Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, is set to launch an internet search engine with amazon.com that he hopes will become a rival to Google and Yahoo!

The project has been dubbed Wikiasari — a combination of wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick, and asari, which is Japanese for “rummaging search”.

Mr Wales told The Times that he was planning to develop a commercial version of the search engine through Wikia Inc, his for-profit company, with a provisional launch date in the first quarter of next year.

(via Timesonline)

Adobe just have released the first beta version of new Photoshop (CS3). One of the biggest (or can we say greatest) update in new version is that it will now run natively on Intel Macs.

The official FAQ also mentions non-destructive Smart Filters, Quick Selection tool, Reine Edge, Automatic layer alignment and blending, Vanishing Point with multiple, adjustable angle perspective planes, and Black and White conversion.

The beta version of CS3 will be available for everybody here. If you want to find out more information on this topic visit blogs at Adobe’s website.

No longer is it just talk-talk-talk! The first phase of the release of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 has just been implemented. At an event held on Thursday, Microsoft’s Steve Balmer announced the business availability of Windows Vista, Microsoft 2007 and over 30 other applications that are targeted for the business world.

The event was held at the NASDAQ Marketsite in New York City. 11 years ago Microsoft pulled this kind of double release stunt [Windows 95 and Office 95] and had a record breaking success. Will history repeat itself for Vista and Office 2007? Let’s wait and see.

Microsoft said it plans to spend “hundreds of millions” of dollars to market the Windows upgrade. The marketing budget will eclipse the $500 million Microsoft spent to market Windows XP, the predecessor to Windows Vista.

Now that Microsoft has stayed true to their promise of releasing the first version for businesses, we can rest assured that we all will be able to get the “everybody version” [consumer version] early next year as promised.

Click here for the full gist of the launch.

Click here for more info on Office 2007 and free test drive of Office 2007.

This week Opera Software has launched Opera Mini 3.0, the latest version of its mobile browser. Opera Mini is available for almost any mobile phone and optimized to reduce the size of data transferred to the phone, which makes browsing fast and cheaper for users that pay per kilobyte transferred.

Opera Mini can now allow users to launch their phone cameras through their browser to instantly publish photos to their e-mail, forum or blog. The integrated RSS feed reader keeps preferred news and content one click away in the browser. Users get the information they want sent directly to their phones.

Main features of Opera Mini:

• User-friendly access to all Web pages from a mobile phone
• Server-side data compression creates faster browsing and lower bills for services charged per kilobyte
• Download images, MP3s, etc. directly to the phone
• Style Opera Mini to your own taste by selecting from several new and bold skins to suit your mood
• Use Opera Mini’s advanced search functionality by selecting additional search engines for your start page

New with version 3.0:

• RSS feeds – Get all RSS news on your phone (now you can subscribe to your favorite RSS news feeds and every time you connect with Opera Mini all updates are just one click away. Sort the articles by feed source or by date)
• Photo blogging (share a picture from anywhere, anytime with your phone using Opera Mini’s photo sharing feature. Upload your photo to a blog or forum, or as an e-mail attachment)
• Content folding (the content folding feature shrinks lengthy menus to save your scrolling thumb. You can easily inspect the block of hidden content by hitting the [+] button next to it)
• Secure connection – safe and sound (secure connections will now let you safely use secured sites, such as your e-mail, bank site, online stores, with no exposure of your personal details)
• Even faster loading (all subsequent requests to a server within a session are now quicker. Opera Mini keeps an open connection between server and client reducing overhead TCP set-up times)

Just go to the Operamini site and download. You won’t regret it!

A couple of days ago, November 19 to be precise, AcceleRun was updated to version 1.6. Accelerun is a software that launches any of hundreds of installed programs within two seconds.

You don’t need to search through long menus again; you don’t have to worry about complex key combinations. All you have to do is to type in a few letters in the name of the program, folder, file or website, and Accelerun will find the matches – the more letters you type, the more the search narrows.

Accelerun makes your PC easier to navigate; you can move round a lot quicker using Accelerun. The fact that it requires minimum memory usage, has an easy-to-use design and it is ready for use in minutes after first launch make it a very useful tool.

Latest Changes in this latest version include:

• New options
• Speed and size optimizations
• Bug fixes

Learn more and check out the free version!

It’s easy to see what side of the bread the code monkeys at Google have buttered, politically speaking. Type “failure” into Google and click “I’m feeling lucky.” Well yeah that just about says it.

I’m really curious as to how this was done. Usually search engine stuff is all drawn from the target page, spiderbots read all the text on the page (and more importantly IN the page) and catalogue this in the database. I’ve viewed the source of that page on the Whitehouse site and there’s nothing like that in the code. Obviously, putting comments like that in the Whitehouse code is a short way to get yourself fired…

So the only explanation is that someone put it directly into the Google database. Man, the power. It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?

Software maker Adobe may sue Microsoft if it is not satisfied with the European Union’s steps to ensure Microsoft’s new operating system does not shut out rivals, Adobe’s chief executive said.

Bruce Chizen told Germany’s Euro am Sonntag newspaper there were two options: to sue Microsoft directly or to work with the authorities and provide them with the necessary information.

“We’re doing the latter. Then we’ll see,” Chizen said in an interview released on Saturday ahead of publication on Sunday.

Microsoft’s new Vista software, due to be released early next year, contains a version of fixed document formats which would compete with Adobe’s PDF format. Microsoft has pledged to make changes to its version.

Chizen added that Adobe, known for its popular Acrobat document reader, was considering offering some of its more sophisticated software for photo and video editing over the Internet, financed by advertising.

“It would be a shame if we could not fit this into our business model,” Chizen said.

via Reuters

Microsoft being so generous lately. What do I mean? Well, guys at Neowin.net got an info that everyone who took part in the Windows Vista beta test (and that’s about 20,000) company have provided a complimentary copy of Windows Vista Business or Ultimate. But there’s a little catch – really not all of 20,000 testers got new & hot software but only those who submitted at least 1 bug report.

Microsoft sent out a mail to those testers just a few minutes ago which specified that it is being offered as a download only. No media will be mailed, and only currently active, invited members of the Windows Vista technical beta program who filed at least one bug are receiving this offer.

Well, can you say now Long Live Micrisoft or still not?

via Neowin

Google has refreshed the design of the recent 4.5 release of Google Desktop. To my mind now it’s better, faster and more personalized. In later versions of Google Desktop gadgets are floating on the desktop and the Sidebar has a definitely new look.

The new Sidebar is transparent, so it fits seamlessly with your desktop environment. Gadgets that fought for attention now look right at home, and content-heavy gadgets get new frames and icons that make it easier to tell them apart. All of this leads to a better place to find your email, news, feeds, stock prices, weather and other essential information. And this version is compatible with all of the latest software including Microsoft Vista, Office 2007 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.

via googledesktop

You can download and try the new Sidebar in Google Desktop now right from here.

It finally happens! Sun Microsystems Inc. said on Monday that it will make its Java software available for free by giving it to the open-source community. Though company will continue to sell and support standardized versions of the product.

The main cause of that action is to make that ‘sunny’ software more widely available (company still is striving to return to consistent profitability). Several key components of Java are already available for free download and the rest will be released in 2007. ‘Altogether it will put some 6 million lines of Java code into the public domain, making it one of the largest such grants to date’. That what Reuters have told us : )

As you’re all know Java software lets developers write one set of code for programs that work on different types of computers and operating systems. (more…)