Altaro Hyper-V Backup beta launched, only 250 places available

This one's for the sysadmins in the audience: Altaro, makers of our favorite "time machine for Windows" back solution, OopsBackup, have just announced a new product entering beta called Hyper-V Backup.

It's a backup solution for virtual machines running on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization solution. If that sentence just seemed like a bunch of buzzwords crammed together, Hyper-V backup is not for you. But, if you actually use Hyper-V and are hankering for a good backup solution, Altaro might be worth checking out.

The beta run is limited - Altaro are looking for just 250 testers. All participants will get a free license key to the final, production version. So if you're interested in helping test Hyper-V Backup, get yourself over to Altaro now and join the beta.

Altaro Hyper-V Backup beta launched, only 250 places available originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls

Nortel, once one of the biggest telecoms company in the world but now in the death throes of bankruptcy, has selected Google's $900 million bid for its patent portfolio as the stalking horse bid. This doesn't mean that Google will automatically win Nortel's massive array of telecoms patents, but it does mean that Google is the preferred buyer.

Google, which has a history of lobbying for patent law reform, has been the target of many patent litigation suits. Google's relative infancy means that it has a lot less patents in the vault than big-hitters like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, and buying Nortel's portfolio of 6,000 patents could provide better protection against patent litigation in the future. It's worth noting that both Apple and RIM have showed interested in the portfolio, too.

Mashable speculates that the patents -- which are nearly all telecoms-related -- will be used to defend against Oracle's attacks on Android's use of Java. We reckon that Google is simply looking to cover its future endeavors in the world of networking. In the absence of patent law reform, and continued threats to net neutrality, owning a bunch of telecoms patents sounds like a very sensible move.

Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL Partner on Advertising

In a bid to counter some of the Internet's larger ad giants--most notably Google and Facebook--Microsoft has joined in an advertising partnership with AOL and Yahoo.

However, Microsoft isn't framing the agreement as a response to its competitors in that arena. "Other players in the industry are welcome to join us," Rik van der Kooi, corporate vice president of Microsoft Advertising Business Group, told Reuters Nov. 8. "This is not in response to anybody in particular."

Under the terms of the agreement, each of the three companies can sell premium display ads belonging to the other two. That will allow the trifecta to more efficiently unload premium advertising inventory, although their competition over advertiser spending and other segments will continue apace.

Facebook and Google continue to battle for their own significant shares of the online advertising pie. Although Microsoft's product portfolio gives it diverse streams of revenue (in contrast to Google, for example, which depends on advertising for an overwhelming percentage of its bottom line), its recent emphasis on Web and cloud services makes advertising a more prominent concern. Greater ad revenues would also allow Microsoft to absorb some of the massive losses its online division accrues on a quarterly basis.

Microsoft is already in partnership with Facebook. A number of the latter's features, including the "Like" button, feed social data into Bing, Microsoft's search engine. That wouldn't stop Microsoft from making a more aggressive play for the same advertising-dollar pool that feeds Facebook, of course, and nor would that stop AOL or Yahoo, which presumably view Facebook as more of an existential threat.

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Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad

It's still a bit odd seeing Microsoft deliver apps for Apple's mobile platform. And it's even stranger still to see one as sexy as the new Bing app for iPad, which brings a slick, immersive search experience to Apple's tablet.

Just as a regular search on bing.com will, the Bing app for iPad tailors the results it displays based on what you're searching for. There are loads of custom views, covering everything from movies and maps to weather and shopping. The app also offers a heads-up display of currently trending searches, complete with related images, which is an iPad-exclusive feature.

Navigation is a breeze thanks to multitouch controls, allowing users to flick or swipe through results. And while the development team refers to the app as "touch and decide," Bing Voice Search is also built in -- making it easy to start a query without using the iPad's on-screen keyboard.

The Bing app for iPad is available for download now from the App Store.

Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Bing's Most-Searched Terms Include Bieber, Xbox

Microsoft has unveiled Bing's top-searched terms for 2011, a list that harbors absolutely no surprises.

Topping the list of most-searched people is Justin Bieber, which suggests a lot of tweens are using Microsoft's search engine for their teen-idol needs. No. 1 in the category of consumer electronics was Xbox/Kinect, followed by the Kindle, then PlayStation.

Top news stories searched out on Bing include the Casey Anthony trial, Osama bin Laden's death, and Hurricane Irene. Top finance queries included real estate agents, "cheap" and "coupons." Vegas ended up the most-searched world destination, and the upcoming "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" the most-hunted movie.

The complete list is available here, for anyone with a burning desire to find out, say, which reality star or morning show topped Bing's search list.

Microsoft accounted for 14.8 percent of the U.S. search engine market in October, according to research firm comScore, compared with Google at 65.6 percent. Although Yahoo racked up 15.2 percent of that market, its back-end search is powered by Bing, which for all purposes folds its share into that of Microsoft.

In essence, Microsoft holds a third of the domestic search market. From its inception, the company has tried to differentiate itself from Google in a number of ways, most notably its subdivision of search into a series of subject-specific verticals, including "Shopping" and "Travel." In contrast to the Google search page's famous blank background, Bing also refreshes daily with a new image.

In addition, Microsoft's partnership with Facebook has allowed Bing to take things a step deeper, layering search with social data such as the ability to see which friends "Liked" a particular Website.

Despite the steady stream of new features, though, Microsoft's gains against Google have come in a decidedly gradual game, and the company's online division costs it millions of dollars per quarter in losses. Nonetheless, as Microsoft moves increasingly toward the cloud and mobility, Bing plays an ever-greater role as both a collector of aggregate user data and as a branding tool.

That's more than enough reason (aside from giving Bieber-ites their all-important fix) for the company to continue pouring money into the effort.

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Libra for Android helps you track your weight using The Hacker's Diet system

I'm getting fat; that's what you see on the screenshot to the right -- my gradual move from chubby to portly. But never mind the numbers, look at the pretty graph!

If you've ever read The Hacker's Diet, this graph should be instantly recognizable. Each point shows the weight for a given day, while the trend line lets you see if you're gaining or losing weight.

When I use my "main" PC, I have a homebrew solution for creating and maintaining this graph. But I've had to find a temporary solution for Android, and Libra is it.

It's a beautifully simple app, very true to the spirit of The Hacker's Diet. You can create a shortcut on your homescreen that brings you right into the data entry screen, so you just tap the shortcut every morning, feed in your weight for the day and hit OK, and then you get to see your progress (or lack thereof) on the graph.

The app remembers the previous day's weigh-in, which makes it easy to enter today's weight (as they're usually not too different). The graph is zoomable and scrollable, and most importantly, you can export the data to CSV so you're not locked into the app.

If you ever need to track your weight using an Android device for any period of time, Libra is one excellent solution.

Libra for Android helps you track your weight using The Hacker's Diet system originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone 8 Details Revealed

Microsoft's renewed push for its Windows Phone platform centers on Mango, an update with hundreds of tweaks and features. Over the next few months, manufacturers such as Nokia will push an array of new smartphones boasting the software.

It should come as no surprise, of course, that Microsoft is already thinking ahead to subsequent Windows Phone versions. Given the rapid pace of smartphone OS development, they basically have no choice. Until now, though, the nature of those future versions remained totally unclear. But now, two new reports give us a better idea of what might be in store from Windows Phone late in 2012.

On Feb. 2, the blog Pocketnow.com offered a rather extensive rundown of Windows Phone 8's features, claiming it obtained them from a Microsoft-produced video meant for Nokia executives (and hosted by Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore). Many of those details were subsequently confirmed by Paul Thurrott, in a posting that same day on his Supersite for Windows.

Pocketnow paraphrased Belfiore as saying that Windows Phone 8 will "use many of the same components of Windows 8" and that areas of heavy overlap include "kernel, networking stacks, security, and multimedia support." For developers, that apparently means the ability to reuse massive chunks of code when "porting an app from desktop to phone."

Thurrott seconded that finding in his own post, writing that Windows Phone 8 "will be based on the Windows 8 kernel and not on Windows CE as are current versions." In other words, apps developed for Windows Phone Mango will apparently continue to play well on the upgraded platform.

Both sources said Windows Phone 8 will include the same 128-bit, full-disk BitLocker encryption that currently runs on Windows. A "Data Smart" feature will give WiFi hotspots priority over using the smartphone's cellular connection, in turn reducing data usage. Thurott noted a Skype app, SkyDrive integration, secure payments via near-field communication (NFC), camera improvements, and Internet Explorer 10 Mobile as other additions.

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