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The Creative Live! Range of webcams which includes Live! Cam Sync, Live! Cam Chat IM, Live! Cam Socialize, Live! Cam Socialize HD, and Live! Cam Optia AF has been released.

These Creative range of Webcams come with VGA 300k Pixels, 800 x 600 video and photo, and a USB Video Class. In addition to the basic features Live! Cam Sync has improved eye-level conferencing while the Live Cam Chat IM carries a built-in microphone. Live Cam Socialize supports 1.3 Mega pixels photos wherein the Live Cam Socialize HD adds on high definition sensor along with the 1280 x 720 widescreen video and 3.7 megapixel photos compared to the previous version. The high end Live Cam Optia AF consists of a glass lens, 2 megapixel video, 8 megapixel photos, and built-in stereo microphone with Noise cancellation.

Webcams from Creative support Window 7 and are compatible with Mac and Linux.

Yahoo Inc will let users of its email, photo-sharing and other online products link their content and activities directly into Facebook, the world’s No. 1 Internet social network.

Yahoo’s support of the Facebook Connect service, which it said it expects to begin in the first half of 2010, represents an important move inYahoo ’s efforts to tap the popularity of social networking and underscores the growing clout of Facebook, which now counts more than 350 million worldwide users. Earlier this year,Yahoo allowed users to preview messages from their Facebook friends directly on the Yahoo homepage, as part of a broad revamping of the Yahoo front page. Wednesday’s announcement takes the integration between Yahoo and Facebook a step further, by automatically pushing activities performed on Yahoo sites, such as photos shared on Yahoo’s Flickr, into the Facebook news feed. Yahoo said it expects that the content that consumers share on Facebook will drive visitors back to Yahoo . Facebook Connect, which was introduced last year, provides a universal ID that lets people automatically log on to participating sites with their Facebook credentials. It also allows people to notify their Facebook friends about their activities on third-party Web sites. Yahoo’s move comes as the company seeks to revive its growth under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz, who took the reins in January and announced a controversial deal to hand off the operation of its Internet search technology to Microsoft Corp in July.

It isn’t even December over yet, but Microsoft’s Bing search engine is already announcing its top ten most searched topics of 2009, as well as the two celebrities that were binged more than actress Megan Fox.

The new Microsoft “decision engine” has only been in service since June, but Bing has apparently analyzed billions of search queries in order to create a list of the ten most searched topics of the year, Bing’s version of “trending topics.” Six of the top ten searches referred to specific individuals while only one search term referred to a website or company.

As you’ve probably guessed, we’re talking about Twitter, whose rapid ascent into the mainstream garnered it the honor of being the #2 most searched topic on Bing.

So who or what was #1? Here are the top ten Bing searches of 2009, in reverse order:

The Top 10

10. Jaycee Dugard (kidnapped in 1991 and finally found in August of this year, the story was national news)

9. Billy Mays (famous pitchman who passed away in June)

8. Jon and Kate Gosselin (former stars of Jon and Kate Plus 8, the public destruction of their marriage was a big topic of interest)

7. Cash for Clunkers (a U.S. government program to replace less fuel efficient vehicles with newer, more fuel-economic cars)

6. Patrick Swayze (famous actor who passed away in September)

5. Farrah Fawcett (famous actress and pop culture icon who passed away in June)

4. Stock Market

3. Swine Flu

2. Twitter

And the number one searched term of 2009:

1. Michael Jackson

Social Media Has Captured the Public’s Attention

It’s not a shocker that any of these topics made the top ten Bing searches of 2009. There was an outpouring of interest in each and every one of these people or things. Still, Twitter being more searched than the stock market, Swine Flu, and every major public icon except Michael Jackson is an impressive feat that speaks to the mainstream reach Twitter now enjoys.

Bing also decided to release the top three most search living celebrities. While the inclusion of Transformers actress Megan Fox (#3) and Twilight () actor Robert Pattinson (#2) didn’t surprise us, we were a bit shocked to find that celebrity blogger Perez Hilton was the most searched living celebrity on Bing in 2009. No matter what you think of Perez, he proves that blogs have acquired incredible reach and captured the attention of the world.

What do you think of Bing’s top ten searches of 2009? Does anything about this list surprise you? Are you shocked something didn’t make the list? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Google’s introduced a new “Translated search” tool in the Search Options panel that makes finding and reading content written in other languages easier.

Translated search helps users find information from sites written in other languages. This feature was present in Google Translate for a while, but has now been integrated fully into Google search, making it easier for to find and read results from pages across the web, even if they weren’t written in a language that the searcher speaks.

When a user search on Google for something in his/her own language, this tool can be used to search the web in another language. Click “Show Options” at the top ofthe search results page and select “Translated search” to try it out. Google will algorithmically select the best language(s) to translatethe search query into and then return translated results from those pages. Results from multiple languages will also be displayed.

Cyber Monday, typically a great day for gadget sales – Amazon has announced that it was the best sales month ever for Kindle.

We can’t say how much of this can be attributed to the recent international launch of Kindle, but it definitely helped – along with the price cuts. Despite the competition, Kindle is certainly doing great, being the most wished for, the most gifted, and number one bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon.

“Kindle is a great gift for anyone who loves to read and it’s flying off the shelves faster than any other product Amazon sells,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “We’re seeing lots of people buying from one to a handful of Kindles as gifts for friends or family, as well as many businesses and other organizations buying Kindles in large quantities for their employees or customers.”

SanDisk has just introduced what could be the fastest 32GB SDHC card on the market. The card was announced in June but has taken quite a while getting out. The 32GB SanDisk Extreme SDHC card at up to 30 MB/s read and write speeds combines industry-leading performance with large storage capacity, which should help digital photography enthusiasts utilize the advanced features of today’s DSLR cameras.

“The market for entry to mid-level DSLR cameras is growing, and SDHC is becoming the de-facto card format for these devices,” said Susan Park, director, retail product marketing, SanDisk. “Our card’s 32GB of storage and up to 30MB/s read & write speeds enable DSLR users to shoot without worrying about storage or speed limitations.SanDisk Extreme SDHC cards provide consumers with a more enjoyable user experience, letting them focus on what is really important – the images that they are capturing.”

The 32GB SanDisk Extreme SDHC card adheres to the SD Association’s new Class 10 specification, which exceeds requirement for today’s high definition (AVCHD) video recording. The card offers a sustained write speed that should be fast enough to ensure high-definition video recording and capacity capable of storing 160 minutes of full HD 1920×1080 pixels at 24Mb/s data transfer rate.

SanDisk Extreme SDHC cards guarantee operation at extended temperatures ranging from minus 13 F (minus 25 C) to 185 F (85 C). They are fully compatible with any camera, card reader or other device that supports SDHC cards.

The SanDisk Extreme SDHC 32GB cards will be shipping worldwide to major retailers. The MRP of the card will be Rs. 16,999. The current 4GB, 8GB and16GB capacitySanDisk Extreme SDHC cards will also be upgraded from Class 6 to Class 10.

The term Jailbreaking has become quite synonymous with Apple’s iPhone or iPod Touch. For every update that Apple releases upgrading the firmware of the devices there’s been a Jailbreak tool available. The 3GS hasn’t even hit all markets yet, and by that I mean ours of course, and a jailbreak “blacksn0w,” is already out.

This is all great for iPhone and iPod Touch users, but Apple obviously has issues. In fact according to a report, the company has in fact posted a listing for a job opening under the designation – iPhone OS Platform Security Manager. Quite a ‘high profile’ job you might say.

Whoever the new guy will be will have a lot to contend with. Could this be the end of the jailbreak hack? Or just a speed bump in the road? We’ll just have to wait and see.

More than 100,000 apps are now available for download from Apple’s App Store, making it the largest such retailer in the world.

The App Store launched in July 2008 with just 500 applications. The store is now available in 77 countries, which has contributed to what Apple said Wednesday is well over 2 billion downloads.

Apps from the App Store work with both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

When introducing its new iPod Touch in September, Apple positioned the device as a superior gaming platform to Sony’s PSP or Nintendo DS. Apple said its rivals charged too much for games and didn’t offer enough selection. At the time, Apple had more than 21,000 game titles in the App Store, while Nintendo had 3,600 titles and Sony had 600.

The message apparently has gotten through.

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios at EA Mobile, was quoted in Apple’s press release Wednesday.

HP has launched three ultra thin 3G-ready notebooks and one mini notebook priced between Rs 23,000 and Rs 60,000 in the country.

The devices, launched under new series – Thinspiration – are 3G ready and as and when private operators will come up with the third generation services, users can avail the services.

“As and when the 3G services are launched in India we might talk to private operators for offering bundled products, but its to early to comment on that now,” HP India President Personal Systems Group Ravi Swaminathan told reporters.

HP globally offers bundled products in partnership with telecom operators such as Verizon and Orange in certain markets, HP Vice President, ConsumerNotebooks Business Unit, Kevin Frost said.

Blurring the line between smartphones and notebooks, telecom handset maker Nokia has also announced launching 3G netbook.

Talking about competition in the segment, Frost said, “We welcome competition. We already had a good line of products. As the leading player in the PC industry we believe in fueling growth in the segment through our products and offerings.”

The thin and ultra portable new notebook portfolio includes HP Mini, HP Pavilion dm1 and dm3 and HP Probook 5310m and weigh between 0.8 kg and 2 kg.