Gmail user? Bet you didn’t know that you could sign out your Gmail session remotely?! If you did, then you might be considered a Gmail master.
The Google Gmail team has put together a nice set of tips grouped by ‘belt level’ so that you too can become a Gmail Ninja. As much of an avid Gmail user that I am, even I learned something.
Google’s recent addition to Google Desktop is the much-awaited RSS Reader gadget, which lets you read your Google Reader RSS Feeds/subscriptions straight from your desktop.
They were always 3 choices in the operating system market – MacOS, Windows or Linux, with the latter being free but not much good for those who struggled with technology, and the others being quite pricey. Now Google have added Android to the mix, offering a free operating system that (hopefully!) will be easier to use than the Linux base – ironic, isn’t it? Android is built on a Linux operating system and now could possibly replace it.
Android was released in late 2007 as an open source software platform for phones, and contributed to Google’s sector entrance with the G1 which has become quite popular. Google are now hoping to pass on this popularity and familiararity to persuade users to adopt this OS for their computers, and manufacturers are looking to cash in on this to provide low cost laptops with the new operating system without having to resort to XP or a rather more complicated operating system.
Here’s the quick recap for the week:
Today’s Gizmo is the Really Easy Reader whose aim is to get you reading documents at a faster speed – they claim that this can easily be double your normal reading speed. This basically works by flashing words on your screen very quickly (hit the manufacturer link for an example), or by running a ticker quickly across the screen, forcing you to read them very quickly and, as such, decreases the amount of time taken to read a document.
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Have Zune begun to copy Apple’s stylish music players with the upcoming Zune HD? We’ve got your weekly fill of format wars – this time focused on home automation and could we really be that much closer to wearable remote controls?
Father’s days coming up and, being such a caring bunch, we came up with a a really great idea! Another idea may be to get him an analog to digital converter so that he can preserve those old video and music sitting in the attic.
Are you aniPhone/iPod Touch user and also a networking maniac? Take a look at Zensify.
The week was capped off by the ever-so-geeky Mac vs. PC poster and a look at the current progress of holographic optics – manufacturer SBG has a very cool prototype of a full-color, heads-up wearable display.
Zensify is an app available for both iPhone and iPod Touch that brings together all your social networking sites in one, easy to view page enabling you to view all your social network updates simultaneously without having to load each page individually.
Currently only available for iPhone and iPod, if you dig a little deeper to the sole investors of Zensify – Ipex – they say that other mobile platforms will be supported later this year. Stay tuned.
First up in the ‘what the … ?!’ category from the ever-inventive Japaneses were the Fuwarinka Candy, which changes your body odor by eating a piece of candy or chewing a piece of gum. Apple had their WWDC conference and rolled out new MacBooks and a new iPhone.
Internet traffic could reach 2/3 of a Zettabyte by 2013 and speaking of the Net, you better grab your Facebook username before it gets snapped up by someone else.
More gadgets: The Lacie d2 Network File Server can store tons of photos and videos on your home network. Amazon released its latest Kindle, the DX, while Microsoft is close to beta testings its new free anti-virus software.
Wrapping things up, we compared some wireless 802.11 USB adapters so you could retro-fit that old laptop or desktop cheapily and easily.
Once Microsoft saw that their OneCare Live security product flopped, they decided back in November 08 to produce a scaled down version that would be free. The new application, codenamed Morro, is basic anti-virus that combats viruses, spyware and trojans.
While MS says this is not intended to compete with likes of Symantec and McAfee, they obviously will on the low-end of the product lines, but not with the security suites that those companies offer.
For whatever reasons MS decided to do this, it’s a good thing for consumers. In fact, I’d like to see something like this bundled with the OS, preconfigured to auto-update, and difficult for end-users to disable. Computer security, particularly on consumer machines, is in a terrible state. Many users simply don’t know or understand the dangers well enough (or at all) and this is bad for them and the rest of the Net.
Morro will go into beta soon and will roll out later this year.
Fedora 11, codenamed Leonidas, was released by Red Hat on Tues. Fedora 11, which is free from Red Hat, unlike its Enterprise cousin has a number of new features such as a piece of middleware called OpenChange that gives universal access to MS Exchange from any client.
But perhaps the most significant change is the inclusion of the ext4 file system as default. There are also improved virtualization features and fingerprint reader support.
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