Apart from the traditional role that Microsoft has played with the all so well known Windows operating system and its applications, Microsoft now aims to bring about other innovations to harmonize the way the modern office place functions.

These so called “Unified Communications products” are aimed to cut through the hierarchy and optimize the communication systems of organizations by helping employees immediately get in touch with each other, in ways that would seem unconventional in this day and age.

The new products and updates are due to be out sometime by mid-2007. Although it would be years before such technology can be actually applied for daily use in the office place, Microsoft feels the need to bring a sort of unison between the different products to make it into one tangible offering.

Here is a report by the Associated Press on the latest happenings.

Zoho has released another office application that will join its Office suit, called Zoho Show, which is currently in beta. Zoho’s Office suit consists of Zoho Show, Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet and Zoho Virtual Office.

The new release will allow users to create their presentations online, import their presentations from MS PowerPoint and Open Office, invite people by email and control their presentations from remote, pull-in public images from their Flickr account in their presentation, upload images from their desktop, publish their presentations and have others view it, drag-and-drop text components within a slide and in between slides, duplicate slides easily and much more.

Check out what the guys at Zoho have to say about it here and here.

Nearly two months after Opera announced the beta version of its new web browser, the company has finally launched the final version of its new web browser – Opera 9.

The new release from Opera seeks to the way users access online content as well as share and use online content by including widgets. Also, the new browser incorporates support for for BitTorrent, the popular file distribution technology. Opera claims that with the addition of these new features, security and speed of its new browser hasn’t been compromised on.

France has upped the ante when it comes to its national pride. The European country has launched a better alternative to Google Earth called Geoportail that does a much better job of offering aerial imagery of France than what Google Earth offers.

The free service allows users to zoom in to within 50 centimetres (20 inches) of the ground, a first in Europe. So, if you haven’t seen the Eiffel Tower yet, you know where to click.

"This is a step forward for all citizens, which places France at the forefront of new technologies," Chirac said at a ceremony in Paris.

According to a ZDNet Micro Markets Blog, Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google, shared his vision for GPS location-based delivery of highly targeted and personalized advertising via in-car radios – Personalised radio advertising that would address a user according to his/her needs while he/she drove. Impressive.

Will this be feasible for Google? Is it in the pipeline? Apparently according to Schmidt, it surely is. But, it will take a year or two for this “vision” to turn into reality. And as far as the issue of feasibility goes, a few months back, in January to be precise, Google purchased dMark Broadcasting – a company that built an automated platform allowing advertisers to easily create and individually target radio ads. When it bought the company, reports say that Google indicated it would merge dMark into its AdWords unit.

Google Ads on your website, in videos, and now in your car? Talk about deep reach into diversified markets!

Google has confirmed, according to reports that it has invited various web site owners to try out the new service. The new service, in theory, is an ad-model which isn’t vulnerable to click fraud, a serious problem that can potentially hamper Google’s main source of revenue: search engine-based advertising.

Google had earlier announced this system, but is currently testing it with a handful of advertisers. The new system will would only charge the advertiser when a user performs a certain action. This would assure advertisers that they are getting a return on their investment, while preventing false clicks.

And talking about click-fraud, your very own NEOBinaries has been, according to Google, a victim of click-fraud and our Google Adsense account has thus been terminated. And let me make a point here, we are a company with a good set of ethics and work practices. For a company like us to indulge in malevolent activities such as click fraud is unthinkable. Maybe this new system, when implemented, might help us out with this problem, because Google refuses to tell us what went wrong.

According to reports, the new program is not intended to replace the pay-per-click system; rather, it would be offered as a separate option.

Digg has decided to turn up the heat on its rivals by moving from its area of specialization – technology, and expand to topics beyond technology, thereby allowing users to vote for the most popular general news, entertainment stories or videos of their choice.

Digg’s new offering of sorts, will hopefully get its users to use their discretion when they vote for the articles that interest them. The most popular news items in turn, are given their place on the Digg homepage. We recommend you go and check it out for yourselves here.

Flock, a specifically designed web browser for the syndication and social aspects of the Web, has come out with a beta1 release of its social web browser.

This “social browser” that has been built on the Firefox code base, integrates photo sharing, tagging bookmarks, blogging, besides integration with del.icio.us, Flickr, Yahoo's photo sharing service, MySpace, YouTube, and other sites.

The Flock blog said of the beta: "For this release, and for at least the next year or so, we are primarily focused on supporting the social dimension of the web, and on bringing information closer to the user. Right now this includes a heavy emphasis on the photo experience (from upload through discovery to notification), RSS support, dramatic improvements to the search box (including a new take on favorites), and blogging."

The beta1 release looks solid enough to be used by users who spend a great deal of time blogging, sharing pictures, or using services like del.icio.us, Flickr and the like.

Google aims at taking its Ad business to the next level by providing for potential advertisers cheap, relevant and effective ways to advertise using Google Video. On Google Video, the premium videos would have had to be paid for under normal conditions, but for a week you can watch them free of cost provided you don’t get annoyed with the banner ad that tags along through the duration of the video or the short commercial that pops in thereafter! Google aims to boost its business with the testing of this advertising technique. And if all goes well, its happy days ahead for Google and its clients!

According to a report on IDG, Google will launch a public test to show display and video ads on Google Video, another step in the search giant's slow exploration of graphical ads on its own services, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Google plans to announce it will stream for free some premium videos on Google Video--which are normally fee-based--and accompany them with a banner-like ad and a video ad.

The banner-like ad will be displayed for the duration of the video on the Google Video player interface, while the video ad will be shown after the clip ends, sources said.

Match-up
The ads and the videos will not be matched at random. Instead, advertisers will choose the videos they want to sponsor. In this manner, advertisers will avoid having their brand associated with a video they find objectionable.

The Google Video test may be short, running for only a week, and the ads will be attached to about 2,000 videos from about eight providers. The videos will be from professionals, not amateurs. The test involves about five advertisers who are paying to participate.

After the test, Google is likely to continue revising and refining how it plans to display graphical and video ads on Google Video, sources said.

Why Ads?
The motivation behind the test is likely two-fold. Google is probably responding to advertiser interest and feedback. It may also be testing ways to attract more users to Google Video, by making some fee-based videos available to all visitors. Currently, Google Video clips are either free or fee-based. Until now, video clips haven't been supported by ads.

Google didn't respond to several calls seeking comment.

Google, whose revenue comes almost entirely from pay-per-click text ads, is under pressure to diversify its advertising mix and has indicated an intention to expand the scope of the ad formats it offers its advertisers. The company cited its interest in exploring display and multimedia ads as a reason for extending its partnership with AOL at the end of last year.

Rival Yahoo has a much more balanced ad-revenue mix that includes pay-per-click text ads, banner ads, classified listings and rich media ads, among other things. A big concern about Google's overwhelming reliance on pay-per-click ads is click fraud. Some experts estimate that as many as 20 percent of the clicks on these text ads may be made maliciously, without any intent to do business with the advertiser.

Reaction
Guzman financial analyst Philip Remek, who is unfamiliar with the Google Video test, wasn't surprised to hear about the plans.

"They're really trying to take on Yahoo here with a multiple-platform approach to online advertising, especially for big ad clients with brand names to promote," Remek said. "I expect them to make a push to [graphical] advertising. It's part of their strategy."

Google has been wise to keep graphical ads out of its main Google.com search result pages, where the contextually-generated text ads are the most appropriate format, Remek said. However, the company's Web portal-like services, such as Google Video, Google Finance, Gmail and Google News, could be good places to run graphical ads, he said.

Imagine a place where you are not categorized into fat, thin, slim or short. But, a place where in the true essence of things, you are slotted by the kind of music that you listen to. You could also meet like minded individuals who share a mutual passion for the kind of stuff you listen to. Seems like Woodstock, doesn't it? But we are taking things from the 60s, time traveling to the present day, where finding the perfect match and ordering toilet paper is just a click away, introducing the Internet’s latest entrant – MOG.

MOG is all about music and so much more. Conceptualized by an ex - Mtv marketing executive, MOG.com enables its users to meet and exchange music and lifestyles. If you are like me and have varied tastes in music, and when it comes to categorization, you love anything that has a beat, this is the place for you. It would be a mighty Herculean task to put your self into a slot. MOG helps you out with a software called the MOG-O-MATIC that generally puts you into a musical category after analyzing the music on your hard drive.

Imagine if you have a friend who throws his weight around and claims to be the godfather of all Rock ‘n’ Roll, but he’s got 6GB worth of Backstreet boys on his Hard drive!! THE TRUTH IS OUT …Ouch!! There's no faking it here, what's on your hard drive is what appears on your profile. The sense of musical identity is what keeps this place exclusive - if you are not a music lover, you definitely don't belong here!

So, get MOGGING!