Google to Shut Down Lively Virtual World

Google will shut down Lively, its browser-based virtual world environment, by the end of December.

Launched in July, Lively is Google's alternative to Second Life and other virtual world environments.

Google said it launched Lively in Google Labs because it wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. 

Google said on its blog that after four and a half months on the Lively project, its resources would be better spent focusing on its core search, advertising and applications businesses.

"We've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off," the posting added.

Google was not immediately available for comment. Google employees working on the project will move to other teams, according to the blog.

Lively users have been asked by Google to capture their work by taking videos and screenshots of their rooms. Rooms and avatars on the site will not be available after Dec. 31.

Source :PC World

New Handsets Needed for Microsoft's Mobile IE6

Microsoft faces a tough sell with its latest mobile browser, Internet Explorer 6, since consumers will need to buy more powerful handsets to run it.

Microsoft, which announced plans earlier this week to launch IE6 with market leader China Mobile, has made no secret of the more stringent requirements. It has indicated the software won't be available to download. 

The browser requires 500MHz chip processing speeds, according to Lena Goh, director of marketing in Microsoft's mobile communications business for Asia.

Continue The Article : PC World : Microsoft's Tough Sell

Windows Vista vs. XP Gaming

What exactly will you be getting by upgrading to Microsoft's new OS? More specifically, will the leap into DirectX 10 be worth it?

 With every fresh Windows OS launch, PC gamers experience upgrade anxiety. And it's understandable: Windows XP is arguably one of the best Windows OS to date, and users have familiarized themselves with all the little tweaks to maximize performance (getting rid of the right background processes, knowing what Windows Registry files to trash). But with DirectX 10 gaming on the horizon, it's no longer a question of "if" but "when."

Continue The Article : IGN

Cisco Certifications !!! too much temptation

Hello everybody , I am going to discuss a hot topic here , Cisco Courses and certifications .

Cisco updated the system of the certifications recently and branched for example the CCNA into CCNA , CCNA voice , CCNA wireless , CCNA security and there's a whole great list of Cisco Certifications , for a person like me who loves IT , networking and almost anything technology-related , that's a huge temptation , i can't see that amount of knowledge and waste it , i mean when you acquire that kind of knowledge , you feel powerful , nothing can stop you , any problem you face you can solve with your knowledge and thinking , but the problem with acquiring the certifications is that you don't get your money back if you fail the test and that is a big problem when acquiring a certification like CCIE which costs 315$ per attempt for the written exam and 1400$ per attempt for the lab exam and according to a survey by Cisco itself the average cost to prepare for CCIE certification is 9,050$ spent mostly on practice equipment and self-study material...but on the other hand it's the highest level of professional certification that Cisco provides.

Cisco also says about CCIE "The most respected IT certification" .

Also the CCIE is generally reported as the highest salaried certification in IT salary surveys.

hope i added something to your knowledge

Cheers;

Fedora 8 Games Spin (Live DVD) released !!

Fedora 8 Games spin is a custom version of Fedora 8 from the games special interest group in Fedora that includes includes tons of free and open source Linux games in a installable Live DVD. You can download it from it from http://spins.fedoraproject.org. If you thought Linux, lacked great completely free games, check it out.

Crank !!!

Crank , That's one angry movie , from both directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor .

A really impressive cast of the movie consists of :
Jason Statham "Chev Chelios"
Amy Smart "Eve"
Jose Pablo Cantillo "Verona"
Efren Ramirez "Kaylo"
Dwight Yoakam "Doc Miles"
Carlos Sanz "Carlito"
Reno Wilson "Orlando"

The tagline of the movie is : "Poison in his veins. Vengeance in his heart" which gives you a little explanation of the story.

The story is that "Chev Chelios" is a professional Gun-For-Hire "Hitman" who worked for the Mob in loyalty to a man called "Carlito" , so when "Carlito" sent him to kill the triads' boss "Don Kim" , "Chev" decides that he quit , so when he has the gun aimed at "Don Kim's", He hesitates and refuses to kill "Don Kim" and tell "Don Kim" who hired "Chev Chelios" to kill him and tell "Don Kim" to hide for a few days to remove off suspicions , what made "Chev Chelios" quit is because he loves his girlfriend "Eve" and want to go legit and honest , So behind "Chev Chelios's" back "Carlito" his boss and "Verona" his enemy unite and "Chev" wakes up to find himself very tired then he sees a DVD on the TV so he plays it , then he finds a video of "Verona" and his brother injecting "Chev" with some chinese poison that will get him killed in like an hour so he gets very angry and runs to find "Verona" and while he's driving his car he feels like his heart is slowing down and like he's dying so he remembers that adrenaline flow treats his problem so he calls his doctor "Doc Miles" so the doctor tells him that there's no cure for that poison so all he has to do is don't stop the flow of adrenaline , don't stop moving , till the doctor arrives to the city and the movie goes on as "Chev" searching for "Verona"......................

Here's a trailer for the movie:


Hope you like the movie

cheers,

How to know the memory of the video card of a PC?

I was watching TV a couple of days ago when a friend called me and asked me how to know the memory of his video card , At first i thought he was kidding then he turned out to be serious, so i told him and thought that there could be a lot of people like him , so here's the way.

1. Right click the desktop.
   
2. Click properties.
3. Choose setting from the tabs.
4. Press the "Advanced" button.
5. Choose "Adapter" from the tabs.
6. You should find the memory of the video card written there.

cheers,
megatech