Dec 07

Private Beta of Live Folders and Live Photo Gallery Starts

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on June 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Live FoldersMicrosoft has finally come forward with information regarding their Windows Live Folder service, as well as announcing a new Windows Live Photo Gallery for both Windows Vista and XP SP2. In early May Liveside was able to gain access to Windows Live Folders momentarily, but Microsoft quickly pulled access to the service.

Windows Live Folders is simply an online storage solution for people to upload their documents, photos, and videos to so that they can be shared with your friends, family, or even the world. Initially it only offered 250MB of storage, but the private Beta has 500MB and I’m sure once it is actually released it will be significantly more. If it is anything below 2GB I would be greatly disappointed.

The thing that interested me a little bit more was the Windows Live Photo Gallery which will be available for both Windows Vista and XP SP2. I love the new photo gallery in Vista because I can organize all of my photos as well as fix things (red eye, cropping, etc…) in it. With the new Windows Live Photo Gallery XP users would also be able to benefit from those features, along with a few new things that they added:

  • Improved image editing features like Panoramic stitch, histogram, and sharpen image.
  • Improved tagging and organization including the ability to quickly sort by name, file type, tag or date.
  • Publish photos directly to your photo galleries on Windows Live Spaces.
  • Auto event grouping and tagging when importing photos (and video) from your camera to PC.
  • Improved Photo Import Tool.

Live Photo Gallery
Click to Enlarge
This demonstrates two different features that I put into one screenshot. It shows both the gallery and the new sidebar with the histogram. [screenshot credit: Vista Blog]

The coolest thing from that list of features is the Panoramic stitching which can assemble multiple images together. Photoshop has a similar feature for this and actually goes beyond doing just the typical Panoramic view, but having a free application that can do this with just a few clicks is sure to be a hit with people looking to have some fun.

Unfortunately this is also in the private Beta stage, and there isn’t even a signup site available for those of us who want to get our name on the list. So for right now we have to sit tight and twiddle our thumbs as they hammer away at getting a public Beta out for both of these services later this summer.

Source: LiveSide and Vista Blog

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments
Dec 07

U.S. government hits snag printing new $100 bills, prints old ones instead

Posted in: money, Today's Chili
The U.S. Treasury Department may have been eager to open the doors to its money printing factory back in July to show off its brand new $100 bills, but it looks to be a decidedly different story today. As CNBC reports, all of the added security measures have apparently been harder to print than expected, and have resulted in a creasing problem that has left some bills with a blank portion on the face. The real problem, however, is that it’s not clear how many bills have the flaw, which has forced the department to “quarantine” some 1.1 billion bills until they can be sorted — one person familiar with the matter says as many as 30 percent were affected at the height of the problem. As you might expect, that accounts for a pretty big chunk of the bills intended for circulation, which has forced the fed to print some more of the older $100 bills that still feature Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s signature in the meantime.

U.S. government hits snag printing new $100 bills, prints old ones instead originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Yahoo! News  |  sourceCNBC  | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Dec 07

Tumblr: Outage Due to Maintenance Error

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

tumblr outage.jpg

Tumblr returned yesterday, after a full day out of service. According to the blog hosting site, the outage was not due to a rumored 4Chan attack. Rather it the result of some planned maintenance gone bad.

“Yesterday afternoon, during planned maintenance that was not intended to interrupt service, an issue arose that took down a critical database cluster,” wrote the company ina blog post. “This brought down our entire network while our engineers worked feverishly to restore these databases and bring your blogs back online.”

Tumblr called the error “unacceptable.” The site, which has been attempting to deal with its own rapid growth came back online yesterday at around 4PM PT. “We’ve nearly quadrupled our engineering team this month alone, and continue to distribute and enhance our architecture to be more resilient to failures like today’s,” wrote Tumblr. “Sorry we let you down today.”

No Comments
Dec 07

Energy Producing Clothing Gets Power From Movement, Sun

Posted in: solar power, Today's Chili

Running.jpg

Imagine if you could create energy by simply moving. Sounds far fetched, but researchers at the University of Bolton in the UK are working on a new type of clothing that could do just that.

The scientists have created a new material–they’re calling it a flexible piezoelectric fiber–that can be woven into fabric to create energy producing clothing. The material is able to produce energy simply from movement. And the team is also working on adding the sun into the mix, so that your shirt could potentially be solar powered as well.

“The most immediate applications will be in the area of low-power microelectronic-driven devices like mobiles, laptops, MP3s, iPads–anything that requires re-chargeable batteries or small batteries to run,” explained Professor Elias Siores. “Obviously you wouldn’t leave your laptop out in the wind and the rain but movement created by being carried in its case or being placed near a widow could be enough to generate the energy to recharge it.

“The next challenge will then be to improve on the power conversion through on-going research and development so it can feed more power-hungry systems.”

Via Treehugger

No Comments | Tags:
Dec 07

RIM accepting PlayBook apps for approval

Posted in: Today's Chili

Research In Motion is now letting developers submit their PlayBook tablet applications for approval in the BlackBerry App World. If their apps are approved, they can get a free PlayBook.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

No Comments
Dec 07

Adobe issues Lightroom 3.3, patches Photoshop

Posted in: Today's Chili

Hot cameras such as Canon’s PowerShot S95 and Nikon’s D3100 and D7000 SLRs are supported with the new Lightroom. A long list of bugs are fixed in it and Photoshop, too.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

No Comments
Dec 07

Think Pink

Posted in: MP3 Digital Audio, portable, speaker, Today's Chili

iMainGoXPink.jpg

For music that looks as good as it sounds, consider the new pink version of the iMainGo X. This addition to the line was created to offer high-end sound and light weight portability for customers using an iPod, iPhone, Zune, or most any other MP3 player. It offers stereo speakers, strong bass reproduction, and an efficient amplifier. You can also use it to protect your iPod (except the Shuffle) and most other players.

As long as your device uses a 3.5mm connector, the iMainGo X can be used as an external speaker. You can even use it with an electric guitar. Stock up, because its daisy chain feature lets users connect multiple speakers for more sound. It also includes a rechargeable lithium ion battery, two headphone jacks, microphone input, a plug-in charger, a travel bag, and two carry straps. Not bad for $69.99.

No Comments
Dec 07

Combined sales of smartphones and tablets to surpass the humble PC in 18 months, says IDC

Posted in: desktop, GalaxyTab, ipad, laptop, nook, PC, sales, tablet, tablets, Today's Chili

Our supply checks say that 10 out of 10 analysts are insanely bullish about tablets — despite the fact that there are only 2.5 competitive products on the market, and one of them only came out a month ago. So, naturally, it isn’t difficult to scrounge up sales predictions that show the tablet rocketing into the stratosphere, cutting into PC market share, while also expanding the market outright to accommodate its post-PC ways. Gartner‘s guess is 55 million tablets next year, while IDC has a more conservative estimate of 42 million, but both predict a sharp, exponential rise in the following years, and IDC takes it one step further: 18 months from now, combined smartphone and tablet sales will eclipse the PC, it claims, with both categories hovering in the mid-400 million range.

Now, that number is mostly smartphones, which isn’t an unprecedented shift in and of itself — the PC took a major hit in popularity in Japan once the kids got ahold of these newfangled phone things — but overall it represents a shift from the open-ended, flexible, and powerful PC to the narrow, task-specific, app-driven nature of the iOS and Android kind. Or you could spin it the completely opposite way: people need phones, so they buy a nice phone. No PC death knell in that behavior, and the tablet is still a very niche product with some good PR. Either way, we’ll be much more impressed with this sort of market battle when it’s the tablet (perhaps with a little help from the smartbook or netbook-lite category) going up against the Windows and Mac PC head-on, without smartphones shouldering most of the load.

Combined sales of smartphones and tablets to surpass the humble PC in 18 months, says IDC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink HardOCP  |  sourceIDC  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: ,
Dec 07

iPad wins Apple big chunk of mobile PC market

Posted in: Today's Chili

Heavy consumer demand propels Apple into the top ranks of mobile PC vendors–if you count its tablet as a PC–both in the U.S. and globally, according to DisplaySearch.

Originally posted at News – Apple

No Comments
Dec 07

Flix On Stix: Vending Machine Copies Movies to Thumb Drives

Posted in: Media Players, Movies, Today's Chili

Flix On Stix does what it says on the label. You jam a USB stick or SD-card into one of its kiosks and pick a movie, game or TV show. The “flick” is then transferred to your “stick” and you can take it home to enjoy it.

Fees are based on how long you want to keep the movie, costing $1 for 3 days, $2 for 6, $3 for 9 days and $4 for 12 days. Once your time is up, the movie-file will self-destruct. There is also an option to buy.

The advantages over a DVD-kiosk are obvious: All movies are always available, you never need to return anything and – as the FAQ points out – you can’t end up with a scratched disk. On the other hand, you’ll have to watch the movies either on a computer, on a TV hooked up to a computer, or a TV with a USB slot.

The service has not yet launched, so the precise method of playback isn’t available. My money is on some kind of proprietary player and DRM combo, maybe bundled on the stick, otherwise how could you make the movie expire?

The idea is a great one, though. Many, many people have a USB stick on a keychain or in a bag, and it would be a big oversight if the machine didn’t also vend cheap sticks. And while BitTorrent is fast, it’s not as fast as walking to the corner store.

Flix on Stix [Flix on Stix via Everything USB]

See Also:


No Comments