TECHNOLOGY

:: Gulam Zilani ::

Yahoo to keep data
Yahoo has announced that it will be keeping search data for up to 18 months in order to provide better search results to its visitors. 
Yahoo originally kept search data for up to 3 months, but with its decision to increase this to 18 months the search giant will for sure be under the microscope of how that data will be handled by privacy experts.  Yahoo has declared that it does intend to examine its right policy and time frame for other log file data.  
Over the coming weeks Yahoo will be posting its decision on their web page explaining its change of policy and what it intends to do with the data that is being retained.  Back in December 2008 Yahoo announced that it intends to bolster trust among users by anonymising data it collected.
Yahoo is not the only company who retains data to improve search results. Bing (owned by Microsoft) and Google also practise this in the same manner, just as other lesser known search engines such as Alta-Vista, Lycos, Netscape and Ask.

350 Million Sold in 18 months
Microsoft has announced that it has sold over 350 million copies on Windows 7 licences across the globe since its launch.
Windows 7 was launched in October 2009 following the “failures” of Windows Vista. Those who have used or are still using Windows Vista will know exactly what the issue are; and still is as it goes. Therefore the success of Windows 7 really doesnít come as much as a surprise as users have either upgraded or downgraded back to Windows XP for compatibility purposes of their various peripherals.
While Windows 7 has currently 24% of the current operating system market share, there are some known factors that actually stop users from upgrading their current PC’s to Windows 7.  Otherwise the market share would have been much larger.  And that is still a possibility with the imminent retired support for Windows XP.  Windows XP is still one of the most favoured operating systems around due to manageability within an organisation.  Vast organisations donít jump to the latest systems as soon as they are available, rather they wait and see and test the benefits of the operating system within their given ICT structure – these things take time, as every nooks and crannies need to identified and resolved.  For this reason organisations are always far behind the latest systems in the market.  So despite Windows XP being launched back in 2001, 10 years on itís still the mainstream OS for an organisation.

Google and Spotify Discuss Cloud Music
Google and Spotify have entered into talks about co-launching cloud music services.  The link makes sense in a lot of fronts since Spotify is already established and offers a music service.  Seeing that Google is about to launch their very own Cloud Music service, the join up is very much logical.
So far no official comments have been made by both companies, but once the agreements are in place, both companies should be making an announcement quite soon.
Such agreements are very beneficial to both as Spotify mainly serves the US, while Google is a more dominant web based service and is widely popular among any users.  So sales in both fronts are expected to increase.

Wanted: Android
Giving the title of this article you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this some sort of Western flick, with gun shots at high noon and a bar with nothing short of local drunkardsí, gamblers and, well, you know the rest.  Well for a start this isnít a Clint Eastward movie title not is it a classic Bob Allen movie with his trustee “sidekick” horse Pal.This is in fact is a trend that Android is now the most desired operating system for developers, manufacturers and consumers. Surpassing Blackberry and Apple iOS. Just look around you at any electronics shop and you can see for yourself that that many reputable manufacturers (bar HP – who foolishly backed WebOS) are launching Android based tablets and handsets practically every month.  Just last Wednesday did Sony announce there own intention to launch two Android powered tablets codenamed S1 and S2.  And of course where Sony is concerned there will be quality in build, just like Samsung and of course the leading Android hardware manufacturer HTC themselves.
So if your one of those who are out to purchase a new handset this summer, give Android a try and see why consumers are flocking towards this option then the much expensive and rigid Apple agreements

“Evil” Technology Companies
In a recent open forum poll conducted by Techspot.com of which companies they thought were the most “evil” in terms of how they govern there business and services to users.  Not surprisingly, Apple hit top of the list due to their hardware being highly inaccessible, lacks full potential when it goes on sale to the general public; I’m sure this is done deliberately so that “version 2” is upgraded to what it should have been at the first place. But being a fair, Apple probably wouldnít have been voted as the number one “evil” company had it not been for the unfortunate news that they may be tracking userís whereabouts. Something that clearly violates privacy and quite frankly, yes you have guessed correctly – against the law – whether it be the US or in the UK without prior warning or agreement.
Following oh so not closely is Sony at 13.6%.  Sony is another company that has recently been highlighted in technology newspapers and websites alike for their part of incompetence in having a “secure network” where by data is easily hacked than buying a subway sandwich in the city during a busy lunch hour.  With all that vast amount of data lost and the most recent news that another 25million user details have also been hacked – I’m just surprised they werenít voted number one on that list.  Oh well.
In the third place is Facebook at 10.33%. Who managed to get on the list quite high due to the way data is handled, lack of clarity of what is being shared by those many applications available to users on Facebook.  There doesnít seem to be any stringent management of the application usage via Facebook.  Many users have also complained that some applications had rendered there system useless – resulting in a full system reload.  And that’s probably just enough to convince a user to close the account as a whole.  But I wouldnít assume so much thatís itís actually the applications thatís the reason – more the issue of how your data is held and used by third party companies: in most instances without your prior knowledge.
Microsoft followed quite closely to Facebook due to the buggy software issue they had during the initial Windows 7 launched, granted it was identified and resolved quickly; nonetheless it left a number of device useless and did eat up into a lot of the userís data allowance.
I could go on and on mentioning one company after another.  But instead I’ll just go over two other reputable companies that most of us are aware of.  First on the list is Google. Just like Apple, Google too had issues with privacy and even bad application management that stole data.  But for some reason they users were not too bothered about it to list it highly enough of simply left Google is the lesser evil between the two.  Lastly, is Oracle.  Oracle saved itself a bit of grace by allowing its popular office applications go freely to continue its services to the general public without much of an issue.  Although they still raked up 3.14% of the votes, this would primarily be due to the decision that they still want a share of the product, have delayed and created difficulties in implementing external contributions to the core codebase. Another turnoff was that third-party developers are required to sign an agreement (the Oracle Contributor Agreement) that effectively gives copyright ownership of their code to Oracle Corporation, to allow it to release proprietary versions of the product.
1st: Apple – 34.72%2nd: Sony – 13.6%3rd:   Facebook – 10.33%4th: Microsoft – 8.18%5th: EA – 5.61%6th: Activision – 5.58%7th: Google – 5.45%8th: Foxconn – 3.96%9th: Oracle – 3.14%10th: Ubisoft – 3.1%11th: Intel – 2.84%12th: Adobe – 1.98%13th: Dell – 1.52%
So do you agree with the votes? Or have any thoughts on to the results obtained by Techspot? Drop me an email.

Google Talk expands to include Video Chat
Google has announced the next development progress for their Instant messaging application extended to now include Video conferencing.  This new feature will be available for Android handsets initially running on Android 2.3.4.
This new feature will be made available via Over The Air updates in the coming weeks and will firstly available to the stock Android the Google Nexus S.
So to use this feature you will need to make sure youíre in a 3G enabled area or simply use your home WiFi to enjoy this feature. And naturally you would need a front facing camera of at least 2 Megapixel to enjoy a good quality conference.
To get more information on how the device works check out this link 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJAiH5-64sI&feature=player_embedded