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Microsoft released key details Tuesday of the next generation of software that it hopes will run the world’s computers.The software giant, whose dominance is under threat, said Windows 7 will replace the disappointing Windows Vista in January 2010.

Microsoft said the new operating system was designed to function like a tighter version of Vista, which launched in 2006 but was widely derided as a ’system hog’ that slowed down computers with features that most users never accessed.

Speaking to participants at a Microsoft developers’ conference in Los Angeles, Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Windows, said Microsoft was learning its lessons from Vista, by making sure that Windows 7 would be fully compatible with all relevant devices and applications on launch.

Among the innovations unveiled by Microsoft was a touch-screen capability that will allow users to select folders and control programmes without using a mouse.

Windows 7 will also feature faster boot-up times, an updated task bar that includes previews of open windows, a new desktop look and a set of features optimised for laptops. The new operating system also makes it easier to coordinate and access files over networks and to automatically configure settings for different networks.

The new software will ditch some prominent features included in Vista including Calendar, Windows Mail, Movie Maker, Contacts and Photo Gallery, which will now be available for free download from the Microsoft website.

Microsoft operating systems still power some 90 percent of the world’s personal computers, though Vista has only racked up an 18 percent share since its launch.

Microsoft has been hit by the growing success of Apple’s Mac computers and by the long-term switch of many computing functions to mobile phones and the internet.

Google is threatening Microsoft’s cash cow, the Office Suite of programmes, with online word processors, spreadsheets and presentation programmes.

Microsoft Tuesday said it would launch free online versions of Office that would be supported by advertising. Many analysts fear that offering an online version could cannibalize Microsoft’s most profitable line of products.

But Rob Helm, a senior analyst at research firm Directions on Microsoft, said that both Windows 7 and Office Online should work out well for the company.

‘Both are good improvements,’ he said. ‘Windows 7 will help Microsoft overcome the weakness of Vista, while Web-based Office is a direct response to Google. Many businesses will like it because they have lots of users who don’t use many of the Office features.’

A backseat driver satellite navigation system that will inform drivers when they are rushing up, or are out of lanes, is being developed.The Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) will not only be a tour guide recommending visit-worthy restaurants, but will also direct the driver to change the gear in appropriate time to maximise fuel economy.

It will flash a warning against danger of collision or possible damage to the vehicle, too, by providing a 3-D view of the route in front, and specifying details regarding gradients, obstacles and road width.

The hi-fi navigation method is being developed by ‘TomTom and Navteq’, a mapping company owned by mobile giant ‘Nokia’, keeping in mind to create a ‘crash-proof’ car.

The system is likely to hit the markets within three years, and expected to encourage safe driving.

When it comes to mailing or bulk mailing it has always been a tough job to handle, especially the labeling part. If only if you have an easy way to do it, you will mostly end up in getting it wrong. Hence it is suggested to for a readymade label brands like Avery labels. Thus you can save a lot of time by not needing to create your labels manually and tearing it and pasting it, etc.

With the compatible Avery Labels you get the labels in a tear-away sheet in which you can print and get it torn away easily and stick it on your envelope or wherever you intend to use it.

This Avery Labels surely will be an handy stationary which you can rely upon for your mailing needs and ease most of your handling of mails with its easy to cut and easy to peel away stickers which can be customized according to the size and shapes you want.

Also compatible Avery labels are available readymade for your specific needs. Thus you don’t have to rely on or dedicate any manpower to do these specific jobs. You would actually need hardly few to do this and hence you save cost this way too.

If you think you can easily fool others when it comes to the security that you have to have on your checks, think twice. There is the amazing MICR toner, which is at its best when it comes to the lines that you can possibly see on your check papers. Visible as it is, you may think that it is only a simple derangement of the ink from the printer but actually, it is magnetic ink that can transmit a code when it will be under a special reader and a digital data may be read. In this manner, it will be impossible for other people to make use of it in a bad way. HP MICR is also the same kind as that of the toner that I have regarded above. Through this, people who are on the syndicate will be having a hard time copying certain checks and it will be impossible for them to do such. This is really a great way to be secured and as such, it will be easy to deal with and you no longer have to undergo those other hard ways of securing things that you currently have on hand.

A computer programme that can identify paedophiles, who pretend to be children on the Internet, is being developed by scientists at Lancaster University.

By analysing language and syntax used online, the new technology can reveal if an adult is masquerading as a child as part of the victim “grooming” process.

The scheme, known as Project Isis, will also be able to keep track of secret code words used by paedophiles as file names for child pornography.

“The main technique is something called authorship attribution. Research has been done which indicates that there are differences in how people of a particular age group write,” the Telegraph quoted Professor Awais Rashid, of Lancaster University, as saying.

“You can distinguish when someone is 25 when they are claiming to be 14, for example.

“The project uses a lot of artificial intelligence and a lot of algorithms. We are using language analysis tools to identify someone who is masquerading as a child, and therefore identify people who may be a risk to children.

“We are looking at being able to monitor traffic in file-sharing networks to try to identify core distributors, who are of interest to law enforcement agencies because they have access to children and are preparing photographs of these children in abusive situations.

“Paedophiles use very specific ways of marking these files and searching for them.

“To the untrained eye they can look like innocent searches but with our analysis you can isolate them and study how they change,” Rashid added.

A first prototype system has already being devised and is being tested on non-sensitive data.

The next step of the three-year project will be to use the software on real-life paedophile material provided by police and other agencies.

If it proves effective, Project Isis could raise Internet privacy concerns. For it to work in practice, it would require a wide range of Internet sites such as chat rooms and peer-to-peer networks to be monitored for tell-tale paedophile language.

“We are setting up a stakeholder ethics group of internet service providers, users and other groups who may have concerns about the ethics of monitoring,” Rashid said.

There is a lot of information that is constantly traded through the growing population with an Internet connection. People aren’t the only ones sending a lot more data though. Businesses are having to manage much larger packets that are coming and going as part of their everyday operations. This means that they will really need someone who knows how to manage the system and keep everything going. They need someone with ITIL training.

ITIL stands for information technology infrastructure library. You would basically just need to have the proper training to keep files organized and ultimately know where they need to go. It’s just like a virtual librarian who’s in charge of a whole bunch of files. This isn’t as easy as one might think though. The system isn’t like something you’d be used to from personal experience. You need to understand just how complex networks work and how the library software organizes the comings and goings of all the files. For this, you’ll need to take the time to learn ITIL v3 training, especially if you want to be up to date on the latest changes.

There is a lot of demand for someone with the right skills in information technology. If you are willing to get the training necessary, then a whole world will open up to you.

If anyone still questioned the power of the Internet to play a key role in the general elections, the recent fundraising figures touted by Barack Obama should put all doubts to rest.The Democratic presidential nominee raised a staggering $150 million in September - most of which came from small donors who gave less than 100 dollars each through Obama’s website.

Thanks largely to the unprecedented use of the Internet, Obama’s campaign attracted 632,000 new donors in September. By some estimates Obama’s Internet activities have now raised more than $1 billion since he started campaigning two years ago. That’s more than 10 times as much as John Kerry raised over the Internet just four years ago.

That staggering achievement may not be the most decisive impact of the Internet on this year’s election. According to political analysts, it was the huge flow of volunteers to Obama’s website that convinced him that he had a chance to defeat Senator Hillary Clinton, then the overwhelming favourite for the centre-left nomination.

As Obama’s online network multiplied, it gave him a decisive edge in the primary battles against Clinton, allowing him to deploy thousands of volunteers on short notice and with devastating effect, said Joe Trippi, a Democratic campaign adviser and online political guru.

‘In 1992, it was the economy, stupid,’ Trippi told the MIT Technology Review. ‘This year, it was the network, stupid!’

If Trippi is right, the Nov 4 election should be a cakewalk for Obama.

According to the Pew Research Centre, Obama’s campaign website has consistently attracted about three times the traffic of the website of his general election opponent, Republican Senator John McCain.

On Facebook, Obama has 2.2 million ‘friends’ compared to 745,000 for McCain. On MySpace, Obama has 588,000 friends compared to McCain’s 188,000.

Obama’s web team, which includes Chris Hughes, the 24-year-old co-founder of Facebook, has also done a thorough job of integrating online activities with real world actions.

They reach out to supporters through a multitude of platforms - from emails to SMS messages, and from viral videos to posts on the new medium of the moment, the Twitter cellphone network. Obama has even taken out ads embedded in video games, urging voters to head early for the polls.

In contrast, McCain’s use of the net seems like an afterthought. His online game is called Pork Invaders - which is styled on the late-1970s game Space Invaders with a twist against government waste, so-called pork. As such, it seems designed not to appeal to the vital young voting demographic, but perhaps to their parents.

McCain has used Internet advertising to his advantage.

He trails Obama badly in the money he can spend on advertising. Putting ads up on the net helps him bridge that gap.

‘Thanks to YouTube - and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails - it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed,’ wrote Arianna Huffington, the doyen of left-wing bloggers.

‘The Internet may make it easier to disseminate character smears, but it also makes it much less likely that these smears will stick.’

A federal judge questioned why a white Ivy League student found during a computer hacking probe with thousands of images of child pornography was not charged with that crime, sparing him a decade-long prison sentence that a black convicted child pornographer faced at the same hearing.University of Pennsylvania senior Ryan Goldstein, 22, of Ambler, was sentenced Tuesday to three months in prison and five years of probation for a hacking scheme that caused a Penn engineering school server to crash in 2006.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the decision not to charge Goldstein for the child pornography was appropriate given his extensive cooperation.

Voicing concerns about fairness, the judge took the unusual step of sentencing Goldstein alongside a Philadelphia man, Derrick Williams, who was facing eight to 10 years in prison for child pornography in an unrelated case.

Both men were found with several thousand images of child pornography, and each had copied some of the images, though Williams had also posted about 15 of them on a Web site, prosecutors said.

The judge said he could not help noting that Williams is black and Goldstein is white.

“This has weighed very heavily on my mind, as I think it would most judges,” U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson said. “That’s why I’ve brought this case together with the Williams case.”

However, he said the sentencing disparities were not connected to race. Baylson gave Williams a two-year prison term, noting his steady work history and minor criminal record.

Goldstein pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and spent long hours helping the FBI investigate a worldwide hacking enterprise, lawyers for both sides agreed. But even as he was cooperating, Goldstein twice engaged in unspecified mischief with FBI computers, Baylson said.

“It was very detrimental to the investigation,” said Baylson, who heard details of the misconduct behind closed doors at the start of the sentencing hearing. “It’s very disturbing.”

According to the FBI, Goldstein worked with a New Zealand teen who allegedly gained control of thousands of computers and amassed them into clusters known as botnets.

Owen Thor Walker, known by the online name “AKILL,” was ordered this summer to pay more than $11,000 in fines in New Zealand but avoided a conviction so he can help police solve computer crimes.

Goldstein acknowledged at the hearing that he has been viewing child pornography since he was 11 or 12. A therapist who testified Tuesday described him as a bright but asocial child who spent long hours on the computer and rarely played with friends.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t begin to emerge from that computer world until the FBI knocked on my door,” Goldstein told the judge. “This actually may have saved me from a life of computer addiction.”

The case was part of an international crackdown on hackers who steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades and even crash industry computers, authorities said.

Goldstein’s parents, who attended the hearing, declined comment afterward, as did lawyers for both sides. Williams and his lawyer, Max Kramer, also declined comment.

Yahoo Inc posted a sharply lower quarterly profit on nearly flat sales, but its shares rose 8 per cent on the Internet media company’s plan to cut at least 10 per cent of its work force to save costs.

Yahoo, the leading provider of online display advertising, said on Tuesday it planned to cut at least another 10 per cent of its roughly 15,000-strong global work force, and reduce its expense-run rate by around $400 million by the end of 2008.

The planned job cuts of more than 1,500 employees expand an earlier cut of roughly 1,000 jobs, or 7 per cent, that Yahoo made in February. Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said Yahoo was prepared to further cut jobs and other expenses in 2009 if the economy continues to deteriorate.

Yahoo is cutting its work force in high-cost markets and hiring aggressively in lower-cost locales such as Eastern Europe, India and Southeast Asia.

“The stock is up,” Cowen & Co analyst Jim Friedland said. “It’s not up on better-than-expected results. It’s up on a lack of a complete meltdown in the business,” he said.

The Silicon Valley-based Web pioneer said net income for the third quarter tumbled to $54.3 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, from $151 million, or 11 cents per diluted share.

Gross revenue, including payments to affiliated websites that carry Yahoo ads, edged up 1 per cent to $1.79 billion. Net revenue was $1.325 billion, compared with the average Wall Street estimate of $1.37 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Wall Street was looking for a profit, on average, of 8 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates. Net revenue forecasts had ranged from $1.29 billion to $1.43 billion, the same data showed.

Yahoo President Susan Decker said the company struggled as corporate brand advertisers scaled back spending on Web marketing promotions, not only in the United States but also across Europe and Asia. Marketers in the travel and retail industries have been canceling some contracts, she said.

“We are still seeing a weakening trend in some Asian markets,” Decker said.

Yahoo co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang put a brave face on the situation, saying that while its premium display advertising business was declining, Yahoo appeared to be gaining market share as buyers consolidated their spending.

“I am encouraged that most advertisers who are still spending in this environment are spending with Yahoo,” Yang said.

GLOOMY OUTLOOK, NARROWING OPTIONS

Yahoo forecast fourth-quarter gross revenue at between $1.773 billion and $1.973 billion. That represents a decline of 3 per cent to a modest growth of 8 per cent from the year-earlier quarter’s $1.83 billion.

“I had been predicting they would reduce their guidance for (the fourth quarter) but they really whacked it,” said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities.

“It had been in the mid-teens, now it’s just barely over 2 per cent for revenue growth in the fourth quarter, normally a seasonally strong one,” he said, referring to the midpoint of the per centage growth Yahoo has forecast.

Shares of Yahoo gained 7.7 per cent to $13 in extended trade on the results, after closing 6.1 per cent lower at $12.07 on Nasdaq. But despite the rebound, the stock remains at 5-year lows as hopes earlier this year that Microsoft might acquire Yahoo for $33 or more per share have dissipated for now.

Free cash flow fell to $215 million from $231 million in the 2008 second quarter and $310 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Analysts said that while the latest downturn in Yahoo’s business has forced the Sunnyvale, California-based company to make sweeping cutbacks, these cuts are likely to further damage its competitiveness with Internet market leader Google.

“They don’t have much of a choice, but it’s likely to hurt Yahoo’s longer-term growth,” Friedland said.

Excluding one-time items such as the costs of fending off a proxy campaign by Carl Icahn to force Yahoo back into talks with Microsoft Corp on a possible merger, quarterly profit rose to $123 million, or 9 cents a diluted share.

For the September quarter, the company said it ran up $36 million in merger, consulting and legal costs related to its on-again, off-again talks with Microsoft, an aborted proxy fight with activist investor Carl Icahn, and its bid to win regulatory approval for an ad sales deal with Google Inc.

Icahn subsequently joined the Yahoo board.

Yahoo and Google recently agreed to delay their advertising deal amid competitive concerns by the US Justice Department but Yang.

Leading Gulf carrier Qatar Airways Wednesday said India remained an important market not just for its civil aviation operations but also as the principal source for manpower, including crew and other trained staff.

The airline also said it hoped to put an Airbus-380 aircraft - out of five expected to be delivered beginning 2010 - on the India route, since it was among the most promising countries for expansion.

“Forty percent of our team is from India. Since we cater to a wide variety of countries, our crew should be able to speak multiple languages,” said Naveen Chawla, the regional manager for India with the Qatari carrier.

“We will continue to keep adding people, as the current global turmoil has not affected our operations. Our passenger load factor remains very healthy,” Chawla told reporters here, outlining the carrier’s expansion plans for the US.

“Qatar Airways has one of the most successful operations in India.”

The executive said his airline was a “network carrier” where the focus was on wooing transit passengers through their hub in Doha, rather than point-to-point operations. “This is the main reason our operations have not been affected.”

He said Kozhikode in Kerala was recently added as the ninth destination in India to result in as many as 58 flights a week from the country with early morning arrivals in Doha for convenient onward connections to the US.

Chawla said while excellent connectivity was already being offered to New York and Washington, March next year will see the addition of Houston in Texas, also called the energy capital of the US.