It seems that Windows Sideshow, one of the coolest things to come out of Windows Vista, will offer devices running the software for as little as $80 (£40). Some of the more higher end devices might cost a bit more, around $150 (£75) but a little device containing all the vitals of your everyday life, it’s brilliant.

Source: Gizmodo

Adobe today released Adobe Reader 8 software as a free download from its website.

Microsoft has unveiled a new touch-sensitive coffee table-shaped computer called “Surface”. Designed to do away with the need for a traditional mouse and keyboard, users can instead use their fingers to operate the computer. Also designed to interact with mobile phones placed on the surface, Microsoft says it will initially sell the unit to corporate customers. These will include hotels, casinos, phone stores and restaurants.

So-called “multi-touch” interfaces - which allow the user to “gesture” with several fingers at once to manipulate data, rather than relying on a mouse and menus - have been making waves in tech circles for some time. One of the most hotly-awaited examples is Apple’s iPhone, which is scheduled to be released in June.

Hewlett-Packard has also been looking at expanding multi-touch technology, in addition to leading research scientists such as Jeff Han of New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. With a 30-inch screen, Surface will initially sell for between $5,000 and $10,000 (£2,525-£5,050). However, Microsoft said it aimed to produce cheaper versions for homes within three to five years.

“We see this as a multi-billion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror,” said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. Microsoft says small groups of people will be able to use each Surface machine simultaneously.

They will be first deployed in November in Sheraton hotels, Harrah’s casinos, T-Mobile stores, and numerous restaurants. The computer giant has had a mixed record recently with new consumer products. While its Xbox games console has been a success, its Zune music player continues to lag far behind Apple’s iPod.

Source: BBC News

I previously wrote Will Thailand unblock YouTube now?

According to Mashable Thailand is going to Sue YouTube…

“Today the situation became even more problematic, with the Thai government saying it has plans to sue YouTube. Sitthichai Phokai-udom, the minister of information and communications technology, told The Associated Press that the government will file suit in a Thai court next week on charges of offending the monarchy. The minister’s statement was remarkably blunt: “Thailand is a fairly small country and not the economic or military powerhouse, so we are at the mercy of the greedy businessman in America”.”

If YouTube is still blocked in Thailand you can use YouTubeProxy to access your lonelygirl15 videos.

Update: The Wall Street Journal says the Deal is not happening!

What could probably be the largest acquisition in IT history, Microsoft is trying to get Yahoo to come back to the table for takeover talk which Yahoo has previously turned away. The lucrative 50 billion USD offer could change things this time though.

Microsoft is really pushing hard as to play catch-up in fields such as search and to counter the ever growing presence of Google on the Internet.

Head over to New York Post for the exclusive…

Microsoft unveiled a Work touch-desk concept at the Convergence 2007 conference. Vista didn’t make me go ‘Wow’, this did!

Watch the video…

[via Ring Nokia]

A story that contained a HD-DVD encryption key was submitted to Digg. After it made it to the front page, the site moderators took it down.

Another user posted the number with the title as, ‘The number.Again’. It made it to the front page in record time. That story was taken down as well. Why?

“We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.” (Digg Blog)

 What followed totally blew away anything that I have ever seen before. The power of the mob!

Digg was flooded with the HD-DVD stories containing the encryption key and 100 percent of the front page popular stories were on it. We all know how much Diggers hate MPAA and the RIAA and this censoring by Digg caused an uproar and a ‘revolt’. There was also a link made between HD-DVD and Kevin Rose’s Podcast, Diggnation. HD-DVD sponsors this podcast and many Diggers believe that this may be the reason Kevin caved in and moderated the stories.

Kevin Rose, usually loved by all his users has never seen this side of them. He is trying to win back the mob and this is what he blogged:

Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Yes! The encryption Key…

Here is what he had to say:

“Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin”

I personally feel that a number cannot be a copyright infringement. It was the key that protected the copyrights and not the copyright itself! There are so many comments on Digg that I was p*ssing myself laughing. Everyone is trying to get the number up there on digg, let it be through submiting stories, via comments and even pictures! Click here for an example.

Wow! This is what I call the 21st Century Digital Revolt. I think soon the MPAA and RIAA will realise that DRM doesn’t work anymore.

Ask.com’s CEO Jim Lanzone issued a statement explaining the new campaign that includes the intriguing ad copy:
The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus.

“Ask.com has launched an advertising campaign focused on ‘The Algorithm.’ The goal is to incite a consumer conversation around the importance of a search engine’s algorithm and its integral role in making one engine different from another, Lanzone said.

‘The Algorithm’ is the single most important ingredient that determines the relevance of search results, yet its impact on the overall search experience is taken for granted by most consumers. At Ask.com, we feel that in order to drive consumer awareness and use of our engine, it is important to highlight the uniqueness of our algorithm, which takes a different approach to ranking than our competitors. The Ask.com algorithm’s relevance methodology goes beyond the popularity focus of Google, Yahoo and MSN’s, and is the only one to break the Web down into topic clusters and determine community-based relevance in real time.”

 [Via SearchEngineWatch]

A few much needed Xbox 360 updates, coming soon!

Major Nelson reports the official updates that will be out in a months time:

[Quote]

While the actual update is about a month away from being released, today we released official details on some of the new features and enhancements the free update will contain. In addition to MSN Messenger integration that you may have heard about, we also announced a new text input device coming this summer. Other features coming next month include:

• The redesigned Achievement notification pop-up (toast) will show the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value. You’ll see this information the moment you earn an achievement. No more popping open the guide and interrupting your gameplay. (screenshot)
• Enhanced family settings features for Xbox LIVE communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
• A new Xbox LIVE Marketplace blade lets Xbox LIVE members access the content they seek - whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States) - from one place.
• Updates to Xbox LIVE Arcade allow owners to see which Xbox LIVE Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox LIVE members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. The Tell a Friend capabilities have been expanded as well.
• A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox LIVE Arcade games.
• New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
• Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.

I know you probably have a bunch of questions about these features, so I’ll work on getting a few guests on some of my upcoming shows to answer ‘em.

One more thing, the update will also add the ability for the name of the game that is in your tray to show up on the dash. Oh, and it works for Xbox 360 and Original Xbox titles

[Quote end]

More details can be found on Xbox News.

The most interesting update to hardware will be the QWERTY keypad accessory for the 360 controller. Watch out for this accessory this coming summer. It will be very useful for people like myself, who want to use the Live Messenger on the 360 but don’t want to attach a USB Keyboard or use on the on-screen keyboard which is a pain-in-the-ass to use!

Details of it had been leaked ages ago around July 2005 on what seems to be a Spanish .ppt presentation.

Fuckedcompany.com seems to have been acquired by TechCrunch. Although I would like to shout out *April Fools*, The fuckedcompany website has been closed down and they already have a TC type logo:

Read more about the story at TechCrunch…