Microsoft Demos Native Windows 8 ISO & VHD Support (Video)

Yesterday we had reported about Windows 8 Ribbon Explorer UI video demo published by Microsoft and now here is yet another Windows 8 feature demo video published at Building Windows 8 by Rajeev from Microsoft. The video demonstrates Windows 8 support for ISO and VHD storage formats. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has become most popular format for storing copies of most optical disc such as DVD, CDs. An ISO file is simply a disc image stored as a file, composed of all of the contents of a CDROM or DVD disc. You can also think of an ISO file as a full-fidelity image (digital copy) of the optical disc.

Until now users need to download third party tools to open, mount or create ISO files but considering increase in popular of ISO format & huge demand for native ISO support, Microsoft Windows 8 team has decided to add native capability to mount ISO & VHD files. One can quickly access ISO content on Windows 8 just double clicking on ISO file & Windows 8 will create virtual CD/DVD drive which acts as real physical drive is connected to machine.

Similarly when one double clicks on VHD files Windows 8 will create virtual hard disk and user can access or modify content of VHD file

Check out below Demo Video on Windows 8 VHD & ISO Format support

Windows 8 ISO & VHD Native Support Video

Microsoft Demos Windows 8 Ribbon Explorer UI (Video)

Today on “Building Windows 8” Blog Microsoft’s Alex Simon, part of Windows 8 Development team published demo video of Windows 8 Explorer Ribbon features & improvements. Speaking about Windows Explorer, Alex says, despite of having 200 commands in explorer the larger part of Windows customer base uses small number of Windows Explorer Commands of which Copy, Paste, Delete, Refresh, Rename accounts for about 81.8% of command use.  Also the analysis on command entrypoint usage suggested that maximum users invoke commands from non-primary UI of explorer.

This clearly suggests there is room to enhance Windows Explorer. From Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 Microsoft has bought several design changes to Windows Explorer may not substantial one but Windows 8 with Metro UI definitely calls of a complete overhaul. Hence the new ribbon interface with useful commands will be the part of Windows 8 Explorer UI.

The ribbon interface also provides much more reliable and usable touch-only interface than pull-down menus and context menus. The new ribbon in Windows 8 Explorer will offer various tabs which will group the similar commands; such as home tab which will be house of all file and folder management commands like Copy, Create New folder, Movie Folder, Delete etc.

Share Tab has access to quickly sharing, email zip. View tab to adjust icon size, preview pane and other commands and context tab which will offer file specific commands.

Check out below demo video of Windows 8 Ribbon Explorer

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Facebook Photos Get Another Size Boost

The web’s most popular photo sharing site is getting another update.

In a blog post this evening, Facebook — which is by far the biggest photo site on the web — has announced that it’s launching a new photo viewer that presents images that are 960 pixels wide, as opposed to the 720 pixels they’ve been since March 2010 (they were 620 pixels before that). The viewer itself is also getting an update that replaces the current black lightbox with an opaque white, which it says puts more of the focus on the photo itself. Facebook also says that photos now load twice as fast, though it doesn’t get into how it’s serving the content so much faster.

Facebook’s last major Photos update came out in September 2010, when it introduced the black lightbox-based photo viewer and added support for photos as large as 2048 pixels in width (it doesn’t actually display these in the viewer, but you can download them at this size). That update finally made Facebook a viable way to share high-quality photos (before then, you could only download the low-res versions).

This has been a big week for Facebook. On Tuesday it announced a slew of tweaks largely related to its privacy controls and photo tagging  —you’ll soon be able to approve photos before they show up on your profile, which users have been requesting for years now. It also drastically changed the way Facebook Places work, placing less emphasis on check-ins. And earlier today confirmed that it’skilling off its Groupon-like daily deals just four months after launching them, though location-based deals are still around.

IBM developing largest data drive ever, with 120 petabytes of bliss

So, this is pretty… big. At this very moment, researchers at IBM are building the largest data drive ever — a 120 petabyte beast comprised of some 200,000 normal HDDs working in concert. To put that into perspective, 120 petabytes is the equivalent of 120 million gigabytes, (or enough space to hold about 24 billion, average-sized MP3′s), and significantly more spacious than the 15 petabyte capacity found in the biggest arrays currently in use. To achieve this, IBM aligned individual drives in horizontal drawers, as in most data centers, but made these spaces even wider, in order to accommodate more disks within smaller confines. Engineers also implemented a new data backup mechanism, whereby information from dying disks is slowly reproduced on a replacement drive, allowing the system to continue running without any slowdown. A system called GPFS, meanwhile, spreads stored files over multiple disks, allowing the machine to read or write different parts of a given file at once, while indexing its entire collection at breakneck speeds. The company developed this particular system for an unnamed client looking to conduct complex simulations, but Bruce Hillsberg, IBM’s director of storage research, says it may be only a matter of time before all cloud computing systems sport similar architectures. For the moment, however, he admits that his creation is still “on the lunatic fringe.”

Source: MIT Technology Review

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Remove Autorun Viruses from USB Drives with USB Protector

With the intention of simplifying developers job Microsoft has introduced autorun previously known as autoplay feature in Windows 95. Autorun is used to simplify the application installation for non-technical users when they insert the removable devices, unfortunately autorun has been hugely exploited by virus and malware creators by creating viruses and warms which spreads through USB autorun script.

With the availability of wide variety of USB based storage devices it becomes abstruse to protect from autorun viruses. To help those non tech savvy users here is simple but effective tool. USB Protector which not only protects you from USB autorun viruses with preemptive monitoring but also removes & cleans infected USB storage drivers.

USB Protector provides a Realtime Scanning mechanism (RTS) so that malwares are detected on time whan a removable storage drive is attached. It can detect and eliminate malwares automatically and provides a full scan of the drive to find hidden files.

Once you install USB Protector it will be automatically added to startup list so it can run every time windows reboot. The UI of USB Protector is not cluttered with many options and provides minimum required options such as Scan and Analyse Drive.

If you have already connected removable USB storage device to PC you can just hit scan option to initiate USB drive scanning.

USB protector will list any autorun or infected files are found in USB. USB protector is still in beta mode and final version is yet to be released. USB Protector supports Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7.

Download USB Protector to Remove Autorun Viruses.

Please Note: You must have .Net Framework 3.0 or higher installed in order to use USB Protector.

Steve Jobs Steps Down, Tim Cook Named Apple CEO

Steve Jobs has stepped down as CEO of Apple after nearly 14 years at the helm of the company he co-founded in 1976, Apple’s board of directors said in a statement after the close of trading on Wednesday. Jobs has been elected chairman of Apple’s board.

The board has named Tim Cook, previously the company’s chief operating officer, as Jobs’ replacement as Apple’s CEO and a member of the board, effective immediately, the statement said.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Apple director and Genentech chairman Art Levinson, in the statement.

“Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as chairman of the board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

Jobs submitted his resignation earlier Wednesday and “strongly recommended that the board implement its succession plan” and name Cook as CEO, the statement said.

Apple released Jobs’ resignation letter, which read as follows:

“To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

—Steve

Jobs’ first stint at Apple began with the company’s founding on April 1, 1976 as a vehicle for selling Jobs’ and Steve Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer kit. Co-founder Ronald Wayne left shortly thereafter, but Jobs and Wozniak went on to help usher in the personal computing revolution with innovative machines that were among the first to use graphical user interfaces, helping knock IBM from its perch as the dominant PC vendor.

Jobs resigned from Apple in 1984 following a power struggle with its board of directors, going on to found the computer platform developer NeXT and help build Pixar Animation Studios. He returned to Apple in 1996 as a result of the company’s buyout of NeXT, was named interim CEO in 1997, and became permanent CEO in 2000.

His second stint at Apple was even more successful than his first. Jobs rescued Apple from irrelevance with a string of popular products using the letter “i” as calling card—the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad—and even referred to himself in 2000 as Apple’s “iCEO.”

In recent years, Jobs’ health has led to extended leaves of absence from his regular duties as CEO. In the mid-2000s he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in public appearances he appeared to have lost considerable weight.

He underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and in the ensuing years, Jobs had ceded many of his duties running Apple’s day-to-day operations to Cook, though he still made public appearances at Apple product launches and its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, as well as hosting the company’s quarterly earnings calls.

Sroce: pcmag

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Google Fiber shows its potential with 151Mbps download speeds

Early last year Google set out on a mission to bring 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home networks in selected areas across the U.S. It was a big challenge, and one that states, counties, and cities fought hard to get in their areas.

18 months on, and those Google networks are being installed. As they come online individuals with access to the super-fast lines are posting their Speedtest.net results, and boy are these connections fast.

Reddit user TheTeam posted an image on the site with the tag line “I just got Google Fiber.” The image shows his Speedtest.net result and both the download and upload speeds are pretty incredible, maxing out at 151.68Mb/s and 92.79Mb/s respectively. That’s more than enough for a lag free game of CounterStrike or streaming a movie.

The test area is thought to be covering an area just off campus at Stanford as Google set out as afirst location in October last year. To make this an even better deal, because it is just in the testing phase, this access isn’t costing anything. So it’s super-fast free broadband anyone would be privileged to have.

The obvious question now is, if Google can do this, why aren’t network operators banging down the company’s door to get involved and roll this out everywhere. Yes, there’s big investment involved, but these companies are kidding themselves if they think waiting and dealing with a lack of bandwidth in the future is going to work for them. Whoever jumps first and starts investing in these fiber-to-the-home initiatives is going to be rewarded with a lot of new customers in years to come.

via Reddit and Anandtech