Windows 7, the latest OS being developed by Microsoft saw its RC (Release candidate) version being released today. If you missed the chance to download the public beta earlier this year and still have not experienced Windows 7, make sure you get your copy of Windows 7 RC this time for sure because its really a very good OS from MS, not like the last blunder called Vista.

To download your copy of Windows 7, go to the download page on Microsoft website, and download the Windows 7 version of your choice (x86 or x64). The RC is right now available in five languages for download, English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010, that is more than one year of legit and free Windows 7 use.

Microsoft is also very wisely telling the users to not hurry to get their copy of Windows by saying that the operating system will be available for download atleast through July 2009. (must read : How the rush to download the RC crashed even MSDN and TechNet which released RC for MSDN subscribers on May 1 2009. Funny, isnt?)

Microsoft is also not limiting the number of product keys for Windows 7, so you can download safely till July this year.

Also, there are a few things you should know before you go on to install the RC on your PC:

• This is a pre-release version and is expected to be buggy some times. So make sure you keep a backup of your data all the time.
• Starting from March 1, 2010, your Windows 7 pc will start shutting down itself automatically every two hours. You will be notified two weeks before Windows goes into this annoying mode and before Mar 1, you will have to install a legit copy of Windows 7 on your machine.

I hope you will enjoy your stay with Windows 7.

Reason: I was having vaccations from college and I was trying to make the most out of my holidays and enjoying to the max. Another reason is that I bought Sony PlayStation 3 :80 GB recently ! Thats my first (good) buy from my internet earnings.

It cost me 25,000 INR with one game “MotorStorm: Pacific Rift” included in the bundle. I also got a complementary game, “Resistance :Fall Of Man“.

Needless to say, both the games are awesome,specially Motor Storm. I always wanted my racing game to be fast and furious. Whatever you say, racing games do not give me zip-zap-zoom kinda feel on my pc (my fav racing game before this was NFS 2: SE and I play a lot of games ). I wanted a racing game where cars actually go fast and boy, was my wish fullfilled. I will try to post a few screenshots of MotorStorm later. Yeah there are games like Grid, Burnout series but they dont play well on my 8400 GS 512 MB! lol. I need not worry no more. I have the ultimate in gaming.

Though I have a hard time convincing that it is not just a “video game” that costs 25k! It is a Blu-Ray player that can play your media at full HD (1080p). Its a complete media package and can play most A/V formats as well as image formats, I can surf internet at high speeds using IEEE 802.11 b/g wi-fi. 

Leaving you with a few unboxing pics of the console. In the box were PlayStation 3 80 GB black console, DUALSHOCK®3 wireless controller,AC power cord, AV cable, USB cable.

Sony PlayStation 3 in box

Sony PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3 box contents

PlayStation 3 box contents

PlayStation 3 console - black

PlayStation 3 plugged

Pictures shot from SonyEricsson P1i

Microsoft has opened its latest version of Windows operating system,the Windows 7 for public Beta testing. If you are interested in testing the latest OS from Microsoft you can download the BETA from this page.

You will need a Windows LIVE Id to be able to download.

You can download both,the 32-bit version as well as the 64-bit version. The downloaded file will be a ISO file,burn it to a DVD and enjoy the Beta.

The Beta will expire on 1^st August 2009.

Many few Google products are able to get “out of Beta” status as it is an undeclared policy of sorts of Google to keep its products in development stage forever. Many say that Google does it so that when anyone asks why is your xyz product not working like it should, they have a ready made answer,”Its still in Beta,why do you expect it to work normally?
Here is what they said on their blog.

All users will get updated to the latest release over the next few days. The version of the latest update is 1.0.154.36.

Note to Dev channel users: The Dev channel release will stay at 0.4.154.33. The current stable release is the same as the current Dev channel release without the Hotmail fix (which hasn’t been tested enough to release to all users). An update is coming next week.

Its about time we get supercomputers for ourselves, right? All those with deep pockets who dream of really owning a supercomputer,your prayers have been answered.

NVidia has come up with “Tesla personal supercomputer” that delivers cluster computing like performance and is upto 250 times faster than the present day personal computers or workstations.
Tesla is powered by 4 GPU’s, each having 240 processing cores (that makes 4*240=960 cores working in parallel in total) based on the NVidia’s CUDA architecture, delivering whopping performance of near 4 Teraflops!

Here are some more of its specs from NVidia website:

Tesla Architecture

• Massively-parallel many-core architecture
• 240 scalar processor cores per GPU
• Integer, single-precision and double-precision floating point operations
• Hardware Thread Execution Manager enables thousands of concurrent threads per GPU
• Parallel shared memory enables processor cores to collaborate on shared information at local cache performance
• Ultra-fast GPU memory access with 102 GB/s peak bandwidth per GPU
• IEEE 754 single-precision and double-precision floating point
• Each Tesla C1060 GPU delivers 933 GFlops Single Precision and 78 GFlops Double Precision performance

Software Development Tools

• C language compiler, debugger, profiler, and emulation mode for debugging
• Standard numerical libraries for FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines), and CuDPP (CUDA Data Parallel Primitives)

Product Details

• 3 or 4 Tesla C1060 Computing Processors with 4GB of dedicated memory per GPU
• 2.33 GHz+ Quad-core AMD Phenom or Opteron, — OR — Quad-core Intel Core 2 or Xeon
• Minimum system memory: 12 GB for 3 Tesla C1060s and 16 GB for 4 Tesla C1060s (at least 4GB per Tesla C1060)
• 12GB+ system memory (at least 4GB per Tesla C1060)
• 1200-1350 Watt Power supply
• Acoustics < 45dbA

Supported Platforms

• Microsoft® Windows® XP 64-bit and 32-bit (64-bit recommended)
• Linux® 64-bit and 32-bit (64-bit recommended)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5
  • SUSE 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3

All is fine but,can it run crysis? lol

If you want to lay your hands on this ultimate mean machine, you will have to lighten your pockets by about $10,000!

I requested my copy sometime back and forgot to blog about it. Then i was reading Sathya’s blog, where he mentioned about this giveaway by Sun Microsystems. I thought why not share it on my blog as every news is new to some people atleast. A few can always gain from it.

So, to get your free copy of Sun’s OpenSolaris CD all you have to do is, go to this page, and fill up the form.

You can also order Ubuntu via Shipit free of cost. I have so far ordered 7.04 and 7.10 from them and recieved them in reasonable time.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

All right. So here comes my dream phone(which probably will remain as a dream forever)
Sony Ericsson is all set to launch its latest and much awaited flagship product, Xperia X1. Though the delay in launching since it was announced has already caused the eagerness to come down but many are still eagerly waiting this phone to come out so that they can get their hands on this baby.It will first be available to customers in UK, Germany and Sweden. The handset will be available in other markets across Europe, Asia and Latin America throughout Q4 2008.

Shall we go for a ride? Okay,fasten your seat belts.

This Sony Ericsson Xperia X! is a power house. Fully packed with all the features you will ever need and even some which you will probably never need!

The phone is drop dead gorgeous when it comes to looks and surely is and emphasizing style statement.

It can make any phone breathe heavy in the feature department too.

The Xperia X1is a touch screen phone with a screen resolution of 800*480 and supports 65k colors. The Xperia X! has unique Xperia™ Panel interface which lets you navigate to web,multimedia,apps etc right from your desktop. The phone also has a optical joystick navigation.

You will stay connected where ever you go as the phone supports most of the networks viz GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100.

You wont be let down on connectivity front too. The phone supports GPRS,EDGE,3.5G (HSDPA 7.2Mbps), Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth with A2DP), USB 2.0

You have a fully featured QWERTY keyboard sitting under the hood and comes out when you slide the phone.

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7200 528MHz processor and has 256 Mb ram and 400 Mb internal memory which is expandable. It runs on Wimdows Mobile 6.1. This is the first Sony Ericsson phone which runs on Windows Mobile.

It has a built in GPS reciever and has A-GPS. So you never be lost again where ever you go.

For all you multimedia guys, the phone has a 3.15 MP Auto Focus camera that supports video recording at 30 fps(frames per second) at VGA resolution. It has FM radio with RDS, can playback MP3/AAC/MPEG4 files with ease and also has a 3.5mm jack, in case you want to connect it to some other output device.

Surfing is more fun here with Internet Explorer and it also has an in built RSS reader.

Other business features include Email, Push E-Mail,Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer) etc.

And all other standard features are also there. (Note:No infrared port)

For the phone that has so many features dimensions of 110.0 x 53.0 x 17.0 mm are good i think and it weighs 158 gms.

Thats about it in short (yeah thats short given the features the phone offers)

Here is a complete list of all its specifications:

Sony Ericsson XperiaTM X1 – At A Glance

Camera

• Auto focus
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• Photo light
• Video recording

Music

• Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
• Media player
• Music tones
• Windows Media Player™ Mobile
• 3D games
• FM radio
• Java
• Video streaming
• Video viewing

Internet

• Internet Explorer Mobile
• Opera 9.5 browser
• RSS feeds

Communication and Messaging

• Polyphonic ringtones
• Speakerphone
• Vibrating alert
• Video calling
• Email
• Picture messaging (MMS)
• Predictive text input
• Text messaging (SMS)

Design

• Xperia™ panels
• Optical Joystick navigation
• Navigation key
• Picture wallpaper
• Touch navigation

Organiser

• Alarm clock
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Document editors
• Document readers
• Flight mode
• Handwriting recognition
• Notes
• Phone book
• Tasks
• Touchscreen

Connectivity

• aGPS
• Bluetooth™ technology
• Modem
• Synchronisation
• USB support
• WLAN

Windows® Mobile® Operating System 6.1

• Microsoft® Outlook Mobile: email, contacts, calendar, tasks
• Microsoft® Office Mobile: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Internet Explorer® Mobile
• Windows Media Player™ Mobile
• Windows Live™
• Exchange ActiveSync®
• Utility Applications: file explorer, calculator, pictures & video, notes

Facts and Figures

• Size: 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm
• Weight: 158 grams

• Available colours: Solid Black and Steel Silver

• Main screen: 65,536 color TFT
• Resolution: 800 X 480 pixels
• Size: 3 inches

• Memory
• Phone memory: up to 400 MB
• microSD™ memory card support

Availability and Versions
Networks

• UMTS 900/1900/2100
• UMTS 850/1900/2100
• EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• HSUPA/HSDPA

I am leaving you with a few more pictures of this beauty.

I wish i could have this. Will dump my P1i anyday if i could get this.

Images from: 1 & 2

T-Mobile is releasing a new handset HTC Dream tomorrow and it runs on Google Android. The phone will go on sale in late October. Here is how it might look.

HTC Dream running Google Android

This is how it looks feature wise: (from here)

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
• SQLite for structured data storage
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
• GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
• Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

Such is the reputation of Google that Android is a well sought after platform even before its release with many people wanting their mobiles running on it. I also want my P1i to run on Android, atleast for a change.

Do you?