by Akila Kalum Mendis

See where your friends are with Google Latitude

In our day to day life many of us worry about where our friends/loved ones are. You opt to call them, call their loved ones for that. But now you don’t have to worry that much as Google Latitude is there.

“Latitude is a new feature of Google Maps for mobile, as well as an iGoogle gadget, that allows you to share your location with your friends and to see their approximate locations, if they choose to share them with you. “

As mentioned above you can use Latitude on your mobile or on your PC. You can sign in to Latitude with your Google account and invite/add friends. With Latitude you can keep your loved ones updated with your status messages, profile photos. Even you can update them by calling, SMS, IM, or emailing, methods which are available within the app. Check the following video for more information.

When sharing this kind of a sensitive data, the next thing come to our mind is the privacy of our selves. “You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see.  Instead of having your approximate location detected and shared automatically, you can manually set your location for elsewhere. Since you may not want to share the same information with everyone, Latitude lets you change the settings on a friend-by-friend basis. So for each person, you can choose to share your best available location or your city-level location, or you can hide.” You can find more about Latitude privacy on this video

Read more: Google Mobile Blog , Google Blog , Google LatLong

Microsoft explores educational link to video games

Almost every child likes to play video games. Some of them are addicted for video games. So their parents worry a lot about their education. What about educating them through video games?

Microsoft Corp. which publishes "Gears of War," (a third-person shooter video game) is studying the reactions of devoted gamers to see whether video gaming can promote learning skills that carry over to the classroom.

Microsoft has put up $1.5 million to start The Games for Learning Institute, a joint venture with New York University and other colleges. The goal of the research is to see whether video games — and not just software specifically designed to be educational — can draw students into math, science and technology-based programs. The institute has begun lining up middle school students to study.

This is not the first time such a research is initiated. University of Wisconsin researchers have found that playing "World of Warcraft" can encourage scientific thinking. The researchers noticed that players used mathematics and models to deal with situations in the game's fantasy world.

The highlight of the Microsoft initiative is the company’s ability to bring needed money and credibility to this area of research. Many studies so far have focused on educational games, not shooter games.

In contrary people like Vince Repesh, a counselor at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, fears that gaming is replacing education, not adding to it. He has mentioned about  a couple of students, coming to him for help after they got hooked on "World of Warcraft." One student had gone from straight ‘A’s to flunking out.

Read more on: MSNBC

YouTube Slowly Kills External Video Ripping

This is not good news for many people. YouTube is reportedly shutting down third-party services that allow users to download videos for offline viewing. The move comes as the video-sharing Website announced last week that content providers can offer paid downloads for their videos.

Also YouTube claims that according to the terms of services of YouTube site, a user shall not copy or download any User Submission unless  a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the YouTube Website for that particular User Submission."   Though YouTube say like that, it is reported that YouTube is "testing" a paid download feature with select partners. That can also be a main reason for disabling external services that enable users to save a copy of a video on their computers for offline viewing.

Read more on: Yahoo! News         

Verizon expects 4G launch next year

Telecommunication giant, Verizon Communications is ready to go Beyond 3G. Verizon’s' chief technology officer(CTO) Dick Lynch has given out details on the company's soon-to-be-built 4G wireless network that's set to go live in 2010. It is said that Verizon will begin testing the service this year and launch it commercially in at least 25 to 30 markets in the U.S. in 2010. It will continue to build out the 4G wireless network and expects to cover most (or all) the states with the new wireless network by 2015. The company announced in 2007 that it planned to use a technology call Long Term Evolution to build its next-generation wireless networks.

In its initial trials, Verizon says that it has demonstrated peak download speeds of around 50Mbps to 60Mbps. Average download speeds are likely to be a lot lower since the wireless spectrum is a shared medium. Still, the network will be much faster than the average speed of Verizon's 3G network, which typically tops out at 400Kbps to 700Kbps.

In the next generation, wireless connectivity to the Internet is also expected to be built into other products, such as digital cameras and even medical devices.

"In the not-so-distant-future, any and all devices will have LTE embedded in them. We are seeing a new generation of converged devices that will let people do a lot more than we've seen so far."  Lynch has said.

Read the full story on: CNET Reviews

Microsoft Reveals New Windows® Phones With Marketplace and My Phone Services

This news is about Windows Mobile. On February 16th at Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer along with key mobile partners, HTC, LG and Orange, unveiled new Windows® phones featuring new user-friendly software and services. The next generation of Windows® phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and feature a new user interface and a richer browsing experience. In addition, Windows® phones will feature two new services, My Phone and Windows® Marketplace for Mobile.  My Phone is to sync text messages, photos, video, contacts and more to the Web. Windows® Marketplace for Mobile is a new marketplace that will provide direct-to-phone mobile applications and can be accessed from both the phone and the Web.

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen keeps people up-to-date on important information by providing a dashboard-like experience to items such as new e-mails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments.
It also includes an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger, and an updated version of the latest Internet Explorer Mobile browser.
The new Windows phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009.

Read more on: Microsoft Press Release