Jackson made videogame for Microsoft

Microsoft's video games could get much more Hollywood excitement and drama as the company today announced that it will create Wingnut, a new game studio in cooperation with Academy award winning writer, director, and producer Peter Jackson as well as Academy Award-winning screenwriter Fran Walsh.
According to an announcement made Wednesday, Jackson and Walsh will be deeply involved in key titles to be published under various Microsoft brands. In a first stage, the parties will collaborate to develop two new "interactive entertainment series" for the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, the first of which will be a sequel to Halo and the second "will be an entirely original property targeted at bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment."
Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday that it is teaming with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson to create content for its Xbox 360, in part to get more mainstream users interested in the company's video game console.
Just don't call these products "games." "I don't want to classify it as a game. I'm hoping to stretch the definition of interactive entertainment to go beyond the game," said Shane Kim, a corporate vice president in charge of Microsoft Game Studios. Kim conceded he's not sure what exactly these new "entertainments" might be.
"I feel like we haven't figured it out, to be honest," he said. Whatever they are, Kim said they could include deeper plot lines and more interactive drama, or delivering additional content over time, perhaps through the company's Xbox Live online service. "It's about making interactive entertainment a mainstream form of entertainment," Kim said.

Jackson and his Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Fran Walsh, will be directly involved in the creation of the new "Halo" title. Jackson, whose third movie in his Rings trilogy won 11 Oscars, including best director and best film, plans to work with Bungie Studios to create one product based on Microsoft's already popular Halo game, Kim said. Screenwriter Fran Walsh, Jackson's wife, also is on board. The other product will be aimed at an audience beyond the young men typically associated with video games. Kim couldn't say when either of Jackson's projects might come out.

Microsoft also said on Wednesday that it was working on another Halo game, called Halo Wars. It will be more of a strategy game, rather than the first-person shooter that has typified the series until now.
Halo Wars will be in addition to Jackson's creation and the previously announced Halo 3, due out next year. The company also announced North American and European pricing for its external DVD player, which will be available in November as an add-on to the Xbox 360.

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Bill Gate's work place

First, Gates has synchronised his three screens to function as one large desktop. He can use his mouse to drag items from one screen to the next. Gates has said of this, “Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back. It has a direct impact on productivity.” Gates says this setup allows him to monitor new developments even while he’s working on something else. He can “bring up a link that’s related to an email and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.” The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something, and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.

How he works
At Fortune, Bill Gates talks about his workflow and his organization system. On top of his marketing stuff on his products, he talks about couple of key things that involves in his daily work life. Here are some key points:
1. Paperless.
2. Email is the first communication medium.
Bill Gates gets about 100 emails a day on average. But that’s because of rigorous filtering which means only e-mails that he has corresponded with are sent directly to him. An assistant provides a write-up of e-mails who are not on his permission list or from unknown individuals. E-mails are crucial to Microsoft because that is the company’s medium of internal communication, more so than telephone or anything else. Of course, Microsoft’s e-mail systems integrate voice mail and faxes. Gates uses tools like “inbox rules” and search folders to mark and group messages based on content and importance. Gates admits he is not "big on to do lists" and instead uses e-mail, desktop folders and an online calendar. That way he walks up to his desk, focusses on flagged emails, checks folders monitoring specific projects and looks at a few select blogs. He claims to be "very disciplined" about ignoring Outlook Express's notification box signaling the arrival of new e-mails.

Focus on Rigour
Discipline and focus, believes Gates, are the key to handling the problem of information overload. But he warns that the other problem is "information underload." As he once said in a Fortune article, "Being flooded with information doesn't mean we Left screen This is where Gates keeps his e-mail accounts Centre screen He keeps the specific e-mails or document he is working on here Right screen Gates keeps his internet browser here have the right information or that we're in touch with the right people."

Gates Solution
Gates observed that digitization of the global economy, evolution in the way people work and breakthroughs in software development are among the trends driving this opportunity for Microsoft, its partners and customers. Bill Gates described how Microsoft is helping customers improve business results by better bridging business processes and business practices. The convergence of business systems with personal productivity software tailored for specific employee roles will enable the people-ready business.
Share point, a programme that creates websites for collaboration on specific Projects and has plans, schedules, discussion boards on each project all put together. The other tool he swears by is desktop search. This allows him to collect all the information on a theme in one fell swoop, without waste of time.

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Advance features of Google's world

Google is the best search engine in today's world. People start saying Google rather than search; this is enough to tell the popularity of Google. These are the few more things came to the Google's family which are provided by the Google to today’s world:

Translate
Most websites are available in English, a fair number are only written in other languages. If you find you need to read one and don't want to take a crash language course, then Google can act as a translator for Italian, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. The language tools web page has two translation methods. The first translates a phrase that you type or paste in. The second translates an entire website. The results aren't perfect but it’s usually enough to get the gist of what's written. Google will allow you to translate any document from their search results by the click of a link. What might be less obvious is that they might enable you to search foreign languages in your native language. All translating would be done behind-the-scenes, so that when you search for “thus spoke”, you might as well get results which only contain “also sprach.”

Spreadsheets
If you want to invest in an office suite for just using a spreadsheet, Google has a solution. With the Google Online Spreadsheet you can create, store and share spreadsheets on the web just like using any offline spreadsheet application. You can also import any existing spreadsheet, and above all, you can access it from any corner of the world. Google's spreadsheet app is supposed to be less sophisticated than offline competitor Excel, it puts a focus on easy sharing and group-editing of documents.

Calendar
Google allows users to synchronize their Gmail contacts with a web-based calendar. It became available on April 13, 2006, and is currently in beta stages. While users are not required to have a Gmail account, they are required to have a free Google account in order to use the software. You can also create invitations, send reminders and keep track of RSVPs right inside Google Calendar. You can also create a calendar and link it to your website or blog for others to view the events or holidays.

Pages
If you want to create your online presence Google can help you. With Google pages you can create a free home page for yourself without the knowledge of any programming or HTML. Moreover a 100MB of space for your web site is good for a start-up.
Now that we've shown you how to use Google's more advanced features, you will probably be pleased to know that they can be used in conjunction with each other, thanks to the Tabs on the Google website. For example, if you were performing a search for books on the web, you can just click on the Groups tab to move the search to internet newsgroups.

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Google and eBay alliance for advertising

The two prominent Internet companies announced an advertising partnership Monday that aims to put buyers in touch with a wider variety of sellers, such as the neighborhood exterminator, math tutor or roofer.

Google Inc. will begin selling advertising on Web auction leader eBay and help buyers quickly ring an online merchant to do business.

• The arrangement announced Monday promises to introduce "clickto-call" Web site technology to a broader audience and potentially speed its adoption as a means to more quickly connect online consumers with advertisers.

• Under the arrangement, Google would provide search results whenever an eBay member typed in a search term that failed to find any matches on eBay's vast auction site.

• Although eBay lists millions of physical, shippable goods, such as antique airplanes and used cloth diapers, the company has long struggled to sign up service providers people who sell their labor or intellect, not their physical wares.

• Nikesh Arora, head of Google's European operations, said: "We believe the future of the whole internet space is going to hinge on great partnerships formed between like-minded companies."

• He said Google was keen to develop different forms of communication with its customers and to find new ways to "monetise" advertising in cyberspace.

• Whenever a potential bidder seeks a product on eBay, Google will use its search expertise to come up with relevant promotional links. To make the links more lucrative, the two companies will collaborate on so-called "click-to-call" advertising, which allows shoppers to talk to vendors at the touch of a button.

• The deal involves an undisclosed element of revenue sharing. The "click-to-call" element pools the resources of eBay's online phone service, Skype, with rival Google Talk. Low-cost internet calling is rapidly taking off. Skype says it has 100m accounts worldwide and is adding 200,000 a day.

• Alex Kazim, Skype chief executive, said: "We've had a long-standing relationship with Google and we're excited about the prospects for extending it. It's really common on net space to have companies collaborate in areas in which they overlap."

• "We have a chance to create a whole new way for buyers and sellers to connect online and to create what we hope will be a significant revenue stream for both eBay and Google," eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman said.

• Google is widely viewed as the most successful advertising-funded internet company. Its US rival Yahoo suffered a significant setback last month when a new advertising technology platform was delayed, sending its shares into freefall. Yahoo hoped its new system would more accurately match advertising links to customers' searches and queries, winning back ground in its tussle with Google.

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