This week has seen a lot significant developments in the domain of web browsers. Indeed the browser war is hottening up with the release of Internet Explorer 8.0, FireFox 3.0 (UBIQUITY 0.1.1 about which i mentioned in my last post) and the release of Google Chrome.

Being a die hard googler ^_^, i installed the google Chrome browser and made it my default browser. Installation process was fast and quick with the use of a the Google application downloader. Upon downloading, there was a brief setup screen and with a single click of Start Google Chrome, the clutter free Google Chrome Interface is encountered.

After playing around with it for a couple of moments,  the only phrase  i can use to describe is OUTSTANDING & CLUTER FREE!!! The most striking feature of the browser from Google : CHROME is that it has been built from scratch and uses the impressive JAVA VM V8 (Which enables the AJAX applications more responsive and accelerated). For those who are not aware of the V8, the following extract will throw some light on the features

Unlike in other JavaScript engines, in V8, can-doally created objects that have the same properties share the same class on which optimizations can be use Other JavaScript engines on encountering JavaScript source code generate an inner representation of the same that the engine can interpret. V8 uses something titled can-do code generation for this. When V8 encounters JavaScript source code it generates machine code that can run directly on the CPU that is moving the browser. This makes for accelerated and more response JavaScript applications. V8 also implements dead and additive garbage collection techniques that makes more best use of memory when executing JavaScript.

Source: http://palinvp.wordpress.com/

Its the fastest among the set of currently available browsers . Chrome has been designed to hide users’ behavior, by wiping out search history stored in the browser. It has also incorporated the InPrivate browsing feature (which is found in IE8).

I found that Chrome lists automatically the web sites that i use more frequently. It has also incorporated the Task Manager concept which enables us to treat each tab a separate entity( i.e Tabs run in isolation). It treats each tab as a separate browser. Chrome also groups related tabs. If you open a new tab from a link in a page that’s already open, that new tab appears next to the originating page, rather than at the end of the row of tabs.  when i opened a new tab from a link in a page that’s already open, that new tab appears next to the originating page, rather than at the end of the row of tabs. 

These guys have merged both the search box and the address box into one single box  (terme as Omnibox / Omnibar ). It reduces the user interface to just two menus and a few icons. Also when i open a new tab, it does not give me a blank page but lists out

• the thumbnails most visited websites
• list of recent search engines
• recently used bookmarks
• recently used tabs.. 

Thus Chrome acheived the objective of maximising the screen space for the web pages. Another feature i have noticed is the popup block notifications are less intrusive. So far havent stress tested Chrome. However, some of the issues i have noticed are (which obviously will be rectified in subsequent releases)

• Tab Overflow
• No support for Live Book Marks (t’s painful drag-and-drop if i have to organise them)
• No RSS Support
• No Extensions
• While installing Chrome, it gives me an option to import stored password (It was inconvienient though to close the firefox browser), however upon open Chrome, the Saved passwords dont show up!!!
• No progess bar indicating the percentage of the webpage that has been fetched.
• No command for emailing the links directly from the browser (Reminds me of UBIQUITY – if these guys can get UBIQUITY to work with Chrome Then Bingoo you have a good combo:)!!! )
• Searching within the page, additional features like highlighting, text processing are missing.
• Yet to come up with a version for Non Windows Platforms.

I am sure that Google through the use of Chrome Spiders and it’s vast web resources, will definitely identify the bugs and issues and come up a much better version.

Google Chrome

It’s a platform for running Web applications

With the rapid development of web, there has been a high degree of disconnectivity between various pieces of information. The need for having a natural language functionality has always been there to improve our browsing  experience, to change the way we see the data on the web pages.

Mozilla has come up with a natural language tool named UBIQUITY ver 0.1 for their browser. Though the product is in infancy stage, it provides a glimpse of the enormous capabilities it can provide. It makes an attempt to provide a universal interface which enables the users to do some of the common web tasks with focus on ease of use and faster execution.

I have installed UBIQUITY 0.1 and its fantastic, i can paste the map in my email, perform data lookups, email articles from webpages directly to friends, translate from one language to another and many more tasks.

I have started using UBIQUITY since couple of hours, and i have been able to the following things so far.  You can install the tool into your firefox browsers. Download Ubiquity 0.1. Some of  Ubiquity Commands.

The tool can be activated by using the CTRL + Space bar Combination. the following interface pops up

Map Scenario: my friend is visiting new york and he is not sure about the location of statue of liberty as well as he wants to know the reviews associated with the place.

If i am to write a mail to my friend giving the map location of Statue of Liberty , the animation demonstrates it.

To get reviews of the place the same process , the command is YELP.

To get the weather at the place , the command is WEATHER.

Listing of UBIQUITY Script commands

• search-oracle-docs:  Search through the Oracle Documentation
• search-scholar:  Search through Google Scholar
• search-patent:  Search through Google Patents
• search-torrentz: Search for torrents on Torrentz.com

The UBIQUITY command tutorial can be got from The Ubiquity Command authoring tutorial

Third  Innovative Conference on Embedded Systems, Mobile Communication and Computing, August 11-14, 2008, Infosys, Mysore, India

The Conference was a good experience where i could interact with various experts most notably Srinivas Sampalli from Dalhousie University Canada.

The Conference was organized by Organized by Mobile Communication and  Networking Center of Excellence (MCNC), PESIT. The venue was the impressive Infosys Campus, Mysore.

Two papers were presented at this Conference namely

• Power Conscious MAC Protocol (PCMP) for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks
• Smooth MAC layer Handoff in Hierarchical Mobile Ipv6

- Kavi Kumar Khedo, UOM & Dilip Kumar Maripuri, PESSE

Brochures

• Conference Brochure
• Workshop Brochure
• Tutorial Brochure

August Month was the marriage season for our family !!!!. My sister Ramya got married on the magical date 08-08-08 unfortunately the muhurtham time count not be found at 08:08, else it would have been 08-08-08; 08:08.

It wa a wonderful occasion for all the family members to get together. you can catch all the action on the Wedsite.

Another Sister’s wedding is coming up on 21st August 2008.

International Conference on Advances in Information and Communication Technologies, December 28 – 30, Manipal Institute Of Technology, Manipal, India

Event Profile
International Conference on Advances in Information and Communication Technologies, ICICOT, provides an ideal platform for representatives from IT industry, academia and government agencies to share views, discuss about products, and report findings. The conference helps in understanding the future of cutting edge information & communication technologies. The theme of ICICOT conference would be “Pervasive and Secure Computing”.

Highlight
The highlights of the ICICOT conference include invited talks, vendor exhibitions, experience reports, tutorials, contributed papers, poster presentations and panel discussions.

The paper CASARP – A Multi Agent based Virtual Secretary was presented at this conference.

As the we have seen over past couple of years, there are a large number of social networks springing up every now and then. There is a fierce competition to own up this space of social networks. The latest tug of war witnessed was between Microsoft and Google with Microsoft picking up a major stake in the facebook network. But little did all of us know google’s motive to pick up the minor stake despite of microsoft’s win —— launching the mother of all social networks – OpenSocialStuff.com which gives a platform for developers to create variety of applications for the social networks which join Open Social.
So far, Orkut social net, LinkedIn, hi5, XING, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning are a part of OpenSocial .
Ning’s Mac Anderson views on joining the OpenSocial can be found on his blog: Mac Anderson’s Blog
Here is another interesting i found on what OpenSocial can lead us to: Ubiquitous Social Networks for Business.

I have been using Facebook and found that the underlying fact is the use of markup language rather than java scripts & HTML which form the forte for OpenSocial.

– I posted the Press Release of Google – OpenSocial in my previous post.

Official Site of OpenSocial

So Whats next??

Google is not stopping with this, the plans are underway to build a massive unparalleled social network which is codenamed Makamak. Well need to wait to know what this looks like.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — November 1, 2007 – Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the release of OpenSocial — a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web — for developers of social applications and websites that want to add social features. OpenSocial will unleash more powerful and pervasive social capabilities for the web, empowering developers to build far-reaching applications that users can enjoy regardless of the websites, web applications, or social networks they use. The release of OpenSocial marks the first time that multiple social networks have been made accessible under a common API to make development and distribution easier and more efficient for developers.The proliferation of unique APIs across dozens of social websites is forcing developers to choose which ones to write applications for – and then spend their time writing separately for each. OpenSocial gives developers of social applications a single set of APIs to learn for their application to run on any OpenSocial-enabled website. By providing these simple, standards-based technologies, OpenSocial will speed innovation and bring more social features to more places across the web. Users win too: they get more interesting, engaging, or useful features faster.

“The web is fundamentally better when it’s social, and we’re only just starting to see what’s possible when you bring social information into different contexts on the web,” said XXXX. “There’s a lot of innovation that will be spurred simply by creating a standard way for developers to run social applications in more places. With the input and iteration of the community, we hope OpenSocial will become a standard set of technologies for making the web social.”Learn Once, Reach Across the Web

One of the most important benefits of OpenSocial is the vast distribution network that developers will have for their applications. The sites that have already committed to supporting OpenSocial — Website Partner A, Website Partner B, Website Partner C, etc. –- represent an audience of well over 100 million users globally. Critical for time- and resource-strapped developers is being able to “learn once, write anywhere” — learn the OpenSocial APIs once and then build applications that work with any OpenSocial-enabled websites.

Several developers, including Gadget Partner Z, Gadget Partner Y, Gadget Partner X, etc., have already built applications that use the OpenSocial APIs. Starting today, a developer sandbox is available at http://sandbox.orkut.com so developers can go in and start testing the OpenSocial APIs. The goal is to have developers build applications in the sandbox so they can deploy on Orkut and ultimately other OpenSocial sites.

More Social In More Places

The existence of this single programming model also helps websites who are eager to satisfy their users’ interest in social features. More developers building social applications more easily translates directly into more features more quickly for websites.

“Orkut has tens of millions of passionate users who are constantly clamoring for new ways to have fun with their friends and express themselves through Orkut,” said Amar Gandhi, group product manager for Orkut, Google’s social networking service. “By using OpenSocial to open up Orkut as a platform for any developer, we can tap into the vast creativity of the community and make new features available to our users frequently.”

The common method that OpenSocial provides for hosting social applications means that websites can engage a much larger pool of third party developers than they could otherwise. They can direct resources that might have gone to maintaining a proprietary API and supporting its developer community to other projects.

Because OpenSocial removes the hassle from developing for individual websites, developers can unleash their creativity anywhere that catches their interest. This will translate into a wave of social features in contexts outside of the personal entertainment and games that are traditionally thought of as the social web.

Three APIs available now

The OpenSocial APIs give developers access to the data needed to build social applications: access to a user’s profile, their friends, and the ability to let their friends know that activities have taken place. OpenSocial resources for developers and websites are available now at code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

Developers will have access to:

- Three JavaScript and Gdata APIs to access social functions
- A live developer sandbox on Orkut at sandbox.orkut.com

Websites will have access to:

- A tool to help OpenSocial-enable their websites

- A support forum for communicating with Google and other websites

All of these resources and the live developer sandbox are available now.

Developers already at work

Dozens of developers have helped test early iterations of the OpenSocial APIs and Google is grateful for the extensive feedback they have provided.

Links to these gadgets are available at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

After being in Mauritius  for almost 5 years, its a bit emotional and hard to leave the paradise island and i hope i will be back some time or the other,

I spent few hours trying to go to some of my favourite places and dwell upon the memories, here are quite a few such places

People : Jia Kaleem Shamveel Pushpa aunty, Vimala, Danny

Caudan Waterfront in the nights

Roller Skating at Shopright

My Pets