Sun unveils new Open Solaris

IT Watch | K.Venugopal

Sun Microsystems is launching the open source version of its operating system Solaris this week.

OpenSolaris has a series of user-friendly application and will jostle for space with Linux and Windows. According to geeks, the most attractive feature of Open Solaris is the file storage solution named ZFS. However, its licensing system has not thrilled them.The success of Open Solaris would depend upon whether it would be able to attract developers. It can be easily downloaded and installed.

Sun had opened up the Solaris code base to developers in 2005.

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‘Out of print’ music offer

Amazon is promising a bonanza to music lovers by making available many ‘out of print’ albums.

CreateSpace, a subsidiary of Amazon, has tied up with major recording companies such as Sony BMG and EMI Music for this. The albums will be made available through CreateSpace’s Disc on Demand service.

Titles in the list may sound mouthwatering to veteran music buffs. They include "Hatari Soundtrack" by Henry Mancini, "Earthquake Weather" by Joe Strummer, "Motorcade of Generosity" by Cake, "Telepathy" by Bill Stewart and several others. CreateSpace is a new incarnation of CustomFlix, which was acquired by Amazon in July 2005.

Amazon thought of the service because of constant searches on its site for out of print titles.

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Translate with Google

Google has lau-nched an online platform that will help people to translate from Hindi to English and English to Hindi automatically. Hindi has been added to the umpteen language options av-ailable in Google Tr-anslate, which can be accessed at www. google.com/translate. The service is best for translating plain statements such as ‘How are you’ or ‘I will be late’.

Those who used it to translate more complicated sentences say that it evokes more laughs than wows.

For instance, when this writer tried to translate Gabbar Sin-gh’s famous "three bullets and three men; not fair at all," he came up with an unwieldy Goliyon se teen aur teen purush; par sabhi uchit nahin. Not something that Gabbar Singh would have liked. But Google has also added an option to suggest a better translation.