Google’s Theme Gallery for Chrome has gone live with 29 official themes & the Google Chrome themes website is now live .
Installing them is easier, just pick the one you like and click on the “Apply theme” button. The theme will download and in the download manager at the bottom of the Chrome browser window, simply select “open.”
After you have the new theme installed, you’ll see an option to return to the default theme. If you close that, you can revert in the Preferences area, under “Personal Stuff.”

The theme of the browser will be instantly changed after the download without having to restart it. Google Chrome does not come with a theme manager yet.
The only way to uninstall themes is to enter chrome://extensions/ in the address bar of the web browser. This internal page displays all installed Google Chrome themes with the option to uninstall them.

skype engineers have been working with Freetalk on a super-secret project for quite a few months . The challenge was to produce a super – wideband audio headset for everyone, everywhere.
It’s now ready for public consumption – a plug-and-play super-wideband audio headset which gives you great quality Skype calls. It’s lightweight and folds flat so youcan throw it in your bag with your laptop.

The Everyman headset has an attractive, sturdy plastic design. It’s very adjustable –the headband adjusts to the size of your head and the flexible boom mic easily adjuststo the right place in front of your mouth. The mic folds up out of the way when you don’t need it, and the earpieces fold inward when you aren’t wearing the headset,taking up less space for travel and storage.

The headset connects to your computer via USB. In addition to the USB connection, the headset also has a regular 3.5 mm headphone jack, giving you extra flexibility to use the headset with your MP3 player or other device when you’re away from yourcomputer.

The FREETALK Everyman is a  Lightweight, comfortable, great-sounding but perhaps the best part is the price.
The Everyman is available in the Skype Shop for £18.51 in the UK, €19,88 in continental Europe and $22.88 in the US.

It’s great value and available now from the Skype Shop.

For detailed specifications and a comprehensive review:
Read Andrew’s post on the Skype Gear blog.

Google will open its wondrous widget  Google Wave service up to the public beginning on Sept 30.Come that day, Google will begin pushing out 100,000 Google Wave invites to those who signed up over on the official Google Wave page. Google did not say how invitations would be handled.

Google launched Google Wave at its Google IO conference at the end of May, but so far the Web giant has restricted the service to 6,000 or so developers.
Google Wave is a unique hybrid of email, chat, and a blog, and some expect it to eventually replace some of Google’s other applications.
Google is currently working on the “speed, stability, and usability of Google Wave” .

Here’s a preview of just some of the aspects of this new tool.

It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client.

Google Wave has a lot of innovative features,  few are listed below:

• Real-time: In most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
• Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website.
• Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook application or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves.
• Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Google Wave can be edited by anyone else, because all conversations within the platform are shared.
• Open source: The Google Wave code will be open source, to foster innovation and adoption amongst developers.
• Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said.
• Natural language: Google Wave can autocorrect your spelling, even going as far as knowing the difference between similar words, like “been” and “bean.” It can also auto-translate on-the-fly.
• Drag-and-drop file sharing: No attachments; just drag your file and drop it inside Google Wave and everyone will have access.

Microsoft has introduced a bundle of software applications that leverage Windows 7’s built-in support for touch-screen interfaces.

The Windows 7 Touch Pack includes Microsoft Surface Globe, a 3-D map of the Earth that users can navigate through with their fingertips; Surface Collage, a digital photo organizer and editing program; and Microsoft Surface Lagoon, an aquatic-themed screensaver in which fish and other creatures react to touch.

Other apps in the pack include the mechanical design game Blackboard and the pinball-like game Microsoft Rebound. Another app, Garden Pond, lets users create and control organic creations in a garden setting.

Microsoft introduced the package Wednesday at the D: All Things Digital conference in Dallas.

“The Windows and Surface development teams have been have been collaborating closely on bringing multi-touch to Windows,” wrote Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft’s in-house Windows blogger, in a post Wednesday. “We thought it would be fun to give you some applications that show what’s possible with this new way to interact with your PC.”

“The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 is a great example of immersive experiences software developers can create for Windows 7 and multi-touch,” LeBlanc added.

Microsoft is set to release the first beta of its long-awaited Visual Studio 2010 tools suite next week.
The firm will first release the beta to its developer customers on Monday, followed by general release to the public on Wednesday, according to a blog posting by Microsoft developer tools solution specialist Jihad Dannawi.

On 18 May Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 (Professional, Suite and Team Foundation Server) will be available to MSDN subscribers through MSDN Subscriber Downloads and to the general public on 20 May through Microsoft Downloads.

When it was announced to much fanfare last September, Microsoft explained that the new version of its flagship developer platform would try to democratise the application lifecycle by allowing all contributors on a software project to participate throughout the lifecycle.

The arrival of Windows 7 should put the final nail in the coffin for Windows Vista, one of the most disappointing products in software maker Microsoft’s recent history.

That’s the opinion of researchers at IT consulting group Gartner, who are advising corporate customers who haven’t already made the leap from Windows XP to Vista to forgo the latter entirely.

“Microsoft expects to ship Windows 7 in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season. Organizations with a Windows Vista project well underway should stay the course, but most others should target Windows 7,” wrote Gartner researchers Michael Silver and Stephanie Kleynhans, in a report released this week.

The researchers said Windows 7 holds a number of useful features for business users. BranchCache allows workers in remote offices to tap information from headquarters more quickly and easily by caching that content on local networks. Another feature, AppLocker, gives IT managers control of which applications users can run. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft will make Windows 7 available to businesses and consumers in time for the busy
holiday shopping season in the fourth quarter of the year, according to company officials.

Windows Server 2008 R2, the server companion to the windows 7 operating system, also will be available at the same time. Microsoft unveiled the information to journalists just ahead of its keynote at its annual conference.

Microsoft also said it plans to release a technical preview of the next version of its other key software product, Office 2010, in July to all attendees of the conference.

Nice time ahead for new releases.