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Microsoft will launch a Windows 8 release preview of its next generation operating system in early June. The announcement was made on Tuesday by Stephen Sinofsky — the president of Microsoft’s Windows division — at the Windows Developer Days conference in Japan. Microsoft’s release schedule for Windows 7 began with the launch of the W7 developer’s preview on October 28, 2008. Then in 2009, Microsoft rolled out the W7 public beta, release candidate (RC), and release to manufacturing (RTM) versions on Jan. 7, April 30 and Oct. 22, respectively. This time around, Microsoft has changed the designations for its incremental W8 OS releases to developer (Sept. 13, 2011), consumer (Feb. 29, 2012) and preview (early June). “Barring any major issues, an early June roll out of a release candidate caliber version of W8 is in fact earlier” than many industry observers had expected, said Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC. The W8 release preview will arrive in plenty of time for manufacturers to have W8 devices “out in the fall well ahead of the holiday buying season,” Hilwa said. “Shipping early means an even bigger variety of devices by the holidays.” A New Mobile Platform When we asked Hilwa what the impact would be of each subsequent W8 release on third-party app developers and service operators, he said he does expect independent software vendors to begin to take more notice of each new W8 release — and with some ISVs already showing visible interest in W8 because they view it as a new mobile platform. “Traditional PC ISVs will likely start to take notice with the June release,” Hilwa said. “Business ISVs will likely be the last to come and will likely add modules for their apps around business-to-consumer functionality.” With its new cross-over capability to run on media tablets and other computing… Continue reading Windows 8 Release Candidate Coming in Early June →

The Google Drive rumors are a reality. Google just rolled out its cloud-based service that lets you create, share, collaborate and otherwise store all your digital stuff. Google Drive is a direct competitor to Dropbox. You can upload and access all your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. With Google Docs built into Google Drive, you can work on documents in real-time. Google Drive is also pushing search features. You can search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and other designations. There’s even Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, technology. “Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article,” explained Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome & Apps, in a blog post. “We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up.” Is Cloud Backup Secure? We caught up with Tom Gelson, a cloud strategist at Imation Scalable Storage, to get his thoughts on the potential impact of Google Drive. He told us interest in Google Drive reinforces growing demand for online or cloud backup. “While Drive is primarily targeted at consumers, some companies will consider the solution for backup, and IT departments will have to contend with employees using Drive on their own for corporate data storage,” Gelson said. “Cloud backup is certainly a practical and cost-effective storage tier, but security of data stored in Google Drive — or any other cloud — is essential. To address cloud backup security, Gelson said IT departments should carefully evaluate vendors’ data encryption strategy. As he sees it, an ideal security policy would dictate that data is encrypted on-premise at… Continue reading Google Drive Launches as Rumored →

Cisco has reinforced its commitment to the industrialization of the Internet with a new series of switches aimed squarely at the industrial market. The networking giant just rolled out the Industrial Ethernet 2000 switch series. Cisco called the IE 2000 switches a cornerstone of its Connected Industries Business unit and industrial network offerings. The new switch series aims to help customers build intelligent networks for industrial automation with highly secure, scalable connectivity from plant floor to enterprise network. “Major sectors of the economy are undergoing a transformation driven by new requirements around production and factory automation, traffic management, data analytics and machine-to-machine communication,” said Maciej Kranz, vice president and general manager, Connected Industries business unit. Targeting a Niche Market Cisco’s timing seems right to forge ahead with new products. By 2016, there will be nearly 2 billion machine-to-machine wireless connections — including GPS systems in cars and asset tracking systems in shipping and manufacturing sectors — demonstrating the need to more tightly connect and integrate devices, machines and vehicles with traditional enterprise networks, according to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index. Cisco predicts that the resulting transition, which it refers to as “The Industrialization of the Internet,” will accelerate the networking industry beyond the IT and service provider networks in industries such as manufacturing and transportation. Cisco said it is ready to address these new demands on industrial networks and its IE 2000 switch series is part of the mix. We caught up with Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, to get his insights on the new switches — and the niche market they serve. Kerravala told us the industrial market is probably no more than 5 percent of the overall switching market. “It’s a niche for sure,” he said. “It’s still probably about a $1 billion market. That’s nothing to sneeze at. When you look at… Continue reading Cisco Goes Industrial With IE 2000 Switch Series →

Cool Top Blog – Vs. vs. : My old tiny Casio Exilim MP camera died- loved that thing because it was so tiny and took many more pictures because it fit in my pocket- and had to get something for my trip to France. First bought the thinking, ooh, x optical zoom. For someone used to ultracompact, that thing was huge and didn’t notice much difference between the x and the x or x zoom. returned it and got the , which stuck with. It is much smaller than the though bigger than my old camera won’t. Read more about th… Continue reading SD1200IS Vs SD960IS →

Cool Top Blog – Written vs. Audio Marketing? by Jeremy GossmanAre you ready for some interesting figures? People remember only of what they read People remember only of what they hear But people remember of what they both read and hear! And it is found that audio increases the web site viewersattention span by Almost of web users have audio!!!!!!These figures reflect the necessity of having audio on yourwebsite. There are basic components to recording audio:. A Recording Program . A Uni-Directional Microp… Continue reading Written vs. Audio Marketing? →