Microsoft Will Be Able to Compete with Google in Five Years - Softpedia

Microsoft Will Be Able to Compete with Google in Five Years - Softpedia: "Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, recently praised his company's efforts in the online struggle against Google and Yahoo, but didn't mention the moment when the Redmond company would be able to catch up with them.

According to Reuters, at a business luncheon in Silicon Valley, Ballmer said he did not enjoy trailing the two Web advertising leaders but predicted that persistence and the software maker's ability to create new technology would help it to catch up.

For the first time in the history of the battle between Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, Ballmer mentioned the period of time required by the software behemoth to breath in the necks of the other two.

'I don't think you will see some overnight transformation. It is going to have to be longer term. It makes sense for us to talk about five years,' Microsoft's CEO said."

Live.com Has A New Sign-In - Softpedia

'Live.com Has A New Sign-In - Softpedia: "After launching Windows Live Academic Search, aimed at finding and accessing academic essays and articles, Microsoft recently announced the availability of a new sign-in for Live.com.

As the Live.com development team blog says, the new sign-in offers a new experience for Windows Live sites like Live.com, Ideas, Mail, Expo, Favorites and Custom Domains.

The Redmond company has given up on its usual webpage design and adopted a simple and intuitive design, which has led to a significant decrease in the loading times.

Instead of creating new Live accounts, Microsoft preferred to allow users to employ their old Hotmail MSN and Passport accounts; in fact, those who will try to create new accounts will be redirected to MSN.

The Live.com team emphasizes that the new sign-in will significantly improve the experience and accepts the fact that in the past, the procedure was cumbersome."

Google Feels Threatened by Internet Explorer 7 - Softpedia

Google Feels Threatened by Internet Explorer 7 - Softpedia: "Although Google is the leader of the Internet searches, its market share being almost four times higher than MSN's, it has started to feel threatened by Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's new browsing solution.

It seems that the Mountain View giant has a problem with the search box in the upper-right corner, the default setting in IE7 being to search on MSN.

Google is accusing Microsoft of unfair practices because it limits the consumers' choices and obtains advertising incomes in an abusive way.

'The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services. We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose,' Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google, told The New York Times. "

Another N Phone from Nokia? - Softpedia

Another N Phone from Nokia? - Softpedia: "After new N series phones launched by Nokia last week, here is a new rumor about another N series phone.

This is N83, with a 5 megapixels video camera, quadband network and WiFi.
The handset will run on run the latest Symbian OS edition with Series 60 3rd edition interface and will have a 2.5 inches screen with 16 millions colors.

N83 can be used in Quadband network and will have support for VoIP due to the WiFi technology.
The design will be 'dual slider' and you can move the slider up and down. When the slider will be down, a media control panel will be revealed (on the top of the phone.)
For video telephony, a second VGA camera is present at the front of the phone.

It seems that the N83 will be available in Q1 2007."

Windows Live More Powerful, A9 Ditches Google - Softpedia

Windows Live More Powerful, A9 Ditches Google - Softpedia: "The reason why Google has accused Microsoft of unfair practices seems to be related more to the latest defeat suffered by the search engine, and not by the default setting in Internet Explorer 7.

After countless battles lost on the online realm, the software giant has scored an important victory against the Mountain View company, Amazon recently dropping the Google technology for the Windows Live one.

A9 Chief Executive David Tennenhouse told the Reuters news agency that Windows Live presented a 'very interesting, powerful Web search option'.

A9 got rid on Sunday of the online leader's technology, at that date, the contract between Amazon and Google having expired.

The decision of the largest online retailer comes shortly after Google complained that Internet Explorer 7 has MSN as its default searching option."

Apple Renews Contracts with Music Labels - Softpedia

Apple Renews Contracts with Music Labels - Softpedia: "Ever since the iTunes Music Store launched three years ago, the $0.99 price tag for all songs has been an important part in its success. With the contracts signed then nearing expiration date, and the record companies public statements regarding the fixed pricing method and their preference for variable pricing, it was clear that the renegotiation of the contracts would be a heated affair.

Job's position on this has been very clear all along, and it looks like he got his way, as Apple announced on Monday that it had renewed contracts with the four largest record companies and the price on songs has remained unchanged at $0.99 for any song."

16GB - The Biggest Storage Capacity of an USB Flash Drive - Softpedia

16GB - The Biggest Storage Capacity of an USB Flash Drive - Softpedia: "The Taiwanese PQI company will soon release a new 16 GB USB flash drive - U510 - which has the same size as a credit card (85mm x 54mm x 3mm).

Even if the new U510 is not the smallest USB flash-drive, as Kingmax has recently launched Super Stick, the device has the biggest storage capacity.

The design is also impressive, as you can see with your own eyes, but, because of all these remarkable features, the USB's flash drive price is estimated to be somewhere between $500 and $2000. "

Apple's 'Get a Mac' Campaign - Softpedia

Apple's 'Get a Mac' Campaign - Softpedia: "Apple has taken a new approach to marketing its Macs, with the new 'Get a Mac' campaign.

The new 'Get a Mac' section on the Apple web site replaces the old 'Switch' section, listing the reasons why a Mac might be better suited for you and your work, while also listing the old myths about Macs and why they are just that... myths.

In addition to the 'Get a Mac' section, Apple has also rolled out new 'Get a Mac' adds. The adds cover several topics and are named 'Viruses,' 'Restarting,' 'Better,' 'iLife,' 'Network,' and 'WSJ.'

With all the delays that keep coming up, and Vista still being too far on the horizon, and the growing mindshare as a result of both the iPod, iTunes, iTunes Music Store combo and Boot Camp, Apple seems to be set on turning that mindshare into market share and selling more Macs."

SecurID Won't Have Native Support in Windows Vista - Softpedia

SecurID Won't Have Native Support in Windows Vista - Softpedia: "The faith of the EFI booting, which had been promised for Windows Vista, but ended up as being postponed for Longhorn Server, could be shared by another implementation, this time aimed more at companies.

This time it's about the RSA Security's SecurID devices, about which Bill Gates had announced that they would be easily integrated in Windows.

The SecurID authentication mechanism consists of a 'token', a piece of hardware assigned to a user that generates an authentication code every sixty seconds using a built-in clock and the card's factory-encoded random key (known as the 'seed' and often provided as a *.asc file). The seed is different for each token, and is loaded into the corresponding SecurID server (the 'ACE Server') as the tokens are purchased"