Tag: Microsoft

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Worldwidetelescope.org Microsoft WorldWide Telescope a copy of google sky


Microsofts  WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes. Microsoft says the “final frontier got a bit closer” as the software giant officially launches the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope, which is now available at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org.

Very similar to Google Sky, WorldWide Telescope is a web app that brings together imagery from ground- and space-based observatories across the world to allow people to explore the night sky through their computers.

Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine, which claims to allow “seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments”.
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WorldWide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky.

WorldWide Telescope Software minimum system requirements

* Microsoft XP SP2 (minimum), Windows Vista
* 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
* 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
* 1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
* XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor
* Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing and scrolling device
* Microsoft DirectX version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0
* Required for some features; Internet connection at 56 Kbps or higher

worldwidetelescope.org Microsoft WorldWide Telescope a copy of google sky but still compare to Google sky worldwidetelescope is Mind blowing.

httpv://in.youtube.com/watch?v=CDNf5aLu_WU

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Best Tips to Protect your Web Sites from Hackers and Malicious contents

Hack

The Web is scarier than most people realize, according to research published recently by Google.These Web-based attacks become much more common in recent years as firewalls and better security practices by Microsoft have made it harder for worms and viruses to directly attack computers. Nowadays about 1.3 percent of all Google search queries list malicious results somewhere on the first few pages.

Criminals are getting better at this kind of work. They have built very successful automated tools that poke and prod Web sites, looking for programming errors and then exploit these flaws to install the drive-by download software. Often this code opens an invisible iFrame page on the victim’s browser that redirects it to a malicious Web server. That server then tries to install code on the victim’s PC. “The bad guys are getting exceptionally good at automating those attacks,”

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Following are some tips to get rid of this hackers or hijackers activity.

– Keep you password and username safe change it frequently only with strong password check your password with Microsoft

– Keep your PC clean from viruses and spy-wares because there are chances to hijack your PC contents and login cookies etc. Scan your PC for viruses now with NOD32 Online Antivirus Scanner

– Keep all folders and files permissions proper in your web hosting accounts/server. Never give full permission for the folders and files, that means read write and execute permission. If you are hosting sites in Linux platform never give 777 permission (read write and execute permission) to all members even for net users of file and folders. The preferred maximum permission is 755. This means write permission for root user and only read and execute permission for others.

– There are many techniques used to hack/hijack the website

Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

SQL injection flaws

Site reconnaissance

Session hijacking

Application denial of service

Cookie/session tampering

To withstand from this you need “professionally well designed websites” and also powerful web sitefirewall at server end.

– You need to choose good web hosting platform or company which provides good firewalls and Security. If you are going for Linux platform better to choose Grsecurity enabled kernel Servers; especially for shared hosting.

– But not the least the best way to find the flow in website is by checking the web site stats all the day. By this you can find the links/URL which are not related to your website so that you can delete it before it spreads through search engines.

– If some one reports your site having virus then its 99% sure your site home pages are having masked IFrames at the beginning or last lines of the page, which actually downloads virus file form some other server/site. You can fix it your self by editing your home page and removing the contents which looks like as shown bellow.

Iframe

These are some of the tips which really helps to protect yourself from Hackers and Malicious contents

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Microsoft adding multi touch Interface to Windows 7

Wim7

Microsoft plans to add multi-touch interface to Windows 7. Ballmer says it will come in late 2009. Julie Larson-Green demos the Multi-touch technology, painting with several fingers at the same time to show how it can process not just touch, but multiple simultaneous input.

“It’s much faster to do certain tasks than using a mouse,” Like rotating photos by pinching and rotating, much like Microsoft’s surface or Apple’s iPhone.

Microsoft had previously hinted that the touch gestures would find their way into Windows. In an interesting twist though, the new technology will work with existing touch screens, Microsoft said. They showed it running on an existing Dell laptop.
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source:read

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Touch Wall-Microsofts New Cheap Touchscreens

touch-wall

Bill Gates has demoed a vertical version of Microsoft’s coffee table computer, the Surface, at the company’s CEO summit.

Describing a future where cheap touchscreens will cover various surfaces in homes as well as offices, Gates said that he expects the technology to be “absolutely pervasive” in the near future.

Calling the Touch Wall, “new, risky and exciting”, Gates told attendees: “Our view is that all the surfaces – horizontal surfaces, vertical surfaces – will eventually have an inexpensive screen-display capability and software that sees what you’re doing there, so it’s completely interactive”, he told attendees at the summit.

Standing beside a 4 x 6ft screen, fitted with a camera to detect touch, Gates said that the technology is still at the research-and-development stage, but the company is using components of its interactivity at all levels, adding that he expects this technology to be affordable.
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“This kind of whiteboard, with a little bit of hardware advance over the next couple of years, will not be an expensive thing, and that’s why we’re saying that it will be absolutely pervasive,” Gates claimed.

watch the demo video
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPrfqdl55D0&NR=1

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Microsoft Releases New Version of Expression Studio Tools

Expression

Microsoft unveiled new version of its Expression Studio 2 tool set for Web and multimedia designers that includes the first native support for its Silverlight technology across all of the products in the suite.

In a sense, this is the first full release of Expression, as Silverlight is a key component of Microsoft’s design strategy and overall plan to compete with Adobe’s Creative Suite and its Flash technology. Expression Studio has only been in the market about a year,

Expression Studio 2 includes five products
1) Expression Web for Web design
2) Expression Blend for multimedia and 3D design
3) Expression Design for graphic design
4) Expression Media for storing and sharing multimedia assets
5) Expression Encoder for video encoding.

The new release marks the first time Encoder is in the suite as a full-fledged product, said Wayne Smith, Microsoft group product manager for Expression Studio.

In the new release, all of the products now have support for Silverlight, Microsoft’s multimedia runtime for running live and streaming video on the Web. Previously, only Expression Web had support for Silverlight, but it was very limited.
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Other improvements to Expression Studio 2 include support for PHP development in Expression Web and improvements to video-file compression in Expression Encoder, Wayne said.
The traditional licensed version of Expression Studio 2 is available for purchase or upgrade from the first version of Expression on Microsoft’s Web site now. It also should be available by mid-month in retailers such as Best Buy with an estimated retail price of $699. To encourage Adobe users to switch to Expression, Microsoft also is offering upgrade deals; information is available on the Web site.

Expression Blend 2 is available for $499
Expression Web 2 is available for $299
Expression Media 2 for $199
Expression Encoder 2 for $199.

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Microsoft Live Mesh Launch on April 24

Live Mesh

Earlier this year at Mix 08, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie vaguely referred to the Mesh concept as a way to use the Web through Microsoft products to connect devices, entertainment, businesses and development.

Now Microsoft plans to launch its Live Mesh offering next week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco but so far is not revealing details of the service.

On Friday night, Microsoft sent out e-mail invitations to a “Mesh it up” event on April 24 featuring demos by Microsoft “experts.” The invitation includes a reference to the mesh.com Web site, which currently requires visitors to sign in with a Windows Live ID and then displays an error message.
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Microsoft declined to offer any more details about Live Mesh except to say that it will launch next week and further information will become available on Tuesday evening, April 22.

source:read
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Patches for Critical Bugs in Windows ActiveX System Released

Microsoft

Microsoft issued a critical patch for two vulnerabilities in the core graphics subsystem of Windows. One of eight fixes released Tuesday as part of its monthly security updates.

Microsoft released a total of five critical patches in its April security bulletin. Two of them fix bugs in Windows, two fix bugs in Windows and Internet Explorer (IE), and one fixes a vulnerability in Microsoft Office. The critical rating means an attacker could potentially exploit the flaws to hack into a victim’s computer.
The other patches fix vulnerabilities in Windows and Office and were rated “important.” Microsoft releases patches on the second Tuesday of every month, which has become known in the industry as “Patch Tuesday.”

* MS08-018, fixes for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office

* MS08-021 fixes two vulnerabilities in Windows’ graphics device interface (GDI)

* MS08-022 patches vulnerability in VBScript and JScript scripting engines

* MS08-024 patches a vulnerability found in all versions of IE

* MS08-023 fixes an ActiveX vulnerability that affects both Windows and Internet Explorer.
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In Sarwate’s opinion, MS08-021, MS08-022 and MS08-023 are especially important for users because they affect all versions of Windows, even if no other software is installed on the machine.

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Microsoft Will Soon launch a Wii Remote Imitator for Xbox 360?

MS wii

Microsoft will soon launch a Wii Remote imitator for Xbox 360, replete with Mii knock-offs, in an effort to capitalize on Nintendo’s raging success as Source close to MTV News.

“They want the usual assortment of ‘Halo’/ ‘Gears’/ ‘Forza’/ whatever, just in waggle form,” the nameless developer said. “Microsoft is trying to decide how to get something out by the end of the year.”

The loose-lipped mole sketched a design of the last-known prototype, that looks eerily similar to the Wii Remote, but says development problems have arose because Microsoft is impatiently trying to ship the product.

MTV News added that it has “confirmed Microsoft’s active interest in developing a motion-sensitive controller with other industry sources.”

Previously, Microsoft has publicly doubted the long-term viability of motion as it pertains to video game controllers while noting the initial success Nintendo has so far enjoyed.

Microsoft declined comment on Monday when contacted by GamePro. “We do not comment on rumors or speculation,” a representative said in an email.

In a February 2008 interview with GameDaily, Sony’s VP of product marketing said a Wii-like controller would not be needed.

source:pcworld
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Microsoft got Fined US$367.4m by Alcatel-Lucent for Illegal use of MPEG2 DVD Playback in Windows

judgment

Adding a new chapter to a long-running dispute between the companies Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent. Court in San Diego ordered Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent US$367.4 million for infringing on two patents, adding a new chapter to a long-running dispute between the companies.

The jury, in U.S. District Court in San Diego, found that Microsoft had infringed on two patents involving user interface technology. It also found that Microsoft didn’t infringe on another Alcatel-Lucent patent related to video decoding. The court ruled that patent, which Alcatel-Lucent alleged was infringed in MPEG2-based DVD playback in Windows, is invalid.

According to Microsoft, which will try to overturn the infringement verdict, Alcatel-Lucent had hoped to receive $1.75 billion in damages. Microsoft called the video patent ruling a victory for the many companies that use MPEG video-decoding technology.

The case dates back to 2003, when Alcatel-Lucent charged Microsoft, Dell and Gateway with patent infringement.

Last year, a court reversed a $1.5 billion patent infringement case against Microsoft in a case Alcatel-Lucent brought against the software giant related to MP3 technology.

There’s more to come in the ongoing battle between the companies. On April 22, the San Diego court will hear a case Microsoft is bringing against Alcatel-Lucent, accusing it of infringing on nine patents.

source:read
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‘Windows 7 Coming Next Year’ Bill Gates

windows-7

Bill Gates expecting the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released “sometime in the next year or so.”

He said new versions of Windows would help revolutionize mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to call up items using their hands.

Microsoft has said it expected to release a new version of Windows approximately 3 years after the introduction of Vista in January 2007. A company spokeswoman said Gates’ comments are in line with a development cycle that usually releases a test version of the software before its official introduction.

source:read