Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs

Choose a Windows Vista Capable or Premium Ready PC for the Windows Vista edition that's right for you.

Are you looking to buy a Windows XP-based computer today but want to make sure that it can run Windows Vista? There's no need to wait. When you buy a new PC that carries the Windows Vista Capable or Premium Ready PC designation, you’ll be able to upgrade to one of the editions of Windows Vista while taking advantage of all the opportunities offered by Windows XP today.

What is a Windows Vista Capable PC?

A new PC that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. All editions of Windows Vista will deliver core experiences such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run these core experiences at a minimum. Some features available in the premium editions of Windows Vista—like the new Windows Aero user experience—may require advanced or additional hardware.

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs
To get an even better Windows Vista experience, including the Windows Aero user experience, ask for a Windows Vista Capable PC that is designated Premium Ready, or choose a PC that meets or exceeds the Premium Ready requirements described below. Features available in specific premium editions of Windows Vista, such as the ability to watch and record live TV, may require additional hardware.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
• 1 GB of system memory.
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
• DVD-ROM Drive.
• Audio output capability.
• Internet access capability.

Read all of the Windows Vista Capable footnotes.

Review the Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements.

Windows Marketplace has a selection of Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs that are available today.

Windows Vista enterprise hardware planning guidance is available on TechNet.

Can the Windows Vista experience vary on different PCs?

Yes. Windows Vista is the first Windows operating system with a user experience that adapts to take advantage of the capabilities of the hardware on which it is installed.

All Windows Vista Capable PCs will be able to run at least the core experiences of Windows Vista.

All Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs can deliver even better Windows Vista experiences, including the new Windows Aero user experience.

Does buying a Windows Vista Capable PC mean that I will receive a free upgrade to Windows Vista?

No. A PC that is Windows Vista Capable or Premium Ready means that the PC is ready for an upgrade from Windows XP. You would still need to purchase the edition of Windows Vista that you want to install on your Windows Vista Capable or Premium Ready PC.

source: microsoft.com

Windows Vista Release Delayed

Microsoft said today that consumer versions of its next-generation version of Windows would not hit the market until January 2007, dashing plans that it would be on PCs for sale during the 2006 end-of-year holiday season.

During a conference call today to detail the road map plans for Vista, however, Microsoft said it is on target to go into broad consumer beta to approximately two million users in the second quarter of 2006.

Jim Allchin, Microsoft's outgoing co-president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, stressed that Vista would be completed this year and available for businesses. "We decided to make it directly available in November via our volume licensing programming," he said, with "broad consumer and PC availability in January, 2007."

Some customers lined up to support the move, despite the fact that Vista will miss the 2006 delivery that had been promised by Microsoft.

"We strongly support Microsoft’s decision to prioritize quality in determining the schedule for Windows Vista," said Todd Bradley, executive vice president of the Personal Systems Group at Hewlett Packard, in a statement.

"A January launch of Windows Vista allows us to execute in a consistent way throughout the holidays, and will provide the right opportunity for a large, exciting launch industry-wide after the New Year."

But while Microsoft may have the public support of its partners, some analysts say there is undoubtedly disappointment. "Today's delay will be a blow to many Microsoft partners," Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox told internetnews.com. "They won't have Windows Vista to sell during the holiday sales season or the benefits of the big marketing push. Microsoft finished Windows XP in August 2001 and launched in October. That's what it takes to make the holidays." (Jupiter Research is owned by the same company as internetnews.com).

Allchin stressed Microsoft (Quote) could have shipped the consumer version this year, albeit a few weeks late. But he said Microsoft anticipates a few weeks delay polishing security and other features, and because of that, certain retail and OEM partners asked to push the whole consumer release to January. The reason? Many retailers could face logistical problems with, for example, new PCs with Vista arriving at the height of holiday sales and having to accommodate for the sudden influx of new inventory. Also new PCs shipped from overseas might not arrive in time dashing holiday sales expectations.

"For quality we're moving a few weeks out and that puts us in a bubble where that puts some of our partners in the industry at a disadvantage," said Allchin. "We decided not to do that." He said the January release will insure "a great out-of-box experience and get all our partners prepared at same time."

Although Allchin characterized the January release for consumers, he conceded the delay also affects small business owners looking to adopt the new OS, basically anyone that buys it retail or expects to get it with a new PC. Microsoft is planning six different versions of Vista. He declined to say whether Microsoft might offer an upgrade voucher of some sort to Vista for those buying PCs this fall. "We'll provide more details later," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if people end up saying once they see the next (test release) 'Why didn't you ship that, it's good enough,'" said Allchin. "But we want to be sure we have the appropriate drivers ready and all the testing done. If I had to pick one aspect of the [delay] it's because we're trying to crank the security level higher than ever."

By David Needle

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is the name of the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Vista was known by its codename Longhorn. On November 8, 2006, Windows Vista development was completed and is now in the release to manufacturing stage. Some editions were available to volume license customers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers through November 2006;^[1] Microsoft has stated that the scheduled release date for worldwide availability is January 30, 2007.^[2] These release dates come more than five years after the release of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between major releases of Windows.

According to Microsoft,^[3] Windows Vista contains hundreds of new features, some of the most significant of which include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices. For developers, Vista introduces version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with the traditional Windows API.

Microsoft's primary stated objective with Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.^[4] One of the most common criticisms of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, then Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide 'Trustworthy Computing initiative' which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. Microsoft claimed that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, significantly delaying its completion.^[5]

During the course of its development, Vista has been the target of a number of negative assessments by various groups. Criticism of Windows Vista has included protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new Digital Rights Management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of new features such as User Account Control.

End-user features

The appearance of Windows Explorer has changed significantly from Windows XP.

• Windows Aero: a new hardware-based graphical user interface, named Windows Aero – an acronym (possibly a backronym) for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open. The new interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than previous Windows, including new transparencies, animations and eye candy.
• Windows Shell: The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. Windows Explorer's task pane has been removed, integrating the relevant task options into the toolbar. A "Favorite links" pane has been added, enabling one-click access to common directories. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb navigation system. The Start menu has changed as well; it no longer uses ever-expanding boxes when navigating through Programs. Even the word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue Windows Orb.
• Windows Search (also known as Instant Search or search as you type): significantly faster and more thorough search capabilities. Search boxes have been added to the Start menu, Windows Explorer, and several of the applications included with Vista. By default, Instant Search indexes only a small number of folders such as the start menu, the names of files opened, the Documents folder, and the user's e-mail.

Windows Gadgets

• Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on other parts of the Desktop, if desired. The technology bears some resemblance to the older Active Channel and Active Desktop technologies introduced with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.5, but the gadgets technology is more versatile, and is not integrated with the Internet Explorer browser in the same way as Active Desktop.
• Windows Internet Explorer 7: new user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing, Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), a number of new security protection features, and improved web standards support.^[8]
• Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (or "search as you type"), a completely new and highly graphical interface for the media library, photo display and organization, and the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.
• Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only the changes each time, minimizing the disk usage. It also features CompletePC Backup which backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. CompletePC Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard disk in case of any hardware failures.
• Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a completely replaced mail store that improves stability, and enables real-time search. New Junk mail filtering.^[9]

Windows Update in Windows Vista RTM with Windows Ultimate Extras

• Windows Calendar is a new calendar and task application.
• Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. WPG can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows (with pan and fade effects), and burn slideshows to DVD.
• Windows DVD Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker, which provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a user's content.
• Windows Meeting Space is the replacement for NetMeeting. Users can share applications (or their entire Desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the Internet using peer-to-peer technology.
• Windows Media Center, which was previously exclusively bundled as a separate version of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition, will be incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

Purble Place was included as a game in Windows Vista.

• Games: Every game included with Windows has been rewritten to take advantage of Vista's new graphics capabilities. New games include Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place. The Games section will also hold links and information to all games on the user's computer. One piece of information that will be shown is the game's ESRB rating.

Previous Versions

• Previous Versions automatically creates backup copies of files and folders, with daily frequency. Users can also create "shadow copies" by setting a System Protection Point using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can be presented multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is inherited from Windows Server 2003.^[10]
• The Windows Mobility Center is a new control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (e.g. brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).
• Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified, now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Mail's spam filter and Defender's definitions will also be automatically updated via Windows Update.
• Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs, and games each standard user can use and install.
• Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display Device gadgets while the computer is on or off.
• Speech recognition is fully integrated into Vista. It is an improved version of Microsoft Speech Recognition currently working under Office 2003, with a better interface, a rich and flexible set of commands, and an extensive command-and-control capability to activate the computer by voice. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, it works for dictation in multiple applications. In addition, it currently supports several languages: English US and UK, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Classical and Simplified), and Japanese. Switching between the languages is, however, still quite inconvenient though not impossible. The quality of recognition (accuracy in dictation) is very high, at least as good as Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 ('high recognition' normally means no less than 98% accuracy). For comparative data and evaluations of Windows Vista Speech (WSR) see http://speech.even-zohar.com. For discussions, files and information see the Yahoo Microsoft Speech Group (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ms-speech).
• Many new fonts, including several designed especially for screen reading, and new high-quality Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts. See Windows Vista typefaces. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.
• Touchscreen support will be included as part of Tablet PC, which will be incorporated as a standard component.^[11]
• Problem Reports and Solutions, a new control panel which allows users to see previously sent problems and any solutions or additional information that is available.
• Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of individual audio devices and even individual applications to be controlled separately.
• Full Symbolic links support has been made available for the first time to Windows users in Vista. ^[12]
• System Performance Assessment is a benchmark used by Windows Vista to regulate the system for optimum performance. Games can take advantage of this feature, reading the data produced by this benchmark in order to fine-tune the game details. The benchmark tests CPU, RAM, Graphics acceleration (2D and 3D) and disk access.^[13]
• Enable advanced performance for Hard Disks - When the option is enabled all the data that gets written to the drive is first stored in the cache, and then later written to the disk

[edit] Core technologies

Windows Vista is intended to be a technology-based release, to provide a solid base to include advanced technologies, many of which will be related to how the system functions, and hence not readily visible to the user. An example of this is the complete restructuring of the architecture of the audio, print, display, and networking subsystems; while the results of this work will be clearly visible to software developers, end-users will only see what appear to be evolutionary changes in the user interface.

Vista includes technologies such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive which employ fast flash memory (located on USB drives and hybrid hard disk drives respectively) to improve system performance by caching commonly-used programs and data. This manifests itself in improved battery life on notebook computers as well, since a hybrid drive can be spun down when not in use. Another new technology called SuperFetch utilizes machine learning techniques to analyze usage patterns in order to allow Windows Vista to make intelligent decisions about what content should be present in system memory at any given time.

As part of the complete redesign of the networking architecture, IPv6 has been fully incorporated into the operating system, and a number of performance improvements have been introduced, such as TCP window scaling. Prior versions of Windows typically needed third-party wireless networking software to work properly; this is no longer the case with Vista, as it includes more comprehensive wireless networking support.

For graphics, Vista introduces a new Windows Display Driver Model, as well as major revision to Direct3D. The new driver model facilitates the new Desktop Window Manager, which provides the tearing-free desktop and special effects that are the cornerstones of Windows Aero. Direct3D 10, developed in conjunction with major display driver manufacturers, is a new architecture with more advanced shader support, and allows the graphics processing unit to render more complex scenes without assistance from the CPU. It features improved load balancing between CPU and GPU and also optimizes data transfer between them.^[14]

At the core of the operating system, many improvements have been made to the memory manager, process scheduler, heap manager, and I/O scheduler. A Kernel Transaction Manager has been implemented that gives applications the ability to work with the file system and registry using atomic transaction operations.

Windows XP SP3 release date moved to 2007

Windows XP SP3 release date moved to 2007

A story I've been following involves the possible delay of the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). Without warning or even an official announcement, it appears Microsoft has quietly pushed back the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to late 2007. This new schedule would place the release at least a year behind the previous schedule, under which XP SP3 was to ship sometime in 2006. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer previously announced that XP SP3 would ship "before" Windows Vista, which is now due in late 2006. (Windows Server 2003 SP2 is still on track for release in the second half of 2006.)

I saw Microsoft's new schedule for XP SP3 in a service pack road map that the company posted to its Web site on December 20, 2005. The company has since changed the Web site and the information is gone. However, you can still see the information I saw, as it appears on Google's cached copy of the site as retrieved on Jan 8, 2006. (See the URL below.) According to the cached page, XP SP3 will ship in the second half of 2007, but it's unclear whether it will include new features. Originally, Microsoft said that XP SP3 would include a collection of previously released bug and security fixes.

Sources at Microsoft told me that the delays are related to the company focusing all of its efforts at getting Vista out the door. Vista is another product that has suffered innumerable delays: The company once expected to ship Vista in 2003.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has delayed an XP service pack, though this new delay is the longest yet. Microsoft postponed the release of XP SP2, originally due in 2003, to 2004, due to a security code review. That event also delayed Vista, then code-named Longhorn.

Update: XP SP3 Still Set for 2007
There was a bit of confusion surrounding yesterday's WinInfo Daily Update. It turns out that Microsoft briefly edited a Web page on its site that contained information about the release date of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), now due in late 2007. However, on late Wednesday, Microsoft reloaded the previous version, which contains the late 2007 date. In other words, XP SP3 is still expected in late 2007

Bink.nu is reporting that Microsoft has moved its release date of Windows XP Service Pack 3 from the summer of 2006 to the second half of 2007. This news comes hot off of Microsoft's recent "accident" where it set the Mainstream Support expiration date on the XP Home product as January 1, 2007, and then suspiciously extended the deadline to 2008. Like the support deadline modification, the change to the XP SP3 date is also cagey.

The website questions whether the release date for XP SP3 was stealthily changed by Microsoft. It states that the Microsoft Service Pack Road Map had previously read summer 2006, but now reads, "SP3 for Windows XP Professional is currently planned for 2H 2007." Yet, the publishing date of the Road Map remains unchanged from December 20, 2005.

While the idea that users will have to wait 3 years for a service pack is not desirable, the author of the article ends the post with a humorous mockup headline for 2007: "Microsoft cancels Windows XP SP3, instead comes with roll-up fix." Let's hope that headline stays funny and doesn't become reality.

There are already plenty of reasons why Service Pack 2 is not enough, just look at the WMF scare. Whether it's a roll out of fixes, or something more developed we need Service Pack 3 and we need it now. There were plenty of scares in the last 12 months that need to be addressed with a cleanly installable service pack. Not to mention the hundreds of mb of patches that have to be downloaded after you install SP2. Even for a Broadband user it's painful.

Mark Antony (how's Cleopatra doin'? :-P) - even if MS was big enough to have multiple teams handling stuff, think about it - You COULD split the teams up to do diff things, but you COULD still throw EVERYTHING at Vista in any case. Granted there are diminishing returns to throwing people at a job, but Vista is no small shakes anyway, there must be plenty of places where they could do with more manpower.

Not to forget that vista represents new revenue including upgrade revenue, while "maintenance" gets you no real $$.

List of social networking websites

This is a list of notable social networking websites.

Name	Description/Focus	User count	Registration
43 Things	Tagging	627,000	Open
ActiveRain	Real estate professionals	5,374	Open
Adoos	Latin America and Spain classifieds, personals	1,000,000	Open
AIM Pages	AOL Instant Messenger	Unknown	Open
aSmallWorld	European jet set and social elite	75,000	Invite-only
BlackPlanet.com	African-Americans	18,000,000	Open
Babbello	Australian teenagers	30,000	Open
Bebo	Schools and colleges	22,000,000	Open
Blogger	Blogging	16,000,000	Open
Blurty	Blogs, based on LiveJournal	947,169	Open
Bolt	General (music and video)	4,000,000	Open
CarDomain	Car enthusiasts	1,600,000	Open
Care2	Activists, Green Living, Socially Conscious	6,600,000	Open
Classmates.com	School, college, work and the military	40,000,000	Open
Connect.ee	Estonia	39,000	Invite-only
Consumating	"Consumeetings"	21,000	Open
Cyworld	South Korea	15,000,000	Open
Dandelife	Collective narratives or "shared biographies"	unknown	Open
DeadJournal	"Dark" blogs, based on LiveJournal	490,310	By invite or payment
Dodgeball.com	Mobile location-based service	unknown	Open
Doostang	Online career community	53,000	Invite-only
DowneLink	LGBT	Unknown	Open
Draugiem.lv	Latvia	731,652	Invite-only
Ecademy	Business	100,000	Open
Eons	People over 50	Unknown	Open to people over 50
Facebook	General	11,100,000	Open
Facebox	General	1,046,696	Open
Faceparty	British teens and 20-somethings	5,900,000	Open
Flickr	Photo sharing	2,500,000	Open
Friendster	General	29,100,000	Open
Frühstückstreff	General	10,100	Open
Gaia Online	General	5,000,000	Open
Gazzag	General	Unknown	Open
Goldmic	Hip-Hop	58,000	Open
GoPets	Virtual pets	400,000	Open
GreatestJournal	Uses LiveJournal code	1,514,865	Open
Grono.net	Poland	830,000	Invite-only
Hi5	Worldwide.	50,000,000	Open
Hyves	Dutch people, but translations available (UK, GE, FR, SP) - many students	2,311,790	Open
imeem	media-centric social network with instant messaging functionality	Unknown	Open
Inked Nation	Body modification aficionados	Unknown	Open
IMVU	3D chat software	1,000,000	Open
IRC-Galleria	Finland	350,000	Open
iWiW	Hungary	1,000,000	Invite only
Janglo	Jerusalem & Tel Aviv (Taanglo) English speakers	14,300	Open
Joga Bonito	Football (soccer)	Unknown	Open
Last.fm	Music	Unknown	Open
LibraryThing	Books	82,374	Open
LinkedIn	Business	7,500,000	Open
LiveJournal	Blogging	10,921,263	Open
LunarStorm	Sweden	1,200,000	Open
Match.com	Dating	12,000,000	Open
MEETin	Social Networking	50,000	Open
MiGente.com	Latinos	3,600,000	Open
Mixi	Japan	5,000,000	Invite-only
MOG	Music	Unknown	Open
Multiply	"Real world" networking with definable relationships	3,000,000	Open
Music Forte	Music	37,000	Open
myGamma	Cell phones	1,300,000	Open
MySpace	General	26,700,000	Open
myYearbook	General	950,000	Open
Neurona	Spanish businesses and Italy	690,000	Open
Nexopia	Canada	866,000	Open
OkCupid	Dating	500,000	Open
orkut	Owned by Google	33,729,146	Open
Passado	General (business)	4,700,000	Open
Piczo	Teenagers, Canadians, photo sharing	10,000,000	Open
Playahead	Swedish teenagers	2,000,000	Open
ProfileHeaven	British teens	100,000	Open
Rediff Connexions	India	1,400,000	Open
Reunion.com	Locating friends and family	25,000,000	Open
Ryze	Business	250,000	Open
Sconex	American high schools	500,000	Open
Studybreakers	High school students	34,000	Open
Stumbleupon	Websurfing	1,200,000	Open
StyleFeeder	Social Shopping Network	unknown	Open
TagWorld	General (tagging)	1,850,692	Open
TakingITGlobal	Social action	116,000	Open
The Student Center	Teens and colleges	800,000	Open
Threadless	General	364,474	Open
Tribe	General	554,993	Open
Vampire Freaks	Gothic industrial culture	650,000	Open
VietSpace	A social network of Vietnamese	20,000	Open
Vox	Blogging	Unknown	Open
WAYN	Travel & Lifestyle	7,000,000	Open to people 18 and older
WebBiographies	Genealogy & Biography	3,500	Open
Windows Live Spaces	Blogging (formerly MSN Spaces)	30,000,000	Open
Xanga	Blogs and "metro" areas	40,000,000	Open
XING	Business	1,000,000	Open
Xuqa	Colleges	1,000,000	Open
Yahoo! 360°	Linked to Yahoo! IDs	4,700,000	Open to people 18 and older
Yuku	part of ezboard	Unknown	Open
Zaadz	Social consciousness	17,627	Open

source: wikipedia

Orkut - Legal Problems in India

On October 10th, 2006, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for 'allowing a hate campaign against India'. This referred to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India' which carries a picture of an Indian flag being burnt and some anti-India content. The community currently has 118 members.

The High Court order was issued in response to a public-interest petition filed by an Aurangabad advocate. Google has six weeks to respond. Even before the petition was filed, many Orkut users had noticed this community and were mailing or otherwise messaging their contacts on Orkut to report the community as bogus to Google, which might result in its removal. The community continues to exist and has spawned several 'We hate those who hate India' communities.

On November 23, Bombay High Court asked the state government to file its reply in connection with a petition demanding a ban on social networking site, Orkut, for hosting an anti-Shivaji Web community.'File reply on plea for ban on Orkut: HC'

The community had been blocked by the Pune police after a few violent incidents were reported in the city when its existence came to light two weeks ago.

Though the community is currently inaccessible, the petitioner Subodh Balsaraf, a Thane resident has demanded that Orkut, which has captured the fancy of many Indians, be banned.

Orkut - Legal Problems in Brazil

On August 22nd 2006, Brazilian Federal Judge Jose Marcos Lunardelli ordered Google to release Orkut user’s information by September 28th. The judge ordered Google to pay $23,000 per day in fines until the information is turned over to the Brazilian government. The information the government is requesting would be used to identify individuals that are spreading child pornography and hate speech, according to the Brazilian government. As of September 27th 2006 Google has stated that they will not release the information and will instead file a brief explaining why they refuse to comply.

Orkut - Speed and Reliability

The "Bad, bad server" screen, one of the commonly known sights on Orkut.

As of September 2006, Orkut often is unavailable, producing a "Bad, bad server. No donut for you." error message — behavior consistent with that of an underpowered server under heavy load. The outages tend to occur during the day hours in the Americas, home of more than 75% of Orkut users.

The "orkut is under construction" screen.

Orkut sometimes displays an "under construction" screen while the server is under maintenance. These occurrences last from a few minutes to a few hours.

Security and safety

On June 19, 2006 FaceTime Security Labs' security researchers Christopher Boyd and Wayne Porter discovered a worm, dubbed MW.Orc.

The worm steals users' banking details, usernames and passwords by propagating through Orkut. The attack was triggered as users launched an executable file disguised as a JPEG file. The initial executable file that causes the infection installs two additional files on the user's computer. These files then e-mail banking details and passwords to the worm's anonymous creator when infected users click on the "My Computer" icon.

The infection spreads automatically by posting a URL in another user's Orkut Scrapbook, a guestbook where visitors can leave comments visible on the user's page. This link lures visitors with a message in Portuguese, falsely claiming to offer additional photos. The message text that carries an infection link can vary from case to case.

In addition to stealing personal information, the malware can also enable a remote user to control the PC and make it part of a botnet, a network of infected PCs controlled by a hacker. The botnet in this case uses an infected PC's bandwidth to distribute large, pirated movie files, potentially slowing down an end-user's connection speed.

The initial executable file (Minhasfotos.exe) creates two additional files when activated, winlogon_.jpg and wzip32.exe (located in the System32 Folder). When the user clicks the "My Computer" icon, a mail is sent containing their personal data. In addition, they may be added to an XDCC Botnet (used for file sharing), and the infection link may be sent to other users that they know in the Orkut network. The infection can be spread manually, but also has the ability to send "back dated" infection links to people in the "friends list" of the infected user.

According to statements made by Google, as noted in Facetime's Greynets Blog the company had implemented a temporary fix for the dangerous worm.

Orkut - Copyright disclaimer

Orkut's terms of service state:

By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials.

This does not mean that any contribution to the Orkut community (be it forum posts or photos) becomes the property of the site owner; while it means that Orkut can use any submitted information for any purpose, the original submitter doesn't lose any rights to his materials.

Although other popular social network services such as Friendster and MySpace contain similar statements, this policy offended many dedicated Orkut users, some of whom deleted their accounts as a protest.

Iranian censorship

Orkut was very popular in Iran, but the website is now blocked by the government. As they say, this is due to national security issues, as Orkut users have the ability to spread messages rapidly, but the government says it's due to Islamic ethical issues about dating and match making. To get around this block, sites such as "orkutproxy.com" (now defunct) were made for Iranian users. Other websites such as Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups have communities dedicated to receiving updates on the newest location of Iran's Orkut proxy. Though it was once possible to bypass governmental blockage of Orkut, the site has closed its HTTPS pages on all anonymous proxies. Now it is almost impossible for ordinary users to visit this site inside Iran.

In August 2006, United Arab Emirates followed the footsteps of Iran in blocking the site. This block was subsequently removed in October 2006

Saudi Arabia is another country that has blocked access to Orkut.

Jail

Users who misbehaved or were reported to misbehave could be "jailed". Their account was suspended, their site access was reasonably limited, and their profile picture was temporarily replaced with a silhouette of a man behind prison bars. Although this served a useful purpose, the way users were selected to be jailed caused heated discussions and complaints among Orkut users: every user's profile has a "Report as Bogus" button, which, if pressed, automatically flagged the user to be jailed. Conceivably, this means that anyone could be jailed at any time by pressing a single button.

Another way to be jailed was to have a bot-like behaviour. To safeguard against bots and similar kinds of software automations, users who added friends or joined communities in a very quick or repetitive manner were automatically put in jail. However, this also often happened to new users trying to add all their friends at once.

Users who were jailed were not informed of the reason, nor were they notified that they had been jailed. Jailing usually did not last long (up to 24 hours in most cases), but was often disturbing to users, as there is no direct contact to the Orkut team (their contact form only answers with template emails), and jailing limits one's options to waiting or posting in a designated forum. Ironically, site users once reported that Orkut Büyükkökten, the creator of the site himself, was jailed. The jail system is currently deactivated due to its inefficiency. Now when someone clicks on the "Report as Bogus" button, he is directed to a complaint form entitled "flag for review", where he is able to provide further details about the abuse he is reporting.

Alleged al-Qaeda Supporters

In 2006, Orkut came under fire for supposedly allowing recruitment of sympathizers of the terrorist group al-Qaeda and jihadists on its message boards. A community on the site claimed, "The world needs more Osamas

Orkut - Hate groups

There has recently been controversy revolving around the use of Orkut by various hate groups. Virulent racists allegedly have a solid following there. Because of the invitation-only structure, closed groups of like-minded people were, and with the invitation free structure are able to thrive. Several hate communities focused on racism, Nazism, and white supremacy have been deleted due to guideline violation. However the number of these communities and profiles has not stopped growing because they can be very easily created and it is hard for Orkut to check them.

In 2005, various cases of racism were denounced to police and reported in the Brazilian media. In 2006, a judicial measure was opened by the Brazil federal justice denouncing a 20-year-old student accused of racism against blacks and spreading defamatory content on Orkut. . Brazilian Federal Justice subpoenaed Google on March 2006 to explain the crimes that had occurred in Orkut.

Anti-religion, anti-national, and anti-ethnic hate groups have also been spotted. Recently an Indian court has issued notices to Google on some of the Hate India groups. Google is expected to file its response in the court very soon. Groups denigrating various political leaders and celebrities have also emerged.

Orkut - Flooders and fake profiles

Flooders and fake profiles

As the number of Orkut users increased and due to the low reliability and security of the site, there was a rise in the number of fake and clone profiles, something that can be achieved just in a matter of a few minutes. Due to the large number of users and the deactivation of the jail system, the profiles were often left unremoved or, when removed, recreated easily. These profiles are normally created to troll, to spam, to flood or just for fun. It isn't hard to find users owning more than one profile, with some stating they own hundreds.

Later, the clones started to flood communities and scrapbooks by submitting topics or scraps hundreds or thousands of times manually. Shortly thereafter, by simply examining the source code of the page, they found it was possible to create Javascript codes to automatically flood the site. Soon (given that Orkut is a complex social network), flooding wars started to occur frequently between some antagonistic groups. Another new phenomenon is Scrapbook wars, when a group of users are engaged to zero or increase the scrapbook counter of someone.

On January 1, 2005 a Brazilian hacker called Vinícius K-Max attacked Orkut, stealing community ownership rights, using a XSS vulnerability. Eventually, various phishing sites were developed with the intent of stealing other people's accounts and communities. A couple of months later, invisible profiles, communities and topics started to appear in Orkut. This could be achieved by using HTML escaping codes and 1x1 pixel photos to fool the engine behind the site.

In the August of 2005 a freeware program made in Delphi called Floodtudo ("tudo" in Portuguese means "everything" - this was developed by a Brazilian) was created specifically for flooding Orkut. It quickly spread through the users and was easily downloadable (the most common Floodtudo versions were 1.2, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.2). As this program was massively used by thousands of spammers, a big spam wave struck Orkut in September and October of 2005. However, changes implemented by the developers in November made this program non-functional.

As the flooding of Orkut was getting out of control, the developers implemented some features in order to stop this, such as not allowing two or more verbatim topics or scrapbook entries to be submitted, forcing the user to wait before posting another topic or scrapbook entry, and the usage of captchas. They gave more rights to community moderators as well, so that they can just ban users instead of relying on the developers to remove them, and now community moderators are able to mass-delete posts too.

Other ways of profile and community attacks still exist, like testimonial flooding attacks on scrapbook and member counters, multi-profile floods and social engineering.

source: wikipedia

Orkut's popularity in Brazil

Popularity in Brazil

The Orkut community has been watching a large surge of Brazilian users registering on its service, despite the overall percentage of Brazilian users decreasing. This is the highest percentage of any single country's population using the service. According to the New York Times it's pronounced "or-KOO-chee"[1]. The number of Brazilian Orkut users has reached 62% of the total users, followed by United States and India, with about 14.3% and 11.1% respectively (As of November 8th, 2006). Due to the number of Brazilian users and communities in the Portuguese language, users from other parts of the world became upset with the service, when it established Portuguese as the first "alternate default language," (as English was the primary default language) prompting many community owners to enforce an English-only posting policy. Some went as far as to start online communities and discussion groups dedicated to complain about this phenomenon. Hoaxes have also been spread, with the intention of tricking Brazilian users to change their nationality in Orkut^{[citation needed]}.

In a recent interview to a Brazilian news site, the creator of Orkut said he doesn't understand the phenomenon and complains about the fact that North-American press and users are ignoring the service and using similar services like Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook. He also noted that Brazil is actually the main focus of Orkut.

History of ORKUT

Orkut was quietly launched on January 22, 2004 by Google, the search engine company. Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, developed it as an independent project while working at Google (required by its policy). Some discomfort with this exists among users and potential users of Orkut, especially since Google's other noteworthy product of 2004, the Web-based email client Gmail, had servers scan emails for keywords in order to deliver advertisements targeted at them, which sparked an idea that Google was "reading your e-mail".

While previously working for Affinity Engines, he had developed a similar system, InCircle, intended for use by university alumni groups. In late June 2004, Affinity Engines filed suit against Google, claiming that Büyükkökten and Google based Orkut on inCircle code. The allegation is based on the presence of 9 identical bugs in Orkut that also exist in InCircle.

Originally, the Orkut community was felt to be elite, because its membership was by invitation only. At the end of July 2004 Orkut surpassed the 1,000,000 member mark, and at the end of September it surpassed the 2,000,000 mark. Around this time, the number of members has reached 34,417,578 as of November 29, 2006.

Orkut's use as a social tool is complex, because various people frequently try to add strangers to their own pool of friends, often just to increase the number indicating their number of friends next to their name in their profile. Many "add-me" communities exist, solely for this purpose. A large number of bogus, cloned, fake, invisible and "orphaned" profiles also exist.

Defination of ORKUT

Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes a step further by permitting the creation of easy-to-setup simple forums (called "communities") of users. Until recently, Orkut was invitation only, but it now permits users to create accounts without an invitation. When you open the homepage that is www.orkut.com you will see a link JOIN which lets you create a new orkut account. So no more invitations needed now. This is the community I love the most, meet old friends and people there.

Google Talk Limited Within Orkut

It looks like Google is beginning to marry Google Talk with Orkut, as several new features are already appearing within my Orkut account.



Unfortunately it is not a full blown version of Gtalk within Orkut, although you can see the basics of one being developed. In order to sign up, users need to visit http://www.orkut.com/GoogleTalkSignup.aspx .

Users already familiar with Google Talk (and active using it) will simply need to connect their Orkut account with their Gtalk account. You will have the option to simply have all of your Orkut friends see you, or select which ones can view your status manually.

Once you connect the two, you will begin to see changes within Gtalk, that is if your friend has an Orkut account.



(Note: Name removed to protect the innocent.)

Although I do enjoy these teasers from Google, I await the full blown version of Gtalk underneath my Orkut profile.

Note: Is it me, or did anyone else notice the color change around your profile picture? I wonder if the change was made in order to match Orkut's skin for Gtalk?

Google Officially Talks To Orkut

Google has officially announced the marriage of Gtalk with Orkut over on its corporate blog:

Here's what to look for. If your friends are online and using Google Talk, you'll see a brightly-colored ball by their name. Green means they're available; orange means they're away from their computer; and red means they're busy. But no matter which color, if you see that ball, it means you can chat with or call your friends in just a couple of clicks.

We've put some orkut features into Google Talk too. In addition to chatting, calling, and sending files to your Google Talk buddies, you can also scrap them, receive instant notice when others scrap you, and quickly jump to any of their orkut profiles.

Although I enjoy the integration of Gtalk, I was rather disappointed over its limitation. I was hoping for something similar to Gmail, which has Gtalk on the side, which is more convenient.

I wonder if anyone could develop a firefox hack to insert all of Gtalk within Orkut?

Orkut Not Corporate Friendly?

I am not too surprised at this, as in the states many managers will fire employees for surfing on Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, etc. on company time.

It appears however in India, managers are taking a smarter approach--banning Orkut from the corporate network.

(Hindustan Times) Alpesh Kapadia, a middle-level executive in a Mumbai-based software services' major, is livid. His company recently blocked Orkut, the social networking website owned by Google. [...]

"I used Orkut to network with people with similar tastes," says Kapadia. A software developer, he used the site to meet Linux applications developers and discuss new technologies. He also pursued his interest in music through the site, and planned weekends with friends.

"If you block these sites, employees who frequent them during office hours get upset. But if you don't, there is a tendency for employees to visit these sites too frequently. This is counter-productive," said Khushroo Pithawala, senior vice-president, Datamatics.

Although there are ways to get around these blocks (as any Google search will reveal) it probably is best to find some way to compromise with management over accessing Orkut (perhaps setting up some Orkut friendly computers during lunch break).

Some users (not blogged here) have actually convinced management that Orkut was good for employee morale, although they pretty much begged their bosses everyday about it.

Note: An interesting point from the article was that some employees were using Orkut to find new jobs, something I posted about several months ago.

Orkut Officially Adds Birthday Reminder

I came across this feature many moons ago on Personalized Google, although I did not breathe a word about it because I barely knew of anyone who actually used personalized Google, at least in my country.

Anyways, Google has officially acknowledged its existence on every users home page, which can be quite handy for those of you who do not log into Orkut very often or are a fan of the personalized Google service.



Note: I am not sure about the first two profiles, but the last one is definitely a Googler (see his profile for comparison). It looks like Google was trying to use pseudo-names to hide their profiles, although a quick visit to the official Google forum pretty much reveals all.

Orkut Alert Gets A Whole New Look

It looks like Abhishek has giving Orkut Alert a whole new look from the last time it was mentioned here on this site.

Not only does the program run a lot smoother than before, but it also is more pleasing to the eyes.



The purpose of OrkutAlert is to, well...alert you to new scraps on Orkut. Although other programs such as Scrapboy, Orkut Cute and Orkut Scrapper do these as well (not to mention a ton of other things) what will set OrkutAlert apart is its future addition of alert by SMS, making it easier to know when a friend has scraped your scrapbook.

Speaking of SMS, when is Google going to make Orkut mobile friendly?

Note: You can download OrkutAlert over here, although if you want a lighter version you can visit the Official OrkutAlert Blog for more details.

Update (11/22): OrkutAlert is one word (instead of two) as I previously mentioned. Article has been corrected, although the title will remain the same in order to prevent link breakage.

Will India Ban Google's Orkut?

I sure hope not, but it seems that some people were very upset about an anti-Shivaji within Orkut, causing some violence within a few areas in India.

(IBN) The Bombay High Court has asked the state government to file its reply in connection with a pleademanding a ban on social networking site, Orkut, for hosting an anti-Shivaji web community. [...]

The community had been blocked by the Pune police after violent incidents were reported in the city when its existence came to light two weeks ago. Though the community is currently inaccessible, the petitioner has demanded that Orkut, which has captured the fancy of many Indians, be banned.



I don't know much about Shivaji, (beyond wikipedia that is) although I do not see the value in banning all of Orkut because of a few opinions amongst the millions who surf the forums.

Orkut has proven itself quite useful as many businesses use it to employ workers, as well as people using it to find the love of their life (congrats!).

Although there are a lot of forums within Orkut that I do not agree with, (especially the anti-American ones) I do not wish for them to be removed simply because I cherish the right for all to express themselves freely without consequence.

Simply banning Orkut would not only encourage members to get around the blocks, but also be a major set back for freedom of expression in the great continent of India.

Orkut Mobile Coming Soon?

No, I have no hard sources (or even soft ones for this matter) but I think Google may be headed in this direction--and if not they should seriously consider it after I came across this in my Google Reader.

(The Economic Times) Bharti Airtel and Google have announced a strategic partnership that will allow Airtel to bring Google search to the Airtel Live mobile WAP portal. [...]

"Mobile users outnumber PC users in India by a factor of six. The first computing experience for the majority of Indians in the next few years will be on a mobile phone." Said Manoj Kohli, President, Bharti Airtel.



If more Indian use cell phones than computers and if India is becoming more popular than Google's homepage then I wonder if a mobile version of Orkut is in the works?

Inside Orkut Just Made Blogs Of Note!

For those of you visiting from the front page of Blogger, welcome to Inside Orkut, a blog focuses mainly on Google's bluest (and coolest) social network, Orkut.

Of course, if you do not use Orkut than this blog is of no use to you, but then you would be missing out on all the fun that happens inside.

For my American Friends: Orkut is basically the MySpace of Brazil, or the Facebook of India (not to mention a host of other countries).

If you ever needed a crash course on international culture, Orkut would be the one place where you could interact with people from various cultures, faiths, philosophies and meals (via cooking recipe's).

But in order for you to really understand Orkut, you'll have to find out about from the inside.

Note: If this is your first time on Orkut, be sure to check out the India Pakistan Friendship Club and see what all the cultural exchange is all about!

World AIDS Day (Orkut Style)

Today many of you may have noticed the (RED)^TM word underneath your Google search bar.

• Over in the AIDS (HAPPY WORLD AIDS DAY) community, members are helping out Vickey on a project she is doing on the virus, giving her tips and info to make her presentation better.


• In the Red Ribbon -Fight Against AIDS forum, Parul has started a questions and answers thread, where users can post question such as how long can hiv survive in the air, and where did the [first] person who was HIV positive get it from?
  
  Also within the same community, Luv... reminds everyone that HIV infected people should not be kicked out of society but rather cared for.


• Putting my study in the fight against HIV/AIDS forum asks an interesting question by wondering if HIV can spread thru articles used inn Barber's shop (as in scissors or other tools that barber's use).
  
  The answer seems very reassuring.


• In the Heed-HIV community, Alicja points members towards this video in which a reporter interviews a person who received AIDS through no fault of her own.


• Last but not least, if any users have questions or concerns regarding HIV/AIDS you can visit the HIV/AIDS Professionals community where self-professed experts can advise you on what to if you have run into any "unhappy situations" (and it looks like they have already calmed down one person's fears).

You can find out on more ways to help by visiting the Join RED Blog or by visiting the main site for more details.

Update: I know I'm a little late in the game, but the Official Google Blog is also mentioning the (RED)^TM campaign.

Also, Blogger Buzz has a cool button you can add to your weblog in order to show your support. I would highly recommend adding it (which is great if you are unable to Buy Red due to Christmas shopping).

What is Orkut ?

What is Orkut ?

Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. It is also invitation-only: Users must be invited to join the community by someone already there.

It providing an online meeting place where people can socialize makes new acquaintances and finds others who share their interests. Orkut's use as a social tool is complex, because various people frequently try to add strangers to their own pool of friends, more often than not just to increase the number indicating their number of friends next to their name in their profile. Many "add-me" communities exist, solely for this purpose. A large number of bogus, cloned, fake, invisible and "orphaned" profiles also exist.

According to statistics orkut has also become popular in the Eastern-European country of Estonia where greater than 3% (June 2005) of the population are registered orkut users. This is the highest percentage of any single country's population using the service. Brazil holds the second place with about 2.5% of the population using Orkut. All the other countries in top 10 lists have users amounting to less than 0.5% of each given country.

Lawsuit: Google Stole Orkut Code

A small social-networking software company has filed suit against Google, claiming that much of the source code behind orkut.com, the search engine's popular social service, was stolen by a former engineer.

In its lawsuit, Affinity Engines, based in Palo Alto, California, said engineer Orkut Buyukkokten illegally took the code that he had written for the company -- which he co-founded -- with him when he joined Google. Affinity Engines also claimed that Buyukkokten promised Affinity Engines that he wouldn't develop a competing social-network service for Google. Affinity Engines, which filed the claim on May 25 in Santa Clara Superior Court, is seeking unspecified damages and royalties.

In addition to nearly identical text found in similar features in orkut.com and Affinity Engine's social-networking products, the suit cited several identical software problems in each company's service.

"In its initial investigation, AEI (Affinity Engines) uncovered a total of nine unique software bugs ... in AEI's inCircle product that were also present in orkut.com," according to the lawsuit. "The presence of these bugs in both products is highly indicative of a common source code.... orkut.com contains software and source code copied, developed or derived from AEI's inCircle software or source code."

After graduating from Stanford in 2001, Buyukkokten and fellow graduate Tyler Ziemann built a social-networking service called Club Nexus, which they sold to Stanford for use by the university's undergraduates, according to the lawsuit. Club Nexus was a success, and Buyukkokten and Ziemann subsequently decided to form Affinity Engines and design a product for the Stanford Alumni Association called inCircle.

As a developer of social-networking software for university students and alumni, Affinity Engines was among the first players in what has become a very crowded field. Today, social-networking services like Friendster, Tribe, LinkedIn and orkut attract millions of users by giving them a way to easily connect to friends and friends' networks of friends.

Meanwhile, for Google, the suit comes at an awkward time. The company is currently in the process of an initial public offering, which is expected to be one of the biggest ever. But Affinity Engines isn't the only company suing Google. Among others, the company faces a patent-infringement suit from Overture regarding auctioning placement in search-engine results.

For its part, Google shrugged off Affinity Engines' allegations.

"Affinity Engines has not provided any evidence to Google that their source code was used in the development of orkut.com," wrote David Krane, the company's director of corporate communications, in a statement to Wired News. "We have repeatedly offered to allow a neutral expert to compare the codes in the two programs and evaluate Affinity's claims, but Affinity has rejected that offer. We have investigated the claims ... thoroughly and concluded that the allegations are without merit."

The origins of the orkut code dispute arose, the lawsuit claimed, when Buyukkokten, a Turkish citizen, decided to take a job with Google to solve his visa problems. He continued to work on inCircle, however, and signed agreements in 2002 and 2003 stating that any social-networking technology he created belonged to Affinity Engines, the company said.

But, the suit alleged, Google soon became interested in owning a social-networking service. When its $30 million offer to buy Friendster was spurned, it turned to Buyukkokten.

"In July 2003, based on oral statements and written assurances from ... Buyukkokten, AEI was led to believe that Buyukkokten was not involved in any software development efforts related to social networking at Google," the company claimed in the lawsuit. "Buyukkokten copied and otherwise used inCircle source code still in his possession," Affinity Engines claims. "At no time during his communications with AEI prior to Jan. 22, 2004, did Buyukkokten reveal that he was developing ... orkut.com."

The suit also provided anecdotal detail about why it believes Buyukkokten broke his agreement. On Jan. 24, Google threw a launch party for orkut.com. As the party was going on, Ziemann, who didn't know about the new site, called Buyukkokten on his cell phone. "Apparently assuming that Ziemann had just learned of the website, Buyukkokten's first comment to Ziemann was, 'I hope you aren't mad at me,' to which Ziemann replied, 'Why would I be mad at you?'" the lawsuit said.

Affinity Engines chief executive Brian Samuels said that just days later, his company let Google know there was a problem. After several months of little or no relief from Google, Affinity Engines decided to file its suit. But it decided to lay low in hopes that it wouldn't "inflame Google," said Samuels.

Regardless, Affinity Engines said in the filing that it hopes for compensatory and punitive damages from Google, as well as royalties for revenue earned by orkut. It argued that Google's access to the intellectual property Buyukkokten brought from Affinity Engines helped get orkut quickly and unfairly to market.

By Daniel Terdiman

Google to find place for Orkut network in search

Search giant Google will integrate an online social network created by one of its engineers into its search services, perhaps within a year, according to CEO Eric Schimdt.

Speaking at the PC Forum here on Monday, Schmidt announced the plan for Orkut.com, the brainchild of 28-year-old Orkut Buyukkokten. He did not give a time frame or any other details, but said that Orkut is in beta testing right now and that "most products (at Google) stay in beta for about a year."

Social networks, where individuals can seek out information on vacations, astrophysics or discount auto parts, are one of the main topics at PC Forum, a three-day conference dedicated to discussing future computing trends. (PC Forum was acquired last week by CNET Networks, the publisher of News.com.)

"Social networks are an answer to the destruction of community," Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer at Yahoo, said at the conference.

Schmidt said that such services are a natural complement to the sort of automated searches that Google now provides, because it allows visitors to connect to experts or at least to people with knowledge.

"One of the problems with search is you can't find people," said Schmidt. "We believe that these social networks will have a tremendous amount of information."

Theoretically, information searches from social networks can also be more germane. A human, after all, is providing the information, not a machine. The quality of automated search is good, but it's still not perfect. Schmidt asked the audience if they always got the answer they wanted in the first result from every search they performed. No one said they did.

"So everyone here is dissatisfied with our service," he said. "Until we can answer their question every time the first time, our work is not done."

Although optimistic about the potential for social networks, Schmidt indicated that Google isn't investing huge amounts of assets in the project. Three engineers are working on it. When it started, there was only one engineer, Orkut himself, and a single server behind the project.

Politics have become one of the early testing grounds for social networks. Jonah Seiger, the founder of Connections Media, and others noted that these sort of networks helped Howard Dean move from being a fringe presidential candidate to a major--albeit temporary--force in the Democratic primaries.

While initially used mostly by liberal groups, conservative groups have become one of the fastest growing segments on Meetup.com, company CEO Scott Heiferman said.

Schmidt declined to comment on whether any IPO was coming for Google. "We are fortunate that our business model is such that we can generate enough cash from operations so that we have not needed to go public," he said.

Schmidt added that he met Google co-founder Larry Page during a panel at the same conference four years ago.

Trojan targets Google hosting service

update A Trojan horse has been discovered in Google Pages, a Web site hosting service offered by the search giant.

An attacker apparently uploaded a malicious file to a Googlepages.com server, part of a service that allows people to create their own Web pages, said Dan Hubbard, the senior director of security research at Websense Security Labs. The Trojan could lie dormant on a user's system until the individual logs on to a banking Web site and then attempt to steal his or her personal information by capturing their keystrokes, according to a security alert released Friday by Websense.

Although the security monitoring company has detected the presence of the Trojan horse on Google Pages, it has not yet received any reports of bogus e-mails or instant messages that attempt to lure users to click on malicious links or download dangerous files.

"This is not a high-level, zero-day type of threat," Hubbard said. "But when you have this big of (an Internet site) name involved, security researchers tend to look at it."

Google said it is moving as quickly as possible to deal with the problem.

"Google Page Creator enables users to upload and serve files on their Web site. We understand some users are hosting and serving malicious files, and we are removing these Web pages when notified," a Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "We are working on a more permanent solution to guard against these malicious efforts. However, we encourage users to continue to notify us when they encounter sites that host or serve malicious files."

Last week, Google's social-networking site, Orkut, was hit with a new worm. That worm, MW.Orc, also sought to steal online banking information from computer users.

source:news.com

Latest Trends in Cell Phones

The latest trends in cell phones reflect a convergence of voice, video and data communications.

By blending information with entertainment, cell phones are center-stage in the evolving trend of mobile infotainment.

So let's be clear about it - the latest cell phones are not just for talking anymore. Not with MP3 polyphonic ringtones announcing your incoming text messages, video recorders creating your own highlights movie reels, radio-TV programs at the push of a button, and digital cameras at the ready.

Free Google WiFi Internet

Thanks to Google, residents in Mountain View, California have one less monthly bill to pay every month… their Internet.

This month Google launched their free wireless Internet service called Google WiFi Mountain View. The service is completely free to the 72,000 residents of Mountain View and is not supported via ads. It covers the 12 square mile radius of the town and is comprised of some 380 access points.

Speeds have been reported at 1Mbps and Google is hoping that their product will convince many residents to drop their DSL & Cable offerings. Although these speeds aren’t super fast, Google’s free alternative will be something that most people will embrace. People who still want their high speed connections will have to pay for it.

If you’re not in Mountain View don’t despair, Google has teamed up with Earthlink for a more ambitious project - providing wireless Internet service to the San Francisco area. The San Francisco service will be a little different from the one now available in Mountain View in that it will be tiered. The free service (300 Kbps) will be supported by ads. If you want higher speeds (1 Mbps) without the ads, then you will have to pay monthly subscription fee.

So what is Google really up to here? Is Mountain View and San Francisco just beta cities for something much bigger like national WiFi? Google has been quietly buying up miles of “dark fiber” across the United States for years. Add that fiber network to the Wimax routers and chip sets slated to hit the consumer market next year and Google could wipe out the telecom and cable companies before they knew what hit them. Think about it… Google could instantly become a national ISP, phone (VoIP) and TV provider for the entire country.

It sounds easy, but consider the deployment difficulties of a national wireless network. A single WiFi base station can only cover a limited area. With overlap you are probably talking about 300-500 base stations per square mile depending on terrain. I’m no math major, but how many base stations would Google need to cover the entire United States? Over a billion? If Google did decide to build a national network, they’d probably have to hire all those former cable and DSL employees just to repair and maintain this massive network.

National WiFi domination… something to think about.

2 new cool Sony Ericsson cellphones - Z558 and W830

Via Gizmodo

Sony Ericsson has recently added 4 cellphones that can be mentioned as upgrades of previous versions, I will mention 2 of them that I liked and would probably buy if money wasn’t a problem. While cellphones don’t have the right to a daily appearance on Coolest Gadgets (which is good) these newborns deserve some attention because they are kind of unique.

To start with we have the Z558 (previous Z550) that is oriented for China and the surrounding markets, it is special because it is the first cellphone from Sony Ericsson that doesn’t uses the Symbian software and the other bonus is having a touch screen & stylus system – this is a kind of rare feature to see on clamshell phones. There is still an extra incentive that many people will love or hate depending on how easy it is to use, the character recognition (special with Chinese characters) might make life easier hard when writing text for SMS.

The other model presented was the W830, it’s the device for the music fanatics also known as Sony Ericsson Walkman. Besides having features related to different music download services and being compatible with infrequent audio format files (like e-ACC+), the other audio feature that caught my attention was the title-of-the-song-system, technically called TrackID. This system gives you the opportunity to know the title of that song you love and listened on the radio but don’t know the name, what you need to do is record a few seconds of the song with the microphone, send it to Gracenote and afterwards they will identify the song and provide more information about it.

Free Tickets for the Digital Life Show

Digital Life is described as the ultimate consumer technology, gaming & entertainment event of the year. It’s being held in New York at the Javits Center from October 12 until October 15.

It looks like it will be a very cool event (which unfortunately I can’t attend as I’m still mid house move). Tickets normally cost $12 but I’m pleased to say CG readers can get in for free, simply go to the order tickets page and enter the Source Code “INSIDER”, hey presto free tickets .

We’ve also been given some VIP tickets to give-away, so if you can definitely attend and would like a chance of winning a VIP ticket simply reply to this thread in the CG forum, stating your interest and I’ll add your name to the hat and I’ll draw the winners out this Sunday.

Fancy a cellphone made from hair?

No, the word ‘Ivory’ does not stand for its brand, neither is it a new line of cellphones. In fact, it is actually made from some really tough hair which is better known as ivory, hence it’s namesake. The luxury cellphone was designed in the bowels of Guangzhou, China, where the street culture permits all sorts of exotic fanfare such as monkey brains and dog soup, making something as unsavory as an Ivory cellphone look pretty ordinary.

This unique handset is not only made from an elephant’s teeth, it also contains a healthy mixture of mammoth and camel bones. We all know that mammoths have long been extinct and the availability of a well-preserved sample is extremely low, thus the inclusion of such a rare material is reflected in its final price tag. The Ivory cellphone comes engraved with 16 magnificent dragons (did you expect St. George on it?), as well as other artistic carvings that help the owner own a technological piece of art which reflects the spirit of Guangzhou.

There will only be half a dozen of such Ivory cellphones made (probably due to the lack of mammoth bones), and you will be able to be a proud owner of one for a jaw-dropping $23,000. I guess it will only be a matter of time before some poachers off the Serengeti plains will ramp up their rhino efforts in order to bring you yet another Ivory cellphone. Definitely not the handset for animal activists. Details regarding the features are as scant as the number of Ivory cellphones available.

Source: Uberphones

Docking Speaker System for cellphones

Let’s face the fact - there are more than enough iPod docks out there in the market which probably outnumber the population of a small country, and having yet another one released will not do anyone any good at all. A speaker dock for a cellphone, on the other hand, is entirely different as those are extremely rare in comparison with their iPod-toting brethren. Trust has taken up the task to offer the sidelined musical cellphone market a pretty decent alternative when it comes to playback of your favorite tunes for everybody to hear.

The Trust Sound Station SP-2985 is compatible with a wide range of musical cellphones from the big four (in no particular order) - Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung. You can now enjoy your portable music in the comfort of your room without purchasing an iPod with the Sound Station SP-2985. Not only does it play your digital music collection, you can even directly access the data on your cellphone when it is docked without using a special Phone-to-PC cable.

The Sound Station SP-2985 does not only act as a speaker dock, it also doubles up as a phone charger as well. You can even treat it as a hands-free speakerphone device whenever you’re busy typing out an important e-mail when a call comes in. Last but not least, if you already own and iPod and want to kill two birds with a single stone, the Sound Station is compatible with all digital audio players which has a 3.5mm stereo output.

Nokia Gets $230 Million Services Deal From Vodafone Australia

STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Finland's Nokia Corp. Thursday said it has signed a $230 million seven-year managed services agreement with Vodafone Australia, of Vodafone Group.

The deal includes engineering, operations and maintenance of Vodafone's HSDPA, 3G, GPRS and GSM networks.

As part of the arrangement, Nokia will be responsible for managing Vodafone Australia's ongoing network operations covering HSDPA, 3G, GSM and core networks infrastructure including the detailed design, engineering, optimization operations as well as network management, monitoring, fieldwork and maintenance services for the networks.

"Outsourcing the management of the networks to Nokia makes good business sense for Vodafone Australia. It delivers cost efficiencies and, at the same time, allows us to control the quality and technical direction of our networks so that we can deliver the best and most advanced technology available to Australian customers," said Russell Hewitt, chief executive of Vodafone Australia.

As part of the managed services agreement, Vodafone Australia will transfer related employees and contractors into the Services business unit of Nokia Networks.

Nokia Gets Contract From Hutchison Indonesia

STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Finland's Nokia, Friday said it has received an order from PT Hutchison CP Telecommunications, or Hutchison Telecom Indonesia, for service delivery platform and managed services.

Nokia will supply and manage a complete Service Delivery Platform solution as part of the operator's GSM/WCDMA 3G rollout to Hutchison Indonesia, which is a joint venture by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International and CP Group of Indonesia.

The platform comprises a mobile portal for data and voice, supporting the delivery of value added end-user services such as games, news, music, video streaming and downloading, along with over-the-air provisioning of the appropriate settings to mobile devices.

Nokia will operate the platform under a managed services contract, thus enabling Hutchison to concentrate on developing new end-user services and customer relationships.

The first version of the system has been successfully delivered to Hutchison.

"Nokia's SDP solution meets both our technical and commercial requirements," said John Shen, chief technical officer at Hutchison Telecom Indonesia. "We can now look forward to reducing our time to market for new services and increasing the number of services to our customers."

WiMAX Gaining Momentum, But Unlikely to Threaten 3G in Asia/Pacific This Decade

Telecom providers have made significant efforts to compete with wireless 3G services with various Broadband Wireless Technology (BWA) in the Asia/Pacific market, reports In-Stat. For at least another five years, however, BWA in the form of WiMAX is unlikely to pose a big threat to 3G, as it will take longer to mature, the high-tech market research firm says.

"Telecom providers introduced BWA technologies to tap into the wireless trend, accelerate wide market diffusion, and to provide consumers with an alternative or complementary value proposition," says Bryan Wang, In-Stat analyst. "However, a lack of standardization and interoperability issues has not augured well in adoption rates for most proprietary BWA technologies."

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Wi-Fi proved not to be a successful business model, but WiMAX is now gathering momentum and is expected to reach 14 million subscribers by 2011.
• Cellular subscribers reached 859 million, with over 130 million 3G users in the Asia/Pacific region in 2005.
• Mobile WiMAX devices are anticipated to be available beginning in late 2007.

Nokia and Ericsson Provide 3G To T-Mobile USA

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Nokia and Ericsson said Monday that they will provide third generation mobile phone infrastructure to T-Mobile USA, as the German mobile operator looks to rollout phone and data services across the United States.

Nokia or Ericsson declined to disclose the financial value of the contracts, and it is unclear whether further equipment manufacturers have been selected.

However, T-Mobile USA, the U.S. mobile phone arm of Deutsche Telekom, said in October that it expects to spend about EUR2.1 billion, or $2.66 billion, over the next two to three years to upgrade to its next-generation network.

T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the four major USA mobile network operators, plans to make the third-generation, or 3G, network commercially available in mid-2007.

Both Nokia and Ericsson will provide with WCDMA, a type of 3G telephone network, that will allow the German mobile phone operator to provide consumers faster mobile communications, and improved video, music and television services via their phone.

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said it will provide small, low-power consuming WCDMA base stations, or 3G transmitters, to T-Mobile USA in the South, Central and Western states of the U.S., excluding California.

Swedish equipment manufacturer Ericsson will act as the prime radio provider for T-Mobile's WCDMA 3G services in New York City, which are expected to go live in 2007. It will also provide 3G technology in other regions.

T-Mobile USA said last month that it is looking to capture 18% to 20% of the U.S. market, where there is still significant growth opportunities in providing mobile services. It aims to expand its current U.S. customer base of approximately 23 million to between 35 and 40 million by 2015. This will help offset pressures in T-Mobile's traditional European market where it is facing overcrowding and strong price competition.

-By Daniel Thomas, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9264; dan.thomas@dowjones.com

Nokia To Integrate Yahoo In Mass-Market Handsets

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Nokia plans to incorporate Yahoo services into its mass-market cellular phones.
The deal calls for Yahoo features such as contact lists and email to be directly integrated into the phone's user interface, which will allow for easier integration of the phone and the personal computer. It signals the growing importance of Internet content on mobile devices, with access to the Web going beyond high-end smartphones to cheaper, more readily available models.

On Wednesday, the Finnish handset maker said that the Yahoo services will be placed in its Series 40 line, which is what most of Nokia's basic handsets are based on. Among the most popular ones are the Nokia 6101 for Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA and the 6102 for Cingular Wireless, jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth.
Nokia said more than 400 million mobile phones operate under the Series 40 platform since its introduction in 2002. The technology, however, can't be retrofitted into older models.

he partnership does not apply to phones that run on rival technology that is used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. Nokia has traditionally lagged in that particular technology, resulting in its No. 2 position in the US market behind Motorola. Nokia is the market leader on a global basis.

Handset makers and wireless carriers have more aggressively pushed for more Internet content on mobile devices. Verizon Wireless said Tuesday it would let its VCast customers view selected videos from YouTube, which is owned by Google. In January, Motorola formed a partnership with Google to allow its devices to more easily connect with the search engine.

Nokia wouldn't disclose any financial terms from the Yahoo agreement.

Shares of Nokia recently rose 18 cents, or 0.9%, to $20.27. Yahoo's stock slipped 5 cents, or 0.2%, to $26.95.

-By Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2020; roger.cheng@dowjones.com