Tired of the current crop of tablets mostly sporting Android and iOS? If that’s the case, mark your calendars for November, because according to reports, that’s when Intel-based slates running Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system are set to land in retail. Anticipation is running high for next-generation tablets equipped with Microsoft’s touch-friendly OS, which could prove game changing in the mobile space.

An un-named source “familiar with the device makers’ plans” told CNet that the first wave of such tablets will show up in stores in November. The source described the schedule as being “tight” and that Windows 8 mobile devices won’t be limited to strictly tablets, but over half of the “more than a dozen” models will be hybrid devices that function as both a notebook and a tablet.

Each Windows 8 device, whether it be a full-blown tablet or a convertible, will run Intel’s Clover Trail Atom platform, which will be the chip maker’s first dual-core Atom design built on a 32nm manufacturing process. A single-core version of Clover Trail will be used in smartphones.

Image Credit: Redmond Pie

http://lifehacker.com/5907028/share…-setup-required

“If you have more than one computer at your workspace, ShareMouse will let you control them all with a single keyboard and mouse, as well as copy and paste text between them and drag files back and forth.”

If you’re looking for a simpler way to use a single mouse and keyboard across multiple computers, and found Synergy a little too hard to set up, ShareMouse is worth a look!

While Google is certainly a monster in many ways, there is at least one ‘Sully in the closet’ for the search engine super champ – and that’s the idea of Facebook launching its own search engine.

While that prospect might make Google worried enough to look under the bed at night, it’s certainly more than enough to prevent Microsoft sleeping at all. Tecnobitsponders the numbers and decides if Microsoft needs a cup of warm milk.

The first time a market exploded without Microsoft, the subject was browsers and the Dark Lord of the Sith was Nutscrape. Nine generations of Internet Explorer later and Gates’ legacy can feel confident that they are here to stay – at least in the PC/laptop space.

Since then, search engines and social networking have exploded onto the scene and Microsoft has been left scrambling. Not only that, but it has taken multiple attempts to create a half-decent search engine product in Bing.

Actually, that’s not fair. Bing does a few things very well. It’s great for adult content and the video preview option is amazingly useful. Hmm. Would that be the kind of advantage that Microsoft was looking for?  Maybe not, but it will take any win it can.

Why?

Well, the numbers simply do not add up.

Despite the best efforts of man, beast, Bing and Co – Google still pwns two thirds of the world’s searches, while Bing struggles to maintain just 15%.

Microsoft owns almost 2% of Facebook and its keen to build bridges with the social networking giant. Part of that bridge building will be the interlinking of Bing with Facebook users/data.

This could be viewed as a chamois leather polishing of Orwell’s 1984 nightmare – or as something quite useful. As with all things, we’ll need to see the application and back-end gubbins to know what’s really what. For now, if we believe in the goodness of Microsoft, then we can see that a photographer looking for a great venue near Brighton, might benefit from knowing that Facebook users in East Sussex all recommend one spot for shooting birds with a dirty great lens.

As a nod to open standards etc, Microsoft promises that it will also do some linkages with Google, but we’d expect these to be as plentiful as steaks at a vegan wedding.

Ouch, that's got to hurt a company like Microsoft. Still, maybe it's share in Facebook can prevent the inevitable

Comment below or in the Tecnobitsforums.

Today in pretty space pics: The active star birthing region Cygnus-X, a chaotic complex of gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus, otherwise known as the Swan. Captured by the far infrared sensors of the ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, the image gives astronomers a unique view massive star birth perviously unavailable at these wavelengths.

By way of color-coding, the bright white areas (especially to the right-hand side of the image) depict areas where brand new, very large stars are forming from these dense knots where filaments of gas and dust meet, condense, and collapse in on themselves, kicking off the fusion reaction that jump-starts a star. While the center of the image looks empty, there are actually stars there that Herschel simply can’t see at these wavelengths. But astronomers know they are there because they have carved out and gently heated the interstellar material there, giving it its blue glow.

As for the red strings of gas throughout, these are the seeds of stars, not yet compacted enough to create the kind of conditions necessary to spawn a new generation of stars. And if you look to the left of center with an open mind, you’ll see it: the pillar of interstellar gas arcing gracefully like the neck of a swan. See it all much larger by clicking through to the ESA.

[ESA]

PopSci reported almost a month ago that the European Space Agency had lost contact with its flagship Earth-observing satellite. Today, we must relay with heavy hearts that Envisat has been declared dead on orbit. The ESA will suspend recovery efforts today, the agency has said.

The $2.9 billion Envisat is the world’s largest civilian Earth-observing satellite, originally designed for a five year mission spent taking high-res images of Earth from above. Envisat outlasted its expiration date by a further five years, turning in a solid decade of service.

But on April 8, its run of good luck came to an end when ESA officials say it stopped communicating with ground stations. For the past month agency engineers have been trying to restore contact to no avail. The satellite may have experienced a short circuit that kicked it over into a safe mode from which it cannot escape for whatever reason. Or a power regulator may have failed, or any number of other things may have happened.

The bottom line: at 16 feet wide and 46 feet long, Envisat–once the ESA’s scientific workhorse–is now a 17,600 pound orbiting space junk risk, and will remain one for the next 150 years or so, experts say.

[SPACE]