Quick Online Tips

Microsoft AutoCollage Creates Photo Collages Easily

Posted: 04 Sep 2008 12:42 PM CDT

Looking for a simple software to create a picture collages? Microsoft Research has released AutoCollage 2008, which allows you to create beautiful collages of your favorite pictures in a few clicks of a mouse.

AutoCollage cuts out interesting parts of photos and combines them together, following natural features as boundaries between images. The selected pieces are sized similarly and assembled into a beautiful collage. The AutoCollage software combines object recognition, face detection, image blending, and other computer-vision and -graphics techniques to provide a seamless summary of the most interesting images within a group of photos.

Its very easy to use - simply point to a folder containing a collection of photos, click a button, and the system creates a collage, using the most representative images. Easily make collages for your Windows desktop background or create popular print sizes, such as 4″ x 6″ and 8″ x 10″. View the demo to see the powerful features of AutoCollage at work.

Download the free 30-day trial version of the software, which is available worldwide. You can buy the full version in the United States and United Kingdom for $19.95 and £19.90 respectively. AutoCollage is one of the first Microsoft Research products to be made available to consumers. AutoCollage works with Windows Vista or Windows XP Service Pack 2 and above.

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Copyright 2008. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Yahoo! Public Open Hack Day 2008

Posted: 04 Sep 2008 12:19 PM CDT

Yahoo! is hosting another Open Hack Day, and this time instead of being a Yahoo! employees only event, they opened it to the public. Hackers have a chance to show their coding and programming skills to a dedicated community.

The Yahoo! open public hack day 2008 will be held at Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale, CA, USA on 12-13 September 2008. Join the workshops and hands-on access to the latest APIs, code all night and preview new components of Yahoo!’s Open Strategy. Space is limited, request an invite now. If you enjoy hacking, love coding, play with Yahoo! stuff, this is the event for you to show your skills.

They are inviting SearchMonkey and BOSS developers and partners - simply mention “Yahoo! Search” in the submission form have first 50 tickets reserved for you.

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Copyright 2008. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Google Chrome Powered by Chromium

Posted: 04 Sep 2008 11:56 AM CDT

Why has Google named its web browser Chrome? Its because the technology that powers Google Chrome is Chromium, an open-source project, and a powerful platform for developing a new generation of web applications.

Chromium doesn’t have an extension system as yet, but supports NPAPI-style “plugins”, such as Adobe Flash and Apple QuickTime. They are releasing all of the code as open source under a permissive BSD license. Check the Developer documentation to find design documents, architecture overviews, testing information, to help you learn to build and work with the Chromium source code.

Why did Google release the source code?

Primarily it’s because one of the fundamental goals of the Chromium project is to help drive the web forward. Open source projects like Firefox and WebKit have led the way in defining the next generation of web technologies and standards, and we felt the best way we could help was to follow suit, and be as open as we could.

Google Chrome also incorporates the V8 open source JavaScript engine, written in C++ and runs on Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), and Linux systems that use IA-32 or ARM processors. V8 can run standalone, or can be embedded into any C++ application. CNET confirms that Google’s Chrome overpowers the other browsers on the five subtests by which Google measures its browser’s JavaScript performance.

Read the Google Chrome Comic Book to know more about Chrome technology.