Soft District

Founded in late October, 1999, the Chinese Baidu grew quickly to be the market leader in the Chinese Internet search business, but also entered the Japanese market, and probably more countries are going to follow, especially in Asia. For now, it has over 3,000 employees, and is only available for Chinese and Japanese users. Its index has over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files, and according to latest news, they are also going to launch an instant messaging service in the near future...


Being given the above, and looking at the other big ones in the industry, especially Google, it becomes obvious it was only a matter of time until Baidu decided to offer a messaging service. Unfortunately, all we know about it at this time is that its name is going to be "Baidu Hi", and the product design, research and testing will be assigned to an independed entity, because Baidu is currently recruiting additional people for developing this product.

Since Baidu has its strong position on the Chinese market especially because its ability to comply with Chinese regulations and censorship, I wonder if they are going to filter messages sent throught their instant messaging system or not, but this is no more than a personal thought for now, because I am sure we won't get to see the Baidu Hi network and software up in the coming months, and since they didn't give any estimation on when is this going to be available, I guess we have to wait and see...

I don't have to say it again how much I "love" Vista. We all do. Those that don't like it simply don't understand this operating system's greatness and power, but Microsoft decided to give them a hand. No, we're not talking about a lawsuit against those that won't upgrade to Vista, not yet. After more than a year after Vista's release, Microsoft decided to cut those (big!) prices of the retail Windows Vista versions!


The fact that only 10 percent of all licenses of Vista are sold as retail boxes says a lot, and the decision to cut prices is a smart move, in my opinion. Microsoft announced plans to lower retail prices in no less than 70 countries, at the same time as Vista's Service Pack 1 arrives on the market.

According to Brad Brooks, Microsoft corporate vice president, "We anticipate these changes will provide greater opportunities ... to sell more stand-alone copies of Windows.", but if Service Pack 1 doesn't live up to everyone's expectations, he may just as well be wrong.

The price cuts should go as it follows - Windows Vista Ultimate, from $399 to $319, Ultimate's "upgrade" price from $259 to $219(for those upgrading from XP or any other Vista version) and Vista Home Premium, from $159 to $129. So...what do you think about it? Still hanging around with your good old Windows XP, or not?

Apart from being the largest Internet search and advertising provider, Google is also exploring a wide range of fields, and now the guys from Mountain View set their eyes on Web sites creation. While this is a path that was followed by many companies so far, I guess Google will come up with something new, but until that happens, let's see what we know about this already...


The new application from Google allows you to quickly set up and update a Web site containing a wide range of data, such as pictures, calendars and YouTube videos, all with just a few clicks and no programming knowledge. About this new tool in Google's portofolio, Dave Girouard, general manager of the division working on it, said "We are literally adding an edit button to the Web.".

Obviously, sites created with this service will be hosted on Google's servers, and its best part is that we're talking about a free service, unlike Microsoft's SharePoint, which is charging licensing fees.

To play with this new tool for yourselves, simply go to this page and follow the instructions, it's just as easy as that!