New Google Toolbar in Firefox Adds A Personalized Tab Page

This feature you guys are going to love. Google Toolbar has introduced a new Toolbar 5 (beta) version. It has one new feature, a personalized tab page similar to what you see in Google Chrome browser.

To get this new feature, download the latest Google Toolbar 5 (beta) here and restart your browser. Whenever you open a new tab, Google will provide the list of your favorite sites you visited recently, a sort of your browsing history. A preview of a personalized tab page is shown below.



Official Google Blog: Google Toolbar in Firefox: a personalized new tab page

It took 5,127 prototypes, 14 years of debt to create a success for James Dyson

To create a successful product, Sir James Dyson had to create 5,127 prototypes first. Add 14 years of debt and multiple lawsuits to evade and you get a best-seller in the U.S. and in Europe.

How Tensing and Hillary might have felt when they conquered Mt. Everest first, Sir James Dyson might have felt the same after he successfully sold his revolutionary bagless vacuum cleaner. He is a billionaire now but it wasn’t easy for him to get there.

It started in 1978, he got vexed with his vacuum cleaner breaking repeatedly, so he created the first bagless vacuum cleaner with just cardboard, kitchen scissors and a duct tape and it worked. Sir James Dyson, who was recently knighted by the queen recalls that special day in a Readers Digest interview:

"I was the only man in the world with a bagless vacuum cleaner!"

But to market that original bagless vacuum cleaner was not so easy. He had to create 5,127 prototypes, face 14 years of debt and multiple lawsuits to prove that his product is original. All those efforts paid off in the end -- his vacuum cleaner is the top-selling upright vacuum cleaner in the United States.

Dyson, 61, got his training at the Royal College of Art in London. There he found passion for industrial design and started to create new products. He created “Sea Truck”, an indestructible boat to haul loads between islands.

In his first company that he started, he created “Ballbarrow” which uses balls for wheel barrows instead of wheels. But because of a dispute within the company, he had to give up the invention to the company. Even though he created it, the invention was in the company’s name.

Then he started to work on the now famous “bagless vacuum”, but was stifled by existing companies who were hesitant to believe in his new technology.

He licensed his product to a Japanese company in 1986 for millions of dollars but only got a fraction from them. He then started to talk to Amway and others, but none took him seriously. Despite the setbacks, his customers loved it because the vacuum cleaner was able to filter the air with allergens, which was a boon for allergy sufferers and pet owners.

Thanks to his persistence and patience, by 2005 his vacuum cleaners have become popular in both Europe and in the U.S. His company’s revenues were $1 billion in 2008.

He told Reader’s Digest:

It is the fear of failure that makes me keep working at success...Having an idea for doing something better and making it happen-even though it appears impossible—those are still my dreams.

	Dyson DC24 Ball All-Floors Upright Vacuum Cleaner Price: Too low to display List Price: $399.99
	Dyson DC25 Ball All-Floors Upright Vacuum Cleaner Price: Too low to display List Price: $499.99
	Dyson DC15 Ball Animal Vacuum Price: $599.00
	Dyson DC25 Animal Vacuum Price: $479.98 List Price: $549.99

A Dyson Vacuum demo from HSN

Cambridge Univ. researchers develop £2 LED and lasts 60 years

Cambridge University researchers have found a manufacturing technique that can produce LED’s for as low as £2 ($2.86) and last up to 60 years.

Light-Emitting Diode (LED) will soon replace the Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) and regular tungsten filament bulbs. But it will take some years as current LED manufacturing costs and prices are higher for now. Cambridge University researchers have come up with a unique way to produce low cost LED’s and these products may come into market sooner than expected.

The LED’s the researchers have produced is smaller than a penny coin and 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and 3 times more efficient than CFL.

Another advantage is they illuminate fully after they are switched on, there is no time delay like the fluorescent and CFL. And they have no mercury content like CFL and tungsten bulbs, so they are safe to use and dispose.

The researchers believe that their LED technology will cut electricity costs by three-quarters.

The new bulbs will help cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40 million tons a year, the amount of electricity produced by an 8 giga watt power station.

The current LED technology uses gallium nitride but their production costs are expensive because the material has to be grown on sapphire wafers. The Cambridge University researchers have found a cheaper way to produce them by growing it on silicon wafers, cutting the costs considerably.

They have released the technology to RFMD in County Durham and hope to produce these low-cost LED’s within the next two years.

Professor Colin Humphreys told Daily Mail:

'This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs for the future... It is our belief they will render current energy-efficiency bulbs redundant.'

World's First Solar Powered Automatic Snow Plow 'I-Shovel'

I-Shovel, an automatic solar powered snow shovel machine.

I-Shovel, a new Roomba like machine shovels snow on your driveway automatically. It is fully powered by solar. It can clear a 4,000 square foot driveway on a single battery charge.

I-Shovel is a prototype introduced recently and is the world’s first solar-powered snow shovel machine.

The device senses snow automatically and clears out with a shovel like a tractor plow according to Tree Hugger.

The main features of I-Shovel from the manufacturer site are:

• Keeps the drive way snow free. All the Time!!
• Fully Automatic.
• Runs on Rechargeable Batteries.
• Optional Solar Powered Recharging.
• No Emissions.
• No Noise Pollution.
• No Dangerous Moving Parts.

I-Shovel works as follows:

I-Shovel automatically detects the snow accumulation and cleans the drive way automatically. It has a built in computer to control the shoveling process and various sensors to figure out the perimeter. Unlike snow throwers that are usually used to clean snow after the storm, I-Shovel is designed to wake up and shovel snow when ever it senses reasonable accumulation of snow. This concept makes it possible to devise a shoveling mechanism with relatively low power consumption and no dangerous moving parts, enabling it to operate unattended. This is a convenience that was only available so far with heated drive ways which are much more expensive to own and operate.


I-Shovel Demonstration.

It has one 6V 12Ah, sealed lead acid battery, after fully charged by the sun it has enough power to shovel 4,000 Sq. ft of snow. Plus the machine can hold additional three batteries for heavy duty work.

For more information about I-Shovel, click here.

Nintendo brain games no better than 'pencil and paper'

Nintendo Brain Training Game.

A British study claims the old fashioned pencil and paper work is just as good as Nintendo DS Lite and its brain training games.

The popular Nintendo DS main selling claim is that its brain training games like the Big Brain Academy and Brain Training helps the blood flow to the brain and hence improves the intelligence of the users. Though no scientific studies have yet documented Nintendo's claims.

Recently, Nintendo used actress Nicole Kidman to advertise their brain games and its product Nintendo DS. The main advertising theme of Nintendo DS was that users can test their brains and rejuvenate their brain cells and memory.

Nintendo claims that Brain Age games improve memory by two to three times and older people can keep their minds young by using the DS on a regular basis.

Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima, who developed Brain Training says at the Nintendo Website:

“The more you use the brain in a challenging way, the better it can work...We know that the mental processes of our brain start to weaken if we only use it in our routine daily life.”

Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes, Brittany, the leader of this UK study approves of Nintendo DS and its brain games but doesn’t approve their claims because there are no scientific facts to backup their claims. Lieury and his team wanted to see whether Nintendo’s claims are true or not.

The study analyzed 67 ten-year-old children and split them into four groups. The first two groups were given a seven-week memory course on a Nintendo DS, the third group were give to solve puzzles like Sudoku or Scrabble with pencils and paper and the fourth group didn’t participate in any Nintendo games or solve regular puzzles.

After the specific duration, the children were given a variety of tasks, logic tests, memorizing the words on the map, doing simple math problems and interpreting symbols.

The researchers found the following results:

...children using the Nintendo DS system failed to show any significant improvement in memory tests. They did do 19 per cent better in mathematics - but so did the pencil-and-paper group, while the fourth group did 18 per cent better. When it came to memorizing, the pencil-and-paper group recorded a 33 per cent improvement, while the Nintendo children were 17 per cent worse. In logic tests the Nintendo children registered a 10 per cent improvement, as did the pencil-and-paper group. The children who had no specific training improved 20 per cent.

They used children for the study because that is the age where they show marked improvement according to Professor Lieury.

In the end Professor Lieury told Times about Nintendo brain games.

“There were few positive effects and they were weak. Dr. Kawashima is one of a long list of dream merchants.”

Scarlett Johansson - GIF Picture

It is like a Silent Movie, shows a versatile actress.

YouTube Enables HD Quality Videos in Embedded Sites

YouTube added High Definition videos in its site recently but it enabled us to watch HD videos only in YouTube not in embedded sites. But now it has made this feature available anywhere including blogs and websites.

Previously, if we wanted to watch high quality music or film videos in YouTube, we could do so only at the main site but it wasn’t available if we added it in an external site. Now, YouTube makes this available for any site.

I have posted two videos you can test it out. Click the play button first and click the arrow sign, you will see the “HD” button. When you click the HD button, it plays the high quality version of the video. You can see the difference in quality.

YouTube Watch HD quality YouTube videos anywhere. 0 votes Vote it up!

Devin Coldewey from TechCrunch says because of the advances in technology the HD videos download speeds are as good as normal quality videos, which is terrific for us.

To watch the HD videos, click Play and click “HD” from the options (arrow sign).

Watch YouTube Videos in Gmail Chat Window

See YouTube videos in Gmail Chat. Gmailblog.blogspot.com

In Gmail chat, we can now exchange videos link with one another and see them in the chat window itself, it is not necessary to open a new page.

Once you have enabled the chat in your Labs Settings page in Gmail, you can now see YouTube videos within the chat window. Google shows a preview of the YouTube video in chat.

Without this new feature, we have to open the link in a new window and disturbs our present chat conversations with friends.

An example of the chat conversation is shown above. Just type the YouTube link you want to share the video with your friend. The YouTube video appears in a small screen, when you click the “play” icon, you can watch the video while you chat.

This YouTube preview is available only within Gmail platform, it is not available in Google Talk chat platform. It is not clear why it is not available in the main Google Talk platform.

Durable $5000 Home Made From Recycled Paper And Cardboard

A $5,000 Home Made from Recycled Paper and Cardboard.

A Swiss company has created a low-cost durable prefabricated house from recycled paper and cardboard. A home for two can be built for less than $5,000 and last for years.

The Wall AG from Switzerland has created a unique and innovative cellulose-based material called Swisscell, which is lightweight, low-cost, insulated and high strength. It is made of recycled paper and cardboard.

The material was invented by Gerd Niemöller, a Swiss citizen. Swisscell has a honeycomb-like structure and makes it stronger and durable.

Niemöller told London Times:

From the very beginning, our goal was to create practical, environmentally sustainable, and, most importantly, cheap living quarters for the slums of the Earth.

The house is called “Universal World House” can be built for less than $5,000. It could be well-suited for developing countries. It could also be used to house the homeless and provide temporary homes during disaster periods.

Home made of recycled paper and cardboard. Inhabitat.com.

The house has a 390-square-foot area (36 square meters) and weighs about 1,763 pounds (800 kilograms).

The house is supposed to be durable and last for generations. It comes complete with basic housing needs like plumbing, beds and more.

Home can be easily assembled in minutes. Inhabitat.com.

Inhabitat says their process is extremely cheap and machines can be easily transported to build homes at the affected areas.

For more information contact SwissCell site, it is in German language.

YouTube adds 'Click-to-Buy' in most videos to help artists

YouTube introduced “click-to-buy” feature last October, now they are available in most videos in both the content providers and others who used videos without permission from the owners.

YouTube added this feature last October and added “click-to-buy” links under the video. So, whoever is interested in the music or video can buy the original ones either from iTunes or Amazon.com.

Now, it is launching the “click-to-buy” on a large scale for both song and movie clips in YouTube. Since many of the content is provided both by the owners and other users as video mashup, YouTube will add similar “click-to-buy” links in all videos and share revenues with the original content providers like Monty Python.

Monty Python is enjoying great success after its partnership with YouTube. On November, they decided to post all of their clips for free and added “click-to-buy” links in all of their videos. They requested users to click them if they like the videos. After that experiment, Monty Python videos became a hot seller in Amazon, they rose to No.2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV best sellers list with their sales rising by 23,000 percent.

This program will be available in U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain and Netherlands and the “click-to-buy” links will be localized according to the country the videos are posted in.

Since many copyrighted videos are posted without permission, now the content providers can add the “click-to-buy” links in those videos also and share the revenues. YouTube’s ContentID tools will assist the content providers by claiming the videos that match their content.

From now on, you will see these “click-to-buy” links appear on the videos as semi-transparent overlays at the bottom of the video. If you don’t like, you can close it by clicking the right top corner cross button. You can see one example here in YouTube.


YouTube adds click-to-buy links for videos.


YouTube will be adding the “click-to-buy” links not only for the music videos, but also for movies, video games etc.,

How To Cut Onion Without Crying?

I have seen numerous methods for it each one giving a different solution from the other. Some are feasible enough to try, while others are not practical at all in the long run.

Before we proceed with the suggestions, we should know what causes to make us cry.

How Onion makes us cry?

As onions are sliced, cells are broken, allowing enzymes called alliinases to break down amino acid sulphoxides and generate sulphenic acids. Sulphenic acids are unstable and spontaneously rearrange into a volatile gas called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas diffuses through the air and eventually reaches the eye, where it binds to sensory neurons, creating a stinging sensation. Tear glands produce tears to dilute and flush out the irritant.


Here are some solutions suggested by the users from Chow.com and you may also have heard it from other places:

1. Use a small table fan nearby when you cut onions.
2. Keep your onions in the refrigerator.
3. Wear goggles like the swimmers do.
4. Light a couple of candles near the cutting board it will draw the chemicals away.
5. Chop the onions near the cooking flames.
6. Slice through the end and remove the root before you start cutting the onions.
7. Stick a matchstick in the mouth before cutting suggested from southern oldwives methods.
8. Keep the onions cut sides down before cutting, so the juices won't harm your eyes.
9. Some suggest use white onions only don't use yellow onions, which is not a practical solution.
10. Chop the root end first, since it contains the highest amount of irritants, then you can proceed with the rest.
11. Put onions in a bowl of water and cut onions there.
    
12. Use a good knife and well sharpened. Some suggest Japanese cooking knives.
13. Put a spoon in your mouth before cutting onions.
    

Some methods are good, some are funny but still works.


What is the right method?

In my case, since I wear contact lens, onions don’t bother me at all. When I remove my lens it bothers me. Since the lens covers the sensitive part of the eye, the volatile gas from the onion doesn't affect the eyes. But that is not a good solution for all, if one has healthy eyes.

Solution number 6 seems to be the popular one, but you can try solution number 1 also.

If you have a really good solution to cut onions then let us know.

Microsoft windows worm attack infects 9 million PCs

A Finnish security research company reported that a fast spreading computer virus has affected 9 million computers in the U.S, Europe and Asia.

F-Secure’s chief research officer, Nikko Hypponen told AP Digital about this latest development.

The virus first spreads by compromising one machine and then replicates itself and compromises others in the network by guessing the passwords. If the passwords are weak then it replicates the virus in that machine.

The virus supposedly was developed by hackers in Ukraine according to F-Secure.

So far the virus has infected 9 million PC’s worldwide and spreading fast.

Microsoft has issued a security update for this worm named “Dawnadup” or “Conflicker”. Microsoft said this is a similar virus that attacked the PC’s last October.

The hackers have so far haven’t exploited the exposed computers but may do so in the near future. They can easily remote access the vulnerable computers and compromise the data stored in it.

Get the latest update for your Windows PC by visiting the Microsoft Update link here.

Bored dog-walker develops 'Tadpole' dog-powered scooter

Dog-powered Scooter.

The dog owner was bored with dog-walking process so he has created a unique dog-powered scooter. He says the device doesn’t exploit dogs and requires only little energy.

The device looks sort of Segway but powered by dogs instead. It was created by Mark Schuette from Oregon, U.S.

The standard scooter named “Tadpole” has a skateboard like pad with handles and after an initial push by the owner, the dog takes over and pulls the adjacent scooter along via the harness. The scooter and the harness costs $560 (£380) and costs more for additional options and features.

It is meant to give the dog a good work out. Schuette says with time the riders and the dogs will easily adjust to riding this scooter without any problems.

Schuette told Daily Mail that dogs are not mistreated with this vehicle.

'The location and the way the dog is harnessed into the scooter was designed to be neutral to the units handling, and place no weight on the dog,'

From the video one can see that it gives a good work out to the dogs but the owner hardly gets any exercise just like Segway.






If you want a dog-powered scooter, you can purchase it here.

Will you recommend this for a dog owner?

Gmail Launches 'Send & Archive' Feature Via Labs

Gmail adds "Send & Archive" Feature:

Gmail has launched another new feature that users will love to have in their email account. The new feature sends the emails and archives at the same time eliminating one more step.

If you have too many emails cluttering your email inbox, then you would love this “Send & Archive” feature in Gmail. Previously we reply to emails and then after we send it we try to label the file and archive it. This new feature eliminates the second step, so you reply and archive the email at the same time.

To enable this feature, follow these simple steps:

1.) Log on to your Gmail account

2.) Click Settings and click “Labs”

3.) Go to “Send & Archive” and enable this feature

4.) Click Save.

Next time when you reply the email you will see the “Send & Archive” button at the top, when you click this button, the email is sent and then the conversation is archived including the reply.

If you have more suggestions for Gmail, you can leave a comment in this Google groups here. Most of the features that we see in Gmail are user requested or user suggested.

This feature will keep your box clean and with less clutter.

Google adds public transportation routes in Google Maps

Google Maps has added another tool, “Public Transit” to find the public transportations routes in the city. Besides getting directions to different cities, knowing the public transit information will be a huge boost for travelers to explore the city.

Previously you can see photos, videos, Wikipedia information about the various spots in the city in Google Maps and now you can see the “Transit” routes over laid on the maps. You can see the bus and train information in the maps.

When you look for directions in Google Maps, click the “More” tabs and you will see different choices, “photos”, “Videos”, “Wikipedia” and “Transit”.

Select “Transit”, then you will see the public transportation routes for that city on the maps with colored lines as shown below.

This will be particularly useful in big cities like New York. You can find the nearest public transportation links with Google Maps.

So far Google Maps have added this “Transit” layer for 50 cities and more will follow soon. The available cities are:

Belo Horizonte, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brasilia, Cairo, Capetown, Caracas, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dallas, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Ekaterinburg, Essen, Frankfurt, Genoa, Guadalajara, Hamburg, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Kazan, Köln, Lille, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Marseille, Medellin, Mexico City, Melbourne, Monterrey, Montreal, Munich, Naples, Nizhniy Novgorod, Oslo, Paris, Perth, Portland, Porto, Porto Alegre, Prague, Pretoria, Recife, Rennes, Rio de Janeiro, Samara, San Francisco, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tunis, Vienna, Warsaw.

Here is a sample Paris transit link.



Google maps transit directions in Paris. Photo: Google.com.

This new “Transit” tool is an extension of another Google project “Google Transit” which provides public transportation routes in various cities worldwide.

With Google Maps you can save gas money by using public transportation in the cities you are visiting.

YouTube Mutes Videos With Unauthorized Copyrighted Music

The video has no music, it was removed by YouTube.

YouTube has started to remove the music in videos that uses copyrighted songs. Many users are displeased with this decision.

RIAA has been a crusade against using music without copyright permission. Viacom is also in an ongoing lawsuit with YouTube for having copyrighted videos.

Since then, YouTube has been taking a variety of measures to take down copyrighted content. And today many users have noticed that some YouTube videos have no sounds, it appears YouTube has removed the copyrighted music from the videos.

You can see one example here. When you visit the YouTube site, it posts a message below the offending video:

“This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.”



There is no music in some videos. Mashable.com

Mashable.com reports that a bulk of YouTube videos will be affected because of this decision. Many fan made videos, spoofs and remixes will be affected and will be worthless to watch without the music.

Many users are complaining and say this will be the end of YouTube and that it is time to switch to another website. I disagree with them, other sites will also be affected similarly. If YouTube lets such videos with illegal songs, they will be the one to pay a huge price and will cost them millions in damages to RIAA, Viacom and others.

TechCrunch blames it on the music industry.

Is YouTube at fault to mute videos with copyrighted music?

Sony Introduces First Digital Camera DSC-G3 With Web Browser

Sony introduced a new DSC-G3 camera model that has built-in browser. Now users can transfer photos and log on to websites wirelessly.

Some cameras like Kodak, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic have Wi-Fi options and there is Eye-Fi memory cards that transfers photo wirelessly, but they have limited features or restricted to specific picture websites.

With the new DSC-G3 model, you can logon to any website and transfer pictures and videos also via its built-in web browser and Wi-Fi option.

Popular Science reviewed this G3 model and it says Sony has got it right at least in theory. They say it is similar to the Sony Cyber-shot T700 camera but has the additional web browser option. The G3 has a 3.5-inch touch screen.

The browser in G3 is not the most advanced but has the basic features we need to log on to websites and transfer pictures.

Though the browser is a welcome addition and has ready links to download to Picas, Photobucket and YouTube, the browser is very slow in downloading according to Popular Science.

Sony DSC-G3 Digital Camera with Browser. Photo: Sonystyle.com.

The uploading to photo and video sites are easy to use once the login information is stored in the camera. Just like the upload locates the picture folders in the computer, the camera locates the pictures in the stored memory card and allows easy uploading to sites.

Popular Science said the uploads are very reliable, the G3 was able to transfer all the pictures safely except for slow downloading process.

The web browser in G3 allows us to see pictures in the web but doesn’t have the download function to the camera and also doesn’t play videos from the web.

They tried to browse other websites, but the browser didn’t perform well and the sites looked garbled.

Another disadvantage with the web browser is it drains the camera batteries.

Nevertheless it is a good start from Sony. The future versions can use mini browsers from Opera, Firefox or something like Safari for iPhone instead of their own browser to access mobile picture and video sites.

Palm introduces Palm Pre Smartphone

Palm debuts its new handheld device named Palm Pre with a new webOS platform. It has a large screen, built-in keyboard, GPS, Wi-Fi, EV-DO Broadband, Bluetooth, Camera and a wireless charger.

Palm unveiled its new device at the ongoing CES show in Las Vegas. It looks impressive so far with a number of features that will make iPhone owners envy.

Palm Pre has a high speed broadband connectivity with EV-DO Rev. A. It also has an 802.11b/h Wi-Fi, the first of its kind in a Palm device. The screen for the new Palm Pre has a 3.1-inch 24-bit color 480 x 320 display same as the iPhone screen display.

Other features include Bluetooth, 8GB of storage, 3 Megapixel camera with LED Flash, 3.5 mm headphone jack.

It has a mass storage-friendly microUSB plug, so you can have unlimited storage option through that and has a wireless charger, a first of its kind. These two features separate it from other Smartphones including iPhone and BlackBerry.



Here is the summary of features available in the new Palm Pre Smartphone, which will be available in the coming months.

• High-speed wireless (EV-DO Rev. A or HSDPA, depending on version)
• 802.11b / g Wi-Fi
• Integrated GPS
• 3.1-inch 24-bit color 480 x 320 display
• Dedicated gesture area below display
• Slide-out portrait QWERTY keyboard
• Exchange email support in addition to POP and IMAP
• IM, MMS, and SMS messaging
• High-performance browser
• 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and "extended depth of field"
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP
• 8GB of internal storage
• USB mass storage mode
• MicroUSB connectivity with USB 2.0
• Proximity sensor for detecting when phone is near face
• Light sensor to automatically dim display
• Ringer mute switch
• Removable rechargeable battery
• 59.57 x 100.53 x 16.95mm closed
• 4.76 ounces

Thanks to iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm are stepping up their offerings.

You can check more about Palm Pre from this link here.

Sony VAIO P: World's lightest 8-inch netbook

The new Sony netbook weighs only 1.4 pounds. It has a 1,600 x 768 resolution LED-backlit XBRITE-ECO LCD display, Bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G WWAN and a GPS module built-in.

Sony unveiled the world’s lightest 8-inch netbook at Las Vegas CES show. It will start shipping in early February with prices starting at $900.

Engadget says the VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC is about the size of a business envelope and as thin as a cell phone and weighs only 1.4 pounds (0.64 kilogram).

The netbook comes in an array of colors such as garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black. It will be available at the SonyStyle store beginning inFebruary, but you can pre-order it here.

Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing at Sony Electronics, told the audience at the CES show:

"The VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC is your portal to the world, delivering entertainment and computing in a head-turning device that's small enough to put in your pocket...Designed for the fashionista in all of us, it's the ideal companion."

The keyboard is also designed to help reduce typing mistakes, according to Engadget.

Sonystyle.com/

The World's Lightest Netbook Sony VAIO P

There are also many wireless options to choose from in the new netbook, it has WAN 3G Mobile Broadband, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. You can use WAN 3G Mobile Broadband for internet connectivity anywhere; Wi-Fi at home or in coffee shops and Bluetooth for connecting to printers and other peripherals.

Sonystyle.com

Sony Vaio P, thin netbook.

The standard battery in this netbook provides up to four hours of battery life and eight hours with a large capacity battery sold separately.

The GPS module in the netbook will also work without the need for an internet connection.

The PC is loaded with the Windows Vista operating system and basic Microsoft Office programs. It also has a built-in Web camera.

Worried parents can now track children with GPS locator watch

Nu-M8 GPS Locator Watch for Children. Photo: Lok8u.com.

A British company has started selling a new GPS Locator watch that will detect a person's location to within 10 feet. If the watch is pulled forcibly from the child, it alerts the parents.

Worcestershire-based Lok8u has launched the Nu M8 digital watch, which carries a GPS locator hidden inside.

From the outside, it looks like any other digital watch. This watch uses GPS satellite technology similar to car satellite navigation systems.

Once a child puts on the Nu M8 watch, the parents can track his or her movements on a website supported by Lok8u.

Parents send a text message “wru” or click “where are you” on the website and they will be able to see the child’s location in Google maps, including the street address and postal code or zip code.

Parents can also set “safe zone” limits for their children and if the child moves out of the safe zone, the watch will send an alert to the parent’s mobile phone or computer.

Steve Salmon from Lok8u told the Daily Mail:

'This product gives parents the reassurance of knowing where their children are, any time, anywhere...The overriding aim of Nu.M8 is to give children their freedom and parents peace of mind.'

The watch costs £149.99 ($221.64) and carries a monthly charge of £19.99 ($29.54) and up, depending on the amount of usage.

While some parents are happy with the new gadget, others are not. Michele Elliott, director of children's charity Kidscape, told the Daily Mail:

'Anything that makes children safer is a good thing but is the world really that unsafe that parents need to electronically track their children? I don't think so.'

The watch will be launched this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

13 year-old has a popular social website in Scotland

ScotBlog.net, a social blogging website.

Scott Campbell launched a social blogging website in Scotland last November and has already become the most popular one in the country. He is only 13-years-old and his mom is supporting his venture and he is currently attending school.

Scott Campbell contacted TechCrunch about his new website ScotBlog.net and mentioned to them that he is 13-years-old. TechCrunch contacted his mom to make sure what he said was true and it was.

Campbell launched ScotBlog.net to provide a blogging platform for users in Scotland and already it has become a big hit within the country and outside among Scottish people living abroad.

ScotBlog.net is based on the group WordPress blog platform, where users can create their own profile, create groups, add friends, send messages and most importantly blog their activities. It wants to create an online community within Scotland but it also seems to have Scottish members from other parts of world.

Scott lives with his mother, who helps pay for the social site’s expenses. Hopefully in the future he can manage it on his own with advertising and private funding like the Facebook and MySpace social websites.

In 2006, Scott finished runner up in the BT Internet Rangers Competition. He won a laptop for helping his family with the Internet.

Does Facebook have to worry about ScotBlog.net? Maybe in the future but it is a great start by a 13-year-old kid from Scotland.

How to Convert a Word Document to PDF?

You can do this easily in Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) in a few easy steps.

1. Either upload the word document from your computer to Google Docs by clicking the "upload" button in Google Docs and browse the computer and choose the file you want the conversion to PDF.

Or

Click the "New" button in Google Docs and type the document and click save.

2. Once you have uploaded the word document or typed the new word document in Google Docs click the "File" menu and click "Download File As" as shown below and then choose "PDF". This will prompt you to save the document as PDF in your computer.

There are other alternatives also, but this one is free, safe and easy to use.

You can also convert the Word document to HTML, Text file, RTF, Open Office document etc.,

Another good thing with Google Docs is you can share your file with friends, family and customers by just clicking the share button and adding their emails. They can also see the document online, no downloads or no emails with bulk attachment are necessary.

UK company introduces microwave for cars

Maplin Electronics' In-Car Microwave. Photo: Redferret.net.

Maplin Electronics is offering its In-Car Microwave for UK drivers. It plugs into the car’s cigarette lighter and heat foods quickly.

The In-Car Microwave is a portable unit that requires 12 volts power. It plugs into a car’s cigarette lighter. It can also be connected directly to a car battery to cook the foods even quicker.

A microwave for cars is smaller than the ones used at home and is made of rugged steel and can easily fit in the car storage space when not in use. It has an LED touchscreen for easy operation.

The In-Car Microwave from Maplin Electronics costs £130 ($188.77).

Maplin Electronics spokesperson told Daily Mail:

You no longer have to worry about searching for places to eat as the microwave ensures you can plan your day as you want to and eat when you're hungry. It gives you the flexibility and freedom to enjoy hot food wherever and whenever you wish.

It may be good for trucks and RVs, who are making long drives but for cars it is too much, in my opinion. We already have too many gadgets in cars that distract us from the main task -- driving.

Lenovo introduces a new double-screen laptop

Lenovo's ThinkPad Laptop W700ds. Photo: Computerworld.com.

The Chinese PC maker, Lenovo has introduced the world’s first dual-screen laptops. It has 17-inch display and a smaller 10.6-inch display that slides out from the laptop.

Web designers, technologists and photo experts prefer a dual screen so that they can run many applications simultaneously without interfering one another. This Lenovo’s ThinkPad W700ds will satisfy their needs with its novel dual-screen in the laptop.

Lenovo, the world’s fourth-largest PC maker will unveil this new laptop at the Consumer Electronic Association’s (CES) trade show in Las Vegas this week.

Craig Merrigan, vice president of global consumer marketing made this announcement during a conference call with the press.

“We like to call it the nitro-burning funny car dragster of ThinkPads,”

The laptop has the original 17-inch display with a built-in smaller 10.6-inch display that slides out of the laptop.
It weighs 10.9 pounds (4.94 kilograms) compared to its lightest (4.6 pounds or 2.09 kilograms) Lenovo Y series laptops.

Merrigan added that the dual screens will help the users very much. They can use the second screen for reference, while they do their main work in the primary screen.

They can also watch TV or movies in the smaller screen.

The ThinkPad W700ds price starts at $3,663.

There is a detailed review about this laptop at this link.

The dual-screen laptop from Lenovo may not suit all but it will help designers for sure.

Find Vulnerabilities in Your Computer With Secunia

Secunia checks for any vulnerabilities in any of your applications in the computer as well as in the operating system you use and provides a list of updates to correct the error.

If you have a PC, you are flooded with updates all the time but in most cases the software providers don’t send the update promptly even when there is a fresh update available. Secunia fixes that problem and tracks all the vulnerabilities in your computer and provides a list of links to get updates from and fix them right away.

Secunia is a firm that tracks vulnerabilities in more than 20,000 applications and operating system. They cover almost the entire software range.

Secunia gathered data from their 20,000 users and almost every computer (98.09 percent) had one or more vulnerabilities. They classify vulnerabilities as follows:

"By insecure program it is understood, that there is a newer version of the program available from the vendor that corrects one or more vulnerabilities, but the user has yet to install the secure version. A vulnerability in a program can be exploited by hackers to anything from compromising a PC, to automatically install trojans/viruses, to sniff out private information (passwords, credit cards information, etc)."

To find the list of security issues in your computer you can download their free program “Secunia Personal Software Inspector”.

Once you download run the program and it finds the list of vulnerabilities like the picture below:



Secunia checks for vulnerabilities in your PC. Photo: Googlesystem.blogspot.

Click the download arrow sign to get the updates for that particular application or OS and fix the security error.

There is an advanced tab for experienced users.

I checked Secunia, it is very easy to install and checks the programs in minutes.

You should use this frequently more than once a month to see the latest vulnerabilities.

To find more information about the vulnerabilities you can subscribe to their mailing lists in the Secunia link here.

Some applications like Microsoft and Google have auto-update feature but not all programs do. A program like Secunia helps us to find the computer vulnerabilities before the damage is done.

Mars rovers celebrate 5-year anniversary

This portion of a 360-degree mosaic known as the "Bonestell Panorama" shows McCool Hill, named after one of the astronauts lost in the Columbia tragedy, and some of the Spirit rover's tracks on the Martian surface. Nasa.gov.

Each of the rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were supposed to last only for 90 days in Mars instead they are doing well even after five years.

NASA sent the Spirit rover to Mars five years ago and it landed on January 4, 2004 and has done an amazing job along with Opportunity providing stunning panorama view of Mars.

Spirit has traveled about 4.7 miles (7.5 kilometers) which may not be too big for human standards but it is a significant achievement by the NASA scientists.

Recently because of the winter in Mars, Spirit was kept dormant near a region called “Home Plate” in Mars.

Once the winter is over, scientists hope Spirit will get boosted by sun’s energy and will be able to investigate the intriguing “Home Plate” area.

On the other side of the planet Opportunity is exploring the massive 13.7-mile-wide (22-kilometers) Endeavour Crater.

NASA plans to extend the mission for both rovers at least for another year costing $20 million.



NASA's Opportunity rover looks back at its tracks on Oct. 22, during its trek toward Endeavour Crater. This mosaic image was released on Dec. 29. Nasa.gov

Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, is happy that NASA was able to accomplish their objectives with a minimum spending of $820 million.

Weiler told the Press:

"The American taxpayer was told three months for each rover was the prime mission plan...The twins have worked almost 20 times that long. That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times."

The longest mission in Mars so far is the Viking 1 Lander but it was a stationary one. It lasted six years. NASA hopes to break that record with its twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Hope they retrieve it and put it in a Smithsonian Museum, the rovers have done an incredible job.

CatholicGoogle: A Search Engine For All Things Catholic

A new site CatholicGoogle.com, based on Google’s custom search and technology provides a convenient and safe search for Catholics on all topics related to its religion.

Thanks to Google’s open code, web designers can create custom search sites specific to their needs. In this case CatholicGoogle.com provides a convenient and a safe search tool for those who want to seek answers in religion.

It is a simple site just like Google.com provides search results from various religious sites and articles available in the web.

CatholicGoogle.com uses a permanently-on Google SafeSearch filter to screen out any sexual, profanity contents. It also uses a filter for specific topics that uses Catholic-related sites and brings their results first. They also have ads like Google in the side bar.

In its “About Us” page, they say the following:

Catholic search engine powered by Google striving to provide an easy to use resource to anyone wanting to learn more about Catholicism and provide a safer way for good Catholics to surf the web.

CatholicGoogle is powered by Google using "safe search" technology, it produces results from all over the internet with more weighting to given to Catholic websites and eliminates the vast majority of unsavory content, such as pornography. The site is not associated or affiliated with Google.com, we work closely with Google to help ensure that the adverts are not objectionable in nature, however, some of the results and adverts that are displayed may not be in line with Catholic doctrine and we do not endorse of any of the results or adverts displayed on Catholic Google.

Jason Kincaid from TechCrunch has reviewed the site and found some errors in it. He said the site is probably adding the word Catholic to every word that is inputted and gives mixed results, in some cases it brings out articles against Catholics.

If you search for “birth control”, it brings out pages on why birth control is viewed as a sin in Catholic Church.

Based on the users’ recommendation, CatholicGoogle.com can tweak its results.

There are also other available sources for Catholics and other Christian groups such as GodTube.com, a YouTube-like site for Christians and Gospelr.com, a Twitter-like site for Christians.

Microsoft: 400,000 PCs infected with Fake Antivirus 2009 Software

Kaspersky Internet Security. Photo: Amazon.com.

Microsoft announced that they removed a fake “Antivirus 2009” application from more than 394,000 PCs with their free update tool.

The users look for a cheap Antivirus program or a free one end up loading the fake “Antivirus 2009” but in reality it cripples the computer it is downloaded to.

Firstly, it is not an anti-virus program; secondly, the fake program issues a pop out and refuses to close until you pay $50 or more. It doesn’t let you uninstall it or allow you to run any other program while it is running.

Most of the users had to reinstall all of their programs in the computer.

Microsoft issued a new update for its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), the free utility that is included in the monthly Windows Update. This new update specially targeted the “Antivirus 2009” program and removed it. Last month alone, Microsoft claimed that it removed that program from over 394,000 PCS in the first nine days after it was released on December 9.

This follows after Microsoft removed similar programs in November. It removed programs like “Advanced Antivirus”, “Ultimate Antivirus 2008” and “XPert Antivirus” from almost a million PCs.

During December, Microsoft focused on Win32/Fake XPA family (including Win32/Yektel and Win32/Fake XPA) and removed fake security software called “Antivirus XP”, “Antivirus XP 2008” and “Antivirus 2009”.

If your computer is infected with any of these programs, scan your PC immediately with the MSRT tool from Microsoft from the link here. This blog from Campos outlines how they removed the "Antivirus 2009" from the infected computer.

If you use Firefox or Chrome, whenever you visit such sites offering free “Antivirus”, both browsers will issue a warning and won’t allow you to download the software. Internet Explorer doesn’t warn you.

Also, try using legitimate software like Kaspersky, Symantec and others for anti-virus application. You can find cheap prices for them at Ebay.com.

I use Kaspersky Internet Security does a great job of catching such rogue software. If you are using a good Anti-virus and Firewall tool, leave a comment for other users to follow.