Google is trying to redefine how we use computers. They told that the desktop is soon going to be obsolete and, now it is becoming clear how they are going to change the computing platform.

Later this year, Google is planning to open a Web application store for easier set up programs based on the Chrome browser. It is an important step towards the release of Chrome OS, Google announced last year.

The online store was previewed during a Google conference for software programmers. The Chrome OS is being developed for light-weight laptops (netbooks) that don’t have any hard drives. Every programs run on it will be remotely hosted and run. Chrome OS powered computers will be cheap and are expected to arrive in store in time for the holiday shopping season.

The Google’s Web apps store is also expected to provide applications for tablet computers to compete with Apple’s iPad. Like the Apple store, the Google store will also feature paid as well as free apps to download for the computers using Chrome OS

Started in May of 2005, with an objective to offer users with an option to upload easily and share videos with each other, YouTube has largely been successful in the said objective.

In the last 5 years, the site has grown to become the most visited video site in the world, with over two billion views daily.  In every single minute, people upload more than 24 hours of video footage. YouTube history is well presented in the following video:

YouTube is localized in 22 countries in 24 different languages. It receives 70 percent of all its video uploads from outside the United States these days. The most popular video on YouTube is Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, with over 200 million views – posted below:

The fastest commercial train in the world is now operational in China running at a maximum speed of 394 kilometers per hour (km/hr) in a trail run. The train link connects two cities, Guangzhou in South to Wuhan in central China, and will travel at an average speed of 350km/hr (217mph). The 1,068 km distance between the two cities can now be covered by the high-speed train in two hours and forty five minutes – that is, a saving of about six hours of travel time.

The high-speed train line uses technology developed in co-operation with firms such as Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom.

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Fastest train in the world

It is confirmed. The Moon has water and plenty of it.

The NASA LCROSS mission has successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole. Here is the CBS video:

Steve Jobs did a great job in the past decade to be ranked Fortune Magazine’s CEO of the decade.

It is not the first time that Fortune recognized Jobs as a business genius. On November 27, 2007 Fortune Magazine named Jobs the most powerful person in business (CNN).

I like the way Jobs is portrayed in the article titled The decade of Steve.

Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Some of the notable contributions that Jobs was instrumental in are:

• One of the first commercially successful personal computers (Apple II in 1977).
• First mouse driven graphical interface (Macintosh computer in 1984).
• “Desktop publishing”
• Laser printer
• Personal computer network
• Successful computer animated feature films (Pixar)
• Highly successful digital music player (iPod in 2001)
• Online music store (iTunes in 2003)
• Highly successful smart-phone (iPhone in 2007)

Congratulation to the magician of the digital world, Steve Jobs!

Google, aiming to revolutionize the way people communicate online, has recently introduced an online application named Google Wave. The online tool will store a thread of data, document the history of a conversation and keep it on a server that runs on a Wave Protocol.

The wave protocol is related to cloud computing in which the users save, retrieve and work on data and applications on remote computers rather than the local hard drives. It is widely believed that future is for cloud computing in which users don’t need to download anything and everything can be done online. The operating system Google is planning to release, Chrome OS, is also based on the similar conceptual framework.

The widely used and most popular online communication tool ‘email’ was first introduced more than 40 years ago and it has little changed in the four decades. Emails are stored in server and are transferred to the users’ computer on request. However, Google Wave allows users to collaborate in real time. Users can see how and when things change and respond as required.

Email didn’t replace snail-mail but it sure did reduce the mail-box load. Now, it might be Email’s turn to shed some weight in the inbox.

Google Australia first proposed Google Wave in 2007. It is told that 100,000 beta users are testing the service currently. The service currently is invitation only. If you want to test it, you can also request an invite by visiting wave.google.com.

When I saw the misspelled Google logo, first thing I did was check the address bar. Yes it was the same old http://www.google.com. The same colorful logo of Google had an extra ‘l’ today. A mouse over the logo for a while revealed the secret of the misspelling.

Google is celebrating its 11th birthday today and everybody is invited to click its’ misspelled logo!

Happy Birthday Google!

Wish, you will prove to be even more innovating and user-friendly, respect our privacy, and wouldn’t meddle with our personal life in the coming year.

After lot of speculations, Steve Jobs, CEO Apple Computers, has finally appeared on stage at Apple’s “It’s only rock and roll” event in San Francisco. This appearance is his first public appearance after a lengthy pause on such appearances due to his health reasons.

Welcome back Steve!

He has announced the release of iPhone OS 3.1 and iTunes 9.

Later today, Apple is expected to announce a new lineup of iPod media players at the event.

Rumors on camera on iPod Nano are confirmed. iPod Nano will now have a video camera, microphone – speaker built in, voice recorder, and a pedometer. FM is another surprise addition to the little device.

It seems, Apple thought that camera or built-in microphones on  iPod Touch would be ‘too good’ and will eat-up the market of other iPod cousins. There was no iPads/tablets or whatever they were supposed to be called in the event.

Canada made Blackberry may be the world’s most-popular or next-to-the-most-popular high-end smart phone but that doesn’t mean Canadians love cell phones to the ancient land-lines.

In a latest report, Canada has the lowest mobile penetration followed by Mexico. Among 30 member countries surveyed by a Paris-based organization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), consumers in the U.S., Canada and Spain pay the highest mobile phone bills.

I posted about the previous report of OECD in 2007 and nothing has changed in the last two years – rates in Canada are still the highest and it is still the country with the lowest mobile penetration. Yes $85K mobile phone bill do make sense sometimes.

In the same report, it is told that Italians have 150 mobile phone subscribers for every 100 residents.

Last year it was the tallest man with whom he posed for photograph. Recently he met a long-legged Svetlana Pankratova in London’s Trafalger Square to pose for for the launch of the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, which is published on Wednesday.

The world’s smallest man, He Pingping, is 20 years old and just 74.61 centimeters tall. It is told that the shortness resulted from being born with a condition known as primordial dwarfism. Pingpin is told to be a keen poker player and smokes two packets of cigarettes a day.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the long-legged Russian woman, Svetlana Pankratova, has the world’s longest legs. Pankratova, 36, an estate agent from Volvograd, Russia, is 1.96 meters tall. Her legs alone measure 132 centimeters.

Pingping posed for a photograph showing him standing up comfortably between her legs. (Photo Source : WENN)