INFOCHAT NEWS

Microsoft is expected to rebrand and relaunch its search engine “Live Search” to “Kumo” which means ‘cloud’ or ‘spider.’ The new brand could also reflect the company’s current strategy to embrace cloud computing.
Despite all these efforts Live Search, managed to grab just 11% of the search market, whereas Google holds more than 60%.

ASUS, a company that is as committed to environmental conservation as it is to innovation and quality, saw its sustainable computing efforts rewarded with the conferring of the world’s first EU Flower Eco Award for computers on its N50, N80, N20, and N10 notebooks.
The achievement validates the eco-friendliness of ASUS’ N Series notebooks, which had [...]

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the call for entries for the ninth annual Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA). The premiere competition honors the best student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from accredited higher education institutions worldwide.
Now in partnership with the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda), the awards ceremony [...]

Dolby has developed new system for speech transmission during online games, and is calling it Dolby Axon.
Dolby Axon enables developers to deliver a realistic voice experience that matches the game environment. Voices get louder as gamers approach one another, and fainter with distance. Like in life, voices are obstructed by objects in the game or [...]

Sun Microsystems announced the availability of NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 6.5, its development platform for building Java and JavaScript-based applications.
PHP support is complete and fully productized with 6.5. It offers features such as code completion, semantic color coding and database integration. NetBeans 6.5 also supports JavaFX development, even though JavaFX is not out [...]

HTC Philippines introduces three new phones to the Philippine market — Touch Viva, Touch 3G and Touch HD.

Touch Viva
- 2.8-inch touch screen
- Next generation TouchFLO user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity
- 2 megapixel camera for quality stills and video
- microSD slot for expandable storage.
Touch 3G [...]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced that it has begun mass producing 256 gigabyte (GB) solid state drives for use in notebooks and desktop PCs. With the addition of the high-speed 256GB drive, Samsung now offers the most extensive line of SSDs in the industry with 8, 16, and 32GB SSDs for low-density designs and 64, [...]

Printer-maker Epson has entered the netbook fray by introducing the Endeavour Na01.
The netbook features the almost ubiquitous Atom N270 1.6Ghz processor, 10in screen, 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard disk. It also comes with Wi-Fi and Ethernet, three USB slots and a multicard reader, all held in a 1.28kg chassis.
The netbook is currently only available [...]

Nokia and IBM announced IBM Lotus Notes support for a number of Nokia’s S60-based mobile phones which will enable Lotus Notes users to access e-mail with their Nokia devices.
Lotus Notes provides real time access to e-mail, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data and will be available for Nokia devices in December 2008.

Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG Electronics launched an energy rating system for chargers, making it easier for consumers to compare and choose the ones consuming the least energy.
The new ratings system ranges from five stars for the most efficient chargers down to zero stars for the ones consuming the most energy.