Super Mario 3DS

The Nintendo 3DS has been on the market for quite some time receiving positive reception pretty much across the board. Quite obviously, the biggest selling point of the console is the fact that it features a glasses-free 3D display and a 3D camera. However, while this is certainly enough to lure people in, it’s going to be up to the game library to keep those people around.
As of now, the Nintendo 3DS definitely has some great games but hard hitting franchise like Zelda, Mario, Kirby and more have yet to make the jump. While we’ve known for quite some time that an Ocarina of Time remake would be making its way to the 3DS at some point in the near future, we haven’t heard of an official release date for a Mario 3DS title.

Luckily, Shigeru Miyamoto himself recently commented to Gamesblog.fr regarding the release date of Super Mario 3DS saying the following:

“I promise to do all I can to deliver the new Mario game this year.”

So, while that does not officially confirm that the game will be out this year, it’s nice to at least know the folks over at Nintendo are doing everything they can to get it out of the door.

Windows Azure

The Windows® Azure™ Platform is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure Platform provides a range of functionality to build applications that span from consumer web to enterprise scenarios and includes a cloud operating system and a set of developer services. Fully interoperable through the support of industry standards and web protocols such as REST and SOAP, you can use the Azure services individually or together, either to build new applications or to extend existing ones.

The Windows® Azure™ Platform is designed to help developers quickly and easily create, deploy, manage, and distribute web services and applications on the Internet. Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft data centers.

Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future.

 Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Windows Azure Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

[ Source Microsoft/Windows-Azure]

Google Bots

You can do lot of interesting stuff with Google Talk like get alert notifications, save bookmarks to delicious, manage web calendars, set reminders, write blogs, and so much more.

Such features can be easily integrated into Google Talk through ‘bots’ which, in simple English, are like virtual friends who are online 24×7 and will always respond with a smile to your questions or requests.

Here are the eleven most useful ‘bots’ that transform Google Talk into a more useful program:

1. imfeeds@gmail.com - Add this Im Feeds bot as your Google Talk buddy and you’ll be able to read any blog or website that syndicates content via RSS feeds. To subscribe to a website in GTalk, simply send a new IM message that says "sub labnol.org" where labnol.org is the site address that you want to read inside Google Talk.

2. friendfeed@bot.im - This secret bot lets you post to FriendFeed Google Talk. You may submit either hyperlinks or text messages.

3. imified@imified.com - This Imified Bot turns Google Talk into a real powerhouse. You can post bookmarks to delicious, send messages to Twitter, submit blog entries to WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger, manage events in Google Calendar, shorten long URLs, run Whois and so on.

4. inezhabot@gmail.com - Like IM Feeds,iNezha bot helps you read feeds inside Google Talk but this is slightly more versatile. For instance, you can simply say "digg" and it will show a list of all feeds that match that search term so you don’t have to type (or copy-paste) feed addresses.

5. Translation - This is a free service from Google that helps you translate words from a foreign language into your native language. Just add the relevant bot (e.g. hi2en@bot.talk.google.com for Hindi to English or en2hi@bot.talk.google.com for English to Hindi) as your buddy, send him a message and it will get translated instantly.

6. Use Google Talk with Twitter - Invite twitter@twitter.com to become your friend in Google Talk and verify your account. Now whenever you IM this new friend, the message will automatically publish on your twitter account.

7. Set Task Reminders - If you need to remember something important, Google Talk can send you reminders for that event. Just add timer to your Twitter friend’s list and then add twitter@twitter.com to your buddy list in Gtalk. Now if you want to get a reminder after 50 minutes, send a direct message to twitter like "d timer 50 pick kids from school" and a reminder will automatically pop up in your Google Talk after 50 minutes.

8. Transliteration - If you want to chat in your mother tongue (like Hindi or Tamil) but feel more comfortable using the English keyboard, Google Transliteration bot will come in handy. For instance, add en2hi.translit@bot.talk.google.com to you friend’s list in GTalk and all messages you type in English will get transliterated in the language of your choice. Available only for a few Indian languages.

9. Xpenser - With xpenser, you can record travel expenses email, SMS or even Google talk. Add xpenserbot@gmail.com as your buddy and send a message like "lunch 33.2 with Bill Gates" and that will be added as an expense to your online spreadsheet that can be accessed from anywhere.

10. Ping.fm - Like Imified, ping.fm is one of the most useful Google bots out there especially if you are a social networking or micro-blogging addict. Add pingdotfm@gmail.com to Gtalk and you can communicate with twitter, jaiku, wordpress, identi.ca, facebook, myspace, bebo, friendfeed, linkedin, tumblr, plaxo, friendster, delicious and more.

11. Meshly - Add meshly@gmail.com as your friend and you’ll be able to post web link to your Meshly account via Google Talk. You can also add tags, categories and description to your hyperlink via Gtalk itself.

Need for speed Undercover

To no one's surprise, EA is set to release the next installment in the Need for Speed franchise later this year in the form of Need for Speed: Undercover. In an interview Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that the title is in development from one of EA Vancouver's two NFS teams. He also hinted that its inspiration comes from movies like The Transporter, though we'll have to wait and see what he means by that.


The single previous Need for Speed team was split into two last year to allow each of the two teams more time to create yearly updates for the franchise. Rather than giving one team only 12 months to create the next installment, each team would now have a full two years, with the teams trading release years, obviously. Being that the team was only split last year, the Undercover team will only have a little over 16 months to create the title, but the extra breathing room must certainly welcome in any case.

In the interview, Riccitiello also discussed his disappointment with last year's Need for Speed ProStreet, and said that the reason for splitting the team into to two was to help insure that future titles would actually be a worthy experience.

No consoles were specified for Undercover, but given the franchise's history, we'd expect to see it hit every major system.

Recycling your Pc

People shift to new Laptops and desktops very often. Now, what do you do with that older Pc of yours? The good thing is to recycle it, right? we would consider this option since we do it for plastic bottles and aluminum cans. So why not recycle the plastics and metals in old computers.

IN today's world many computers and electronics are shipped to developing countries, including Indonesia China and India for recycling purposes. Lower wages, higher demand for used products and lower environmental protections mean that turning around old computers and their materials for sale increases their profit. (In the United States and Europe, it's usually a net cost.)

But, the recycling industry is a double-edged sword for the developing world. On one hand it provides jobs and increases availability to affordable used computers. On the other hand, it's typically done by backyard industries that use primitive processes with no environmental controls. Workers come into direct contact with potentially dangerous materials such as dioxins and lead. Precious metals are leached from circuit boards using acids and cyanide, which in addition to being dangerous chemicals themselves, mobilize lead and other toxins contained within.

Some argue that we should remove these toxic materials from electronics altogether in order to protect workers abroad. This would help, but some toxins, which don't exist in the product, are actually generated during the recycling processes. For example, in order to retrieve copper encased in insulated wire, workers heap the wire into a huge pile and burn it to remove the plastic casing. This emits many toxins, including dioxins that are carcinogenic.

So there are problems with recycling in the developing world. What about in the United States? There's a lot of activity to make recycling laws for electronics out of the fear is that people will chose the alternative option -- dumping the items in the trash -- and the toxic materials inside, such as lead and mercury, will leach out of landfills and contaminate groundwater.

So what's the alternative? In short, extend the lifespan of your computer. If you use a computer longer or can find another home for it when you don't need it anymore, you'll replace production of a new computer. (Did you know that it requires about 600 pounds of fossil fuel -- about 12 times the weight of the computer -- to manufacture a desktop computer with a CRT monitor?) There are donation agencies that accept old computers and fix them up to give to schools and other people who don't have one. The environmental benefit of this is far better than recycling in most cases.

In the end, I hope that people will think more about how to reuse their old computer and other electronics and that policy makers will take action to address informal recycling in developing countries.

Mozilla 3 is here....(Download)

Mozilla Firefox 3 is available now for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems as a free download from http://www.getfirefox.com.

Mozilla has been developing Firefox 3 for nearly three years and has been publicly testing it since November for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. And finally here it is, Mozilla Firefox 3 has been released and has created a world record.

Available today in approximately 50 languages, Firefox 3 is two to three times faster than its predecessor and offers more than 15,000 improvements, including the revolutionary smart location bar, malware protection, and extensive under the hood work to improve the speed and performance of the browser.

What’s New in Firefox 3:

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox 3 sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

User Experience. The enhancements to Firefox 3 provide the best possible browsing experience on the Web. The new Firefox 3 smart location bar, affectionately known as the “Awesome Bar,” learns as people use it, adapting to user preferences and offering better fitting matches over time. The Firefox 3 Library archives browsing history, bookmarks, and tags, where they can be easily searched and organized. One-click bookmarking and tagging make it easy to remember, search and organize Web sites. The new full-page zoom displays any part of a Web page, up close and readable, in seconds.

Performance. Firefox 3 is built on top of the powerful new Gecko 1.9 platform, resulting in a safer, easier to use and more personal product. Firefox 3 now uses less memory while it’s running, and its redesigned page rendering and layout engine means users see Web pages two to three times faster than Firefox 2.

Security. Firefox 3 raises the bar for security. The new malware and phishing protection helps protect from viruses, worms, trojans and spyware to keep people safe on the Web. Firefox 3’s one-click site ID information allows users to verify that a site is what it claims to be. Mozilla’s open source process leverages the experience of thousands of security experts around the globe.

Customization. Everyone uses the Web differently, and Firefox 3 lets users customize their browser with more than 5,000 add-ons. Firefox Add-ons allow users to manage tasks like participating in online auctions, uploading digital photos, seeing the weather forecasts, and listening to music, all from the convenience of the browser. The new Add-ons Manager helps users to find and install add-ons directly from the browser.

Find out about Mozilla's attempt to set a new Guinness World Record! Firefox World Record

New Windows..

Bill Gates reveals information about Windows 7...

Bill Gates revealed some exciting new information about the upcoming next Microsoft operating system codenamed Windows 7. He spoke at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Tokyo and had the following to say about Windows 7.




"We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth."




Previous assumptions that Microsoft would indeed avoid a Vista 2 and make Windows 7 faster and resource friendly seem to come true. Connectivity seems to be another keyword that is taken seriously in Windows 7.

A new PRINCE on his way...

Hi , a new POP is on its way, and although the Prince has changed by leaps and bounds, it still retains a quality to make you take notice. Read on.

Ubisoft revealed in its quarterly financial statement that a new Prince of Persia game was coming in its fiscal year 2008-2009. That would land a new Prince title sometime between April of this year and March of '09.

The financials do not state what platforms will be home to the new Prince of Persia. The team that created the critically acclaimed Prince of Persia: Sands of Time worked on Assassin's Creed. It's

Ubisoft declined to expand on the sleight-of-hand Prince of Persia announcement.
unknown which of Ubisoft's development studios is working on the new Prince title.