With the growth of modern technology, a lot of things have changed over the years. Life has become faster by the minute and there is hardly any time for anything. Internet is one of the best products of modern technology. With the advent of internet, life in the modern world has changed drastically in general. Many internet users prefer e-mails to hand written letters as the former is better and faster to communicate.

With the proliferation of umpteen social networking sites, which further ameliorate the links for communications amongst friends and family, there is hardly any need for one to actually depend on hand written letters to communicate. Of late, books have been slowly replaced by eBook readers as today’s folks have become super techno savvy. To help the folks who depend on eBook readers, iRiver has recently announced its latest eBook reader called “Story” in Korea at the price of 349,000 KRW ($302).

The device differs from the rest of the eBooks in terms of features. It comes with an 8 inch 600 X 800 E-ink display. Besides, it also has 2GB storage, a microSD/SDHC card slot, a USB 2.0 port, a comic book viewer and supports for PDF, EPUB, TXT, DOC, PPT, XLS and HWP eBook formats. All these are available without requiring their conversion. What a cool and convenient eBook reader!

Via: TechFresh

Following an announcement on Twitter CEO of Mozilla, John Lilly, on Monday, Tristan Nitot, president of the company in Europe, confirmed yesterday to the news site English DNet increased 30 million single users in using the Firefox browser in the last 8 weeks.

During the last 8 weeks, the daily number had an average increase of 10 million updates, from 103 to 113 million. After adjustments, the result is a total of 330 million users each month, equivalent to the entire U.S. population. Nitot attributes much of this increase to return to school, since many students buy new computers at the end of summer vacation. A large portion of them install Firefox as one of the first steps after acquiring the equipment.

In a study released by NetApplications the site of the British newspaper The Register, the Microsoft browser appears with a loss of 1.26% of users compared to September, leaving 65.71% of the browsers. Firefox, in this same period, had a modest growth of 0.77% to 23.75% of the public.

Meanwhile, the other leading browsers, like Safari, Chrome and Opera percentages reach only a single digit, with Safari in third place ranking with 4.24% of users.

That is, despite the boom in Firefox, Internet Explorer remains the “darling of America” – and the world. For now.

Image Credit.

Via: The Register.

Although suffering a steady and growing censorship, more and more Chinese use the Internet to express their opinion using the great ease to write good articles, and at the same time circumvent government control.

“The Chinese bloggers are the smartest in the world. In addition to writing a good and interesting article, they should think how to evade the government,” said the journalist Wang Xiaofeng, author of the blog Bu Xu Lian Xiang, which receives an average of 40 thousand visits per day.

Also editor of a weekly cultural magazine in Beijing, Wang explains that a major difficulty is moving in so-called “sensitive words” so that they are not identified by the filter control.
Although censorship is strong, the Internet is the preferred means of expression among many Chinese. The network has helped uncover corruption among local authorities and served to organize protests, but the main function is to be a mural for writing articles criticizing or mocking the communist government.

China topped the list of countries with censorship omnipresent on the Internet, according to a series by the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2007. The list includes other schemes such as Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, Maldives, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Imager credit.

Via: Folha.

Between November 10 and January 15, 2010, users of the airline company Virgin America may use the free Wi-Fi offered during the flight, courtesy of Google in partnership with the company. The service will be operated by Gogo Inflight Internet.

According to the IT PRO site, the Internet connection will be offered free on flights between the cities of Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

Virgin America has offered access to the Gogo Inflight Internet in all its flights since May, charging a fee ranging from US$ 5.96 to US$12.95, according to the duration of the trip. The airline also offers power outlets near every seat. On longer trips, the company says that about 25% of passengers choose to use the Internet service connection.

Internet use during the flight, however, must follow certain rules. According to Information Week site, the terms of service of the Gogo Inflight prohibit the use of Skype as a way of organizing the use of bandwidth. According to research conducted with users of Virgin America, users support the initiative, as blocking the use of VoIP applications saves you from having a seat-mate who likes to talk.

Via: IT PRO.

On last Monday, about a million websites with the ending “.se” disappeared for almost one hour. According to the site Computerworld, the responsible organ for the registration of domains of the country affirmed that the problem was caused by the use of a script configured incorrectly to update the “.se” area, what caused the mistake to each site with this ending.

According to the company Pingdom, whose main business is the monitoring of the Internet, the collapse of a domain of first whole level is exceptionally rare. The normal is that happen problems in inferior levels, when, for instance, a single domain is configured incorrectly.

“Problems that affect a domain of first whole level implicate very big effects, as it can be observed in the case of the incident with the .se. Imagine the same happening with the “.com”, that has more than 80 million sites associated”, it commented on the company.

According to specialists of the area consulted by the company, what happened was that, when they were updating the data, they didn’t put the point (.) of at the domain ending in the files DNS in the that area “.se”.

Although it is a small detail, the forgotten point is necessary in the configurations for DNS to understand that “.se” is a domain of first level. Without it, the whole chain of codes DNS breaks up.

In official note (tinyurl.com/yflb6zx), Sweden’s Internet Infrastructure Foundation, explained the mistake.

Via: Computer World.

The next best innovation of Google, the search engine giant is the Google Wave, creating waves of excitement in the internet shores. Although, the company has allowed a limited number of previews that is 1,00,000 so far, it promises that in future the virtual world will be ruled by the Google Wave in terms of internet communication.

Google Wave is an attempt to redefine the form of communication over the internet. It’s an improvisation of the boring form of chatting, e-mail and other forms of communication. The Google wave is also an open source giving an opportunity for the developers to build new applications.

The best feature of the Google Wave is the smart integration of the e-mail, chats, Google maps, and other applications. The speed is another commendable feature. The files, pictures and other data can be instantly transferred. While chatting, the other person can see what one is typing instantly, every letter on a real time basis. The spell check has been improvised too.

The most innovative feature of the Google Wave is that it allows users in the waves to instantly brainstorm, make business or personal plans, edit collaboratively, to name a few, all in a single wave.   “Yes/No/Maybe’’ gadget  instantly allows you to poll amongst friends, For example, the number of people interested in a particular event. Moreover, allowing every user in that wave to make comments, suggestions, etc. A playback button is rather an important feature to see the way the conversation has begun and one can follow the entire thread even after it has been edited.

Play hangman or Sudoku, or update your Twitter status from the wave itself. It is indeed the future of internet communication!

Via:Economictimes

After the success of AdWords and text ads Google is now all set to make further foray into online display advertising. It is now launching a scheme called DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a sort of auction system for display advertising which it seems will benefit both advertisers and publishers.

Who says recession has affected online advertising? Definitely there is a reason why Google is eyeing the growing display and interactive ads. More advertisers are investing into display ads to create awareness about their products and improve sales through virtual world. With technology improving every day text ads are being replaced with more interactive and interesting audio-video display ads. And Google would want to dominate the display ads world too like it did successfully with text ads through AdWords and AdSense.

Ad Exchange will make managing display advertising on various websites more convenient. Google has been making its vision about future of display advertising and its role across Google Content Network, YouTube and DoubleClick. Check out details on Google’s official blog here.

This move will definitely reinforce the domination of Google in the virtual world, which may not be good news for all!

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Via Guardian

iTwin is a new start up that is taking part in the TechCrunch50 this year. CEO Lux Anatharaman and COO Kal Takru are based in Singapore and the company aims to connect two remotely placed computers using a simple two part USB drive. All that the user has to do is snap it once the US is connected and give the other half with some other computer.

Using Internet and USB drives, one can connect two different computers anywhere in the world, and one need not know much about computers either. However, the idea of having to connect two computers remotely means the two individuals are not physically in contact with each other. So, it may actually be redundant to use a USB device which manually has to be given to the other person for the computers to be connected. That defeats the purpose of remote connection.

The argument behind the start up is that even a layman who does not know much about computers can plug the device in, snap it, and the give the device to the other person. However, it doesn’t occur to me what the laymen will do when they are not physically close. What if they are in two different continents? Courier iTwin device to the other person?

Wedding day is the biggest and the most special day in one’s life. The richie rich of the world splurging on their weddings beyond the commoners’ imagination per se is a reason enough to support that how special the wedding day is to the couple. However, a good wedding plan is very essential to carry forward the ceremony successfully.

Noa Gafni, the owner of Webutantes and the social media consultant came up with the idea of providing wedding plans on the web itself. This is a good move as many people literally hook themselves to the internet most of the time. Reaching them through the internet is perhaps the easiest way.

This move allows you to solicit tips from the experts, use tools to stay organized, seek advices and ideas. You can also share updates with your friends and family as well. Where to Get Engaged is another site wherein you can discuss how to pop the question on forums and blogs, watch real engagement videos and also find vendors even for rings and flowers. Should you prefer to avoid surprises, you can register in stealth mode. You can also create a blog to document your proposal.

OneWeb is another site that allows couple to seek out friends and family to share tips and offer advice. They also provide you a good Wedding Checklist. You can also plan your wedding through your Facebook profile now. Interestingly, Where to Get Engaged & Hearts on Fire are giving away a 1 Carat Hearts On Fire Diamond Ring worth over $12,500. To win this, you will either have to visit Heart’s on Fire’s profile or your favorite Hearts on Fire Retailer and add your 3 favorite Hearts on Fire pieces to your wishlist. Just do not forget to add your picture and “about me” to be eligible. I guess indeed, “Marriages are made in heaven.”

Via: OneWeb\BridalFever\Brides\WeddingChannel\Facebook\WheretoGetEngaged

According to a report published in the London Times, Asus, a Taiwanese company is soon to come up with their eReader called the ‘Eee Reader”. If the report is true, then Asus will provide two versions of their e-book, of which one will be the cheapest in the market, while the other one will also be relatively cheap. Besides the cheap price, Asus is also creating a book like e-Reader complete with hinged spine, like a printed book.

This will enable the readers to read an ebook much like the same they read a normal book. The users can use the touchscreen to turn the pages. If you wish to use the device as a laptop, then you can do so as it has one of its touchscreens that functions like a keypad. Asus will be available in full color.

It may also come with speakers, a webcam and a microphone for Skype so that you can use cheap phone calls on the internet. Asus also claims that its ebook reader will be much cleverer and more versatile than the current ones available from Sony and Amazon. According to Jerry Shen, the President of the company, their Eee Reader will be available by the end of this year.

Via: BestTabletReview\TimesOnline