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Monday, June 29, 2009

Windows 7: Free Upgrades End With SP1

Microsoft will discontinue a program under which businesses can upgrade XP-based PCs purchased after October to Windows 7 for free once the first Windows 7 service pack becomes available.

After Windows 7 ships, organizations needing to buy a PC deployed with Windows XP will be allowed a free upgrade to Windows 7 only until SP1 becomes available (or 18 months, whichever is earlier).

Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 on Oct. 22nd. The company has not stated when the first service pack might become available but it would likely not arrive until late 2010 at the earliest.

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Microsoft unveiled details of the Windows 7 upgrade program it kicks off for buyers of new PCs

Called "Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program," the deal provides free or nearly free upgrades to Windows 7 for people who purchase a new Vista PC between June 26, 2009 and Jan. 31, 2010.

Because the retailers and OEMs are doing the scut work of the upgrade program, customers will see a variety of deals and delivery dates. The soonest someone would receive an upgrade DVD is Oct. 22, the retail availability date for Windows 7. It may be weeks later, however, before buyers see those discs.

Retail Vista packages may also qualify for an upgrade to the equivalent Windows 7 product, Microsoft confirmed in an FAQ it published on its site. It's unclear, however, whether those upgrades to Windows 7 will be available to buyers of Vista upgrade editions or only the more-expensive "full" versions. Microsoft also confirmed today that it will offer a Windows 7 upgrade to people who buy PCs during the program's run that have been factory-downgraded to Windows XP Professional.

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Google Grabs 1 Million Phone Numbers for Google Voice

Google last month reserved 1 million phone numbers with Level 3, signaling that it may finally be ready to roll out its long anticipated Google Voice service. The free service lets users unify their phone numbers, allowing them to have a single number through Google Voice that rings a call through to all their phones.

Google Voice has a number of unique features including call transfer between a user's devices, multi-party conferencing, conversion of voice calls to text messages, cut-rate international calling, and call transcription. But the gem is the fact that a user can have one phone number people can dial to reach them regardless of where they are located, either home or mobile. Google Voice uses VoIP to link collections of phone numbers.

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Google Grabs 1 Million Phone Numbers for Google Voice

Google last month reserved 1 million phone numbers with Level 3, signaling that it may finally be ready to roll out its long anticipated Google Voice service. The free service lets users unify their phone numbers, allowing them to have a single number through Google Voice that rings a call through to all their phones.

Google Voice has a number of unique features including call transfer between a user's devices, multi-party conferencing, conversion of voice calls to text messages, cut-rate international calling, and call transcription. But the gem is the fact that a user can have one phone number people can dial to reach them regardless of where they are located, either home or mobile. Google Voice uses VoIP to link collections of phone numbers.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Bing Makes Gains, But Is Google Actually Suffering?

Microsoft is gaining new ground with its freshly rebranded Bing search engine, some recently released data suggests. Bing, the research finds, grew 0.8 percent during its second week online, adding onto a 2.2 percent jump it saw during its debut week. One question that has yet to be answered, though, is how that growth is affecting other search engines -- namely Google.

The answer, in short, is that Bing may not be harming Google at all; in fact, it may actually be helping. Research actually shows the number of users visiting Google also growing from the week before Bing's launch to this past weekend. It is thought that people are simply trying out Bing and that is causing the increase in usage.

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Microsoft To Launch Morro Antivirus "Soon"

Microsoft confirmed plans to end its Windows Live OneCare subscription security service in favor of a free offering that will feature a core of essential anti malware tools while excluding peripheral services, such as PC tune-up programs, found in OneCare.

A spokesman said that Microsoft will launch the free product, code-named Morro, "soon" but did not provide further details. Microsoft announced in November that it will launch Morro in this month, at which time it will discontinue the $49.95-per-year OneCare service.

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Monday, June 08, 2009

China To Require Filtering Software On PCs

Starting July 1, PC makers will have to install pornography-blocking app Green Dam Youth Escort on all computers sold in China. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered that all personal computers, whether made in China or imported from abroad, must include specific software to filter inappropriate information.

The Green Dam Youth Escort software Web site characterizes the program as a tool to protect children. Noting that the impact of the Internet on children is increasing, the site states that the spread of unhealthy information online has seriously harmed the physical and mental health of children.

Some companies have been tailoring their products to accommodate content requirements in China. Microsoft, for example, chose to limit the availability of sexual content in its new Bing search engine for many Muslim countries and for China.

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

Google Squared Search Tool Goes Live

Google Squared, a new search tool from Google is now live. Google Squared pulls information about members of a category from all over the Web and presents it in a table with rows and columns, instead of the series of page links typically returned by search engines.

A typical search on Google will return a list of relevant web sites, but users still have to visit ten to twenty Web sites to find information on complex questions. Google Squared, on the other hand, collects information from different Web sites and presents it as an organized collection.

The information on the grids on the table links to Web sites containing more detailed information on that particular aspect of the topic.

Users can also save the table using a Google account, and move on to the usual search on Google from within the same page.

Monday, June 01, 2009

AMD Launches 6 Core Processor

AMD launched its six core server processor code named Istanbul, saying computer makers this month would be selling high powered products incorporating the chip.

The release of AMD's latest Opteron chip followed less than a week after Intel announced that it would begin production of an eight core Nehalem-EX processor, officially called the Xeon 7400 line, this year. Systems are expected in 2010.

Istanbul is available in 2, 4 and 8 socket systems, and is "drop-in" compatible with sockets in systems running current generation Opteron processors.

A new feature in Istanbul is called HyperTransport Assist, a technology that increases memory and input/output performance.

Replacing one of AMD's previous-generation quad-core processors with Istanbul will provide up to 34% more performance, according to AMD.

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