Slashdot reports: Google’s Picasa 2.0 was announced yesterday (with support for RAW, Gmail integration, and uploading to popular photo services, among other things) and PC Magazine is ready with a review. Four and a half stars, and the only drawback found by PC Magazine folks was the lack of support for handheld devices. from the GoogleBlog: Of course, Picasa 2 works great with other Google services; you can post pictures to your own blog with the Blogger button, order print supplies through Froogle, and send pictures using Gmail. And somehow our engineering team made Picasa 2 run just as...

Motorola has announced a partnership with Oakley to create Bluetooth headset eyewear. Currently Oakley is selling a line of sun glasses with an MP3 player built-in, but it’s not clear if the Bluetooth line will have a similar design. Details and designs are set to be unveiled by mid-year. Company executives said their mutual objective is to deliver evolutionary and innovative products for consumers who want hands- free, untethered operation of their electronic devices. Oakley is a leader in premium sunglasses and also has a range of apparel/accessories. MobileTracker [article]

LONDON (Reuters) – Reality TV, meet virtual reality. Electronic Arts, the world’s biggest video game publisher, is considering an interactive TV show that would let viewers control the actions of the characters as in its popular game “The Sims.” “One idea could be that you’re controlling a family, telling them when to go to the kitchen and when to go to the bedroom, and with this mechanism you have gamers all over the world ‘playing the show’,” said Jan Bolz, vice president of marketing and sales for EA Europe. The proposed show, which might...

“Here’s something for the DIY people, a home made mp3 player built into a mint case. Total (minimum) cost for parts: ~50$. At least it’s something different.” Slashdot [article] Very nice, I love to see people making inventive things, we get too much standard rubbish these days (which is why I love apple)

Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit has announced several updates to products at Macworld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, including MSN Messenger 5.0. Version 5.0 of MSN Messenger for Mac will be released in the first half of 2005, adding several new features, like improved security and the ability to add users listed in a company’s Global Address List (GAL) or corporate address book. It will also enable users to view both personal and corporate messaging accounts from one location. Other improvements remain unknown but we’re hoping there will be plenty. As you can...

Neowin.net reports: Thanks to keratosis on BPN The company behind the format which brought music downloading to the masses has done it again. Fraunhofer has released its new MP3 Surround codec, allowing full 5.1 audio to be easily compressed and downloaded. And to encourage use of the new format, free encoders are being made available until the end of the year. The format has been released by Fraunhofer and Thomson, who co-invented the original format. Thomson’s Henri Linde said: “We asked ourselves, where can music go? It seemed that surround sound was the logical evolution for us.” Software...

Neowin.net reports: Thanks to Aviran on BPN An Israeli hacker has uncovered a flaw in Froogle, Google’s price-comparison service, which could allow access to users’ Gmail accounts. Nir Goldshlager, who discovered the flaw, warned that URL-embedded Javascript could end up causing personal information to be revealed. If users execute the script by clicking a link, they would be redireted to a malicious website. From there, hackers can read a user’s cookie. It may contain personal information, such as purchase histories, or the username and password used to access Google services...

THE MAJORITY OF USERS don’t care about a graphics card because this majority uses only 2D operations, or should I say they need it just to draw and show picture on displays. Some will use the graphics card to accelerate video files or help decode DVD content. but that’s about it. The big mass of users don’t care about 3D games or any kind of shaders. This is about to change with Longhorn. Longhorn will feature a graphics subset called WGF (Windows Graphic Foundation). Its goal is to unify 2D and 3D graphics operation in one and will bring 2D Windows drawing and 3D operations together....