Features of Windows 7 pre-beta leaked

Window's Vista hasn’t proven to be the wildly popular operating system that Microsoft had originally hoped. The early angst against the Operating System was so strong that Windows XP still hangs around and can be had on many new computer systems.

Microsoft is already getting Windows 7 ready to pick up where Vista floundered. We’ve been hearing about Windows 7 for quite some time now and as information leaks out, we’re getting a better idea about what this new operating system will contain. Specifically, it’s very Vista-esque.

on October 14 that Microsoft had chosen to stick with Windows 7 as the official name for the coming operating system. Microsoft also said that it would show the OS to developers in pre-beta form at the Professional Developers Conference this week.

Ahead of the conference, some details are coming out that give an idea of some of the early features of Windows 7.
Here are a few new features Microsoft will provide in windows 7

Leaked features of Windows 7

Action Center — a self-diagnosis feature to help users troubleshoot problems with their Windows 7 systems
StreamOn — a way to control audio/video content on PCs and devices (Part of the next version of Windows Media Player? Or something to do with Live Mesh? I don’t have more info at this time.)
A new animation framework for customizing animations (Is this akin to Apple’s Core Animation tool? I have no idea.)
New task bar and shell integration (Hints of this emerged in the September M3 leak)
Multi-touch and gesture recognition — something Microsoft showed off earlier this year in an early Windows 7 preview

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'People Power' Dominant theme on Microsoft Day

The 'Microsoft Day', held earlier this week in New Delhi marked the conclusion of the five city event convened as a partner focused initiative from Microsoft India. Skelta was an active participant in all the 5 cities and the Regional Business Development Managers represented Skelta in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.

SKELTA CEO, Sanjay Shah was invited as a speaker in the Bangalore leg of the event and addressed a crowd of over 200 attendees. Sanjay illustrated the criticalities of providing an application that allows people to collaborate with their peers, customers and partners, while following the right processes.This he pointed out would help fulfill the quest to differentiate ones enterprise from the competition.

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Mozilla To Stop Further Support For Firefox

Mozilla will be providing only two more security updates for Firefox 2.0 before it retires the popular web browser in December.

"We're starting to consult the development community for feedback," said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox, prior to setting a final 'end-of-life' date. If all goes according to plan, the last update for the older browser will be Firefox 2.0.0.19. The current build of Firefox 2.0 is 2.0.0.17, which was released last month to patch 14 vulnerabilities.

Mozilla's policy is to support a browser for six months after it's been superseded by a new version. The company unveiled Firefox 3.0 in mid-June; shortly after that, Mozilla announced that it would stop patching Firefox 2.0 later in the year.

Beltzner confirmed Wednesday that Firefox 2.0 remains on track for retirement by the end of December.

He also noted that a majority of Firefox 2.0 users have taken advantage of an upgrade offer to Firefox 3.0 that Mozilla triggered two months ago. "Presently two-thirds of our users are using Firefox 3, with more than 50 percent accepting the first major upgrade offer back in late August," said Beltzner in message posted early Wednesday to the Mozilla site.

Thunderbird, which is developed and maintained by Mozilla Messaging, a Mozilla spin-off, is considerably behind Firefox in its shift toward version 3.0, which is based on the Gecko 1.9 tree. Earlier this month, for example, Mozilla Messaging renamed what had originally been Beta 1 of Thunderbird 3.0 as, in fact, a third alpha. Previously, Mozilla Messaging had said the first release candidate for Thunderbird 3.0 would likely ship in late January, with a final some time after that.

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Intel Develops Linux-based Moblin

Intel and the Taiwan government plan to open a development center to further the Linux-based Moblin OS for devices such as netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MID), they jointly announced on Thursday.

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, created Moblin to use with devices that run on Intel Atom microprocessors. The open-source software includes a Linux kernel, a user interface, a browser, developer tools and other resources that Intel will continue to optimize as part of the agreement with the Taiwan government.

The new development center will be based in Taiwan so local device makers, including Acer and Asustek Computer, can make use of the software in their products. Netbooks made by the two companies, for example, come with either Microsoft Windows XP or a Linux OS currently. The new Moblin center aims to become a widely used OS for devices such as these and smaller gadgets that allow people wireless access to the Internet.

"The hottest thing going on in the computer industry today is the netbook phenomenon, and it started in Taiwan," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini at a news conference in Taipei.

The new Moblin development center will open in December, said Yiin Chii-ming, Taiwan's minister of economic affairs.

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Yahoo, Google may walk away from search deal

Google Inc and Yahoo Inc could announce a decision to walk away from their search deal by the middle of next week, 'The Wall Street Journal' reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The two Internet companies have so far failed to reach an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on implementing their search advertising partnership.

Earlier this month, the companies said they had decided to delay implementing the controversial deal, struck in June, due to ongoing discussions with regulators.

The deal, which allows Google to sell advertising for some of Yahoo's online advertising space, has drawn fierce criticism from advertisers, who fear higher prices.

Google and Yahoo together owned more than 80 percent of the web-search market in August, according to comScore Inc.

A source told Reuters at the time that the delay was expected to last less than a month.

But following a Thursday meeting with the Justice Department, the companies could decide to back away or announce a last-minute resolution if one is reached by next week, the Journal reported.

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iPhone Is Most Popular Among Low Earners

A survey by internet monitoring firm comScore has shown that the iPhone is proving most popular among low income earners, despite its high price tag.

The survey shows that 16 percent of iPhone owners are the one who earn less than $25,000 a year, and 48 percent are those who earns between $25,000 and $49,999.

“As an additional household budget item, a $200 device plus at least $70 per month for phone service seems a bit extravagant for those with lower disposable income,” said Jen Wu, senior analyst at comScore.

Wu suggested that consumers are increasingly using the iPhone as a computer replacement. The iPhone has traditionally been a big hit among the younger crowd, many of whom are either in college or early in careers — thus, living on their own, and likely not making a ton of money. He pointed out that the number of people earning between $25,000 and $50,000 accessing news and information via their mobile browser grew by five per cent since June, while the market overall grew by three per cent.

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Motorola to lay off 3,000 workers

Motorola announced that it was cutting its global workforce by 4.5%, or some 3,000 employees, and delaying the spinoff of its troubled cell phone unit.

Motorola, the largest US mobile phone manufacturer, announced the job cuts just hours after reporting a quarterly net loss of nearly $400m and said more than two-thirds of the layoffs would be in the handset division.

The ailing company had 66,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2007.

The largest US mobile phone manufacturer said in a statement that it suffered a net loss of $397m in the third quarter of the year after reporting a net profit of $60m the same time last year.

Motorola is planning cost savings of $800 million in 2009, with $600 million of that amount in mobile devices. In an earlier conference call with analysts, Jha outlined a plan for the mobile devices business that will involve reducing the number of software platforms used in handsets. Motorola is focusing on Google-developed Android, Windows Mobile and an in-house system called P2K.

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