Google’s new Chrome Operating System is already out! It’s absolutely FREE but you’ll need VMWare Player (or VMWare Fusion for Macs) or VirtualBox on top of your current OS (Windows, Linux or OS X) installation to make it work.

The VMWare image is ready for download via torrent. If you want some tutorial, you can go over at TechCrunch.
Enjoy!

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Google Chrome OS now available for download

In an annual Microsoft stakeholder’s meeting, CEO Steve Ballmer reported the shooting sales of their new product, Windows 7.

According to Microsoft’s main man, The Company has sold twice as many copies of Windows 7 as any previous Microsoft OS in almost the same time frame. Of course that includes both OEM sales and boxed retail copies.

Oh Well! Microsoft got it right this time. Congrats!

[via Engadget]

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Steve Ballmer says Windows 7 sales are up! up! up!

After Windows 7 and the announcement of the full release of Windows Azure, Microsoft is now releasing a public beta version for MS Office 2010. The general retail will be out Spring next year.

Improved features include the ability to backstage view, broadcast powerpoint slideshows,video editing in powerpoint, navigation pane in word, calendar preview in outlook, enhanced pivot tables and sparklines in excel and the outlook social connector to ride in with the current social networking rage.

New to the edition is the counterpart Office Web Apps. This is a free web-based version of Office. It includes Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

A public beta was also released for SharePoint Server 2010, Project 2010, Visio 2010 and Microsoft Office Mobile 2010. Anyone with a Windows 6.5 mobile phone can download and test the suite until April 5 next year.

The Mac OS X version will also be available next year.

For Office users, you can check what’s new via an online presentation and you can download the beta version.

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Microsoft Office 2010 Public Beta Now Available for Download

Microsoft will bring its cloud computing platform Windows Azure to full production starting January 2010. The service will start collecting charges starting February 2010. The cost was previously released last July.

Cloud computing is defined as a paradigm shift where details are abstracted from users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.

“For consumers, the best result of cloud computing is that they don’t notice it,” Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, said. Ozzie is the Lotus Notes creator replaced Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect has been the main person pushing Microsoft into cloud computing.

The approach is to give developers a platform to write out their applications and then rent space in the datacenters while it runs the customer’s applications from Azure’s servers.

The service is currently running as a free Community Technology Preview (CTP) with three components: SQL Azure, AppFabric and Windows Azure itself.

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Cloud Computing Windows Azure to Start January 2010

Popular video-sharing site YouTube will now allow users to upload and view videos in full HD. A 1080p test video is currently uploaded at the site.

Viewers with bigger screens, faster computers and high-speed broadband will enjoy this new feature at maximum effort. 1080p video means 1080 TV Lines of resolution, progressive scan. For the technical junkies, this means that the videos are not interlaced (video image quality improved without consuming extra bandwidth).

The Google-owned broadcast yourself site will still continue to support videos in 720p format that it has started supporting last year. YouTube wanted to be the best website to showcase videos so to answer the increasing resolutions offered by consumer cameras and camcorders.

YouTube is currently on the process of re-encoding videos in 1080p previously uploaded in the site so that they can be viewed by users the way those videos were meant to be viewed.

YouTube has been eager to present commercial content to be able to compete more with Hulu and Netflix.

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YouTube to Allow Full HD Videos to be Uploaded and Viewed

After Intel Corp. agreed to pay $1.25 Billion to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Thursday to end years of dispute, the European Union, the New York State Attorney General and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are already hot on their heels.

The settlement settled anti-trust litigation and patent disputes by implementing a five-year cross-license pact and give up claims of breach. Intel also stated that they will now abide to a set of business-practice provisions including making discounts conditional on customers buying exclusively Intel microprocessors. AMD will withdraw all of its regulatory complaints against Intel.

Intel currently holds 70% of the PC processors market while AMD holds almost the remaining 30%. A third player Cyrix folded in 1997. The agreement between the two remaining competitors is being viewed as a monopoly-dominating factor of the market. This is what various governing bodies are worrying about. Legal sanctions are being checked.

The FTC meanwhile, is still not satisfied with some of Intel’s practices like giving retroactive volume-based discounts. It still wants to continue its investigations regarding the claims of AMD that Intel had abused its dominance in the billion-chip market even if AMD is already withdrawing them as a result of the settlement.

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Legal Sanctions Seen as Intel Pays Settlement of $1.25 Billion to AMD

This watch from Korean design studio MAEZM makes it extremely easy for the wearer to both tell the time and to share the time with others.

As you can see from the photos, the watch display has been moved 90 degrees to make it readable from all angles.

Unfortunately though, this timepiece is just a concept and isn’t available for sale.

[via Design Boom]

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Sharing Time Made Simple

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) announced its acquisition of networking gear outfit 3Com (COMS) for $2.7 billion or $7.90 per share.

The acquisition, which was approved by both companies’ respective boards of directors, will bolster up HP against Cisco (CSCO). The latter is venturing out to HP’s businesses especially after it announced its plan to enter the server market early this year. The acquisition however is still needed to be approved by the stockholders of 3Com. HP is expecting to close the deal by the first half 2010.

HP stated that they want to “transform the networking industry,” and “enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center.”

The merge will bring together HP’s powerful data center strategy and 3Com’s extensive product line and innovative technology of routing and networking systems.

Meanwhile Brocade (BRCD) another networking solutions company fell victim in the acquisition. It has been shopping for a buyer and HP was one of the potential buyers. After the announcement, that would be highly unlikely.

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HP Acquires 3COM for $2.7 Billion

One of the most if not the most anticipated game of the year, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, finally arrives.

Modern Warfare 2, is a first-person shooter game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, is a greatly immersive experience that embeds players in the battlefield. It’s like experiencing real military scenarios in the comfort of your own home.

This time players can fight in places such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Brazil. But according to Wired, things don’t really get interesting until the action moves to Russia and the player is embedded in a squad of terrorists. And then, inevitably, the fight comes to U.S. shores.

Activision, the maker of Call of Duty is projecting sales of 11 to 13 million units by the end of 2009 according to NY Daily News, making it the leading contender for best-selling game of the year.

Each copy of Modern Warfare 2 is priced at $59.99.

Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

[image via CNET]

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Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 arrives! (video)

Search giant Google launched today a new programming language named GO. It is an open source development tool geared in combining performance with speed.

Go is based from the C programming family, one of the world’s widely used programming language family trees incorporated with elements from Python (a Google-preferred language) and the Pascal/Modula/Oberon family for faster and more dynamic programs.

Google was motivated to develop a new programming language because it feels that web and computing already change tremendously but the languages have not. Computers are getting faster but software development is still slow. People were already tired of the type systems of Java and C++ and are gearing towards dynaically typed languages such as Python and Javascript. Fundamental concepts such as garbage collection and parallel computations and emergence of multicore computers are still not supported by the popular languages.

To learn more, check out Google’s hour-long tech talk video below or if you are a developer and just want to get started then take a look at the Go Tutorial and start writing those programs.

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Google Launches New Open Source Programming Language

Esquire magazine’s Augmented Reality (AR) issue has arrived!

So what’s with this AR thing? Make sure you have a computer with a woking webcam, buy the magazine, download the AR software and point the marker on the cover of the magazine on your webcam to make Robert Downey Jr. pop to life on your screen and see other things in the magazine start talking and moving.

Here’s a video of Esquire Editor David Granger demoing the interactive magazine.

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Esquire’s Augmented Reality Demo (video)

Samsung announced it’s new open mobile platform, Bada!

The name bada [ba-da] (which means ‘ocean’ in Korean) was chosen to convey the limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform. It also alludes to Samsung’s commitment to a variety of open platforms in the mobile industry.

According to the official announcement, bada will offer developers an easier way to create applications for “millions of new Samsung” phones while providing consumers with “a fun and diverse mobile experience.”

Samsung says the new platform will be simple for developers to use, “it’s one of the most developer-friendly environments available, particularly in the area of applications using Web services” and will allow said developers to include more sophisticated and attractive UI” designs for their apps.

Bada will roll out this coming December and Samsung is planning to host an official launch event in London where it will also unveil its bada software development kit (SDK) to developers for the first time on this date.

Bada’s official website went live today! Check it out here

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BADA: Samsung’s open mobile platform

Mobile giant Nokia is recalling some chargers of its phones that may bring electric shocks to its users. Affected charger models include AC-3E and AC-3U (manufactured between June 15, 2009 – August 9, 2009) and AC-4U (manufactured between April 13, 2009 – October 25, 2009). Nokia will replace the affected units free of charge.

No incidents have been reported yet. The defect was found out on a routine quality control check. The recall was prompted as a precautionary measure. Media reports indicate that as high as 14 million units may be affected. Nokia has not confirmed this number as of press time with TechNewsWorld.

The electric shock could occur when the plastic cover of the charger comes loose and may separate exposing internal components. These components may give electric shocks if touched while the charger is plugged in a live socket.

Chinese third-party supplier BYD Electronic manufactured the defective units.

The exchange of units can be facilitated via the Nokia web site.

Nokia is trying to keep up with its good reputation of selling high-quality and safe products. It may be recalled that Nokia also recalled 46 million batteries because of their potential to overheat way back in 2007.

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Nokia Chargers Recalled

Troll Touch announced their new analog resistive touch kits for the unibody MacBooks as well as the latest iMacs such as the 21.5-inch and 27-inch models.

How does it work? According to Troll Touch:

Our proprietary, custom designed and manufactured touch sensitive overlays feature PSR-1® or Pressure Sensitive Resistive touchscreen technology and are mounted on either optically clear acrylic or chemically strengthened glass depending on the particular application.

If you have been waiting for the rumored Apple tablet then you might like this product. It’s quite pricey though. Price starts at $1099 for iMac or $2299 for the pre-installed one. If you want to have it for your MacBook, the kits starts at $699.

Check the prices for iMacs and MacBooks. Delivery starts December 1.

Video: Troll Touch Demo

[Troll Touch via Engadget]

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iMac and MacBook touchscreens by Troll Touch (demo video)

I don’t speak Mandarin, but based on the visuals I managed to understand that this ‘miracle bra’ will actually make your breasts… grow! Okay, while I can find it useful for women that want to look good, I’d be pissed if I brought a chick home and found out she was wearing this sh*t.

WATCH:

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Inflatable Bra from China