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Top 10 RFID Developments of 2007, Part 1 

The RFID industry defied characterization in 2007. Previously hot segments of the industry cooled, but there was a revival in interest and investment in ... other established applications and technologies. There were several technological milestones and standards developments, including a few that will likely have a strong influence for years to come. RFID technology perhaps received more mainstream media coverage than ever before, but much of it was misguided or simply inaccurate. RFID Update has chronicled these developments on a near-daily basis. Here we present what we consider the top 10 developments in the RFID industry in 2007, with our insight and links to articles that provide more background information. #10 -- The Time is Now for Real-Time Location Systems Adoption was strong for real-time location system (RTLS) technology throughout 2007, and enthusiasm was even stronger. Numerous new implementations -- not pilots -- were announced throughout the year, along with technology and   [More...] [Less...]

Microsoft pulls 'beta' tag from Windows Live, a free upgrade with new photo, online programs - International Herald Tribune 

SEATTLE : After a trickle of updates and "betas" bearing the Windows Live moniker, Microsoft Corp. is ready to start promoting its official package of ... free desktop programs for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and sharing photos. The programs are "essentially a free upgrade for Windows," said Brian Hall, general manager of Windows Live at Microsoft. The package includes Windows Live Mail, which can grab messages from multiple free Web-based e-mail accounts, including Microsoft's Hotmail, Google Inc.'s Gmail and AOL e-mail. The new package, which Microsoft formally announced Tuesday, allows PC users to read and respond to mail even when they're not online, just as Outlook Express, which Microsoft has phased out, did. Its Windows Live Photo Gallery lets users manipulate and organize digital photos and upload them to Flickr, a photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo, and to Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft's own blogging and social networking site. The package also includes Live Writer, for wr   [More...] [Less...]

Microsoft Case Studies: Monsanto 

Monsanto Company, a global agricultural company, faced a license renewal deadline for its search engine used in more than 20 public Web sites and numerous ... intranet sites. Search results did not live up to expectations, and the tool was costly and cumbersome to manage. Monsanto evaluated Google and Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. It chose Office SharePoint Server 2007 for its feature set, and for the value of a search solution that extended enterprise search capabilities from traditional corporate information to people and expertise. Integration between Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the familiar Microsoft Office system programs was another reason why Monsanto decided on Microsoft technologies. Monsanto saved U.S.$250,000 in licensing fees and gained an easily deployable search solution—it took 45 minutes to migrate www.monsanto.com—that it expects to boost productivity. Situation Monsanto Company is a global agricultural business that applies biotechnology and genomics (t   [More...] [Less...]

Knowledge Tools - Home 

The Knowledge Tools group started in July, 2004. Out mission is to improve the data/human interface . People at work have to cope with large, confusing ... data sets in order to get their job done and make decisions. We want to build tools to help these people cope with data complexity. To build these tools, we must make advances in three areas: Programming languages/tools Machine learning algorithms that scale to large data sets User interfaces and visualization for interacting with data We believe that several different types of knowledge workers can benefit from our tools: Security analysts must monitor large event logs and gigantic flows of network traffic System administrators need to understand the complex activity of large server farms Decision makers want to have relevant information at their fingertips, without having to search To make research progress, we build prototype tools and get them into the hands of these types of users. We build many of our prototype tools on top of Iro   [More...] [Less...]

Microsoft Passes AJAX Interoperability Test 

September 26, 2007 Microsoft Passes AJAX Interoperability Test By Stuart J. Johnston Microsoft quietly announced in a pair of blog posts this week that ... it has passed the OpenAJAX InteropFest 1.0 interoperability tests, meaning that its AJAX tools work in an OpenAJAX environment. The Redmond, Wash. software company just joined the year-and-a-half-old OpenAJAX Alliance in March. AJAX ( define ) has become a mainstay for programming applications on the Web. The acknowledgment that Microsoft's AJAX toolset had passed came from a blog post by Brad Abrams, group program manager at Microsoft for ASP.NET AJAX, formerly codenamed Atlas. ASP.NET AJAX was developed to simplify writing AJAX applications using Microsoft's .Net technologies. Microsoft shipped version 1 of the ASP.NET AJAX extensions and controls in January. An alliance statement this week confirmed Microsoft's tools passed the interoperability tests. The alliance was initially formed in early 2006 by IBM, along with Google, Yah   [More...] [Less...]

Store and share documents online with Office Live Workspace 

*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and District of Columbia), 18 years or older. Sweepstakes end at 11:59 P.M. Eastern ... Time on May 11, 2008. Official rules . Find out how to opt out . Winners will be notified via e-mail and have 3 days to claim daily and overall prize period prizes.   [More...] [Less...]

Windows Vista: Compare Editions 

Windows Vista is designed to dramatically improve the computing experience of every kind of PC user—from people at home who use their PCs for simple web ... browsing, to business people who must organize and act on large volumes of data. Large, global organizations with complex IT infrastructures should consider Windows Vista Enterprise edition. Windows Vista Starter Windows Vista Starter is the most affordable way to enjoy the basic Windows Vista experience. Windows Vista Starter is exclusively* available in emerging markets, and is designed for a beginning PC user with additional tools and tutorials to make it easier to use. Read more . *Note: Windows Vista Starter is not currently scheduled to be available in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, or other high income markets as defined by the World Bank. Some product features are only available in certain editions of Windows Vista and may require advanced or additional hardware.   [More...] [Less...]

Microsoft QuickStart Tutorials 

BBC NEWS | Technology | Three million hit by Windows worm 

A worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users. The ... malicious program, known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido was first discovered in October 2008. Although Microsoft released a patch, it has gone on to infect 3.5m machines. Experts warn this figure could be far higher and say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft's MS08-067 patch. According to Microsoft, the worm works by searching for a Windows executable file called "services.exe" and then becomes part of that code. It then copies itself into the Windows system folder as a random file of a type known as a "dll". It gives itself a 5-8 character name, such as piftoc.dll, and then modifies the Registry, which lists key Windows settings, to run the infected dll file as a service. Once the worm is up and running, it creates an HTTP server, resets a machine's System Restore point (making it far harder to recov   [More...] [Less...]

BBC NEWS | Technology | 15 reasons Facebook may be worth $15bn 

Microsoft has invested $240m ( 117m) in social networking site Facebook in exchange for a 1.6% share of the company. That puts a value of $15bn ( 7.3bn) ... on a firm that has only been in existence three and a half years. So why does Microsoft think Facebook is worth $15bn? Here are 15 possible reasons.... 1. The network has gone viral in the last 12 months, with more than 50 million users worldwide and a user base that is growing faster than great rival MySpace. According to Facebook, it adds 200,000 new users each day. 2. The average user spends 3.5 hours a month on Facebook - more than the average user on rival MySpace - which is increasingly attractive to advertisers. 3. Facebook is the current Web 2.0 darling - popular with ordinary users and "tech heads" alike. 4. US research reveals that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college than MySpace users - increasing that attraction for advertisers. 5. Microsoft's investment makes them a serious player   [More...] [Less...]