Oracle 10g XE (Express Edition)

Oracle today launched Oracle 10g XE, a free version of its Database product-line. Available as a free download of 150MB download, it is intended for the Developers who want to test out their applications with the Oracle Database.

Ofcourse, there are some limitations in this free version. It can store up to 4GB of user data, use up to 1GB of memory, and use one CPU on the host machine, though Oracle Database XE can be installed on any size host machine with any number of CPUs.

Oracle has posed the biggest challenge to MySQL, after the Oracle's failed attempt to acquire MySQL failed. For we know, Oracle is a much serious database than MySQL.

Google Base

Google Base provides data structure and distribution for a wide range of content and information, a subset of items are for sale. To help users more easily purchase and sell Google Base items, Google is planning to enable people to buy items on Google Base using their Google Accounts.

Many of you are probably already familiar with the Google Account. You use it to sign in and pay for a number of Google services, like Google Video and Google Earth. Now, Google is introducting similar functionality on Google Base.

For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and secure way to purchase Google Base items by credit card. For sellers, this feature integrates transaction processing with Google Base item management.

Starting with a very small number of sellers and we expect to include more over the next several months. Sellers & people interested in getting an announcement when this feature is generally available, let us know. And if you want to know how this functionality relates to Google's broader work in payments, read this update.

Google Page Creator

Today, Google launched Google Page Creator.

Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.

Just do a normal sign-in using your gmail user account, and start creating pages. You can edit your pages in the editor, using WYSIWYG editor, and the pages would be hosted at
http://yourgoogleusername.googlepages.com

You can choose from a number of pre-defined formats to alter the look of your web-pages and do all basic HTML stuff required.

Link: http://pages.google.com

Google Calendar

There has been speculations for sometime now, that Google is developing a Calendar service likely to be called as gCalendar.

Another point supporting it is the case of gcalendar.com that was registered sometime back in 2004, owned by Data Docket Inc. which was affiliated with Google.

Now, there is a trusted tester program accessible through "http://calendar.google.com/tester". It points to the same place - that is not specifically for the calendar program, but as a general testing platform, that is generally developed by the companies for beta testing of the products, before they are launched into the market.

More Info on Google Trusted Tester Program is available at:

http://www.google.com/tester/faq

So, as I believe, and looking at the movements made by Google in the recent path, if Google Calendar is beta launched soon, it should not be received as an unexpected launch :)

"Gmail for your domain"

As I posted earlier, now it's confirmed. Google is running a beta
program for the Gmail service to offer Google's webmail service to
every user on an associated domain. Gmail for your domain would be
hosted by Google, so there is no requirement of hardware/software on
part of domain owners.

This program is available as a limited beta, you can sign up for the program here

Microsoft Buys MotionBridge

Microsoft bought the Paris-based mobile search company MotionBridge to
enhance the focus on its Windows Live Search Program.

Windows Live is Microsoft's initiative to provide Web-based consumer
services, including e-mail, messaging, local search, mapping and
classifieds. The MotionBridge move was one of two major announcements that Microsoft made as the 3GSM worldwide mobile technology conference in Barcelona, Spain, got underway. The other involved a push e-mail technology that many see giving Microsoft a greater ability to offer an alternative to Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Windows Live Search for mobile devices lets users to use their mobile
devices to search the web on the go. It also lets you save the
results, find nearest food-joint/gas station, view a map to the
destination alongwith detailed driving conditions whatever.

The emerging field of mobile search is strategically important and
crucial to delivering on our vision for Windows Live of providing a
seamless and rich information experience for individuals and
businesses across devices," said Christopher Payne, corporate vice
president of MSN Search at Microsoft.

File transfer/Video Conferencing in GTalk

Google today released an update to Libjingle. For those of us, who do not know Libjingle, let me
tell you that Libjingle is Google Talk's implementation of Jingle and Jingle-Audio (proposed extensions to XMPP) to interoperate with Google Talk's peer-to-peer and voice calling capabilites.

The notable changes in libjingle version 0.2.0 are build support for Windows using Visual Studio Express, TLS Support (used encryption of data), and a new "tunnel" session type, being the most important one.

This new "tunnel" session type can be used to reliably transfer a TCP-like stream of data over Jingle's peer-to-peer connections. That would directly mean, gtalk will offer video-conferencing, file transfer support shortly. voila!!!

What next for Gmail: Gmail for domains

Google’s Gmail has been an innovative web-based email service, ever since it launched, offering unique concept of conversations, heavy use of AJAX based interface, Intellisense for contacts while composing emails and last but not the least: the concept of filters to fill the huge 2GB mailbox.

Now, after integrating the Gtalk’s chat logs into the Gmail accounts as another label, Gmail is geared to go even further and all the more alluring.

If code is to be believed, found deep inside the javascript source, Gmail is all poised up to offer Gmail for domains. Hold your breath: Yes, Gmail for domains!

The following code snippet is suggesting this:

function vJ(){
if(uy){
;return''+"Manage this domain"+" "}
else{return""}}

Gmail for domains would mean that any user who owns a domain can utilized Gmail as a Mail Server for his domain in addition to just being a client. Unarguably, this would be one of the big challenges to its competitors Yahoo, MSN & AOL. Yahoo offers a similar commercial solution & Microsoft is offering this solution in the form of MS-Exchange Servers.

Let’s imagine how the domain owners could use this feature. First of all, the domain would have to be authorized by the domain owner to use Gmail as the Domain Mail Server through some verification emails. Once, the domain is authorized, there must be some link/tab in the administrator’s Gmail inbox to manage the domain.

That will directly mean that incoming emails need to be filtered for the users, most probably as labels, of course the limit of this solution would be limited to the inbox size of the administrator i.e. 2GB. But we can also expect Gmail to offer the features of sharing the contacts, building mailing lists, customization of the interface by changing the images/logos/colors etc.

I guess now the imagination is going wild, so we should restrain ourselves from that and wait till this feature is silently introduced in our inboxes sometime in future as another New Feature of Gmail.

View GTalk Chat in GMail

Google, which is known for its simple way of searching the Web, is hoping that by embedding new instant messaging software it calls "Gmail Chat" into its existing e-mail service it can differentiate itself in a crowded market it was late to join.

The Mountain View, California-based company is struggling to stand out in an entrenched field. Instant messaging was pioneered by America Online more than a decade ago. It, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. now have tens of millions of users each.

Google is fixing a decade-old technical divide between the generic Web browser that can check e-mail, search the Web or perform a host of other activities, and separate software used to converse in quick back-and-forth messages with buddies.

"We are breaking down some of the artificial barriers between e-mail and Web browsing," Salar Kamangar, Google's vice president of product management, said in a phone interview.

"We observed by talking with our users that there is no reason to think of IM as different from an e-mail message."

Gmail Chat complements Google Talk, a more sophisticated program the company introduced six months ago that combines instant messaging (IM) with free Web-based calling features. By joining IM to e-mail, Chat can reach a wider base of users.

"This is training wheels for Google Talk," said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Kelsey Group. "It is a way to introduce a broader population to instant messaging and give them exposure to Google Talk."

Gmail Chat requires no special software download. It is available to any registered user of Gmail e-mail. Existing contacts within the more advanced Google Talk program automatically show up in Google Chat, the company said.

SeaMonkey 1.0 Released

The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as "Mozilla Application Suite".

This Mozilla.org's open source internet suite features a state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well. It also has a few nifty features, of particular interest: drag&drop reordering of tabs, support for a common inbox for multiple email accounts, SVG and phishing detection. Click here to Download

Microsoft Unveils IE 7 Public Beta

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Preview yesterday.

As propounded by Microsoft, IE7 includes some major enhancements that have already been widely discussed over the Web. Without diverging from its commitment, Microsoft has introduced a number of new features in this new version 7 of Internet Explorer, though most of the new features are already available in the popular rival Open-Source Browser, Mozilla Firefox.

Features like Tabbed Browsing, Integrated Web Search Toolbar, Shortcut for deleting Browsing History, Zoom with Mouse-Wheel and Integration of RSS Feeds are already available to the users with Mozilla Firefox. IE7 also offers similar keyboard shortcuts for tabbed browsing.
Major portions of the browser code has been rewritten in IE7. With a new Interface that is Cleaner and Sleeker than its predecessors IE7 offers Improved Security that help in removing Malicious software (Malware) from the system and Protection of Personal Data from Phishing through (Microsoft Phishing Filter), Security Status bar, Address Bar Protection, Advanced Printing Features and ActiveX opt-in, though Pop-Up Blocker is still a pain even at a High-Level Filtering.

Microsoft also released tools to support Web-Developers to take advantage of new Web Capabilities like Introduction of Windows RSS Platform, Improved CSS Support, Transparent PNG Support, OpenSearch and Improved AJAX Support.

Click here to Download IE7.

AT&T Aims To Be 'First Rate'

AT&T touted all of that and more at its annual analysts meeting in New York on Tuesday.

What analysts liked the most, in the near term, was AT&T's announcement that it plans to buy back $2 billion of its shares in 2006. Shares in the new AT&T, created by SBC Communications' purchase of Ma Bell in November, have climbed 6% this year.

The AT&T purchase is expected to contribute to earnings in 2007, a year ahead of previous company forecasts. "Synergies from the AT&T merger will be larger, and they will come sooner, than in the outlook we provided a year ago," Whitacre said.

AT&T says it will soon begin selling Cingular's wireless phone services to large companies under the AT&T brand. That marketing tactic may not please BellSouth if AT&T targets companies within its BellSouth's nine-state home region, some analysts say.

On Tuesday, Cingular CEO Stanley Sigman disagreed.

"There has been a lot of speculation," Sigman said. "It's a strong relationship, it's a strong partnership. What's good for Cingular is good for both (AT&T and BellSouth)."