Technology
Welcome to the Technology section, as usual we have all the customary content, starting with News in Brief put together by Stobbo, which aims to keep you updated with the happenings in the tech world. Moving on, we have the Web Watch, a list of a few websites which the Technology Team have compiled as we feel they are either: interesting, helpful or just worth knowing. Finally, we have an analytical article, which looks at The Reasons Behind Google Chrome, written by R Anderson.
Enjoy reading through the articles below, we certainly enjoyed preparing them!
News in Brief - By: Stobbo
Microsoft gives first glimpse of Windows 7
Microsoft provided the world with a first glimpse of the upcoming operating system, Windows 7, at the Professional Developer Conference. It will focus on improving the user experience rather than modifying the underlying system which Windows Vista focused on. Microsoft have released screenshots of the new operating system, which can be found on their website. Although details are sketchy at the moment, it is expected it will ship late 2009/early 2010.
Legal action over negative feedback
A UK eBay seller is planning to sue over negative feedback which he received. The feedback claimed the product was the incorrect model and not in the condition described. The seller has said that this has damaged his business to an extent where he might 'go under'.
Dell prepares Mini Vostro
PC manufacturer, Dell, is preparing for the release of its Vostro A90 netbook. It is actually just a Dell Inspiron Mini 9, with a different name and colour. The mini notebook, along with the rest of the Vostro range, is aimed at business users.
'Online human rights' signed by tech giants
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all signed the Global Network Initiative which promises to offer better freedom of speech and protection against official intrusion.
eBay bans the sale of ivory
Online auction site eBay is to ban ivory goods from 2009. eBay have said that this move is the best way to help the elephants which are hunted for their ivory tusks. Animals rights groups have welcomed this move as a step in the right direction.
Yahoo! to axe 1500 jobs
The online search engine, Yahoo!, is to axe 1500 jobs resulting in a 10% reduction in their workforce. This comes as profits for the company took a 64% fall.
Windows Vista SP2 in beta
Service Pack 2 of Windows Vista has entered beta testing. The upgrade includes Windows Search 4.0 which is said to improve the speed and relevancy of searching. Also seen is improved support with emerging Bluetooth technology.
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Web Watch - By: Stobbo
Twingine
http://www.twingine.com/
Twingine is a search engine with a twist. It does not do the searching itself, instead it queries the two popular search engines, Google and Yahoo. The search results are presented in two frames, one showing the Google search results, the other Yahoo. It can be quite amazing to see how varied the results can be.
The Student Room
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/
The Student Room (TSR) is a brilliant resource for anyone who is a student in the UK or is considering coming to the UK to study. The site has several sections including an active community forum, university guide and articles on student life. Also, TSR is currently working on overhauling and making improvements to their revision notes.
Google Notebook
http://www.google.com/notebook/
Google Notebook is one of them many great services which Google has produced, it acts as a place to store any notes online, loading very quickly and once loaded is extremely simple to use. Notes can be organised into different section, allowing you to keep your notebook organized.
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The Reasons Behind Google Chrome - By: R Anderson
One of the major events in the last couple of months has been the release of a web browser made by Google. Most likely every one has heard about the Google browser, named Chrome. It has gotten a lot of press for the speed upgrades, the minimalist UI, and how it separates your tabs so something loading slowly in one doesn’t affect the others. However, the one question that I don’t think has been asked enough is, why? They’re not in it to try and take over the browser market, otherwise they shouldn’t have renewed their deal with Mozilla which supplies 85% of the revenue Mozilla makes from Firefox, neither can they really hope to be making money because they’ve spent 2 years developing it and following it’s release they have about a 1% market share with no apparent sources of income within the browser. Perhaps it’s because Google wants to challenge another Microsoft product by competing with Internet Explorer? The crowds that are going to switch from IE have been pretty well taken by Firefox. The people who have switched to Chrome permanently haven’t come from IE, they have come from Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
Now I look at all these items and the only reason I think Google had for producing Chrome is simply because they could. That seems like a very bad reason to spend two years developing a piece of software, but there may have been a couple other factors. One being that Chrome is open source meaning that anyone can take the code in it and add it to their own project, the single greatest upgrade in Chrome over other browsers is the speed increases in Javascript, the computer language that Google uses a lot in all of their online products. Everything from the search engine to Gmail to Google Maps. So if somebody is using Chrome that means they are probably going to enjoy Google’s products more because they will be faster. But if only 1% of the computer world is using Chrome how much of a benefit to Google is that? This is the reason that Chrome is open source, the source of the Javascript speed increases can be taken by other browsers and used in them. So if that happens there are several browsers that have gotten speed increases on Google products, and your pushing other companies to increase the speed of Javascript in their browsers. Even in the relatively short time that Chrome has been available, the developers for Firefox have been hard at work are almost ready to release a new version of Firefox which will outperform Chrome in terms of the speed of Javascript. So it’s my opinion that Google didn’t release Chrome to try and dominate the browser market, but to attempt to improve the speed and effectiveness of websites by modeling it themselves.
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