This Story has been written by Mr. Scott Karp for seekingalpha.com. i liked what he argues and have taken up the story to make it accesible to my blog readers.
read on...

Scott Karp submits: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is suing Google (GOOG) for deceptive advertising practices. I don’t know if the suit has legal merit, but it puts the spotlight on Google’s advertising formats (which are used by most search engines) and, given that this is a government suit, raises significant questions about commonly accepted search advertising practices:

The ACCC is also alleging that Google, by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on its website, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

Further, the ACCC is alleging that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from “organic” search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

The reference to two car dealers regards a third company, Trading Post, which offers listing services. Trading Post bought ads in Google AdWords that used the dealers’ names in the titles, but sent people who clicked on the ad to the Trading Post site.

Here’s where the details of the suit get a bit confusing, at least to me. According to the ACCC website, the two auto dealers “compete against Trading Post in automotive sales” — but the Trading Post actually provides listing services FOR auto dealers, including the two named in the suit. In fact, Trading Post actually has a listing page for the one of the dealer:

The ACCC site also details another instance where Trading Post bought the keyword “Stickybeek,” a listing site that clearly is a competitor, a directed the ad to the Trading Post site.

There’s a critical distinction that needs to be made here. I can only assume that Trading Post was using the car dealers’ names without the car dealers’ consent, thus stealing traffic away from their sites. To create an ad that leads users to believe they are visiting one site but instead sends them to another is utterly deceptive, full stop. But this is opposed to working with the car dealers to drive search traffic to the the dealers’ listings page on Trading Post — which I think is perfectly legitimate and something that a lot of classified sites, including newspapers, are doing.

The big issue for Google is that this is just one example of what are probably thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) of instances where an AdWords ad is deceiving users in one way or another. Google AdWords has scaled so beautifully as a money making machine because the self-serve system requires minimal resources to manage, and much of that management is automated. But if Google had to vet every ad for deception and other malfeasance in a way that required human judgment, it would be a logistical, cost-ballooning nightmare.

A vexing aspect of this problem is that deceptive advertising exists along a continuum, with a lot of gray area in the middle — Google would sooner give away its algorithm than have to manufacture some standard of deception and arbitrate which of the millions of ads in its system are over the line.

Google, of course, claims that “user experience” is its north star, and deceptive ads certainly make for a bad user experience. Google has in fact cracked down on some aspects of user manipulation, such AdSense arbitrage pages where someone uses an AdWords ad to send users to a page full of AdSense ads that pay more than the original AdWords ad costs. But there is so much gaming and manipulation of their system going on that there is no way Google can stop it all — and they have a financial incentive NOT to stop, since they make money off of every instance.

Google was able to let a lot of this advertising malfeasance get swept under the rug — until now. If the Australian government forces Google to police its ads, it could strike a harsh blow to Google’s business in that country — and other countries, especially in Europe, would be tempted to follow suit.

But it gets worse. The Australian government also contends that the way Google presents ads on its search results, labeled only with a “Sponsored Links” in small text, is deceptive.

Common sense tells you that there’s no way Google could make $10 billion without some people clicking on sponsored links because they mistook them for organic links. For example, the ads that appear right above the organic results in the yellow box are labeled “Sponsored Links,” but on high resolution wide screens, which are common on most computers, that label appears far to the right, such that a user focused on the content on the left could easily fail to notice it.

Google and others that have adopted this format walk a very fine line between being inadvertently misleading users and outright deceiving them. The colored background is a fairly strong cue, and I’d guess the majority of users can distinguish the ads from the organic results. But what if 10% of users can’t? Or 1%? Or 0.01%? How many deceptions are too many?

Of course, all advertising walks this fine line. You could also ask how many people turn to a magazine or newspaper ad, hear a radio ad, or see a TV ad and don’t realize that they’re seeing an ad? It’s probably a pretty small number, but I’m sure it’s not zero.

It’s very interesting to note that Yahoo has bought the keyword “Google search advertising” — this is not deceptive along the lines of what Trading Post did, i.e. if the Yahoo ad used the word “Google” in the title of the ad. But it’s still playing off of a competitor’s brand name — something that the open AdWords system enables and does not in any way discourage.

It’s striking that the Australian government chose to go to the mat with Google not just over policing specific instances of outright deceptive ads but also over Google’s entire search advertising format. Imagine the U.S. Justice Department bringing legal action a TV station or a newspaper for running an ad with false claims — and then failing to overtly label the ad as ad, something that traditional media ad formats typically don’t do.

The U.S. government gave Microsoft a beating with the antitrust lawsuit that stretched over many years, which cost Microsoft many millions and much headache to defend. It certainly didn’t put Microsoft out of business, but the effect on Microsoft’s business long term couldn’t have been positive.

It’s not hard to imagine Australia or some other government putting Google up against a legal challenge that similarly cannot be easily dismissed.

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Microsoft is the UK's number one brand, according to a new poll.

The technology behemoth held on to its crown as the public's top "superbrand", despite stiff competition from home-grown brands.

Coca-Cola was ranked second followed by internet search engine Google in third place.

In a separate assessment, media and marketing experts put Google in the number one slot followed by Apple.

Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the Superbrands Council which carried out the research, said: "The UK public clearly love Microsoft which performs strongly amongst all consumer groups, although relative newcomer Google is becoming a major challenger for that elusive number one slot."

The Superbrands Council is a group of marketing, advertising and media experts.

Members rated a list of 1,450 brands according to quality, reliability and distinctiveness.

Of these, the 725 highest-scoring brands were assessed by 3,265 consumers surveyed by YouGov researchers.

This survey was used to create the list of top "superbrands".

The top ten brands of 2007-08, as voted for by 3,265 members of the public are:

1. Microsoft

2. Coca-Cola

3. Google

4. BBC

5. BP

6. British Airways

7. Lego

8. Guinness

9. Mercedes-Benz

10. Cadbury

-------------------------

Story Source

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Microsoft released a beta version of its next-generation Windows Live OneCare 2.0 desktop security and management package on July 11, touting a number of improvements made to the product, including the ability to monitor multiple PCs on a local network.

Available for free download on the company's Web site, the combined software and service offering -- which is aimed specifically at consumers and small businesses -- also adds new functionality for backing-up data and protecting against malware attacks.

Introduced roughly six months after the launch of Microsoft's OneCare 1.5 release in January 2007, the beta -- which like its predecessors includes firewall, AV (antivirus), backup, and antispyware programs -- boasts security improvements, including new tools for locking-down wireless networks and an automated, self-adjusting firewall.

Among the new management features being introduced in the product are support for the sharing of printers among multiple computers, a start time optimizer for speeding computer boot cycles, and an online backup system for photos and other images.

As part of the service portion of the offering, Microsoft said it has added more proactive system fixes and end-user configuration suggestions to the package along with monthly reports on important computer events or recommended upgrades.

The centralized backup feature claims the ability for users to configure and monitor automated storage controls for all PCs covered under a lone OneCare subscription -- which can cover up to three machines -- in a single network location.

The newest iteration of the package also adds support for 64-bit PC systems.

Microsoft, whose security software product business remains in its early stages, is the third major company to release a new version of its consumer endpoint protection tools in the last month alone as both McAfee and Symantec have also revamped their competing applications.

The software giant gave no indication as to when it might push OneCare 2.0 from beta into production but said it is actively seeking feedback from users who decide to try out the package.

Since its initial launch in May 2006 OneCare has drawn mixed reviews from end users and security researchers. While many experts have said that the product's pricing -- US$49.95 for protection and management of up to three PCs for one year -- has drawn the interest of many consumers, the product has fared poorly against its rivals in some head-to-head bake-offs.

In such a comparison study published in March 2007 by researchers at AV-Comparatives -- a project based in Austria and overseen by security researcher Andreas Clementi -- OneCare performed poorly next to similar products made by Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, Fortinet, F-Secure, and several other anti-virus providers.

According to the report, OneCare ranked last among the products tested in detecting Windows viruses, worms, macros, scripts, and other OS threats, detecting 91 percent of the threats.

In stopping systems intrusion through backdoors, Trojan viruses and other malware attacks, OneCare also ranked last out of 13 vendors with 79.6 percent detection.

Despite any perceived shortcomings in OneCare, at least one industry analyst said that Microsoft has had a significant impact on the consumer AV landscape for its relatively short run on the market, specifically around pricing.

By offering coverage for multiple PCs for much less than it would have cost using older products from market leaders Symantec and McAfee, Microsoft has forced those companies and others to drop their own pricing and changed consumer perceptions about the cost of AV tools, said Natalie Lambert, analyst for Forrester Research.

"The market is dramatically changing, and Microsoft is part of reason for that," Lambert said. "If you look at demand, consumers are not willing to pay for security software as they were in the past, they've found ways to get these programs for free, and Microsoft started some of that activity by driving prices down."

In terms of functionality, Lambert said that OneCare 2.0 appears to have pulled Microsoft closer to some of its rivals, although she does not believe that most consumers are ready to use all of the tools, such as centralized backup for multiple PCs.

Instead of buying off-the-shelf AV products as they may have done in years past, the analyst said that consumers are increasingly using programs bundled for free in their PCs or signing up for services offered by their ISPs, many of which are offered at no charge.

"Partnerships are more essential than ever before in this market," she said. "Winning this space will come down to who has the most and best partnerships in the future; consumers want full functionality, but they don't want to pay for it, and the vendors will need to get money from someplace, and it will be from the PC manufacturers and ISPs."


This story has been taken from HERE . Thank you Computerpartner.nl

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THIS IS NOT MY STORY... I borowed it from here and am presenting here without any changes... The first person referred to is Mr.Alexander Wolfe. Anyway.. its true that Ubuntu is tough to install on laptops. Read on...

I started my Linux journey wanting to like Ubuntu. It's pitched as a great operating-system option that's ideal for newbies and experienced PC users alike. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth is, like Bill Gates, both an entrepreneur and a philanthropist. And there's something appealing about joining a community that's built up such a robust ecosystem in so short a time (Ubuntu was introduced less than three years ago.) What could go wrong?

Unfortunately, none of the Ubuntu stories--no Linux reviews, for that matter--talk about the inevitable problems many people run into during the installation process. Yet online forums are rife with traffic on stumbling blocks, which often cause people intent on converting to the open-source operating system to give up and go back to Windows.


When Ubuntu starts up from the Live CD, it commences by loading the Linux kernel.

Things go most smoothly when you pick the plainest of plain vanilla desktops for your Ubuntu install. Selecting anything else--like the reasonably standard HP laptop I chose--could be an invitation to a software nightmare. Sadder still, the average homebrew Linux newbie will falsely feel that it's his technical ignorance that's the problem.

By now, you can guess what my conclusion is: Ubuntu isn't all it's cracked up to be. Indeed, if you're an individual user--and even more so if you're supporting an enterprise--the only path around problems is to use a heavily tested, commercially supported distro. My preference is SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (though Red Hat is probably fine, too). I don't doubt that many fanboys will take issue with this (leave your comments below), since you'll have to pay $50 for SLED 10, and that's counter to the "free" open-source ethos.

Now that I've told you where I'm going, let me show you how I got there. Come along on my Ubuntu safari.

My test bed was an average machine, picked at random from the computer detritus lying around the house. The salient detail for our tale is that it's a laptop, not a desktop. Notebooks are always harder to work with, whether you're talking Linux, Windows, or hooking up add-on hardware. That's just a fact of life, because of the unusual variety of specialized drivers and hardware permutations you'll often find in downsized systems.

Preparing For Liftoff

My laptop guinea pig was an HP Pavilion ze4200 laptop, running Windows XP, purchased new in January 2003. The 6.6-lb laptop has a 14.1-inch display and is powered by a 1.53-GHz Athlon XP-M 1800+ processor. It's also got 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 20GB hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, and two USB 1.1 ports. While this might seem like a light configuration today, it's more than capable of running Ubuntu. The 20-GB drive is well above Ubuntu's 4-GB disk-space requirement. The 256-MB of memory exceeds the 64-MB minimum posted on the main Ubuntu installation page, though it only just meets the minimum spec on the 7.04 release notes, so I'm primed to accept a slightly longer installation time.

True, my HP laptop has nowhere near the heft of the four systems Dell is offering with Ubuntu. Dell's machines include two notebooks--the 1.73-GHz Core 2 Duo-based Inspiron E1505 N and 1.5-GHz Core 2 Duo Inspiron 1420 N--and two dual-core-based desktops, with 1.6-GHz and 1.8-GHz Intel processors.

When I requested a review unit from Dell in June, they said they didn't have anything immediately available. (Dell's reps recently told me they should have a tester available in about a month. I'll review it then.) That's when I decided to install Ubuntu out on my own machine.


....technit again.... i'll get the review too on my blog. But thanks for an eyeopener. Story SOURCE

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Although Ubuntu is highly regarded by desktop Linux users, the popular Linux distribution has been the subject of perpetual criticism from a small but vocal minority of users who believe that it doesn't set a high enough standard for software freedom. New initiatives announced this week aim to tackle those criticisms at their source, by resolving the perceived problems. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced the availability of daily CD images of a "freedom-focused flavour of Ubuntu" called Gobuntu.

Gobuntu, which will eschew virtually all proprietary software components, aims to pacify critics who think that Ubuntu's support for "non-free" software is detrimental to users. Last year, the Free Software Foundation announced the release of gNewSense, an Ubuntu derivative without proprietary graphics drivers, proprietary plug-in components like Adobe's Flash player, and patent-encumbered proprietary media codecs. According to Shuttleworth, the goal for the Gobuntu derivative is to "provide a cleaner and easier to maintain base for projects like gNewSense."

Shuttleworth says that the current focus is on hardware drivers, but more significant differences will emerge as the team grows. In his announcement, Shuttleworth asks for interested developers to participate by joining the Gobuntu development team. "This is a call for developers who are interested in pushing the limits of content and code freedom—including firmware, content, and authoring infrastructure—to join the team and help identify places where we must separate out pieces that don’t belong in Gobuntu from the standard Ubuntu builds," says Shuttleworth.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, also announced plans to start releasing parts of the web-based Launchpad project management system under an open-source license. Launchpad's proprietary status has been source of controversy since the web site's inception. Earlier this year, Mark Shuttleworth responded to the criticism by saying that Canonical was "actively working on making Launchpad open source," but that it couldn't be done "until there is a clear revenue model to be able to pay the salaries of the developers working on the platform itself." Canonical took the first step towards opening the Launchpad source code this week by releasing Storm—Launchpad's Python-based object relational mapper—under the permissive LGPL license. Storm source code and documentation are now available from Canonical's web site.

This Story has been taken from HERE ( thank you arstechnica.com)

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Updating all the software on your system can be a pain, but with Linux it doesn't have to be that way. www.builderau.com.au shows you how to combine the apt package management system with a task scheduler to automatically update your system.

If you've been using Linux for even a short time you'll surely have experienced the wonders of having a package management system at your disposal. For Debian and Ubuntu users the package manager you get is the excellent apt-get system. apt-get makes installing a new program (e.g. xclock, a graphical clock) as simple as:
% apt-get install xclock
That's nice, but the real reason apt is so useful is that updating your entire system all at once is just as easy:
% apt-get update
...
% apt-get upgrade
...
This will refresh the apt system with the newest information about packages and then download and install any packages that have newer versions. Do it regularly and you can be sure that you've got the latest and most secure software on your machine, without needing to hunt down the newest edition of each program individually.
You can make things even easier, however, by combining the apt system with the Linux scheduling daemon cron. cron let's you schedule any command to run periodically at given intervals. Take the following command:
% (apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade) > /dev/null
Which both updates the apt cache and upgrades the system. The -y flag tells apt-get to answer yes to every question, which prevents the process from hanging waiting for user input, say in the middle of the night so the bandwidth from the downloads won't bother anyone. It's also a good idea to redirect the output of the command to /dev/null, so that your terminal is not flooded with the results of automatic maintenance.
It's a bad idea to just install everything regardless of errors, sometimes incompatible software can creep into the repository, and that can bring down your whole system. A better idea if you want to be more careful with what your machine is doing is to add the -d flag, which tells apt to merely download the packages, but not install them. You can then run apt-get dist-upgrade later to install the packages without waiting for them to download, and letting you keep a watchful eye over what's being installed without having to wait for everything to download.
If you want to use this approach then you can add the following lines to your crontab using crontab -e, which will download new packages every Sunday morning at 12am:
# Automatic package upgrades
0 0 * * 0 root (apt-get update && apt-get -y -d upgrade) > /dev/null
There is still an easier way -- using the cron-apt package, which as the name might suggest, combines the cron and apt utilities, but provides a bit more flexibility and a simpler interface -- as well as supporting e-mail alerts on errors or new information. cron-apt automatically adds the -d flag, so you'll have to run apt-get dist-upgrade to install the changes. You can install cron-apt like any other common utility by using apt:
% apt-get install cron-apt
The configuration for cron-apt reside in /etc/cron-apt/config -- except how often the script runs, that's depended on cron so you can find it in /etc/cron.d/cron-apt. One popular configuration change is to add the line:
MAILON="always"
This will make sure an e-mail is always sent when the update runs, rather than only when an error occurs.
That's it. Setting up your machine to automatically update itself is as simple as a couple of lines in the console. If you need to have closer control over what is happening during the automatic update process then you'll want to write your own script, the Ubuntu help pages have a good run down of how to write a script around aptitude to achieve the same results.

[ This story has been taken from HERE ]

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On Friday in Beijing, the organizational committee for the Olympic Games 2008 and Microsoft China announced that the software vendor would be an official software supplier to the Games, which will

be held the capital city of China. In addition to standard software, Microsoft will also be working on systems to capture and process information for the Games.
Furthermore, the software vendor's Chinese subsidiary will be providing operating systems, databases, office software, solutions for project management and administration, and professional support for the IT infrastructure required at the Games. The Committee estimates that between 11,000 and 15,000 computers will be used at the upcoming Olympics.
Microsoft says it will be providing 1500 experts to help the technology for the Olympics run smoothly. Vista will be one of the products used. According to Chinese media reports, Microsoft is currently looking into the use of Vista at the Olympics in a research lab cofounded with Lenovo. The organization committee for the Olympics says that it will, however, also be using products from other vendors. (Craig Morris) / (jk/c't)

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Universal Music Group is reported not to be renewing its annual contract to sell its music through Apple's iTunes.

The New York Times quoted unnamed executives as saying that Universal had decided to have monthly deals instead.
That would allow Universal to remove songs by some or all of its artists quickly if there are disagreements on terms and pricing in the future.
But the San Francisco Chronicle carried a denial from Apple, which said that talks were still continuing.
"We are still negotiating with Universal," the newspaper quoted an Apple spokesman as saying.
"Their music is still on iTunes and their not re-signing is just not true," he added.

Flat charges
There have been disagreements between Apple and record labels in the past about the pricing and protection of the songs on iTunes.
Apple has stuck to a flat charge of 99 cents per song in the US since iTunes was launched four years ago.
But many of the labels are understood to want to be able to charge more for popular songs and less for songs that they are trying to promote.
There have also been objections to the copy-protection that iTunes uses, which means that iTunes downloads cannot be played on MP3 players other than Apple's iPod.
In February, Apple boss Steve Jobs called on labels to allow iTunes to remove the copy-protection. EMI has since begun to sell "premium" versions of its tracks through iTunes without copy protection.
But some labels have refused to have the protection removed and say that Apple should instead license its technology so that its copy-protected songs can be played on other devices.

Shares fall
Both Apple and Universal have much at stake if their relationship deteriorates.
If Universal pulls its catalogue from iTunes then the store would lose access to record labels that account for one out of every three new releases sold in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
On the other hand, iTunes is by far the most popular download store, with a 70% market share, according to the NPD Group.
Reports of a dispute hit Apple shares on Monday - they closed down 78 cents at $121.26 on Nasdaq, although that was also linked to some disappointment about the first weekend's sales of its new iPhone.

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(via CNN)
Of 11 iPhone owners contacted, nine reported little or no trouble setting up their handsets.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Proud owners of Apple Inc.'s iPhone raved about their first day with the device Saturday, but a glitch took the shine off the year's most anticipated device for a few unlucky customers.
Of 11 iPhone owners contacted by Reuters Saturday, nine reported little or no trouble setting up their handsets, a combined cell phone, music player and Web browser.
An iPhone buyer proudly displays his loot Friday at an Apple store in New York.

"It's awesome, it's the best thing I ever saw in my life," said New York private detective Jerry Gregory. "Once people see this phone they are going to want one. Everybody I show this phone wants one, even people who were anti-iPhone."
But Brad Bargman of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, who waited in line nine hours Friday to buy his phone, said excitement turned to dismay when the device stubbornly refused to activate, meaning it can't be used.
"It's a real buzz kill," said Bargman, adding that repeated calls to AT&T failed to get the device to work. "Now I'm soured on it a little bit."

David Clayman, the third person in line at Apple's flagship Manhattan store, said he was still unable to activate his iPhone a day later, probably because he couldn't update the software on his computer needed to start the process.
The iPhone, which costs $500 or $600 depending on memory capacity, is activated through a process handled by the phone's exclusive carrier for two years, in Apple's iTunes online music store.
In a sign of strong initial demand, AT&T said it had sold almost all its phones within hours of the device going on sale at its 1,800 stores. The company did not say how many units it had sold. (For a quick estimate of first-day sales, click here).
Asked about problems some buyers were having, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the "vast majority" of customers were able to use their phones within minutes. "There are some whose activation process is being delayed and that's something that can happen in a launch like this and we're resolving those on a case-by-case basis," Siegel said.
Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock declined to comment on the number of iPhones sold at its outlets, saying only: "So far we've seen a lot of excitement and buzz."
Apple aims to sell 10 million units in 2008, giving it 1 percent of the global mobile phone market. The company is banking that the iPhone will become its third pillar product alongside its popular iPod music players and Mac computers.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, Apple's store in downtown San Francisco was crowded with shoppers interested in the iPhone display. The store was sold out of the $600 models and about 10 $500 models were visible on shelves.
Indeed, the iPhone's inclusion of so many features into a sleek package triggered a sort of nerd rapture among enthralled gadget freaks.
"It's not like it's a computer, it's not like it's a phone, it's like a living sculpture in my hands," said Dale Larson, a mobile business consultant in San Francisco.
Buyers cited the large screen, full-blown Internet browser, ability to play music and video, and camera quality as among the phone's best features.
Two of the top concerns raised prior to the phone's launch - the on-screen keyboard and quality of AT&T's network - were annoying to some people, but no one said they regretted buying the device.
"At first I tried to use my thumbs to type but it didn't work so well. But if I use my finger it's okay," said software developer Tim Brown.

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Close to three years after its launch for Windows, Google has finally ported its Google Desktop software to Linux.

Come April, Linux users will be able to take advantage of the software’s potent indexing and search functions, which enable documents, emails and other files to be

located virtually instantly.

The software is currently compatible with Red Hat’s Fedora Core 6, the ever popular Ubuntu 6.10, SUSE 10.1, Debian 4.0 and Red Flag 5. However, Unlike the Windows and recent Mac version, Linux users will have to wait a while longer for the applications fluffy other bits, such as the sidebar and Gadget features.
A Gadget is a small web-enabled application that sits in the sidebar or on the desktop and displays streaming information from internet sites or elsewhere. While handy and growing in popularity thanks to the likes of Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft’s Silverlight, index and search are the most important aspects of the application, particularly considering Google Desktop for Linux can also hunt down old versions and recover files that have been deleted.

“Google Desktop hit the operating system trifecta today with the release of a version of Google Desktop for Linux,” said Google in a written statement.
“Now available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, the Google Desktop application allows users of every major operating system to search their desktop and the web as quickly, easily and comprehensively as they search the web with Google.”

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Venus and Saturn will be in conjunction with each other on June 30-July 1,2007 a full moon night.

Ajay Talwar of Delhi's Amateur Astronomer Association told HT, "The Celestial show begins on Saturday evening. When the sun is about to set, Venus will appear first , a bright point of light not far above the horizon and as the sky darkens, one will also be able to spot Saturn.

The two planets will almost touch each other."The planets will get closest on July 1.Talwar said this conjunction happens once every 13-14 months approximately, but most of the time, the distance between them is much larger or the conjunction happens in the fierce glare of the sun.

This time the conjunction is almost 45 degrees away from the sun and the event will be clearly visible, he added.Although the planets appear close, the distance between them is 9.4 AU. 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) is 149,597,870 kilometres.

Images from google image search

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