SAN FRANCISCO: A Harvard University dropout who ushered in the home computer age and made billions of dollars along the way had his last official day of work at Microsoft on June 27.

Three people will essentially fill the void left behind when Bill Gates retires from the company he and friend Paul Allen co-founded in 1975. Since Gate's began his transition from leading Microsoft to heading his personally-bankrolled charity, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, his job as chief software architect has been handled by Ray Ozzie. Craig Mundie inherited Gate's chief research and strategy officer duties, while former Harvard classmate Steve Ballmer became chief executive officer at the Seattle-based software giant.

Gates left Harvard after two years to found the firm that became global powerhouse Microsoft. He later received honorary degrees from Harvard and other universities.

After retiring, Gates will remain chairman of the Microsoft board of directors and its largest shareholder. "I don't think anything is going to drastically change the day he leaves," said Matt Rosoff of the private analyst firm Directions On Microsoft. "If he thinks something is important and tells Steve Ballmer, Ballmer will listen to him."

Still, Gates' bespectacled nerdish visage is an integral part of Microsoft's image and his departure is symbolic, according to analysts. "The challenge Microsoft has when the founder departs is remembering its heart," said analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group in Silicon Valley. "At some point the firm has to take the essence of what made Bill Gates successful and make sure that is preserved. Whether it is a company or a person, once you've lost your heart there isn't much left but a shell."

Analysts say there are signs that Microsoft has been struggling since Gates stepped away from managing operations several years ago. Microsoft has 'missed a number of opportunities' and the Windows and Office software on which its fortune is built have stumbled.

Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system released in January 2007 has flopped with customers, many of whom are clinging to its predecessor Windows XP. "They are in trouble on the desktop (computer software)," Enderle said. "Microsoft started as a desktop vendor and suddenly it is its weakness."

Meanwhile, Apple's Macintosh computers have been gaining popularity. While Windows is still used on 90 percent of the world's computers, Macintosh computers using Apple operating systems has grown to more than five percent of the market.

The software giant also sees its bottom line threatened by Google, which offers free online programs that compete with Office and other packaged software sold by Microsoft. Microsoft failed in a recent bid to buy Yahoo for nearly 50 billion dollars in order to combine online resources to better battle Google in the Internet search and advertising market.

Enderle said he doesn't see 'Gates's fingers' in the attempted Yahoo takeover, and Gates was likely among board members that backed pulling the plug on acquisition talks. "Microsoft has to leverage its strengths; right now it is thrashing a bit," Enderle said. "The company is on its own. The training wheels are off. It needs a way to point itself in the right direction and peddle like hell."

In less than a decade, personal computers have become part of our daily lives. Even in Pakistan the number of PC users has accelerated to breaking the sound barrier. Many of us come into contact with computers every day, whether at work, school or home. Of course it's the bright side, but the PCs also have a darker side. By making computers part of our daily lives, we run the risk of allowing thieves, swindlers, and all kinds of deviants directly into our homes. The threats we encounter online have become almost an integral part of life. Junk e-mail, pop-ups, and adware are nuisances we have to put up with as part of the convenience and access to information that the Internet provides. Behind the doors of our own homes, we assume we are safe from predators, con artists, and other criminals wishing us harm. But the proliferation of personal computers and the growth of the Internet have invited these unsavory types right into our family rooms. With a little psychological knowledge a cheater can start to manipulate us in different ways. Identity thieves can gather personal information and exploit it for criminal purposes. Spammers can wreak havoc on businesses and individuals.

Armed with a personal computer, a modem and just a little knowledge, a thief can easily access confidential information, such as details of bank accounts and credit cards. Therefore, the need of the time is to learn something to avoid any harm by Internet criminals.

The first solution that comes into mind is to regulate the Internet. Fortunately, or unfortunately Internet is just too powerful a medium to be regulated. It can be maximized for the goodness and minimized if not eliminated for the misuse and abuse. Effective regulation, one that carries with it sanctions and enforcement, however, will require international cooperation. Local or national enforcement can be effective only up to a point. The Internet makes it easy for offenders to operate from across the border.

The first laptops to make use of the SpursEngine, a multimedia co-processor derived from the Cell chip that powers the PlayStation 3, will go on sale in during July.

Toshiba will launch its Qosmio G50 and F40 machines with the chip, which contains four of the Synergistic Processing Elements from the Cell Broadband Engine processor. The Cell chip used in the PlayStation 3 has eight of the SPE cores plus a Power PC main processor. The SPE cores perform the heavy number-crunching that makes the console's graphics stunning.

The SpursEngine SE1000 will work in much the same way in the laptops. The operating system will run on an Intel Core 2 Duo chip and the SpursEngine will be called on to handle processor-intensive tasks, such as processing of high-definition video. This arrangement means the laptop should be capable of some tricks that haven't been seen on machines until now.

A novel feature is face navigation. Faces that appear in video are recognized and displayed as thumbnail images to create a visual index to the video. Users can find the person or scene they want by glancing at the thumbnails and then click on the respective one to watch that portion of video. The computer can also divide up the scenes in user-shot video so they can be viewed one-by-one and analyze and display the volume or the clip across its entire length so, for example, excitement in a sports event can be more easily found.

Finally, by analyzing images from the computer's built-in camera it's possible to control video playback with hand gestures.

The Qosmio G50 is a multimedia laptop and has an 18.4-inch high-definition screen, 500G bytes of hard-disk space, NVidia GeForce 9600M graphics processor, dual digital TV tuners and wireless LAN including 802.11n. It weighs 4.9 kilograms and measures 45 centimeters by 31cms by 4.8cms. Battery life is about 4 hours.

The Qosmio G50 will cost US$2,700. Toshiba plans to put the machines on sale overseas but has yet to announce launch details. -IDG News Service

New Apple iPhone

NEW YORK: The cheapest model of Apple Inc.'s new iPhone, which is about to go on sale for $199 costs about $173 to make, according to an estimate by research firm iSuppli Corp. The phone, which updates last year's model with faster Internet speeds and an improved navigation feature, goes on sale on July 11.

Because the cost of components has come down, the margin is also higher than for the original iPhone, which was introduced last summer. ISuppli then put the cost of the model at $226.

The $173 estimate applies to the iPhone version with 8 gigabytes of internal memory. A model with twice as much memory will cost $299 from AT&T, but the extra memory only costs Apple another $22.89.

The most costly components of the new phone are, apart from the memory, the touch screen and the underlying display, at $20 each. The Global Positioning System chip, missing from the first iPhone, costs $3.60.

Have you ever read about the entertaining sessions that were regularly held during he ancient times? The topmost among such goodies was storytelling. The most famous among them is; Arabian Nights (Alf Lailah). In dominant cultures, oriental or western, storytelling was a key feature of the society.

Would it be startling if I tell you that this ancient art is gradually acquiring digital form? Many groups in the modern world have come into being that take this ancient art of oral storytelling and engage a palette of technical tools to weave personal tales using images, graphics, music and sound mixed together with the authorís own voice. It is an emerging art form of personal expression that enables individuals and communities to reclaim their personal cultures while exploring their artistic creativity. While the heart and power of the digital story is shaping a personal digital story about self, family, ideas, or experiences, the technology tools also invite writers and artists to think and invent new types of communication outside the realm of traditional linear narratives.

Left: Board members of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Suzanne Woolf, left, Raimundo Beca, second from left, Vice Chairman Roberto Gaetano, second from right, and Jean-Jacques Subrenat, right, are seen during a vote in Paris, Thursday, June 26, 2008. The Internet's key oversight agency relaxed rules to permit the introduction of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new Internet domain names to join ".com," making the first sweeping changes in the network's 25-year-old addressing system.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer, center, poses with Sony President & Electronics CEO Ryoji Chubashi, right, and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. President & Group CEO Kazuo Hirai before a press conference in Tokyo, June 26, 2008. Sony outlined its strategy for growth geared at regaining its lead in TVs, wiping out the red ink in video games and rolling out movie services to Net-savvy consumers.