Microsoft Surface is actually a Windows PC inside a black table base with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame and is powered by Windows new Operating System Vista. Five cameras that can sense nearby objects are mounted beneath the screen and users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by setting real-world items tagged with special bar-code labels on top of it. Surface also has Bluetooth 2.0, wired Ethernet 10/100 and wireless 802.11 b/g for connectivity.

The technology behind Surface is called Multi-touch. It has at least a 25-year history, beginning in 1982, with pioneering work being done at the University of Toronto (multi-touch tablets) and Bell Labs (multi-touch screens). The product idea for Surface was initially conceptualized in 2001 by Steven Bathiche of Microsoft Hardware and Andy Wilson of Microsoft Research. In October 2001, a virtual team was formed with Bathiche and Wilson as key members, to bring the idea to the next stage of development.

A version of the device was used in the 2005 Science Fiction movie The Island, which was used by Sean Bean’s character “Merrick”. Surface was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 29, 2007 at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California. Surface Computing is part of Microsoft’s Productivity and Extended Consumer Experiences Group, which is within the Entertainment & Devices division.

Prices will reportedly be $5,000 to $10,000 per unit. However Microsoft said it expects prices to drop enough to make consumer versions feasible in 3 to 5 years.

Here’s a link to a demo video of Surface on Youtube:-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6VfpVYYQzHs

Source: Wikipedia,

Microsoft has sent out an email to the press regarding Halo 3 Exclusive preview. Its surely gonna be another great sequel to the popular series and is being released only on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console. Here’s the poster:-

For those who know little about Halo, it is a really great game which sold the Xbox when it was launched.

Another one of Google’s April Fools:-

New! Introducing Gmail Paper

Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves email, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Well, you asked for it, and it’s here. We’re bringing it back.

A New Button
Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we’ll send it to you in the mail.

Simplicity Squared
Google will print all messages instantly and prepare them for delivery. Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post.

Total Control
A stack of Gmail Paper arrives in a box at your doorstep, and it’s yours to keep forever. You can read it, sort it, search it, touch it. Or even move it to the trash—the real trash. (Recycling is encouraged.)

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Google takes privacy very seriously. But once your email is physically in your hands, it’s as secure as you want to make it.

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/more.html

🙂

Internet Explorer 7 still has problems with .png files…woe is MS

Firefox 2.0 (yay!)

Internet Explorer 7 (boo!)

Although, to its credit, Microsoft has fixed various problems and miscellaneous complaints with Internet Explorer (at least it has attempted to). The problem is, its been 4 years since IE received a major update and this comes just a tad too late.

The issues fixed include CSS interpretation and an alpha channel for png files (but the color still isn’t right). I’m trying my best to promote Firefox, although Opera is also a good alternative.

And then you get to look at this…

Here’s wishing all of you a Best of luck for the exams and that you do great in them. I also hope that one of THE finest(Avante-garde) batch of Exun that shall be passing out this year gets amazing grades, acceptance in the university of their choice and go on to bigger and better things.

Peace out

Manas Gautam

I was quite amazed by how many people got it. I spent half and hour on it, and when I finally got it, I felt like banging my head against the wall!

The trick to answering it is to read each letter aloud from left to right.

hi everyone,

some intresting tricks which i found recently:-

1)this trick allows you to create anonymous folders.
for this trick to work use the num-lock numbers ie. numbers given on the right hand side of your keyboard.
first,create a new folder on the desktop.
now click rename.
then press alt + 0160
done.

2)this trick will help you to increase the speed of your internet connection.
do the following steps:-
i)go —run—-gpedit.msc
ii)Then go to:Local Computer Policy
then Computer Configurationthen Administrative Templates
then Network
then QOS Packet Scheduler and
then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth.
the properties will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the ‘Explain’ tab i.e.”By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default.”
So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well.

3)here’s a gmail server update:-
the gmail server fails to recognise (.)-dots . so whats the use, well the thing is if your e-mail i.d. is ank3it@gmail.com then a.n.k.3.i.t@gmail.com is also valid. so if you compose a mail and send it to a.n.k.3.i.t@gmail.com or a.n.k3it@gmail.com or ank.3.it@gmail.com then the same person will receive it. however this type of recognition is invalid on the login page.

i found this blog- it will help the quizzer’s
http://visual-facts.blogspot.com/
specially the photo’s,they are good.