IT News
Yahoo Mail gains IM integration
Yahoo Inc. will soon start to fulfill a promise it made to users several months ago to tie its new Web mail service with its instant messaging application.
Starting Monday and continuing over the coming months, Yahoo will activate this feature for users of the new version of Yahoo Mail, which is in beta, or test, phase but available to all users of the service.
Yahoo officials demonstrated the integration of the Yahoo Mail beta with Yahoo Messenger in November at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The audience reacted enthusiastically to the plan.
Gmail finally opens to all
Google Inc. dropped the invitation-only restriction for its Gmail e-mail service on Wednesday, one of its linchpin applications complementing its popular search engine.
Google launched Gmail in April 2004, and the company has been steadily integrating new features, but the service is still labeled a beta release. It includes Google Talk, an instant messaging program, and a calendar, plus other features such as spam filtering.
Gmail users previously had to pass along invitations to others so they could register for the service.
The company has positioned Gmail as a gateway to other online offerings by displaying links to its Picasa photo sharing service and Docs and Spreadsheets, a word processing and spreadsheet application.
Google has concentrated on building its infrastructure for its service-based offerings. As of Wednesday, Gmail offered users about 2.8G bytes of storage space for e-mail, one of the more generous limits for free services.
Source : IT World
Wikipedia “might disappear” ?
Florence Devouard, chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation, has touched off a tempest with her suggestion in a talk at the Lift07 conference that Wikipedia has funding for only another quarter and “might disappear” if donations don’t pick up.
According to this post by media producer Philippe Mottaz, Devouard told the audience: “At this point, Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for about 3 to 4 months. If we do not find additional funding, it is not impossible that Wikipedia might disappear.”
Here is a copy of the official Wikimedia budget for the last quarter of the 2005 calendar year. Keep in mind that although this copy dates from 2005, the costs of running Wikipedia have rised in time.
Corel launches Corel Painter X
The latest version of Corel’s painting and illustration application features new composition tools and the RealBristle Painting System.
The new version sports quite a list of additions and improvements, notably the RealBristle Painting System that’s said to faithfully replicate traditional art media via individual bristles that respond similarly to their real-world counterparts. New composition tools include the Divine Proportion composition tool, which provides guidelines that follow the Divine Proportion, or (Golden Ratio). A new Layout Grid composition tool provides guidelines that follow photography’s Rule of Thirds, and can be customized to other grid patterns.
Corel Painter X is currently available for pre-order for $429 on the Corel site. A Limited Edition version supplied in the Classic Painter can, which also includes the complete Learning Corel Painter X with Jeremy Sutton DVD-ROM, the Corel Painter X collectors poster and the Corel Painter X Composition tool, is available for $499. Trial versions are also available for download.
Source : graphics.com
Create Magazine Announces The 2007 Create Awards
Inovartis is proud to announce they will sponsor the 2007 Create Awards.
Prizes offered by Inovartis are three (3) Flash Video Packages with an individual value of $99 US or less as the grand prize and one (1) Flash Video Package with an individual value of $99 US or less as the prize for each of the 8 runner-ups for a total of 12 Flash Video Packages.
Feb. 2, 2007 – The 2007 Create Awards – one of the top creative competitions for professionals and students in advertising, film and video, motion graphics, graphic communication, photography, printing, interactive media, and copywriting – announces its official call for entries: March 15.
Following a successful first year, The 2007 Create Awards (www.thecreateawards.com) has tripled the Best of Show Award to a once-in-a-lifetime prize for the creative professional: a $30,000 Dream Studio Prize Package with products from industry-leading companies including: Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, NEC Display Solutions, Alienware Computers, Wacom Technologies, Digital Tutors, SoftImage (a Division of Avid), Iomega, Wiredrive, Microtek, Inovartis, LensBabies, E-Frontier, Spam Cube, AutoFX, Corel, Pantone, Tivity Software, and Extensis.
