Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

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The browser company which has been taking a bit of hit these days in its main offering has come up with hottest mobile phone concept 'Seabird'.

The device aims to address some of the frustrations people have when interacting with small devices.

"While mobile CPUs, connectivity and development platforms begin approaching that of desktops, the lagging ability to efficiently input information has grown ever more pronounced," he wrote in a blog post describing the phone. The post includes videos--one in 3D--with a rendering of the concept phone.

Seabird has two pico projectors. When placed in a dock it uses one of them to project the screen on a nearby wall for easier viewing and the other to project a full-size, virtual keyboard on the table where it sits. A user can then type on the virtual keyboard instead of a tiny on-screen or physical keyboard on the phone.

A small Bluetooth dongle fits into a slot on the back of the phone. It can be popped out and used as an earpiece. Or, users can wave the dongle in space to move a cursor on the phone screen, clicking the dongle to select an item on the screen. May says it lets users "pan and zoom in 3D space."

The dual pico projectors, located on the sides of the phone, could also be used without the dock to project half a keyboard each -- one on each side of the phone. "The Seabird, on just a flat surface, enables netbook-quality interaction by working with the projector's angular distortion to deliver interface, rather than content," May wrote.

Seabird features other standard smartphone components like an 8-megapixel camera, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and a mini-USB port. May envisions that it can be charged wirelessly. It is built on Android and has an unusual shape. With a flat face and no physical buttons, it tapers to just a sliver at the bottom, with a bulge protruding from the top at the back. That bulge elevates the projector lenses enough to project an image onto the surface that the phone sits on.

While Mozilla says it has no intention of developing a phone like it, the technologies in it are either already available or not terribly far-fetched.

Here's the video:

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That's a million dollar question! Undoubtely Internet Explorer 9 beta is the one of the major releases of IE since long time. With this Microsoft gave away cluttered User Interface and seems to be following route of other browsers with adherence to Web standards.

IE9 is a crucially important browser for Microsoft, and hopefully it eventually will represent the future on mobile devices, too. Microsoft needs to be as competitive, if not more, in mobile browsing as PCs. According to the U.S. State Department, 5 billion of the world's 6.6 billion people use cell phones. The total install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Granted, the percentage of PCs capable of browsing the Web is higher than the percentage of handsets.

For now, Microsoft must recover lost territory on PCs. According to Net Applications, Internet Explorer usage share was 60.4 percent in August. Before Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 in November 2004, IE commanded more than 90 percent usage share, according to combined analyst reports.

The excitement and efforts around IE9 gives encouragement. Will it be IE9 for Microsoft?

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Last month, Nokia India tweeted that Nokia C3 will hit the market mid september, and today, it has announced via Twitter again that the Nokia C3 has hit the stores. The affordable messaging phone, the Nokia C3 comes with a full QWERTY keypad and optimized social networking feature. The Nokia C3 with its different color options and its Home screen featuring social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter will surely attract those who want to always get connected with their Facebook and Twitter account.

As a phone, the Nokia C3 is a series40 device which sports a 2.4-inch QVGA (240 x 320) TFT non-touchscreen. It has Wi-Fi apart from EDGE and Bluetooth v2.1 connectivity but there is no 3G and GPS which may be a deal-breaker for some. The Nokia C3 phone also comes with a 2MP camera with fixed focus lens and no LED flash. Video is recorded at QVGA resolution. The phone has a 3.5mm stereo headphones jack and it play most standard audio and video files. There is also a Stereo FM radio.

The Nokia C3 weighs 114g including the Li-Ion 1320 mAh battery which has a rated talk time of up to 7 hours. The Nokia C3 is available at all Nokia Priority Dealers and it is priced at Rs. 7,200.

via pcworld

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I found this interesting video of how actually a USB Flash drive is made. It is pretty interesting and elaborates the process. The video depicts trip to Kingston Production Plant. Must watch!

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Now that Microsoft and Yahoo have joined hands, Yahoo will be powered by Bing in US and Canada. This is the sign for more positive things coming in near future.
As a proof of correction, Nielsen says its search data only counts "genuine intentional searches" that users type into a search box, and does not include contextual searches that are automatically generated by search engines based on browsing behavior. However, other US search-measuring groups, including comScore, Experian Hitwise, and StatCounter, still show Yahoo in second place and Bing in third.

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US web surfers, the best of all as many say are spending more time on Facebook than Google according to research conducted at comScore Inc.

In August, people spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, comScore said, about 9.9 per cent of their Web-surfing minutes for the month. That just barely surpassed the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 per cent, people spent on all of Google Inc's sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail email program, Google news and other content sites.
In August of last year, Web surfers spent less than 5 per cent of their online time on Facebook, about the same percentage of their time on Google and almost 12 per cent on Yahoo. In August 2007, Facebook captured less than 2 per cent of US surfers' total minutes. Google accounted for less than 4 per cent, and Yahoo for just over 12 per cent.

Is searching loosing its mark with more people remain connected online?
Well the answer will soon be clear. I myself finds most authentic information on twitter rather than on news sites.

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM team has reached a key milestone as it releases the beta of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, for both cloud-based and on-premises deployments.

Announced today, it is available for download and testing in eight languages (English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese) and 36 markets, this release marks the first global public beta for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
Additionally, beta for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premises is available in 40 markets in eight languages.
Additionally, the all new Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace online catalog (also announced at WPC) will be released as a beta later this month and will offer customers and partners a searchable and filterable catalog of more than 700 applications and professional services. This service will offer partners an easy way to market and distribute solutions to Microsoft Dynamics customers and customers a convenient way to find solutions that meet their business needs.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers the Power of Productivity through familiar, connected and intelligent experiences for users inside and outside an organization.

* Familiar experiences through a next-generation native Microsoft Outlook client, Microsoft Office contextual CRM Ribbon, RoleTailored design and user personalization
* Intelligent experiences through guided process dialogs, inline data visualizations, performance and goal management, and real-time dashboards
* Connected experiences through cloud development, Windows Azure integration, contextual Microsoft SharePoint document repositories, teamwork and collaboration, and the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace
To try out the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta or sign up for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online beta visit http://www.crm2011beta.com/.

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What is in WebMatrix?

WebMatrix is a 15MB download (50MB if you don’t have .NET 4 installed) and is quick to install. The 15MB download includes a lightweight development tool, IIS Express, SQL Compact Edition, and a set of ASP.NET extensions that enable you to build standalone ASP.NET Pages using the new Razor syntax, as well as a set of easy to use database and HTML helpers for performing common web-tasks. WebMatrix can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.

Note: Razor support within ASP.NET MVC applications is not included in this first beta of WebMatrix – it will instead show up later this month in a separate ASP.NET MVC Preview - which will also include Visual Studio tooling support for it.

Getting Started with WebMatrix

WebMatrix is a task-focused tool that is designed to make it really easy to get started with web development. It minimizes the number of concepts someone needs to learn in order to get simple things done, and includes and integrates all of the pieces necessary to quickly build Web sites.

When you run WebMatrix it starts by displaying a screen like below. The three icons on the right-hand side provide the ability to create new Web sites – either using an existing open-source application from a web application gallery, from site templates that contain some default pages you can start from, or from an empty folder on disk:

Download Now: http://bit.ly/cxrPG0

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Today, Google has launched its latest update to search technology. It has improved the original Web search tool that formed the foundation of its business. Google has introduced Instant Search. Instant Search does away with the need to hit enter when you search. As you type, Google will automatically search. Search results are updated as you type.


This new feature allows you to scan the results as you type, refining your search terms when you don’t see what you want.

This means you can perform faster searches, and less time waiting for the page to refresh.
Google claims that the new Instant Search can save an average users between two and five seconds per search. With Google’s massive user base that’s a combined 3.5 billion seconds per day, meaning in all, a lot of time saved.
As with most Google tools, Google Instant is not being introduced to everyone all at once, it’s being gradually introduced to users in the U.S. over the next days, and to the rest of the world over the next week.
You can turn Instant results on and off by simply clicking on the “instant” drop-down menu which is located next to the search box, right above the “safe search” menu.
This new feature allows users to search easier and faster. A video from Google states that Google Instant has been introduced, “so you can think less about what you search, and more about what you find.”
 
Note: The article is reproduction of Damego article

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I spend most of my day checking the analytics of the website and how it has done in recent past. I am quite impressed with the results.

Here is the summary of my findings:

1. Top most site on both Bing and Google with key word "saumya aggarwal"

2. Top most referring sites Facebook and MeraWindows

3. Top traffic destinations

4. Last Month page views - 1000

Thanks a lot readers for all this. Based on the analysis, I have figured out key areas of improvement and this will help me to come up with better offerings.

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Freecharge.in is new service that enables users to recharge prepaid mobile phones in India. Major telecom companies are on its list. It has been launched by Mumbai-based Accelyst Solutions. According to the company, its offering is unique in the sense that the amount paid by the user for recharge is returned in the form of shopping coupons of some of the top retailers in India, thereby making the recharge virtually free.

If a user recharges his prepaid connection for Rs 100 by paying for it online on FreeCharge.in, he will also receive discount coupons worth Rs 100 that he can avail at any of the listed retailers. Currently, FreeCharge.in is offering coupons of McDonald’s and Barista. FreeCharge.in is also planning to add more coupons of renowned restaurants, multiplexes, apparels and grocery stores.

Kunal Shah, managing director, Accelyst Solutions, has said, “The potential of ecommerce in India cannot be doubted, though the lack of successful ecommerce companies in India mostly owes to the fact that companies do not invest enough resources in gaining insight about consumer behaviour. At FreeCharge we have taken this challenge head on and are constantly working towards improving user experience.”

Its new age concept, I think its worth trying!

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The UI is attractive and people can find similarity between Pulse and Facebook. The clear target audience is Facebook users and why not when Yahoo may tap large online users. Not only that Facebook addict, people playing popular games like Farmville will soon join Yahoo App.

I think its a good move and consolidation was very much needed. I hope it will bring some cheers to Yahoo!