Google Labs is over, the company announced today in a short post to the official Google Blog. Labs was the official home of many of Google's experimental projects - from a map of the human body to a Gmail plug-in that tried to stop people from sending emails while drunk. To be frank, it was an incoherent, unsatisfying, poorly supported tangle of perpetual alpha and beta technologies. Google would likely prefer it be seen as a relic of the Pre-Plus Era, back when Google 'didn't get social software.' The whole company is remaking itself now, with a very well received social network as the common thread now running through all the company's sprawling properties around the web. Google Plus wasn't a Labs Beta, it was a company-wide 'field test' developed in deep secrecy and then shared with 10 million people who couldn't get enough of it. 'In many cases, this will mean ending Labs experiments--in others we'll incorporate Labs products and technologies into different product areas. And many of the Labs products that are Android apps today will continue to be available on Android Market.' Reactions among Google Labs app users range from concern that the news signals an end to a period of experimentation at Google to hopefulness that existing products will be better-supported as a result. There was a sort of a flow with Labs, though. Ideas would be launched there, the company would see what kind of uptake they got, sometimes they would 'graduate' from labs and sometimes they would be ended instead. Most of the time they would just hang out there forever, being just ok. What the new flow for experiments to be productized will be is something to watch for. A Google spokesperson said in an email, 'there won't be any immediate changes to in-product experimentation channels like Gmail Labs or [...] Visit us at FastFind FASTFIND http://fastfind.co.tv
Social networking access seems to be that one important feature that would complete a mobile service. Taking a cue from this, one of India's rapidly growing mobile service providers, Tata Docomo have announced their USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) based access to popular social networking services like Facebook and Twitter. According to a report in TELECOM TALK, the catch here is that users will not have to subscribe to any data plans to avail these services. By dialing *325# and *515#, users will be able to access Facebook and Twitter – can see and post status updates, post comments, poke, like, among others. In order to subscribe to Twitter, the user can dial *515#. On reaching a landing page, hereafter, customers can punch in their Twitter details, and begin tweeting. Facebook services, on the other hand can be accessed by dialing *325#, and like mentioned before, users can enter their details on the landing page that follows. 
One of Microsoft's research teams mistakenly pressed the big green button on a social search project codenamed Tulalip, which was briefly online at 
Google announced its second quarter earnings today and the numbers are a significant reversal from the slight dip the company saw in Q1. Google's gross revenue was $9.03 billion, more than what investors had projected. CEO Larry Page kicked off the earnings conference call and described not only the financial data but some other notable figures as well: the number of Google Plus users, how much they're sharing, how widely Chrome has been adopted and the current activation rate for Android devices. 
According to the reports, India's premier mobile service providers – Vodafone Essar, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have gone full throttle with their plans of rolling out revolutionary 3G Roaming services in the country, on a massive scale. Interestingly, the 3G Roaming services are being planned not only on a massive scale as far as the reach is concerned, but also in a manner that is not too heavy on the pockets of the average Indian. Signing on the dotted line of the ICRA (Intra – circle roaming arrangements) agreement, the leading telecom trio has agreed to roll-out the 3G services by using each other's networks. Vodafone Essar has got into what it calls a bilateral agreement with Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular to bring forth to the customers 3G services, across major demographics. For example, Bharti Airtel that has a considerably widespread presence in the country doesn't possess a 3G presence in Gujarat. A void, it hopes to wipe out with its agreement with Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular. Each of these 3 telecom giants have bagged 3G licenses in various parts of the country. Bharti Airtel owns 3G licenses for Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (west region), West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, the North East, and Jammu and Kashmir. Vodafone Essar, on the other hand has 3G licenses for Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (east region) and West Bengal and Idea Cellular has 3G licenses for Maharashtra & Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, UP (East) UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Kerala. 
The Government of India has asked Google, internet telephone company Skype and other such companies to allow the country's security agencies to monitor their user services to guard against terrorism and other crimes. Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot has said that there is a whole list of companies that have been asked to give access and provide solutions. "We can't afford to take chances with national security. There is a whole list of companies that have been asked to give (access), provide monitoring solution, because law enforcement agencies, the home ministry and intelligence agencies want information for national security. Papers were exchanged months ago, the discussions are on and we are looking at finding a solution soon, since it is a matter of national security," Pilot added. India's fear is that terrorists will use services such as those offered by Skype and Google as they are heavily encrypted and security agencies can't monitor them. The government had also made efforts to find ways to monitor the corporate email services offered by Canada's Research In Motion Ltd. are still under way. While the BlackBerry maker has already offered systems to monitor internet browsing and messenger services used on its smartphones, it maintains that intercepting corporate emails is impossible as there is no technology available to allow monitoring of the service. In December 2010, mobile handset maker Nokia Corp. said it has set up servers in India so as to allow security agencies to monitor its consumer email services. 
Google+. Applications and websites that enable this migration are already showing up. Move2Picasa is a small application that allows users to move their photos from Facebook to Google+. Coded by Pune-based Web developer Aman Kumar Singh, Move2Picasa saw over 10,000 users put in requests for migrating their photos from their Facebook accounts to Google+ profiles. 
Microsoft said it will issue four security updates next week, only one of which is pegged as critical, to patch 22 vulnerabilities in Windows and Visio 2003. Next Tuesday's patch lineup is smaller than June's, when Microsoft shipped 16 updates that fixed 34 flaws . The company typically delivers a lighter load in odd-numbered months. In May, for instance, Microsoft shipped just two updates -- the company calls them "bulletins" -- to patch only three vulnerabilities. Of the four updates slated, one will be rated "critical," the highest threat label in Microsoft's four-step scoring system, while the other three will be marked "important," the second-most-dire ranking. Next week's Patch Tuesday vulnerability count will be among the largest for the year, with its 22 bested only by April's 64 and June's 34, and tied with February's collection. But the bugs-per-bulletins ratio is the highest for the year, observed Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security, hinting of next week's releases. In April, Microsoft patched 30 vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel device driver with a single bulletin, a record for one update. Microsoft has issued more than a dozen DLL load hijacking updates since last November. In May, the Slovenian firm Acros Security announced that more DLL load hijacking updates were necessary to plug holes in Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9). At the time, Microsoft said only that it was investigating the Acros report. The sole critical update scheduled for next week affects Windows Vista and Windows 7, but does not impact the much older Windows XP or any of Microsoft's server operating systems. Because Windows XP will be immune to the one or more vulnerabilities in that update, Storms said the bug had to be in code first used in Vist 
European Space Agency takes cameras to the next level, builds one where you can see a human being's fingernail on the moon (from Earth, of course). They're calling this camera GAIA and it creates images with one billion pixels. The Space Agency enlisted UK based e2V Technologies. They built a huge digital camera with 106 charged coupled devices packed in together. This is the largest camera created ever for a space program. The reason behind the building of this camera is that at the beginning of the new millennium, the European Space Agency planned to map 1 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy in 3D. Each of the charged coupled devices are shaped like credit cards and are the width of human hairs, made of slabs of silicon carbide, and each store light in the form of a single pixel. The device is set to launch on the Soyuz-Fregat sometime this year. This ship will be out and beyond for five years, settling in the Earth-Sun L2 Larange Point. The discoveries it makes will be beamed to radio dishes in Spain and Australia. 
The Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI cables used mainly by Apple in their Mac range of computers will now have to search for another solution. The company behind HDMI, HDMI Org has stated that the manufacturers of these cables have been told that their products are unlicensed and should not be sold. According to a report by Tech Radar, HDMI Org has confirmed that any cable that has a DP male connector on one end and an HDMI male connector is unlicensed and should not be on sale. According to the report, the company explained that the HDMI specification defines an HDMI cable as having only HDMI connectors on the ends. Anything else is not a licensed use of the specification and therefore, not allowed. All HDMI products undergo compliance testing as defined by the Compliance Testing Specification. HDMI Org went on to state that the CTS (Cognizant Technology Solutions) clearly defines necessary tests for all products defined in the HDMI specification. Since this new cable product is undefined in the specification, there are no tests associated with this product. It cannot be tested against the specification. This comes as a major setback to companies such as Apple, Toshiba, HP and Dell who all supply their products with these ports. As of now there is no concrete solution to the connectivity option that is used to connect these computers to an HDTV for mirroring video content unless one is to rush to the market now and pick up a cable before they are removed from the shelves.