On Tuesday, June 2 eight teams of university students assembled to prove their “entrepreneurial worth” to a panel of investors including board members of SLASSCOM (Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies) and business leaders. The students were from different universities and higher education institutions in Sri Lanka.

This was the third and final stage of the Graduate Enterprise Challenge (GEC), a business plan competition, organised by the British Council and Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM). The objective of the initiative was to create awareness about graduate entrepreneurship amongst university students and staff, identify potential graduate entrepreneurs and provide training about business planning and enterprise start-up. The final goal is to create real graduate business start-ups.

Source: http://www.itpro.lk

2.  Google: We’ve Made a Breakthrough in Image Search

Humans may excel at pattern recognition, but computers aren't very smart at identifying images. Our brains can immediately identify photos of famous landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty or Great Wall of China, but computers are typically clueless without text tags as a cheat sheet.

This may be change, however, if a Google research project in "computer vision" pans out. The search giant Monday presented a paper on landmark recognition at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Miami. The new technology allows computers to quickly I.D. images of more than 50,000 world landmarks with 80-percent accuracy, Google says.

Read the full story here

3. Bing Keeps Growing: Has Microsoft Finally Cracked Search

 In its second week since launch, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has continued its steady growth, according to comScore. Bing is up about 3 percentage points in both average daily penetration among US searchers and their total share of search results pages (which indicates the percentage of all actual searches, though is not an exact measure), compared to the week prior to launch. Bing now has 16.7% searcher penetration and a 12.1% share of search results pages among all US workday searches.

Recent numbers from Compete confirm what comScore is reporting today — Bing’s share of searches is growing. But Compete also found that the number of search queries per user is actually down for Bing, which implies that Microsoft has been able to entice people to try Bing out, but so far, it isn’t getting a measurable number of new searchers to stick around.

Some commentators have noted that the lower search per user figure could also indicate that users are finding what they’re looking for with fewer searches. That’s certainly a possibility and definitely would be a good sign for Microsoft.

Source: http://mashable.com

4. Yahoo Releases New Toolbar for IE and Firefox - The latesversion brings some “real-time” features
Yahoo has released a new browser toolbar today for Internet Explorer and Firefox, which adds a number of new features including thepossibility to preview some sites like Yahoo Mail or Weather but also non-Yahoo services like eBay.

The latest version brings improved search capabilities as well as faster searches by incorporating some technologies from Inquisitor, a company Yahoo recently acquired. The search box now offers suggestions, remembers sites you've recently visited and you can also search other sites like Flickr, also owned by Yahoo, or Wikipedia.

The toolbar is fully customizable and there are a number of sites and apps available, not just Yahoo ones. Once added, “real-time” previews are available, keeping you up to date without having to leave the page you are currently visiting. The Yahoo Toolbar is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox. (http://toolbar.yahoo.com/)

Source: http://news.softpedia.com

PS: Seems like still it’s not compatible with Windows 7 versions

5.Intel and Nokia Announce Strategic Relationship to Shape Next Era of Mobile Computing Innovation

 Further uniting the Internet with mobile phones and computers, Intel Corporation and Nokia have announced a long-term relationship to develop a new class of Intel® Architecture-based mobile computing device and chipset architectures which will combine the performance of powerful computers with high-bandwidth mobile broadband communications and ubiquitous Internet connectivity.

 To realize this shared vision, both companies are expanding their longstanding relationship to define a new mobile platform beyond today's smartphones, notebooks and netbooks, enabling the development of a variety of innovative hardware, software and mobile Internet services.

 A deal with Nokia, even if it is for a netbook, would validate Intel’s strategy of moving into lower-cost mobile chips for computing and keep Intel’s x86 architecture relevant in a mobile world.

Read the press release here

6.Microsoft to end Windows 7 RC downloads Aug. 15

Microsoft will turn off the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) tap on Aug. 15, the company has announced. "The [Release Candidate] download program closes August 15. After that, you won't be able to get the download, but you can still install the RC and get a key if you need one," Microsoft employee Stephen Rose said on a company blog today.

Microsoft launched Windows 7 RC, the final public preview of the upcoming operating system, on May 4. Windows 7 will hit retail and debut on new PCs on Oct. 22, Microsoft has said. The release candidate will not expire until June 1, 2010, although it will begin automatically shutting down at two-hour intervals starting March 1, 2010.

Users can download Windows 7 RC at this Microsoft site, where they can also obtain a product activation key.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com

7. Google to promote Web speed on new developer site

Google has created a Web site for developers that is focused exclusively on making Web applications, sites and browsers faster. The site grew out of Google's decision to publicly share a set of best practices the search company has developed over the years. By offering tutorials, tips and performance tools via the new site, Google wants to help make the Web faster by assembling a community of developers interested in online speed and performance.

The site will allow developers to submit ideas, suggestions and questions via a discussion forum and by using Google's Moderator tool, said Google product manager Richard Rabbat in an interview. Google was to make the announcement at O'Reilly Media's Velocity conference in San Jose, California, an event focused on Web performance.

Read the full article here

8.Mozilla unveils Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate

Saying that it still plans to launch Firefox 3.5 by the end of the month, Mozilla late Friday issued the new browser's first release candidate, the most stable and polished build delivered so far in the year-long development process.

Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate (RC) was the first milestone since Beta 4, which Mozilla released in late April, and the second to carry the "3.5" label. The upgrade was originally called Firefox 3.1, but the company decided in March that it had added enough new features to justify the larger bump in number from last summer's Firefox 3.0.

Firefox currently accounts for 22.5% of the browser market, according to Web metrics company Net Applications' May data. It faces renewed competition on almost every front, including Microsoft with its Internet Explorer 8, Google's Chrome browser, Opera Software's Opera and Apple's Safari 4, which launched earlier this month.

Download the release candidate from the Mozilla site.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com