admin

Microsoft is introducing a phone-a-friend feature into its Bing search engine, allowing searchers to ask their Facebook and Twitter contacts to supplement information gathered by the search engine itself.

The new feature called Sidebar sorts through searcher’s Facebook friends to identify which ones might have information valuable to the current search. It also lists Twitter accounts likely to hold answers, Microsoft says.

MORE: Microsoft to start charging for Bing search

The new features won’t be available for a while, but those who want to be notified when they are can register at www.bing.com/new .

With the new features when someone searches, they get the usual results that run down the left side of the page. A new center column called Snapshot lists sites that are relevant to the search but also contain action items. So if someone searches on Florida vacations, the center column might list airlines ticketing sites and hotel reservation sites.

A third column on the right called Sidebar lists Facebook friends who might be able to offer advice on the subject about which the search was made. So in the Florida vacation example, Sidebar would list friends who have added recent photos of their trip to Florida or whose postings indicate they traveled recently to Florida or who actually live in Florida.

Searchers can click on a friend’s name and write them a query that will be posted on the friend’s Facebook wall, where it will be visible to the friend’s friends in accordance with whatever privacy settings are in place. For Sidebar to work, users must be logged in to Facebook.

These contacts are called Friends Who Might Know, but below that category in the Sidebar is a second category called People Who Know, based on data gleaned from Twitter. So in the case of the Florida vacation, People Who Know might include Amercan Beaches, the Twitter account of a realty agency that rents Florida beachfront property.

Microsoft says the results may be displayed differently on smartphones small screens, likely off-screen and accessible by swiping.

The company says it is still testing the new features and will release them when it feels comfortable.

Read more about software in Network World’s Software section.

As one of the web’s “big three” social networks, along with Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn has grabbed its slice of the limelight as the space where professionals strategize their next career move. But that’s an unnecessarily limiting way to view this powerhouse network. Over the last few years, LinkedIn has introduced myriad tools — some free, some paid — to help small businesses drive word of mouth about their brand. Here are just a few ways you can get started.

Increase your visibility with a company page

If you look at LinkedIn’s users as potential customers, employees and business partners, it becomes clear the networking site is a grand stage on which to tell your brand story. There’s no easier way to start than to create a company page. This profile offers you a central hub to provide an overview of your business, showcase products and services and attract new talent. Facebook like features allow you to build a following and engage with customers directly through status updates and content sharing. There’s even an analytics feature that gives insight into your audience and your page’s effectiveness.

Generate new leads

With 150 million members, LinkedIn is the Internet’s largest business mixer, and you should work it as such. Assess the room to identify a few key players in your industry and either have one of your connections introduce you or approach them directly. Find the LinkedIn group discussions where your audience is active and join the conversation. And you wouldn’t dream of attending a networking event without a stack of business cards; make sure your profile is current and complete — you never know when a lead may approach you.

Find talent

The same methods you use to find new business also apply to finding your next star employee. Every savvy job seeker understands the adage “It’s not who you know, it’s who who you know knows,” and it applies to the talent recruiter as well. Build a strong, well-rounded network of people both inside and outside your industry and tap into it for recommendations. Uncover candidates by joining Q&As and groups that are relevant to the position you want to fill. If you have a company page, post openings there to attract active job seekers. Remember this will likely be their introduction to your business, make sure the content on your page accurately reflects your company culture to lure the best fit for your position.

Promote your expertise

PayPal announced an accessory and app called Here, which enables card, cheque, and PayPal transactions through an iPhone. Whoever’s taking the order just opens the app and taps whatever menu items they have registered. The buyer can sign for any of the payment methods with their finger on the iPhone’s touchscreen, and have receipts texted to them. There’s even support for tips. On the merchant side, invoices are saved for future reference without any cost, though they will be paying a 2.7% fee per transaction. The accessory is a pretty simple blue triangle with a little flap to keep it from spinning in the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Sounds an awful lot like Square? You betcha. The difference here is that a lot of people are already active with PayPal, and trust them for handling cash (for better or worse). PayPal has already been fairly active in the realm of mobile payments, but this is a big step towards bridging the gap to mainstream payment methods. NFC adoption is still a long ways off, and I suspect systems like PayPal Here will see reasonable popularity before NFC does.

The initial launch for PayPal Here will be in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong, with select partners using the system now, and wider availability in those countries starting in April. Supported credit cards include Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

Version 3.3 of the Linux kernel was released on Sunday, adding support for a new processor architecture, re-integrating the Android code base back into the main line, and introducing networking improvements.

A virtual switching package called Open vSwitch was added to the new variant of the kernel, in a move meant to provide more robust VM configuration options compared to the existing Linux bridge. This could be particularly helpful to companies that maintain heavily virtualized environments. Combined with improvements in the way Linux handles complex network traffic, this could make version 3.3 a substantial step forward for the data center.

Support for the Texas Instruments C6X family of single- and multiple-core processors was also integrated into Linux 3.3, as was a new type of bootloader that allows a single kernel image to be used for both EFI and BIOS.

However, the most notable change may have been the reincorporation of most of the Android mobile platform back into the main Linux tree. The decision to do so was reached at the Kernel Summit in December 2011, according to LWN, which added that the move came as something of a surprise.

The full release was expected roughly a week ago, but kernel maintainer Linus Torvalds imposed a slight delay, saying that a number of minor issues needed to be addressed.

The next version of Office is expected to arrive later this year. We don’t know for sure what new major features will be added to its individual applications (i.e. Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word), but several tidbits about the overall suite have been subtly revealed or officially announced by Microsoft. Plus, there’s been plenty of speculation by the tech news media.

1. “2012″ (or maybe “2013″) not “15″

Although the next version of Office has been referred to as “Office 15″ (even the official Microsoft Office blog calls it that), “Office 2012″ will probably be its final release name — provided that things stay on schedule and the next Office is released this year. (The “15″ refers to the version number of the overall Office suite.)

2. Technical preview

Microsoft announced on Jan. 30 that a “select group of customers” had been granted access to a “technical preview” of the next version of Office to test it, and provide feedback to Microsoft. These people are under NDA, but on March 6, a number of details about the individual applications (Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word) were leaked, which reveal clean layouts that emphasize the use of white space.

3. “Office 15″ leaked?

A year ago, a very early look at the next Office was leaked to the Internet. (It can be found via bittorrent sites.) But this version very likely has little in common with the more recently released Technical Preview. Although it features a media management tool code-named Moorea, it looks to be a pretty much Office 2010 relabeled as “Office 15,” considering that its UI, applications and tools are essentially the same.

Coming soon: Office for the iPad

4. Teaser video

On Feb. 9, Microsoft released a video that discusses the development of Windows 8 for devices running the ARM processor, but which also teased a few screenshots from the new Office. It gives |sneak peeks of how the next versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word will look.

5. Is the Ribbon UI gone?

The Windows 8 ARM video appears to show that the Ribbon UI has been dropped from Office 2012, and the suite will return to a more traditional desktop application GUI. But the Ribbon could have just been minimized or deactivated for this video. Either way, this suggests that maybe the Ribbon won’t be emphasized as a selling point of Office 2012.

6. Touch screen-friendly

Microsoft stated that the Office 2012 applications will have user interfaces designed for them to be used with touch screens. It has since been leaked that there will be a touch mode button, which, when activated, will enlarge the ribbon interface and other elements of an Office 2012 app to make it easier to access through a touch screen.

7. Will it be Metro…?

Based on what is shown in the Windows 8 ARM video, Microsoft won’t be fully replacing the Office user interface with the one the company will be implementing on a massive scale into the next version of Windows: the swipe-heavy, panel-centric Metro. Office 2012 will probably stick with a traditionally functioning GUI similar to Office 2010′s (which will be reassuring to enterprise and business users loathe to change).
8. A separate Metro version?

[Click to enlarge] What about the Metro style?What about the Metro style?That said, there’s speculation that a separate, completely Metro’ed version of Office 2012 — perhaps with scaled down features — could be released for the general consumer market.
9. Cloud integration

This one’s a no-brainer. You’ll be able to save your documents to the cloud from Office 2012, most likely to a user account on SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud-storage service. (Office 2010 already has a few integrated features with SkyDrive.)
10. Uses less power

Microsoft made it a point to mention that Office 2012 will use less memory and processing resources, compared to recent versions of Office, in order to save on the limited power of tablets (and this would also benefit notebook computers running Office 2012).
11. Runs on ARM

The processor used in most tablets and smartphones will get a version of Office 2012 for it. This naturally ties in with the tablet-centered features (touchscreen interface, and lower memory and processing) that the next Office will have.
12. Not for Windows XP

Yeah, there are many — primarily business and enterprise users — who still have not upgraded from this two-generation old OS. First, Microsoft took away IE9 from XP users (actually, that was no big loss). But now it’s unlikely that the new Office will work on XP, since this OS is set to be retired in April 2014. So it’s time for you stalwart XP faithful to get on the Windows 7 (or Windows bandwagon if you want to get working on Office 2012.
13. Connects with Kinect?

This is the wildest speculation, but you never know considering the various UI changes that are in store. Microsoft recently released a Windows version of its Kinect — the motion-sensor control unit originally created for their Xbox 360 game console. Its intent is to encourage the development of non-gaming uses for the sensor. (There has been a robust community of unofficial Kinect developers and hackers.)

[Click to enlarge] Kinect as a productivity tool?Kinect as a productivity tool?So could Office 2012 let you interact with it through a Kinect, where you would flip through PowerPoint slides by sweeping your hands through the air, for example? We hope so — might as well get some exercise when having to go through lengthy business presentations that already feel like a work-out.
14. Public beta

Sometime this summer you’ll get to download and try a beta of Office 2012. This could happen between May and July. This try-out period will probably be like how the Windows 8 Developer Preview has been handled — sign up on a Microsoft website, then download and install the software which you will get to use fully for a period of time until the suite is officially released for sale. Speaking of which…
15. Final release date

Office 2012 will be released by the end of this year — or at the beginning of the next. Microsoft has pegged December or January, which leads us to consider that the Technical Preview version could already be close to what the final release will be like.