These days, consumers are getting more demanding and fickle, especially for big item purchases like cars.

Car manufacturers are including more features in their vehicles to attract buyers. Thanks to innovation in car technology, modern cars now come with built in HUDs for navigation.

Audi has taken connectivity a step further with an integrated WiFi hotspot, powered by a UMTS modem touting speeds of up to 7.2Mbps to their new 2011 Audi A8.

To get connected, you can either drop your SIM card into the car’s on-board system or pair your phone up with it VIA bluetooth and then share the joys of the internet with up to 8 WiFi enabled devices.

This will help you “enjoy” traffic jams as you are able to surf the net or read emails. Just make sure you don’t use it on the go as no one likes a distracted driver. Although, if you can afford an A8, you’ll most likely have someone to drive it for you too.

[Engadget & Autoblog]

The latest version of GoogleChrome was launched this week and it claims to increase your browsing speed by 30-35%.

Now, when it comes to speed, everything is relative, so the team at Google put things into perspetive for us.

They pit Google Chrome against high tech stuff like an air cannon potato launcher, soundwaves, lightning, etc. Guess what, Google Chrome passes the test with flying colors.

I enjoyed the video which is mostly exaggeration but very fun nonetheless. By the way, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Download the latest version to see if it meets your expectations.

You can also visit Google Chrome blog for a detailed explanation of the new features as and the the initial integration of Adobe Flash Player with Chrome to deliver a better user experience.

[Tech Crunch]

Good news for Android fans. You can now incorporate a basic Android 1.6 (instead of a full-fletched Android) on an iPhone 2G by following this comprehensive tutorial.

The writer achieved this feat on a Mac, but it should be possible on Windows or Linux too. Windows users can get the Windows version of VirtualBox.

The instructions are laid out rather clearly and you just need to click away, but there are lots of steps involved, all 70+ of them. If your experience of using iPhone is just dropping apps into your Applications folder, I think this walkthrough for incorporating Android on your iPhone may be too geeky for you.

[Cult Of Mac]

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Source: Google Blog
 

I applaud Google’s stance in standing up to a repressive government. They may lose out financially from advertising revenue and the mobile phone market given that there are more than 300 million consumers in China.

But then Google will score points elsewhere for their principle in not controlling what people can read.

In the long term though, it matters little whether Google exits the China market. The critical issue is whether Google can continue to come up with winners and stay relevant to keep its existing customers.

There are a lot of things which need fine-tuning, not least the Nexus One, which is seriously, no great shakes.

For all the pedophiles out there, it is time to clean up your act. Microsoft has developed a new technology to tackle online child abuse images. Hopefully, this technology can weed out child abuse, which is a most abhorrent crime. 

I have little love lost for Microsoft whose products are expensive and full of security loopholes. It is good to see such a monopolistic giant do a moral act though. The fact that they are donating this technology will have done their PR and branding a whole lot of good.

Using PhotoDNA, the new technology picks out images which are identical, even if they have been edited, resized, cropped and edited in other ways, and logs them. The system matches them through a technique which monochromes the image, breaks the image into smaller chunks and the intensity gradients are converted into a signature.

The ISPs are then given a list of these signatures, data strings essentially without giving away evidence, to search for other identical images which are out there on the web.

Microsoft is donating this technology to the NCMEC, which will then be licenced out to other law enforcement agencies across the globe.

[Zdnet]

The internet is big but how big? Look at this infographic showing the size of cyberspace -  210 billion emails, 3 million Flickr images, 43 million gigabytes (on phones), etc.

Mind boggling stuff indeed.

HitWicket has become the most downloaded cricket addon in Mozilla. It is a small piece of software which enable Firefox users to view live international cricket scores at the bottom of their browser. You can also view up to of 4 live matches.

HitWicket fetches data from CMDN.com which is a relatively new player in cricket websites. Apart from live scores, HitWicket also provide wicket alerts of important events in their favorite cricket match, very useful for those who are occupied with other tasks.

One other unique feature which is not usually shipped with plugins is its theming support. User can select the color scheme of widget window which is best suit to their operating system theme.

HitWicket has also got the most beautiful user interface among the cricket related addon in Mozilla.
It is purely a cross platform product. So one can use it in Windows, Ubuntu and Mac environment. Go ahead and try it out if you are a cricket fan.

[HitWicket Firefox Addon]