New Orkut features

Two weeks ago, orkut team announced that we are preparing a visual upgrade to Orkut’s interface. We have just started to roll it out to a small percentage of users, so some of you might start to see it. Right now, we are only upgrading those who are using new Orkut, but if you are in the old interface, please do give it a try when we complete the transition!

In addition, we are happy to announce a new feature today that we hope you will “like”:

Just as we add different smileys in emails, scraps and chat, we recognize that you likely have different reactions to your friends’ stories. Here are a few you might recognize from Google Chat, and in addition, you can find extra “smileys” if you type in the right code in the comment field.

Feel free to follow us on our official blog ( en.blog.orkut.com) and the official community at www.orkut.com/ orkut

Sprint launches integrated Google Voice

Sprint has integrated Google Voice into its mobile devices and launched a 4G version of the Nexus S.

Sprint customers will be able to use their existing Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number and have it ring multiple other phones simultaneously. So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your computer through Gmail. Calls from Gmail and text messages sent from google.com/voice will also display your Sprint number. This basically gives Sprint customers all the benefits of Google Voice without the need to change or port their number.

Under the Google Voice integration, a Sprint user can use an existing mobile number as a Google Voice number. In a blog post, Google noted that seamless integration with carriers was always a goal.

Remember that point given that AT& T plans to buy T-Mobile and Sprint will be a distant No. 3 behind Verizon Wireless. Perhaps Sprint can be a test bed for innovative services. Google may have a tough time playing the seamless integration game with big carriers such as AT&T and Verizon.

The Sprint-Google arrangement breaks down like this:

· Calls to a Sprint number can be answered via Gmail as well as an office or home phone.

· Calls from Gmail and text messages sent from Google Voice will also display to the Sprint number.

· Sprint customers won’t have to port numbers to Google Voice.

· There will be no need for separate apps to make Google Voice work.

· Separately, Google and Sprint launched the Nexus S 4G, which rides on Sprint’s WiMax network.

This feature will be available soon to Sprint customers in the United States. Once it is launched, it will be rolled out gradually to all Google Voice users, and can be enabled through the Google voicewebsite. If you don’t see it right away, don’t worry—you can leave your email address at google.com/voice/sprint and we’ll notify you as soon as this becomes available.

In addition, today team introducing the Nexus S 4G for Sprint—which takes advantage of Sprint’s high-speed 4G data network and lets you enable Google Voice directly from the mobile app.

IPad News Round up

Some iPad news worth sharing :

1. Apple stores are still seeing people lining up for iPad 2, which makes me believe the supply has been very limited. Hows those lines in your neighbourhood?.

2. At&t drops prices on all iPad 3G models (1st Gen). The current pricing stands at $429, $529 for the 16GB and 64GB models. (Via)

3. iPad 2 thinner glass might result in more breakage of the screens( its debatable and there still no much hard evidence), but its a buzz out there and so there you go.

3. Music Video shot entirely by iPad 2, impressive work nonetheless :

Weekly News Roundup: Time Warner (NYSE:TWX)

Monday 14 March

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has increased its TWCBC sales support staff to strengthen local markets.
Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has tripled its Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) Partner Program sales support staff to deliver a more local sales support approach.

The company will officially announce this at the Spring Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas.

These additional resources will provide efficient local sales support and will allow the company’s downstream partners to sell Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) communication solutions.

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) vice president of National Sales Jim Delis said, “This in-the-field approach is consistent with TWCBC’s company-wide emphasis on providing fast, efficient and localized sales and customer service support.”

Tuesday 15 March

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has offered free phone calls to Japan until April 15.
Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), the cable and digital phone service provider, said that its digital phone customers can call to the earthquake stricken Japan for free till April 15.

Both residential and business class customers can benefit from this. Digital phone customers do not need to make any changes to get advantage of this service. Calls to the directory assistance or operators will be charged as usual.

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) said that all direct calls to Japan will come under this program and that calls on the earthquake hit Friday will be retroactive.

Thursday 17 March

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has signed a deal with Turner Broadcasting to broadcast truTV in HD.
According to BizTimes, media and entertainment company Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has signed a deal with Turner Broadcasting to broadcast the 2011 NCAA college Basketball Tournament in HD from truTV.

The games will be carried on Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) cable channel 1220. Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) will broadcast the games of Badgers against Belmont University on Thursday and Eagles against Xavier University on Friday.

Stacy Zaja, Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) spokeswoman, said, “Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) reached an agreement to provide a “free preview” of the truTV HD channel. The station will be available in Milwaukee until 6 a.m. on Monday, March 21.”

The Most Beautiful Places In The World

Taj Mahal, India

The Taj Mahal in India is one of the wonders of the world and is one of the most beautiful mausoleums constructed by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, in memory of his favorite queen, Mumtaz Mahal. Located in Agra, white marble was used in the construction of this symbol of love, and the Taj Mahal is considered to be the pinnacle of Mughal architecture.

As the story goes, the emperor was grief-stricken when he lost his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took thousands of craftsmen and artisans, and about twenty years to construct it. The masons, stone cutters, carvers, inlayers, calligraphers, painters, and others were brought from throughout the entire empire as well as from Iran and Central Asia. Semi-precious stones were used for inlay ornamentation. It later became the mausoleum of Shah Jahan too. This is a huge tourist attraction with one to two million tourists visiting it every year.

Maldives – One of the most beautiful places in the World

The Maldives is an island nation located several hundred kilometres southwest of Sri Lanka and is the smallest Asian country in terms of population (300k). Tourism is the country’s biggest foreign exchange earners and these photos will show why the Maldives is one of the beautiful places on this world.

Polynesiato

Many people consider French Polynesiato be the most beautiful, and even the most romantic place on earth. It is better known as Tahiti. They are in fact many islands, which are in fact several groups of volcanic peaks and atolls that are spread over hundreds of miles of ocean. Each of the islands has its own characteristics, from the broad lagoon of Rangiroa to the bustling market place ofPapeete.

Belize – A place that is almost like heaven

Do you see the beauty of this area in the picture? I mean, Belize is certainly one of the most beautiful and amazing places in the world and so we can't deny that we all wished that we could live there! As a matter of fact, I don't know any other place that can be better than this one for us to live in... Do you know a better place? Make sure you share it with me!

Disneyland, Paris, New Zealand, and Animal Kingdom

The weekend is here, and lucky for all of us, that means lots of wonderful photos from Disney and other vacation spots worldwide. Our tour begins at Disneyland in California with an artistic walk through Sleeping Beauty castle. The next stop is the Art Deco city of Napier, New Zealand. And who wouldn’t enjoy a breeze through the beautiful city of Paris, France? After the tease of Le Disneyland, we head into the wild of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in search of quite out of the way places. And the update wraps up with a blast from the past with vintage theme park post cards.

Bali lake Bratan

For people who are looking for the perfect tropical paradise, then Bali is the best place for them to go. This place is connected with magnificent sea and landscapes of other attractive tourist sites. Bali is one of the most beautiful places in Asia to offer.

Bali is preferably the most attractive place in Indonesia, many tourists who visit from around the world. This is located along the Sunda Islands between Lombok and Java. These places are well known due to the cultural richness of its people with extraordinary artistic talent in dance, painting and sculpture. There is a sense of beauty and attractiveness in their place, but also with people inside.

Splendid 4 + star Resort

This splendid 4+ star resort is located on the most beautiful beach of world famous Samui Island, where the white sandy beach meets the crystal clear marine water.

Rolling Hills and Small Farms

The combination of rolling hills and small farms help make Macon County one of the most beautiful places in the world. Macon County is located in Northern Middle Tennessee at the foothills of the Upper Cumberland. It is centrally located between Nashville, Tennessee, and Bowling Green, Kentucky. Nashville is only an hour's drive west, and Bowling Green is only an hour's drive northwest.

The World smallest Girl just 1 ft 11 inches

Jyoti amge(14) of Nagpur,India is the Worlds smallest Girl according to the India Book of Records. She was born on December 16,1993 and now measures just 1 ft 11 inches tall and weighs 11 Ib . Jyoti is diagnosed with Achondroplasia, the most recognization and most common form of dwarfism. Jyoti is a student at the Bhartiya Vidya Niketan Higher Primary school in Nagpur.

Jyoti has a family of two sisters, one brother and parents.

Jyoti is smallest than the average two-year-old child. Doctors say she has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia and she will not get longer than its current height in future.

She wears dresses and jewelry especially made for her. She has a tiny bed of her own and uses special plates and cutlery to eat. Despite of her smaller size, she says that she is happy with her smaller size.

She is going to a regular school in Nagpur, Central India where she is given her own smallest desk and chair. She is happy because her classmates deal her like other normal students. Jyoti has her own mini grey uniform and school bag. She looks just like a doll among other teenage class fellows.

During her first five years of life, she feel constantly sick but eventually she grew stronger.

She is same like other teenage girls as she has a large collection of dresses. She says I like to shop for me. She loves makeup and dressing up like beautiful models. She has a dream to do films. People in the region of India where the family lives flock to see the teenager Jyoti and some people treat her as a Goddess. You all are requested to pay her for happiness and long life.

Google circle:- A major new social network

ReadWriteWeb has confirmed details Google’s development of a major new social network called Circles. The service will offer photo and video sharing along with status updates that can be sent to specific, customizable social circles. Everything users share on Circles will be shared only with the most appropriate circle of social contacts in their lives, not with all your contacts in bulk. Circles may be shown off at an event co-hosted the ACLU, an organization focused on privacy and the liberties it affords. It may not be a big public launch yet, but it's clear that this is a major product in the works at the very least.

School and work, friends and family, the sacred and the profane; we've always been able to communicate different things to different people in different circumstances. Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks have collapsed all those contexts into one big bucket. We speak to our "friends" all at once, no matter what we might want to say to one group of people or another. And thus we often feel less comfortable than we might saying anything at all.

Google is expected to be in the final stages of development and may be showing off a preview at the SXSW conference .

Update: Google has said they will not announce anything. ReadWriteWeb learned from those suspected to be working on the project that it may not be under development currently after-all.

Where Facebook groups and Twitter lists have failed, Google Circles may be able to rope-in a massive audience of users seeking a more personal, organized network with more freedom of expression.

The lead user experience researcher for Google, Paul Adams published a very interesting presentation that points out the fundamental flaws of Facebook’s social network experience.

There isn’t anyone better suited to take on Facebook than Google. However, I don’t see what is to stop Facebook from implementing similar grouping features.

on Google Circles as Facebook’s tactics for world domination are continually shown as less than honorable. I also can’t wait to be empowered to share unique and relevant content to many diverse social circles.

Google Circles should prove to be a great communication medium for personal and business networking and marketing

Google Tries Again :- Google has launched many different social efforts over the years but has remained far behind Facebook and Twitter in its efforts. Social networking is an important technology for Google to find success with as it's a key way that people spend time online and that targeted advertisements are delivered to those people.

Google Buzz felt overbearing and bolted on. It also got privacy terribly, terribly wrong. Google Wave was more confusing than collaborative. Google's Open Social interoperable widget platform was hugely hyped as a distributed Face book killer, but it now primarily focused on enterprise social networks.

Reports emerged last June that Google has been working on a secret social project called Google Me.

In December a screenshot was leaked to techCrunch showing a new toolbar item on Google.com called "Loop." (Loop seems similar to Circles - I think Circles is better.) I believe that Circles will be a toolbar level service as well.

It's hard to think of a stronger angle to take than support for contextual integrity of communication and conversation, of personas in social networking.

Google has tried and failed in many other (though not all) social efforts. Bringing some of the best thinking and the best innovators in the world to a new effort to tackle one of the world's biggest problems is very ambitious.

Presuming that the things we're hearing are true (I believe they are), then we'll follow up with in-depth coverage of Google Circles once it's launched. That may be tonight, it may be as far in the future as the Google IO developer conference in two months - but I believe we are going to see at least some parts of it today. More clear than the timing is that this is definitely happening: Google is putting some of its most innovative social thinkers behind a major product called Circles and focused on personas.

The tallest people all over the world

Bo Xishun, the tallest person in the world, and his girlfriend, Xia Shujuan, were married in Chifeng city, Inner Mongolia on March 26. Bao Xishun, a Mongolian nationality herdsman, was born in 1951. He is 2.36 meters tall. In 2005, he was recognized as the tallest living man by the Guinness Book of Records. His wife, Xia Shujuan, is 28 years old and 1.68 meters high.

George Bell ,The staggering 7-foot-8 deputy sheriff from Norfolk, Va., finished head and shoulders above the rest and was officially crowned the Guinness World Records' tallest man in America , 2007.

Guinness World Records said that 8 foot 1 inch (2.47 meter) Sultan Kosen, from the town of Mardin in eastern Turkey, is now officially the tallest man walking the planet,2009.

Wadlow reached a strggering height of 8 feet 11.1 inches(2.72m) and weighted 490 lbs (220kg) nearly 500 ibs at his death at the tender ago of 22 years old. He was plagued with physical problems, not the least of which was leg weakness, bone deterioration and serious back problems.

Sandy Allen, the World's tallest woman is no more. She died at the age of 53 , in an Indiana nursing home. Sandy Allen was 7-foot, 7-inch (2.32 metre) tall and was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Tallest Woman".

Yes, on this photograph, the World's Smallest Man meets the Woman with World's Longest Legs!

With a height of 74.61 cm (2ft 5.37 in), He Pingping from Mongolia is the World's Smallest Man. he met 1m 96cm (6ft 4in) tall Svetlana Pankratova, from Russia, in Trafalgar Square, London, to launch the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book. With 132 cm (4 ft 3.9 in) long legs, Svetlana Pankratova has her name in the record book for the Woman with the Longest Legs in the World.

Ri Myung Hun a.k.a Michael Ri was a center with the national basketball team of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Once he was declared the tallest living human being in the world. Michael Ri planned to play in the NBA in the 1990s but he failed because of the U.S. ban on trade with North Korea. He's 7'8"1/2 (235cm).

Sultan Kösen (born 1983) is a Turkish basketball player. He had a back problem which prevented him from standing completely straight. A technician of the Galatasaray found him in a small town near the border of Turkey and Iraq. He stood 242 cm tall. After his back operation, his height was recorded at 247 cm (Approx. 8 ft 1 in).He is, as of now, the tallest player in the history of basketball.

Suleiman Ali Nashnush (1943 - 1991) is one of twelve individuals in medical history to reach or surpass eight feet in height. He was a Libyan basketball player and actor. In 1960, he successfully underwent surgery to correct his abnormal growth. He was one of the tallest basketball players ever at 8′0½” (245 cm) and played for Libya.

Leonid Stadnyk’s excessive growth began after brain surgery when he was 14 years old. He developed a pituitary gland tumor which caused the gland to secrete large amounts of growth hormone, resulting in what doctors describe as acromegalic gigantism. Twenty years after the surgery, the doctors have discovered the tumour had mysteriously disappeared and he is currently healthy. Leonid Stadnyk’s excessive growth began after brain surgery when he was 14 years old. He developed a pituitary gland tumor which caused the gland to secrete large amounts of growth hormone, resulting in what doctors describe as acromegalic gigantism. Twenty years after the surgery, the doctors have discovered the tumour had mysteriously disappeared and he is currently healthy. He's 8'5" (257cm).