With plug-in free web, Microsoft aims to offer more security, privacy, reliability and better battery life to Windows 8 users. Internet Explorer 10 will release with Microsoft’s most awaited operating system, Windows 8, which also features the Metro UI. The interface bares resemblance to Windows Phone OS and aims to make Windows usage simpler.

Internet Explorer program manager lead, John Hrvatin said in a blog post,

“Metro-style IE runs plug-in free to improve battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. A plug-in free Web benefits consumers and developers and we all take part in the transition. The desktop browsing experience and most plug-ins were not designed for smaller screens, battery constraints, and no mouse. Providing an easy way to the Windows desktop is the last resort when no comparable plug-in free fallback content exists.”

The Internet Explorer 10 will also feature in the Microsoft’s upcoming, touch-centric interface geared for touch screens and tablets. With this move, Microsoft will finally support open standards like CSS3 and HTML5 while ditching its own Silverlight.

With Internet Explorer 10 closely integrated into the Metro UI, it is more likely that Microsoft won’t offer users an option to switch to other Internet browsers. While things are not pretty clear, we will have to wait for the day Microsoft officially releases its Windows 8.

Listed below are some of the potential contenders of 2012. Be ready.

ServiceNowService

Now is a Software company that is known for its cloud-based software for IT Management and is used even by the IT employees from, yes…Facebook. This software effectively tracks problems, management of costs as well as the development of apps. Based in San Diego, ServiceNow has not only scored with Facebook but also has some big time customers like Google, Publicis Groupe, REL and some others.

Workday

Here is a company that supplies software as support for human capital management. HR Professionals make use of these software in order to manage the employee benefits, to set the budgets for staffing as well as to keep track of the new hires in the company. Although a Workday spokesperson denied the same, it is rumoured that the CEOs of Workday have been passing up multiple buyout bids and will be offering an IPO somewhere around second half of the year.

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks is a security software company that has been termed a leader due to its “disruptive influence in the firewall market” despite it having a lame name. It provides a firewall technology that is known to be good enough to give giants like Cisco and Juniper Networks a run for their money. The signing of the new Chief Executive, Mark McLaughlin, was an attempt to take the company to a higher level, which pretty mush signifies an IPO.

In a mere 6 weeks after releasing Firefox 9, the web browser, yet again surprises users with its latest version called Firefox 10. The Firefox 10 supports Mac, Windows, Android and Linux machines. The rapid release policy adopted by Mozilla corporation has seen six updates of Firefox web browser in past nine months.

Users who term Mozilla as their favourite can expect a new version release every six months.Firefox 10 includes many new features, bug supports and improvised extension support. It also offers multi-touch for Android version with many other fine improvements.

The previous versions of Firefox however, were found breaking the extension compatibility. Firefox 10 has been updated manually by developers. Most compatible add ons and extensions which worked with Firefox 4 will run swiftly and smoothly with Firefox 10.

Firefox sync has been enhanced and enables you to synchronize your browsing history, password, bookmarks,  and open tabs across your laptop, PC and your phone. It will also incorporate a better and easier installation process to pair devices.

The extensive updates policy which was introduced by Apple has seen many takers in recent past. Firefox has lost some of the market due to the improvements and popularity of the biggie, Google Chrome. This new extensive update policy is will surely add something new to the Mozilla arsenal in order to expand its market reach and regain supremacy in the Web browser popularity charts.

Facebook will now launch a new feature to ramp up the experience of listening to music socially. “Listen With Friends” as it is known, is a unique feature which allows users listen to a song, along with a friend who is playing that same track. How awesome is that?

“You can listen to the same song, at the exact same time—so when your favourite vocal part comes in you can experience it together, just like when you’re jamming out at a performance or dance club,”

product designer at Facebook, Alexandre Roche stated in a blog post.

A music note appears next to the person’s name who is listening to the song. It appears on the Facebook user’s sidebar chat  and real-time news ticker. Others who feel like listening to the same track have only to click on the “Listen With” button appearing next to their friend’s name and voila!

However, the twist (pun intended) is that listening to a song with a friend is possible only if both of  you use the same music service. Rdio and Spotify are two music players supporting this feature currently. If users want to use this feature and do not have the same music app as their friend,  they would need to install it.

As this is part of the Facebook chat, users can even chat online and talk about their favourite songs and the ones they are currently listening to. The best part is users can tune in as a group and one of them stepping into the deejay’s shoes. Around 50 people can listen to one song at the same time and talk about it. Phew!

According to this new feature, if a user is listening to a particular song with his FB buddy, Facebook will instantly post the story to the friends’ news feeds and tickers. Users have full control on who can join them and who cannot, when they begin listening to a number with a friend. This is possible after they install a compatible music application through the Application Settings Page.

A spokesperson of Facebook in a Help Center post quoted,

“Only the people you’ve shared your listening activity with can see when you’re listening with a friend”.

Users can also remove any song from their timeline after listening to it. According to sources this new feature will come into action, on Facebook in a couple of weeks.

Keep singing, keep spinning guys!

Well shortly after the ‘Find My iPhone’ app, which as the name suggests, which is used to find your iPhone when you are unable to locate it; Apple has now added a new feature to its list of productive features. The iPhone can now also be used to keep track of objects or belongings (yes pets too) like your cat, your keys, music player and almost anything that can have a tag on it.

The BiKN, which is pronounced as ‘beacon’, is a system which makes use of low-powered radio in order to communicate with the tags on the various equipments that you wish to keep track of. These tags also make use of the same low-powered radio.

Nancy Crume, working with Treehouse Labs, explained that the system is similar to that of a Wi-Fi network for all objects in your house. It has a range of almost 100 feet within the house and 800 feet for outside surroundings. The company did provide a small preview of BiKN in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The company has stated that BiKN will be made available by next month and can be used with iPhone 4 as well as iPhone 4S. The introductory price has been kept at $99.99 and will be available with one tag only. Additional tags can be bought at the rate of $49.99 for each pair. BiKN can be used with up to 8 tags on one iPhone.

However, the developers of BiKN have promised that work is still in progress and soon the software will comfortably support 256 tags in the future.

Banking, however is the newest chapter in the success story of Facebook. India’s largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, is planning to join hands with Facebook. The Bank has proposed an application called ‘YOU BANK’ account which helps you to access your bank account while you are on Facebook.

This application can be operated from ICICI Facebook page. The ICICI team is pretty geared up about this new innovative method of banking and are hoping for its instant success. Users will also receive updates and banking news on their Facebook Wall.

Executive Director of ICICI bank, Mr. Rajiv Sabharwal said,

“ICICI Bank will soon be present on Facebook. The ICICI Bank page (on the social media website) will include a one-of-its kind ‘Your Bank Account’ app through which you can access your bank account information while on Facebook.”

A number of Indian companies are joining the bandwagon of promoting their brands on social media platforms. According to a survey conducted by Regus (Workplace Solutions), 83% companies in India agreed on the fact that marketing strategies are incomplete without social media marketing.

ICICI believes in Superior Banking services and this new innovative way of promoting their brand might attract them many takers. Will it succeed or not, only time will tell.

The mobile Timeline has your unique cover photo at the top. Scrolling down you will see all of your posts, your photos and other life events placed as and when they had occurred, all the back to the day you were born.

Another addition in the Timeline is that the photos and the posts can be swiped horizontally which gives you the opportunity of viewing multiple photos and posts one after the other without having to actually be redirected away from the Timeline. It also has a quick view at the top which allows to navigate to the photos, maps or information relatively faster.

Visualisation of stories – The mobile Timeline has the posts and stories much more visual. The photos shared are larger than before and the friends that you are with while visiting a place are featured in a map.

The mobile timeline is now available on m.facebook.com as well as on Android version 1.8.1.  You can learn more about the Timeline at facebook.com/about/timeline.

Creator, Matt Mullenweg stated on the WordPress.org that,

“ WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, and in this third major iteration we’ve added significant polish around the new user experience, navigation, uploading, and imports.”

The new features of the WordPress 3.3 include:

• A new toolbar that includes the header and the admin bar which saves space and increases efficiency. One word!! Awesome!!
• A new drag and drop media uploader that makes life much easier for experienced users
• Developers can enjoy the use of the new API editor
• A new version of jQuery 1.7.1
• A new Tumblr importer
• Hover menus that make navigation easier
• Improvised co-editing support
• What more, this new version includes pointer tips which inform you about certain new features and the ways in which you can use them

How efficient is this! Mullenweg has further stated that,

“ We’ve also been thinking a ton about what the WordPress experience is like for people completely new to the software, Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.”

Well, looking at this latest improvement, it is definitely going to be a great experience working with the new WordPress ‘Sonny’. Meanwhile, here’s an exclusive video to help you know more about Sonny .

Amazon‘s heavily promoted tablet seems to have many issues that are so unappealing, that its users are packing it up and sending it back to the retailers. Some of the problems include web pages taking a lifetime to load, no external volume control, touch-screen issues and even the on/off switch gets hit by accident. To add to this, the Kindle Fire Tablet does not possess any privacy  controls. By this I mean, that if a child running around in the house, gets hold of the tablet, he can view almost anything that you have been up-to on the tablet. (Now issues like these certainly aren’t good for business!!)

The tablet has created a negative impact of such high potential that Mr. Nielsen, a usability expert of the Nielsen Norman Group, a consulting firm at Silicon Valley stated that,

“ I feel the Fire is going to be a failure, I can’t recommend buying it.”

Further more, New York Times reported a statement told to them by Drew Herdener, a company spokesperson, who mentioned that,

“In less than two weeks, we’re rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire.”

(A decent attempt by the company to correct their mistake)

To sum it up, we can say that this is the last shot that the retailers will get to redeem their product, to quote Mr Nielsen,

“If that’s a failure, then the Fire is doomed to the dust pile of history.”

We all hope that by spring we will be embraced with a better version of the Kindle Fire that would finally live up to its hype.

These are the list of 12 apps that are to be included are as follows -

1. SIMS 3 – Electronic Arts

2. Bejeweled – Electronic Arts

3. N.O.V.A. – Gameloft

4. Texas Hold’em Poker 2 – Gameloft

5. Bubble Bash 2 – Gameloft

6. Photo Editor Ultimate – Ice Cold Apps

7. DriveSafe.ly Pro – iSpeech.org

8. iSpeech Translator Pro – iSpeech.org

9. Drive Safe.ly Enterprise – iSpeech.org

10. Nobex Radio™ Premium – Nobex

11. Shazam Encore – Shazam

12. Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant – Vlingo

The company has also gone further to claim that more apps are in the running for a further date. The estimated value of all the 12 apps together is a total of $100.

Free technical support will be available for enterprise customers for one month whereas a one month extension on contract will be added for current customers. For those who do not avail of a technical support contract, RIM will offer a one month trial for this particular service.

The BlackBerry power failure which hit last week was considered to be one of the most devastating outages in the history of the brand as millions of BlackBerry users around the world were denied access to applications and e-mail services.

On one side, a gesture such as this is considered very noble of the company. But the more important  question that arises is, “Is such a gesture a justification to what BB users had to endure in the past week?”