It only happens in movies like “Time Machine,” where scientist Alex Hartdegen moves on to the year 2037, only to find the moon showering the earth with huge chunks of rock.

Time to travel back to the present to Apple’s Time Capsule, which takes people into the future with its advanced technology!
Most computer users face the dread of losing important data. People more often than not forget or put off backing up their data, since it is a cumbersome process of using either CDs, DVDs or even an external hard drive.

Apple was the first to come up with a solution earlier, with the creation of Time Machine, which comes with MAC OS X Leopard. Time Machine makes backing up data easy and painless; however, there is still the requirement of either having an external hard disk connected to the MAC through a USB or cable. This proves to be a problem with MACBook users.

Apple decided to do something about it and created “Time Capsule,” which automatically backs up a computer, offering constant protection – and the best part is that it is wireless.

Time Capsule has been designed to be compatible with Time Machine in MAC OS X Leopard.

Time Capsule comes with a wireless 500GB or 1TB hard drive, which is excellent and has the potential to handle all the backup needs. It provides plenty of room for storing huge amounts of data and there is no issue of running out of space.

Apple says, users of MAC OS X Leopard will have to set the Time Capsule as the backup drive for Time Machine and forget about it. The first time it is used, the time taken may be overnight or a little more, to complete the backup, depending on the size of the data. However, since the next time only involves backing up the updated files, it happens quietly through wireless in the background, without any sort of user intervention whatsoever. (more…)

Get used to one operating system and begin loving it for what it offers and suddenly, it’s gone. A new operating system releases into the market, takes its place not only in the millions of computers throughout the globe but also in the hearts of passionate users. History repeats itself. That’s the biography of an operating system.

Microsoft, said to be the world’s number one IT brand, does it time and again. Their operating systems are very popular and used world-wide. They bring in huge uncountable dollars for the company. The company allows their operating systems to run for a few years and on releasing a new operating system, fade the older version out, making it vanish from the shop shelves.

With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft initially wanted to stop all the Windows XP sales as of June 30, 2008, in spite of the lukewarm response that Vista received on its launch or the numerous protests made by people that they prefer XP to Vista. Most people are of the opinion that XP is the best piece of software ever produced by them. Microsoft tried to woo XP users to welcome Vista, but to no avail. They complain about Vista’s bad performance, its incompatibility with other software and everything else about Vista, including its security warning pop ups.

Talking about passion for operating systems, Galen Gruman, a technology journalist started a save XP web petition and collected more than 100000 thousand signature and comments from diehard XP fans, insisting that Windows keep selling XP until the next version is released in 2010. Grumen also wanted to meet up with Microsoft heads about the petition and was declined. (more…)

If you have been on the web for any amount of time, you would have heard of Zong, a division of Echovox, which is the leader in Mobile Media Solutions in Europe and provides services to many of the world’s largest media groups.

Zong is the only web service that enables creating and launching of mobile services in about ten countries. It is the first open mobile platform provider that allows companies, developers, web enterprises and social networks to launch mobile services for revenue generation.
With Zong, mobile services and applications can be launched to more than 500 million subscribers worldwide in just a few minutes.

To get a better idea of what Zong’s all about, let’s take a look at how it works.

Once the Zong services are created and a person becomes the developer, all users will be able to access their services from their mobiles. When the user sends a message with the keyword pertaining to the developer, the message is routed through the user’s mobile operator, which whom Zong has contractual obligation. That mobile operator, in turn, sends the request to Zong, and Zong manages this request using the service provider’s application and sends a response back to the user.

How does the developer benefit? When users use the service, they will be billed based on how the billing is set up. They can be billed monthly on their monthly mobile bill or users can also set up an account with Zong, and pay for the services by direct debit into the Zong account. The mobile operator used by the user takes a small fee and Zong takes a small transaction fee, and the rest of the amount is given to the developer in the form of revenue. (more…)

Adobe Media Player (AMP 1.0) launched by Adobe, allows streaming of video and downloading from their partners. It is the latest player to enter the online video space, which offers great software that not only rivals Windows Media Player, but also provides a wide variety of video content, including music videos. Adobe announced this move about a year ago.

Adobe has gone into partnership with major content publishers and broadcasters, such as MyToons, Comedy Central, Blip.tv, MTV, Universal Music Group, Style.com, PBS, CBS and a few others, to provide video material. With so many top media companies and networks in its groove, Adobe aims at providing wholesome entertainment in the form of reality TV shows, sports, educational videos, classic feature films amongst others.

CBS is providing its CSI shows and lots of archived videos. MTV is showing “The Hills.” The others also have some good stuff for viewing. Adobe said that since it has just started, more content will be coming soon from the other broadcasters.

Just as it is with the other Adobe products, installation of the Adobe Media Player is easy, especially if one is used to running an AIR application.

With the AMP, all the entertainment is available offline too, which means the videos can either be streamed from the partner’s website or downloaded, depending on what the producer of the content allows. The content producer has total control over that and there are easy to understand icons, letting you know what you can do with the content you are watching. (more…)

They make a killing by stealing data and passwords. Who are these dangerous lurkers and what do they get out of it? They are cyber hijackers and till sometime ago, they were doing it for fun and to be known as the best hijacker in town.

Things have changed and now they do it for making a fast buck. They come much younger, smarter and tech savvy now and can outsmart even the smartest crackers of all.

These hijackers have high earnings, and can earn as much as $2 for your cell number, up to $500 for your credit card number and as much as $400 for your bank customer ID and PIN. Your worth has increased with time and if have a corporate identity, you could be worth thousands of dollars. Don’t be too happy about your worth, as the more worthy you are, the more at risk you are.

Falling prey to the cyber mafia is not difficult. There lurkers infest places where there are hundreds of people and hijack people’s computers. Social networking sites that are so popular with everyone are their best bet.

They turn your computer into a BOT (hijacked computer.) Usually a spyware of malware is downloaded onto the computer, which then holds the computer captive and sends all the data to the person who has done this, exposing all your passwords to him. Thinking of all those times you were asked to download these for free? (more…)

Next time you are in Japan, do not get carried away if you catch someone winking at you. The poor guy could only be operating his iPod.

A group of researchers from Japan have come up with a system that makes us humans lazier than we are already. There is no need to use the hands anymore to use an iPod. Soon, people will be able to operate their iPods with the flick of an eye.

The lead researcher, Kazuhiro Taniguchi from Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering Science, says the system they are developing comprises of a single chip computer and two infrared sensors and works by monitoring the movement of the temple. The most amazing thing about this is that it is very tiny and can be fixed into the sides of the eyeglasses or headphones.

What do we do to run the iPod? Close our eyes for a second and this starts the iPod and blinking again stops it. Winking one eye reverses and winking the other one skips to the next tune. Close both eyes to pause or play.

How about those that cannot wink with one of their eyes? Researchers have not left any stone unturned and have come up with a perfect solution for such people. They are programming the system to give commands by blinking twice in fast sequence. (more…)

Today we see hundreds of people earning a living, working on the computer, from the “sweatshop” of the digital era – Home. Is working from home any easier? Researchers investigate to find out what goes on behind closed doors.

Home office workers armed with computers and latest gadgets, and robotically wired to the hilt, are working under severe pressure and stress created by the internet economy, that is looking for information constantly, in the form of comments and news.

What is it these people do? They blog and they do it till they drop. They get paid per piece and they are of course happy doing it. Most bloggers profess a love for what they do and of the excitement the internet provides with its nonstop action.

Through blogging, they have the means of setting up a global outlet, reaching millions of people without a huge investment.

In spite of all the benefits and passion for the internet and blogging, some people are starting to wonder if something has gone wrong. The last few months have seen the sudden death of two of these internet aficionados.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger, who blogs on technology related information, died of a heart attack at age 60. Another technology blogger, Marc Orchant died at 50, due to a massive coronary, in December. The third person, Om Malik who is 41 survived a heart attack in December. (more…)

Whenever a company wishes to run a new application or run a new operating system, they end up buying a new server to go with it, although they are aware that servers usually run at 20-30% their actual capacity.

They ensure that each application has a dedicated server. The reason they do this is because there are times when all the resources of a server are required to run an application; and they avoid using multiple operating systems or applications on one server, keeping this need in mind.

People realize that this system of maintaining servers is inefficient due to the need for huge data centers and also because of the heavy power consumption.

There seems to be an answer to this problem in “virtualization.” This hot new technology is seeing exponential growth throughout the world. Factually speaking, this technology is not new and has been used for mainframes for a long time now, thanks to IBM. This is the reason why in mainframes, the utilization of capacity is almost 90% when compared to just 20 to 30% in other servers. (more…)