Powerpoint view as slideshow in gmail

Now you can open PowerPoint attachments as slideshows, without having to download anything. Just click "View as slideshow" next to the .ppt attachment you want to preview. Since you can open .doc and .xls attachments with Google Docs and Spreadsheets too, there's no need to leave your web browser to check out your Gmail attachments. Learn More.

Microsoft to unveil coffee-table-shaped computer

Microsoft is to unveil a coffee-table-shaped "surface computer" today in a major step towards co-founder Bill Gates' view of a future where the mouse and keyboard are replaced by more natural interaction using voice, pen and touch.

Microsoft Surface, which has a 76cm (30-inch) display under a hard-plastic tabletop, allows people to touch and move objects on screen for everything from digital finger painting and jigsaw puzzles to ordering off a virtual menu in a restaurant. It also recognises and interacts with devices placed on its surface, so cell phone users can easily buy ringtones or change payment plans by placing their handsets on in-store displays, or a group of people gathered round the table can check out the photos on a digital camera placed on top.

The world's largest software maker said it will manufacture the machine itself and sell it initially to corporate customers, deploying the first units in November in Sheraton hotels, Harrah's casinos, T-Mobile stores, and restaurants. The company is selling the Surface for between $US5,000 and $US10,000 each, but aims to bring prices down to consumer levels in three to five years and introduce various shapes and forms.

PC World - The 100 Best Products of 2007

Innovative Web applications, powerful processors, spectacular HDTVs, and creative game consoles--we asked you for your favorites and added lots of our own for our annual roundup of the best hardware, software, and services. Then we looked at each product, rating and debating its design, impact, performance, and value to create our ranking of the best tech products available, from 1 to 100.

Of course, no matter when we plan our best-products story, a few hot contenders--we're looking at you, iPhone--will end up just around the corner. So this year we took time out to run down our five most anticipated products, as well as several hot and not-so-hot technologies. Read on for all that plus slide shows, video, and more. - PC World's Best 100 products

• The Top 100 Products, in Ranked Order
• The Top 100 Products, in Alphabetical Order
• In Pictures: The Top 20 Products of the Year
• In Pictures: Readers' Picks for Best Products of the Year
• In Pictures: Most Anticipated Products of the Year
• Video: The Best Products of 2007

Google, Salesforce.com Partnership Predicted

Google Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. will announce a partnership on Tuesday, a source close to the company in Europe said Thursday. Salesforce.com has scheduled an online news conference on Tuesday at 11 a.m. GMT at which Lindsey Armstrong, co-president of the company's operations in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region, will make a "strategic announcement." The source said it is safe enough to assume that the announcement concerns Google.

In the U.S., Salesforce.com has said that it will make an announcement with "a leading Internet company based in the Bay Area" first thing on Tuesday. A Salesforce.com U.S. spokesman reached on Thursday declined to comment on the identity of the Internet company.The Wall Street Journal reported on May 21 that Google and Salesforce.com were holding talks over a possible alliance that could see the two companies bundle Web-based applications. Both vendors declined to comment on the report.

Google and Salesforce.com have each been rapidly expanding the online services they offer. - PC World

The New Palm Foleo

A couple of days ago Palm announced the Palm Foleo, a different class of devices complementing the smartphone category, instead of complementing the PC category.

How is that? Until now PDAs and smartphones (from now on mobile devices) were PC companions, that is, users would synchronise their information (PIM, files, programs) to a PC. At the end of the day everything on a mobile device would just be a replica of the same kind of information present on a user's PC.

The Palm Foleo changes this by actually being the companion to a mobile device. Its main features are actually the large screen, full size keyboard and the ability to synchronise with a mobile device. Note that in this case the main repository is the mobile device, not a PC - although you could have a mobile device synchronising to a PC, and the Foleo synchronising to your mobile device.

Google has acquired Feedburner

Each day, FeedBurner delivers feeds to millions of users around the world and offers unique and useful tools for publishers to analyze, optimize, and monetize their content. Further, FeedBurner offers a feed advertising platform for advertisers to reach engaged feed readers through targeted in-feed ads and innovative techniques like RSS feed-driven ads.

"If you are a Google advertiser, now you can advertise on feeds that you otherwise may not have had access to," she said. Also, "our advertisers will have more access to (FeedBurner) publishers." Google will figure out "interesting ways" it can integrate FeedBurner technology with its Google Reader, Wojcicki said. RSS feeds enable media Web sites, bloggers and podcasters to shoot their content directly to readers through so-called RSS readers. FeedBurner helps publishers deliver the RSS feeds, as well as manage the feeds, track usage of the subscribers and serve ads.

The Google deal will undoubtedly shine the spotlight on technology that while growing rapidly, is not yet mainstream. The FeedBurner acquisition is just the latest of several recent Google purchases. On Tuesday, it was revealed that Google acquired security software developer GreenBorder Technologies. On Wednesday, it was disclosed that Google has purchased Spanish geo-photo firm Panoramio.

Read google reader offline

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. Gears provides three key features:

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

Google Gears is currently an early-access developers' release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.

Google Gear for Web offline

Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs:

	Store and serve application resources locally
	Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
	Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

Google Acquires Security Company, Greenborder

Google on May 11 acquired an online security company called the greenborder technologies. GreenBorder, the industry’s first Desktop DMZ software for Windows, keeps Internet invaders out and enterprise data in. It allows users to safely connect anywhere, go to any website, open any Internet email or attachment, and use any downloaded files without worry. GreenBorder’s unique, signature-less approach never needs updating and provides continuous protection against corruption, theft and invasion of business data systems.

GreenBorder creates a protected environment on your computer. Any type of activity and interaction, while you are on the Internet, will be directed to the protected environment. For instance, if you go to a website that is trying to maliciously infest your PC with malware, GreenBorder will keep the malware contained to the protected environment and simply discards it at the end of the session. This will keep your PC clean and free of any threats and at the same time gets rid of all the residue that builds up during your activity on the Internet.

Gmail attachments doubled

Google’s GMail attachment size has been doubled, from 10 MB to 20 MB, now we can send bigger files in one email.

Google is often the first mover to increase size restrictions for its free email service. Yahoo recently increased its free email storage capacity to support an unlimited amount.

For those that would prefer to use a third party for the sending, storing and receiving of large files, there’s always services like YouSendIt.

Yahoo Mail Announces Unlimited Storage

Yahoo is announcing that all Yahoo Mail users will have free unlimited email storage starting in May 2007. The current storage limit is 1 GB per account (2 GB for $20/year premium users). With this change, Yahoo leapfrogs Gmail (2.8 GB and growing) and Live.com Mail (2GB). Yahoo mail currently has 250 million global users, more than any other online service (Live.com has 228 million and Gmail has 51 million users).

Users are subject to Yahoo’s abuse policies, which requires users to follow “normal email practices” and not engage in activities like using Yahoo mail for basic online storage. Abusive accounts will not be summarily deleted - users will be notified by Yahoo and/or accounts suspended, but users will still have access to the data. - Techcrunch

Google Negotiating with Simply Hired?

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdry says that Google is stepping up its efforts to buy VC-backed SimplyHired. The job search engine most recently made news with the launch of its job-o-matic which creates widgets for bloggers to create their own job boards and they also recently did a deal to power MySpace jobs.

SimplyHired is led by Gautam Godhwani, who sold AtWeb, an Internet site optimization firm to AOL/Netscape in 1998. President Dion Lim co-founded of Epinions.com (now Shopping.com) ans was COO at Sina.com. Last April, News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media and Foundation Capital invested $13.5M in Simply Hired. A year earlier the company raised $3M in angel funding from early Google investors Rajeev Motwani and Ron Conway as wells as Kanwal Rekhi, and Garage Technology Ventures.

Yahoo Messenger for the web

Yahoo Messenger for the Web allows people to check their instant messages and access their buddy list from anywhere, which could prove useful for those who are traveling or are forbidden from downloading client software to their computers at work.

The Web version of the chat application offers functions that the downloaded version does not, such as the ability to search current and archived messages from any computer. It also lets users maintain multiple conversations in one window with different tabs instead of opening up chats in multiple windows. Yahoo rivals Google and Microsoft already have Web-based versions of their instant-message applications with Gmail and MSN Web Messenger, respectively.

Google's Personalized Home Page iGoogle

Google is adding a bit of style to home pages customized by users of its globally popular Internet search engine. The Mountain View, California-based firm is adorning personalized homepages with an “iGoogle” logo and rolling out “Gadget Maker” tools for people to easily tailor pages with pictures, videos or musings. Increasing the ranks of people using iGoogle homepages enables the Internet firm to make more money from online advertising and refine its search formula by studying the terms people use to seek information online.



Developers around the world have been working hard to make more and more of the world's content available for iGoogle. Now we can make our own gadget today, without having any programming or web design experience at all, anyone can create Google Gadgets for iGoogle and send them to friends. Simple gadget templates include a photo gadget, a "GoogleGram" greeting card-style gadget, a YouTube video channel gadget, and a free-form gadget.

1-800-GOOG-411 brings Google search to voice calls

Google has introduced the latest in its line of services designed to make it easier for us to find information we need—when not in front of a computer. The project, officially called Google Voice Local Search, is a free 411 service that users can call to request information on local businesses. The system is automated and uses voice recognition to determine what the caller is seeking.

Like most local 411 services, "Goog-411" (nicknamed after the service's phone number, 1-800-GOOG-411) offers users the ability to find businesses of nearly any ilk and even connects callers directly when they find the information they're looking for. Goog-411 also offers something that most 411 services do not: the ability to receive that information via text message to a mobile phone. Simply saying the words "text message" to the automated system after receiving query results will prompt the system to send the user an SMS with those same results. And again, it's all free aside from the typical charges associated with making local phone calls.

Unlike local 411 services, however, Goog-411 does not allow users to speak to a live operator to ask further questions about the businesses that they are searching for. This could serve as a sticking point for some older generations who aren't comfortable speaking to a robot and would prefer the help of a live human. But for most users, Goog-411 hopes to offer a comparable service to local 411 services, without the extra charges. And these days, even when you try to get a human on the line, sometimes you end up talking to a robot anyway.

Google Talk on Personalized Homepage

The Google Talk Gadget is a web-based module that you can add to your Google Personalized Homepage, letting you see your friends and chat with them -- all on your homepage. You'll also find all your Gmail and Google Talk contacts organized for you in the Talk Gadget. And just like with Gmail Chat, you don't have to download and install software to use it. One thing we really like is that it looks and feels the same on a Linux desktop as on a Windows laptop, and it also works on Macs. No matter where you go, all you have to do is login to your Google account, and there it is.

Get a sneak peek at the Google Talk Gadget in this short video:

Oracle says to buy rival Hyperion for $3.3 billion

Oracle Corp. said on Thursday it would buy Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion to boost its position in the fast-growing market for tools to help executives analyze business performance.

Oracle, which has a market value of more than $80 billion, will pay $52 in cash for each Hyperion share, a 21 percent premium over Wednesday's closing price of $42.84.

Oracle has spent more than $20 billion over the past two years on acquisitions of companies such as Siebel and PeopleSoft in search of growth as its core database software market matures. Oracle is the world's biggest database software maker and generates most of its revenue from those products.

Google talk eats bread :)

Its quite interesting to see breadtalk and google talk having similar talk logos.

Yahoo introduces YM Chat inside the mail box

After and from gmail, Yahoo has started the service to chat inside the mail box. Its a good competition with gmail. But google talk still lacks basic necessities like conference chat, video chat etc.

Gmail opens in EMEA without invitations

Finally Gmail is open to EMEA users. No need for any invitations. Also I have noticed that users here are getting the Gmail Fetcher facility.