In a move to capture the social media market, Google has attempted again by launching it’s new service called – “+1″. Many experts feel that this might not kick off very well, like other services launched by Google. There are many services similar to +1 in the market.
For details please visit Google’s blogpost.
New language translation tool unveiled at the 20th International WWW conference.
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam today launched the Machine translation (MT) systems, also called content multiplier tools, developed with funding from TDIL (Technology Development for Indian Languages) programme at the 20th International World Wide Web conference in Hyderabad.
Based on the Computational Paninian grammar (CPG), which works very well for free word-order languages, Indian languages in particular, the tools are available in three modules Sampark (Indian to Indian), AnglaMT (English to Bengali, Malayalam, Punjabi and Urdu) and Anvadaksh (English to Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Oriya, Urdu and Tamil).
“India has more than 122 languages of which 22 are official. More than a billion people all over the world speak either Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil or Urdu. With the availability of e-content and development of language technology, it is now possible to overcome the language barrier,&” Rajeev Sangal, director of IIIT-Hyderabad (one of the 17 institutions that participated in the development of the tools), told mediapersons.
Sangal said three consortia comprising 17 academic and research institutions were involved in building 26 different pairs of languages. Right now, 12 pairs are available and the plan is to release more pairs every three-four months, he added.
“An amount of Rs 13 crore went into the whole exercise and about 200 students were directly involved in the development of these tools. An additional 200 students worked on the project as a thesis and their algorithms were embedded into the systems directly,&” Sangal said.
The MT quality, Sangal said, was better in case of translation between Indian languages because they were similar in many ways, both in grammar and vocabulary. Translation between English and Indian languages is harder and hence the output quality is likely to be inferior.
“We are now asking users to try using the tool as an experiment. Our only focus now is on improving quality” he said.
Stating that the MT technology is currently freely accessible, Sangal said the MT initiative would be monetised when special needs for further research arises.
“Company-based efforts can also be initiated. We are already working with translation houses and publishers,&” he said, adding students at the IIT-Hyderabad were working on a text-to-speech system, and at some point these two technologies (text-to-speech and MT systems) will be combined together.
Global sales of smartphones will probably increase at a slower pace this year, with Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android likely to become the world’s best-selling smartphone system, according to International Data Corp.
Shipments of handsets that allow users to surf the Internet and download movies and music may gain 49 percent this year to more than 450 million units, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher said in a report today. The rate lags the 74 percent growth last year when consumers made purchases they’d delayed during the recession.
Android, which is available on handsets from dozens of vendors including Samsung Electronics Corp. and HTC Corp. (2498), has built its market share in less than three years to challenge Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)’s Symbian as the market leader. Nokia, the biggest maker of mobile phones, said last month it will move to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows Phone 7 as its primary operating system in a transition that is expected to last through 2012.
“For vendors who made Android the cornerstone of their smartphone strategies, 2010 was the coming-out party,” IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said in the report. “This year will see a coronation party as these same vendors broaden and deepen their portfolios to reach more customers, particularly first-time smartphone users.”
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 could be the second-largest operating platform behind Android by 2015 as it benefits from Nokia production capacity, IDC said today.
Android may have 39.5 percent of the smartphone market this year, passing Symbian’s share of 20.9 percent, IDC predicted. Symbian could fall to 0.2 percent in 2015, the researcher said. Windows Phone 7 and older Microsoft systems will run on 5.5 percent of units shipped this year, it said.
Android grew more than ninefold in 2010, according to Gartner Inc. research on unit sales to end users. The Google system had 22.7 percent of the smartphone market for the full year, compared with 37.6 percent for Symbian, Gartner said Feb. 2.
Firefox 4 Release Candidate is now available for download. With competition such as IE9 and Google Chrome 10, does Firefox 4 have some tricks up its sleeve to withstand the competition?
For starters, Firefox 4 comes with a plethora of changes both aesthetically as well as under the hood. The first thing that you will notice is the change in tabs layout and the address bar. It looks a lot neater than its predecessors and has an IE9 feel to it. The tabs are located above the address bar giving them a more visual presence. It is now possible for a user to switch between tabs from the comfort of the address bar itself.
Firefox also helps you stay in sync on multiple devices. You can synchronize your settings, passwords, bookmarks, history, open tabs and other customizations across multiple devices such as your smartphones.
Managing add-ons and organizing your tabs is as simple as drag and drop on Firefox 4.
Firefox 4 claims to be 3-times faster and 6-times improved when compared to Firefox 3.6.12.
Under the hood, Firefox 4 is a beast!! With the new JavaScript engine, not only does the browser render web pages faster, but has also improved upon the startup time. It also includes support for WebM for HD-videos. The latest version also has very fast graphics acceleration with Direct2D and Direct3D on Windows and OpenGL on the Mac. Firefox 4 also supports multi-touch making it an ideal browser for mobile devices.
The download is available at this page – Download Firefox 4 RC
Microsoft released the first official service pack for Windows 7 today. This is an important update that includes previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows 7. SP1 also includes new improvements to features and services in Windows 7, such as improved reliability when connecting to HDMI audio devices, printing using the XPS Viewer, and restoring previous folders in Windows Explorer after restarting.
There are different ways to install Windows 7 SP1. But before you start downloading, please note that you may need to keep from 750MB to 7400MB of free space (depending on the version of Windows) on your Windows partition to be able to install it. Also check if your Windows 7 is already updated to SP1. You can find this by looking under System in Control Panel, next to System type.
The easiest and safest way to install SP1 is using Windows Update service. If you use this, then your total download size will be 750MB for 32-bit Windows 7, and 1050MB for the 64-bit version. For this, you need to click Start, click All Programs and click Windows Update. In the window that opens, click “Check for updates” on the left. In the list of updates, you will see Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB976932), select it and click OK. Click Install updates to start downloading and installing the update. Enter your administrator password if prompted for the same. This method requires your computer to remain connected to the internet while the update downloads and installs.
The second way is to download the from the Microsoft Download Center. Choose the version of SP1 according to your Windows version and click Download. Run this downloaded file to install SP1.
There is also a provision to order a DVD from Microsoft containing SP1 from here, but it is valid only for users living in U.S. or Canada.
Please note that Geniune Windows validation is required to be able to download Windows 7 SP1.
Novell has announced that Moonlight 4 is now available. This version of Moonlight comes with full support for all prior version of Silverlight and preview support for Silverlight 4, including support of Microsoft-licensed codecs for Silverlight 3 and 4, today’s announcement marks the first time that Moonlight has shipped a release consistent with many popular sites built for the latest release of Silverlight. This release gives Firefox* and Google Chrome* users on Linux access to the latest Silverlight content and enables developers to take advantage of the newest features of Silverlight on all platforms.
For more information refer to this post on novell.
The much awaited jQuery 1.5 has released now.
This included many performance improvements and bug fixes as well as a major re-write of the Ajax module which now comes with deferred callback management. Core also introduced a new feature called jQuery.sub which allows for new copies of jQuery to be created where properties and methods can be safely modified without affecting the global jQuery object.
Microsoft CDN: http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.5.min.js
Google CDN: https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just announced that he is taking a medical leave of absence according to a release issued by the company today. Here’s the email memo Jobs sent to Apple employees today.
Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company. I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011. I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve
While it’s unclear what the reason is for the medical leave, Jobs’ previous medical history includes Pancreatic cancer as well as a liver transplant. In 2004, Jobs contracted Pancreatic Cancer, which he beat. Then Jobs underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and also made a full recovery. During Jobs’ absence in 2009, COO Tim Cook took over Apple’s day-to-day activities, similar to this situation. We may hear more about Jobs health condition tomorrow, when Apple releases Q4 and 2010 earnings. Clearly Jobs is a survivor; and has fought hard against his medical battles. Hopefully he will conquer this challenge as well.
Groupon Inc. said Tuesday it has expanded to India, Israel and South Africa by acquiring fellow online-coupon discount sites in those countries.
Closely held Groupon has been rapidly expanding by persuading local businesses to spend money online to attract customers. Its model has caught on in part because merchants don’t pay for marketing until they get a customer in the door.
It entered the new markets by acquiring deal sites SoSasta, Grouper and Twangoo. It didn’t give terms of the deals. The expansion comes as investors of all stripes have sought access to emerging markets, which are seen as being poised for quicker growth than the developed world.
Tuesday’s announcement follows the company saying Monday it completed a $950 million round of funding from backers including Mail.ru Group and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The funding came shortly after it reportedly walked away from an acquisition offer from Google Inc. worth as much as $6 billion.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075471994766438.html#ixzz1An2l8UYl