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New versions of Microsoft’s word processing, spreadsheet and email programs will sport touch-based controls and emphasize Internet storage to reflect an industry-wide shift away from the company’s strengths in desktop and laptop computers.

The new offerings appear designed to help Microsoft retain an important source of revenue as more people access documents from mobile devices. The new Office suite also reflects the fact that people tend to work from multiple computers – perhaps a desktop in the office, a laptop at home and a tablet computer on a train and a smartphone at the doctor’s office.

Like an upcoming redesign of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the new Office will respond to touch as well as commands delivered on a computer keyboard or mouse.

The addition of touch-based controls will enable Office to extend its franchise into the rapidly growing tablet computer market. Apple dominates that market with the iPad, though Microsoft has plans to compete with its own tablet, called Surface.

The programs will store documents online through Microsoft’s SkyDrive service by default, meaning users will have to change settings to store documents on their own computer. The programs will also remember settings, including where you last left off in a document, as you move locations.

The Internet-based services approach is one Google has been promoting with its own suite of similar programs, threatening Microsoft’s dominance.

“This is the most ambitious release of Office that we have ever done,” CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday in unveiling the new Office in San Francisco.

A preview version of the new Office suite is being made available online at . Microsoft Corp. isn’t saying when it will go on sale or what the price will be. Those details will come in the fall. http://office.com/preview

Microsoft will continue selling the package as standalone software that can be installed on computers, but the company expects the bulk of users will opt for an Internet-based version, which comes with automatic updates for a recurring subscription fee.

Other features in the new Office include:

_ Inkling, which lets you use a stylus to write on a device’s screen. Handwritten notes are converted automatically to text.

_ Integration with Yammer, a social network for businesses, and with Skype, a video chat service. Microsoft agreed last month to buy Yammer for $1.2 billion, while Microsoft spent $8.5 billion to buy Skype last year.

_ Bing Maps will be part of the new Outlook email program. If there’s an address in an email, just tap on it to get directions.

_ A “reading” mode on Word will make it easier to read word-processing documents on a tablet or e-reader. That mode will make the document look more like a book page. You can also embed video into Word documents, or share a document directly on Facebook.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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After months of talk, Apple finally announced the release of its latest tablet device at an event in San Francisco, Calif. on March 7.

World, meet the new iPad. (That’ right, “iPad.” Not iPad 3, not iPad HD, not iPad 2X — just iPad.)

While the device doesn’t look too different from its predecessor on the outside, like the iPhone 4S before it, the differences are mainly internal. Share your thoughts in the comments below!

• Retina Display - The photo above shows the difference between the iPad 2′s 1,024 x 768 pixel display and the new iPad’s high-definition Retina display, which has double the resolution and four times the pixels (2,048 x 1,536 pixels). Apple has described a Retina display as ”pixel density is so high your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels.” And how does it stack up to other tablet displays? GDGT’s Ryan Block said of his first hands-on with the new device: “It’s the best display I’ve ever seen. Anywhere, period.”

• 4G, A First For Apple - Apple’s March 7 event marked a first for Apple, the arrival of 4G LTE connectivity on a mobile device. Purchased with a two-year contract from either AT&T or Verizon, a 4G iPad will, according to The Wall Street Journal, ”allow users to connect a[t] speeds roughly 10 times faster than current 3G data networks.” 4G models will also “work on any 3G network,” per GigaOm.
  New iPad models equipped with this unique feature, however, will cost users slightly more than models without 4G. (More on this later.)

• Meatier Specs – The new iPad may look pretty similar to the old one, but it’s packing some serious hardware upgrades within its thin frame. These include a faster processor, the “quad-core” 1GHz Apple A5X, which Apple claims to offer twice the processing power of the A5 CPU (found in the iPad2) and four times the graphics-rendering power of the Tegra 3 processor found in many Android tablets, per Wired’s live blog of the event. Gizmodo argues that Apple has also probably upped the device’s RAM, “if only to handle the new resolution.”

• No Siri – The new iPad did not get Apple standout iPhone 4S feature, the voice-activated virtual personal assistant, Siri. What it did get was Voice Dictation, which will be a blessing for anyone who has ever tried to type on the iPad’s tricky virtual keyboard.
  To use the handy new feature, just tap the microphone icon on the keyboard and start talking. Current languages supported by dictation include U.S., U.K. and Australian English as well as Japanese, French and German.

• Look – While the new iPad offers quite a bit more than the iPad 2 in terms of display, hardware, and connectivity, the outside remains almost identical to its predecessor, measuring 9.5 x 7.31 inches.
  As expected, the biggest difference between the updated Apple tablet and its predecessor is its thickness…

• A Bit More Heft – Compared to the .34 inch iPad 2, the new iPad measures .37 inches deep, according to Apple’s website. In addition, the new iPad has .11 pounds on the iPad 2, weighing in at 1.44 lbs. The 4G version of the new iPad is even heavier, weighing in at a whopping 1.46 lbs.

• New Photo Tools – The new iPad boasts 5-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera that shoots 1,080p HD video.The iPad 2′s rear camera was only .7-megapixels and recorded video in a paltry 720p.
  iPhoto, Apple’s photo-editing software, is now available for the iPad. The app can be used for editing, effects, beaming photos between devices and sending finished products to iCloud or social networking accounts. The app also lets users create photo journals, digital scrapbooks into which users can insert maps, notes and weather widgets. The new iPhoto app costs $4.99 and is available today.

• Personal Hotspot – The 4G version of the new iPad also comes with a feature called Personal Hotspot, which “can be used to share the fast network connection on your iPad with up to 5 other devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB,” according to an Apple press release.

• Powerful Battery – Even though the new features like Retina Display and 4G connectivity will be consuming a lot more juice, a larger, more powerful battery will keep the new tablet charged for the same amount of time as the previous model.
  Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, had the following to say about the battery during Apple’s Wednesday event (per GDGT): “You may recall we claim 10 hours of battery life, and 9 hours on 3G. The new iPad delivers the same 10 hours of battery life, and 4G is 9 hours.”

• Price And Availability – The WiFi-only iPad starts at $499 for the 16GB then jumps to $599 for the 32GB and $699 for the 64GB. The 4G version starts at $629 for 16GB and tops out at $829 for the 64GB version.
  The iPad is available for pre-order now and will begin shipping on March 16. 

• Apps – In addition to its own apps, Apple also introduced a new generation of apps made specifically with the new iPad’s higher resolution and enhanced hardware capabilities in mind. According to Engadget, these apps came courtesy of third-party developers like game-maker Namco, which previewed its jet combat simulator SkyGamblers, and Epic Games, the developer behind popular role-playing sword-fighting game Infinity Blade and creator of the new Retina display-optimized Infinity Blade: Dungeons.
  In addition, 3-D design software manufacturer Autodesk showed off its Sketchbook app, which allows for a whole new level of sketch detail thanks to the new iPad’s improved display.

Related articles

• The new iPad: sharper display, same price (thehindu.com)

Steve Jobs never said it exactly this way, but we think he would have agreed that not all “Think Different” is created equal.

This seems to be true in the case of the year’s most epic technology flops.

While some products were fated for failure — more than one eyebrow was raised at the launch of a certain handheld 3D gaming console with a steep price tag and a slim catalogue of games — others seemed like more of a sure thing, at least in theory. (A wristband that keeps track of your health is a brilliant idea, as long as you can get the device to work.)

Both newbies and well-established companies are responsible for 2011′s most cringe-worthy fails. From giants like Netflix and HP to startups like Color Labs, these companies are responsible for poor decisions and surprise misses from the past 12 months.

Here are our picks for the year’s biggest tech failures (below). 

• Qwikster

• HP’s Attempted Spinoff Of PC Branch

• BlackBerry PlayBook

• Playstation Network Outage

• Jawbone Up

• Motorola Xoom

• Nintendo 3DS

• Facebook Places

• Google Buzz

• Google TV

• Color

• ‘Duke Nukem Forever‘

• Flip Cam

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

• Top 10 Worst Technology Fails Of 2011 (ceoworld.biz)
• Here’s One Take On The Biggest Tech Stories Of 2011 (businessinsider.com)

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Apple in October announced that iPhone, iPad and iPod users had downloaded over 18 billion applications from the iTunes App Store since the service launched in 2008.

The company recently released its iTunes Rewind 2011 lists, counting down some of the most popular content of the year. The annual recap looks at Apple’s favorite apps across 21 categories, including Books, Games, Music, News and more. Apple has also listed its own picks for the “App of the Year” and has selected its favorite downloadable content from iTunes, such as best musical artist, best nonfiction book and several others. (Click here to see what Apple selected as the best content of the year.)

As for users’ overall favorite paid and free apps available on the iOS platform, gaming app “Angry Birds” topped the lists of paid and free iPad apps and took the number-one spot among paid iPhone apps. While the game also cracked the top four free iPhone apps of the year, it came in behind a social networking app, a music app and another game. View the slideshow (below) to see users’ 13 favorite free iPhone apps from 2011. You can check out the iTunes Rewind to see the complete list of users’ favorites from the year, too. Heres the List -:

• #1 – Facebook

• #2 – Pandora Radio

• #3 – Words With Friends Free

• #4 – Angry Birds Free

• #5 – Skype

• #6 – Netflix

• #7 – Angry Birds Rio Free

• #8 – Groupon

• #9 – Fruit Ninja Lite

• #10 – Twitter

• #11 – Angry Birds Seasons Free

• #12 – Tap Tap Revenge 4

• #13 – The Weather Channel

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

• Instagram named iPhone app of the year (digitaltrends.com)

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The iPhone 5 isn’t surfacing anytime soon, but Apple is offering another “5″ fix with the release of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 5.

iOS 5, which will be available starting October 12, was unveiled back in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference and offers a slew of new features and updates, including deeper integration with Twitter, over-the-air updates, iMessages (a potential text message-killer and Apple’s take on BBM), streamlined access to the phone’s camera, and much more. According to Apple, iOS 5 comes with “over 200 new features.”

“If the hardware is the brain and the sinew of our products, the software is their soul,” said former Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he unveiled iOS 5, according to All Things D.

Excited for the new iOS, which will be available on iPhones, iPod touch devices, and iPads? Keep in mind that before you can download it, you’ll need to update iTunes to iTunes 5.0

• Over-The-Air Updates - If you buy a brand new iOS 5 device, you no longer have to immediately synch it using a PC. “You can now setup and activate your device right on the device and you are ready to go. It’s that easy,” said Forstall, according to Engadget. When it comes time for a software update, users can download the new software releases over-the-air without a PC. Users will also be able to backup and restore their iDevices via Apple’s iCloud.

• Twitter Integration - Twitter integration on iOS 5 devices means that users can sign in to Twitter once, store their credentials on their mobile device and use those stored login data to Tweet from non-Twitter apps without having to pause and sign in. That means the user can capture and share media directly to Twitter with the press of a button. This integration also lets you tweet content from YouTube, Safari and Maps, as well as update contact information for users that have Twitter accounts.

• Revamped Notifications - Rather than interrupt the user with pop-ups about missed calls, voicemails, texts, push notifications, stock and weather updates, the new notification system collects notices and stores them in a discreet menu at the top of the screen (similar to Android notifications). The user can access this Notification Center by swiping down with one finger.

• Updated Safari Browser - Apple has upgraded its Safari web browser app to include tabbed browsing and fast, smooth switching between windows. Another new feature, Safari Reader, “will strip out distractions and present the text of a webpage with no other excess content,” Engadget describes. Safari’s Reading List feature will lets you save content to read later and synch these lists across browsers.

• iMessages - Think of the new iMessages communication app as a BlackBerry Messenger for iOS devices. iMessages lets you share texts, photos, videos and more with other iOS users. Wired explains:
  

  You can see when the message has been delivered or read. You can tell when someone starts typing. iMessages are pushed to all your devices, so if you start a conversation on your iPad and later pick up on your iPhone, you can see the entire conversation to date. Support for 3G and WiFi, and everything is encrypted and sent over the air.

• New Location-Aware Reminders - CNET explains this new app:
  

  Reminders app lets you store multiple lists, including dates for each event. [It] can also assign location, as in “remind me to call my wife when I leave the convention today” which uses a geo-fence to see when you’re outside of an area to send that reminder. Reminders sync on iCal on the Mac with CalDAV, and on Windows with MS Exchange,

• Quicker Camera Access - Isn’t it awful when your iPhone screen is locked and you need to take a picture,this very instant? Thanks to a new camera shortcut that will live on the lock screen, iOS 5 will let you capture photos without unlocking the screen and accessing the camera app. Users can even snap a photo via the Volume Up button.
  Within the Camera app, pinch-to-zoom can now be used, and simple edits–crop, rotate, reduce red-eye, single-click enhancement–will be available.

• Revamped Mail - Technologizer reports that Mail in iOS 5 will bring rich-text formtting like bold, underline, indentation; draggable addresses; message flagging; improved security and more. Plus, iCloud lets users sync their Mail accounts across all their devices running iOS 5.

• Other Goodies - A new split-keyboard option for iPad lets user grasp the tablet with both hands and type with their thumbs.
  A built-in Dictionary will let users look up words by highlighting the word and clicking “define” to pull up the Dictionary app.

• More Social Games - ”The Game Center app is getting more social,” writes MacWorld, “allowing you to share your own member photo, compare yourself against friends using achievement points, see friends of friends, recommended friends, and recommended games, too. And Game Center in iOS 5 offers support for turn-based games, built right into the OS.”

• Newsstand - The Newsstand app is a hub for your newspaper and magazine subscriptions, which will download new releases automatically.

• Find My Friends - Apple’s new social app will be available to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users using iOS 5. Find My Friends is a bit like Foursquare, but it allows users to share their locations in real-time, as well as control when and with whom they’re sharing.
  The app’s description reads:
  Find My Friends allows you to easily location your friends and family from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Install this free app on your iOS 5 device and sign in with the Apple ID you use with iCloud. Adding a friend is easy – just send a request to see their location. Once your friend accepts using the Find My Friends app, you will then be able to see that friend’s location on a map. You can also choose to share your location for a limited period of time with a group of friends. Use Find My Friends to keep track of your traveling companions when you’re on a vacation. Or to see if the kids are home from school. Or to find the friends you’re meeting for dinner.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Related articles

• iOS 5: iMessage (nytimes.com)
• Apple releases iOS 5, go update your iPhone, iPad and iPod right now! (thenextweb.com)
• iOS 5: The Top 10 New Features [Video] (gizmodo.com)

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Popular Mechanics’ seventh annual Breakthrough Awards recognize the top people and products that have “dramatically advanced the fields of technology, medicine, space exploration, automotive design, and environmental engineering.” This year’s breakthrough innovations range from smog devouring roof tiles to a device that lets you set up an instant small business anywhere. Popular Mechanics is also honoring 11 innovators whose work “will transform the world in years to come.”

“From off-the-shelf blood vessels to a cell phone tower the size of a Rubik’s Cube, our Breakthrough Award winnersnot only capture the imagination, but hold the potential to improve and save lives,” says Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief James B. Meigs, in a press release.

The winners are chosen by Popular Mechanics editors who enlist the help of top experts and past Breakthrough winners to find the coolest inventions of the year. The products are then tested to make sure that they really do what they say they do. Jennifer Bogo, Science editor at Popular Mechanics, told The Huffington Post that when it finally comes down to picking the top 10, there isn’t even much contention among the editors since, “the best products quickly rise to the top.”

Check out Popular Mechanics’ picks for the 10 most transformative products of 2011 in the slideshow below. Click here for a full list of the Breakthrough Award winners, as well as descriptions of their accomplishments, or click here to see the 10 innovators honored by Popular Mechanics.

• BoralPure Smog-Eating Tile - According to Popular Mechanics, the BoralPure roof tile‘s titanium dioxide coating neutralizes nitrogen oxide particles in smog. The result? A harmless precipitate that washes away in the rain.
  
  
• Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK - According to Jennifer Bogo, the science editor at Popular Mechanics, the Kinect SDK was a particularly satisfying honoree. In 2009, they gave an innovator award to Project Natal, for their work on the Kinect interface. This year, the editors at Popular Mechanics were so impressed that Microsoft has kept this motion capture gaming system open to third party innovation through the Software Development Kit, that they decided to make the Kinect SDK a Breakthrough Product. “What we really like is that they aren’t trying to keep people from doing their own thing with it,” says Bogo. 
• Square Reader, Square & Card Case Apps - The Square Reader is one of Bogo’s personal favorites this year. This smartphone or iPadattachment allows users to set up a small business literally anywhere. With it you can process credit card transactions, email receipts, and even get touchscreen signatures, no matter where in the world you are. Meaning, now you can instantly charge your roommates for that toilet paper you bought, again. 
• Parrot ASTEROID - The Parrot ASTEROID receiver doesn’t exactly transform your late model Corolla into the Batmobile, but it does allow you to make hands-free calls, connect your smartphone or iPod, and use navigation apps and internet radio inside your ancient jalopy. 
• Rockstar Games‘ L.A. Noire - Each animated character in this noir detective game was played by a real actor, whose every grimace was captured in painstaking detail using cinema-grade MotionScan technology. According to Popular Mechanics, “When suspects lie, it’s revealed in the lines of their faces.” A level of realism that could turn even non-gamers into diehard fans.
  

• Philips AmbientLED Bulb - Although LEDs have long been touted as the earth-friendly answer to incandescent bulbs, up until now they’ve been a rather unpleasant replacement. Philips changed all that with the AmbientLED bulb, which uses remote phosphor technology to transform the normally dim blue light emitted by LEDs into a warm golden glow. That and the fact that it burns for almost three years straight made this bulb a 2011 Breakthrough award-winner.
  

• Celestron SkyProdigy Automatic Telescopes - The truth about most telescopes is that you can’t just point them at the sky and instantly begin looking at the outlines of Neil Armstrong’s footprints on the moon– they generally require hours of practice to learn how to calibrate. That’s precisely what set the SkyProdigy apart from the rest for the people at Popular Mechanics: “With built-in tracking cameras and a digital database of more than 4000 heavenly objects, the SkyProdigy telescopes sight themselves in less than 3 minutes, so even a first-time stargazer can experience the thrill of discovery.”
  

• Solaria Photovoltaic Panels - These solar panels use 50-70 percent less silicon, which means they are about one-third less expensive than a traditional panel of comparable efficiency. But it doesn’t mean they won’t last. According to Popular Mechanics, their proven operating life is more than 25 years.
  

• Motorola ATRIX 4G - Sure the Atrix 4G is a nice smartphone with a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 4G wireless speeds and crystal clear 540 x 960-pixel resolution screen, but what makes it a breakthrough product, according to Popular Mechanics, is the fact that it’s also a computer. Use it on its own or if you want full-screen capabilities, plug it into the super slim 11.5 inch Motorola Lapdock. “Motorola has taken the first step toward a future in which one device serves as the nerve center of many,” say the editors of Popular Mechanics.
  

• Ford Rear Inflatable Seat Belts - For their 2011 Explorer, Ford made the first major improvements to the three-point seatbelt since the safety device was invented in 1959. This innovative restraint combines an airbag with a seatbelt. On impact, a balloon inside the seatbelt fills with compressed gas, breaking through the fabric and providing support for more than five times the body area as a regular belt.

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• Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards honor innovation (news.cnet.com)
• Rockler Wins Editor’s Choice Award from Popular Mechanics Magazine (prweb.com)
• POPULAR MECHANICS: Is The Light Bulb Ban A Bright Idea? “On January 1, 2012, new laws hit the book… (pajamasmedia.com)

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At first glance, the Amazon Kindle Fire doesn’t appear to be an iPad killer. When you compare the hardware and technical specs of the new Amazon tablet next to those of the Apple tablet, there doesn’t seem to be much of a comparison: Apple’s 10-inch, 16GB iPad is a far cry from the 7-inch, 8GB first-generation Kindle Fire.

And yet the fact is that, at the end of the day, they’re both tablets, which means that consumers will probably be choosing between one or the other when it comes time to get a tablet. Unless you’re doing really well this recession, it would be hard to justify shelling out money for both an iPad (starting at $499) and a Kindle Fire (which costs $199, less than half of what it costs for Apple’s tablet).

How do you choose between them? Given everything we already know about the iPad (which has been out for 18 months), and all the also-rans that could not dethrone the iPad, here are the biggest advantages the Kindle Fire has over the iPad:

• It Runs Flash - Jeff Bezos confirmed in his speech that the Kindle Fire will indeed support Flash, a much-requested feature for the iPad and iPhone that Apple has shown little interest in including (neither the iPad nor iPhone support Flash) . We should also note that the Kindle Fire will also apparently beat all of the upcoming Windows tablets in this area too, as Microsoft has indicated that Windows 8 Metro will not run Flash.

• It Costs Less - The cheapest model iPad 2 (that isn’t just a block of wood): $499 (that’s without 3G). The cheapest Kindle Fire: $199 (that’s also without 3G, and there is no amount of money you can pay to get 3G on your Kindle Fire, because a 3G Kindle Fire does not currently exist).
  Still, the Kindle Fire beats the iPad by $300; now consumers must decide whether or not a WiFi-only iPad is worth $300 more than the new Amazon tablet.

• It Fits In Your Hand - Just like Android tablets have been offered for $200 before, so too have they been 7-inches. The Kindle Fire copies the poor-selling BlackBerry PlayBook‘s form and screen size: At 7-inches, the Kindle Fire can easily be held in one hand. The iPad 2, with its 10-inch screen can probably only be comfortably held in one hand by certain humongous basketball players.

• It Weighs Less - Along with having smaller dimensions than the iPad, the Kindle Fire is also lighter than its Apple competitor. At 14.6 ounces, it is significantly lighter than the 21.3 ounce iPad, making it, in all senses, more portable.

• It Loads Webpages Faster - If the brand new Amazon Silk web browser performs like Jeff Bezos claims it will, then the Kindle Fire will pretty easily be the fastest mobile browser available. In case you missed it, Amazon Silk splits up the work that your device has to do in order to load large webpages on your tablet faster: The smaller stuff like text and block building will be handled by the phone, and the more heavy duty stuff like HTML, CSS and Javascript will be done by Amazon’s EC2 cloud servers (Watch a video demonstration from Amazon about how this works here, and, if you really like this idea, download the Opera browser here). Amazon Silk will also remember where you often visit after clicking through to certain sites, and it will pre-load those pages in the cloud.
  If all this stuff works like it should, it’s going to make browsing on WiFi on the Kindle Fire (especially to full web versions of webpages) very, very fast.

• It Has Both Wireless Mirroring And Native Streaming Media - Granted, the upcoming update to Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 5 will add wireless mirroring(the ability to transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory), but juuuust in case: Bezos showed off the Kindle Fire’s wireless mirroring at his keynote, and it looked pretty good. Add to that the option to add on Amazon Prime for Amazon’s streaming library, and you have a pretty powerful home entertainment hub that doesn’t require third-party apps or on-demand purchasing of video media.

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• Kindle Fire: New Amazon Tablet Fires a Shot at Apple iPad | Search Engine Journal (seome.me)
• Kindle Fire: New Amazon Tablet Fires a Shot at Apple iPad (searchenginejournal.com)
• Can Kindle Fire match the iPad? (guardian.co.uk)
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• Digits Live Show: Amazon’s Kindle Fire Takes Aim at Apple Ipad (blogs.wsj.com)
• Amazon Kindle Fire: It’s a Tablet for the Masses, not an iPad Killer. (slate.com)

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Oprah went to Facebook on Thursday, and the results were nothing short of incredible.

Oprah sat down with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg for a live chat, in which she answered questions from Sandberg, the crowd at the event and online participants. Here are just some of the things she touched on. (Scroll down to watch the entire chat.)

• Being the CEO of OWN is sometimes an out of body experience. “I feel that things sped up for me instead of slowing down,” she said. “…It’s a lot harder than I ever imagined.” Turning to Sandberg, she said, “if anyone asks you if you want a network think about that.”

• Oprah said she never knew what fear was until late 2010, when she began waking up in the morning and couldn’t breathe. “I said, what is that?” she said. “And I went, oh! That’s what that feels like.”

• She has begun mandating that her entire staff meditate twice a day. “God lives in the space of stillness,” she explained.

• She said these words: “I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” Who but Oprah would say that?!

• She claimed that her mother and father only had sex one time: when she was conceived. “I was considered an accident,” she said. Her father told her that he convinced her mother to show him “what was under her poodle skirt,” and, as she put it, “voila!”

Sheryl Sandberg then did a lightning round with Oprah, which was basically the greatest thing ever. Here were her answers:

Shoes or bags? “Shoes.”Early mornings or late nights? “Early mornings.”

Wine or tequila? “Tequilaaaaaa!” (She recommended a brand called Casa Dragones, saying, “Dear God!”

Tea or coffee? “Tea. Chai.”

Books on paper or books on a Kindle? “iPad.”

Jay-Z or Paul Simon? “Tuesdays, Jay-Z. Sunday, Paul Simon.”

Her favorite favorite thing ever (note: this is a really important question): “The Breville Panini Maker, which can also be used for bacon.”

“Beloved” or “The Color Purple?” “The Color Purple.”

Her first show or her last? “Last.”

Peanut butter or bacon? “Peanut butter. Crunchy.”

Thin crust or deep dish? “Thin, thin, thin.”

Looks or personality? “Definitely personality.”

The journey or the destination? “The journey.”

There was so much more, including a long, inspiring monologue about how we all need to matter to each other. She also said that Rosie O’Donnell has taken down all the walls at Harpo Studios in Chicago, and a ton of other things! The moral is: Oprah is incredible. No other views are considered acceptable.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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Over 20,000 records of patients who visited the emergency room at Stanford Hospital in 2009 were posted on the internet for over a year it was disclosed today.

The leaked information included names, diagnosis codes, account numbers, admission and discharge dates, and billing charges according to the New York Times.

The information was posted to the website Student of Fortune, a site where students can pay for tutorials on how to complete their homework.

A spreadsheet with the sensitive information was attached to a question posted to the site asking if someone could explain how to convert the information into a bar graph.

Multi-Specialty Collection Services, a billing contractor for the hospital, is likely the source of the leak.

The question I have is, why was the data not protected (encrypted) and who would think it is a good idea to post this kind of information to a public forum?

I see two problems at work in these types of incidents…

First, medical organizations that are required to protect confidential patient data in the United States under the HIPAA and HITECH acts often outsource work to third parties.

Simply inserting some clauses in their contracts to require these third parties to meet these regulations will ensure the data will be protected, right?

Second the laws and our attitudes toward data protection are simply outdated. If you think you should treat data differently when it is inside than when it is outside you are doing it wrong…

Confidential information, whether it is sensitive health records or source code to your secret Jesus phone to be released next month cannot be “inside” or “outside”. There is no inside.

Repeat after me… There is no inside. Has your organization ever had a malware infection? Then you don’t have an inside. Unfortunately, this case proves that information *does* just want to be free.

If your data requires protection when it is on your USB thumb drive, your laptop and your iPad then it needs protection on your server, in your databases and with your trusted partners.

Eventually I will write up my thoughts on firewall policies and you will see how enraged I get when someone says “We aren’t at risk from that worm, our firewalls block incoming connections.”

Rather than track down the person who made the mistake, imposing multi-million dollar fines and saying it won’t happen to us, let us learn from their mistakes.

Classify your data based upon its importance. Now, based on that classification take the appropriate actions to control and protect that data. Please?

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Image by tsevis via Flickr

Steve Jobs had no formal schooling in engineering, yet he’s listed as the inventor or co-inventor on more than 200 U.S. patents. These are some of the significant products that were created under his direction:

Read on to find out what this huge announcement means for Apple; to meet the company’s new CEO Tim Cook; to watch Jobs’s most iconic moments at Apple; to read Jobs’s best quotes ever; to read over his letter of resignation and to see how the web reacted to the news. Followings are the list :

• Apple I (1976)
• Apple II (1977)
• Lisa (1983)
• Macintosh (1984)
• NeXT computer (1989)
• iMac (1998)
• iPod (2001)
• iTunes store (2003)
• iPhone (2007)
• iPad (2010)

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• Who Is Tim Cook and Can He Truly Replace Steve Jobs? (techland.time.com)
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