Games 'to outsell' music, video

UK sales of games will outstrip music and video for the first time in 2008, says a report from Verdict Research. Read More

Google abandons deal with Yahoo

Google has decided to abandon its advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid having a "protracted legal battle" with regulators. Read More

How Did Your Computer Crash?

ANYONE who uses a computer knows what it’s like to have the system crash. Crashes are the digital world’s addition to that short list of inevitables, death and taxes. But what if you could record the crash and play it back, like TiVo for software? That idea inspired two software engineers, Jonathan Lindo and Jeffrey Daudel, to figure out such a product. They have succeeded, and are now moving from the niche market where they proved the idea and onto a bigger stage. System crashes and other software flaws are more than an annoyance. A 2002 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology estimated that software flaws cost the United States economy as much as $59.5 billion a year. For software developers, the flaws that cause crashes rank among their biggest problems, especially the ones that can’t be reproduced, like the proverbial noise in the car engine that disappears when you visit the mechanic. Read More

Strangest Clock!

A £1m clock called the "time eater" has been unveiled at Cambridge University by Professor Stephen Hawking. The author of A Brief History of Time was guest of honor when the unique clock, which has no hands or numbers, was revealed at Corpus Christi College.

Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut into its face which light up to show the time. Its creator John Taylor said he "wanted to make timekeeping interesting". The Corpus Clock will stand outside the college's library and will be on view to the public.

Dr Taylor is an inventor and horologist - one who studies the measurement of time - and was a student at Corpus Christi in the 1950s. He has given the clock as a gift to his former college. The grasshopper or "chronophage", meaning "time eater", advances around the 4ft-wide face, each step marking a second. Its movement triggers blue flashing lights which travel across the face eventually stopping at the correct hour and minute. But the clock is only accurate once every five minutes - the rest of the time the lights are simply for decoration." Read More

Technology For You: Japan tops world broadband study

Only Japan has the broadband quality to cope with next-generation internet applications, a new study has revealed. Sweden and the Netherlands have Europe's best broadband, according to the 42-nation study sponsored by internet equipment maker Cisco Systems.

The UK, Spain and Italy fell just below the quality threshold for today's web. The study aims to highlight each nation's ability to cope with next-generation web applications such as high-quality video streaming. It was carried out by a team of MBA students from the Said Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics.

They developed a "Broadband Quality Score" for each nation based on internet speed both downloading and uploading, the loss of packets of data and latency - a measure of the delays in information routing. The study focused on countries in Europe, North America, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Brazil, Russia, India and China (Brics).

Their research found that more than half of those countries had broadband connections good enough to deliver consistent quality for most common web applications today. Researchers put the success of Sweden and the Netherlands in Europe down to those countries' "increasing investments in fibre and cable network upgrades, coupled with competition diversity, and supported by strong government vision and policy". They said Japan's early commitment to investing in broadband made it the only country prepared to deliver the necessary quality for next-generation web applications over the next three to five years.
The study used nearly eight million records from broadband speed tests conducted by users around the world during May, 2008, through www.speedtest.net. Read More

The Google Chrome

Google is going to unveil its own open source browser with lot of new capabilites. Let's see what difference it can make :)
For those who are interested here's the link Msnbc
Check this link for google's comical book which explains the working of its browser Chrome

IE Update

One feature new to the release is the "smart address bar". Microsoft senior product manager James Pratt pointed out at that 80% of the time, internet users were visiting sites they had been to before. To address that, the new release archives visited sites based on their titles as well as their addresses. That means a search in the address bar for words and phrases will find previously visited sites, as well as bookmarks.

Another new set of features makes web searching easier; search terms entered in the search bar at the top of the browser now instantly display potential results in real time as the search term is typed. Results are shown from user-defined search engines and websites, with rich visual content. For websites with changing content, such as items on eBay or status pages on Facebook, IE8's Web Slices allows users to keep up with the content without going to the webpage directly, accessible through the Favourites bar. Read More

5 things your car will finally do in 2020

We'll spare you the far-future posturing and flying-car jokes, but the truth is -- for the 200 million automobile owners in America, the future looks bright. In fact, we've already made some pretty impressive headway. The 2008 Mercedes S-Class can change lanes on the highway automatically, and both the Toyota Prius and the Lexus LS-460 can self-park at the push of a button. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what's in the works. With eyes wide and mouths agape, we peeked under the curtain at the cars of the future. Here's what we can tell you about what you'll be driving in 2020.

1. Your car will predict the future: Self-parking cars are great and all, but there's a big difference between features of convenience and the kinds of safety technologies on the horizon. We're talking about cars that can see into the future and react on a dime -- whether that means detecting a person crossing the street or swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. Read More

The Invisibility Cloak

Scientists in the US say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible. Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them "disappear". The materials do not occur naturally but have been created on a nano scale, measured in billionths of a metre. The team says the principles could one day be scaled up to make invisibility cloaks large enough to hide people.
The findings, by scientists led by Xiang Zhang, were published in the journals Nature and Science. The new system works like water flowing around a rock, the researchers said. Because light is not absorbed or reflected by the object, a person only sees the light from behind it - rendering the object invisible. The new material produces has "negative refractive" properties. It has a multi-layered "fishnet" structure which is transparent over a wide range of light wavelengths. The research, funded by the US government, could one day be used in military stealth operations - with tanks made to disappear from the enemies' sight. Read More

Robots learn to move themselves

Researchers in Leipzig have demonstrated software designed for robots that allows them to "learn" to move through trial and error. The software mimics the interconnected sensing and processing of a brain in a so-called "neural network". Armed with such a network, the simulated creatures start to explore. In video demonstrations, a simulated dog learns to jump over a fence, and a humanoid learns how to get upright, as well as do back flips.Ralf Der at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences has also applied the software to simulated animals and humans. The only input to the network is the types of motion that the robot can achieve; in the case of a humanoid, there are 15 joints and the angles through which they can move. No information about the robot's environment is given. The network then sends out signals to move in a particular way, and predicts where it should end up, based on that movement. If it encounters an obstacle such as itself, a wall or the floor, the prediction is wrong, and the robot tries different moves, learning about itself and its environment as it does so. "In the beginning, we just drop a robot into a space. But they don't know anything, so they don't do anything," Professor Der said. The neural network eventually picks up on electronic noise, which causes small motions. Read More

Torrents

It would be really great if we could download almost anything absolutely free of cost. Fortunately, we have that option now.
Keep in mind that it is certainly ILLEGAL.
The technology which helps us do this is called p2p or torrents. You should download a client software like Utorrent or Azureus. After installing it, you have to get a torrent file of what you want to download. Websites for torrent files are also available, even search engines.
Eg:- http://thepiratebay.org, http://torrentz.com etc
So you need to take this site, search what you want to download and you'll get a small file which is the torrent file. Next you need to open this file with the above mentioned client software like utorrent. That's it!!!!!!

PS: Always be aware that this post is meant for information purposes only. it is ILLEGAL to download using torrents.

VLC Media Player

Looking for a media player that can play all files? Here's your answer... yah, its VLC media player. We normally use windows media player, but you would need to install separate codecs to play files like DIVX, MOV,MP4 etc. But just install VLC and you can play almost all files and it's light weight won't take much time to download and the best thing -- its free.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Mini Windows Media Player

Small version of Windows Media player can be obtained by right clicking the task bar and selecting Windows Media Player from Toolbars. After which when you minimize the media player you'll get a mini media player with all the necessary functions.

Lock Windows XP

If your computer uses Windows XP and if it's password protected and if you want to lock your computer, just press Window key + L. You'll need to re-enter the password to log in again.

Word

Picture this: you’re working on a big document and you’re making some adjustments just on page 17, but you forgot something you needed on page one. So, what do you do? You end up scrolling all the way back up to the first page. Once you find what you needed, you have to go all the way back down to page 17. Here’s a quick way to solve that conundrum. Simply hold down the Shift key and press F5. The cursor will automatically jump to the exact place where the cursor was before you moved it. Now, even better. You’re still on page 17 and you save and close the document. When you re-open it, the cursor will be at the very top of the first page. Press Shift+F5 again and you’ll immediately jump right back to where you were on page 17.

Here's what you do when you want to just snag a picture fast

drag & drop it to the desktop . Just left-click the picture, keep your mouse button down, then plop it onto your desktop. So easy. Of course, if your browser is maximized and you can't see your desktop this isn't going to work.

Select All

To select it all, use Ctrl + A. This keyboard shortcut will do the exact same thing. Just click once on the page you want to copy, press Ctrl and A at the same time and poof, it's done!

Internet Explorer

Use the End key. Hit it once and you'll be whisked away to the bottom of any Web page, any document, any file, etc. Also, if you're working with some shorter text, the End key sometimes takes you the end of a line, which is also helpful and a much faster way of doing things.

Filter Keys

To change the way Windows handles any repeated keystrokes on your keyboard, you'll need to use the FilterKeys feature. To get there, go to Start, Control Panel and click on the Accessibility Options link. Click Accessibility Options again and then go under the Keyboard tab. In the middle, you will see the FilterKeys area. Checkmark the box that says "Use FilterKeys" to activate it. You can then click on the Settings button to add your own preferences to it.

Want to send an entire webpage as an e-mail attachment?

If you use Ms Outlook, first, enable HTML mail: Select Tools, Options, Mail Format, choose HTML in the 'Compose in this message format' list, and click OK. Then, Browse to the page in Internet Explorer and select File, Send, Page by E-mail.

MS Word

The Work menu in MsWord is a menu that stores links to documents that you choose. It can be used to store links to whatever files you choose, regardless of how long it's been since you've actually used the file.

Web browsers often save files you download in to their default directories without prompting you for information

If this happens to you, or if you just forget where you downloaded a particular file to, try using "Find Files or Folders..." option from your "Start Menu." Rather than looking for a name, look for any file that was saved ("Date Modified" tab) within the amount of time it took you to complete the download.

To create a shortcut that will open your default e-mail program starting a new e-mail

right click on an open area of the desktop; Select New/ Shortcut; for the Command Line, enter mailto: for the title enter something like New E-Mail. When you click on this your default e-mail program should start with a new e-mail form.

Navigation Tips

You can make the cursor move faster. If you hold an arrow key down (try the left arrow key or the right arrow key first), the cursor will keep moving quickly.Now, if you hold the Ctrl key down on your keyboard and then 'hit' the right arrow key or the left arrow key, the cursor will jump to the next word (or sentence, etc.) instead of the next letter. Each time you hit the arrow key once, with the Ctrl key held down, it will jump to the next space

Formatting

Ever feel overwhelmed by all the formatting you've applied to your MS Word document? Want to strip the text of all the special formatting and start completely over so you can create consistent formatting throughout the document? Here's how to start afresh this New Year: First, open the Task Pane to Styles and Formatting if it's not already displayed. (Format menu, Styles and Formatting choice). Now, select the entire document (Ctrl + A). With the text selected, choose Clear Formatting from the Task Pane.

Explorer Tips

To quickly have Explorer expand all subfolders for a selected drive or folder, simply press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad.

Spell Check

Spell check in Excel has a host of different options: If you have the formula bar selected, start the spell check (Tools menu, Spelling choice or F7). Excel will only check the contents of the formula bar, leaving the rest of the worksheet untouched. If spell check is started with a range of cells selected, only the cells in the selected range will be checked. To check an entire worksheet, select any cell and start the spell check. Finally, to check multiple worksheets, first select the sheet tabs for all of the worksheets. (Use the Shift key or Ctrl key with the mouse to select all the sheets). Now, start the spell check.

If you need to get a screen shot, and you do not have a screen capture program, try this

Hit the Print Screen key. This copies a bitmap of the full screen into the Windows clipboard.- Start up a graphics editor (like Ms Paint) and paste it in.

Have trouble editing hyperlinks with the mouse in your MS Excel worksheets?

The easiest way is: click and hold the mouse button down on the cell with the link. After a couple of seconds, you'll notice the cursor change into a plus sign and then you're free to release the mouse button. You'll find that the cell has been selected without activating the link. Then use the F2 key or the Formula bar to edit the text.

Find Files

If you need to find a file, click on the taskbar, an Explorer folder, or the desktop, and tap the F3 key. The "Find Files/Folders" dialog will instantly appear.

Programs

Go to Start/Run and you'll see a box. If a program is in the Window's folder or System32, you can launch it by typing in the name.

Notepad anyone? Type in "notepad". Explorer? Type in "explorer". How about Paint? That's a little trickier: type in "MSpaint". And for calculator, type in "calc". For an on-screen keyboard type "osk".

MS Excel

In Ms Excel, to break up a long cell entry into separate lines, position the cursor where you want a new line to start and press Alt+Enter.
Excel will expand the row to accommodate wrapping lines of text. Press Enter to complete the entry.

Navigation

You may know that pressing ALT-TAB switches between the current and last-used program or file, and holding it down lets you switch to any running program or file. Another useful method you can use is using ALT-ESCAPE.

MS Excel

Here are some quick highlighting tips for Ms Excel:
Hit Ctrl + Spacebar to select the entire column. Use Shift + Spacebar to select entire the row.

MS Excel

You can color-code sheet tabs in MsExcel for easier identification or grouping of related sheets. Here's how: Select the sheets you want to color by Press the CTRL key and click the tab(s) to select the sheets you want to color. Right-click the sheet tab and then click Tab Color. Select the color you want, and then click OK

Windows

To speed up your machine (Win98/2000/ME), but dull down its looks, right click the desktop, choose "Properties." Click the "Effects" button on the Appearance tab and uncheck items you can do without.

MS Excel

Ever have to create a column of formulas that are very similar? When you completed a copy/paste, were you upset to find that the cell references were changed during the paste? The ability to force Excel to perform an exact copy of the contents from the cell above your current location might just come in handy: To get an exact copy (no cell reference changes at all) of the cell directly above, simply use Ctrl + '. Select a cell, hit Ctrl + ' and poof, the contents of the cell above are duplicated immediately!

Fonts

If you’re picky about your fonts and want to know which look similar, go to Start, Settings/Control Panel, then double-click the Fonts icon. Click the View menu and choose List Fonts By Similarity. Select the font of interest in the window to see which others bear a likeness.

Web Form

When you're filling out a form that asks for your name, address, etc., you can use the Tab key to go from one line to the next. For example, if you're done filling in your name, hit the Tab key and your mouse cursor will automatically go down to the next line, which is probably where your address goes. You can do that throughout the whole form.

Navigation Tips

If you hold the Ctrl key down on your keyboard and then "punch" the right arrow key or the left arrow key, the cursor will jump to the next word (or sentence, etc.) instead of the next letter. If you hold the Ctrl key down and then hold down the right arrow key or the left Arrow key, the cursor will jump quickly from word to word. This is even faster than holding an arrow key down without the Ctrl key.

Windows Tips

Most commonly used file types such as text, bitmap, icon, document, etc., are associated with certain programs by default. If you want to use a program other than the currently associated one to open a particular file, hold SHIFT key and right click on the file. Select "Open With...". Select the program you want to use to open the current file Click on "OK".

Calculator

Did you know that you could paste equations and math symbols in the Windows 95 calculator? If you paste 5*4*3*2*1= into your calculator, it will give you the result - 5 factorial, or 120. This may be useful if you need to document your written math formulas in a Notepad or Word document - you only have to type in your formulas once.

MS Excel

Want to use the Find/Replace function in a multiple worksheet MS Excel file? Use either the Ctrl key or the Shift key in conjunction with the Sheet Tabs to select all the worksheets that need to be searched. Then start the Find /Replace feature (Ctrl + F or the Edit menu, Find choice).

MS Excel

To add an Ms Excel chart, select a cell in the data and hit F11. Double click to make any changes. If items are missing, right click over the area to be changed.

Scroll

For either the horizontal or vertical scroll bar, click a scroll arrow (at the end of the scroll bar) to move one row or column. To move one window up or down one screen height or width, just click outside the scroll box on the scroll bar. If you click below the scroll box on the vertical scroll bar, the window will shift down. If you click to the right of the scroll box on the horizontal scroll bar, it will shift right.

MS Excel

Do you want to change the number of decimal places displayed in one of your MS Excel cells? Use the two buttons located on the Formatting toolbar or in Excel 2007, they're on the Home ribbon, Number section. The button on the left will add decimal places to numbers in highlighted cells and the one on the right will reduce them. (As decimal places are reduced, the value displayed in the cell is rounded. The formula bar will have the exact value stored

MS Excel

A quick way to see all the formulae on your Ms Excel worksheet is to Touch CTRL+~ (tilde ~ character – upper left of keyboard). This is an ON/OFF toggle – touch CTRL/~ again and it brings the results back and hides the formulas. Another method is to select the Tools menu, select Formula Auditing and choose the Formula Auditing Mode.

MS Word

When a change occurs that you want to reverse (put back to the way you typed it) in MS Word as a result of the AutoCorrect feature, just put the mouse pointer over the changed item. A blue box will then appear again. Move the mouse pointer down over the box. The AutoCorrect symbol with a down arrow will appear. Click on the down arrow. Make your choice from the shortlist and the AutoCorrect changes can be reversed.

Task Manager

Want to get to the Task Manager without any key combinations? Double click any open spot on your task bar at the bottom of the desktop. Ta-da! An instant view of what your system is doing.

Copy

You could use CTRL + C to copy and CTRL + V to paste it in the new location. You can also just hold the CTRL key and click-drag the item to copy it to a new location.

Web Page Tips

Do you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page? Well, you shouldn't! Instead, use the End key.Hit it once and you'll be whisked away to the bottom of any Web page, any document, any file, etc. Also, if you're working with some shorter text, the End key sometimes takes you the end of a line, which is also helpful and a much faster way of doing things.