Byte Into It - 28th May 08

Microsoft surrenders libraries to Google - Business - iTnews Australia

Writing in his blog, Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising group said Microsoft would kill off two sites for searching the contents of books and academic journals.

Live Search will send Web surfers looking for books to non-Microsoft sites.

Instead, Microsoft will be focusing on "verticals with high commercial intent".

Microsoft has been scanning books since 2005 and has been giving information to the Open Content Alliance.

It will give publishers copies of the 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles it has scanned in.

Microsoft sees Windows Mobile unit sales up 50 pct - Mobility - iTnews Australia

Microsoft expects global unit sales of its Windows Mobile software for cellphones to grow at least 50 percent per year in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 as demand for smartphones rises rapidly.

"Fifty percent growth is the minimum," Eddie Wu, the software company's managing director of OEM embedded devices Asia, told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference on Tuesday.

He said Microsoft expects to sell 20 million units in its 2007/2008 fiscal year ending in June, and expects to grow at least 50 percent annually over the next two years. It sold over 11 million units of its Windows Mobile software in its 2006/2007 fiscal year ended June.

Just in time for Apple? AT&T wrapping up 3G network upgrade

AT&T announced yesterday that it plans to roll out its High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) in six more US markets by the end of June, completing its deployment of HSPA. Once the rollout is complete, the company says that the beefed-up 3G service will offer uplink speeds of between 500 and 800Kbps, which will complement the roughly 1.4Mbps downlink already offered through AT&T. AT&T's timing doesn't seem to be a coincidence, as it appears to coincide with the widely-expected launch of Apple's rumored 3G iPhone.

HOWTO use TOR to enhance your privacy - Boing Boing

a HOWTO on TOR, The Onion Router, a technology for increasing your privacy and anonymity when you look at the web, and for getting around censorwalls.

Games need MORE sex in order to end the controversy over sex in games - Boing Boing

In this ~9-minute video, Daniel Floyd, a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design, convincingly advances the theory that the major problem with sex in video-games is that there isn't enough sex in video games -- that video-games' failure to come to grips with sex as part of the artistic message and aesthetic in games (in addition to the hypersexualized juvenile Lara Croft/Duke Nukem stuff), it can't convincingly argue that games are an actual artistic medium that deserves to be considered on the same terms as painting, literature, sculpture, film, and other media that often feature sexual material.

Why the "mobile Internet" is a poor investment - Boing Boing

Joi Ito, a shrewd Japanese/American venture capitalist, has written a great little blog-post about why he's not so hot to invest in the "mobile Internet." Basically, when a heavily regulated, big stupid phone company controls your "internet," then your ability to innovate and do cool stuff and make money is entirely predicated on the regulator's or the stupid phone company's willingness to allow that to happen. So if you're making money by disrupting something that matters to the phone company or one of its entrenched partners, forget about it.

HOWTO Lie to authority figures - Boing Boing

Instructables has just posted the latest installment in its ongoing series of HOWTOs. This week, they tackle the all-important skill of lying to authority figures.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft demos 'touch Windows'

Microsoft's next operating system (OS) will come with multi-touch features as an alternative to the mouse.

It is hoped the successor will have a better reception than the much-maligned Vista OS, released last year.

Scheduled for release in 2009 the new fingertip interface lets users enlarge and shrink photos, trace routes on maps, paint pictures or play the piano.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web users 'getting more ruthless'

Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research.

The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online.

Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.

Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Nokia responds to gamers' anger

Nokia has said it is "working on a solution" to allow people to transfer N-Gage games between handsets.

The announcement was made following anger by gamers who found out that titles bought for a handset were locked to the device forever.

Nokia said it had made the decision to lock down the system to prevent piracy and guarantee revenue for games makers.

The mobile phone maker said it was now working on an intermediate solution until a final one could be deployed.

Firefox 3: Firefox 3 Add-on Compatibility Report

The hard-working developers over at Mozilla issue a status update on which popular Firefox extensions still need to get updated for Firefox 3. Here's 20 add-ons that are Firefox 3-compatible, and seven that aren't yet. If you're testing the Firefox 3 Release Candidate, you can force Firefox to use incompatible extensions with a configuration tweak, but to avoid possible wonkiness, it's better to wait for officially-compatible releases. In other Firefox 3 news, a second release candidate is slated for early June.

Featured Windows Download: CloseWin Instantly Closes All or Select Windows

Windows only: Freeware application CloseWin is a single-use app that instantly closes either every window on your desktop or any window matching specific criteria. That makes CloseWin a perfect tool for setting up a Boss Key or something similar; just create a list of apps you'd want to get rid of at the click of a button, add them to CloseWin's profile, then choose the Close all windows in list option when you want to quickly close everything. On the other hand, the Close All Windows button is a perfect last-ditch tool for not just hiding, but getting rid of all of your open windows at once. CloseWin is freeware, Windows only.

Featured Windows Download: Desk Drive Creates Desktop Shortcuts to Your Removable Media

Windows only: Freeware application Desk Drive monitors your computer for new media—like a new CD, DVD, or thumb drive—then automatically creates a desktop shortcut pointing to your newly mounted media. Disabling autoplay is safer and less annoying than leaving it enabled, but that means you have to open up My Computer every time you plug in a thumb drive or insert a new disc. Desk Drive gives you quick and easy access to that media from your desktop as soon as you plug it in, similar to the default (and arguably better) behavior found on Macs. The downside: Desk Drive takes up way too much memory (around 17MB in my test), so it may not be worth it unless you've got boatloads of RAM.

Featured Windows Download: HomeCamera Turns Your Webcam into a Surveillance Camera

Windows only: Web site and software HomeCamera turns your desktop webcam into a web-enabled surveillance camera. Just sign up and download their desktop software to get started. In just a few minutes, you can check an image or video from your webcam in real-time from any browser. Even better, you can set up motion-detecting alerts that will email you with a shot or short clip of what triggered the alert. The Windows-only HomeCamera is completely free during their beta and will remain free with limitations once they leave beta.

Exclusive Lifehacker Download: Belvedere Automates Your Self-Cleaning PC

Windows only: Keep your desktop or any other folder on your hard drive organized and under control with Belvedere, an automated Windows file management tool. Use Belvedere's friendly interface to create advanced rules to move, copy, delete, rename, or open files based on their name, extension, size, creation date, and more.

Featured Windows Download: Some PDF to Word Converter Does What It Sounds Like

Windows only: Freeware application Some PDF to Word Converter takes your PDFs and—as the name implies—converts them to Microsoft Word documents. It's always been a cinch to print Word documents as PDFs, but going the other way around is generally more difficult. Many online tools can handle PDF-to-DOC conversions, but most of us don't want to upload our sensitive docs to the web for third-party conversion, so desktop tools are preferable.

Featured Download: Snackr RSS Ticker Keeps You on Top of News

Windows/Mac/Linux: Freeware Adobe Air application Snackr runs a news ticker of your RSS feeds at the bottom or top of your monitor, or as a scrolling sidebar. The application is very customizable, allowing you to add feeds individually or import an OPML file of feeds from your current reader of choice. If you like to keep an eye on all the latest updates to your newsfeeds, Snackr is an excellent option. The attractive Snackr is freeware, cross-platform, and requires Adobe Air.