~TECH-BYTES~

Knol is a new Google service created for sharing knowledge. The service has been announced in December 2007 and it’s now publicly available.

Knol has much more in common with Squidoo and HubPages than with Wikipedia. The service is centered around authors: each Knol article displays the name of its author and links to a small biography. Google even lets you verify your identity, but this only works if you live on the US.

Knol doesn’t intend to become an encyclopedia, so there’s no single article about a topic. An author can write about almost any topic, but it’s recommended to write authoritative content.

There are three levels of collaboration in Knol:

* open collaboration (any Knol user can edit the article)
* moderate collaboration (any Knol user can suggest changes to the article - enabled by default)
* closed collaboration (only the co-authors can edit the article)

Google uses a rich-text editor borrowed from Page Creator, so it’s much easier to edit knols than Wikipedia articles. Users can rate the articles, add comments and write reviews, much like for scholarly works.

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Some anonymous source for TechTree have spilled the beans regarding the launch date and pricing for iPhone 3G in India. It may come as a shock for many people but the source reckons the phone to be priced around Rs. 12,000 range but only 8GB variant will be available. Vodafone will be the first player to get the phone here because of its global presence and has a 15 days advantage than Airtel.

> Model: Initially, the 8GB version only
> Price: Rs. 11,500 to Rs. 12,000 (note: U.S. price of the 8GB iPhone 3G is $199)
> Applications: App Store will be available
> App prices: Application prices may see a revision to suit Indian market
> 3G: No fixed date for 3G availability; expected sometime later this year
> GPS: Present on the Indian version as well

The news has definitely opened up a new discussion for everyone waiting for the mighty iPhone to come over here but we cannot trust it until we hear it from the horse’s mouth.

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Finally i managed to transfer one of my blog from Y360 to wordpress… As you all know i transferred all my blogger blogs to my self-hosted word press blog and this was the last blog left but unfortunately it was on yahoo 360 and since their’s no export-import mechanism in y360 i couldn’t do so but because y360 is taking its last breath it was very important for me to transfer this blog and after a lot of hard work i found this great tool called “Y360 to word press” but after using it i realized i was expecting too much,it was not an easy task as it didn’t worked the way it promised firstly i had to remove all videos and polls even after that it was giving error while converting so i had to start from the last entry and by taking 5 or 10 entries at a time i had to convert them in xml format and then upload it to wordpress then the most difficult task delete the entries thaat have been successfully transfered you might be thinking what’s the difficulty in that well friends its y360 and not wordpress– 1 you can not select multiple entries and delete them you have to delete 1 at a time, 2 big time cache problem so when you delete entries and return to last page you might actually end up at an enty that you have allready deleted just refresh the page 2-3 times…

And after 2-3 days of hardwork i finally managed to transfer and delete all the entries… and am really happy because wordpress rocks!!! and now i can express myself in a much better way.

PS:- 1 major drawback of this tool is the image at the bottom of title and before the content doesn’t gets transferred.

Google has finally realized that it’s a bad idea to automatically add to the list of Gmail contacts all the people you’ve sent an email. An updated version of Gmail’s contact manager has a separate section for the people you’ve emailed: “suggested contacts”.

“My Contacts is a place to import, store and view all of the contact information that’s important to you. You can also create your own groups of contacts to easily email many people at once. We add people you’ve emailed to Suggested Contacts. You can move contacts from Suggested Contacts into My Contacts at any time.”

There’s an option to automatically move suggested contacts into My Contacts if you frequently email them, but the previous behavior doesn’t seem to be an option.

I don’t have this new version of the contact manager, so if you notice other changes, post them in the comments.

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i just read this really intresting post about iphone 3G and India… Didn’t got the chance to verify anything written in this post as i was eagerly waiting for 11th july - the release of iphone 3G and was really planning to buy one but after reading this post i think i really need to think again go through this,its quite intresting :-

I just got a gmail on apple iphone3g worst features in india and i just stunned with it and looked at them then i released that iphone is worst than any.

So here is the mail:

Those of you in India planning for iPhone…Think Twice Before Making a decision…The short commings of iphone are endless..

No video calling, no AD2P on the Bluetooth, can’t share any(mp3, images, videos…) files via bluetooth, can’t use as a wireless modem, (you pay ridiculous data charges to activate internet on your phone, but cannot connect it to your PC and browse when you are at home)

All even the smallest copy and paste,(cannot copy a part of a.. say… email & send it..have to type it out yourself)

No 3.2 or 5 megapixel camera,(the 2MP camera it carries is worst camera i’ve ever seen.. photos look like they have come out of a VGA camera)

No video recording with camera, no front camera, no flash.

No JAVA support

No physical keyboard (BELIEVE me! this alone is a dealbreaker…touch keyboard as good as it looks…once you use it then only you come to know about the importance of having a hard keypad)

No 3G network yet in India..so why pay for expensive 3G phone if you cant use its 3G services … so, for India, iPhone 2.0 is no better than its first version

No removable battery. (You cannot change battery. Have to send it to apple outlet.. Come on now!!!!…This is not an iPod. Its a bloody phone. You cannot live without phone for 2-3 days)

No haptic feedback and cannot send MMS, an’t use as external storage device (16 GB of utter waste..next time you go to your friend’s house & find some interesting songs, movies, etc…sorry you cannot connect your ‘16 GB’ phone and share it!!!! Apple apparently has a solution.. ” BUY MUSIC & MOVIES FROM iTUNES STORE “….. Give me a break will you APPLE!!!)

no FM radio, can’t use your mp3 files as ringtones,(This is heights man!!!)

cannot insert any other SIM card….

completely tied to iTunes… Connect to your friend’s iTunes & you risk erasing everything on your phone.

list goes on & on & on….

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Google just released Lively, a 3D world where you can chat with others and create your own rooms. Traces of this program appeared back in 2007 under the name of My World (this project also received the rumor nickname Google metaverse; TomHTML, Tony and I also lately saw traces of something called Google Rooms, though we aren’t 100% sure it’s related). After installing the desktop setup for Windows – yes, this is one of the rare Google products which isn’t completely browser-based – you’ll be forwarded to lively.com again. There, you can pick from a number of available rooms, and sign-in with your Google account.

I experienced a couple of problems with this service right now; from odd user name restrictions (I ended up re-selecting my Google ID name, even though they asked me to pick a new name at first), to very slow loading (I mostly saw skeletons at first), to finally, a program crash (the message “Lively has encountered a problem and an error report has been sent” appeared and the program closed). These may be launch problems, though, and nothing permanent… we’ll see.

Once you logged into a room, you can start customizing your avatar. First you can pick from a base type – like male, female or animal – and then you can fine-tune your hair, skin color, eyes and more. You’ll then see yourself surrounded by other avatars, and there’s background music and lots of laughing, grunting and other noises. The graphic has a lighthearted cartoon touch, reminiscent of something like a Lucasarts 3D game. When you talk by using the chat box at the bottom, your words appear as speech bubble above your character.

You can then move around by kind of dragging your avatar (clicking your avatar switches to self-navigation mode, and clicking outside it switches to camera navigation). This may be an unusual mode of navigation at first, but after some seconds it works very well.

Selecting a room from the Lively site

Department of Telecom has scrapped its plans to auction 3G spectrum for CDMA operators even as it is close to finalizing the policy for 3G services for GSM operators.

Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Shyam Telelink and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd are the major CDMA operators in the country which were supposed to auction for 3G services. But DoT has blocked this option on the grounds that it will clash with the spectrum of GSM players, thus leaving 71 million CDMA subscribers face an undecided future with regard to the availability of third generation mobile services.

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After years of testing, Gmail has finally added a very useful security feature: tracking open sessions. If you log in to Gmail from more than one computer and you forget to sign out, you’ll be able to see the list of locations where your account can still be accessed.

Until now, the only solution when you forgot to log out from Gmail after using a public computer was to change your password. Otherwise, anyone could access your account without knowing the password. Now you can sign out remotely from all the locations where your Gmail account is still open.

If you click on “Details” in Gmail’s footer, you’ll find a lot of interesting information about your sessions. “The top table, under Concurrent session information, indicates all open sessions, along with IP address and access type — which refers to how email was retrieved, for example, through iGoogle, POP3 or a mobile phone. The bottom table, under Recent activity, contains my most recent history along with times of access. I can also view my current IP address at the very bottom of this window, where it says This computer is using IP address…“.

This could be useful if you want to find whether someone else has access to your account: you’ll be able to find the IP address and the date of the most recent activity in your account.

Gmail’s blog mentions that this feature is currently being rolled out in the new version of Gmail, so you may not see it right now. Google AdSense, PayPal and orkut are three other services that show the time of your last login so you can protect against abuse, but Gmail’s new feature is much more advanced.

Among the things you can do to protect your Gmail account, it’s a good idea to sign out after reading your email, not to select “remember me” when you log in from a public computer and to choose a good password that should remain secret.

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Exciting News!

Google Talk users can now make free international phone calls!

How it Works

Adding phone numbers to your Google Talk contact list

1)     To start, launch Google Talk on your desktop

2)     Add contacts the same way you usually do: click on the Add button to add a friend

3)     Type in the phone number of the person you want to call in the following format.

Use full phone number, including country code and area code:

phonenumber@talkster.gtalk2voip.com

Example: for UK, use 442071234567@talkster.gtalk2voip.com or for USA , use 12125551212@talkster.gtalk2voip.com

(Note: be sure to check the list of Talkster’s supported countries to check if the friend you want to call is in one of the available countries)

4)     You’ll get a confirmation from Talkster with instructions.

We assign a local Talkster number for your friend in their country. Your friends will use Talkster phone numbers to call-in to be connected with you.

5)     If you are calling your friend on a mobile phone, he will receive an SMS with his Talkster call-in number for you. Otherwise, let him know the Talkster number by IM or email.

Make calls from your Google Talk

1)     Click on your friend’s number in your Google Talk Contact List

2)     Click on the Call button to start the call with your friend

3)     Talkster will dial out to your friend from Google Talk

4)     When your friend answers, you will have 10 seconds to check to see if he’s available to talk. Tell him to hang up and call right back, using his local Talkster phone number for you.

5)     You wait while your friend hangs up and calls back using his local number for you. (If he doesn’t know his number, send it to him by email or IM.)

6)     As soon as your friend calls in, we connect you and you can talk as long as you want for FREE.

7)     When you’re done, you just end the call!

    Tell your friend to save his Talkster call-in number in his phone so he can use it whenever you want to call him from Google Talk.

You can call as often as you like and talk as long as you like. There are no catches, no limits, and no conditions!

In the ongoing copyright litigation between Google and Viacom, a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York In the ongoing copyright litigation between Google and Viacom, a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered Google (PDF) to hand over data on every YouTube user, including username, the associated IP address, and a list of all the the videos that user ever watched.

In this lawsuit, Viacom is seeking more than $1 billion in damages because of alleged copyright violations on YouTube.

Besides this user data, Viacom also sought access to Google’s source code for its web and video search, as well as for its ‘Video ID’ program. The judge, however, denied access to the code, because, “considered against its value and secrecy, plaintiffs have not made a sufficient showing of need for its disclosure.” It’s interesting that Google’s trade secrets are worth protecting while the privacy of users is not.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that this ruling is in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPAA), which forbids the disclosure of personally identifiable rental data without a consumer’s consent. The EFF argues that because some users on YouTube used the full names as login names, the VPAA applies to YouTube.

Mark Cuban also has an interesting take on this story. He argues that the data Google now has to release might show that Google actively removes pornographic content from YouTube, which would then lead Google to lose its DMCA protection.

For a lot of users, the question is going to be what Viacom will do with all this data . Are they planning to sue individual users as well as Google? To substantiate its claims against Google, Viacom doesn’t really need to be able to identify individual users.

Update: For now, it seems that Viacom is restricted to using the data solely to prove its copyright claims.