WiMax Forum certifies first batch of gear

The WiMax Forum reached a long-awaited goal Thursday, putting its first four seals of approval on a batch of products that use the new wireless broadband technology.

The products include base stations, a base station reference design and a customer equipment reference design for fixed WiMax. This initial form of the technology, based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard, is designed as a wireless alternative to broadband services such as DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and cable modem for homes and businesses. It should deliver at least 1M bps (bit per second) of throughput to each subscriber. Another version of WiMax, currently envisioned for certifications by the end of this year, ultimately will allow mobile use.

Riya Photo Search

Riya, which hosts a photo search service based on face and text recognition, announced Thursday that its service will be available to the public from February 6.
The service on the company's site at Riya.com is currently available only to a few users who are testing the service.

Firefox hits 20 percent mark in Europe

A European web metrics firm reports that Firefox has more than 20 percent of the European browser market share. If the numbers are accurate, it's good news for Mozilla.

French web metrics firm XiTi says that on a recent weekend, a sample of 32.5 million web site visits showed that Firefox has passed the 20 percent market share figure in Europe. The percentage of Firefox users was highest in Linux creator Linus Torvalds' homeland of Finland, where usage hit 38.4 percent. Firefox is also popular in Slovenia (35.6 percent) and Germany (30.3 percent). In contrast, Ukraine, Belgium, and Denmark sit at the bottom with 9.5 percent, 10.2 percent, and 10.4 percent, respectively.

Google tries to patent single-click calling on mobiles

In a scenario a bit reminiscent of the infamous Amazon.com Inc. single-click patent, a Google Inc. researcher has filed a patent application for technology that would allow mobile phone users to single click on an advertisement on a Web page and be connected via a voice call to the advertiser.

Wi-Fi comes

An industry group seeking common ground on the emerging IEEE 802.11n high-speed wireless LAN specification has agreed on a compromise proposal that may form the basis of a final standard.
The 802.11n standard is intended to be the next step up in wireless LANs, offering real throughput of more than 100 megabits per second and support for multiple VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and video streams.

Oracle and Sun team up to provide .Net alternative

Oracle and Sun are teaming up to provide a "standards-based" alternative to .NET with Solaris 10 and Fusion middleware.
Solaris 10 and Fusion middleware are both relatively impressive technologies with a lot of value, but does that justify the cost and the interoperability limitations that afflict these somewhat isolated platforms? Fusion is an end-to-end solution for developing, deploying, and managing extensible service-oriented application architectures. It is virtually unbreakable, but the price is steep. Solaris 10 provides extreme reliability but it is still very expensive if you run it on Sun's hardware.

Googles' latest

Google is making Google Talk messaging service available for Blackberry users in second quarter.

Google has also announced Google Pack beta, a free collection of safe, useful software from Google and other companies that looks to improve the user experience online and on the desktop. Right now it is only available for Windows XP.

Google Pack offers programs like Adobe Reader 7, Ad-Aware SE Personal, GalleryPlayer HD Images, Google Desktop, Google Earth, Google Pack Screensaver, Google Talk, Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition, Picasa, RealPlayer and Trillian.

Tamil Internet Browser Launched

A Tamil internet browser, Valaiyodi, that promises to help rural people understand the hundreds of millions of Web pages, has been developed by R. Duraipandian, software engineer, Panacea Dream Weavers Software (Chennai).

Distributed free-of-cost, Valaiyodi is designed to translate English data on Web sites into Tamil. However Duraipandian warns that the translation would be only 70 percent accurate, and that his company is in the process of making the browser more accurate.

Apple's cellular offering

The ROKR didn't rock, leaving some to wonder if Apple was saving its best effort for another phone. A new trademark filed for by Apple points in that direction.
Last week, Apple filed four applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for the term "Mobile Me."
At last week's CES, Motorola officially dumped Apple with its new ROKR E2 phone and its new iRadio digital music service.

Microsoft readies 'NXT' to take on Unix

Microsoft is preparing a new marketing campaign aimed at convincing users to switch from Unix-based to Microsoft platforms. Is it just hot air, or is there any substance behind the effort?

GPL 3 is coming

The General Public License is getting long in the tooth, and the time has come to give it an overhaul. Why should you care, and what changes can you expect?

Macworld 2006

The big event in the Apple world is this week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, and Mac fans everywhere are eagerly awaiting whatever products Steve Jobs has up the sleeves of his black turtleneck.
A blow-by-blow account of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' opening keynote.

Vodafone, Sony Ready Mobile Music Service

After launching a streamed mobile TV service, Vodafone Group is poised to introduce a new streamed music offering, in a move to boost revenue beyond its core telephony business.
Service will stream personalized music channels to handsets or computers.

Yahoo, Sheraton team up on Wi-Fi

Yahoo Inc. is getting into the Wi-Fi hotspot business along with Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, but the partners aren't stopping there.

In a trial announced Monday, the companies are setting up their own virtual and physical spaces -- localized Web portals as well as lounges -- in a few U.S. Sheraton hotels.

Microsoft study finds Linux to have no advantage on older hardware

JotSpot melds spreadsheets to Wikis

The Excel spreadsheet is getting an overhaul thanks to the guys who brought you Excite, the pioneering Internet search company.

Jotspot, a builder of applications that enable online collaborative authorship, has introduced a product that combines spreadsheet information with Wikis, a group of Web pages that allow any number of users to add or edit content.

JotSpot Tracker allows users to instantly update a spreadsheet, turning it into an interactive Website.

Mirus to ship desktops with preinstalled Linspire

Linspire and Mirus have teamed up to bring low-cost Linux desktop PCs to the masses. Designed specifically for optimal Linux compatibility, the Mirus Koobox line computers feature AMD processors and Linspire preinstallation. The Koobox systems, which start at US$299, will come with a variety of open source applications, including Firefox and OpenOffice.
Distributed exclusively via the Internet, the Koobox will have a hard time competing with companies like Dell and Apple.

Vista versus Mac OS X

Vista versus Mac OS X as told by David Pogue

On transparent window edges:

They're cool, sure; but exactly how many times, in your work life, have you muttered, "Darn! If only I could see just the part of the background window that's currently obscured by the 1/3-inch margin of the foreground window"?

On widgets:

It's a lot like the Dashboard in Mac OS X (or the shareware Konfabulator that came before it), except that apparently, you can't put the widgets anywhere on the screen you like.

On the 3-D application switcher:

It's a lot like the Exposé feature in Mac OS X, except that you don't get to see all of the windows simultaneously; you have to walk through them one at a time with the mouse or keyboard.

On Vista's speedy file system searching capabilities:

Vista can now find words in any of your files, quickly and easily, just like the Spotlight feature of Mac OS X.

On Vista's photo editing:

Some limited photo editing is now built into Vista's photo browser, which couldn't look more like Apple's iPhoto program if you ran it through a copying machine.

Sansa e270 pitted against iPod

Computer memory company Sandisk on Thursday introduced a collection of tiny digital music players and said it plans to challenge Apple Computer for dominance in the "flash" memory player market.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sandisk introduced a 6GB player made with flash memory--chips that are smaller and lighter than hard disk drive technology memory and also have no moving parts. The Sansa e270 player is expected to cost about $300.
Sandisk said it intends to take on Apple, whose hot-selling iPod Nano device also uses flash memory. Apple's largest-capacity Nano is 4GB and costs $249.
Sandisk has about 29 percent of the flash category market, while Apple has about 49 percent, said The NPD Group, an industry research firm.

SecureSpot DI-103: Internet security device

If you're looking for a way to protect your PC from viruses that doesn't involve using resource-hogging security software, D-Link has a simple solution. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the networking vendor launched its SecureSpot DI-103 Internet security device, which it says protects PCs from viruses, spam, and spyware.
The 1-inch-thick appliance occupies about 16 square inches of desk space and is essentially a custom version of the company's DI-102 VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) accelerator, according to Michael Scott, technical media manager with D-Link.
LAN users can install the device between their broadband modem and their router; in addition, they can take it on the road and use it with a laptop, D-Link said. The DI-103 works with Windows and Mac OS X clients, and D-Link expects to support Linux PCs within the next few months.
Users must install the antivirus and antispyware software on their PCs; the DI-103 itself does pop-up blocking and spam filtering. Users can configure the security device as a firewall and use it to control which Web sites computers on the network can view.

Motorola iRadio

Motorola Inc., after nearly a year of vague pronouncements, unveiled Tuesday an ambitious music radio service for cell phones that also plays over car and home stereos.
Motorola iRadio, featuring 435 channels, would be sold by wireless service providers to their subscribers for between $7 and $10 per month -- a few dollars cheaper than the satellite radio networks that would be among the phone-based service's immediate rivals.
No wireless carriers have signed on yet to carry iRadio, which may also be adapted for non-Motorola phones if carriers request it, company officials said.
In some ways, iRadio more closely resembles a vast "podcast" network rather than a traditional radio broadcast.
Motorola expects about 90 percent of its content to be loaded on phones from the Internet over a personal computer, rather than broadcast over the air, in this case a cellular network. That would mean less of a strain on the limited capacity wireless operators have for mobile calls, e-mail and Internet services.

Kodak Unveils Dual-lens Digicam

Eastman Kodak Company has introduced the world's first dual-lens digital still camera, the Kodak Easyshare V570 zoom digital camera.
Using proprietary Kodak Retina Dual Lens technology, the V570 wraps an ultra-wide angle lens (23 mm) and an optical zoom lens (39 - 117 mm) into a package less than an inch thick.
The innovative Easyshare V570 camera's ultra-wide angle lens coupled with its optical zoom lens produces a total 5X optical zoom range, providing more options to help today's picture takers capture the perfect shot - group photos, scenic landscapes, dramatic portraits, and close-ups.
In addition to its dual lens design, the 5-megapixels V570 camera boasts a variety of features like in-camera panorama stitching, which automatically combines three pictures into a panorama photograph. Using the ultra-wide view in panorama scene mode, people can take in a 180-degree vista with just three shots - an industry exclusive.
The V570 has a 2.5-inch, high-resolution LCD screen, color science image processing chip for image quality, automatic red-eye reduction, on-camera cropping, picture blur alert and auto picture rotation.
Features also include twenty-two scene modes plus three color modes; photo frame dock 2, which provides one-touch picture transfer to a connected computer; 32 MB of internal memory; and an SD card slot for additional storage.
The Kodak Easyshare V570 zoom digital camera with Photo Frame Dock 2 will be available worldwide, beginning later this month for $399.