Gliffy is an online diagramming tool that helps users create and share flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans, user interface designs and other drawings online without installing any additional software. Gliffy has released the API using which bloggers on the Wordpress can easily add diagrams and flowcharts to their posts, and a backup script that lets users to backup their Gliffy documents to local machines.

All you need to run Gliffy is just a web browser with Macromedia Flash 7 or better, and a Gliffy account which may be basic or premium account according to user requirements. The API comes with OAuth support for third party applications.

“We pioneered this market nearly four years ago,” said Chris Kohlhart, founder and CEO, Gliffy. “We’ve done it again by resetting the criteria needed to compete not only against our leading online platform, but against legacy, platform-restricted competitors like Visio and OmniGraffle.”

In order to support developers in building a new products and services using the powerful diagramming and flowchart features, the company has a growing developer community, forum and a public issue tracker that provides answers for developers at any time.

After a struggle for 18-months, Microsoft has finally persuaded Yahoo to surrender its search engine Yahoo search to Microsoft search engine Bing. As per the 10-year deal, Microsoft’s technology will power Yahoo’s search results, while Yahoo will handle ad-selling duties for both companies’ search sites.

“I am very enthusiastic,” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO said in an interview. “This is what I have basically been saying for the past 18 months: The world will be better served for consumers, advertisers and publishers, and there will be more competition for Google, if we can somehow figure out how to get Microsoft and Yahoo together in search.”

According to the research firm ComScore Inc, it is expected that Bing’s U.S. market share would instantly increase to 28 % which is triple that of current rate, whereas, Google holds 65% of U.S. searches. In the share market, the share of Yahoo Inc is dropped by 12 percent, while the share of Microsoft Corp is increased by 33 cents to $23.80.

IDC analyst Al Hilwa commented on the deal as “It’s ‘unfortunate’ that there will now be one fewer major search player because it will weaken the competitive landscape. In their quest to catch up with Google, both Yahoo and Microsoft were doing interesting and innovative things in search. That has been good for the industry”. And added that “With this deal, Microsoft is likely to feel less urgency to innovate and “move the needle”.

Google is looking at the deal as good one for net surfers, “There has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users,” Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said. “We’re interested to learn more about the deal.”

Globalfoundries is a California-based joint venture of microprocessor manufacturer AMD and financial investor ATIC (an investment company wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi). STMicroelectronics has become first true outside customer of Globalfoundries.

Today, an official contract is signed by the two companies, to make low-power chips using a 40-nanometer process which will be ideal for the next generation of wireless applications, handheld devices, and consumer electronics. Whereas, Intel pioneer in the chip manufacturing company manufactures flash memory chips at the 34-nanometer level.

“To ensure ample capacity for our customer/partners at the leading-edge of low-power design, ST needs an agile and high-performance manufacturing partner that can adapt to our changing needs,” said Jean-Marc Chery, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, STMicroelectronics. “With a strong commitment to manufacturing and technology excellence at the leading-edge, we believe Globalfoundries is an excellent partner to collaborate on low-power design innovation in 2010 and beyond.”

Globalfoundries has planned to extend its structure by building a wafer manufacturing facility at the cost of $4.2B in Malta, N.Y. Once complete, the additional facility is expected to be the most advanced semiconductor foundry in the world.

Adobe Flash Player which delivers high-impact, rich Web content, has attracted millions of internet users towards it by offering a rich web experience. In the starting of July, it is found that the security flaws in Adobe have paved way for hackers to get access to user’s computer easily. They just email PDF files with corrupted Flash video clips to hack websites and implant their malicious code in user’s computer.

When user clicks on the received clip, malicious codes get loaded in the program and start controlling the computer. They steal data, draw off cash from online financial accounts, spread spam and trigger promotions to sell fake anti-virus programs from the victim’s computer.

Adobe has taken enough measures to issue security patches once a quarter. It scrambles to develop an emergency patch by this Friday as they suspect the number of attacks could soar this week.

“The volume of cybercrime has been increasing, so we’ve stepped up our efforts to supply best-in-class security,” says Rob Tarkoff, Adobe’s senior vice president and general manager of business productivity.

Computer users were given reminders every seven days about software updates by Adobe; they were advised to install it immediately to safeguard their system.

Fujifilm is the world’s largest photographic and imaging company which brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including electronic imaging, photofinishing equipment, medical systems, life sciences etc. Now Fujifilm is talking the digital camera technology to the next level by offering a 3D digital camera model.

The principle is simple; it uses two lenses whose images are merged into a single 3D picture or movie. You can view three dimensional images without wearing special 3D spectacles. As the camera performs a series of image processing steps automatically, you can take 3D stills and videos with the high quality picture by just pointing the camera and hitting the shutter button.

You can adjust the camera settings to go well with the scene being photographed. You no need to adjust the settings to capture a 3D image as when using the 3D two-shot function, the camera shifts to take the second shot after taking the first shot, and saves a single 3D image in the camera automatically.

Also you can turn this 3D digital camera into a 2D one by hitting the 3D/2D switch button available on either sides of the camera. It is possible to transfer your 3D images to other devices such as SD/SDHC cards, Real 3D camera, and also to your computer via USB or high speed infrared communication.

The 3D digital camera will be available from September 2009 and you can get the camera at just $600.

Video chat rooms are a great place to communicate with people effectively. The productivity of many companies is greatly improved by using video chat rooms. A lot of valuable time can be saved, when you can record videos of meetings or interviews from your own office without traveling to interviewees place. It is not only useful for business people, but also applicable for regular users who want to chat with their friends from comfort of their own homes.

Recently, I came across a new site called as Wetoku which allows you record videos in the chat room and embed them in your blog. Once the recording is done, the interviewer can copy URL of video to easily embed the interview content on blog or other sites. The service is wholly free and there is no software to install. Bloggers can directly use their webcam to conduct the real time interview over the web and post the recorded video on their blog right away. Also the interview videos can be placed in your video library for future reference.

With this service interviewing someone on the internet is so easy. It helps interviewer create an interview session through webcam recorder and make the interview process easier than before.

Recent developments in sensor network technologies have taking the virtual world into a smarter level. The projects of the Responsive Environments Group at MIT explored an emerging trend called “Cross reality”. The cross reality experiments are done in second life, a 3D virtual world community with 15 million current subscribers.

Well, what is cross reality? It connects “location specific 3D animated constructs” in the virtual world to in-building sensor installations.  In one of the projects, they chose to use power strips as they are present everywhere plus they have a power and can be connected to a network. MIT made the strips to blow and take the virtual world into the next level. The researchers also added some features to the power strips via expansion boards such as motion sensors, temperature sensors, and memory cards for local data logging.

The group has created a whole portal network known as Ubiquitous sensor portal in the real world media lab. It has an array of sensors as well as audio and video capabilities for user interaction. There are 45 portals currently in the Lab; each one is integrating a myriad of environmental sensors such as motion, light and sound level, vibration, temperature, and humidity.

They also showed a set of simpler 2D visualizations that enable mobile devices to efficiently browse and interact with sensor network data. The group of MIT is still working on this experiment to give the best result.

Knoppix is a product of GNU/Linux which doesn’t require installation to be used.

Its inventor is Klaus Knopper who gave it a similar name. Its first goal was to be a demonstration CD. Now it’s more! Knoppix contents 2GB and it integrates an important number of fields like office automation, internet, games… In order to download knoppix, just visit knoppix.

You just have to insert the CDrom, reboot your computer and the software will work. It will not change your operating system. However you can use it as your permanent and complete operating system.

Its main treasure is that it is always updated. You can personalize it easily. The user can make his own CD that can content his software and data. Your PC will become a work station without a hard disk. You can navigate on the web and set your own parameters. All is recorded in your history and you avoid web viruses like Trojan, cookies etc

You can use it to save your informatics data if your computer doesn’t work anymore. A user said he saved 90% of his unsafe documents thanks to Knoppix. We understand his enthusiasm!

A lot of users are impressed by its effectiveness and the quality. The programs are complete. And as it doesn’t need installation to run; all work is done in 3 minutes.

Nothing more need be said about its advantages!

The number of social networking sites seems to expand daily. Recently a new social networking site, called Hardum has stepped into the networking world. We have come across a lot of networking websites such as Orkut, Facebook, Tagged, MySpace etc. What’s new in Hardum? It is a one-stop shop for the current generation.

One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. A bunch of textbooks, tables, laptop bags, mobile chargers that’s not going to be used anymore will be listed on the site for anyone who needs them. The members of Hardum can collect it absolutely free. If you don’t want to give away things for free, the Killer deals feature facilitates you to sell products on site.

We found that the Profile creation is so easy with Hardum, you need not provide many unwanted details to create it. The site will offer information about who possesses what and who needs what, which are categorized area-wise. So you can find someone in your locality without having to search too much.

You can also monetize your talent which was never displayed to public. The site helps you create networks, find likeminded people with similar attributes etc. Find the perfect job by posting your resumes on the site, there is a “Power ideas” section to share your unique ideas about anything like sports, education, current job openings and much more.

The key aspect of the site is to encourage “give and take policy”. Nothing in this world is useless to everyone. So exchange your old products with others and recycle and reuse stuff that would otherwise be thrown away.

Microsoft is changing its entire strategy. The company announced its new version of Office 2010 will be accessible for free. What does it mean? All your office’s software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint which you use every day, will be available from any browsers. The version will be lightweight.

It is a real upheaval that wants to make its delay in relation to Google. Let me remind you that Google launched in 2006 its own Google Documents, a free service.

Microsoft lost web and search engines’ war against Google. Moreover its operating system Windows Vista disappointed a lot. But Microsoft stays the leader in this field. In 2009, it earns $9.3 billion.

The installation of main software seems to be inevitable and it cost you at least $200. Now, a lot of users decide to make economy and use only Google Documents.

Another competitor appeared: Open Office.  Even French administration is using this free and safe system.

To prove its effectiveness, Microsoft began the competition with Google to launch Bing against Google search engine, its own search engine, which is meeting a large success. It wants to continue with Office 2010.

Some analysts think it as a risky gamble. In fact, Microsoft will offer for free its products that it is still succeeding in buying. The goal is to head users for using Bing.

The question is: who will be the winner?