Microsoft India is running ‘Mom and Me,’ a contest for Mother's Day, in a bid to popularise its new revamped Windows Live bouquet of services. Users have to login via Windows Live and use the movie maker to create a two-minute video featuring the special moments the user shared with their mother. Then they have to upload the video on Facebook and garner as many ‘likes’ as they possibly can. The big prize at stake is a vacation at Thailand. The contest is runs till May 7. So you can try your luck. But our apologies for announcing this a bit late because this press note reached us late too.
All in a cloud
It was too good to stay true, was it? Cloud services, a mantra of sorts over the past decade, took a bit of image-bashing last week. Two big players — Amazon Web Services and Sony — faced some embarrassment over breakdown of their services that could prompt almost everyone to rethink on just how secure cloud computing really is.
Amazon had a serious breakdown of one of its server farms, in a chain effect, severely slowing down the services to those who had subscribed using their cloud. This included some big names such as Reddit and Foursquare that shared damage of reputation. Sony had a PR disaster to manage when hackers stole the personal details of 77 million subscribers to its PlayStation database. The company had to send out emails telling them that it was possible that personal information submitted to the PlayStation service, including credit card details, may have been compromised.
Video chat headed to Android 2.3
In a post dated April 28 on the official Google Mobile Blog, the company has announced it would introduce Google Video Chat as part of its Android 2.3.4 over-the-air update. With it, Android users will be able to video and voice chat with their Gtalk friends over the mobile. One can either use the 3G network or enable the video chat via Wi-fi. The OS update will first roll out with the Nexus S handsets and gradually cover all handsets that run Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. Here’s hoping to upgrades for everyone.
