The Upcoming Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Apple has sent invitation for the press in relation to the next evolution of its OS X operating system, and this time, it will be called Lion. October 20 is the date that is chosen by Steve Jobs to introduce Mac OS X 10.7. The conference, which will be entitled ‘Back to the Mac’ will show us what’s new with the Mac.

Mac operating systems have been slightly overlooked by the company in recent years, as it puts more emphasis on the iPad and iPhone 4. No one knows exactly why Apple has chosen the name lion for its next operating system. There are reasons to believe that using the name of the king of the jungle is not a random decision.

Previously, Mac OS X 10.6 did not introduce major changes in usability and design, as it focused primarily on performance, something that users may appreciate less than they should. With Mac OS X 10.7 ‘Lion’, Apple has the chance to start anew by offering more value and versatility for the users.

Microsoft and Facebook join forces against Google

The software giant, Microsoft is deepening its relationship with the largest social networking company, Facebook, to find more space for its new search engine, Bing, in a bid to challenge the market leader, Google. Microsoft announced that it would integrate Facebook, a social network with over 500 million users, in their search results, to include search on profiles of Facebook users. Microsoft’s online services division has lost U.S. $ 2.3 billions on the previous fiscal year in their attempt to challenge Google’s dominance.

For Facebook, Microsoft is an interesting partner, as it is the underdog in this case. Microsoft is in a position where it has to innovate, go for broke or get nothing at all.

Last year, the company introduced its new search engine, called Bing, and forged a 10-year partnership with Yahoo to combine their advertising systems, giving sellers a wider range of audience.

Microsoft invested $ 240 million in Facebook in 2007, giving it a 1.6 percent share in the social networking company, and the two have worked together quite well along these years. Google remains the undisputed leader in search engine industry with a market share of 66.1 percent in the United States at September 2010. Yahoo is at the second place with 16.7 percent and Bing, at third with 11.2 percent. Bing is now the official search engine of Facebook, and Microsoft will gain more revenue by selling ads on text-based searches in the social networking site.

Facebook Is Integrating Its Service With Skype

Facebook, the popular social network and Skype, the leading Internet phone service, announced the integration of some of their services to make calls or video chat with friends on the social network.  This includes the integration of address book and commenting on the Facebook wall. For the first time users can keep up with updates, interact with the Facebook wall, make comments and even vote for ‘like’, straight from the Skype.

The move is seen as a natural expansion for the world’s largest social network, aiming to become a versatile communication and messaging platform for their users through a variety of media. Facebook, which has most of its users in the U.S., is making a good decision because many Skype users are in Europe and the rest of the world

The new Skype for Windows now includes a tab for Facebook.  The address book entry in Facebook can be integrated with Skype, allowing users to call and send text messages to friends on the network directly to their cell phones and landlines.

In case your friend is also using Skype, you can easily make free calls from Skype to Skype. The video-conference calling feature will be available in beta version and free during the testing stage. Facebook and Skype development team is working together to make it easier for users to find their friends anytime they want to communicate. It is estimated that Facebook already has more than 500 million Skype users, although only 8.1 million are paying Skype members.

Skype version 5.0 is now available for Windows, while Linux and Mac versions are expected to be released in a few months.

Facebook Could Become The Leader of Online Advertising In A Few Years

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, admitted that the greatest future competitor of her company, could be Facebook. Although Yahoo! is still a leader in online advertising, Facebook is not far behind.
Facebook’s share of all online ad impressions in the U.S. increased since last year from 9% to 23%. No other company has grown at such a spectacular rate since last year.  While it is true that a high proportion of views is not equivalent to high revenue, as the price of advertising in Facebook is not particularly high. Even so Mark Zuckerberg’s company is poised to become a serious threat to Yahoo! and other online companies.

Facebook will end 2010 with a turnover of around U.S. $ 1.3 billion, compared to $ 800 millions last year. Most of the network’s revenue comes from advertising performance. And since the advertiser must be where the potential customer is, Facebook has a good chance of becoming a future leader in online advertising.

Chrome OS will be released in November 2010

Chrome OS, an open source operating system based on Google’s browser and originally aimed at netbooks may make an appearance next November. This new Internet-centric system aims to provide a fast, safe, dynamic and compatible with current web standards, which can compete with major popular operating systems.

According to some unofficial information, Chrome OS have reached Release Candidate stage and it is confirmed to launch in November, Google’s new OS would be available a year after being submitted.

Despite interests from companies like Acer, Dell, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Toshiba for the Google’s operating system, it is unknown what will be the first device in the market that will use Chrome.

Obviously, Google’s web-based, totally open and free operating system may seem more attractive than expensive Microsoft OSs, however many experts expect that Chrome OS is just a Linux-like OS that won’t seriously threaten Windows domination.