Glassdoor.com is a service that collects info on real salaries and company ratings from employees of large companies and displays them anonymously for all members to see.

The idea is to collect as much detailed salary information and feedback for every job title at a company so that job seekers can know how to evaluate an offer, and current employees can see how they are doing relative to their peers. And since Glassdoor displays the information anonymously, people should have no worries sharing the details of their salary as well as writing a true review of their employer.

As an unregistered user, you only get to view limited reviews. The service requires you to post your own review to see other reviews, which means that you need to create an account which you can create freely.

Visit Glassdoor.com

Most people prefer to have a mouse in their laptop bag, as they are not very comfortable with the touch pad on their notebook computer. A regular sized mouse in your laptop bag feels awkward and the smaller ones, designed for portability, aren’t very convenient to handle.

Keeping this in mind a group of Korean designers have come up with inflatable computer mouse called Jelly Click.

‘Jelly click’ is a flat type portable mouse that can be inflated by blowing air into it and then it becomes a regular size mouse. When inflated the mouse feels like touching a soft jelly and hence the name. No matter how soft it might be, it would still be technically called a hardware :). After using it you can deflate it and fold it up.

I am waiting for the day when I can inflate my pocket sized computer to convert it into a full blown desktop PC.

Technorati Tags: Jelly Click,inflatable Mouse,foldable mouse

Then download the Microsoft Research’s Worldwide Telescope.

Microsoft has released its highly anticipated Worldwide Telescope software, which can be used by astronomers and non-astronomers alike to explore the heavens with a desktop client akin to Google Earth.

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

You can choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country.

WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft® high performance Visual Experience Engine™ and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. You can view the sky from multiple wavelenghts: See the x-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then crossfade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago. These are huge number of different ways to reveal the hidden structures in the universe with the WorldWide Telescope. You can seamlessly pan and zoom from aerial views of the Moon and selected planets, as well as see their precise positions in the sky from any location on Earth and any time in the past or future with the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine.

All this requires blending of terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a seamless, immersive, rich media experience.

Microsoft Research is dedicating WorldWide Telescope to the memory of Jim Gray and is releasing WWT as a free resource to the astronomy and education communities with the hope that it will inspire and empower people to explore and understand the universe.

These wasted pages occur many times a day littering homes and offices around the world and wasting money, trees, and time.

GreenPrint eliminates wasteful pages in any printout automatically. GreenPrint’s patent-pending technology does this by analyzing each page of every document sent to the printer and looking for typical waste characteristics (like that last page with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon).GreenPrint also incorporates an easy to use PDF writer, a fantastic print preview called GreenView, and a reporting feature which keeps track of the number of pages and the amount of money you have saved.

GreenPrint World is an ad supported free edition of the priced GreenPrint Home edition.

As per GreenPrint website, if all US households with a computer used GreenPrint over $6 billion would be saved a year.

I don’t know how far that is true, but if it really is, then GreenPrint can really make a huge difference if used by large number of people.

The new concept phone is part of an online display presented in conjunction with the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition underway through May 12 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The device, which is made using nanotechnology, is intended to demonstrate how cell phones in the future could be stretched and bent into different shapes, allowing users to “morph” their devices into whatever shape they want. Want to wear your cell phone as a bracelet? No problem, just bend it around your wrist.

Nokia says the concept device demonstrates handset features that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering, including flexible materials, transparent electronics, and self-cleaning surfaces.

Even though Morph is still in early development, Nokia believes that certain elements of the device could be used in high-end Nokia devices within the next seven years.

Source: CNET

The Optimus Maximus, developed by Art. Lebedev Studio, is the world’s first keyboard where each key is a full color 45×45 pixel display capable of moving images. So the letters aren’t painted on the keys, they’re displayed. And they change according to context. For example, press the Caps Lock key, and the letters on the keys actually capitalize.

The fully configurable display is particularly useful when configured to work with specific programs. For example, when you are using Photoshop, you’ll get a paint bucket on one key, a brush on another and so on. Check out the image below.

Want to type in Russian? The keyboard will switch to show Cyrillic. The Configurator software allows for programming every button to reproduce a sequence of symbols and editing the image separately for each layout.

The ambient light sensor allows for having the display’s brightness automatically adjusted up or down depending on whether it’s getting dark or light. Additionally, you can adjust brightness manually. Automatic or manual control is available through the Optimus Configurator software. The keyboard has a slot for inserting SD card. All layouts are stored on the SD card to allow key images to change quickly.

You can watch a flash demo here.

Qipit allows you to convert all of your written and printed documents into scan-quality digital copies (in black and white or color) for convenient online storage, without the need of a portable scanner, copier, or cell software. It’s easy. All you do is take a picture of notes, a whiteboard or a document with your camera phone or digital camera; send it to qipit as a multimedia message (MMS) from your camera phone, via email or your qipit account; and qipit turns your photo into a clear digital copy, in PDF or JPEG format, that you can store or send to an email or fax number from your cell phone as a multimedia message (MMS) or mobile email, or on your PC via email or your qipit account. You can even publish your qipit copy to the web. Qipit is like a portable scanner, mobile copier, and a mobile fax machine, all in one.

Just like you share photos, you can share printed documents and handwritten notes or whiteboards. Qipit also takes the place of expensive interactive whiteboards, electronic whiteboards, digital whiteboards, electronic copy boards, or smartboards. Qipit lets you copy, store, fax, email and publish any information you put on a whiteboard, giving you a digital copy instead of just providing a printout. And qipit is a great way to archive all of your important documents like birth certificates, ID cards, passports, legal documents, tax documents and more.

Visit Qipit.

The new text mining software combines a powerful linguistic engine with an easy-to-use interface so that anyone can query the system in everyday language.

Unlike traditional enterprise search tools, FactSpotter looks not only for the keywords contained in a query but also the context of the document those words contain. For example, if searching for documents that reference Angelina Jolie, FactSpotter will also return results where the pronoun “she” is used instead of Jolie’s full name.

The “smart” search engine can comb through almost any document regardless of the language, location, format or type; take advantage of the way humans think, speak and ask questions; and discriminate the results highlighting just a handful of relevant answers instead of returning thousands of unrelated responses.

Unlike traditional search engines that return the entire document forcing the user to find the relevant information manually, FactSpotter returns the specific portion of a search document that is relevant to the query.

FactSpotter is part of Xerox’s ongoing intelligent document technology research that complements its growing portfolio of services-related innovations.

Picture a surface that can recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps.

Recently, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft Surface at the Wall Street Journal’s  All Things Digital conference.

Microsoft Surface is the first in a new category of surface computing products from Microsoft that breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology.

Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.

The intuitive user interface works without a traditional mouse or keyboard, allowing people to interact with content and information on their own or collaboratively with their friends and families, just like in the real world. Surface is a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor that small groups can use at the same time. From digital finger painting to a virtual concierge, Surface brings natural interaction to the digital world in a new and exciting way.

Imagine ordering a beverage during a meal with just the tap of a finger. Imagine quickly browsing through music and dragging favorite songs onto a personal playlist by moving a finger across the screen. Imagine creating and sending a personal postcard of vacation pictures instantly to friends and family, while still wearing flip-flops.

Surface computing, which Microsoft has been working on for a number of years, features four key attributes:

• Direct interaction. Users can actually grab digital information with their hands, interacting with content by touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.
• Multi-touch. Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger like a typical touch-screen, but up to dozens of items at once.
• Multi-user. The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Object recognition. Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

Well I know it sounds too good to be true. But if you study the concept and give it some thought you will begin to realise that it can really work.

How does mGinger work?
Once you signup up with mGinger, you will start receiving sms advertisements on your mobile phone. For each ad that you receive (and hopefully read), you will be paid 20 paise. You will receive a maximum of 10 msgs per day. If you want you can receive lesser number of ads also. But the fun starts when you start referring your friends to mGinger. For your referrals you receive 10 paise for each ad that they receive. Similary, for each of the friends that your referrals refer, you get paid 5 paise for each ad. When you consider the Geometric progression, the amount that you can make in a month is quite considerable.

To help you to estimate how much you can earn, mGinger have provided a calculator on their homepage.

Will I be dumped with ads?
Apparently no. The mGinger team seems to be playing very decent. You can limit the number of ads you receive per day and not more than 10 in any case. You can decide the time during which you want to receive them. You can choose to receive ads only for the products that interest you. Pretty cool.

Every new idea meets with opposition and suspicion. mGinger is no different. It is a brand new idea in it’s infancy and only time can tell if it will click.

But my logic is simple.

All I spend is about 3 minutes of my time to sign up.

If mGinger succeeds, I gain. If it doesn’t, I don’t lose anything. Simple.

So I would suggest that you give it a shot. Sign up here.

Update: mGinger Blog actually gives you much more information and answers most of the question you might have in mind. What I particularly like about the blog is that they are being very honest and down to earth. No where  do they claim that you can make big money out of the scheme. This definitely gives them very good credibility. My best wishes to the mGinger team !!

Note: This opportunity is available only for Indian users.