we can’t have too many browsers. Tell that to web developers as they have another browser to test their sites on.

Author’s Note:

I will update this post once the browser is released. I will also include the link to the download site as well.

Download Google Chome for Windows XP/Vista here.

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The US swimming team has made history in Olympics with Michael Phelps winning his 8th Gold Medal defeating Mark Spitz’s 7 Gold Medal record since 1972.

23-year old Michael Phelps consistently performed his best during the 2008 Olympics, proven by record-breaking speed at different swimming events. Eight times a winner, Phelps finally broke Mark Spitz’s record which remained untouched until now.

Phelp’s winning events include:

400 m individual medley 4:03.84 World record
4 x 100 m freestyle relay 3:08.24 World record
200 m freestyle 1:42.96 World record
200 m butterfly 1:52.03 World record
4 x 200 m freestyle relay 6:58.56 World record
200 m individual medley 1:54.23 World record
100 m butterfly 50.58 Olympic record
4 x 100 m medley relay 3:29.34 World record

Congratulations to Michael Phelps!

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It is now official that Hans Reiser, the brains behind the popular filesystem ReiserFS, had admitted to killing his wife Nina Reiser, by leading the policemen to his wife’s body days before facing the court for his sentence.

The said body of Nina Reiser was found buried in 4-feet by 4-feet grave in Redwood Regional Park, less than a mile from Hans Reiser’s home, and was identified through dental records, jewelry and clothing. Nina was believed to be strangled by Hans Reiser leading to her death.

The discovery of the body was part of the deal that might reduce Reiser’s conviction from first to second degree murder.

Source: cnn.com

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This morning, one of our servers experienced downtime and the Ev1 servers datacenter support is unreachable, not by phone nor by site.

Then we got this email from the company’s CEO, Dougls J. Erwin:

Dear Valued Customers:
This evening at 4:55 in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department.

This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock.

We are in the process of communicating with all affected customers. we are planning to post updates every hour via our forum and in our customer portal. Our interactive voice response system is updating customers as well.

There is no impact in any of our other five data centers.

I am sorry that this accident has occurred and apologize for the impact.

Sincerely,

Douglas J. Erwin
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

The accident did caused our server to go offline as confirmed by the chat support.

PS: Entrecard is also affected by the outage.

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This is a little snip from YouTube when Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer was thrown with eggs by a protesting student in Budapest.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was thrown with eggs in BudapestBallmer was giving a talk titled, You Can Change the World, to Hungarian university students when someone from the audience stood up, demanded that Microsoft should return money it has stolen from Hungarian people and threw eggs, right in front of Ballmer’s face. Ballmer scrambles for cover as he dodges the eggs, and luckily, he still has a clean face when stood up from behind the podium.

The angry student, sporting a tshirt that says, “Microsoft Corruption”, was escorted out of the room immediately after the disruption.

It is still unclear to me if the protester is an Open Source advocate, with too much MS hate inside, or maybe an Anger Management therapy is in order. Either way, Hungary is now as popular as Microsoft itself.

Ballmer was lucky enough to dodge the eggs, but not Bill Gates, who got a cream pie to his face ten years ago at Brussels, Belgium.

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You have heard about Singapore’s plans to build 100Mbps broadband network, you ought to know that Malaysia is not going to let Singapore get all the glory.

Malaysia’s Velchip Sdn Bhd has formed partnerships to bring the world’s biggest Broadband Over Powerline (BPL) project which aims to interconnect 60 million users and 400,000 mosques all over Malaysia all the way to Indonesia. BPL modems use existing electrical power lines to deliver high speed Internet access and data transmission.

The three companies who signed the partnerships are Sarz Al Yahya Corporation, an investment company that will pitch in US$14 billion for the project; STM Networks Inc.. will provide satellites for the communication system and a 100-year agreement with Nadhlatul Ulama Indonesia and Manhad Islam Hadhari, the Indonesian clients responsible for the network of mosques that will be converted during the BPL project.

According to Velchip, 60 million users will benefit from this project as they offer unlimited high speed Internet connection of staggering 224Mbps. The best part is that they will charge RM5 (US$1.58) per user per month.

Unbelievable.

Not only it is way too cheap for something that is way too fast. For me it is way too good to be true. But not to sound pessimistic, I do hope that this project gets completed. Can you image playing MMORPG over 224Mbps? I’ll be happy to get my filthy hands on an 8Mbps residential line for Php100/month let alone on 224Mbps. Do you smell lag? Nah, not in my dictionary.

Again, this project is very familiar. Is this some kind of viral activity in Asia? First Singapore, then Malaysia then Philippines. Well, scratch the last.

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If you think 10Mbps residential line connection is PWNGE, then wait till Singapore completes its 100Mbps national fiber network by year 2015.

Singapore has unveiled its plans for an open access Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) to increase network connectivity by providing end-user speeds of 100Mbps for downlink and 50Mbps for uplink. To the less techie, it basically means less game lag, faster downloading and video streaming.

Expected to be complete by 2015, the Next Gen NBN will be available nationwide but other services such as video teleconferencing will be available as early as 2010. The official website lists the results of pre-qualified companies wishing to participate in Request-for-Proposal (RFP).

The project will be partially government funded costing around $750M. To the end users, they will be required to purchase $525 modem and will be charged $121.80 per month.

Speaking of NBN, the term sounds very familiar. Did someone got the idea from Singapore made a few bucks from it? ;P

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Apparently, Microsoft means serious business when it puts its $44B of its money in exchange for Yahoo’s cooperation. The software giant just won’t take no for an answer.

As a matter of fact, Microsoft sent an open letter to Yahoo’s  Board of Directors claiming that their offer was nothing short of 62% premium over Yahoo’s closing price on January 31, 2008. However, unwilling to give in to the temptation, Yahoo refused the offer.

Microsoft then released an ultimatum for Yahoo to make a decision in three weeks , and then promises to try and start a proxy contest to elect an alternative set of directors to the board.

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Epicedit.com made a little study to see how many users use photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and how many of those users bought a legal copy of the software. Members of the voting group are photographers who use software programs like Lightroom and Photoshop and according to epicedits.com’s recent poll  results,  60% of those who use Photoshop for their photo editing needs use pirated copies of the software. Lightroom users round up to 55% who has illegal copies of the software and 81% of the open source users use open source version of these programs.

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If you are interested in Google domains, services or search operators, then get the Google Cheat Sheet. This PDF file contains the extensive list of thing that I am sure everyone wants to know.

Download the cheat sheet PDF here or view the screenshots:

Cheat Sheet Page 1

Cheat Sheet Page 2

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The nonprofit group behind Wikipedia, the mammoth Internet encyclopedia built by volunteers, is getting its largest donation ever - $3 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The award, to come in $1 million installments over each of the next three years, will help the Wikimedia Foundation become more financially secure as it hires more staff and seeks to improve the quality and reach of Wikipedia content, foundation leaders said.

“We think it will pave the way towards more donations as it is a signal that a major foundation sees good in what we are doing,” said Jimmy Wales, the project’s leader and a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation. “And it should take away a lot of the questions people have had about whether we will need advertising to survive.”

Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is now the seventh-most popular Web site in the U.S., according to comScore Inc. More than half the Wikimedia Foundation’s $4.6 million budget covers the servers and Internet bandwidth to handle all that traffic. It also supports Wikipedias in dozens of other languages and affiliated free projects such as dictionaries and news sites.

The San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation said it would use the Sloan grant for software enhancements, including one that make it easier for Wikipedia editors to grade article quality. Wikimedia leaders also envision doing more outreach to new contributors and creating educational content for people without computers.

Doron Weber, a Sloan Foundation representative, said in a statement that Wikipedia “represents a quantum leap” in the collection and organization of knowledge.

Relying largely on small, individual donations, The Wikimedia Foundation saw cash contributions jump to $2.2 million last year from $1.3 million in the prior year. But foundation leaders have been looking for sturdier mechanisms of support to ensure the group’s long-term survival. It does not have an endowment fund.

The group also recently lined up $1 million in gifts from anonymous sources. Those donors were introduced to the group by Roger McNamee, a prominent venture capitalist who himself has given at least $300,000, which raised questions about whether investors might try to capitalize on Wikipedia’s brand name in a for-profit side business. Wales has said no such venture is planned.

Source: www.physorg.com

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The makers of World of Warcraft are locked in a legal battle with a firm that has produced a tool to automate many actions in the virtual world. Blizzard is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting.

Both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona.

Blizzard says Glide is a software bot which infringes the company’s copyright and potentially damages the game.

In its legal submission to the court last week, the firm said: “Blizzard’s designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time.”

‘Infringed agreement’

Blizzard argued that Michael Donnelly’s tool also infringed the End User License Agreement that all parties have to adhere to when playing the game.

More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold, according to Mr Donnelly. More than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft.

Mr Donnelly said the first time had had been aware of potential legal action over his program was when a lawyer from Vivendi games, which publishes Warcraft, and an “unnamed private investigator” appeared at his home.

In his legal submission, he detailed: “When they arrived, they presented Donnelly with a copy of a complaint that they indicated would be filed the next day in the US District Court for the Central District of California if Donnelly did not immediately agree to stop selling Glider and return all profits that he made from Glider sales.”

“Blizzard’s audacious threats offended Donnelly,” according to the legal papers.

Mr Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard’s copyright because no “copy” of the Warcraft game client software is ever made.

Blizzard has said the tool infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software.

The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgement in the case.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

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