Google launches virtual tour of world's finest museums

Google is harnessing its controversial Street View technology to take you on a virtual tour of the world's finest museums, from the comfort of your home.

The search giant even claims its Art Project tours are better than the real thing, with one exhibit in each location available in a high-resolution image that goes beyond "what is possible with the naked eye".

Each painting is captured in around seven billion pixels, making their online display around 1,000 times more detailed than an average digital camera.

Tate Britain and National Gallery here, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (Russia) and the Palace of Versailles (France) are among 17 museums that have collaborated with Google to offer 360 degree virtual tours of their galleries.

Other works of art which can now be seen in great detail include Vincent Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' from the Museum Of Modern Art (New York) and 'The Ambassadors' by Hans Holbein the Younger at the National Gallery, the Daily Mail reports.

T-Mobile to sell tablet with 3-D cameras, glasses

Aiming to ride two crazes at once, T-Mobile USA will sell a tablet computer that can shoot 3-D videos.

The cell phone company said Wednesday that the "G-Slate" tablet from LG Electronics Inc. will be out this spring, but it didn't say exactly when, or how much it would cost.

The tablet will have an 8.9-inch screen and two cameras on the back, which together can capture 3-D, high-definition video. The tablet will come with red-blue 3-D glasses for 3-D viewing while shooting.

The G-Slate will be one of the first tablets with Honeycomb software, a version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system specifically designed for tablet computers.

The G-Slate will have a third camera on the front, for video-conferencing over T-Mobile's wireless broadband network.

Wikipedia to recruit more women writers

Wikipedia is set to recruit more women contributors, after it was revealed that more that 85 percent of the articles are written by men.

The Wikimedia Foundation , the non-profit organisation that administers the free encyclopedia, has now set itself a target of 25 percent female contributors by 2015.

The initiative is not about gender equality but is an effort to improve the quality of Wikipedia, said the Foundation.

"This is about wanting to ensure that the encyclopedia is as good as it could be," the Telegraph quoted Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation, as telling the New York Times .

""Everyone brings their crumb of information to the table. If they are not at the table, we don't benefit from their crumb," she said.

However, concerns about the bias built into Wikipedia by the fact its contributors are mostly young, computer-savvy men are not new.

In 2007, the satire website Something Awful created Wikigroaning, which humorously highlights Wikipedians' proclivities by comparing how the online encyclopedia covers pairs of topics.

China to sell bullet train technology

China is ready to sell its high-speed bullet train technology to other countries, authorities said.

"China is willing to export the high-speed rails technology to any country that wants to buy," Wang Yongping, spokesperson of the ministry of railways, told the Global Times. "We own the most advanced technology of high-speed rails."

The statement came after British daily The Sunday Times reported that Chinese-made bullet trains would hit the rails in Britain by 2025.

The bullet train, unveiled in December last year, can run at the speed of up to 486 km per hour.

The report said China's ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, met with British ministers to discuss a deal and convinced them that China could supply the advanced trains at a much lower cost.

Britain needs 120 bullet trains for the 30 billion pounds ($47.6 billion) high-speed rail project that will connect London to other major cities, such as Manchester, in 2025, the report said.

The cost for 120 high-speed trains from Western producers, such as Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom is 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion), but Chinese trains cost only half that, the report said.

Wang, however, declined to comment on negotiations with Britain.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Google accuses Microsoft of copying search results

Google is accusing Microsoft Corp. of cheating as the two duel for Internet search supremacy, but Microsoft denies the charge, saying it's just using all available weapons to lessen its rival's dominance.

The dust-up between the two companies that process virtually all of North America's search requests grabbed the spotlight Tuesday at an event sponsored by Microsoft about the future of Internet searches. Microsoft's practices have even wider implications now that its technology powers Yahoo Inc. searches in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Brazil as part of a 10-year partnership that grew out of the companies' inability to mount a serious challenge to Google on their own.

Google's attempt to embarrass Microsoft at an event devoted to innovation served as the latest reminder of the tensions between the technology heavyweights. While Microsoft has been pecking at Google in search, Google has been chipping away at Microsoft's advantage in computer software with its own suite of competing products.

"We just want everyone to know the truth about how Microsoft operates as a search engine, which is by taking the hard work of others and presenting it as their own," said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow who oversees the company's closely guarded search formulas. He made his comments in a phone interview.

Microsoft did nothing more than adjust its results after monitoring Internet Explorer users' search requests and clicking activity on Google as well as its own site, Bing, according to Harry Shum , a corporate vice president for Bing. In a blog post, Blum derided Google for engaging in a "a spy-novelesque stunt."

LG's first tablet to hit US market in March

LG Electronics said Wednesday it would release its first tablet computer in the United States in March as it prepares to go head to head with Apple's iPad.

LG said the G-slate was among the first tablet models to run on the "Honeycomb" operating system, which is Google's latest generation of Android platforms designed for mobile devices with large screens.

The G-slate features a 8.9-inch screen, smaller than the iPad's nearly 10-inch display but larger than the seven-inch screen of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab. LG did not give a price for the new gadget

The world's third-largest handset maker said the release date for the G-slate's global release would be disclosed later this month.

LG's handset business took a direct hit from smartphone offerings by global rivals and after posting a fourth quarter net loss of $229 million, it is now counting on new smartphones and tablet computers to drive sales.

"LG's table computer is expected to cause a new trend in the global market as well as in North America," the company said in a statement.

The iPad went on sale in South Korea last November, three weeks after Samsung launched its rival tablet computer in its home market.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab is more expensive than the cheapest iPad, which costs between $499 and $829.c
Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

US recruiting young cyber warriors

The United States is looking for the next generation of cyber warriors.

The US Cyber Challenge Cyber Foundations competition, kicked off this week by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security , is out to find 10,000 students with the potential to become "top guns in cybersecurity."

"The need to find creative solutions to protecting our information systems and digital infrastructure has never been greater," said center chief executive William Pelgrin.

"The Cyber Foundations competition will help us tap into the tremendous talent across our nation's schools to identify those with a passion for security and a desire to put their skills to good use," he continued.

The competition consists of a series of timed quizzes to test high school students in computer science categories considered key to protecting networks and systems.

Lava, Micromax, Olive others to offer cheaper alternatives to iPad, Galaxy

After a runaway success in the handset business over the last 24 months, many small players, led by domestic upstarts, who jointly account for over 40% of cellphone sales, are now set to enter the nascent tablet PC market in India.

Companies such as Lava, Micromax, Zen, Olive, G’Five, Acer and Fly among others will attempt to replicate their success in the tablet PC space by offering products at large discounts compared to an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, targeting the mid-income group.

While Apple, which launched the iPad last week in India, and its primary competitor Samsung are largely restricted to metros and some big cities, the smaller handset players say they plan to ride their strong distribution network and high retailers’ commission, especially in rural India, to capture a large share of the tablet pie.

Executives with these companies say their products will be a match for the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab as they will all use Google’s Android operating system. Analysts predict that Android tablets are set to get a boost this year as Google is set to release is Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb, a version of the smartphone operating system designed for tablets.

UK-based research firm Strategy Analytics in a report earlier this month said that Android-based tablets had captured a 22% share of the world’s tablet market last quarter, reducing Apple’s dominance to 75% of all fourth quarter sales when compared to 95% share in the third quarter, when its iPad accounted for 4.2 million of the 4.4 million tablets sold.

Russia loses new satellite in space: Interfax

Russia has most likely lost a newly launched military satellite, Interfax news agency said on Tuesday citing a source in the country's space rocket industry.

The GEO-IK-2 spacecraft, designed to measure the shape of the earth, was launched earlier on Tuesday from the Plesetsk launchpad in northern Russia.

The loss of three GLONASS navigation satellites that crashed into the sea in December provoked outrage from the Kremlin, which is trying to build Russian technological independence. President Dmitry Medvedev afterwards sacked two top space officials.

"Contact has still not been established with the spacecraft and it will most likely be considered lost," an unnamed space source told Interfax news agency.

The GLONASS system, seen as a rival to the U.S. global positioning system (GPS), has been personally spearheaded by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Google touts 'game changer' in online art viewing

Google aims to bring the world's great art galleries into the home with a new website that offers virtual tours using Street View technology, the ability to build private collections and ultra-high resolution images.

While most big galleries have been busy making their works accessible online for years, experts told a launch at London's Tate Britain gallery on Tuesday that Google's site was looking to take the online art experience to a new level.

"It could be the game changer," said Julian Raby of the Freer Gallery of Art, part of the Smithsonian in Washington DC, which is one of 17 galleries taking part in the project.

Nelson Mattos, VP Engineering at Google, said the Art Project site (www.googleartproject.com) would allow children from Latin America, India and Africa, who were unlikely to see the originals, to come close to the experience on the internet.

"This really represents a major step forward in the way people are going to interact with these beautiful treasures of art around the world," he said, adding that Google planned to expand the site over the coming years.

Google launches Twitter workaround for Egypt

Google Inc launched a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialing a phone number and leaving a voicemail, as Internet access remains cut off in the country amid anti-government protests.

"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," read a post on Google's official corporate blog on Monday.

The service, which Google said was developed with engineers from Twitter, allows people to dial a telephone number and leave a voicemail. The voicemail is automatically translated into an audio file message that is sent on Twitter using the identifying tag #egypt, Google said.

Google said in the blog post, titled "Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard," that no Internet connection is needed to use the service.

It listed three phone numbers for people to call to use the service.

Internet social networking services like Twitter and Facebook have been important tools of communications for protesters in Egypt who have taken to the streets since last week to demonstrate against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak .

Murdoch's iPad newspaper launches today

News Corp's Rupert Murdoch is to unveil "The Daily" on Wednesday, a digital newspaper for the iPad, the tablet computer the media tycoon has said may be the savior of the struggling news industry.

Murdoch, the 79-year-old chairman and chief executive of News Corp, and Eddy Cue, vice president of Internet Services at iPad maker Apple, are to take the wraps off The Daily at an event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The Daily had originally been scheduled to be unveiled in San Francisco last month but the event was delayed at the last minute by Apple's announcement that chief executive Steve Jobs was going on medical leave.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, The Daily will cost 99 cents a week and will be sold exclusively through Apple's online iTunes store.

New issues will be automatically delivered to a subscriber's iPad every morning.

The Journal said News Corp. has hired about 100 people to work on The Daily, including veteran journalists from the New Yorker, Forbes, the New York Post and other publications.

Review: Motorola Defy

Mention the word ’rugged’ and the first thing that comes to most people's minds is something that is incredibly tough but not very pretty. So when we heard of the Motorola Defy, a ‘durable Android phone’, we expected to see something that matched Arnold Schwarzenegger in strength, bulk and appearance.

To say that we were surprised is an understatement. The Motorola Defy looks more than presentable. At 13.4 mm, it is not pencil thin, but neither is it bulky — in fact, it is less wide and shorter than the iPhone 3GS and the HTC Mozart, even though it packs in a 3.7-inch display. The front has a Gorilla Glass scratch-proof screen and four soft touch keys (menu, home, back, search) below it.

It is only when you turn the device over and inspect its sides that the ‘tough’ element comes to the fore with the tightly covered mini-USB port, the metallic screws that hold the two sides of the phone together as well as the airtight backcover lock. All in all, it is very comfortable to hold and at around 117 grams, not too heavy either.

It packs in some very good specs too. At 800 MHz, it has the fastest processor on a Motorola phone in India, and its display has the same resolution as the famous Milestone — 480 x 854. It has 512 MB RAM, a 5.0-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash and comes with a 2GB memory card. The one sour note is that in spite of these impressive innards, it runs Android 2.1 rather than 2.2. Motorola has attempted to redeem things to an extent by providing a software to create a 3G hotspot. However, those accustomed to Android 2.2's zippy interface and the option to save applications to expansion cards will be disappointed.