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Windows 10: release date, price, news and features

Windows 10: what we know so far

With Windows 8 and today Windows 8.1, Microsoft tried – not entirely successfully – to deliver an operating system (OS) that could handle the needs of not only number-crunching workstations and high-end gaming rigs, but touch-controlled systems from all-in-one PCs for the family and thin-and-light notebooks down to slender tablets.

When Microsoft pulled the curtain back on Windows 10 back in September of 2014, it was clear that, with an operating system optimized for PCs, tablets and phones in unique ways, the Redmond, Wash.-based firm was onto something. Skipping the Windows 9 name entirely, Microsoft issued a public preview of the shiny new OS later that autumn, known as Windows Technical Preview (WTP).

You can try it out for yourself through Microsoft's Windows Insider Program. You'll need a Microsoft account to get it, and it's worth bearing in mind that it's not the finished product, so it will be a bit rough around the edges.

Since then (and one more major reveal event in January 2015), new features have been rolling in with each preview build update. Now, with Microsoft's huge annual developer event, Build 2015, on the horizon, we expect another deluge of Windows 10, including that elusive release date.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? A complete update for Windows
• When is it out? Definitely summer, but likely late July 2015
• What will it cost? For Windows 7 and 8.1 users, it will be free for one year

Step into Microsoft's new Office

Back in February, shortly after a leaked video on WinBeta revealed Microsoft's Universal (now known simply as Windows) Office apps in detail, the company issued an update to the Windows 10 Technical Preview with just that. If you're not doing so already, WTP users can test out the new Word, PowerPoint and Excel Universal (or Windows) apps.

Like the whole of Windows 10, these apps are designed to work on Windows 10 laptops, tablets and phones. This update comes in advance of Office 2016, Microsoft's desktop-based version of the suite, which we expect to see debut in the second half of 2015. It's likely that Office 2016 will interact with its Windows app counterparts through OneDrive and other solutions.

And back during MWC 2015, Microsoft squeezed out a few more details surrounding the touch-centric Office 2016, namely cosmetic makeovers for Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Also, Outlook will be more deeply integrated with its sister apps than ever before. Finally, the new Insights and Tell Me features will let users search the internet from within Office and create search-based command prompts, respectively.

Today, both general users and IT pros-slash-developers can preview Office 2016 on Windows and Mac OS X. Plus, we've finally got the skinny on what the differences are between the simply-named Office for Windows 10 and Office 2016.

Windows Phone fans get a sneak peek

After much teasing leading up to an event during MWC 2015, a Technical Preview of Windows 10 for phones was released to just about every Lumia device under the sun.

Handled much in the same way as it is on desktop, the WTP for Windows 10 on phones has introduced alpha-phase features like the Project Spartan browser, the new Outlook and a much-improved camera app that borrows heavily from Nokia's camera app for its pre-Windows-buyout Lumia phones. Check out all the details here.

As for when it's coming to everyone in a final release, there have been far fewer rumors and scuttlebutt than we've seen around Windows 10 for PCs. It's assumed that Windows 10 will released simultaneously across all supported device categories, including phones, but Microsoft has yet to address that publicly.

In the meantime, we've learned quite a bit installing Windows 10 on the cheapest Windows Phone around. You can check that out right here.

Read more at: http://www.techgig.com/tech-news/editors-pick/Windows-10-release-date-price-news-and-features-30525

Facebook quietly dumped Skype

Social media can make a relationship a lot more complicated. Take, for example, Facebook and Microsoft's Skype.

Back in 2011, they were the happiest of couples, telling everybody how they were working together to make video calling in Facebook Messenger a reality.

"[Then-Microsoft CEO] Steve [Ballmer] and I are really aligned on this," Mark Zuckerberg said at the time.

Today, with the launch of video calling in Facebook Messenger for iPhone and Android, there's no longer any doubt: Facebook and Skype have broken up, and Skype seems to be the one who was dumped.

While no announcements have ever been made, we started to suspect Facebook and Skype were no longer quite so close in 2013, after Facebook introduced a voice calling option that used its own technology.

But the real rupture appears to have happened a few months back when Facebook quietly stopped using Skype for video calls made from the desktop, replacing Skype with technology that Facebook developed in-house, Facebook confirmed to Business Insider.

This change was made because Skype-powered video calls required users to install a browser plugin, while the technology that Facebook whipped up works without one - important for call performance, video quality, and for letting Facebook make changes and upgrades to video chat more quickly, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

For users, the change was basically invisible. But for the Facebook and Skype partnership, announced with so much fanfare in 2011, it seems that it was officially the beginning of the end.

The demise of the Skype partnership represents the second major example of Facebook cutting ties with Microsoft recently. In December, Facebookunceremoniously stopped using Microsoft Bing to provide Web search results on its social network. 

Microsoft and Facebook have a long history together - Microsoft in 2007 invested $240 million in what was at the time a promising young social networking company. Now that Facebook is a tech behemoth in its own right, it no longer needs to rely on others for technology such as search and voice calling. And keeping things in-house gives Facebook more control.

For its part, Microsoft declined to comment on the end of its Skype deal with Facebook.

Two weeks ago, in mid-April, Skype community manager Claudius Henrichs made a post to the official Skype forums, saying that "Facebook is making a number of changes to the way they connect their products with partners like Skype."

He gave a laundry list of Facebook integrations that will no longer work in Skype as of the end of April 2015, including the ability to message Facebook friends from within the Skype desktop app.

"We never like it when features have to go away like this," Henrichs wrote. Skype users will be able to use their Facebook account to find friends who have a Skype account, but it's not the same.

Skype's partnership with Facebook may have been a casualty in the social network's mission to never, ever, ever let its user base leave for even a single second.

NOW WATCH: A bunch of teens used Skype to meet and learn from kids from all over the world

5 Ways Google Search Results Will Change By 2016

Search engine results pages (SERPs), much to the irritation of search marketers who count on them, change constantly. Google is constantly making tiny, hardly-noticeable tweaks to the familiar layout of its signature creation, leading to gradual changes in user behavior and disrupting the expectations of optimizers who were counting on previous information.

Up until now, these changes have been relatively minor, even unnoticeable to most users outside the SEO community. Google removed the underlines marking the hyperlinks that made the list. The length of each entry and the numbers of entries per page have both changed over time. Various listing modifications have allowed sub-pages to be viewed in different ways based on the context of the search. But none of these changes has completely disrupted the status quo of the SERP: earn high authority, rank high, and you’ll get the most visibility.

Now, with the onslaught of new technology from wearable devices to far more sophisticated search algorithms, the SERPs are evolving faster than ever and in far more complicated ways. It’s hard to predict exactly how Google will develop these, since it intentionally cloaks its plans, but here are five changes I predict will take place by 2016:

1. The Knowledge Graph Will Take Over. Already, the Google Knowledge Graph has gained a ton of momentum. If you’re not sure what the Knowledge Graph is, perform a search for a movie or a famous politician. The box on the right you see with a run-down of basic information related to your query is the Knowledge Graph. It exists to answer user queries with commonly sought information, to spare users the trouble of hunting through traditional ranks and SERP entries. Right now, this information is housed in a box off to the side, but over the next two years, you can expect this presence to grow. The Knowledge Graph will collect more information on a more diverse range of subjects, appearing for far more types of user queries, and its prominence will likely grow to overtake the top entries. One day soon, I predict that any general query will be met with a massive Knowledge Graph entry, with external links only listed as a footer—meaning there’s little use trying to rank for queries related to general information or topics.
2. Social Results Will Be More Prominent. Now that Google has practically abandoned Google+, it seems more interested in forming close partnerships with other social media platforms. The search giant has had a deal with Facebook for years, scanning the platform for information and posts from major brands. Recently, it has forged an alliance with Twitter, allowing Google to index tweet information and withdraw it at will. In the next two years, I anticipate Google making more of these deals with more social media platforms, and integrating more social results into its SERPs. It seems likely that news-worthy or socially important queries will be met with a brief listing of popular social posts—and I expect to see these above the fold, replacing traditional top rankings with a separate “social” section.
3. Traditional Listings Will Sharply Decline. Partially in response to the rising importance of the Knowledge Graph and social entries, and partially just a user experience change, you can expect to see the number of listings on each of Google’s pages gradually decline. While you could once count on a reliable 10 entries per page, already you can see as few as 4 entries per page, based on the type of query you enter and the type of listings that appear near the top. New functionality will make this range fluctuate even more, though the majority of queries will have fewer entries on page one. That means higher competition and lower visibility for traditional, rank-based SEO strategies.

Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/04/27/5-ways-google-search-results-will-change-by-2016/

Microsoft demos Windows 10 apps on HoloLens, and it's stunning

Microsoft’s annual Build event, led by CEO Satya Nadella, waited until the end of Wednesday’s keynote to unveil the most stunning part of its presentation: HoloLens.

The company showed off how Windows 10 apps work seamlessly within what Microsoft calls the Windows Holographic platform. And it was impressive.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft shows off new visual features in Windows 10, new Windows Store options

After Nadella handed the reins over to Microsoft vice president of operating systems, Joe Belfiore, to demo Windows 10, Belfiore then introduced Microsoft technical fellow Alex Kipman, who presented a series of HoloLens users on stage.

First, we got to see how the HoloLens handles an apartment layered in the holographic app panels. The customized room included holographic items, such as a virtual dog (name Fang), a robot and a holographic start menu on which he opened up a Skype call. The user then pinned the Skype call panel to a wall.

On another wall, he had a panel that opened up a video screen playing a movie. Then, by using the command “follow me,” the selected panel followed him as he walked to another part of the apartment.

The demo showed how when you travel to another part of your home wearing HoloLens, you can scale the holographic window that followed you to any size (think cinema display). According to the presenter, the feature works for a number of holographic apps within the system.

Next we were treated to a demonstration of how the HoloLens can aid the work of architectural companies like Trimble, a Microsoft partner that used the system to create holographic building models. The demo video also showed how to designers can collaborate remotely while walking through the same holographic building plans.

After that, the HoloLens was part of what might have been the most impressive demo to date: showing how medical students can study the human anatomy holographically, from organs to bones to fully formed person.

The company also showed off how the hologram can be animated to offer more detail on functions of the human body (such as a beating heart, which was stunningly demonstrated on stage).

Positioning the HoloLens in this context as a learning tool, the presenters highlighted how HoloLens can also be used to assist in learning environments around art, engineering and paleontology studies.

Finally, Microsoft illustrated how the HoloLens can be integrated with real world, mobile technologies when it brought out a robot called B15. The tiny, unassuming robot wheeled out to the center of the stage and then, at the command of its HoloLens-wearing human operator, it was suddenly overlaid a holographic robotic head and arm construct, which hovered over the physical robot.

The robot controller then opened up an array of controls around the robot’s body that manipulated its color in real-time. Then the HoloLens-wearing robot operator switched the robot into “pathfinding mode,” air tapped the stage floor in several places and showed how the robot could interpret the holographic points follow them along a specific path. And, if obstacles come up, the HoloLens wearer can then update the path on the fly, adjusting the real robot’s travel path.

In a separate announcement, 3D interactive software company Sketchfab announced an official pairing with Microsoft HoloLens to help spur the development of 3D content on the platform.

We haven’t had a chance to see if the demonstration videos shown off today are as stunning as they appear on the company’s carefully controlled presentation, but Microsoft announced that several hundred HoloLens devices would be available on site for Build attendees to try, so we’ll know soon.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

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BlackBerry planning to shut down Sweden operations

NEW DELHI: BlackBerry is considering closing its offices in Sweden, a move that would result in the loss of up to 100 jobs, a company spokesperson told Reuters.

"At this time, we are considering the closure of our offices in Sweden. Since this may impact approximately 100 employees, we are now initiating consultations with the employees' trade unions," the spokesperson said in an email.

BlackBerry had about 7,000 people as of September 2014, according to the its website.

The company's Toronto-listed stock closed little changed at C$12.62 on Friday.

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E-commerce companies flood internet with ads

BENGALURU: Thejesh GN, a Bangalore-based technologist, does not have a Facebook app on his phone, often browses on incognito mode and has installed a tool that detects and blocks spy ads and trackers.

All this is to escape from the pervasive ads that have now begun to invade his online presence. But Thejesh knows it's of little use.

Given the proliferation of e-commerce companies in India, the barrage of ads are unlikely to stop. "It's an everyday fight. There is no way to get rid of all these ads," said Thejesh, co-founder of data science community Datameet. Thejesh represents a growing population of internet users who are becoming aware of the risks that come with their online habits -- specifically, having each data point of their everyday lives collected by companies and tech startups.

This includes an individual's IP address, browser type, pages viewed, and the date and time of use. On mobile, the data collected could be more elaborate and accurate -- including a user's location, device type and contact list.

Where does all this data go? Some are sold to brands via ad networks, and others are used by companies to streamline the ads shown to specific users.

In India there are no rules or guidelines explicitly regulating online behavioural advertising, and thus it is not clear what practices different companies and internet service providers (ISPs) undertake, what information is collected, how the information is used, how long the information is stored for, and what access law enforcement has to this information, the Center for Internet and Society said in a report titled 'Consumer Privacy'.

Siddharth Shankar, a student of statistics from Patna University, who is also learning ethical hacking, is of the view that few people care about privacy in India. "Their simple reply: What will they do with our data?" said Shankar, who takes steps similar to Thejesh to protect his privacy online. More people seem to be waking up to the fact that privacy is important and that ads are intrusive. Of the 50 million users who block ads using AdBlock Plus, about 1.2 million are from India. AdBlock Plus, a mobile and browser tool, recently won a case against two publishers in Germany who wanted it to stop blocking ads on their websites. Most digital products, including apps and content, are free.

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Net neutrality: Telcos warn of six-fold hike in data tariffs

NEW DELHI: Mobile operators on Friday said that they may have to increase data tariffs by up to six times to remain viable if the proposed regulations did not offer a level-playing field with net-based services such as Skype and WhatsApp.

Although they "supported" net neutrality and launched a campaign to link the unconnected to the internet, they said that high data rates would become unaffordable for a large number of people, denying them access to the Internet.

Click here to send an e-mail to Trai in favour of net neutrality

Pitching for same regulation for all communication services, COAI, the GSM industry group, said operators are required to ensure a level of service quality, share revenue with the government and intercept communication for preventing any terrorist act, but these rules are not applicable on Internet-based messaging and calling applications.

"If same rules are not to apply, then the only way this industry can be viable is data rate will be 6x from where they are there today. After that, you can do what you want. But if you take data rate to 5x or 6x, a lot of people in India will never be able to access the Internet," COAI vice-chairman and Bharti Airtel India MD Gopal Vittal said. Vittal said telecom operators want same set of rules to apply on same kinds of services.

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Global customers warn Indian IT companies

CHENNAI: The world's largest buyers of technology such as Cargill, Target Corp and Lowe's have advice for India's biggest software firms: Adapt new technology and transform fast or become irrelevant.

At an exclusive session with ET, the technology heads of several global companies said Indian IT firms need to overhaul their businesses and strengthen in areas such as digital, analytics and cloud, particularly as many of the clients are building their own capabilities in advanced computing.

"If you see, areas such as digitization are largely not being outsourced right now," said Arindam Sen, senior vice president at Schneider Electric India.

Companies globally are channeling efforts into developing in-house expertise in areas such as analytics and cloud computing to stay ahead of their competition, also because large IT firms haven't been nimble enough to build capabilities in emerging technology more efficiently.

"Over a period of time, over 8-10 years, GICs (global in-house centres of companies) have built leadership maturity, credibility within the organization and high level of business value... it is this that has changed the game," said Nitin Seth, country head at Fidelity Worldwide Investment.

American retailer Target, for example, outsourced projects to large Indian software firms such as TCS and Infosys for nearly a decade. Now, the 113-year-old firm is building more technology capability at its captive centre in India than ever before.

Last year, the Minneapolis-based company launched a corporate accelerator program to tap into India's emerging startup ecosystem for talent and technology solutions that it hopes will help it survive the battle against new-age competitors such as Walmart and Amazon.

"For Indian tech vendors, rather than coming to us and saying this is what we can do, they should come to us and say these are your business problems and we have these solutions for you. Also, Indian IT firms should not view captives as threats, but should view them more as partners," said Narayan Ram, managing director of Lowe's India, the domestic arm of the American home improvement chain.

"The big question is are vendors ready to change and evolve? The answer to that question will determine what happens next," said Navneet Kapoor, managing director of Target India. "I think we are facing the highest levels of disruption in our history. If we don't change and adapt, we won't be around a few years from now."

Traditional Indian software services firms are struggling to make the transition towards newer business models that are very different from the classic 'pyramid model', where revenue growth was directly linked to manpower addition. Whereas over the years, companies' in-house technology centres have evolved to more than just vendor-management centres.

"What we tell our people in Bengaluru is 'don't think like we think' — because that's why we've brought them in, because we're looking to make improvements and changes that you've never thought of before," said Kathy Fortmann, business unit president of US agricultural conglomerate Cargill.

Fred Giron, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said companies want IT firms to function more like consultants and advisers.

"Customers now are looking for trusted advisers to tell them what they need to do — and that requires a completely different mindset from a service provider point of view," said Giron.

"Moving away from this order-taker mentality and moving to a trusted adviser role is what Indian IT firms need to do now."


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Woman sues Google after in-app purchases drain her bank account

One day last August, Susan Harvey tried to download a previously purchased app onto a second mobile phone, only to have Google's dashboard tell her that - yikes! - there were 109 transactions on her account.

Clicking on another tab on Google's site led her to find that, even worse, there were about 650 transactions listed, most of which she says she didn't recognise.

Her bank records told the tale: between April 2013 and May 2014, her account had been drained of thousands of dollars.

According to The Register, the California woman last week filed a lawsuit against Google in the Eastern California District Court, alleging that the search company's inadequate security enabled crooks to run up thousands of dollars in charges on her Google Play account that were then debited electronically without her sign-off.

Harvey also accuses Google of first refusing to reimburse her, then backing down and agreeing to refund the money, but ultimately failing to pay up as promised.

At first, Google claimed that the transactions in question did, in fact, belong to Harvey.

Both her bank - Bank of America - and Google requested police reports, which Harvey's lawsuit says she submitted. Still, neither the bank nor Google reimbursed her.

Harvey took matters into her own hands, getting in touch with the vendors listed in the transactions.

Nearly all of them told her that they didn't recognise the transaction numbers as being part of their own billing. The vendors said that the transactions were, in fact, Google transactions, and that Google itself was receiving the money.

When she relayed her findings to Google, the company acknowledged that Harvey hadn't made the transactions, but it still refused to reimburse her.

After more complaining, Harvey says Google's legal department contacted her and told her the refund was in the works.

But as of the time of the filing, not only hadn't she seen her money, but some of the transactions identified as fraudulent had disappeared from her account.

From the filing:

After plaintiff repeatedly complained and advised Google of her findings, Google's legal department contacted plaintiff and advised her that all transactions would be reimbursed.
To date, all transactions unauthorized by plaintiff have not been reimbursed and notably, some transactions previously identified as fraudulent have been erased from plaintiff's account.

Harvey is claiming that there must have been a flaw in Google Play that allowed thieves to post bogus transactions to her account, that Google acted negligently by allowing her personal information to be breached and her identity to be stolen, and that Google broke breach notification law by not telling her about the problem.

She's also claiming that Google allowed electronic fund transfers - some recurring - to go through without her authorization.

She's requesting a jury trial and monetary damages.

Google declined to comment when contacted by The Register.

Regardless of the lawsuit's outcome, it's a good reminder of why we should all be keeping a close eye on our bank account statements.

Spotting the first unrecognizable transaction can help stop hemorrhaging of funds to swindlers before you lose thousands, whether the criminals are coming in from Google Play or anywhere else.

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IS THE INTERNET REALLY MAKING US SMART?

The Internet has wrought incredible changes to learning, both in what we can learn and the way that we learn it. Not only is the information of the world largely available (free of charge) at our fingertips, but we also increasingly have access to new ideas and bright minds from around the world.

Is all of this actually making us smarter though? There has been a great deal of discussion over the years on the impact of the Internet on our brains, with respected voices ranging from Nick Carr to Susan Greenfield suggesting that the web is actually making us dumber.

Whilst this may seem hard to understand given the tremendous opportunities the web affords us, a recent Yale-led study suggests they may have a point.

The study, which consisted of nine separate experiments, found that when we obtain knowledge online, we perceive our knowledge as much greater than we do when the knowledge is obtained through other channels.

“This was a very robust effect, replicated time and time again,” the researchers say. “People who search for information tend to conflate accessible knowledge with their own personal knowledge.”

For example, two groups were tasked with finding out how zippers work. One group looked online, whilst another were given more tangible resources to search in.

When the participants from the two groups were asked afterwards how good their knowledge was of unrelated domains, those from the online group believed their knowledge was far superior to that of the offline group.

Intriguingly, when the same participants were quizzed prior to the experiment, no such differences were present.

What’s more, this effect was so pronounced that people even had an inflated sense of their knowledge having answered the question incorrectly.

“The cognitive effects of ‘being in search mode’ on the Internet may be so powerful that people still feel smarter even when their online searches reveal nothing,” the authors reveal.

They go on to suggest that this sensation of the web being almost an appendage of our brain is particularly pronounced among younger people, where there could be a considerable distortion to our perceived knowledge levels caused by the degree with which we’re plugged into the net.

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One in six Android apps is a malware, says study

BENGALURU: One in every six Android applications is a malware, according to a study by technology security company Symantec. The study also found that 36% of all Android applications are Graywares, which are not malicious by design but do annoying and inadvertently harmful things like tracking user behaviour.

In what could be seen as a warning to the large number of startups emerging in India, the study said cyberattackers are focusing more on small- and mid-sized business firms now since these are the ones that are increasingly creating intellectual property. It said 60% of all targeted attacks struck such organizations in 2014.

"The attackers know that a large portion of intellectual properties are generated from smaller companies. With hundreds of startups coming up every day in India, the number of attacks are likely to rise as companies give more importance to bringing a product to market quickly than on security," Tarun Kaura, director of Symantec's technology sales for India & Saarc, told TOI.

Symantec said the research was conducted on 6.3 million Android applications. "We found that roughly 17% of all the apps come right under the classification of malware. Also, 2.3 million apps that are available today track the users' behaviour," said Kaura. The study also found that nearly one million malwares are created every day across the globe. "Around 317 million malwares were created in 2014. This was a 26% rise from 2013," Kaura said.

Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kochi are the cities that came most under cyberattacks last year. Among the various business sectors in India, those dealing with critical infrastructure like banking, telecom, transport and energy were subjected to the most attacks. India is among the top 10 infected countries in the world.

India is also ranked second after the US under social media scams, the report said. One of the major social media scams was a click-bait video link inviting Facebook users to watch the farewell message of late Hollywood actor Robin Williams which he allegedly shot before committing suicide on August 11 last year. Williams had never recorded a farewell message, and the link led to a malware. The post was automatically shared too by the ones who clicked on the link, thus reaching to more vulnerable users.

Symantec said the study is based on empirical data collected by its global intelligence network. It said the study tracked 8.4 billion emails every month and 1.8 billion websites every day in 157 countries using 57.6 million attack sensors.

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Google launches its own mobile telephone service

NEW YORK: Google said on Wednesday that it was launching its own US mobile wireless service, with considerable potential savings for customers using their devices at home and for international travel.
The service called Project Fi is only available by invitation for now, and only for the Google Nexus 6 smartphone.
The service will use Wi-Fi hotspots along with the US mobile networks of Sprint and T-Mobile, and also may be used in 120 ..

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Buying a Wi-Fi Router? Here Are the Features and Specifications That Matter

Read at NDTV Gadgets

If you're using Wi-Fi in your house, the odds are good that you just went with the free router that the ISP provides. It's convenient since you don't need to set up anything, and it saves both time and money.

And then the problems start - the network is slow, or doesn't reach most parts of your house - and there's not much you can do about it. Most people avoid buying a router themselves because of the complication of the specifications and the effort it takes to understand them.

You can try looking for alternatives yourself, but the router page on the company website or an e-commerce website doesn't provide you the details in a simple language that would help you make the decision. So you end up taking the path of least resistance and keep using the ISP's router.

That may work for some, but for most people it is advisable to invest in a better router, so you can get your home network working according to your needs. This way, you can make sure that the router is fast enough for your usage, and has enough range to cover your house.

Router with or without Internet

The most common use of a Wi-Fi router is to share an Internet connection between various devices, but that's not its only use. You can even use the router even without an active Internet connection to connect your devices like smartphones, tablets, TVs, computers to each other for streaming videos, file transfers and more. In such a case, you'll obviously have no ISP and will need to invest in a router of your own.

Most users, however, need a router to use the Internet connection on multiple devices. Now your Internet connection can either be cable or ADSL. If it's the former - you should check with your ISP to identify what kind it is if unsure - you typically wouldn't need anything other than the router. However, if you have a DSL connection - the kind supplied by the likes of BSNL, MTNL, and Airtel, which usually comes with a landline - you'll also need a ADSL modem. In such a case, it makes sense to buy a router with a built-in ADSL modem, which will take lesser space on your table and there will be fewer wires to manage.

However, these routers are a little bit more expensive - a standalone ADSL modem costs less than Rs. 1,000 so keep this in mind when comparing a router with built-in ADSL modem against a modem + router combo.

There are a lot of different numbers and specifications floating around, but these are the ones you want to keep in mind buying a router:

Router's Wi-Fi Standard (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac)

The first thing you'll want to check is the Wi-Fi standard that the router supports. Older ones would be 802.11 'b' or 'g' - but almost all new routers also support 'n'. This standard - 802.11n - allows you to transfer data at 600Mbps (mega bits per second) theoretically, though some 802.11n routers come with top speeds of only 300Mbps (which translates to downloads of 37.5MBps or mega bytes per second).

The latest Wi-Fi standard is 802.11ac. It allows a transfer speed of 1.3Gbps. Of course, in practical scenarios the speed is reduced a lot. This means that 802.11ac allows you to connect more devices with high data transfer speed, thanks to better multi-antenna and MIMO (Multi Input Multi Output) support. MIMO allows multiple streams for a single connection for faster connections, particularly if you are doing multimedia activities.

Only a handful of phones and laptops support 802.11ac and the technology is more expensive at the moment than 802.11n routers. So which one should you go for? For now, the choice is simple - the 'n' standard is more than fast enough for your Internet connection in India, and it's more likely to be supported by all your devices. As a bonus, you save money too.

Router's wireless frequency (2.4GHz or 5GHz) Frequency of a router will decide how powerful your network would be for multiple devices. The two main standards are 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The key difference between these two is of interference and range.

Advantage of 5GHz frequency is that there will be less disturbance for each device, so they can attain maximum gain from the bandwidth," explains network engineer Hirak Patel. "And the interference from the other Wi-Fi networks is also very less." This means that if you are connecting lots of devices, or if there are overlapping networks in the same area (like a multi-story apartment building) then a 5GHz network is the better choice. The 5GHz routers are more expensive than the 2.4GHz routers, so you should go with the 2.4GHz ones, unless interference is a real issue with your network.

Speed of the router

Even if the router is following a certain standard, the actual speed depends on the hardware used in the specific model. The maximum speed in the router is usually specified in the spec sheet. You would have the speed written under "High Speed Upto". The slower router is often cheaper - and if the only use is going to be connecting devices to the Internet, then you should buy the cheapest one, considering that even 300Mbps is several times higher than the typical 4Mbps or 8Mbps connections in India.

If you're using it to stream movies inside your house from your computer to the home theatre, you might want to spend a little extra for more speed. If you want to stream full-HD (1080p) movies to your laptop or tablet a 300Mbps router would be more than enough. But to stream the content to multiple devices simultaneously, or to stream 4K content, 600Mbps routers are for you.

Router's antenna range

There is no straightforward method to measure the range of the WiFi router, since it depends on a wide variety of factors.

"You always need to consider the environment you're in. Also, your home or office's architecture plays a major part in the range of a particular router", explains US-based network consultant Pranav Rajpara. You can instead look at the dBi ratings of the antenna of the router, which will be included in the specifications.

In a small to medium sized apartment, 2-4dBi is sufficient, according to Rajpara. If you have many obstacles (walls, other household electronics like a fridge or microwave) between where you will be sitting and your router's position, you will need a router with higher dBi ratings.

Walls play a large part in blocking the WiFi signals. Concrete walls and even thin wooden doors create a hindrance for the signals. A study says that the signal strength gets very weak after 3 to 4 walls. So if the router you got from the ISP isn't up to the mark, you must look at this dBi specification, and go with a higher number.

Router ports, security, and additional features

If you have a small office and desktop computers in place, check for the number of LAN ports available to connect. This can often be more convenient. Newer routers also provide additional USB ports. That would help you connect the printers for network printing or a hard drive for file-sharing. Once again, the router you buy has to match your needs - if you're connecting just your phone and laptop to the Internet, then you should choose a router without extra ports instead. Some routers come with extra features, like Apple's Airport Express which has AirPlay support. It comes with a 3.5mm port where you can connect any speakers and wirelessly stream music from your PC, Mac, or mobile.

For security, check if it supports 128 bit encryption, and WPA2 standard compatibility. These are pretty standard now so you don't have to worry much about this.

Conclusions

While the free router you get from your ISP is a good way to get connected quickly, if you're facing any problems then you should consider investing in a router yourself. Following the advice above, you know what to look for if you want to expand the range of your network or have a new Internet connection; if you need more range or more speed; if you're planning on sharing files and streaming video between your devices or if you're just planning on connecting your laptop and mobile phone to the Internet.

A basic user can get decent a 150Mbps or 300Mbps routers from Rs.800 onwards - stick to well-known brands like Netgear, Asus, D-Link, Cisco Linksys, not for any other reason but because there will be a lot of documentation on the Internet if you're ever having trouble and need help figuring things out.

If you're in a large space and getting the connectivity to the router is difficult, look for one with a higher dBi rating. Is network interference an issue because of all your neighbours' routers? Look for a 5GHz router for your own connection instead. Unless you're an advanced user with very specific needs for very high speed data transfers, you shouldn't have to spend more than Rs. 2,000 on a router, and it could make a pretty big difference.

Messenger at F8

Posted by Technoplanet Enterprise on Sunday, March 29, 2015

Microsoft launches on-demand Azure backup and recovery

Read more at: Techgig.com

Microsoft has announced new preview features for Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery to provide more flexible backup and recovery options for enterprise private and public clouds.

The new features come as part of Microsoft's Availability on Demand service for enterprises with a hybrid cloud strategy, and are aimed at helping those customers move and manage data and applications across on-premise and cloud environments.

The features are targeted at Microsoft's IT pro customers, and follow the company's mobile developer focused announcement this week of Azure App Service.

The Azure Backup feature update will let enterprise run online backups of Windows and Linux VMs deployed in an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) setup and restore them as needed.

It's designed to support enterprises with on-premise deployments to move capabilities to Azure, such as disaster recovery, analytics, backup, cloud bursting, migration, and development and testing.

To cater for for scenarios where an enterprise network is congested, customers can ship initial backups to the nearest Azure datacentre using the Azure Import/Export service.

The new Azure Site Recovery features, also currently in preview, lend Azure to use as a substitute disaster recovery site, which customers can use to protect VMware virtual machines and physical servers.

Microsoft says the service will offer "near-zero recovery point objective", meaning that data is mirrored to the offsite location constantly. Customers can also choose to configure Site Recovery so as to minimise lost data and switch back to the on-premise VMs when their datacentre recovers. Customers can also use the feature to test new versions of their application and treat is part of their cloud migration strategy.

Microsoft's Azure API Management Premium also hit general availability, allowing customers to host an API Management instance in multiple Azure datacentres and have them automatically synchronised in different regions.

Finally, the company delivered a few updates to Azure Active Director including automatic password rollover to help protect company owned social media accounts, as well as multifactor authentication that can be set up for more sensitive applications.

The Highest-Paid Big Data Skills

read more at: Techgig.com

Yes, “Big Data” has become one of those buzzwords, along with “cloud,” that’s way overused these days. But it’s clear that employers want tech pros who can analyze massive datasets and deliver actionable intelligence: According to the most recent Dice Report, firms in several states consider data-analytics skills a critical resource, one that they’re more than happy to shell out big bucks to obtain.

Dice found that a full 24 percent of survey respondents in Seattle had Big Data skills—an unsurprising twist, considering the number of data-hungry firms (such as Amazon and Microsoft) that call the surrounding region home. Close behind it was Portland, with 22 percent, followed by Silicon Valley with 20 percent, Baltimore/Washington, D.C. (and its heavy contingent of federal agencies) with 19 percent, and Atlanta with 17 percent.

Check out the latest analytics jobs.

Whether startups and tech giants on the West Coast or federal contractors in Washington, D.C., there’s clearly a demand for analytics abilities. But which of those abilities pay the best? Here’s Dice’s list of the top seven, by average annual salary:

Cassandra: $128,646
MapReduce: $127,315
Cloudera: $126,816
HBase: $126,369
Pig: $124,563
Flume: $123,186
Hadoop: $121,313

That doesn’t include perks or other incentives, of course. “Big Data” might be a buzzword… but it’s one that can prove lucrative for those with the aptitude for crunching it.

Post by Technoplanet Enterprise.

10 Free Online Courses That Can Benefit Every Entrepreneur

Read more at: Techgig.com

Every entrepreneur can benefit from continued education. Whether you are just starting out and handling multiple roles within your company or an experienced business owner -- enrolling in an online course is always a good way to improve your knowledge and has never been easier or more affordable.
Long gone are the days of taking evening classes at local colleges and paying tuition. You can now take excellent courses in the comfort of your own home for free.
Here are ten free online courses that every entrepreneur can benefit from.

1. 21 Critical Lessons for Entrepreneurs

This two-hour video course by Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar takes his real-world experience and breaks it into several video lessons that discuss all the important steps of running a successful business, from vetting an idea and raising money from investors to scaling and growth strategies.
There are a lot of coaching and training programs online that are put together by individuals that don’t have real business experience. They make their money by teaching and not by doing. Nazar’s insight is truly valuable because he has been there. He has used the information he is sharing to grow Docstoc into a successful business.

2. New Venture Finance: Startup Funding for Entrepreneurs

Some entrepreneurs prefer not to seek outside funding, opting to bootstrap -- but the majority of startups would welcome funding with open arms if they knew how to secure it. This is what this online course from the University of Maryland covers, as professor Michael R. Pratt explains what you need to do in the early stages of your business to prepare for funding, where to source funding, how to pitch investors and venture capitalists, as well as how to close funding.
There is a lot more to the process than putting together a business plan and a pitch deck and firing it off to any investors or VC that you can find. Part of being successful is being prepared -- and this course helps entrepreneurs be prepared before going after funding.

3. Introduction to Web Development: HTML

Every business has an online presence these days, meaning every business has a website. Some tech startup founders are very computer savvy and can write code in their sleep. Other business owners, such as a restaurateurs or retailers, might not have the same knowledge and experience. So what do entrepreneurs do that don’t have a coding or programming expert on their team? They pay ridiculously high rates to companies to make simple website changes.
A lot of the small changes and tasks can be completed in-house with just a little HTML knowledge -- exactly what this course delivers. You aren’t going to become a world-class developer after taking this, but you will have a thorough understanding of how to create HTML web pages and make changes and edits to existing pages.

4. Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution

This course from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University is a five-week lesson that shows you how to correctly build an operation that is both stable and scalable. There isn’t a single entrepreneur that starts a business hoping to stay small.
The two professors, Gad Allon and Jan Van Mieghem, cover everything from the correct framework, marketing, outsourcing and strategy required to scale efficiently and successfully.

5. How to Make Money Online: The Passive Income Business Plan

My company brokers the sale of online businesses, so I understand firsthand how lucrative online-based businesses can be. This course lays out a simple, yet effective, way to make money online. The goal of the 12-hour video course is to explain how to execute a plan to make $5,000 in monthly passive income by creating 10 websites that each produce $500 in monthly revenue.
While this is a basic introduction to online business, it does provide helpful information for entrepreneurs that have contemplated starting an online business but weren’t sure how to start. It’s a good first step for those interested in making money online -- as are these online business models.

6. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills

Being able to negotiate is a skill that every entrepreneur should master. Business contracts, vendor contracts, lease agreements and employee contracts all require negotiation. George Siedel and the University of Michigan have put together a video course that consists of more than eight hours of practical education that breaks down the negotiation process into four parts.
This is also a great course to have your sales team complete -- there isn’t a single sales professional that cannot benefit from additional negotiation education. The fundamentals taught in this course can be applied to virtually any sales scenario.

7. Foundations of Business Strategy

Think you would gain a competitive advantage if you understood how to position your company to maximize your value creation? Professor Michael Lenox, from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, has created a seven-hour video course designed to help entrepreneurs understand competitive markets, analyze structure and capabilities, as well as how to determine competitive positioning.

8. Fundamentals of Project Planning and Management

Look back at the last project you completed -- did it go as smoothly as you would have liked? You could have the best plan but if it isn’t executed properly you could potentially miss a deadline or fail entirely. Not only does this course put together by the University of Virginia explain how to properly plan a project, but it also explains what to do when things don’t go as planned.
Understanding how to react when things go wrong is equally as important as understanding how to execute a project that is going to plan. Have your project manager or department heads take this course with you and really increase your company’s effectiveness.

9. Entrepreneurship -- From Idea to Launch

If you are just starting a business or are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, this course is for you. With nearly 40,000 individuals already completing this course, Dr. Jeff Cornwall explains practical steps to take an idea and turn it into a successful business.
Currently a professor of entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Cornwall walks the talk. He took a nine-year break from the education world to co-found Atlantic Behavioral Health Systems. This course is a great introduction to the world of entrepreneurship that is taught by someone who has actually launched a company.

10. Marketing in a Digital World

Every single business needs to have a digital footprint these days -- there are no exceptions. While you can always just hire a digital marketing firm to handle everything it is a good idea to have a full understanding of what a digital marketing campaign consists of.
Along with discussing digital promotion, this course also dives into the creation of digital products. Many businesses -- the publishing industry for example -- are converting to digital products. This is a four-week course by Aric Rindfleisch of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that is a must for new entrepreneurs as well as seasoned business owners that haven’t quite grasped digital promotion.

Buying a business can be a shortcut to success online. Why start something from scratch when someone else has done all of the hard work for you?
This short guide by my company walks through the whole process of buying an online business from initial identification all the way through to successfully closing a sale. You can get free access to it here.
Have you taken any free online courses that you found to be highly valuable and might be of interest to other entrepreneurs? Share your favorites in the comments section below.