Now Microsoft Office for Apple iPad, may launch by Nov 10.

The much awaited Microsoft Office productivity suite for Apple iPad will launch on November 10 this year, according to a report of The Daily.

So far, Apple iPad users have been using the Apple’s iLife set of apps which are equivalent solution for the Microsoft Office suite. However, folks who require using MS Office day in and out, heavily demanded the MS Office apps for the iPad tablet.

The Office apps for the iPad tablet are being tested internally and expected to release in early November. Apparently, the app will feature Metro UI despite of being on iPad tablet to keep the visual connect between the app and the Windows 8.

Image courtesy: The Daily.

Alongside the MS Office for iPad, the company is also expected to release MS Office for Android. Currently the iPad users have to use the alternative apps that cost about $10 each.

More Detailed on it :

The date was reported on Thursday by The Daily, which said that the development team at Microsoft finished work on the project last month. The design team responsible for Office on iPad was also said to have wrapped their work soon after.

“The app is now in the hands of a usability team that appraises software that utilizes the Metro design language for ‘Metro compliance’ and suggests changes as needed,” reporter Matt Hickey wrote. “When approved by the team, the app likely will go to Apple for app store approval, which could take a couple of weeks.”

While development of the application is apparently near finished, Thursday’s report did not give any indication as to why Microsoft will wait more than five months to release the application on Nov. 10. The story corroborates with a report from last week that claimed Microsoft’s industry leading productivity suite will be coming to the iPad and Android-based tablets in November.

Word first surfaced late last year that Microsoft was working on an iOS version of its Office suite. It was also said that the Redmond, Wash., software company planned to release an updated version of Office for Mac on Apple’s digital distribution Mac App Store.

The Daily first shared what was said to be a picture of Office for iPad in action in February. However, Microsoft quickly responded to the report and portrayed it as “based on inaccurate rumors and speculation.”

Microsoft is also working on a new native iOS application for Outlook Web App, called “OWA Mobile Client for iOS,” that will offer compatibility with Exchange 2012 mailboxes. It, along with a new version of the Lync application for iOS, will reportedly feature Microsoft’s Metro interface, just like Office for iPad is expected to do.

Earlier reports claimed that Office for iPad will allow users to create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. We were told last week that Office for iPad will not include dedicated Outlook functionality, as that ability will apparently be restricted to the forthcoming OWA Mobile Client application.

-(via CNNIBN, AppleInsider)

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate now available to download

Windows Server 2012

Ahead of the highly anticipated release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Release Preview today, the company has posted the server edition of its next-generation operating system. Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8, an upgrade from the previous Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft’s Release Candidate of Windows Server 2012 includes a redesigned Server Manager and uses the Metro user interface as a Start Menu replacement. We haven’t tested the latest Release Candidate of Windows Server 2012, but it will reportedly remove options to boot directly to the desktop instead of the new Metro interface.

Windows Server 2012 will also include Microsoft’s new Resilient File System (ReFS) to handle large volumes, resiliency to corruption, and shared storage pools across machines. ReFS will only be available inside Windows Server 2012 initially, but Microsoft has plans to test it within the server edition and make it available to Windows 8 client users at a later date. Microsoft has also previously promised that the majority of applications that currently run on Windows Server 2008 and R2 “should work” on Windows Server 2012.

-(via Verge) 

Welcome the IDEAPAD, an Android 4.0 tablet under $400

The Android-powered IdeaTab S2109 was introduced by Lenovo this week. The IdeaTab, which is powered by the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, will reportedly retail for $349.

Lenovo IdeaPad

ANONYMOUS gets into the United States Bureau of Justice, leaks 1.7GB of data.

(As posted in anonnews.org)

Greetings world,
We are Anonymous.
Today we are releasing 1.7GB of data that used to belong to the United States Bureau of Justice, until now. Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things such as internal emails, and the entire database dump.

We lulled as they took the website down after being owned, clearly showing they were scared of what inevitably happened.

We do not stand for any government or parties, we stand for freedom of people, freedom of speech and freedom of information.

We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government. We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are being oppressed free. The price we pay very often is our own freedom. The price governments pay is the exposure of their corruption and the truth being revealed, for the truth will set us free in the end.

So once more we call on you. Hackers, activists, and freedom fighters; join us in our struggle against these corporate

Download:
https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7287633/1.7GB_leaked_from_the_Bureau_of_Justice

-(via anonnews.org)

Chrome Takes Over Internet Explorer.

The Google Chrome logo is displayed at a store in London last year

This might be the start of a new chapter in the browser wars. Indeed!!

Over the weekend, Google Chrome routed more Internet traffic than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which long has held its spot as the most-used Web browser in the world, according to data from StatCounter , an Internet monitor.

Google’s Chrome web browser just passed Microsoft’sInternet Explorer to become the most-used browser in the world, says the latest data from a digital analytics service.

Although Chrome has edged out IE before for short periods, the last week marks the first time Chrome was the No. 1 browser for a sustained period of one week. Exactly 31.88% of the world’s web traffic was done on Chrome, according toStatCounter, while IE is a close second at 31.47%.

Although the difference is slight, Chrome has been trending up for some time, while IE has been trending down. IE is still the top browser in many regions, including North America, but Chrome is extremely popular in both India and South America — the latter being a region where Google’s Orkut social network also has significant market share.

Many also say..

Google Chrome, which is regarded as the hipper, faster and more developer-friendly browser, is gaining ground on the competition.

“Whether Chrome can take the lead in the browser wars in the long-term remains to be seen, however the trend towards Chrome usage at weekends is undeniable,” StatCounter’s CEO Aodhan Cullen said in a written news release  in March, when Chrome bested Explorer for a day. “At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to Internet Explorer.”

According to StatCounter’s latest report, which was spotted by the blog Global Nerdy , Google Chrome fielded 32.8% of Web page requests on Sunday.

That compares to 31.9% for Internet Explorer and 25.5% for Mozilla Firefox, which once was seen as the most viable alternative to the long-dominant IE.

Tech blog TheNextWeb says the numbers aren’t exact  but they are significant.

“Measuring the Web is an imprecise science, very often based on scaling up small-scale measurement surveys,” the blog writes, “but the gist of StatCounter’s data over the last year indicates that Chrome use is rising … at the expense of IE and Firefox, regardless of the exact precision of the data.”

ComScore, another company that tracks Internet traffic, does not release comparable numbers. But spokesman Andrew Lipsman said in an e-mail that StatCounter’s numbers are “consistent with what I’ve seen.”

“Chrome has definitely been increasing its share over the past couple years,” he wrote.

Several factors appear to contribute to Chrome’s rise.

One is frustration with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which, fairly or not, is seen by some Web users as not very innovative.

Another is the increasing role Chrome plays in all aspects of computing, especially for people who use Google’s other online services, like Gmail and Google Translate.

Some of the browser’s features enhance other Google products, and the Chrome Web store is home to an increasingly robust catalog of add-ons  that improve the browser’s functionality. CNN’s partner site Mashable has published a list of some of the best .

Google also has tried to position the browser  as the basis for the operating system of the future.

And then there’s the ad campaign.

Google has been running TV spots  showing people using Chrome to communicate with each other. The tagline: “The web is what you make of it.”

-(via CNN, Mashable)

IBM Faces the Perils of “Bring Your Own Device.” Manages 80,000 and more…

When IBM loosened its restrictions on the smartphones and tablets its employees could use for work, the company got a lesson in IT management of the kind it usually sells to clients.

In 2010, like many large companies in recent years, IBM adopted a “bring your own device” policy, meaning that employees who want to work outside the office don’t have to use a smart phone provided by the company. Although IBM still gives BlackBerrys to about 40,000 of its 400,000 employees, 80,000 other workers now reach internal IBM networks using other smartphones and tablets, including ones they purchased for themselves.

The trend toward employee-owned devices isn’t saving IBM any money, says Jeanette Horan, who is IBM’s chief information officer and oversees all the company’s internal use of IT. Instead, she says, it has created new challenges for her department of 5,000 people, because employees’ devices are full of software that IBM doesn’t control.

Horan says that when IBM surveyed several hundred employees using mobile devices, many were “blissfully unaware” of what popular apps could be security risks.

Since then, Horan’s team has established guidelines about which apps IBM employees can use and which they should avoid. On the list of banned apps are public file-transfer services such as Dropbox; Horan says IBM fears that using such software could allow sensitive information to get loose. In the survey, other employees were found to be violating protocol by automatically forwarding their IBM e-mail to public Web mail services or using their smart phones to create open Wi-Fi hotspots, which make data vulnerable to snoops.

“We found a tremendous lack of awareness as to what constitutes a risk,” says Horan. So now, she says, “we’re trying to make people aware.”

Horan isn’t only trying to educate IBM workers about computer security. She’s also enforcing better security. Before an employee’s own device can be used to access IBM networks, the IT department configures it so that its memory can be erased remotely if it is lost or stolen. The IT crew also disables public file-transfer programs like Apple’s iCloud; instead, employees use an IBM-hosted version called MyMobileHub. IBM even turns off Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant, on employees’ iPhones. The company worries that the spoken queries might be stored somewhere.

“We’re just extraordinarily conservative,” Horan says. “It’s the nature of our business.”

Horan’s division faces new complexities as it manages a growing number of devices that don’t come with as much security as BlackBerry phones. Even though the configuration of devices all happens remotely—the updates are beamed to the phones over the air—it is still cumbersome. Each employee’s device is treated differently, depending on what model it is and what the person’s job responsibilities are. Some people are only permitted to receive IBM e-mail, calendars, and contacts on their portable devices, while others can access internal IBM applications and files.

For employees in the latter category, Horan’s team equips phones with additional software, such as programs that encrypt information as it travels to and from corporate networks. The options vary even further; the IT department can match an employee with one of about 12 different “personas” that dictate what he or she is allowed to do on a mobile device, says Bill Bodin, IBM’s chief technology officer for mobility.

The kinds of challenges IBM faces are becoming increasingly common. Surveys have shown that more than half of large companies are catering to their employees’ desire to use their own smart phones, and as a result, the market for “mobile-device management” tools is booming. A January report by Forrester Research counted more than 40 companies offering such services.

Bodin expects device management to get even more complex in the coming years, but perhaps less restrictive, too. For instance, instead of making employees avoid apps like iCloud entirely, employers someday might be able to turn off just the two or three functions that worry them. Whatever happens, fewer and fewer IT departments will own their employees’ equipment. “The genie is out of the bottle,” says Bodin.

YouTube’s 7th birthday.

May 20th 2012: In May 2005 we first shared YouTube with the world. Seven years later, you’re the ones doing the sharing! We’re so honored that you’ve used YouTube to share how-to tips, political moments, home videos, comedy, music, and so much more.

Last year to celebrate our birthday, we wrote you, the YouTube Community, a thank you note for making our first 6 years so special. And on that birthday you gave us a great present by reaching a record rate of 48 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute. Well Community, this year, on our 7th birthday, you’ve outdone yourselves once again.

Today 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Like many 7 year olds around the world, we’re growing up so fast! In other words, every single minute you now upload three whole days worth of video instead of two. That’s 61 Royal Wedding Ceremonies, 841 Bad Romances, and 1,194 Nyan Cats.

We’ve come along way in the past 7 years. What started as a handful of videos shared among friends has transformed into a global platform delivering the next generation of channels to anyone, anywhere, and on any device. This last year was especially big for us. We helped bring more great channels to YouTube and weredesigned the site, making it easier for you to discover, watch and subscribe to the videos you love. And all 800 million of you all over the world have shown us we’re on the right track by increasing subscriptions 50% and watching over 3 billion hours a month.

Behind the tens of millions of channels on YouTube featuring talented filmmakers, home videos, skateboarding tricks, music, and car enthusiasts there has always been one consistent voice: you. Throughout our seven years you’ve made the YouTube community what it is. Thank you!

-(via YouTube Blog)

Sony NEX-F3 preview: entry-level APS-C shooter adds pop-up flash, comfy grip, and 1080p video for $599.99

NEX-F3

Last month, we heard that Sony had a redesigned entry-level NEX camera on the way, and the leak was spot-on: today, the company’s introducing the NEX-F3. It’s a $599.99 interchangable lens shooter with a 16.1 megapixel APS-C sensor, the pop-up flash previously only available on the pricy NEX-7, a brand-new 180-degree tilting LCD screen for self-portraits, 1080p24 video recording, and plenty of internal upgrades. In other words, it’s a feature-packed replacement for the NEX-C3, which Sony is phasing out immediately.

We spent an afternoon shooting with the camera, and we discovered it’s actually far more akin to the excellent NEX-5N than its forebear, right down to the vertical power switch and sizable new grip. It doesn’t come with an external charger for the battery, though you can buy one if you want: rather, it charges over Micro USB, which Sony says will take perhaps about five hours with a 1.5 amp charger. In fact, except for the build and a few features which stay exclusive to the higher-end 5N, it’s not very inferior camera as far as the specs go. While there’s no touchscreen, it can’t record 1080p video at 60 frames per second like the 5N, and it shoots a bit slower in general, it’s much the same everywhere else, including the 3-inch, 921k LCD screen, 1/4000 shutter speed, 16,000 max ISO, and accessory hotshoe.You can attach the same external EVF as other NEX models.

Sony NEX F3 Hands On Pics

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We took a whole bunch of pictures with a production model, and here they are, including shots with three different lenses and some ISO samples. Noise seems to be controlled well through ISO 1600, but ramps up significantly after ISO 3200. Not bad for the price, not bad at all.

While there’s no touchscreen on the NEX-F3, the 180-degree tilt lets it perform a pretty neat trick: when you flip it up all the way, it engages “Mirror Mode,” which lets you frame a self-portrait that’s reversed just as if you were in front of a mirror. Once you take the image, though, the image flips the other way, so the text on your clothing should be as legible as it is in reality. You can take a look at the feature at the end of our video below. Speaking of video, 1080p24 footage looked pretty crisp and clear. We filmed the first half of this video of Sony’s new Alpha SLT-A37 with the NEX-F3, and the second half using the SLT-A37 to show off the NEX-F3 itself.

Though the menu-driven software of the NEX series is mostly unintuitive as ever if you want to tweak settings, some of the biggest innovations are actually in software this time around: like Sony’s latest Alpha translucent mirror cameras, the NEX-F3 has a host of 15 filters and 11 modes, including some pretty nifty-sounding ones: auto portrait framing uses the Rule of Thirds to frame your subject with a theoretically pleasing crop, and the company’s proprietary By Pixel Super Resolution will then interpolate the picture data to generate a full, 16-megapixel resolution crop by “filling in” the missing pixels according to an internal database. We weren’t able to try that one, but Sony uses the same interpolation technique to provide a 2x digital zoom that appears far clearer than most others (called Clear Image Zoom) and it worked fairly well in conjunction with our lens zoom.

Sony NEX F3 Press Pics:

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Speaking of lenses, Sony’s introducing a new superzoom: the SEL18200LE is a 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 lens with optical stabilization, priced at a hefty $849.99. We gave it a try, and for the amount of range it provides, it looks and feels quite good. It’s well-built, zooms smoothly (though with a bit of effort) and images seemed a good bit sharper than with the 18-55mm kit lens in our very brief experience, though we didn’t get to test it methodically. Sony already had a 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 OSS lens, mind you, but this one’s a bit lighter, smaller, and painted black.

After a couple of hours shooting with the NEX-F3, half in full auto to experience the ease of use and half tweaking settings to see how good pictures could be, it definitely seems like a great way to move up from point-and-shoot photography. That 18-200mm lens is a bit out of reach, but the 18-55mm kit lens is a nice start. The biggest question is whether the NEX-5N, priced only $50 higher at the moment, is a better option. At that kind of minimal price difference, we expect the 5N will also get replaced before long. The NEX-F3 should ship in silver, white, and black this June, with the 18-200mm lens arriving in July.

-(via Sean Hollister,Verge)

10 Best Online Payment Systems

In this article, we’ll be reviewing my top 10 online payment systems for accepting payments on the Web. While many of the companies on this list have been available to online merchants for years, many are also now getting into new areas of online payments such as social commerce and in-store online card reader systems.

A Quick Primer on Online Payment Systems

Before getting started, here are just a few things to know about online payment systems.

• ACH payments are electronic credit and debit transfers, allowing customers to make payments from their bank accounts for utilities, mortgage loans, and other types of bills. ACH stands for Automated Clearing House and most payment processors offer ACH payment options to their customers, especially for monthly- and subscription-based transactions. Most payment solutions use ACH to send money (minus fees) to their customers.
• A merchant account is a bank account that allows a customer to receive payments through credit or debit cards. Merchant providers are required to obey regulations established by card associations. Many processors (such as the ones listed below) act as both the merchant account as well as the payment gateway.
• A payment gateway allows merchants to securely pass credit card information between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. The payment gateway is the middleman between the merchant and their sponsoring bank.
• A payment processor is the company that a merchant uses to handle credit card transactions. Payment processors implement anti-fraud measures to ensure that both the front-facing customer and the merchant are protected.
• PCI compliance is when a merchant or payment gateway sets their payment environment up in a way that meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS standard was created by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to increase security of cardholder data and to reduce fraud.

What follows are 10 excellent online payment systems.

1. Authorize.Net

Authorize.Net is the Internet’s most widely used payment gateway. With a user base of over 300,000 merchants, Authorize.Net has been the go-to method for e-commerce sites that need a gateway to accepting payments. Widely used e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Volusion and X-Cart are designed to accept payments using Authorize.Net easier.

Pricing: Authorize.Net has a $99 setup fee, costs $10 per month and takes a $0.25 per-transaction fee. Source: Authorize.Net pricing

2. PayPal

PayPal is the world’s most widely used payment acquirer, processing over $4 billion in payments in 2011. PayPal payments are made using a user’s existing account or with a credit card. Money can be sent directly to an email address, thus prompting the users to sign up for a new PayPal account. In addition to taking payments, PayPal also allows its users to send money through the service, which is a feature that only a few payment solutions provide.

Pricing: PayPal takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction and has no setup or monthly fees. Source: PayPal merchant fees

3. Google Checkout

Google Checkout is Google’s answer to PayPal. Google Checkout allows users to pay for goods and services through an account connected to their Google profile. The major benefit that Google Checkout has over the competition is that millions of Internet users use Google for other services, making a purchase through Checkout a simpler process.

Pricing: Google Checkout fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for sales less than $3,000. The percentage they take goes down depending on monthly sales volume. Source: Google Checkout fees

4. Amazon Payments

Amazon Payments allows its users to receive money using its API (and to send money out via ACH). Popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments.

Pricing: Amazon Payments fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for payments over $10 (the percentage they take is less for larger transactions). For payments under $10, the fee is 5.0% + $0.05 per transaction. Source: Amazon Payments fees

5. Dwolla

Dwolla is a direct competitor to PayPal. One of the newcomers in the third-party payments space, the company is processing over $1 million per day. Setting up Dwolla payments is similar to PayPal, although Dwolla doesn’t have the same name recognition as their competition.

Pricing: There are no fees for transactions less than $10. For transactions over $10, Dwolla charges $0.25 per transaction. Source: Dwolla fees

6. Stripe

Stripe provides an excellent payment solution for web developers who would like to integrate a payment system into their projects using Stripe’s robust API. By bypassing the traditional sign up process, Stripe acts as a merchant account for its providers, handling all PCI compliance and merchant approvals.

Pricing: Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction with no setup or monthly fees. Source: Stripe: pricing

7. Braintree

Braintree is an online payment gateway and merchant account solution known for working with popular tech startups such as Airbnb and LivingSocial.

Pricing: Braintree has a $99 setup fee, a $35 monthly fee (with a $75 monthly minimum). Transaction fees start at 2.29% + $0.30 per transaction for qualified cards. Source: Pricing – Braintree

8. Samurai by FeeFighters

Samurai is a payment gateway and merchant account solution. The company’s main product, FeeFighters, is a tool to help merchants compare rates for merchant accounts. Samurai was developed as a direct competitor to Braintree and other gateway/merchant solutions and offers customers a payment gateway or a gateway/merchant account package.

Pricing: For their gateway/merchant solution, Samurai takes 2.3% of all sales volume, costs $25 per month and charges a $0.30 fee per transaction. Source: Samurai by FeeFighters pricing

9. WePay

WePay is a payment processor that allows Internet merchants to accept credit cards and bank account payments online. WePay seems to be focused on the individual user, and has recently added e-store pages to their service to help their customers conveniently take in payments (e.g. event tickets, products, donations and so forth) through their service.

Pricing: WePay charges a 3.5% transaction fee (with a $0.50 minimum) for credit card transactions and $0.50 for bank payments, with no setup or monthly costs. Source:WePay fees

10. 2Checkout

2Checkout is another payment processor that combines a merchant account and payment gateway into one, allowing customers to receive credit card payments as well as PayPal payments. The company offers international payments, shopping cart stores as well as a recurring billing feature.

Pricing: 3.99% (if you apply by May 1, 2012), a $0.45 transaction fee and $10.99 monthly service fee. Pricing and fees – 2Checkout

Other Noteworthy Payment Systems

Here are other online payment systems I think you should also check out:

• Serve (by American Express)
• V.me (by Visa)
• clearXchange (by Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo)

What about Payments through Mobile Devices?

These two payment services allow merchants to accept credit card payments directly through their mobile devices, making it possible for devices such as the iPhone, the iPad and Android smartphones to act as a mobile point of sale (POS) checkout system.

• Square
• Intuit’s GoPayment

Conclusion

There are plenty of online payment systems out there that you can use to conduct e-commerce activities. Choose one that’s in line with your business objectives.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of online payment systems. If your favorite online payment system isn’t on the list, please share it with us in the comments and discuss why you choose it over other online payment systems.

-(via Rosston Meyer, sixrevisions)

Facebook Buys Mobile Discovery Service Glancee

Facebook has scooped up another startup in its path toward mobile dominance. This time, it’s Glancee, an ambient location-based service that competes with Highlight.

From Glancee’s home page:

“We started Glancee in 2010 with the goal of bringing together the best of your physical and digital worlds. We wanted to make it easy to discover the hidden connections around you, and to meet interesting people. Since then Glancee has connected thousands of people, empowering serendipity and pioneering social discovery.

“We are therefore very excited to announce that Facebook has acquired Glancee and that we have joined the team in Menlo Park to build great products for over 900 million Facebook users. We’ve had such a blast connecting people through Glancee, and we truly thank our users for being a part of the Glancee community.”

Less than a month ago, Facebook acquired the mobile-based photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion, and the world’s largest social network has expressed its sights are set on mobile.

Glancee fits the bill. It was one of the hot passive location startups at SXSW this year, along with Highlight and Sonar.

Facebook’s just weeks away from an initial public offering. The company announced its shares would be priced at $28 to $35, putting the company at a valuation of $85 billion and $95 billion. Facebook did not disclose the terms of the Glancee acquisition.

-(via Mashable)