Ahmadz Village

Hi Guys,

Today I got the update email from Live Team announcing the new MSN Messenger version 2009.
Once I got it, I downloaded and installed it. It looks more simple compared to the previous version although it has many graphics.

I think the interface designers are very smart; for example, in chat window, you can find the display picture of you and the other contact surrounded by a color representing your and his/her current status. (i.e. yours is surrounded by green if you’re available and his/hers is red if he/she is busy)

In addition, at the lower corner, you find the panel “What’s new”; this panel displays all updates regarding your contacts’ personal messages and display pictures that have been done even when you were offline!

It’s totally new and I like it more than any version before!

Download: http://download.live.com/?sku=messenger

Thanks

Strange title. Isn’t it?

But it’s true. It is new different blog from Microsoft. It is different from most other blogs you’ll see on blogs.msdn.com.

The first post of this blog says: "Microsoft employs some of the best hackers in the world and actively recruits them and develops them. They work on all kinds of projects, whether it be in development, research, testing, management and of course security. Of course, there is controversy even in the word "hacker" but I don’t think that should stop us from using it in the manner I think is the most appropriate. At his or her core, a true hacker is someone who is curious and wants to learn how systems work. This can and of course at Microsoft is done in an ethical, legal manner. We employ "white hat hackers" who spend their time pentesting and code reviewing applications and software looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities so that others don’t once we’ve released that code into the wild. We employ many many smart testers who know more about some of our software then perhaps the architects who designed it. We also employ some of the top researchers in their industry, dedicated people working on the bleeding edge of whats going to be common place in the next 5 or 10 years of computing. So yes, Microsoft does have hackers, and its time to introduce you to some of them and show you what it is, exactly that they do.

Generally most of the content you’ll read and people you’ll meet on this blog will be somehow related to security but not all by any stretch."

Blog website: http://blogs.msdn.com/hackers

Microsoft Corp. on Friday confirmed an approximate timeline for the next Windows release, seeking to smooth things over with corporate customers stung by its past product delays. The next version of the flagship PC operating system — known for now by the internal code name "Windows 7" — will be released in about three years, according to a series of presentation slides from Microsoft’s global sales meeting this week. If Microsoft can stick to the schedule, it would put the next Windows version on the market sometime in 2010. The current version, Windows Vista, experienced repeated delays before its January release, which was more than five years after its predecessor, Windows XP, came out. The shorter timeline isn’t a surprise. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has vowed that the company will never again take so long to develop a new Windows version as it did to produce Windows Vista. Microsoft has reorganized the Windows division in an attempt to avoid delays. The slides, obtained by the Seattle P-I, don’t detail any of the specific features planned for the next Windows version. However, one slide notes that "Windows 7" will be a "full OS release." That appears to debunk past theories that Microsoft would aim for something less than a full overhaul in the next version of the operating system. "They do seem to be clarifying," the situation, said Michael Cherry, an analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "We’re starting to get at least some information." The disclosure of the timeline comes two weeks after a Forrester Research report cited past product delays and "the lack of a detailed product road map" as two reasons some companies are wary of renewing their Microsoft Software Assurance contracts. The service contracts, generally three years long, include rights to upgrade to new versions of Microsoft programs when they come out. But the past delays meant, in some cases, that new versions weren’t available within the term of a contract. In a statement Friday, Microsoft confirmed that it gave the information to its sales representatives so that they could give customers a clearer picture of the new Windows timeline. The statement said the effort was part of "ongoing outreach to enterprise customers and partners … including Software Assurance customers in particular." It confirmed that the company "is scoping Windows ‘7′ development to a three-year timeframe." However, the statement continued, "the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar." Although the product will be known by the "Windows 7" code name for now, Microsoft generally gives Windows versions different names before public release. Windows Vista was known by the internal name "Longhorn" during its development. ————– This article is written by By Todd Bishop, P-I REPORTER

Here is the post link

The Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) recently named its top ten winners at the annual Intel STS 2007 awards. Forty finalists were selected to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the rigorous judging process, meet with national leaders, interact with leading scientists and display their research at the National Academy of Sciences. For the first time in the history of the program there were an equal number of female and male finalists who represent 38 schools from 20 different states.

First Place Winner
Mary Masterman, a 17-year-old Westmoore High School senior from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was awarded a $100,000 scholarship for describing the spectrograph system she built. Mary machined her own parts, and aligned her own optics. Using lenses from a camera and a microscope as well as a laser for her light source, Mary was able to separate the individual photons scattered by the tested molecules, similar to the effects a prism has on light, and record their wavelengths.

She found she could attain fairly accurate wavelength measurements compared to published readings for household solvents and other objects despite using an inexpensive laser. The cost for building her spectrograph was only $300; quite an accomplishment compared to the $20,000 - $100,000 cost for commercial units.

"Even if you think that what you want to do is impossible, go ahead and go for it because you never know what you can accomplish."

Mary Masterman First Place Winner 2007 Intel Science Talent Search

Mary has been honored in the past for numerous science awards, and showcased a Raman Effect presentation at an American Astronomical Society conference. Ranked first of the 658 Westmoore High School students, Mary also enjoys painting, bird watching, and plays three instruments: piano, harp, and flute. Mary is planning to enroll in either MIT or CalTech.

John Pardon- Second Place Winner
For his mathematics project that solved a classical open problem in differential geometry, John Pardon of Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Durham Academy received a $75,000 scholarship. John used a new approach to extend findings already known in polygons to a broad array of shapes. In his research, John was able to show that a finite-length closed curve in the plane can be made convex in a continuous manner, and without bringing any two points of the curve closer together.
Previously, John received a gold prize at both the 2005 and 2006 International Olympiads in Informatics, placed among the top 25 algorithm writers in the TopCoder competition, and apprenticed in robotics in 2005.
John also plays cello for the Honors All State Orchestra, and spent a summer working on a Costa Rican organic farm. John is looking to study math and computer science at either CalTech or Princeton.

Dmitry Vaintrob- Third Place Winner
Dmitry Vaintrob from South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon, won a $50,000 scholarship for his sophisticated investigation of ways to associate algebraic structures to topological spaces. This Russian-born, 18-year-old, known as Mitka, proved that loop homology and Hochschild cohomology coincide for an important class of spaces in his submission.
Mitka has won numerous mathematics honors, participates in Russian theater, and enjoys running and Nordic skiing. After studying pure mathematics at either Harvard or MIT, Mitka hopes to become a research mathematician and university educator.

I got this news from Intel website,
For more information: Click Here