Microsoft recently presented “Abacus Smart Watch 2006″, an impressive wristwatch with built-in support for MSN Direct service, during CES 2007. This service enables the watch to receive and display various useful real-time information, such as news, weather, stock, and sports. Users can also receive daily horoscopes, diversion, and lotteries; as well as download different watch faces and accept personal message sent from MSN Messenger.

To take full advantage of Abacus Smart Watch 2006, you have to subscribe to MSN Direct Smart Plan first.

PS: This wristwatch was first introduced in June 2006.

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Garmin presents two new satellite navigation systems with support for MSN Direct service, the StreetPilot c580 and Nuvi 680 models. As mentioned earlier, this service provides any portable devices with dynamic content, such as real-time traffic information, gas prices, weather conditions, and movie schedules, as long as they support wireless connectivity, such as WiFI or radio wave. The Nuvi 680 GPS itself is the upgraded version of Nuvi 660, with the addition of MSN Direct support.

Measures 4.9 x 2.9 x 0.9-inches and weighs 190 grams, Garmin Nuvi 680 GPS Navigation features a 4.3-inch (diagonal) touch screen TFT display with 480×272 (WQVGA) resolution and white backlighting, a high-senstivity WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, built-in FM transmitter (U.S, Australia, and New Zealand only), street-level voice guidance, Bluetooth connectivity with hands-free calling support, 2D/3D maps display mode, up to 7 hours of battery life, a SD/MMC card slot, and USB interface. To prevent theft, it also includes Garmin Lock. While to personalize the device, you can install additional software, such as Travel and Language Guides. You’ll be able to upload custom POIs, including alerts for speed zones and safety cams, as well.

Priced at around $750 in Amazon, Garmin Nuvi 680 GPS Navigation also comes with built-in Travel Kit feature which includes a MP3 player with sample MP3s, audio books, picture viewer, world clock, currency and measurement converters, calculator and much more. Like the StreetPilot c680, you’ll also get a one year free of MSN Direct service, but be sure to prepare $50 for one year service, or $130 for lifetime subcription, after that.

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Garmin presents two new satellite navigation systems with support for MSN Direct service, the StreetPilot c580 and Nuvi 680 models. This service provides any wireless-enabled portable device with dynamic content, such as real-time traffic information, gas prices, weather conditions, and movie schedules. It can also supply the GPS device with traffic jam-free shortest route to the preferred destination, avoiding traffic accidents, road closures, and construction. Automatic re-routed calculation is possible as well. However, MSN Direct service is currently available in U.S only.

Garmin StreetPilot c580 GPS Navigation, the successor of c550 model, can be purchased for $800. This include a one year free of MSN Direct service subscription. Once it expires, you can continue the service by paying $50/year or $130 for lifetime access.

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Users of the two instant messaging service will not just able to exchange instant messages, but also able to see their friends’ online presence, share select emoticons, and add new contacts from either service to their friends’ list.

Currently, AOL instant messaging service (AIM) holds the biggest shares on the instant messaging market. They 51.5 million unique U.S. users in September, compared with about 27.3 million for MSN Messenger and 21.9 million for Yahoo’s Messenger, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

[ Via Geekzone ]

“Over the past three months the nature of the IM threat has continued to evolve with increasing levels of sophistication and rates of infection demonstrated by IM worms and viruses,” IMlogic CTO Jon Sakoda said.

MSN Messenger users are the number one target of the attack, sharing 62% of reported incidents. 31% goes to AIM client, and the rest, 7%, targets Yahoo! Messenger users. Among all of the attack, 87% were worm-based, 12% hijacked file transfer to deliver viruses, and 1% utilized system vulnerabilities. Altogether, 713 different threats have been reported for IM and P2P applications.

[ Source ]

Around 2 weeks after Microsoft

The Phishing Filter Add-in will combine website heuristic (domain, IP, etc.) and aggregated customer-reported data to protect user from phishing scam attacks. User can report phishing sites that they discover to Microsoft, so it’ll be added to phishing sites list. User can also report misidentified phishing sites as well.

At the same time, Microsoft also released MSN Games Add-In for MSN Search Toolbar. This add-in gives you quick links to some of the more popular zone games. You can also take the opportunity to participate in the daily trivia quiz, directly from the add-in.

[ Via MSN Search's Weblog ]

To subscribe to MSN Keywords, advertisers have to pay a one-time subscription fee of S$5 (US$3). For each keyword, they bid a minimum of S$0.10 and pay for the number of times search users click on their advertisements, which appear as sponsored links alongside search results. The placement of the links will depend on the bid price, click-through rate as well as the types of user profiles captured by the system.

Advertisers can key in a pre-determined budget in MSN Keywords and initiate marketing campaigns that work around the budgets. They can also view the profile of users who search for particular keywords, and find out how frequently certain keywords have been searched. Currently, it’s still limited to the age and genders of search users, as described by Raxit Kagalwala, MSN’s director program management, but more profile differentiators will be added in future.

Singapore is the first country in which MSN Keywords was launched. France will follow up later this month and a pilot run in the United States in October.

Another new features on this version:

• Support for six different languages (English, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Estonian & Spanish).
• Install WinAMP Plug-in for Now Playing feature
• Remove “says” text next to your nickname and your contact’s nickname in the message window
• Remove Send Files Button
• Remove Emoticons Button
• Remove Convert tab from the handwriting tabs.

[ Download A-Patch for Instant Messenger ] [ Via Jack Pearce's Blog ]

You can now use feed: to search for RSS feeds (whether they contain the filetype of .rss, .xml, .atom, .feed or even virtual URIs, like this blog’s /feed) and use hasfeed: to locate pages with feeds on them.

Examples:
feed: "cosa aranda"
feed:"funponsel.com"
hasfeed:
hasfeed:funponsel