Google has come out with a new addition to it's product portfolio - Buzz mainly to target Facebook  and Twitter users.

Google Buzz has some features that will help Gmail users to easily start using the Google Buzz without much fuss and learning. The main features that Buzz boosts of are 

- Auto Following

- Fast sharing experience

-Sharing can don to public followers are to select group.

-Buzz is directly integrated into the Gmail's Inbox.

The Buzz menu would be available to all the current Gmail users as left hand menu just below the Inbox menu.Users can get linked up to many other websites like Flickr, Picasa, Twitter from within the Buzz.

The comments and the interaction with your friends are never lost as they get saved in your Inbox like any other email. The other feature is the updates are updated real time without hitting refresh. Also one can share and see the videos inline. When we reply to someone it would send a buzz in his/her Inbox.It also has a feature of recommending friends where Google uses an algorithm to suggest friends of friends and also gives the reason for the suggestion.

 Another key feature of the Buzz is accessing it using your smart-phone.Just type in buzz.google.com in your phone's browser. You can also start to follow people in or near your current location.

 Hope we would see some more improvements and features added in coming days to make this a worth to try and pose a real threat to established social applications like Facebook and Twitter.

HAPPY BUZZING !!!!!!!!!!!

Its really proud moment for all the cricket fans to see that Sachin Tendulkar has completed 20 yeras of International cricket and still going strong. I think he is the best player the world has ever produced. The records  and statistics tell the picture themselves of the numerous runs he has scored in Test and One day international matches. He has the savior for Indian in many of the matches.

Sachin was picked by Dilip Vengsarker to the tour of Pakistan in 1999 after he spotted Sachin easily negotiate Kapil Dev's bowling at the nets. After this Sachin did not look back and shattered records one after the other. The dual innings he played o=in the ODI tournament at Sharjah against Australia where he scored back to back centuries is still remembered as one of the greatest innings. The way in which he blasted off Sahen Warne is a treat  to watch.

Even at this age of 36 he plays with the same passion which was demonstrated recently when he scored 175 runs against Australia.

Sachin is  recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Ratna Award in the year 1998 for his contribution to cricket. He is rightly called "Master Blaster" for the way in which he has dominated the bowlers across the world with is fearless batting. He is also regarded as the role model for aspiring young cricketers across India.One of the key things that makes Sachin not only the great cricketer but also a great human being is his humbleness. He is very down to earth and always remained away from all the controversies during all these years.

We all hope and wish he continues playing for more years.

We could see a new entrant in the Operating System so dominated by Windows if the news are to be believed. Google has announced the launch of Google Chrome operating system based on the open source Linux code. It is to be designed for all PC's but it would be launched first in 2010 with the Netbooks.This would obviously make the netbooks lot cheaper.There are news that the Chrome team is working with the PC makers including HP, Lenova, Acer and Asustek and chip makers such as Qualcomm  and Texas instruments to design and build devices.

Although Windows is the dominant operating system installed on 90% of the PC's world wide it will not take Google's move lightly.Its new operating system Windows7 is likely to make debut in October this year.Microsoft's likely strategy would be to compete on prices as it will have a brand of recognition to compete with.This price competition would really give a bump to the PC vendors and would increase the margins.It would be interesting to see how much they would pass on to the customers. If it happens we would see a real drop in the PC prices in months to come..

The new operating system would be based on Google's  9 month old web browser Chrome.Google intends to rely on the help from the online community of open source developers to help on the development of Chrome operating system.Google is saying that the users will be able fire up their computers and get onto web in few seconds.One major challenges would be the development of the device drivers that the manufactures of various network software, cameras and printers need to develop that would be compatible with this new operating system.

The browser battle has just got hotter with the release of version 3.5 from Firefox. This promises greater speed, more privacy and adherence to video format standards.With this release Firefox is posing a serious challenge to market leader Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8. In June Firefox has 22.5 % market share behind Internet Explorer's 65.5%.Though IE's share is declining for some time now it has been accelerated after the release of Firefox 3.0.

Here are some of the important features of Firefox 3.5 which will make it a worth try and also its a free browser.

1) Forefox3.5 includes the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine which is believed to give  an unprecedented boost to the performance in the modern world of complicated web applications. Creators of 3.5 version claim that its 2 times faster than version 3.0 and 10 times faster than version 2.0.

2)With version 3.5 users can enjoy the audio and  video content from within their browser without any need for plug ins. Also web developers can embed audio and video files directly into web pages through open format Ogg Theora courtesy HTML5.

3) Version 3.5 has increased privacy where in users can tell the browser history not to record certain sites that they visit by selecting Forget this site.This would remove every trace of the site from the user's browser.

4)Another good feature version 3.5 has is Location aware browsing where in the users can save time by allowing websites to know where they are located.IF the user shares his location to the websites they can provide customized  features like landmarks in that location , maps and other features. However this is an optional feature.

5)Users can view wider variety of fonts on the websites while browsing . Site developers can develop custom fonts which the browser would render properly even if the fonts are not installed on their own computers.

6)Another interesting feature is the way in which we can arrange and organize the various tabs in the order we prefer. This can be done just by drag- dropping the tabs in the order we need them. 

7)Firefox 3.5 has added support for new Indian languages along with growing list of languages worldwide.Firefox has fully localized versions of 63 languages with support for these Indian languages - Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu and now Assamese.

Phew ! Atlast the elections are over and India has elected the new government which would be at the helm for next  5 years. Surprisingly the ruling UPA(United Progressive Alliance) which is mainly constituted of Congress has closed in the absolute majority figure of 272 seats quite comfortably by securing close to 260 seats. It was an unexpected defeat to BJP led NDA(National Democratic Alliance) which was supposed to do well in the wake of 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai last year.

I feel most of this victory of UPA should be credited to Youth leadership led by Rahul Gandhi , son Rajiv Gandhi who was one of the youngest and dynamic prime minister I ndia had witnessed. Rahul Gandhi was hugely successfull in wooing around 46 million first time voters with the brand YOUTH. This is in way welcome chnages in India that the youth leaders are emerging which would obviously give a new dimension to India. Rahul  Gandhi was instrumental in getting the UPA good number of seats and also setting up of right poll alliances like in West Bengal where it went with foe turned friend Trinamool Congress which was decisive. Also his decision for Congress to go alone in  Uttar Pradesh state was also decisive.

Its really sad that BJP(Bharatiya Janatha Party) lost its plot somewhere midway.Now its obviously clear that they should look beyond Atal Bihari Vajpeyee and L.K Advani and bring in some youth leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitely into the foray which would really brighten up its prospects in comming years.

There is a huge responsiblity on the UPA to provide a stable government which it can now as it has almost acquired majority on its own without the support of the Left Communist parties with whom they had partnered last time and had to drop  out during the Nuclear deal fiasco. The corporate world in India are quite happy with the outcome as there would be a continuity in the reforms and processes that the government had initiated before the election. Also they are looking at Mr Manmohan Singh who would be the Prime Minister to introduce some fast reforms that would help this economy.