FOR THE BLOGGER: Windows Live Writer

No doubt it is one of the best resources for bloggers. This is all about a new piece of software that enables you to keep updated your blog no matter if it's on Wordpress, TypePad or Blogger. One of it's best features is that it enables you to manage photos in order to change it's size, position within the text and to apply them a special effect, or any kind of effect. Moreover, it enables you to include categories, tags and the best part it helps you to correct spelling mistakes.

This new piece of software is the best option for professional and new bloggers!

Compatible JUST with Windows.

windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com

Mobile 3D!

Watch it now on this web page!

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6897316.ece

Windows 7 Vs. Apple

The launch of Windows 7 may dampen Apple's revenues in the short term, according to a recent analyst note from RBC Capital Markets, but in the long term the Mac franchise will remain hardy.

"We do not expect Microsoft's pending launch of Windows 7 … to erode Apple's Mac franchise," Mike Abramsky, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, wrote in an Oct. 20 research report. "The six-to-one domestic popularity of the 3GS iPhone over the $99 version to us illustrates consumer willingness to pay a premium for Apple innovation."

Apple posted a strong earnings report for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, reporting revenue of $9.87 billion and a quarterly profit of $1.67 billion. Buoying those numbers were strong sales of the iPhone 3GS, which moved 1 million units in the three days following its release in June, and 3.05 million Macs. The company's sales of Macs rose 17 percent year over year, while its laptop sales increased year over year by 35 percent.

Although Apple is a substantial presence in the portable media device and smartphonemarkets, some analysts see the potential for an eventual reversal in the company's fortunes. Brian Marshall, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech, suggested in an Oct. 12 research note that the carrier subsidies that Apple earns from the iPhone are unsustainably high in the long term.

But Abramsky said he sees a larger short-term threat to Apple from Microsoft and Windows 7, the launch of which, "along with expected positive reviews, publicity and marketing/promotions, may offer near-term headline risk to [Apple's] valuation."

Part of the short-term risk likely comes from the massive marketing push that Microsoft and its ecosystem partners have devoted to the Windows 7 launch. Given the variety of PCs priced lower than Macs, a market flooded with inexpensive, Windows 7-loaded product was predicted by analysts before the operating system's Oct. 22 debut in general release.

"It shouldn't surprise you that the PC deals will be strong," Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said in an e-mail to eWEEK before the launch. "Most of the inventory won't hit shelves (and they built a lot of it) until the 22nd and the hardware vendors will be doing whatever they can to move it … which should lead to some very aggressive system and bundle pricing."

Any change in Apple's share of the overall PC market will be watched closely over the next few quarters. Much of Apple's gains in the arena over the past few years likely came at the expense of Windows Vista, Microsoft's infamously bloated operating system; whether users who jumped into the Mac camp will decide to return to PCs, given the reported reliability of Windows 7, is a question certainly on the minds of both Apple and Microsoft executives.

A combination of refreshed Macs and products rumored to be in Apple's pipeline for 2010 could help mitigate the effect of Windows 7 on Apple's market share across various divisions. Apple's most recent earnings call saw company executives predicting a decline in gross margins for next quarter, a factor they attributed not to competitive pressures but a mix of rising air-freight costs, lower margins on new products and declining "Snow Leopard" sales as the market for that operating system reaches its saturation point.

Overall, Apple is predicting revenues of $11.3 billion for the holiday quarter. That suggests a company that could be affected, but not damaged, by a Microsoft resurgence.

Want to record your life?

Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives.

Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer's and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall

Interested in film?

In the past, movie studios relied heavily on focus groups, audience surveys and reviews by film critics to anticipate how their films would fare at the box office.
But recent months have underscored the influence of online word-of-mouth in a world where a Twitter comment can help break or make a movie.

"The writing is on the wall much quicker than ever before," said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of Nielsen Online's digital strategic services, which is one of the largest such services working with studios.
"If you know the dog's not going to hunt, at what point do you start to get more efficient and say, 'OK, we're not going to spend everything, maybe we save the marketing budget for DVD,'" Blackshaw said.

Online buzz drove "Paranormal Activity" to a $7.9 million box office in the U.S. and Canada last weekend, setting a record for a movie playing in less than 200 theaters. The low budget horror flick is now on its way to wider release.
But in July, the raunchy comedy "Bruno" gave a lesson in the perils of another kind of audience horror, as it suffered a sharper-than-usual box office drop after its opening following negative comments by individuals on Web sites like Twitter and Facebook.
But all was not lost. "Bruno," which made a disappointing $60 million at U.S. and Canada box offices, inspired a new service to measure online reaction to movies.

A creation of advertising firm Bradley and Montgomery, the outfit Fizziology puts out a weekly chart showing which movies are getting people talking.
Two days before the Paramount Pictures release "Paranormal Activity" opened in 160 movie theaters, the Fizziology Web chart showed it was generating more online buzz than such highly anticipated films as November's "Twilight" sequel "New Moon," and that people were saying good things.

"What's really cool about this is the fact that we're listening in and we're paying attention, and folks don't even necessarily know," said Ben Carlson, co-creator of Fizziology.
"When someone comes out of 'Paranormal Activity' and says, 'It was so scary I won't sleep again,' that's positive buzz."
Christine Birch, president of marketing at DreamWorks Studios, said marketers are increasingly taking into account what average moviegoers say online.

Rwanda Emerging!

Now that we are in a Globalized age, there are more and more countries trying to speed up to the tech-based society.

We are looking now to Rwanda, which is country located in central-east Africa and it is a third world country, but now it is catching up whith computer and network devices in rural areas where, believe it or not, some of the people did not knew what a computer was.

Korea, and Rwandan government are working together to start this new age in villages. Once a week there is a bus which has 11 laptops and network, for the Rwandans to start their learning whith computers and to make them join the Tech- Society.

The part that they are working in is to make the network, faster and more avilable, because it is not enough.
Also Government is working in giving courses, and 4 year degrees to it's people.

Now Rwanda has got a greater thing to celebrate than it's rise up from the 1990's genocide and "dark age"

As well as network, the Government is working to provide comunication with phones, it is expected comunication to be doubled for next year. We are watching a country in ashes rise up and go further for it's development.

RFID Tags

RFID Tags

RFID Tags stand for Radio Frequency Identification this kind of identification is applied or putted into a product, animal and even humans for its identification and tracking through radio waves.

Some of its uses are access management, tracking of goods, tracking of persons and animals, contactless payment, travel documents, smart dust, location-based services, tracking sports and to verify authenticity.

We have all had relation or used a RFID tag, while using credit cards, buying a car with GPS, etc. some of us have seen on the television sports that require time track on each competitors.

Many musical instruments are stolen every year. For example, a brand or vintage guitar is worth about $50,000 each. “Snagg”, a Californian company specializing in RFID microchips for instruments, has ensambled tiny chips in 30,000 Fender guitars already. The database of RFID chip IDs is made available to law enforcement officials, dealers, repair shops etc. This could be some of the best advantages on RFID devices; actually they are very useful in daily life

On the other hand, there are also concerns about the fact that, even after you leave the store, any RFID devices in the things you buy are still active. This means that a thief could walk past you in the mall and know exactly what you have in your bags, marking you as a potential victim. A thief could even circle your house with an RFID scanner and pull up data on what you have in your house before he robs it.

Military hardware and even clothing have RFID tags to help track each item through the supply chain. Some analysts are concerned that, if there are particular items associated with high-level officers, roadside bombs could be set to go off when triggered by an RFID scan of cars going by.

In some recent report it was revealed about some clandestine tests at a “Wal-Mart” store where RFID tags were putted in packages of lipstick, with scanners hidden on nearby shelves. When a customer picked up a lipstick and put it in the cart, the movement of the tag was registered by the scanners, which activated surveillance cameras. This allowed researchers to watch 750 miles away those consumers as they walked through the store, looking for related items.

In my opinion the disadvantages are heavier than the advantages, because it could be an attempt on human’s security. The clandestine test could have been taken to trial, because the “researchers” were violating this costumer’s privacy.

In addition the most important part of the disadvantages in RFID tags is that if they are putted into a human, for tracking him or her, is just not moral, even if they are conditionally free, there are other punishments or things governments could do instead of tracking a prisoner.

In conclusion there are bigger and important disadvantages in RFID and I think they should be eradicated from the society because of the struggles they might cause.

Sofia Hernandez Ortega

PERSONAL Supercomputer!

SGI has launched the new personal supercomputer which combines power and performance capabilities in a desk type computer with the usability of a workstation.

It is the machine of our dreams, because it measures one by two feet and whisper quiet operations, low maintenance requirements and can stand what a whole company claims for!

The new Octane III works at a speed of 80 high-performance cores and has got nearly 1 TB of memory. It is configurable, and offers a selection of performance, storage, graphics, GP-GPU and a range of networking options.

Octane III is now selling with different configurations such as: ten dual-socket, quad-core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based nodes; one dual-socket, quad-core Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based workstation with advanced NVIDIA graphics and/or GP-GPU card support; nineteen single-socket, quad-core Intel Xeon processor 3400 series-based nodes; and nineteen single-socket, dual-core Intel Atom processor-based nodes.

The Octane III ships as a pre-integrated platform with HPC application support for out-of-the-box experience and works with Microsoft HPC Server 2008, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems. Linux configurations include SGI ProPack and ISLE cluster management software.

Octane III is available with Intel Xeon processor 5500 series or Intel Atom configurations. Its price starts at $7995.

Key Terms (Hardware)

Bar code reader: for reading printed barcodes.

Cathode-ray tube monitor (CRT): vacuum tube to display an image on a screen.

CD-R: A compact-disk format that allows to record audio or other digital data in a permanent way.

CD-ROM: Data on a CD-ROM can only be read, not changed or altered.

CD-ROM drive: drive on which a CD-ROM can be `played'

CD-RW: is a rewritable optical disc format.

CD-RW drive: allows to read and write data to a CD.

Digital camera: a camera that encodes an image and store it for later reproduction.

Digitize: To convert to digital form.

Disk (Floppy disk): device to store information. It is in a hard square cover.

Disk drive: computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it.

Display: To present or hold up to view.

Dot matrix printer: a printer that represents each character as a pattern of dots from a dot matrix.

DVD: "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc"

DVD-ROM drive: They are read-only, which means they can read DVDs, but cannot alter or write to them.

Ergonomic keyboard: keyboard designed to minimize muscle strain.

Ergonomics: science that studies the relation between workers and their environments.

Facsimile (Fax) machine: a device that sends or receives pictures and text over a telephone line.

Fax modem: a modem with the capability of handling fax transmissions.

Fire Wire: digital interface that can transport data at very high speeds.

Flash memory: A rewritable memory chip that retains its data without a power supply

Graphics tablet handwriting recognition: the computer turns the handwriting into digital text.

Hard disk: used for the recording and retrieval of digital information.

Hot swap: To remove or replace a component while the computer is still running.

Impact printer: uses pressure to transfer the pigment on a ribbon to the substrate

Inkjet printer: propelling variably-sized droplets of ink onto almost any sized page.

Interface standards: connecting a computer to a printer or certain other devices over a parallel physical and electrical interface.

Joystick: A manual control or cursor device, as one attached to a computer or video.

Keyboard: the primary text input device, set of keys, on a computer terminal, word processor, typewriter, or piano.

Laser printer: printer that focuses a laser beam to form images that are transferred to paper electrostatically.

Line printer: printer that serves as an output device on a computer; prints a whole line of characters at a time.

Magnetic ink character reader: Ink containing magnetic particles to permit reading of printed characters by a magnetic character reader.

Magnetic tape: A sequential storage medium used for data collection, backup and archiving.

Monitor: 1--A device that accepts video signals from a computer and displays information on a screen; a video display.

2-- A program that observes, supervises, or controls the activities of other programs.

Mouse: device that controls the coordinates of a cursor on your computer screen as you move it around on a pad.

Multifunction printer (MFP): an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one.

Nonimpact printer: creates images on a substrate without striking it such as ink jet, photo copier, and laser printing device.

Optical character recognition (OCR): electronic identification and digital encoding of printed or handwritten characters by means of an optical scanner and specialized software.

Optical disc driver: any storage device that uses light or lasers to store or retrieve information.

Optical mark reader: A scanning device that can read marks such as pencil marks on a page; used to read forms and multiple-choice questionnaires.

Pen-based computer: computer that uses pattern-recognition software to enable it to accept handwriting as a form of input.

Photo printer: A printer specialized for smaller prints such as 4x6" and 5x7".

Plotter: A device that uses one or more pens that can be raised, lowered and moved over the printing media to draw graphics or text.

Pointing stick (TrackPoint): A small knob found in the middle of some keyboards that works like a very short isometric joytick. Pressing it toward or away from you or from side to side moves the pointer on the screen.

Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal: terminals that are combined with cash registers, bar code readers, optical scanners and magnetic stripe readers for accurately and instantly capturing the transaction.

Printer: output device that reproduces data on paper or another medium.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tag: the use of an object applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves.

RFID reader: a device that is used to interrogate an RFID tag.

Random access: the ability to access an arbitrary element of a sequence in equal time.

Removable cartridge media: A hard disk that has a self-contained casing, can be removed from the drive, and has greater storage capacity than floppy disks.

Repetitive-stress injuries: injuries that happen when too much stress is placed on a part of the body, resulting in inflammation, muscle strain, or tissue damage.

Resolution: the number of pixels per square inch on a computer-generated display; the greater the resolution, the better the picture.

Scanner: an electronic device that generates a digital representation of an image for data input to a computer.

Sensor: A device or organ that detects certain external stimuli and responds in a distinctive manner.

Sequential access: An access method in which records are read from, written to, or removed from a file based on the logical order of the records in the file.

Solid-state storage: is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data.

Sound card: A computer hardware device used for generating and capturing sounds.

Storage device: a device that preserves information for retrieva.

Tape drive: a data storage device that reads and writes data stored on a magnetic tape.

Touch screen: a computer display that enables the user to interact with the computer by touching areas on the screen.

Touchpad (trackpad): a pointing device consisting of specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers.

Trackball: an electronic device consisting of a rotatable ball in a housing; used to position the cursor and move images on a computer screen.

Universal serial bus (USB): is a serial bus standard to connect devices to a host computer.

Video projectors: Device used to project video images onto a screen.

ICofee (MyStarbucks)

Knowing technology is faster than a leopard hunting his pray, IPhone and Starbucks are now engaged into a new revolutionary way of buying coffee and commerce through phones.

Before it was such a waste of time to buy a gift card, charging credit in it and giving it to a friend. Now, IPhone and Starbucks Coffee present you "The myStarbucks application" a way to make easier for java junkies to get their fix and to buy coffee without cash and paying it just by scanning a code!

This new application has a slew of features that make it easier to remember your friend’s favorite drinks and to locate nearby Starbucks stores.

This application also has memory that remebers your favourite coffe and the best thing is that you can sen it to your friends!

Such as, you want to get the coffee ready for your boss but you don't have time to go to the Starbucks and grab him a coffee, so the good news is that you can send the recipie and when you want the coffee to be ready to the "copy guy" who is not as bussy as you.

But if everybody is BUSSY, and your boss needs the coffee now or he will fire you... you can send the request with your recipie to the nearest Starbucks and it's for sure they will have your coffee right on time.

If you don't know what are you going to drink, there is an option wich has flavour variety and helps you to build your own recipie.

The Starbucks card app is a test only, said the company; seems it is only working in the west coast of the USA.

What is the next step for the phone-based commerce?

SOFIA HERNANDEZ ORTEGA