The War has moved to Europe , The 2 Juggernauts Colliding head 2 head

Google has never had to endure much hard, formal EU antitrust scrutiny -- its purchase of DoubleClick two years ago received a relatively painless waive-through. That may soon change, according to Microsoft's top lawyer. Brad Smith said Google's dominant position in the online ad sector will inevitably lead to some hard questions soon, adding that Microsoft has some experience in the EU antitrust game.

Microsoft's top lawyer said Monday that Google will inevitably have to answer questions about its huge market share in selling advertisements linked to results from its search engine.

Microsoft's general counsel Brad Smith said the search advertising market has become "the fundamental economic engine for content online" and "the gateway to content on the Internet.

"Whenever you have a company that has more than a 90 percent market share in a key market, it is inevitable that people will have questions to ask. We say that with some experience,"

Butting Heads

Unlike Microsoft, Google has never been formally investigated by the European Union executive and the only EU scrutiny of its advertising business came when it asked regulators to approve its US$3.1 billion purchase of online ad tracker DoubleClick. The EU waved through the deal in March 2008.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier this month that French antitrust regulators should look at Google's dominant position in the online ad sector.
However, the European Commission, which would deal with any Europe-wide competition problem, has said it sees no issue with Google's dominant position in advertising unless there is "any implication or suspicion" that it is abusing its near-monopoly to hike prices or squeeze rivals and suppliers.
Smith confirmed that Microsoft sees Google as a direct rival, saying they were both active in some of the same product markets.
Microsoft trails Google in search, with a European market share of 2 percent.

Microsoft also advocates a federal privacy law in the United States, he said, and is concerned about different laws emerging at state level.

The Power to Bust Hackers

Smith said security concerns may require giving the right to cloud service providers -- such as Microsoft -- to take legal action to sue hackers or others who try to hack into data hosted in "the cloud."
He said Microsoft's vision of cloud computing saw its own proprietary software in use alongside open source programs -- with both using "open formats" to allow different software to work smoothly together.
EU regulators fined Microsoft in 2004 for not providing technical information to rivals that wanted to make software compatible with Microsoft's servers. The company last year promised changes to share some data on its products with others.he most-used Web browser, Internet Explorer, which competes with Google's Chrome and others.


Source : ECT New Network

Managing Disaster like everything else, The MS Way

REDMOND, Wash.--The ground-level conference room in Building 25 doesn't look much different than many others in buildings across Microsoft's sprawling campus.

It has a window, though most of the view is obscured by a large bush. It has the usual array of outlets and Ethernet jacks, screens, and projectors. During earthquakes and floods, hurricanes and tsunamis, though, this room is ground zero for Microsoft's emergency response effort.
Even then though, it can be hard to tell that somewhere halfway around the world, disaster has struck. That's because Microsoft's disaster team is a virtual one, with much of the action taking place online. Even those working together in Redmond are often glued to their laptops, rather than communicating with nearby colleagues.

"It will look like a bunch of people just sending e-mail," said Claire Bonilla, the senior director of disaster response for Microsoft.

There are about 65 lead members of Microsoft's emergency response effort--and perhaps 160 dedicated people overall--but even at its busiest there might only be fewer than two dozen people in the main disaster response room.
When disaster hits, Bonilla and team activate, reaching out to the nearest Microsoft subsidiary. The company tries to simultaneously make sure its own workers are accounted for, check in with partners and customers, and offer immediate assistance to international aid workers.
The company works with those aid groups to quickly establish a portal called OneResponse, which relief workers can use to coordinate their efforts. That, too is understated, looking like a Web site from a decade ago with little more than a bunch of text links on the main page.
Although it is built on modern SharePoint technology, the design of OneResponse is deliberately spartan, aiming to work on even the poorest of Internet connections--the only kind often available in the wake of natural disaster.
In the case of Haiti, Microsoft's disaster effort was up and running by 6 p.m. on the day of the quake. In addition to conference calls with aid groups, Microsoft had the added insight of Gisli Olafsson, who works in Microsoft's disaster efforts but was quickly on the ground in Haiti as part of his volunteer gig as a member of Iceland's search and rescue team. Olafsson's firsthand knowledge helped give Microsoft an early sense of what the situation was like on the ground.
Microsoft, of course, is far from alone in pitching in during times of disaster. Many companies have offered their cash, services, products, and know-how in the wake of the Haiti quake.
A number of tech companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and Google are supporters of NetHope, an organization that helps establish emergency, temporary, and permanent communications following a disaster. That has been an especially acute need in Haiti, said NetHope CEO Bill Brindley.

"The communications infrastructure in Haiti has been virtually demolished," said Brindley, whose group has worked to bring in portable satellite units that aid groups can use to provide voice communication and Internet access.

Among those pitching in is San Francisco-based Inveneo, which has specialized in setting up off-the-grid networks in rural Africa. That know-how has come in handy in setting up Wi-Fi in Haiti, which is still without widespread power.
Inveneo CIO Mark Summer, who has been helping set-up portable Wi-Fi units for NetHope, said that the devastation is intense.
"In the hills the damage is significantly less then down in the center of Port-Au-Prince where in it seems that in many areas more then 50 percent of the buildings are gone or beyond repair," he said in an e-mail statement. "We've seen buildings that have had two or three stories and now no higher then 5 feet of the ground--it seems as if walls just turned into sand..."
Each disaster brings its own set of needs and challenges. The fact Haiti was so impoverished even before the quake, plus the fact it struck the capital, has posed a big challenge for aid groups. In the early days, it was a challenge getting supplies into the country, Bonilla said.
"Planes circled for three hours and sometimes had to go back to the Dominican Republic because they couldn't land," Bonilla said.

Keeping aid workers safe is also an issue.

"People are desperate for anything they can do to provide food and water to their families and that can breed security issues," Bonilla said.

By last Thursday afternoon, only Bonilla and one colleague were in the disaster room. One person did wander into the room, though he was looking for one of the many Microsoft partners that occupy the bulk of Building 25's ground floor.
MSNBC streamed in the background, though coverage had switched from Haiti to live footage of a car chase here in the U.S.
"I don't think that classifies as even a minor disaster," Bonilla jokes, going back to her work. As with many responses, Bonilla has been working for 18 to 20 hours a day. Bonilla said her job makes her glad she works in the Seattle area, known for its good coffee. Even that, she said, only carries her so far. "After awhile, caffeine loses its impact," she said. "Then it's just adrenaline."

Source : CNET News

As Social as ever, Just Googling Through

Web users with Google profiles will now be able to use a beta version of Social Search, a Google application that recently graduated out of "Labs" status. The utility opens new categories of content when users conduct a search, displaying information and images from users' public pages to those users' contacts. As always, users should be aware of what they're posting and who can access it.

Google promoted its Social Search experiment to beta status on Wednesday.

Social Search adds information and images from users' public pages to the results of online searches conducted by members of their social network.
Users need a Google profile to get results from Social Search.

Circles of Friends and Content

Social has been added to other Google applications like Google Images, so when people with a Google profile conduct a search on images, they may get pictures their friends and other online contacts have published publicly on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.
Online searches for answers to questions will also pull in public content from friends and contacts on the Web such as blog pages.
Links labeled "My social circle" and "My social content" will appear together with results of online searches. The first lets users check out their social circles; the second lets users see the connections and content behind social search results.
Social Search provides transparency about connections by showing users the other individuals with whom they are connected -- and through which services -- every time query results show information from people in their social circle, Google spokesperson Jake Hubert told TechNewsWorld.
Google is labeling its social search feature a beta version because it expects to expand those capabilities. "We're leaving a 'beta' label on social results because there's a lot more we can do," Social Search project staffers Maureen Heymans and Terran Melconian wrote in the Google blog post announcing the feature's beta release Wednesday.

Getting to Know You

Could this new social dimension impact users' privacy? People tend to have friends with different degrees of closeness, from those with whom we are merely civil to those with whom we share much of our lives. Could social search blur those lines and create unlooked-for intimacy with people we only consider acquaintances or business contacts?
Google's party line boils down to what boxers hear from referees in the ring: Keep your guard up and protect yourself at all times.
"All the content that shows up as part of Social Search is already publicly available through Google.com and other search engines today," Google's Hubert pointed out. "Social Search simply makes it easier to find relevant information from your social circle.
"If you don't want this content to be surfaced as part of Social Search, you can remove it from your Google profile, your other online social services, or from the Internet entirely," Hubert said. "You can always add or remove links on your Google profile, and can also block their Gmail chat contacts or remove contacts from their friends, family and coworker groups in Gmail."



 Source : ECT News Network

The Window is Shrinking, while linux opening all the doors

Linux inched ahead in the operating-system arena during the final month of 2009, even as Windows and Mac gave up some ground.
That's according to research firm Net Applications, which recently released its Market Share report covering operating systems in December.
Linux accounted for 1.02 percent of the market in December, up from an even 1 percent the month before, Net Applications reported.

A Peak in May

Windows, meanwhile, fell from 92.52 percent in November to 92.21 percent in December, while Mac fell from 5.12 percent to 5.11 percent during the same time, the company found.
Linux's market share was 0.98 percent in February 2009, peaking for the year at 1.17 percent in May, according to Net Applications' data.
Windows was at 94.74 percent in February, while Mac was at 4.55 percent.
Also tracked by Net Applications are Java ME, iPhone, Symbian, iPod touch, Windows Mobile, Android and a variety of other systems.

Rival Data

Of course, estimates for Linux's market share are notoriously variable and controversial, given that -- unlike other operating systems -- there is very little sales data.
Rival tracking site W3Counter, in fact, puts Linux's market share at a significantly higher 2.14 percent for the month of December, up from 1.8 percent the month before.
Windows -- including XP, Vista, 7, 2003, 2000 and 98 versions -- went from 85.69 percent in November to 86.43 percent in December, while Mac fell from 7.46 percent to 7.44 percent, according to W3Counter.
Advocates of free and open source software, meanwhile, estimate that Linux's share may even be in the double digits.

'A Very Quiet Creep'

Finally, "the idea of a computer OS is no longer limited to desktop and notebook PCs, so as convergence continues to blur the line between the PC and the smartphone, Linux is well-positioned to grow because of its flexibility, cost and other advantages," Lyman noted.
Whether or not these "more indirect and discreet gains will be measurable or noticed," of course, is another question, he added.
Still, "I expect a very quiet creep for Linux in the OS market," Lyman concluded, "particularly in desktop and consumer devices."

Amity Microsoft Tech Club Registration Procedure

Amity Microsoft Tech Club (AMTC)

AmityMicrosoft Tech Club is a step taken by the Microsoft Student Partners present at Amity School of Engineering and Technology (A.S.E.T) to make students aware of the different Academic Programs started by Microsoft India.AMTC would make its members aware of the different technologies made available to them by Microsoft, directly as well as indirectly. The AMTC members would be provided with resources which would help them get more familiar with the upcoming technology.

The Microsoft Student Partner Programme is an initiative taken by Microsoft to recognize all of them who have a passion for the technological developments taking place all around the globe.

Objectives of AMTC would include:

• Clearing Some Myths about Microsoft: One of the prime goals of the AMTC would be to tell its members that not only Microsoft has revolutionalized the IT industry by windows but has also given aspiring developers a lot of tools to test their skills and showcase their talent in this exponentially growing industry

• Providing Resources To its Members: A lot of resources would be provided by the Microsoft Student Partners to the members of AMTC as per the interest shown by them. A lot of reading material would be provided to the members to help them learn various Microsoft Technologies like Visual Studio, Expression Studio etc.

• Organizing Various Sessions: A number of sessions about various Microsoft Products would be conducted by the Student Partners which would help the members of the club to choose from a number of fields available to them. The Microsoft Student Partners would share the information (provided to them by Microsoft itself) with the club members as to keep them up to date.

• Spreading Awareness About Microsoft India Academic Programs: Microsoft has a number of Academic programs running all over the world. Club members would be given information related to different Microsoft India Academic Programs like Microsoft Student Partner Programme ,Microsoft Dreamspark , Imagine Cup .Members would be encouraged to become Microsoft Student Partner and would be told the benefits of the programme and also AMTC would keep track of the MSP selection procedure and would keep its Members informed about the same

• Organizing Various Technical Events: AMTC would also be organizing various technical events at the college annual fest and also Members of the AMTC would regularly be informed about any Microsoft Event Organized in the City and would also encourage them to attend these events.

• Going Online with The Club: An online Blog would also be maintained so as to make the members aware of various events organized by the club. Discussions & queries on various technical topics would also be entertained regularly. Videos of the all sessions conducted as an AMTC activity would be posted on the blog so as to help the members who were not able to attend the sessions.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ’s)

Q.1. Would only Microsoft Technologies be discussed?

A.1. Not Necessarily, discussions on any technology would be welcomed.

Q.2. What would the sessions consist of?

A.2 The primary goal of the sessions would be to make members aware of the different development tools created and made available by Microsoft so as to help the members understand the application of these tools. Demos of the tools would be given so as help the members start of.

Q.3. Will you teach different computer launguages?

A.3. We are going to provide basic knowledge of the different technologies or languages. We’ll also be providing reading materials related to these technologies.If any member gets interested in any of the technologies then he/she is free to ask for any material required by him/her.

Q.4.Would AMTC provide us with the Microsoft Tools?

A.4. The tools made available to the Microsoft Student Partners would be provided to all the AMTC members who are interested.

Q.5. What if any club member has any information which he wants to share with the club?

A.5. Such information would be welcomed.Any club member is free to share any information he has but has to do it in an organized manner.After every sessions the club members would be free to tell us whatever they have or feel.

Application Procedure

1. A Registration fees of Rs 300/- has to be paid to any of the below mentioned personnel
   
2. The application form can be downloaded from http://www.mediafire.com/?2nzgeoeminj
3. The Form can be mailed to any of the undersigned
4. The Registration fees is mandatory
   

For Further Queries Contact:

Vedant Arora(CS III Year) ,MSP,President AMTC
9999893681, vedant.arora@gmail.com

Vibhav Garg(CS III Year) , MSP, Secretary AMTC
9899555330 , garg.vibhav@gmail.com

Vivek Kr Bajpai(CS III Year) , Treasurer
9873415724, vivek_bajpai52@yahoo.com