Windows 8 will be Kill XP, Vista, and Windows 7

A good point was made by Ed Bott of ZDNet when he wrote a post that said that businesses were going to use Windows 8 as an excuse to get Windows 7. Sounds like crazy logic, but it makes sense. Businesses are not on the forefront of the technology revolution. They like to play it safe. Right now XP is safe.  Windows 7 is not. Next year, presumably in April when Windows 8 is released, it will make Windows 7 safe. Windows 8 will be looked upon as cutting edge technology, but untested.

With the majority of businesses still using XP the growth towards Windows 7 will intensify into acceptance. The result is inevitable. XP and Vista should breathe their last sometime in 2012.

The Economy and The Cloud
That said, the big IF is whether the US economy will improve enough to give businesses sufficient confidence that they can spend money. With the real estate market in the doldrums, jobs moving overseas, inflation, and high debt, businesses are worried that spending too much money may in fact kill their chances of profitability, if not the business itself. So one big issue is whether or not the economy will rebound.

Another issue that is starting to manifest itself, which was not a player when Windows 7 was released, is the Cloud. This allows software and hardware upgrades to be less important, because a company can lease the latest software and hardware from a Microsoft Data Center and make the transition to the most current technology. With Windows 8 coming, it may even supplant the Windows 7 element. All that Microsoft has to do is show that the legacy applications will run on Windows 8.

There is also fact that Windows 8 may have many features currently seen today in tablets and mobile smart phones. So the view that the technology is untested may not applicable, which in turn will allow businesses to make the transition to the most current OS.

Windows 8 Will Be Hardware Backwards Compatible

In the past, one of the biggest drawbacks to OS migration has been the problem of upgrade compatibility. IT managers were frequently worried that a new OS also meant an upgrade in the hardware. That was the stopping point. According to the economics of this scenario, you had to spend money on the new operating system and money on the hardware needed to run the operating system.

t the Microsoft Partner Conference, officials addressed this concern.

“In both of our Windows 8 previews, we talked about continuing with the important trend that we started with Windows 7, keeping system requirements either flat or reducing them over time. Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same requirements or lower.” In other words, the upgrade issue should be flat and non-existent. Provided, of course, that the system meets the following minimum requirements.

• 1GHz CPU
• 1GB RAM (for 32-bit systems) or 2GB RAM (for 64-bit systems)
• 16 GB hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver.

IT managers will still be concerned about the upgrade. The “What Again?” problem will be there. That is, if they have recently upgraded, will they be willing to make another upgrade so soon? Remember, that an upgrade is not just about an OS and hardware. It also means upgrading the skill set of employees. After all, why do the upgrade at all if they do not know how to use the new OS to its full capacity? Furthermore, there have to be re-assurances that the existing software will port over to the new OS. That means days, or weeks of testing. Sometimes this occurs simultaneously with the existing OS to make sure that the software in question will work.

For now, though Microsoft is making the effort that at least one upgrade problem will not occur, that is that IT managers will not have to upgrade their hardware.

Review BlackBerry Storm 3

The handset is touted as the BlackBerry Storm 3 began teasing the world gadget enthusiast. In a video, a gadget that has the nickname Monaco was trying to show off.
Sightings Storm 3 itself actually has been known since some time ago. But this time, the presence of the handset feels more real because of the present in video format. Because earlier still limited to photographs and illustrations.
Because carrying the family name 'storm', the BlackBerry Storm 3 course is designed with full touch screen navigation. Unlike the first version that relies on Storm SurePress technology, Storm 3 in the video can be seen already switched to a capacitive touch screen technology.
As a result, when the touch screen capabilities on display, running so smoothly follow the direction of sweep of the fingers is running.
Research In Motion (RIM) complete the Storm 3 with a trackpad and four basic buttons at the bottom of the face, namely that serves to lift and close the phone, menu and back buttons.
Quoted from detikINET, Tuesday (22/02/2011), Storm 3 comes with 3.7-inch screen, carries a BlackBerry OS 6 and reinforced with 1.2 GHz processor. The cameras are buried is still limited to 5 megapixels, but it is claimed can record video with 720p capability.
Want to try out soon? Unfortunately, you still have to be patient. Because, according to news circulating, new RIM will be releasing this handset in September 2011.
Here are the specs and features of the BlackBerry Storm 3 version BGR:

    * Processor 1.2GHz
    * Capacitive touch screen 3.7-inch 800 x 480
    * Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
    * Tri-band UMTS / HSPA
    * 5-megapixel camera
    * 8GB eMMC (storage for apps and data), 512MB RAM
    * MicroSD slot
    * Magnetometer
    * Proximity sensor
    * Accelerometer
    * Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
    * 2.4GHz b / g / n and 5GHz a / n Wi-Fi + UMA
    * 3G Mobile hotspot
    * Optical trackpad
    * 1230 mAh battery
    * BlackBerry OS 6.1
    * OpenGL ES 2.0

Samsung asks to see Apple's next iPhone, iPad

In an interesting turn of events, Samsung's legal team has asked Apple to hand over next-generation versions of the iPhone and iPad to make sure its own future devices will not be subjected to the same infringement claims the company currently faces as part of Apple's lawsuit from last month. 

The motion, filed on Friday with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., and discovered by This Is My Next, asks the court to make Apple provide samples of the "final, commercial version(s)" of the iPhone and iPad, along with whatever retail packaging those products come in. Again, these aren't announced products, they're named in the filing as the "iPhone 4S," "iPhone 5," "iPad 3," and "third generation iPad." 

The news comes a week after Apple filed a motion to see final production samples of a number of announced, though unreleased, Samsung products, including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 tablets, and smartphones like the Galaxy S II, Droid Charge, and Infuse 4G. The idea behind that was to evaluate whether these devices would fall under the same intellectual-property infringement claims Apple had already placed on Samsung devices like the Nexus S, Captivate, Continuum, and Mesmerize in its original court filing. 

Nilay Patel, of This Is My Next, notes that as with Apple's handling of the request to see Samsung's unreleased products, the Samsung request asks only that Samsung's lawyers, and not the company's product teams, be allowed to see the Apple devices. That said, the retaliation preys on the element of surprise, historically one of Apple's biggest strengths when introducing new products.

Apple's lawsuit against Samsung (PDF), back in April, alleged that Samsung had copied Apple's mobile devices both in terms of user interface and design features. Apple also alleged that the Samsung devices in question infringed on Apple's patents, and resulted in Samsung practicing unfair competition. Samsung fired back by launching a wave of patent infringement lawsuits targeting Apple's products in multiple countries. 

The case continues to generate intense interest from tech onlookers. While the two companies compete, Apple and Samsung have historically been close business partners, with Apple making use of a number of Samsung components across the range of its devices. Nonetheless, the relationship has not kept Samsung and its telecommunications group from being targeted.

Twitter gives up details of anonymous tweeter

One of the fun aspects of Twitter is that you can pretend to be someone else--or just make a name up for yourself--and express your true feelings about so very many things. However, if your feelings happen to be seen as libelous, you might now have a problem.

For the Guardian reports that Twitter has revealed the name, e-mail address, and telephone number of a person who tweeted some rather critical notions about a local council in the U.K. The council of South Tyneside, in the rather chilly north of England, decided to petition a court in California in order to secure these details.

Twitter's privacy policy does state the following: "We may disclose your information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect Twitter's rights or property. It seems that, in this case, several Twitter accounts had been the repositories of rather severe accusations. And the Guardian reports that suspicion had fallen on one of the council's own members, Ahmed Khan, who reportedly admitted that Twitter had contacted him to inform him of his unmasking. Khan reportedly said, though, that he was not the author of the material that is alleged to be libelous. Khan told the Guardian: "It is like something out of 1984. If a council can take this kind of action against one of its own councilors simply because they don't like what I say, what hope is there for freedom of speech or privacy?"

Well, now, talking of freedom of speech and privacy, where does this leave the distraught mind of world famous soccer player Ryan Giggs and the rippling muscles of his lawyers? Should you have missed seeing Giggs' Manchester United humiliated by Barcelona in yesterday's European Champions League Final, you might also have missed that Giggs reportedly tried to sue thousands of tweeters who revealed some slightly humiliating information about him. Giggs is one of many wealthy--but, perhaps, not ultimately wise--British people who took out a so-called superinjunction preventing a woman from publicly revealing details of a personal relationship with the married player.

What resulted was that thousands of tweeters--some famous, some not--took to Twitter to reveal his name, until, ultimately, a member of the U.K. parliament decided to make it official by standing up and blurting it ou tloud. (U.K. MPs can say what they want in the confines of their quaint little chamber.) The question is whether Giggs--and anyone else who feels that they have been illegally besmirched on Twitter--will now go through with the idea of simultaneously suing tens of thousands of people, something that would surely make a fine subject for the next John Grisham novel.

Google's top five standoffs--from Apple to Yahoo

When PayPal filed its lawsuit against Google yesterday for poaching a key executive for its mobile-payment business, it got us thinking about the growing list of enemies Google has made over the years. Sometimes Google takes heat for doing the right thing, as it did in China. After wrestling with censorship, the company chose to shut down its Google.cn site and redirected users to the uncensored Chinese-language Google.com.hk domain in Hong Kong.

But Google has also managed to alienate regulators, both in the United States and abroad. And as the company pushes into new markets, it's found a passel of new rivals with which to do battle.

So here, then, are the top five confrontations (not scientifically selected) in which Google has managed to mire itself: Apple: While Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt sat on the board at Apple, Google developed its Android mobile phone operating system. It may not have seemed like a conflict of interest to Schmidt for the three years he served as a director. But the Federal Trade Commission raised some questions, even after Schmidt resigned. And Apple? It's CEO, Steve Jobs, felt betrayed enough that he reportedly railed on Google at an internal meeting, saying, "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake, they want to kill the iPhone."

Yahoo deal: In 2008, Google was forced to back down from plans to create a search advertising partnership with Yahoo. The defeat, a rare one in Google's brief history, came as the company overreached, according to regulators and advertisers. The deal would have further strengthened Google's already massive lead in search advertising. It misjudged the opposition the deal engendered.

Street View: Shortly after launching Street View in 2007, Google caught flack from governments and privacy advocates for displaying photographs that included people's faces and car license plates. It creeped out users, showing people walking into adult bookstores and inadvertently flashing their underwear at Google's cameras. The company even acknowledged Google collecting e-mails, passwords, and URLs from Wi-Fi networks while the company was snapping images for its Street View service. The company continues to address the fallout from privacy concerns sparked by Street View.

Google Books: The company boldly sought to digitize every book ever written, making the world's literature available to anyone interested in any title. Quickly, the ambitious effort took heat for attempting to profit from books without the permission of copyright owners. When Google reached a settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, another batch of opponents stepped forward, complaining that Google would amass too much control as the only organization in the world with a license to scan and display books that have gone out of print but were still protected by copyright laws. In March, Google lost a round in that fight when a New York federal judge rejected the settlement.

Rogue online pharmacies: Earlier this month, Google disclosed a $500 million charge in its first quarter to cover the potential cost of resolving an investigation by the Department of Justice, reportedly for accepting ads from rogue online pharmacies in violation of federal law. The eye-popping amount suggests to some legal scholars that Google knew it was taking business from companies that broke the law. Google took steps to curtail advertising by illicit pharmacies in February 2010 and even won praise from the Obama administration in December for making efforts to block those ads. Now the company just needs to resolve the lingering dispute with the Justice Department.

(Source : http://news.cnet.com)