Google upgrades search engine: search by image, voice on PC

  

Google makes one of the world's leading mobile operating systems. It does e-mail and an office suite and photo sharing and Internet phone service, and does them all well. It's even getting into solar power and is trying to invent the self-driving car. But for all its far-flung ambition, the company isn't synonymous with many things. It's synonymous with one thing: its namesake search engine, the business that started it all.

Google Voice Search, a technology which was pioneered on Google’s mobile products will now be incorporated into the search engine giant’s desktop search page. Users will now be able to tell their browser what they’re looking for, simply by speaking into their computer’s microphone.
Google said that over the past year, Voice Search traffic has grown six-fold, and that every day, people speak more than two years worth of speech into the system.

Microsoft Issues Updates for Office 2011, 2008, and 2004

  

Microsoft yesterday released several updates for users of its Office for Mac productivity suites, bringing security and stability improvements to Office 2011, 2008, and 2004, as well as a pair of ancillary updates.

- Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1.2 Update   (108.9 MB):
Improvements   include security fixes and several stability and reliability improvements for Outlook and Word.
 Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.3.0 Update   (333.0 MB) 
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.6.4 Update   (13.0 MB): Improvements appear to be limited to security fixes.

Additional details on the security fixes, which address as many as eight vulnerabilities in Excel depending on Office version, are available in a Microsoft security bulletin  .

 Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.2.0   (45.0 MB)
Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition   (64.0 MB):
These updates appear to primarily provide compatibility with the updated Office for Mac versions.

Microsoft beat Sony in Xbox 360 v.s PS3 sales grudge-match

By Alastair Stevenson | June 15, 2011 12:08 PM GMT

With E3 out of the way and the sun beginning to set on the current generation of home entertainment consoles, recently released sales figures have revealed that Microsoft's Xbox 360 is currently beating Sony's PS3 in overall sales.

Microsoft Xbox 360 sales
A report released earlier this week revealed that the Xbox 360 is for the eleventh month on-the-trot the U.S.'s highest selling console.

According to the data released by the NPD Group, the Xbox 360 managed to shift 270,000 units this May -- a 39 per cent increase since last year.

The console managed to be the number one selling console for 11 out of the last 12 months and has seen 17 months of year-on-year sales growth.

Since the report, Microsoft released a statement promising that its console's seventh year would be its most successful, "And if anyone has any doubt that 2011 continues to be the year of Xbox 360, check out the latest numbers from NPD Group, an independent market research firm that tracks the digital entertainment industry."

Sony PlayStation 3 sales
The same report found that sales of Sony's PS3 hardware were up 14 per cent year on year.

The report highlighted the numerous troubles the company has had over the year as a possible reason for the recent slow-down in PS3 sales.

The biggest of these included the earthquake that devastated Japan and the slew of cyber security breaches it's suffered.

During the initial PlayStation Network outage that left up to 100 million PSN account holders' personal and billing information compromised, big-name retailers GAME and HMV published record PS3 trade-in statistics and a marked increase in Xbox 360 sales.

Source of News : International Business Times

Google Voice Search offers natural user input

Google Voice Search for the desktop

(Credit: Google) The new feature from Google, which lets desktop users search by voice the way that mobile users already can, is a step closer to true natural user interface.
The feature isn’t much different from the service that Google offers to smartphone users with its mobile app. Instead of tapping a microphone icon on a phone’s screen, users click on a microphone icon in the search box at www.google.com while they are using Google’s Chrome browser. Of course, the user’s computer has to have a built-in microphone, or the user needs a headset, in order for the service to work.
Read more : CNET