Microsoft Plans to Give Office 365 to Students For Free

With Office 365, Microsoft now set its sights on college students to give it a try. They already make a heavily discounted $80/4 years version of Office 365 University available to students.

They had announced a new offer for college students with

- 3 months of free Office 365 access

-  Another 3 months when they share the offer on Facebook

-  In addition to this, get 20GB of storage on SkyDrive (A Microsoft product)

Microsoft launched this campaign because, They has seen a lot of excitement among customers as they use SkyDrive to access documents and can collaborate anywhere on any device. So, Microsoft thought that students are group who can give direct feedback for these types of tools.

Microsoft’s biggest competitor in this space is obviously Google, which makes its Google Drive apps available for free. However it is, still Microsoft Office is arguably a rich product and also using at many campuses. But Microsoft’s hold on the academic world is slowly shrinks despite quite a few colleges who have adopted Office 365 for Education.

Download Office 365 free for 6 months here. You must provide .edu email address

This deal is clearly meant to lock students into the Microsoft Office ecosystem early, but given that the documents are all in standard formats. Obviously you can always leave and take your documents with you.
After the trial period, the Office apps changed to read-only mode, you can only view and print the documents. But the files are obviously still yours to download from SkyDrive.

By: Prem On Thursday, March 14, 2013

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Steps Smart with New Google Talking Shoes

Google was not enough for the Internet firm Google Glass, the giant has now unveiled a pair of 'Talking shoes'. (But that does not meant that Google is planning to get into the sneaker or footwear business).The experiment was designed to highlight its new advertising platform called Art, Copy and Code.

As Engadget reports, the company peopled its Google Playground with a man holding a pair of Adidas sneakers that talked.This Adidas sneaker enjoys a micro-controller on the tongue. I know many people who could certainly use one of those. It has an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and so many many technical goodies.

The result is that it monitors all the things that are happening down below and then expresses them to you in words. Yes, through a microphone.

Google took a few pairs of Adidas sneakers and crammed in a small computer, an accelerometer, a pressure sensor, a gyroscope, speaker and Bluetooth. These shoes can tell what you are or aren't doing and can then relay that information to your phone via Bluetooth or to you via the speaker in the top tongue of the shoe.

If one puts what the shoe knows through an algorithmic logic engine, it can translate it into copy.



But there's more. As the nice Google spokesperson described it, the shoe uses data to adopt "a personality," something Google strives for in all of its products.

If you start running and the shoe has an athletic personality, it will cheer you on. But if it has a lazy personality, it will get upset with you for being athletic.

For more details check this page- http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/09/google-shoes

By: Prem On Tuesday, March 12, 2013

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