Christian Bible Goes Digital

Christian Bible Goes Digital

Time is never kind to paper manuscripts, particular those written more than 1600 years ago. Some 800 pages remain of the Codex Sinaiticus, a version of the Christian Bible written in the fourth century, and the original text is thought to be nearly twice as long. Historians believe the book may be world's oldest Christian Bible.

to today's online publication of the Codex Sinaiticus, scholars can examine the entire book from the comfort of their desks. Curious? You can explore the document yourself. Stephen Bates of The Guardian explains the significance of the online edition:
". . . so sophisticated is modern technology that scholars will not only be able to read the document on their screens using a standard light setting, but also separately by a raking illumination that highlights the texture and features of the very parchment on which the 800 surviving pages of text were written."
It's fair to say the online edition of Codex Sinaiticus won't have mainstream appeal. But the project does illustrate the power of the Internet to advance educational pursuits.

why you'll want to play Batman's gritty upcoming adventure

Batman Fans Will Go Bat-Crazy ..
Kevin Conroy possesses the kind of voice that could probably part the Red Sea. It's only fitting that his acting prowess from Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and five seasons of the Justice League series would bring the Caped Crusader to life in Arkham Asylum, and it's good to have him back. That deep, baritone pitch has been something that Christian Bale likely weeped at his inability to mimic, although it probably doesn't help that Conroy's normal civilian speech sounds like the voice of God with a touch of Clint Eastwood (also God).

On the other end of the spectrum, Mark Hamill, who is arguably more famous for voice acting than his lightsaber skills, is providing the voice of the Joker. It doesn't get much better than that. Unlike goofy incarnations of Batman's less threatening foes, Mark Hamill makes the Joker sound straight up psychotic. How psychotic? Expose some small children to Batman: The Animated Series, and it's 90 percent certain that they'll develop a sudden, volatile fear of clowns.
Play with Insanely Cool Bat Tools like Explosive Jelly and Razor-Sharp Batarangs
Even if they don't always get the combat right (cough, Batman: Dark Tomorrow), most Batman games don't skimp on those wonderful toys. Arkham Asylum's no slouch either, as you've got everything from grappling hooks, mid-flight-controlled Batarangs and explosive Bat-Jelly that can pretty much turn anything into rubble. Heck, even the Joker's packing some heat, and by heat we mean face-searing, skin-melting acid. Oh, and he has a gun. Just in case the acid wasn't painful enough.

Google is hoping to dissuade the Department of Justice from bringing an antitrust case.

Increasing scrutiny of corporate behavior, Google is hoping to dissuade the Department of Justice from bringing an antitrust case.
For several months, Google has been explaining to regulators and journalists that, contrary to the predatory image painted by competitors, the company is fragile. It has made its case in Washington, D.C., New York, and Brussels, hoping to dissuade the U.S. Department of Justice and European regulators from bringing an antitrust case against the company.

After the lax regulatory atmosphere of the Bush administration, the Obama administration appears to be increasing its scrutiny of corporate behavior. The new head of the Justice Department's antitrust division said in a recent speech that the department would be taking a more aggressive approach with companies that use their dominant position to stifle competition. In a speech last year, before her appointment to the Justice Department, she said that Google had acquired a monopoly in online advertising.
Google also faces Justice Department scrutiny over its proposed settlement with book publishers and authors, Federal Trade Commission scrutiny over board members who also serve on Apple's board, and a Justice Department inquiry into the possibility that Silicon Valley companies such as Google and Apple colluded to avoid poaching employees from one another. Last year, Google abandoned a planned advertising deal with Yahoo to avoid an antitrust showdown with the Justice Department.

During the Google presentation, Adam Kovacevich, the company's senior manager of global communications and public affairs, acknowledged that the company's success has brought increased scrutiny. But he insisted that Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) was in a similar position a decade ago, citing a 1998 Fortune article that declared, "Yahoo has won the search engine wars."

"We also know our position is fragile," he said.
In keeping with Google's emphasis on data and metrics, Google legal counsel Dana Wagner, who coincidentally used to work in the antitrust division of the Justice Department, offered an anecdote in support of this claim.

Microsoft is adding a "Windows XP Mode" to Windows 7

Now Windows 7 gets built in XP mode..
Microsoft is adding a "Windows XP Mode" to Windows 7, in a move to encourage users to make the switch to the software vendor's forthcoming operating system.

The firm has built its XP mode into Windows 7 by using the Windows Virtual PC technology Microsoft acquired in 2003, to make the OS compatible to run apps designed for Vista's predecessor.
Redmond was keen to emphasise in a blog post late on Friday that it's hoping to woo small businesses to move to Windows 7 by bigging up the XP mode feature.

"Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7," said Microsoft. "Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC."

Users can install apps directly into the virtualised XP environment. The applications are then published to the Windows 7 desktop and they can be run from within that OS.

Microsoft said it will release a beta of Windows XP mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate "soon" but wasn't more specific about when the test builds will land.

When Microsoft released Vista over two years ago, many businesses and individuals complained about compatibility snafus with applications that simply wouldn't work within the new OS

Nokia ready to change its fortunes in the U.S. market

NOKIA HITS US MARKETS.....
Nokia has steadily lost ground in recent years, watching its market share shrivel to single digits.
Nokia hopes to reverse that trend. On Mar. 30, AT&T (T), the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., plans to announce it will soon carry Nokia's e71x, the thinnest smartphone available in the U.S. The phone is similar to traditional BlackBerry devices in looks, but is a sleeker 0.39 inches thick. It has a Qwerty keyboard, allowing for Web browsing and corporate e-mail access via regular wireless networks and Wi-Fi hotspots at cafés and airports. The device also has a built-in Global Positioning System, a music player, a video camera, and a memory card slot. The Nokia e71x is expected to hit the U.S. market in May and should cost $100 after rebate with a two-year contract.

"We believe this is a great opportunity for Nokia," says Hugo Hernandez, Nokia's head of E-series marketing for North America. "We are bringing in a device with the right [features] and the right price point."

Investing more in the U.S. market
To gain back market share and prove it's serious about the U.S. market this time, Nokia needs to follow up the e71x with comparably promising phones. In particular, the company needs to develop more phones with the CDMA wireless technology used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint (S). "It'll be difficult [to increase their market share] due to their [near] lack of CDMA presence," says Hughes De La Vergne, a principal analyst at Gartner (IT).

T-Mobile felt the time was right to roll out its new webConnect USB Laptop Stick.

WebConnect USB Laptop Stick on T-Mobile ..

Manufactured by Huawei Technologies Co., this small, portable modem lets you connect to the Web on your laptop using T-Mobile's 3G network or Wi-Fi, and comes with built-in T-Mobile Connection Manager software to automatically detect the best available Internet connection.
In addition, the WebConnect laptop stick offers tri-band 3G connectivity (HSDPA/UMTS 1900/AWS/2100), so you'll be able to use it on compatible networks overseas. If you're in an area where there is no 3G coverage, it is compatible with GPRS/EDGE networks, so you're not left to search out a Wi-Fi hot spot as your only option of getting online.
Aside from connectivity, the T-Mobile WebConnect laptop stick can also double as a portable storage device. Similar to the AT&T USBConnect Mercury, it's equipped with a microSD/SDHC expansion slot that can accept up to 8GB cards. The accessory features a swivel USB design and measures 3.5 inches tall by 1.1 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick and weighs 1.5 ounces.

The T-Mobile WebConnect USB Laptop Stick will be available in select T-Mobile retail stores and online starting March 25. There are various pricing options available: $49.99 with a two-year contract after rebate; $99.99 with one-year contract; or $249.99 with no contract.

If you have a Sony Reader, you have a lot of reading to catch up on.

Sony EBook Store to present standard Books Digitized by Google.

How does it work?

Reader doesn’t have to replace your traditional books - it’s just a new way of enjoying reading. With Reader you can carry far more books with you wherever you go, so whatever mood takes you you’ll have a book that fits it.

And using Reader couldn’t be simpler:
When you buy a Reader, install the supplied software on your computer, connect Reader to it with the cable provided and voila!

Create and manage your eBook library on your PC and transfer your eBooks to Reader exactly like you do with your music on your mp3 player.

Need a new book? Choose from thousands of titles available from waterstones.com the online store of Britain's best-loved bookseller. Simply buy the ones you want and import them into your PC’s Reader library.
Store up to 160 books at a time on your Reader. If you’re a real bookworm add to your collection and store thousands more using a Sony Memory Stick Duo™ or SD memory card.

Bookmark pages or magnify text on a page; Reader will also remember where you last left off – even if you don’t.

It’s slim and light so you can take it with you wherever you go and the long battery life means you can enjoy nearly 7000 page turns without recharging – that’s like reading War and Peace five times over.

Sony Electronics has struck a deal with Google to distribute half a million titles through the Sony eBook Store -- for free.
The books, all published before 1923 and now in the public domain, were digitized by Google as part of its Google Book Search program. Sony will offer them alongside the 100,000 or so books still under copyright that it sells through its eBook store.
It's already possible to download public domain books from Google Book Search as PDF files and copy them onto a flash memory card for use in e-readers such as Sony's, but this partnership will simplify the process for users by integrating it into the eBook Library Software for PCs that ships with the Sony Reader.
The service won't give Reader owners free access to the much greater number of books still in copyright, many of which Google Book Search has already digitized, however.
To access the public domain books, owners of Sony's PRS-505 or PRS-700 readers will need to install the PC software and create an account on the eBook Store if they don't already have one. Owners of the older PRS-500 are out of luck, though: the service won't work with that device.
The expanded library won't address one key difference between the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle e-readers: the Amazon devices don't need to be tethered to a PC to download and install new books. Instead, the Kindles download books over the air via Sprint Nextel's 3G (third generation) mobile network. However, the wireless technology Amazon has chosen for the Kindle -- and the Kindle 2, released Feb. 9 -- is little used outside the U.S., and is incompatible with mobile networks in Europe and most of Asia.
That leaves an opening for other e-reader manufacturers to provide devices that work with European mobile networks, perhaps linking to other online bookstores. Dutch company Endless Ideas is planning just that with the next version of its BeBook e-reader. It showed a prototype of the device at Cebit, but the new model was absent from its small stand at the Paris Book Fair last week, where Sony had a major presence.
Google's partnership with Sony is not the first time it has simplified access to Google Book Search for mobile devices. On Feb. 6 it opened up the service to the Apple iPhone and to phones based on the Android software platform it backs.