Next Generation has listed and ranked down the top 50 games of the year 2006. If you are a game freak, checkout the big list of mind boggling video games and find yourself how many games you have played. >>

Hackers launch a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation attack, which circulates via e-mail and hides within an apparently innocent PowerPoint slide show called "Christmas+Blessing-4.ppt". It is a variant of the "Hupigon" backdoor Trojan horse, which is not been properly detected by most anti virus scanners. So watch out before opening unsolicited email attachments and make sure it comes only from a known source. >>

Google Blog Search's market share has moved up to 25% recorded last week, taking over Technorati search. Hitwise reports that, Google Blog Search began catching up to Technorati in October, when Google placed a link to Blog Search on the Google News home page, causing a 168% surge in market share for Google Blog Search over a two week period. Since then, approximately 60% of Google Blog Search's traffic has been coming directly from Google News. >>

PC World lists down the web's most useful sites. It has looked at the best of the web services in 14 categories, ranging from online office suites, other productivity tools to recommendation services and event listing sites. It also lists down some of the best widgets applications and mashups. >>

Technology Review, tests Yahoo Answers, Microsoft Live QnA, AnswerBag, Yedda, Wondir, and Amazon Askville to find out which is the best Question and Answer site. The test is based on the quality and originality of the answers and richness of its features. Checkout it's full review and results. >>

Linutop is a linux-based diskless computer, which is designed specifically for the low-power operations in an extremely small package. It is ideal for Internet usages in Schools, Universities, Government offices, Internet cafés. Linuxtop runs on AMD Geode processor with 512 MB ROM, 256 MB RAM and also has support for USB 2.0 ports. >>

I wish you and your Family a very Happy New Year 2007 :).

You are on the way to so many Wonderful and Beautiful things in the year 2007.

--
Balakumar Muthu

Microsoft has applied for patent to RSS technology. As we know RSS is a popular XML format for sharing content among Web and was originally developed by Netscape. I don’t what is the need for Microsoft to patent such an popular open data format. >>

Apples early Macintosh launch was a failure. Steve Jobs had predicted that Apple sell 500,000 Macs the first year alone, but the company sold only 10% of Jobs' original prediction. Checkout an interesting writeup on why Steve Jobs left Apple, started NeXT and also how he returned and made Apple into a Mega Historic success. >>

According to a report by ComScore, Google has overtook Yahoo as the second most popular Internet destination for Web surfers worldwide. Google websites visited by over 475,713, while475,262 visits to Yahoo!. Video sharing website YouTube placed in tenth position. >>

20q - Pocket Mind Reader, is a pocket sized gadget that can read our mind. We have to just think of an object either an animal, vegetable, mineral or anything and then 20q will ask us a series of questions through it's LED display. We have to simply answer YES, NO using the appropriate buttons. The 20q will attempt to guess our object after the 20th question. If it guesses correctly, 20q wins! If it misses it will attempt 5 more questions and will then make another guess. If it misses again then we have officially stumped the pocket 20q and it will courageously admit defeat ;). >>

Zdnet have released an simple and interesting guide on how to make our projects really work. This straightforward guide covers key principles and successfully planning and implementing a project. It includes the purpose of the project plan, the fine art of scheduling, risk management, and staying on track. A must read for all beginner level to high level devlopers. >>

Opera has announced the trial version of its Web browser for Nintendo's Wii gaming console. It allows the Wii users to browse the Internet using their consoles. The browser will be available for free download from December 22, 2006. Opera moves very fastly and targets its browser to other platforms. First the opera mini browser now moving to the gaming consoles. I am sure it is going to be big hit. >>

Infoworld, reports that 2007 will be an year for Open source, as software companies are increasingly looking to add value on top of base open source platforms. The pace of change in the open source software business is likely to accelerate in 2007 as developers climb up the software stack from the operating system and databases to applications. >>

Hi Guys, I am still alive and back in to Blogosphere after a very long break. As my blog has been locked, I am not able to publish any new post. Sorry for the discomfort I have made. >>

Living without Blogging? It's very hard for me. Now the issue has been solved and I have learned a lot.

At this moment I would like to convey my hearty thanks to Google Blogoscoped forum, Philipp Lenssen, Ionut Alex. Chitu, RC, Matt Cutts, Blogger Team and to all of you guys ! :).

Thank you.

Balakumar Muthu

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has announced that his for-profit company, Wikia Inc., is ready to give away for free all the software, computing, storage and network access that Web site builders need to create community collaboration sites. Wikia gives away the tools and the revenue to its users. It requires only that sites built with the company's resources link to Wikia.com, which makes money through advertising. >>

Wired Magazine has listed down the top 10 Gadgets that have changed the world. The list takes us to the memories of past life-altering devices and how they evolved to the current modern era gadgets. >>

Older consumers want more real-time, personalized information on everyday matters such as the nutritional content of groceries. So MIT's AgeLab teamed with Procter & Gamble to develop the Smart Personal Advisor, a portable device that can attach to a shopping cart or be incorporated into a cell phone or personal digital assistant. It then can read information contained in barcodes and analyze how the item fits with a senior's personalized dietary needs. Checkout how technologies evolve to help the ageing people. >>

Kurt Seifried, an well known linux security expert and the author of the Linux Administrators Security Guide. In this interview with linux.com, he gives his views on how security in Linux has been stacking up and where it's lacking, what users can do to secure their systems, and whether every admin needs to know. >>

CNet reports that Google is tuning into radio ads. Google's recent limited beta test with over 20 Google AdWords customers and more than 730 stations, including XM Satellite, radio proves it. The radio ads are running in more than 260 metropolitan markets, covering about 87 percent of the country. >>

OScar is a community of people plans and develops a new car in the web. It's main goal is to develop a car according to Open Source principles. OScar is about new ways of mobility and the spreading of the Open Source idea in the real physical world. >>

Searchbot is an experimental search engine that investigates the use of mythology, personification and game theory as motivational strategies in creating a sustainable search community. It allows to built our own personal search robot with a personality and then program it's search circuits with all the things we want to find. We can search for websites based on factual information like tags and locations, or more creative ways like colour and the mood we are in. We can even ask Searchbot a question and it will talk to other Searchbots to find the answer. >>

Musicovery is an flash-based visual music discovery application that allows us to listen to full music songs according to our moods like dark, energetic, positive, calm and differ in time period or style. Just a great visual way to hear our music. >>

Linux Equivalent Project is a great help for the new linux users who are from windows background. It lists down all the windows softwares and it's linux equivalent opensource softwares we can use. >>

The French government is planning to make Paris as a centre of excellence for open source software development. A group of academics and open source software entrepreneurs have been brought in to create the centre of excellence. It will develop a healthy and profitable open source software industry in the country. >>

Wired Magazine has tested and rated 300+ best products. It is an definitive guide to gear and gadgets for 2006. For the first time, the reviews are also available online. The list consists of coolest Mobile phones, dig cams, laptops, gaming gears and much more. Checkout the list!. >>

MusikCube is a rich feature, highly extensible Open Source Media Player for Windows. It is based on an embedded SQL database engine sqlite. It's Dynamic playlists feature allows fully automatic, randomized playback of songs based on our observed listening habits. The more we listen, the smarter it gets. MusikCube also makes transferring audio between home and work very easy with it's unique support for removable storage devices. >>

Motorola is shipping the first model of its Scalpel line of Linux-based phones set to replace the Razr model. The Motofone F3 available now in India, is an extremely low-end phone featuring an electronic paper display, breakthrough battery life, and usability features. Motorola announced the Motofone back in July, as the first model in a new Scpl line of Linux-based phones. Motorola officials saying that the Motofone could sell for as little as $50 when it does eventually reach the U.S. It aims to be simple and intuitive to use, even for those who have never used a computer or a phone before, and who may not even know how to read, according to Motorola. >>

Piggy Bank is a Firefox extension that lets us to make use of Semantic Web content within Web content as we browse the Web. It turns our browser into a mashup platform, by allowing us to extract data from different web sites and mix them together. It also allows us store this extracted information locally to search later and to exchange the collected information with others. Piggy Bank offers an easy, incremental upgrade path to us without requiring a wholesale adoption of the Semantic Web vision. Very powerful and most useful extension. >>

The famous mobile browser Opera Mini has released it's next version 3.0, with whole bunch of great features like RSS feed support, sharing picture from anywhere, anytime and upload our photo to a blog or forum, or as an e-mail attachment, the secure connections will now let us safely use secured sites, such as your e-mail, bank site, online stores, with no exposure of our personal details. If you have a Java MIDP-capable mobile phone, then just get it to feel the real mobile web action.>>