All New Gadgets Updates

Google took the lead ages ago by providing a free Office suite replacement on the web. Microsoft followed suit and it has been working on a web-based office suite called Office 365. It’s been in beta for a long time and it’s finally time to be launched. According to Neowin, the suite is all set to launch sometime this month.

According to a Tweet post by Jon Roskill from Microsoft, the date set for the launch this year on the 28th of June. He also states there are some 100,000 customers on beta. The beta first launched in late 2010 to limited users after which it was made available as a public beta in April, this year. Those who register for the beta will also get an additional month of free access to the service. The Office 365 suite will include Exchange, SharePoint, Lync (which isn’t available to Mac users) and Office Web Apps 2010. To compete with Google’s mostly free Docs service. Microsoft also has a free version available for non-business or enterprise users. Docs.com is one of them. For business users, the schemes for Office 365 start from $10 a month to $27 a month.

The readers of Times of India, one of India’s most popular, and subsequently the most widely read newspaper can now be accessed on their Nokia phones, courtesy the launch of the new Times of India app on the Nokia Ovi Store.

The app intends to give the traditional habit of reading the newspaper a major facelift. With the app on the phone, Nokia claims that it is possible to comfortably glance to the latest happenings around the globe while on the go, quite literally. The app is a free one and can be downloaded off the Ovi Store (www.store.ovi.com). The application can be viewed in both portrait and landscape formats, and allows easy sharing on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, as well as can be emailed or SMSed. Users can also incorporate the scroll and swipe gestures while they view the app. Additionally, Nokia has enabled the app with the high utility, auto update widget that would update news automatically, without the user having to perform any tasks specifically. This feature holds great promise since it bears in mind the dynamic nature of news.

Using the app, users will be able access news across all major sections like general affairs, politics, sports, world news, business, city news, among others.

The sound card business doesn’t see the same level of development as the GPU market, for example. This has been the case over the last couple of years with only a few vendors designing cards and audio processors. Most users seem content with the quality on onboard audio solutions on motherboards these days. Taking the processor approach, Creative has designed a new multi-core audio and voice processor called Sound Core3D.

The solution will be available as an external device and an integrated chip on Creative’s vendor devices which can also include consumer electronics. Gigabyte is one of these vendors who will be using the chip on some of their solutions in the future. The chip is based on a 56-pin QFP package. The Sound Core3D chip uses four cores, 4 and 6-channel audio 24-bit DACs and even a headphone amplifier output. There is support for the usual digital outputs as well as a digital microphone in. The APU has been designed in conjunction with THX. The chip also has the usual set of enhancements for echo cancellation, noise reduction and normalization of audio.