Did Microsoft Fake XP on XO Press Media?!

Do you remember all the hoopla around the XP on the XO announcement in May? Where Microsoft gave us a press release, blog post, and a video, all announcing Windows XP for the XO laptop. Well, thanks to the sleuths on OLPC News Forum it looks like Microsoft may have faked two of the three.

XP on XO Photoshopped?

First, let's look at the official press release photograph showing XP on the XO. Now, take a very, very close look. Do you see what teapot sees?

The image is definitely an overlay -- lower corners obscure the screen border, and black areas around the screen are nowhere to be found.

However diagonal graininess of the blue background seems to suggest that it may be taken on XO or XO emulator, and pasted to compensate for camera's contrast/dynamic range. Pretty strange considering that XO screen is not particularly bright or glossy.

If you look at the photo on James U's blog post, you can really tell the difference - his image has the XP screen looking way more natural. And if that were the only trespass, who really cares, eh? Everyone Photoshops.

Yet, its not. Just take a close look at the Microsoft XP on XO video:

Now re-watch that video, closely, and pay attention to the background and the details of Bohdan Raciborski's actions. Previously, we knew there was some time-shifting going on when Doug noticed subtle changes in previous comments:

The other observation is that this "video" is a very well done production and something done over a period of time and not likely a short period of time.

I say this because if you look at the section where he does the video capture, the recorded video of him waving does not have the poster on the wall behind him. The "live" shot where he waves his hand does have the poster behind him.

But recently, we've had a bit more analysis of the video, and the results may surprise you. After a close inspection, Anna has a startling opinion:

At the very least, the Windows Movie Maker thing was staged or faked. My BF has an XP machine, and being an A/V tech, was kinda curious. Recording video with Windows Movie Maker doesn't work like that. And it's out of order. Notice how the clip is at the bottom left of the screen the entire time and then disappears when it's time to "save" it.

In addition, the audio doesn't seem to match the wave patterns in the audio record. If it really played off the XO, I've never heard the XO speakers sound that good.

Now how could Microsoft faked such a video? Let's have Anna explain her hypothesis:

To spell it out, I'm bringing up the possibility that they captured the output from a regular XP machine to a video file and played it back on the XO to produce a carefully choreographed demonstration. Yeah, I know it sounds like a bizarre conspiracy theory.

Or does it? Its not like Microsoft hasn't faked video before. They were famously caught trying to use "massaged" videos in their anti-trust Netscape case with the Department of Justice. And in this case, a massaged video wouldn't be legally actionable, but did serve its PR purpose. That is until eagle-eye Anna spotted one last, tell-tale trace of XP on the XO fakery:

Notice how the HDD light (the one on the far left) only comes on during bootup and is off the entire time during the demonstration EXCEPT when he flips the screen around to show off Internet Explorer in book mode?

Huh. That's not how the XO hard disk light works.

source : http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/microsoft/microsoft_fake_press_media.html

Two New Email ID Domains for Yahoo! Users

Starting today, Yahoo! users will have two more options to choose from for their email addresses. The two new email address domains are ymail.com and rocketmail.com.

The rocketmail.com domain name relates back to Yahoo!'s $92 million acquisition of Four11 in 1997. Four11 is the company that offered free RocketMail service.
Yahoo! claims to presently have over 260 million users, and probably, most of the simple IDs are already used up, so users are left with no other option but to create complicated IDs and then strive to remember them. However, with the new domain address additions, users can once again create simpler IDs ending with ymail.com and rocketmail.com.

Email accounts created using the new domain addresses will offer the same features as Yahoo.com including unlimited storage at no cost and instant messenger built within the in-box. Users will be able to use these IDs to sign-in into other Yahoo! sites and services. Meanwhile, the company also plans to launch the localized country versions of the same.

22 Inches TFT LCD Monitors from Intex

Intex Technologies (India) has launched its 22-inches wide-screen TFT LCD monitors; the IT 22 LCT and 2201.

The IT 22 LCT serves a dual purpose: besides being a LCD monitor, it comes with a TV function. HDMI port connectivity provides high-definition video and eight-channel audio entertainment by enabling single cable support for various sources such as set-top boxes, DVD players, video game consoles, and so on. Other features include a 22-inches wide-screen TFT LCD with 1680 x 1050 WXGA resolution, 3 milliseconds response time, and dual speakers. This particular monitor comes for Rs 18,000 (MOP).

The other TFT LCD monitor from Intex, 2201, sans TV Tuner card, is positioned as a user-friendly monitor for gaming, multimedia, and professional purposes. A prominent feature of 2201 is DVI port connectivity providing a single connector for various audio and video formats. Other features are more or less like those of the IT 22 LCT except that the response time is 5 milliseconds. This monitor sports a price tag (MOP) of Rs 12,600.

Decoding BlackBerry: Encryption limit may hit 256 Bits

NEW DELHI: The government is planning to increase the permitted level of encryption for electronic data from 40 to 256 bits. This will allow decoding of electronic mails sent through BlackBerry. The matter is presently being examined by the National Security Advisor (NSA).

The move comes after Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry, expressed their inability to provide a solution to the government for decoding encrypted data, claiming that it itself couldn’t decode the mails sent through its system. RIM has, however, said that they would come with some solution by the end of this month.

“The government would involve third-party agents to crack the encryption code if RIM does not come out with a solution. It is, however, not possible for any third party to bring down the level of encrypted data at the prescribed level. To avoid technical ambiguity, the government may raise the prescribed limit for data encryption to 256 bits,” an official source said, adding that the matter has been referred to the NSA for its comments.

A mail sent in this regard to communication minister A Raja and telecom secretary Siddharth Behura went unanswered. Country’s security agencies have earlier complained that messages transmitted through BlackBerry devices posed a risk as they couldn’t be traced.

Microsoft to Sponsor Open Source Initiative

Microsoft has signed a deal with Open Source Census, a project aimed at finding out what open source programs are most frequently used by companies as well as how many companies are using them, to sponsor the initiative. Open Source Census’s goal is to use the information resulted from the study to find better ways of convincing more and more companies to use open source programs in their daily activity.

So the question seems to be why would Microsoft, a company that makes money out of selling software, want to support a project that seems to be aimed against its interests. What is obvious is that there must be something that Microsoft hopes to benefit of, since it’s well known that the Redmond-based company knows how to make money from every situation.

There are two scenarios that could both be true, and that Microsoft can take advantage of. First of all, it might be a PR stunt that the software giant uses to gain the public’s perception of it actively supporting the open source community. The company could latter use this episode to claim that it is involved in open source efforts, without contributing with what it is essential for this source of initiative: code.

The other idea could be that Microsoft would use the information discovered by the study to gain a better understanding about where it should make changes to its products to make them better than the competition, and what products it can stop focusing on, knowing that the companies prefer similar open source ones.

Which of the two, if any, is the right answer remains to be seen. What is probably true is that Microsoft would not sponsor anything just out of good will.

Mozilla shows off Firefox Mobile interface concept - Video

Want to know what the upcoming Firefox Mobile web browser will look like? So do we. And the video above may or may not give us an idea. Aza Raskin, the head of user experience for Mozilla describes the concept interface shown in the video as a "conceptual mockup" of an "experimental UI." In other words, there's no gaurantee that the final version of Firefox Mobile will bear any resemblance to the concept. But then again, it might look exactly like this.

In a nutshell, the concept UI shares some features with Firefox 3, including tabbed browsing and the "awesome bar," which shows you results from your browsing history when you enter a URL. But there are a few aspects that have been designed with mobile devices in mind:

• You can navigate a page by clicking and dragging it. There are no scrollbars, which means more screen real estate.
• There are also no back, forward, refresh, or other buttons on the main screen. The web page takes up the whole screen.
• You can find navigation buttons by dragging the screen to the right, which brings up a series of buttons on the left side of the screen, including back, forward, bookmark, and page info.
• You minimize a window by dragging it to the left or right and clicking the zoom button. You can then navigate between open tabs or open a new one.
• When you reach the bottom of a web page, there will be buttons for performing specific functions like submitting a page to Digg or del.icio.us or mapping an address found on a web page

Want to try the user interface yourself? There's a web-based demo available. And the code is open source if you want to check it out or contribute to the project.
[via Mozilla Labs]

Energy calculator for computers

There are online energy calculators available on the internet such as the Extreme power supply calculator. All you have to do is punch in the detailed configuration of your PC or laptop and click the calculate button. The aggregate of power consumed by all the components is displayed.

Link:- Extreme power supply calculator

EFiX Hack Dongle to Let PC Users Run OS X without Hacks

EFiX claims it was able to produce and (until now) successfully test an USB dongle that is slightly different than other commercial products aimed at emulating Apple's elusive OS. EFiX's solution is said to be the best and most reliable for installing and running Mac OS X on your PC.

According to the makers, all you need is an original copy of Mac OS X (that's right, you don't need a cracked
Mac OS X copy, although some would prefer this cheap alternative), a regular PC (sporting the necessary
hardware requirements, of course) and EFiX's solution.

The EFiX OS X hack dongle "allows its user to install Mac OS X straight from the original DVD without having to worry about patches, replacing files and anything like that," says the development team. "That means you can buy a regular PC, Mac OS X and EFiX and enjoy what the Mac users have always enjoyed: unmodified Mac OS X on your computer, safe, easy and fast, exactly the way it should be."

Don't want to be picky or anything, but Mac OS X should run on a Mac to be "the way it should be." Nevertheless, I'm sure EFiX's solution can achieve similar standards.

The development team also claims it took them a great deal of time to come up with EFiX, noting that, during the development phase, they had to deal with various problems, "including sabotage."

The 6 months they took to develop the EFiX OS X hack dongle also included testing, "which has been conducted […] in production environments. Industry leading professionals (who work for TV stations, recording studios and many others) rely on EFiX and Mac OS X running on standard PC hardware to get their tasks done," the team added.

PC owners looking to try out Mac OS X without fuss and, most importantly, without actually buying a Mac, should be happy to hear that EFiX is in the final testing phase, looking at a June 23rd release (that's this month).

"All the testing has went far better than what we expected and the testers have given positive feedback," the development team assures. "More information will be added soon," according to their post.

Netkas, who works on the OSX86 team, has even put up a video of the thing in action. By the looks of it, it does work as promised. Here, have a look for yourself.

Source