ConsumerMate.com : A new way to buy laptops
hello everyone,
Recently i came across a website http://www.consumermate.com , the site is a channel of 9.9 media, whom we know are one of the
well known companies. Surfing through the website, it felt like i am just living through a perfect combination of Tech & nature,
the User Interface within the website is awesome & very soothing. The website is currently focusing on laptops of various kind,
that includes all the major & minor companies with all of the revisions. You can select your search criteria, Select the price range,
the make , filter the results by screen size, weight etc. The best of all is the best deals you get there, The website’s Laptop test ratings
are provided by our own trusted digit test centre, so we don’t need to worry about future Satisfaction.
The site is basically Divided with your search, satisfaction & protection towards the customers, The Ask US section works great when
you are confused between what to buy, what might be the pricing & what exactly do you need ! You can also learn about the basics to buy
the perfect laptop you want to – the “know the basics” panel works great with information we want. Another very cool option is the Laptop Guru
which is the best of all options if you don’t know what exactly to do, it works just like a survey & asks you questions about your price range,
your necessity for the laptop like you want it for gaming, programming, dcouments etc. . So with all the amazing features, great UI &
accurate & correct infomartion source, i’d recommend you guys to go through the website & see for yourself what 9.9 group has to offer.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Windows 7 : Webcast Series in April 2009
Hello Everyone, here i am back with another webcast series on windows, this time it is windows 7 & i hope you all guys are prepaired to join in & share the most of what’s coming for you. In this webcast weries of three webcasts, i will be trying to explain the most of the details. i hope you all join in & make a difference.
Following are the details : Please click the URL below every detail to register for that particular webcast.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032410226&Culture=en-IN
23-Apr-09 4:30 PM / 5:30 PM Windows 7: Work your way
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032410228&Culture=en-IN
27-Apr-09 4:30 PM / 5:30 PM Windows 7: New possibilities
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032410230&Culture=en-IN
Popularity: 24% [?]
MVP Certification Hero Campaign Hurry !!!
From now till March 31, 2009, Our Community and network can use this Promotion Code to obtain a Microsoft Certification Exam Voucher Code at a 10% discount and free retake offer. The Exam Voucher Code is valid for exams taken by May 31, 2009 in India. Note that the limited time offer is valid for Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) and Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) exams only. More information on how to obtain the vouchers and the Terms & Conditions of Usage are available to your community at www.learnandcertify.com.
Please Email me : info@thecomputernext.com to get your certification Code, to redeem the discount.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Windows 7 Wins on Netbook PCs
Q&A: Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, discusses Microsoft’s take on netbook PCs and how Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, will support these small computers
REDMOND, Wash., — Feb. 3, 2009 – Small, mobile and affordable PCs, often referred to as “netbooks” or “mini-notebooks,” were one of 2008’s hottest technology trends. Virtually unknown a year ago, these PCs pushed the design innovation envelope by enabling easy Web surfing, instant messaging, general-purpose computing (e.g., e-mail, social networking and photo sharing) and media playback in one small, ultra-portable device. This convenience, coupled with an affordable price tag, makes these PCs a great option for many consumers.
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Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, sat down with PressPass to discuss the company’s take on small-notebook PCs.
PressPass: Almost everyone seems to have an opinion on how netbook PCs will evolve in 2009. What is Microsoft’s view on small-notebook PC prospects in the coming year?
Brooks: The term “netbook” was coined by Intel to define notebook PCs that run on their Atom processor. They’re also sometimes referred to as “mini-notebooks” and “sub-notebooks.” But at the end of the day they are just small, portable PCs, and we’re committed to delivering the same exceptional Windows experience on these machines as any on other notebook or desktop PC.
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Over the last 10 months we’ve seen pretty strong demand for these PCs and we expect that to continue in 2009. In fact, research firm IDC recently increased its initial mini-notebook sales forecast for 2008 to 11.4 million, and predicted that number would climb to 42.2 million by 2012.*
PressPass: Most small-notebook PCs today run Windows XP, and this has raised many questions about the impact strong sales of these machines have on Microsoft’s bottom line. What can you tell us about that?
Brooks: We’ve seen spectacular Windows growth on small-notebook PCs as folks opt for the familiarity, compatibility, and ease of use of Windows over Linux. We value every Windows customer, and we’re excited that the vast majority of small-notebook PC users want Windows.
To share some numbers: since February 2008, Windows OS share has gone from 10 percent to over 80 percent on these machines, and our research shows that these are overwhelmingly new PCs and/or PC users. To put it another way, we think most small-notebook PC buyers are either purchasing a secondary machine or buying a PC for the first time. And we think purchasers are drawn to these PCs by their small size and affordability, particularly given the current environment.
So, looking at trends, we’re incredibly optimistic about the coming year.
PressPass: Over the last 10-12 months, what has fueled the popularity of small-notebook PCs?
Brooks: In two words: hardware improvements. When these PCs first hit the shelves, they were designed for people who wanted an inexpensive, mobile computer to browse the Web, do e-mail, instant message and perform other general computing tasks. Computer-makers responded by designing PCs built with lower performing — but also very inexpensive — hardware.
But Moore’s Law, which states that performance at a given price point will double about every 18 months, has worked in the customers’ favor. Today, we see small-notebook PCs with enhanced capabilities and improved quality at the same price points — and sometimes even cheaper — than earlier models.
At the same time, our customers told us that they want mobile, small-notebook PCs to go beyond basic Internet activities and deliver premium capabilities such as increased graphics functionality, which lets people play games, view pictures and watch videos with richer, eye-popping quality.
With Windows, customers get these premium capabilities in a familiar OS that is compatible with the applications and devices they already own and use.
PressPass: How are these small-notebook PCs different from other notebooks and desktops?
Brooks: Small-notebook PCs run the same Windows that people know and love, but there are certain trade-offs customers make when they buy these devices.
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For example, they typically have much smaller keyboards and screen sizes and lack a DVD or CD drive, and the small size can make tasks like creating presentations, typing documents, or editing photos and video difficult. Typing over a long period of time can also be a little challenging. Finally, the screen size isn’t optimized for the Web, so plan on doing plenty of panning and scrolling.
It’s important to remember that these small-notebook PCs weren’t designed to replace a full-featured notebook or desktop.
PressPass: Customers who do decide to purchase one of these small-notebooks PCs are also often faced with another decision — Linux or Windows. What do buyers need to consider when comparing the two operating systems?
Brooks: Customers choose Windows because they want the best possible user experience. While many initial small-notebook PCs in the market were Linux-based, they didn’t live up to customers’ expectations. Customers expected a Linux-based PC to look and function like their Windows-based desktop PC and they were disappointed.
Windows provides a level of application and device compatibility you simply don’t get with Linux. Windows works with everyday programs like Microsoft Office and popular applications like Apple’s iTunes and Microsoft’s Zune, PC games like “World of Warcraft,” and a host of others. It also works with the largest set of printers, digital cameras and other devices. Linux doesn’t come close to doing any of these things.
That may be why return rates of Linux-based netbooks are so high. Partners MSI and Canonical have mentioned to press that return rates on their Linux-based small-notebook PCs are about four times those of Windows-based small-notebook PCs.
PressPass: Microsoft has invested heavily in its Windows Live suite. How does Microsoft see these cloud-based tools enhancing the small-notebook PC experience?
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Brooks: We’re really excited about what we’re offering with Windows Live Essentials. This suite includes free downloads of Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Movie Maker beta and Windows Live Family Safety. All these applications help people connect with their family and friends, and they light up the Windows experience. In addition, Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live SkyDrive, which provides 25 GB of free online storage, deliver on-demand access to e-mail and online file storage.
And unlike an OS, which can take two to three years to develop, Windows Live is on a much shorter development cycle. And we’re always looking at new ways to deliver enhanced functionality and strong integration with additional Web services.
PressPass: How is Microsoft supporting small-notebook PCs with Windows 7?
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Brooks: Microsoft is offering a clear path for Windows 7 across the board, so as we demonstrated at PDC, WinHEC and CES, Windows 7 provides a great user experience on small-notebook PCs.
With Windows 7, we’ve matched hardware improvements with some investments of our own. With Windows 7 we are on track to have a smaller OS footprint; an improved user interface that should allow for faster boot-up and shut-down times; improved power management for enhanced battery life; enhanced media capabilities; and increased reliability, stability and security.
These engineering investments allow small notebook PCs to run any version of Windows 7, and allow customers complete flexibility to purchase a system which meets their needs. For OEMs that build lower-cost small notebook PCs, Windows 7 Starter will now be available in developed markets. For the most enhanced, full-functioning Windows experience on small notebook PCs, however, consumers will want to go with Windows 7 Home Premium, which lets you get the most out of your digital media and easily connect with other PCs.
You can find more information on all our Windows 7 SKUs here.
PressPass: What’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone thinking about buying one of these PCs?
Brooks: I tell people to spend some time thinking carefully about what types of activities they want to do with their computer. There are many full-size notebook options out there that are also very affordable and portable. Ask yourself what you want your computer to do, balancing those needs with how mobile you want it to be. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all option.
* IDC, Worldwide Mininotebook PC 2008-2012 Forecast Update and 3Q08 Vendor Shares, Doc # 215072, November 2008
Popularity: 22% [?]
Microsoft Research TechFest 2009: Technology “Signposts” Point to Future of Computing
Microsoft researchers gather this week to share the state of the art with product teams in Redmond and discuss the possibilities
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 24, 2009 — While the core mission of Microsoft Research is to advance the state of the art in computer science, it’s no surprise that nearly every year nascent technologies from the company’s research division make their way into new products.
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Many of those connections begin with the company’s annual innovation fair, Microsoft ResearhTechFest, which is taking place this week on the Redmond, Wash. campus. Launched in 2001 as a way to connect Microsoft Research’s body of work to the company’s product development teams, TechFest has become a widely anticipated event, open to the media and attended by more than 6,000 Microsoft employees each year.
Technologies shown at TechFest have found their way into Live Search, Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, digital media technologies and other products. Early 1990s research into 3-D graphics and computer vision, which continues today, is increasingly being used in products from Xbox to Windows, along with new software for managing digital images, processing video and audio, teleconferencing in new ways and more. The entire digital media division at Microsoft has its roots in early Microsoft Research efforts to develop streaming video technologies.
The man in charge of innovation at Microsoft is Senior Vice President Rick Rashid. As head of Microsoft Research, Rashid is responsible for many of the technologies Microsoft has built its business on over the past two decades. Rashid was so impressed with the results of the first TechFest that he and his staff made it an annual priority thereafter.
“There have been a number of technology transfers where someone who might not have thought about using a particular technology would see what we’re doing, and it would change the course of a product or allow us to move in a particular direction,” says Rashid. “It became clear after our first event that this was good for both employees and researchers, and it has a real value in being able to realize the potential of the technologies we’re developing.”
The Journey of Basic Research
If Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s Feb. 6 address to Congress wasn’t intended as a curtain-raiser for TechFest, it could have been. In examining current economic conditions, Ballmer pointed to a possible salvation, a staple of American economic success since World War II, and the founding pillar of his own company: innovation.
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“America really has to return to growth that’s built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt,” Ballmer said. “We need to renew our innovation capacity.”
At Microsoft, that capacity has been in a constant state of renewal since Rashid founded Microsoft Research nearly two decades ago, and much of the activity falls under what is known as “basic research” — exploration that is undertaken not with any specific product or goal in mind, but because the subject of the research is inherently interesting or valuable.
“In the early 1990s, there was no product activity focused around streaming media and graphics, but we thought these were important areas in computer science,” Rashid says.
Microsoft’s general investment into graphics 15 years ago, sustained to this day, led to a broad portfolio of new products and services. Each new breakthrough over that period, says Rashid, was a “signpost on the road,” but like the proverbial Zen traveler, the journey is undertaken for its own sake, with the destination being more of a milestone than an accomplishment.
“The core goal of Microsoft Research is to advance the state of the art, but a lot of what makes Microsoft the company it is today is the result of having a basic research group for more than 17 years,” says Rashid. “A lot of the technologies that the company uses, in the digital media area, the natural language and speech technologies, the original technologies that went into SQL for data mining, the early work that led to the creation of Windows Mobile, the early work that the company did in ecommerce — these were all consequences of having a basic research group and the activities that we have going on.”
Signposts Signal Larger Shifts
A recent example is Microsoft Surface. Surface made its debut at TechFest a number of years ago and is now making its way into the market, both on its own and through product features such as the multitouch capabilities being developed for Windows.
Surface may seem like an end in itself, but Rashid says the emergence of Surface is another signpost pointing to overall progress in the field of user interfaces. Whether through touch technology or voice response systems such as that in the Ford Sync, people are increasingly using gestures and voice to control computing systems.
“People always ask, ‘When will we get natural user interfaces?’” Rashid says. “We’re already doing it. It’s a natural change that’s happening, and it’s the result of a lot of research over a considerable period of time.”
TechFest 2009 features a similar collection of smaller technologies that can make a big difference when added to the general mix of Microsoft software.
One example is new work in audio spatialization and automatic echo-cancellation, signal processing technologies that will change the experience of teleconferencing.
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“Audio spatialization uses speakers to create the illusion that call attendees have different locations spatially,” says Microsoft researcher Zhengyou Zhang. “This allows you to use the audio sense you already have, that you normally use in conversation, to isolate who you’re talking to, and to associate a location in space with a particular individual. Ultimately this leads to a more enjoyable conversation.”
Zhang and his team have also tackled the well-known echo problem inherent in teleconferences through a new echo-cancellation technology.
“In a conference where there are multiple voices coming out of multiple speakers, it becomes important to eliminate the echoes that might naturally occur,” Zhang says. “So it all helps create a natural environment for holding a conference.”
Another technology on display this year comes from the Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center, where technology is being developed to automatically “stitch” video together from mobile phones or other sources. It’s an extension of technologies used to create the recently released Photosynth product.
“With the kind of mobile video that most people have, you never get too see very much,” says researcher Ayman Kaheel. “We aim to enable multiple mobile phones to collaborate in recording an event and then, in real time or near-real time, construct one higher-resolution video from the resulting video streams.”
With the ability to be used in near-real time, Kaheel’s technology can supplement Web services that allow live streaming of videos from mobile devices for instant viewing.
“Imagine that you have a concert, and people attending can send live video streams capturing the concert from different viewpoints,” he says. “Now the Web service users can view one video stream that provides a panoramic view of the concert.”
If stitching together mobile video has broad implications, how about stitching together memories? A team of researchers from Cambridge, England, is working on a range of technologies and services that allow families to communicate in new, flexible ways, and to organize and store digital “artifacts” that can tell the family’s story, potentially even to later generations.
“The Timecard project considers how digital media can support our experience of the past,” says researcher Richard Harper. “It also provocatively aims to consider the development of technologies that are not built for planned obsolescence, but are built specifically to last and to outlive their owners. Timecard is a device and a service that can create timeline style records of a person, similar to a ‘baby book,’ but extending throughout life.”
In a familiar theme, Timecard is part of a larger body of research into how families can connect and share information. Harper and his team have come up with a half-dozen new technologies on display at TechFest this week, all designed to explore the digital side of family.
“We’re using 3-D modeling, devices, display technologies that take advantage of multitouch, and lessons we’ve learned in studying how families work,” Harper says.
The Road From Cairo
According to Rashid, the mere fact that he can mention research coming from Cairo, Cambridge and other areas of the globe reflects another evolution he’s seen at TechFest through the years.
The organization he founded as a single person nearly 20 years ago has grown to represent more than 800 Ph.D.s and hundreds of support staff in locations around the world: Redmond; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, Mass.; Beijing, China; Cambridge, England; and Bangalore, India.
“When we started TechFest we basically just had a research lab here in Redmond,” Rashid says. “One of the real benefits of TechFest today is the opportunity to bring our researchers from all over the world to interact with our teams here and share the technologies they are developing.”
The international flavor of Microsoft Research today has added new perspectives and allowed the organization to tap into research talent around the world, but even with TechFest becoming such a melting pot, the core mission of Microsoft Research remains the same around the globe: continued investment to advance the state of the art in technology.
According to Rashid, that commitment is a big part of how Microsoft has remained successful as an innovation company 30 years after its original entry into the commercial market. And, like Ballmer, he believes it is more important today than ever, given current conditions around the world.
“You want to be prepared for change and you want to be a catalyst for change, but you don’t know what the future holds,” asks Rashid, “how will we get out of an economic downturn? By creating new products, by generating new ideas, by taking advantage of opportunities that people may have not been expecting. We may not know what’s down the road, but looking at the work on display here this week, it’s clear we’re getting there.”
Popularity: 22% [?]
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