Google Music Now Lets You Download All Your Saved Music

One of our biggest complaints about Google Music was that you couldn't re-download any songs you'd added to your online library. Google's now brought this feature for the web interface and the Music Manager app, so you can download your music—whether it's your entire library or just a few tracks—with the click of a button.
This works for purchased music and songs you've uploaded yourself, though you can only download purchased tracks two times from the web interface. To do it, just click the triangle next to a song or group of songs and choose "Download Selected Songs". If you want to download your whole library, open up the Music Manager app for Windows, OS X, or Linux, go to the Download tab, and click "Export Your Library". You can do this as many times as you want, regardless of whether you've hit the limit for downloading purchased tracks or not. Hit the link to read more.
That was by far my biggest complain about the service and now that Google has solved that I’m quite comfortable with buying music from the service. Head here for instructions and here for the confirmation.

ACTA Signed By 22 EU Countries, Still A Fight To Be Ratified In EU Parliament

At a signing ceremony in Tokio, representatives from the European Union and 22 member states have signed the controversial ACTA treaty. Signatories include the UK, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. The five remaining member states -- Cyprus, Germany, Estonia Netherlands and Slovakia, are also expected to sign soon.
ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed international treaty that would establish standards for the enforcement of intellectual property rights to prevent digital and physical counterfeits. The treaty calls for the creation of an "ACTA committee" to make treaty amendments, for which public or judicial review are not required, according to Wikipedia. The panel would also operate outside of the scope of the World Trade Organizations or the United Nations.
Critics argue about the scope and the undemocratic methods used to pass the treaty. ACTA is said to tilt the balance of International Property Rights unfairly towards the copyright holders, where future disputes on competing interests will benefit to those rights holders while placing a higher criminal burden on individuals. Critics have also protested how the treaty was written by industry representatives and government trade reps, without any access by elected representatives, independent business, the press, public interest groups, legal scholars, independent economists, and others.
Out of Europe, Poland has notably seen the strongest populist support against the bill. Thousands have demonstrated in the streets in opposition, as shown in the video below. An anecdote of how big of an issue this is in Poland, while researching this topic last evening I did a "past hour" search of "ACTA" on Google news to keep up with new developments. Chrome then asked me if I wanted to translate the Google News page from Polish to English, because Polish news covered the whole page.
The fight against ACTA will likely last until summer, where ACTA will need to be ratified in the European Parliament by the countries that have signed. What's become apparent is that ACTA will negatively impact startup companies by increasing the risks copyright trolls can threaten startups with, and will stifle innovation by placing the burden of proof on startup companies.

Android`s Menu Button To be Replaced by the Action Bar

The menu button on Google's Android is all but dead and is to be replaced permanently by the action bar. That's the message from Scott Main, lead tech writer for Developer android.com, who has posted an article advising Android developers to change their ways.
"Honeycomb removed the reliance on physical buttons, and introduced the ActionBar class as the standard solution to make actions from the user options immediately visible and quick to invoke," he wrote. "In order to provide the most intuitive and consistent user experience in your apps, you should migrate your designs away from using the Menu button and toward using the action bar."


The menu button has already been ditched on some Android devices, such as the Ice Cream Sandwich packing Samsung Galaxy Nexus and, going forward, Google wants just three buttons on offer; back, home, and recent apps.
The action bar, that will now see more, er, action is a dedicated area that identifies the options available to the user on specific apps. It sits up top and will mean that Fandroids will need to get used to a new way of interacting with their favourite apps.
If the tasks in hand are too much for the action bar to take, users will see an overflow button on the bottom bar (three dots in a vertical row).
"This might seem like splitting hairs over terminology, but the name action overflow promotes a different way of thinking," explained Main.
"Instead of thinking about a menu that serves as a catch-all for various user options, you should think more about which user options you want to display on the screen as actions. Those that don't need to be on the screen can overflow off the screen."

`Meindl` Continues to Push Its Innovate Boot Range for 2012

Well its Friday and the weekend is nearly here and its time to perhaps put down your tablet,turn the P.C of and turn the mac of..theres some lovely COLD weather around Europe and our friends at `Meindl` wish to tempt you with there New innovative boot range for 2012 to tempt you outside.
Why we have been big fans over the years of  `Meindl` boots this years range seems to have thought of everyone in every situation..

 Meindl Continues to Innovate for 2012

Latest collection boasts technical advances, stylish new designs and updated colours.

For 2012 the Kansas GTX® (SRP £159.99) is now available with a new waxed nubuck upper, giving a stylish overhaul to the boot at a great price point.

A new addition to the Meindl family the Softline Light GTX (SRP £149.99) features a new lightweight lacing system. By removing the metal lacing rings Meindl has saved precious grams – the men’s size 8 is 590g and the ladies’ Softline Lady Light GTX size 4.5 is 490g - while maintaining a price point of £150.

The Borneo 2 MFS (SRP £184.99) is packed with technical features for maximum performance. It’s features include a high rand for protection, speed lacing fittings, Air-Active® technology for optimal ventilation and breathability inside the boot, and a Soft Print drysole footbed to wick moisture away from the foot.

Brand new for 2012 the Cuba GTX has a new slender-look profile to give the shoe a younger feel. This new lighter version of Meindl’s flagship Respond XCR has a new Meindl sole unit that provides more traction and even lighter weight.

Another exciting new addition to the Meindl range is the Barcelona GTX. Providing function in a slender looking shoe, the Barcelona GTX is part of Meindl’s Walk & Travel collection and features a full nubuck leather upper, giving this classic shoe some modern styling.

Finally, Spring/Summer 12 sees additional colours added to the hugely successful Respond Mid - a firm favourite in Meindl’s trail walking range. With added stability and ankle support due to its ‘Mid’ style boot design, the Respond Mid GTX will be available in Dark Brown for this season.
www.meindl.co.uk

WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo `Fast As Lightning`

Western Digital gave a more formal debut to its first Thunderbolt-equipped drive at Macworld|iWorld on Thursday. The My Book Thunderbolt Duo uses the fast 10Gbps port to feed two 3.5-inch hard drives at speeds that would be impractical for Fire Wire 800. On a 6TB Thunderbolt Duo, peak transfer speeds can hit over 250MBps (2Gbps), making the only bottleneck the drives themselves.

The speeds are potentially vital for video and 3D editors, even on the MacBook Air. WD estimates that a full HD movie can shuttle to or from the drive in 30 seconds. At such speeds, it's comparable to a mid-tier solid-state drive like the own MacBook Air and can create a seamless effect where working from the external drive is as quick as built-in flash storage.

Both 4TB and 6TB capacities will be available, each using a RAID 0 stripe to get the extra speed and continuous space. Although it technically wouldn't require a Mac, Windows-based PCs using true Thunderbolt connectors were only just announced at CES and leave Apple's systems as the only immediate options. Prices and ship dates haven't been fixed...But We here they will be aggressively priced.

Tech Gets Exciting In India, 5 Years Behind China

The only other tech market in Asia that is halfway as exciting as China is India. It has the promise to close the gap with China but is no match yet. India’s mobile market is large, venture spending is vibrant, and high-profile IPOs such as Make My Trip are happening, with more on the way soon from up such swift up and comers as mobile ad service inMobi and PC help center iYogi.

Plus, India has proven it is rich in R&D and a lot more than outsourcing. Even so, red tape and poor infrastructure hold back the entrepreneurial spirit here. Investors Bill Draper, Lip-Bu Tan, and Sumir Chadha did the trailblazing in India. Today India’s venture leaders such as Ashish Gupta and Sudhir Sethi are looking for the next, new thing in mesmerizing India – the world’s second-fastest-growing economy and Asia’s third-largest economy.
At IDG Ventures in Bangalore, I met with Sethi, who is chairman and managing director and runs the tech media company’s $150 million India fund. It’s one of five funds in the IDG Ventures network established by Pat McGovern, the visionary founder and chairman of International Data Group in Boston. If a strategy works in one locale, then IDG works to bring the formula to startups in other places.  China has proven to be a gold mine for IDG, where it’s made multimillion-dollar returns from early investments and successful IPOs of instant-messaging service Tencent and search engine Baidu. India could be next.
During a trip to India, I met founders of startups with advances for everything from detecting lung cancer at an earlier stage to recycling electronic waste in a cost-effective way, to bringing solar power to villagers, to offering superfast mobile searches, to three-dimensional online games, to robotic-powered vacuum cleaners. India’s also become a mecca for low-cost and sometimes jerry-rigged inventions—in Hindi, jugaad. Tata Motors’ tiny Nano car at an itty-bitty price tag of $2,500 and the Indian government-backed tablet computer selling for $35 are some examples. So is my favorite find: a
Nokia cell phone with a built-in flashlight. India may not have a Google, Apple, Baidu, or Tencent yet, but it is moving into more technical work than writing software and answering phone.
Yet India’s entrepreneurial journey is at least five years behind China’s path. There’s no Jack Ma or Robin Li in sight or a big-time IPO like Youku. India lacks the entrepreneurial buzz and fast pace of China tech clusters. Indian entrepreneurship has been led by grassroots efforts, and the government hasn’t always been venture friendly.
If India is ever to break through, it needs to ditch an image as just for outsourcing or low-cost engineering and business services—a major challenge for the world leader of the booming $500 billion global outsourcing market. But India could eventually become a tech minipower and grab some of the limelight from China. Contemporary corporate centers such as Whitefield on the outskirts of Bangalore and the Gurgaon satellite city in Delhi showcase that India is rising.
For sure, India needs a lot more deals with the stature of online travel site MakeMyTrip, a deal that barely gets noticed next to China’s higher-profile Internet home runs. After all, MakeMyTrip listed on NASDAQ in August 2010, nearly seven years after Ctrip, China’s leading travel site, had its own debut.
India’s fast-growing digital communications markets are a catalyst for the subcontinent country’s emerging tech economy. While only 74 million of India’s 1.2 billion people had Internet access in 2010, the number of mobile phones in India surpassed 752 million in 2010, second worldwide only to China’s 842 million users.
What’s also fueling India’s startup engines is a large venture capital pool of $5.8 billion. India is the world’s third-largest venture capital investment market, after the United States and China.
Look-alike Indian startups have gotten funding in all kinds of Internet and mobile plays. For job portals, there’s Monster.com in the United States, 51.com in China, and Naukri in India. Yahoo has SINA in China and Rediff.com in India. In digital mapping, there’s MapQuest in the United States, AutoNavi in Beijing, and MapMyIndia in Delhi. For online payment, there’s PayPal, 99Bill in China, and PayMate in India. The highly popular online gaming sector has sparked multiple copies, too: in India, three up-and-coming players are Kreeda, Nazara, and Games2Win, India’s first online games site.
India’s always-on mobile communications, global customer outreach, engineering talent, and thirst for education all spell promise. China may be a nerve center of tech innovation globally but look to India to close the gap with its creative thinking culture.

Excerpted from Startup Asia, the newly published book from John Wiley & Sons by Rebecca A. Fannin.

Sony Xperia S has anti-stain shell and fast charge capability

The upcoming Sony Xperia S will feature a couple of features that has not been trumpeted widely so far – a kind of anti-stain shell, in addition to fast charge capability. Recently, it was found out that the phone will come with a special nano coating which is not only dirt repellent, but is also UV Active. Not only that, there is a fast charging ability that comes with the Xperia S, and this translates to charge times being reduced by half the time, where a 10-minute charge is more than enough to ensure the handset is able to see action for at least an hour. 

What do you think of such features being made available on the Xperia S, and would you like to see it as a staple in future smartphones from Sony, and perhaps other smartphone manufacturers?