Coming soon: The talking car!

Imagine if your car could talk to you about the best route to take to avoid rush-hour traffic or tell you where's the next petrol pump.

Your imagination could soon become a reality, thanks to scientists who claim to be developing such a "talking car" with the world's most advanced in-vehicle voice communication system, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

In fact, the "talking car" will hit British roads next year and the system would be available in one of the country's biggest-selling cars, the Ford Focus.

The makers of the system, called Sync, claim drivers will be able to use it to ask such age-old questions like -- "Where's the nearest petrol station?" or "Can I go to the toilet?" or "Are we nearly there yet?"

In all, Ford says its voice-operated technology will be able to master 10,000 commands in 19 languages, allowing motorists to control audio, telephone and satnav systems as well as accessing information about the surrounding area.

Laser can revolutionise data transfer, communication

A new laser can deliver error-free data at a record speed of 40 gigabits per second, four times the current speed, thus paving the way for faster Internet traffic, computers and mobile phones.

It is a cheaper and more energy-efficient laser for fibre optics than its conventional cousins, which can send only up to 10 gigabits per second through optical fibres.

But researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden managed to tweak the speed of the surface emitting laser by four times.

"The market for this technology is gigantic. In the huge data centres that handle the Internet there are today over one hundred million surface emitting lasers , according to a Chalmers statement.

"That figure is expected to increase a hundredfold," said Professor Anders Larsson at Chalmers, who has developed the high speed laser together with his research group in optoelectronics .

Unlike a conventional laser, the light from a surface emitting laser is emitted from the surface of the laser chip (not from the edge), similar to in an LED.

BlackBerry Messenger to be available on Android, Apple's iOS

BlackBerry Messenger app is set to be available on Android and Apple's iOS , according to reports.

The instant messenger service, BBM, which is one of the most popular tools on the phone, has only been available exclusively on the BlackBerry platform until now.

According to Boy Genius Report, a technology blog, Research In Motion, BlackBerry's parent company, has been in talks with Apple and Google about making the software available to users across all three platforms.

But the pricing or timing details are yet to be finalised, and BGR has cited "multiple trusted sources" as its backup.

"We're also told strategy is still being developed, however, and RIM may end up charging users a one-time fee or even a recurring fee for access to its BBM service on third-party platforms," the Telegraph quoted the report as saying.

"As far as what Android and iOS users can look forward to, we've been told RIM will offer stripped down versions of the BBM experience BlackBerry owners know and love.

"That way, Android and iOS users can communicate with practically anyone who has a smartphone using BBM, but they might not be able to share photos, location, or videos.

iPad's rivals can't beat it on price

The iPad 2, unveiled Wednesday, offers several sleek improvements over its predecessor. But its most attractive feature is perhaps the same one its predecessor had: the price tag .

And what makes that feature even more compelling is that so far, Apple’s competitors in tablets cannot beat or even match it.

The iPad 2, like the original, starts at $499. Apple says that since it introduced the original last April, it has sold 15 million of the devices, generating $9.5 billion in revenue. Analysts say this is only the start of a lucrative market for tablet computers, which could soar as high as $35 billion by 2012.

The Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab were introduced last fall, both to generally good reviews but at higher prices. Dozens of hardware manufacturers are scrambling to bring their own variations to market this year: Hewlett-Packard with the TouchPad, HTC with the Flyer, LG with the G-Slate and BlackBerry with the PlayBook.

But prices, or even release dates, have not been announced, and industry experts say it is not yet clear whether the devices can be competitive with Apple on price.

“There have been nearly a hundred competitive tablets that have been introduced since the iPad,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “But it seems that no one has eclipsed or even matched Apple on pricing.”

Websites are waiting to take browsers' life public

Sharing and communicating are essential components of being human. But as celebrities like Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen have shown us lately, there is such a thing as over-sharing.

Still a new generation of Web sites like Dscover .me, Sitesimon.com and Voyurl.com is banking on our willingness to take that next step toward taking our lives public: namely, by automatically tracking personal browsing histories for public viewing.

Paul Jones, a founder of Dscover.me, said he and his founding partner conceived the site because they were old college friends and wanted a way to better share common interests, from shopping finds to tech news, while living in different parts of the country.

At times, their communication would drop off, Jones said. “Then, at one point we just said to each other, ‘What if we could just show each other what we’re reading and watching and shopping for?’. ”But are these sites another crack in the eroding wall between public and private life? Perhaps. The better question: Do we actually care if they are? As Jones noted, Facebook’s News Feed, the feature that lets users easily track friends’ activity in one place, was somewhat controversial when it was introduced in 2006.

“Obviously, now, it’s completely accepted and people who are younger, in particular, just accept it that their lives are completely open,” Jones said. (The jury is still assembling for these sites: Dscover.me has been open to everyone since November; Sitesimon and Voyurl are accepting users on a rolling basis, but will open fully in the coming months.)

Seven ways to keep your Gmail data safe

Gmail has an estimated 190 million users worldwide. Many even have multiple accounts, the forwarding and ‘send mail as’ features of Gmail actively encouraging this practice.

Which is why it was a rude shock to roughly 40,000 Gmail users when they logged in last week, only to find that all their data—emails, attachments, chats, contacts and documents—had vanished, and their accounts had been reset. The only thing these unlucky users had in their inbox were the automated ‘Welcome to Gmail’ emails.

However, all was not lost as Gmail keeps multiple copies of the data (even including offline, tape-based backup of user data) and they set about restoring the bug that caused the problem. Google later identified the issue as a software bug in a recently released storage software update. More than the number of users affected, this obviously got far more attention than it deserved and outlined the importance of not using Gmail as the sole repository for several gigabytes of critical data. Here’s how you can keep that data safe, just in case.

To Another Gmail Account 
In the event of another software bug or system crash, the chances of all Gmail accounts being compromised is minimal. Even when Gmail rolls out new features, they do so in phases—and this is primarily to identify and fix any teething issues. Therefore, all you have to do is create another Gmail account and import all mails and contacts from your primary account. To do this, sign in to your new Gmail account, click on the little ‘gear’ icon in the top right corner and click ‘Mail Settings’. Here, under ‘Accounts and Import’, you’ll be able to import mail from your old account.