Gmail Overtakes YahooMail in India

According to ViziSense, an online audience measurement and analytics provider platform, Gmail, Google’s free e-mail service is now India’s largest free e-mail service provider with more than 18 million users. Yahoo Mail, which held the top spot until the previous month has now been relegated to the second spot.

Yahoo Mail boasts of 16.8 million unique users and has seen its usage dip 8 percent since August this year. This, coupled with Gmail’s continued growth which averaged 3 percent since August, has ensured that Gmail surpassed the number of Yahoo users in early October. Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail too is seeing a surge in its userbase with it managing a very impressive 8 percent growth in India since August. Rediff Mail is at number three with 6.25 million users.

However, on the global scale, it might be a while till Gmail usurps the throne from Yahoo to be the world’s largest e-mail provider. Besides, it also has another adversary to counter, Windows Live Mail from Microsoft which is right up there at number 2. As seen in a recent ComScore report, Gmail has been growing pretty fast in U.S. as well– and unless Yahoo and Windows Mail don’t do something drastic, Gmail, in its current form, will eclipse the “traditional” webmail providers in the years to come.

Incidentally, it was just last week that Yahoo carried a full front page ad across leading national dailies in India. Was this an attempt to woo its once loyal users who have started migrating to Gmail?

Microsoft leaks details of Windows 8 and Windows 9

Microsoft is planning to make Windows 8 an 128-bit operating system, according to details leaked from the software giant’s Research department.

The discovery came to light after Microsoft Research employee, Robert Morgan, carelessly left details of his work on the social-networking site, LinkedIn.

The senior researcher’s profile said he was: “Working in high security department for research and development involving strategic planning for medium and longterm projects. Research & Development projects including 128-bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan. Forming relationships with major partners: Intel, AMD, HP and IBM.”

Morgan’s LinkedIn profile has now been pulled down, but a version remains in the Google search cache.

A move to 128-bit support would be a bold move for Microsoft. Many, including PC Pro’s own Jon Honeyball, were urging Microsoft to make Windows 7 64-bit only, but the company continues to offer a 32-bit version of the forthcoming OS.

Microsoft has said very little publicly about Windows 8, although on a visit to the UK earlier this week, CEO Steve Ballmer denied rumours that Windows 7 would be the last major client OS the company produced. Ballmer admitted that planning was underway on Windows 8, although it’s highly unlikely that the OS will arrive until 2012 at the earliest.

Morgan’s talk of planning for Windows 9 supports Ballmer’s claim that the company thinks there is plenty of life left in Windows yet.

Google Chrome OS Images Leaked – Again?

This time, they look a bit more convincing. It’s been just a few weeks since we first heard of about Google’s Chrome OS and it’s the second time that we are hearing about the screenshots/images of the OS at work being leaked. While the first “leak” was proven a false alarm, this one looks slightly more convincing.

Another thing that makes this leak slightly more convincing is that these are blurred; crap images shot by a seasoned image leaker (from a Nintendo DS, apparently) who knows how to take photographs that will soon end make rounds of the interweb. The images set by an “anonymous tipster” to folks over at Downloadsquad show the Chrome OS at work.

Now, before going overboard, let us mention the flip side. While this one does look more convincing than the previous attempt, there are reasons to believe this one too might be the handiwork of a person who had a lil bit of extra time at his disposal and is good at photoshop. To start off with, the UI bears no resemblance to Google’s traditional, simplistic approach. In one of the images, you can also see a Linux logo. Somewhere, it just doesn’t feel right! We leave it to you to decide how true (or false!) this one turns out!