Assassin’s Creed™ is the next-generation game developed by Ubisoft Montreal that redefines the action genre. Assassin’s Creed merges technology, game design, theme, and emotions into a world where you instigate chaos and become a vulnerable, yet powerful, agent of change.

The setting is 1191 A.D. The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart. You, Altair, intend to stop the hostilities by suppressing both sides of the conflict.

You are an Assassin, a warrior shrouded in secrecy and feared for your ruthlessness. Your actions can throw your immediate environment into chaos, and your existence will shape events during this pivotal moment in history.

Microsoft is changing the way it’s talking about the next version of Windows, dubbed Windows 7. “What is a little different today is when and how we are talking about the next version of Windows,” explains Chris Flores of the Windows Client Communications Team. “We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action. As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes.

“With Windows 7, we’re trying to more carefully plan how we share information.  This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience.”

Microsoft admits it has already begun the process of sharing its “preliminary plans” for Windows 7 with hardware and software vendors. “This gave them an opportunity to give us feedback and gave us the opportunity to incorporate their input into our plans,” says Flores.

Microsoft says Windows Vista is getting better. “The ecosystem [has] delivered measurable progress in the six dimensions of quality we track — device compatibility, application compatibility, reliability, performance, battery life and security,” added Flores. Microsoft has now sold  more than 140 million Windows Vista licenses. Flores claims that analysts are suggesting similar take-ups of Vista in businesses as XP at around the same point.

A major release

Flores also covered a question he said was often asked – is Windows 7 a major release? “’Yes” he said categorically, adding “it’s hard to describe any product that is used by millions of people and worked on by thousands of engineers as anything else.”

“That said, the long-term architectural investments we introduced in Windows Vista and then refined for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will carry forward in Windows 7.”

Windows 7 will use the newly-established graphics, audio, and storage foundations within Vista, says Flores, though we wonder whether Microsoft will finally unveil the new filesystem that it originally promised for Vista.

However, one thing Windows 7 won’t have is a new kernel. “Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista,” says Flores.

While Flores says Microsoft is “not yet ready to discuss timing and specific plans for any Beta releases,” he says Windows 7 is very much on target for early 2010 – three years after the release of Vista.

A scratchy recording of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a truncated version of In the Mood are thought to be the oldest known recordings of computer generated music.

The songs were captured by the BBC in the Autumn of 1951 during a visit to the University of Manchester.

The recording has been unveiled as part of the 60th Anniversary of “Baby”, the forerunner of all modern computers.

The tunes were played on a Ferranti Mark 1 computer, a commercial version of the Baby Machine.

“I think it’s historically significant,” Paul Doornbusch, a computer music composer and historian at the New Zealand School of Music, told BBC News.

“As far as I know it’s the earliest recording of a computer playing music in the world, probably by quite a wide margin.”

The previous oldest known recordings were made on an IBM mainframe computer at Bell Labs in the US in 1957, he said.

“That’s where the whole computer music thing started but they were not the first to have a computer play music,” said Mr Doornbusch.

That honour goes to a third machine called CSIRAC, Australia’s first digital computer, which “stunned” audiences with a rendition of Colonel Bogey.

“It played music months or weeks before [the Manchester] recording,” said Mr Doornbusch.

However, no one has yet unearthed a recording of CSIRAC in action.

Mood machine

Documentary evidence of the Manchester machine’s musical abilities exists thanks to a BBC outside broadcasting team who had gone to the University to record an edition of Children’s Hour.

At the time Manchester was home to a Ferranti Mark 1, the first commercially available general purpose computer.

How the BBC reported on the birth of “Baby” in 1948

“Word must have got around that this electronic brain could play music,” explained Chris Burton of the Computer Conservation Society (CCS).

The music program was written by a friend of computing legend Alan Turing called Christopher Strachey, a maths master at Harrow.

“My understanding is that Chris Strachey got on and wrote a program for playing draughts and when the program terminated it played God Save the King,” said Mr Burton.

Others contend that the program was purely for playing music.

Either way, following the recording, a university engineer called Frank Cooper asked if he could have a copy. Unable to give him the original, the BBC team cut him another version.

The Ferranti Mark 1 was a polished version of Baby

“At the time of the recording outside broadcasts were recorded on to acetate disks,” explained Mr Burton. “You can hear the presenter tell the recording engineer in the van ‘lift Jim’ and that meant lift the cutter off to stop recording.”

During the session, the temperamental machine managed to work its way through Baa Baa Black Sheep, God Save the King and part of In the Mood.

Following one aborted attempt, a laughing presenter says: “The machine’s obviously not in the mood.”

The disc was eventually passed to the CCS, who, along with the University of Manchester, has released the recording to mark the 60th anniversary of the Ferranti machine’s forerunner.

Modern marvel

In the late 1940s Manchester was a hotbed of computer innovation following the birth of Baby, or Small Scale Experimental Machine, in 1948.

Programming the machines took a great deal of hard work

Baby was the forerunner of the Ferranti Mark 1 and was the first computer to contain a memory device that could store a program.

“Baby was the first universal computer,” explained Mr Burton.

“It would perform any task – within its capacity – depending on what program was put in.”

The memory was built from a Cathode Ray Tube and allowed scientists to program 1024 bits, compared to the billions in today’s modern computers.

Before Baby was built, computers such as ENIAC and Colossus had to be rewired to perform different tasks, said Mr Burton.

“You couldn’t easily change what they did,” said Mr Burton.

Baby successfully ran its first program – to determine the highest factor of a number – on 21 June 1948.

“That particular program was devised solely to make the machine work very hard so we could see where it was about to go wrong,” Geoff Tootill, one of the builders of Baby told BBC News.

“If you gave the problem to a mathematician, he would take a fraction of a second to give you an answer.”

However, companies quickly capitalised on Baby’s unique abilities, giving rise to machines like the Mark 1.

“It was the start of the computer age,” said Mr Tootill. “Although we didn’t know it was going to be epoch-making or earth-shattering other than for weather forecasting and other scientific disciplines.”

Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander’s digging exposed them.

“It must be ice,” said the Phoenix Lander’s lead investigator, Peter Smith. “These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice.”

The confirmation that water ice exists in the area directly surrounding the lander is big and good news for the Martian mission. NASA’s stated goal for the Mars Phoenix was to find exactly this — water ice — and then analyze it. With the latest news, the first step is accomplished. All that’s left now is to get the water into the Phoenix’s instruments, a task which has occasionally proven more difficult than anticipated.

Still, this is the best opportunity that humanity has ever had to analyze extraterrestrial water in any form. That had the Phoenix Lander’s persona fired up.

“Are you ready to celebrate?  Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars!  w00t!!!  Best day ever!!” the Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted at about 5:15 pm.

Their suspicions about water ice beneath the surface of Mars confirmed, scientists and the world will have renewed interest in the outcome of the soil analyses currently being conducted by the lander.

The samples are being examined for traces of organic molecules, among other substances, but the lander does not have instruments that could directly detect life.

All three of these flash drives are available in capacities ranging from 1GB – 8GB (The DataTraveler 400 starts out at 2GB) and come with a 5 year warranty.

USB drives tend to be extremely simple devices that do not require instructions for operation. For this review, I tested each drive with my 24″ iMac and 15″ Macbook Pro. Here are the specific details about each one…

Kingston DataTraveler 110

This drive is available in capacities of 1, 2, 4 and 8GBs. According to the Kingston website, each capacity is designated by a different body shell color: 1GB (purple), 2GB (blue), 4GB (red) and 8GB (green). However, the one I was sent to review is Black and 4GB, so your mileage may vary. The 110 is a plastic bodied drive with a footprint of 2.142″ x 0.836″ x 0.512″ (54.41mm x 21.24mm x 13.00mm). It’s a little chunky, but very light weight (0.48 oz / 12g), which makes it feel a little cheap in hand.

It might be difficult to see in these images, but the outer shell of the drive is Black plastic and the inset is a see-thru Red plastic.

At one end is an attachment point for a lanyard or keychain.

As you will notice, there isn’t a cap to lose with this drive. Instead there is a nice strong slider mechanism that clicks in place when you slide it up to reveal the USB connector. The slider is strong enough that when the connector is extruded, it will not accidently slide back into the case when you try to insert the flash drive into a USB port.

The 110 is the most basic of the three drives I’m showing you in this review. What you see is what you get. I had no problems copying files back and forth on my iMac or MBP with this drive. The only issue that I did run into was that the drive was not recognized when I plugged it in the Kensington USB hub connected to my iMac. It worked fine when connected into a USB port on my keyboard and also the port on the MBP. Also, the status LED did not blink when connected to the port on the keyboard. All in all though, the 110 is a nice inexpensive USB 2.0 flash drive that anyone would find handy to have in their gear bag or pocket.

Price: $10.00 (1GB), $17.00 (2GB), $29.00 (4GB), $62.00 (8GB) – These prices are from Kingston. It is possible to find better deals elsewhere.

Kingston DataTraveler 400

Available in capacities of 2, 4 and 8GB, the DataTraveler 400 has a 2.57” x 0.71” x 0.41” (65.4mm x 18.0mm x 10.4mm) footprint.

It also has a capless design, which I appreciate. The USB stick portion of the device is slightly rubbery textured Black plastic, while the cover is a Grey aluminum.

The cover swivels around the center axis point of the stick, making it very easy to expose the USB connector when needed.

This cover is sufficiently tight to keep it from swinging freely. Two tiny star head screws hold the cover in place. I suppose if the cover would become loose with time, that it would be possible to tighten it if you have a matching tool. A small slit in the cover allows you to see the Blue status LED when the drive is in use.

The end of the cover has an attachment point for the included thin cord (more like thick thread – see image in the Style review below) lanyard.

The DataTraveler 400 is a step up from the 110 in three ways. The most obvious difference is the physical design. The 400 feels considerably more robust than the 110. The second reason is that the 400 comes with the MigoSync and SecureTraveler software preloaded on it (uses 24mb of space). MigoSync is basically a Windows application that allows you to sync your Documents and Settings, Desktop files, Email from Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird, and your bookmarks from Internet Explorer or Firefox to the flash drive. That way you can take your settings, emails and bookmarks with you where you go. When you plug the drive into another Windows computer, it will transform it into your computer with the settings saved on the drive. SecureTraveler allows you to create and access a password protected secure area, called a “Privacy Zone” on your 400. Lastly, the 400 has data transfer rates of up to 20MB/sec. read and 10MB/sec. write.

Of course I had to do a quick speed comparison test between the 400 and 110 drives…

File used: a 57.5mb compressed file.
Copying file from Macbook Pro to the DataTraveler 400 took 5 seconds
Copying file from DataTraveler 400 to the Macbook Pro took 3 seconds

Copying file from Macbook Pro to the DataTraveler 110 took 6 seconds
Copying file from DataTraveler 110 to the Macbook Pro took 4 seconds

File used: a 247mb folder of 125 .jpg images.
Copying file from Macbook Pro to the DataTraveler 400 took 2 minutes 33 seconds
Copying file from DataTraveler 400 to the Macbook Pro took 31 seconds

Copying file from Macbook Pro to the DataTraveler 110 took 28 seconds
Copying file from DataTraveler 110 to the Macbook Pro took 16 seconds

Wow, look at that! The 400, which touts fast read/write speeds is slower than the cheaper 110 when it comes to copying more data. Go figure… I thought something must be wrong, so I did the test again and came up with the same results. As such, if I were trying to choose between the Kingston DataTraveler 110 and 400 drives, I would definitely choose the less expensive and faster 110.

Price: $31.00 (2GB), $56.00 (4GB), $137.00 (8GB) – These prices are from Kingston. It is possible to find better deals elsewhere.

Kingston DataTraveler Style

Available in capacities of 1, 2, 4 and 8GB, the DataTraveler Style has a 2.35″ x 0.88″ x 0.37″ (59.7mm x 22.3mm x 9.5mm) footprint.

This is yet another capless USB flash drive. So you won’t have to worry about misplacing the cap. ) It has a Black plastic shell and a locking slider switch is located on the side of the drive to expose and store the USB connector.

A lanyard connection point is located on the end of the drive.

You’ve no doubt heard of “skinning”, when it comes to customizing gadgets. You can skin the display of your phone, PDA and computer. You can skin an iPod or other audio player with special stickers. And now you can skin your USB flash drive.

The DataTraveler Style has a plastic window that can be removed to in order to switch out small graphical card inserts. The drive comes with eight cards. Six are printed with various designs, and two are blank so that you can draw on them yourself. You can even go to the Kingston site for more images and the ability to create your own. I wanted to use the website to create a card with the gadgeteer logo. Unfortunately, no matter how many times that I tried, my uploaded image never successfully transferred. It’s either a compatibility problem with Mac browsers, or it just doesn’t work yet.

Anyway, I think that having a way to make your USB flash drive unique is a cool idea.

After testing the DT400, I was curious about the speed of the Style. Test below:

File used: a 247mb folder of 125 .jpg images.
Copying file from Macbook Pro to the DataTraveler Style took 43 seconds
Copying file from DataTraveler Style to the Macbook Pro took 27 seconds

Not bad… Out of the three DataTraveler USB flash drives that I’ve reviewed here, I would have to say that the Style is my favorite. It’s slim, fast, has a retractable connector and can be customized.

Price: $9.00 (1GB), $16.50 (2GB), $28.00 (4GB), $85.00 (8GB) – These prices are from Amazon

From Christianity

From Catholicism
Keith Ellison American, raised Catholic, Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress
Keith Ellison American, raised Catholic, Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress

* Torquato Cardilli – Italian ambassador.
* Muriel Degauque – Belgian suicide bomber
* Keith Ellison – American, Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress
* Roger Garaudy – French philosopher, before converting to Islam Marxist and member of the French Communist Party, who denies the holocaust ever taking place.
* Murad Wilfred Hofmann – NATO official
* Knud Holmboe – Danish journalist and explorer.
* Nuh Ha Mim Keller – from Catholicism to agnosticism to Sufism, Islamic scholar.
* John Walker Lindh – the American Taliban

Raised Roman Catholic, John Walker Lindh later converted to Islam, joined the Taliban and was captured in Afghanistan fighting against the Northern Alliance.
Raised Roman Catholic, John Walker Lindh later converted to Islam, joined the Taliban and was captured in Afghanistan fighting against the Northern Alliance.

* Vincenzo Luvineri – American rapper and the lyricist behind the Philadelphia underground hip-hop group Jedi Mind Tricks.
* Ingrid Mattson – Canadian scholar and current president of the Islamic Society of North America (2006)
* Matthew Saad Muhammad (formerly Matthew Franklin) – former boxer.
* Peter Murphy – vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus.
* Poncke Princen – Dutch soldier, later human rights activist.
* Radu cel Frumos – was the younger brother of Vlad ?epe? (Dracula) and prince of the principality of Wallachia.
* Ahmed Santos – Filipino, fugitive, founder of the Rajah Solaiman Movement & suspected by Filipino authorities to be an Al Qaeda operative
* Danny Thompson – English double bass player.
* Mohammad Yousuf – Pakistani cricketer. Known for holding the world record for the most Test runs in a single calendar year.
* Omar Sharif – Academy Award-nominated Egyptian actor who has starred in many Hollywood films.

From Protestantism

* Ryan G. Anderson – former Lutheran, convicted of charges of espionage for Al Qaeda
* Isabelle Eberhardt – from Lutheran Christianity, 19th century explorer & writer
* Yahiya Emerick – American Muslim scholar, president of the Islamic Foundation of North America.
* Yusuf Estes – former preacher and federal prison chaplain.
Yusuf Estes, a convert to Islam, is the National Muslim Chaplain for American Muslims.
Yusuf Estes, a convert to Islam, is the National Muslim Chaplain for American Muslims.
* St. John Philby – Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence operative; converted from Anglicanism.
* Yvonne Ridley – British journalist, from Anglicanism. She converted after being kidnapped and released by the Taliban.

From other or unspecified denomination

* Atik Sinan – Ottoman architect
* Thomas J. Abercrombie – photographer
* Éric Abidal (changed his name to Bilal) – French soccer player , converted to Islam after marriage.
* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) – retired basketball player & the NBA’s all-time leading scorer
* Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson) – retired basketball player
* Tariq Abdul-Wahad (Olivier Saint-Jean) – originally from France, former basketball player for the Mavericks and Kings
* Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar (Sharmon Shah) – former NFL football player
* Ivan Aguéli (Johan Agelii) – famous Swedish painter.
* Dawud Wharnsby Ali (David Wharnsby) – Canadian singer/poet.
* Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), to The Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam to Sufism, famous boxer
* Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley – British soldier and peer.
* Nicolas Anelka – French football player
* Yasin Abu Bakr (Lennox Philip) – of Trinidad and Tobago, under trial for an attempted coup as of March 9, 2006
* Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker (Philip Barker) – professor of Urdu, former chair of the University of Minnesota’s Department of South Asian studies and creator of the Tékumel fantasy world.
* David Belfield – American, fled to Iran after assassinating Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian dissident.
Muhammad Ali- a convert to Islam.
Muhammad Ali- a convert to Islam.
* Józef Bem – Polish-Hungarian general, considered a national hero of Poland.
* Mohammed Knut Bernström – Swedish ambassador to Venezuela (1963-1969), Spain (1973-1976) and Morocco (1976-1983)
* Art Blakey – American Jazz musician
* Claude Alexandre de Bonneval – French noble.
* Tawana Brawley (changed her name to Maryam Muhammad) – African American woman noted for claiming to have been raped by several white men, a claim determined to be a fabrication by a grand jury. Later in life she converted to Islam.
* Willie Brigitte – French convert to Islam who associated with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and was possibly involved in a plot to conduct a terrorist operation in Australia.
* Dolores “LaLa” Brooks – American musician.
* Count Cassius- Visigothic aristocrat who founded the Banu Qasi dynasty of Muladi rulers.
* David Chappelle – comedian and television star
* Benjamin Chavis – controversial former head of the NAACP; joined the Nation of Islam
* Jimmy Cliff – Jamaican reggae musician

Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae musician
Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae musician

* Aukai Collins – fought in Chechnya, paid FBI informant, author of an autobiographical book
* Jerôme Courtailler – one of two French brothers convicted by French authorities in 2004 for abetting terrorists
* Ian Dallas – Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi – sufi shaykh of Scottish origins.
* C. Jack Ellis – Mayor of Macon, Georgia
Chris Eubank British boxer
Chris Eubank British boxer

* Chris Eubank – British boxer

* Sultaana Freeman – sued the state of Florida for niqab restrictions.
* Adam Yahiye Gadahn – spokesperson for Al-Qaeda; on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list
* George XI of Kartli – Saffavid commander.
* René Guénon – French Author in the field of metaphysics
* Ryan Harris- football player for the Denver Broncos
* David Hicks-Australian former rodeo rider, recently released from detention in Adelaide.
* Bernard Hopkins – American boxer
* Ahmed Huber- Swiss Neo-nazi journalist, holocaust denier and terrorist supporter
* Silma Ihram – Australian pioneer of Muslim education in the West, founder and former school Principal of the ‘Noor Al Houda Islamic College’, campaigner for racial tolerance, and Author/
* Jermaine Jackson (Muhammad Abdul Aziz) – former member of The Jackson 5 and brother of popstars Michael and Janet Jackson.
* Sarah Joseph – commentator on women’s issues and founder of emel magazine.
* Michael Muhammad Knight – American novelist, writer, and journalist.
* Rustie Lee – British television chef and celebrity.

Richard Colvin Reid known as the “shoe bomber” was a convert to Islam.
Richard Colvin Reid known as the “shoe bomber” was a convert to Islam.
Malcolm X- famous Muslim convert and civil rights leader
Malcolm X- famous Muslim convert and civil rights leader
Hamza Yusuf, head of the Zaytuna Institute
Hamza Yusuf, head of the Zaytuna Institute
Timothy Winter is a prominent British lecturer at the University of Cambridge
Timothy Winter is a prominent British lecturer at the University of Cambridge
American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the U.S.A. in the Philippines, Mohammad Webb was a convert.
American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the U.S.A. in the Philippines, Mohammad Webb was a convert.

* Germaine Lindsay – participated and died in the 7 July 2005 London bombings
* Alexander Litvinenko – former Russian spy converted to Islam on his deathbed.
* Lee Boyd Malvo – convicted of capital murder and arrested for the Beltway sniper attacks, for being involved in 16 murders and 7 additional attempted murders.
* Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood – British author.
* Iyasu V – Ethiopian emperor.

* Jacques-Francois Menou – French general under Napoleon I of France.
* Bruno Metsu – French coach of the Senegal team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup
* Daniel Moore – poet
* Preacher Moss – American comedian and comedy writer.
* Sheila Musaji – founder of The American Muslim magazine.
* Ibrahim Muteferrika (original name not known) – From Unitarian Christianity, an early example of a Muslim publisher and printer.
* John Nelson – first recorded Englishman to become a Muslim.
* Prince Buster, Jamaican singer and producer.
* Queen Noor of Jordan (formerly Lisa Najeeb Halaby)
* Omar Pasha – Ottoman general. Converted from Serbian Orthodoxy.
* Emin Pasha – physician, naturalist, and Egyptian governor.
* Judar Pasha – conqueror of the Songhai Empire.
* Bilal Philips – Islamic scholar and author
* Marmaduke Pickthall – famous translator of the Quran.
* William Abdullah Quilliam – poet, ambassador & journalist.
* Ilie II Rare? – prince of Moldavia.
* Ahmad Rash?d – Emmy award-winning sportscaster (mostly with NBC Sports) and former American football wide receiver.
* Richard Colvin Reid – shoe bomber (convicted terrorist)
* Franck Ribéry- a French soccer player. His name after he converted to Islam is Bilal.
* Busta Rhymes – Music artist, born to Rastafari parents
* Sana al-Sayegh, dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at Palestine International University, converted to Islam in August 2007. Fatah has accused its political rival Hamas of forcing the professor to convert from Christianity, a charge Hamas denies.
* Scarface – American rapper
* Mario Scialoja – Italian ambassador and President of the World Muslim League.
* Betty Shabazz – wife of Malcolm X; former Methodist.
* Zaid Shakir – African-American Muslim speaker and intellectual in the United States.
* Rudolf Carl von Slatin – Anglo-Austrian soldier and administrator in the Sudan.
* Suleiman Pasha – French-born Egyptian commander.
* Joe Tex – soul singer and recording artist.
* Joseph Thomas – Australian convert, acquitted of terrorism charges, placed under a control order under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005, currently pending retrial.
* Richard Thompson – British musician, best known for his guitar playing and songwriting.
* Ahmad Thomson – British barrister and writer and also a member of the Murabitun movement.
* Top Topham – rock guitarist from England.
* Gabriele Torsello – Italian freelance photojournalist based in London who was abducted in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
* Philippe Troussier – French, former football player & trainer of a Japanese football team
* Mihnea Turcitul – was a Prince (Voivode) of Walachia. Converted from Eastern Orthodox Chrisitianity.
* Abu Usamah – controversial American-born Imam of Green Lane Masjid in Birmingham, UK. Accused of preaching messages of hate towards non-Muslims in a UK Television documentary.
* Siraj Wahaj – African-American Imam, noted for his efforts to eliminate Brooklyn’s drug problems.
* Danny Williams – British boxer
* Malcolm X – American, from Christianity to Nation of Islam to mainstream Islam, African-American civil rights leader.

* Khalid Yasin – Executive Director of the Islamic Teaching Institute, and a Shaykh currently residing in Australia.
* James Yee – former U.S. Army Muslim chaplain.
* Hamza Yusuf – American convert from Greek Orthodox; head of the Zaytuna Institute.
* Alexander Russell Webb – American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the U.S.A. in the Philippines.
* Suhaib Webb – American Islamic activist and speaker.
* Abdulla Webster – former Sergeant First Class in the United States Army who refused to deploy to Iraq.
* John Whitehead – an American singer, songwriter, and record producer.
* Timothy Winter – prominent British Islamic thinker and scholar, and a lecturer in Islamic studies in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.

* Za?anos Pasha – one of the prominent military commanders of Mehmet II (Mehmet the Conqueror) and a lala, at once an advisor, mentor, tutor, councilors, protector, for the sultan.
* Mohammed Zakariya – an American master of Arabic calligraphy, best known for his work on the popular Eid U.S. postage stamp.
* Clement Lindley Wragge. A British born meteorologist who later moved to New Zealand.

From Judaism

* Abdullah ibn Salam – 7th century sahabi said to have been a rabbi of aristocratic stock.
* Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey (Yale Singer) – a pioneer in the development of Islamic culture in the United States.
* Rashid al-Din – 13th century Persian physician
* Jemima Khan (Jemima Goldsmith) – ex-wife of cricketer Imran Khan, English socialite, a UK ambassador for UNICEF, and former girlfriend of Hugh Grant.
* Jacob Frank – publicly converted to Islam in 1757 and to Christianity in Poland but actually presented himself as the Messiah of a syncretic derivation of Shabettai Zevi’s Messianism.
* Leila Mourad – Egyptian singer and actress who rose to fame in the 1940s and 1950s.
* Lev Nussimbaum – prolific author on the topics of Middle East and Russian history; the Nazi propaganda ministry included his works on their list of “excellent books for German minds” before discovering he was an ethnic Jew.
* Jacob Querido – 17th century successor of the self-proclaimed Jewish Messiah Sabbatai Zevi.
* Sarmad – 17th century mystical poet and sufi saint, arrived from Persia to India, beheaded for assumed heresy by Aurungzebe.
* Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) – Viennese journalist who became Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations
* Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari – 9th century Persian scholar physician (a hakim), who produced the first encyclopedia of medicine.
* Yaqub ibn Killis – 10th century Egyptian vizier under the Fatimids.

From Dharmic religions

From Buddhism

* The Barmakid family – originally the guardians of the great Buddhist shrine near Balkh, upon conversion they became “the greatest family” in the early Abbasid caliphate.
* Mahmud Ghazan – seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate.
* Mubarak Shah – head of the ulus of the Chagatai Khanate (1252-1260, March-September 1266).
* Tarmashirin – Khan of the Chagatai Khanate following Duwa Timur.

From Hinduism

* Salma Arastu – Indian artist living in North America.
* Dhiren Barot – convicted terrorist, who confessed to planning “to detonate a dirty bomb and launch an attack on London’s Tube”.
* Sumita Devi – Bengali actress and filmmaker.
* Pir Mangho – 14th century Sufi pir.
* A. R. Rahman (formerly A. S. Dileep Kumar) – famous Indian music composer
* Parameswara – Malay prince of Palembang Hindu descent from Srivijaya that founded the Sultanate of Malacca around 1402.
* Abdul Wahid Pedersen – Danish cleric.
* Sahaj Ram Sapru – the grandfather of the British-Indian Muslim Philosopher, Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, who was an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan.
* Kamala Suraiyya (formerly Kamala Das) – Anglo-Malayalam writer
* Sharmila Tagore – renowned Indian film actress from Bengal.
* Vilayil Fazila – popular Mappila songs singer from Kerala.

From Sikhism

* Ubaidullah Sindhi – religious leader and political activist.

Other

From Paganism

* David Myatt – from Paganism, former Neo-Nazi-activist

See also: List of Sahaba

From non-religious to Islam

* Zhang Chengzhi – contemporary Hui Chinese author; raised as an atheist.
* Charles le Gai Eaton – British diplomat and writer.
* Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) – British musician and singer (had a nominally Christian upbringing, but never was a believer)
* Jeffrey Lang – American, Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kansas. (Raised Catholic, but atheist from age 18 to conversion)
* Martin Lings – a widely acclaimed British scholar. He was raised as a Protestant, became an atheist, and later converted to Islam.
* Mos Def – American rapper and actor.

Undetermined former religion

* Abd al Malik – birth name Régis Fayette-Mikano – French rapper of Congolese origins.
* Mumia Abu-Jamal – journalist, Black Panther, political activist, convicted murderer.
* B.G. Knocc Out – American west coast rapper.
* Hasan Akbar (born Mark Fidel Kools) – American sentenced to death for the murder of two fellow soldiers during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
* Kevin Barrett – university lecturer and member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
* Maurice Béjart – French choreographer.
* Robert “Kool” Bell – musician.
* Ronald Bell – musician.
* Mohammed Knut Bernström – Swedish ambassador.
* Khaled Edward Blair – British barrister, later married Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.
* Bizzy Bone – American rapper.
* Omar Bongo – Gabonese, President of Gabon.
* Charles Brooks, Jr. – converted while serving a sentence for murder; first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
* H. Rap Brown – civil rights activisit.
* Titus Burckhardt – Swiss writer and scholar.
* Amir Butler- Author, Engineer and Islamic activist.
* Kérim Chatty- Swedish bodybuilding stuntman who was once suspected of attempted hijacking. The preliminary inquiry was dropped.
* Common – American rapper.
* Jill Courtney – Australian, girlfriend of convicted killer and drug trafficker Hassan Kalache, arrested on March 26, 2006 for attempted murder of unnamed people.
* Robert D. Crane – former Presidential advisor and ambassador.
* Ice Cube – Gangsta rapper and actor.
* Bob Denard – French mercenary.
* Jeffrey Mark Deskovic – served 15-year wrongful imprisonment sentence.
* Isabelle Eberhardt – explorer and writer.
* Baron omar Rolf von Ehrenfels – Austrian anthropologist and orientalist.
* Everlast – Irish-American rapper and singer-songwriter.
* Alys Faiz – human rights and peace activist; converted at the time of her marriage to Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
* Philippe Fragione – French rapper and producer of French hip hop.
* Christian Ganczarski- Head of “al Qaeda in Europe”.
* Philippe Grenier – (1865-1944) French doctor, first and only muslim MP in France.
* Gigi Gryce – American saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator.
* Walt Hazzard – former NBA player.
* David Hicks – convicted Australian terrorist.
* Lim Yew Hock – Singapore’s second Chief Minister from 1956 to 1959.[216]
* Craig Hodges – former NBA player.
* Ibrahim Hooper (Douglas Hooper) – Islamic activist, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
* Abdullah Ibrahim – South African Jazz musician.
* Umar Islam – one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.[220]
* Tiara Jacquelina – Malaysion actress.
* Ahmad Jamal – Jazz pianist.
* Jan Janszoon – Dutch pirate.
* Larry Johnson – retired American professional basketball player.
* Gustave-Henri Jossot – French caricaturist, illustrator and Orientalist painter.
* Muhammad Khodabandeh – eighth Ilkhaid dynasty ruler in Iran from 1304 to 1316.
* Vladimir Khodov – leader of the Beslan school hostage crisis- converted in prison.
* Abd al Haqq Kielan – Swedish cleric.
* Ghostface Killah – member of the Wu-Tang Clan.
* Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan – born Yvette Blanche Labrousse, Miss France 1930, wife of Aga Khan III.
* Yusef Lateef – American Jazz musician.
* Johann von Leers – advisor to Muhammad Naguib known for his anti-Semitic polemics.
* Gary Legenhausen – American philosopher and writer.
* Brandon Mayfield – American attorney-at-law, was erroneously linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
* MC Ren – American rapper and hip-hop producer.
* Ali Shaheed Muhammad – member of A Tribe Called Quest.
* Idris Muhammad – American jazz musician.
* John Allen Muhammad – convicted serial killer, known as the Beltway Sniper.
* Anthony Mundine – Australian Boxer.
* Abdul Alim Musa – Muslim activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, D.C.
* Susanne Osthoff – German archaeologist who had worked in Iraq since 1991 and had been taken captive there for three weeks.
* José Padilla – the respondent in Rumsfeld v. Padilla currently on trial as an alleged al-Qaida operative, converted while in prison for aggravated assault.
* Robin Padilla – Filipino actor.
* Sokollu Mehmet Pa?a – Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent.
* Christopher Paul (aka Paul Kenyatta Laws aka Abdulmalek Kenyatta) – American citizen, alleged member of al-Qaeda.
* Charles John Pelham (Abdul Mateen), 8th Earl of Yarborough.
* Q-Tip – North American hip-hop emcee, actor, and hip hop producer who was the leader of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest.
* Dwight Muhammad Qawi – former boxing world heavyweight champion.
* Jack Roche – convicted of involvement in an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra.
* Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – aka “Carlos the Jackal”, convicted murderer and terrorist, currently in prison in France.
* Ibrahim Savant – one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.[220]
* Frithjof Schuon – metaphysician, poet, painter, philosopher (in the original and Platonic sense of this term), and a leading figure of the perennialist school.
* Stephen Schwartz – American journalist, columnist, and author.
* Derrick Shareef- charged in a plot to set off four hand grenades in garbage cans December 22 at the CherryVale Mall in Rockford, Illinois during the Christmas rush.
* Sahib Shihab – jazz saxophonist and flautist.
* Divine Styler – American hip-hop musician.
* Nahshid Sulaiman – alternative hip hop artist.
* Apisai Tora – Fijian politician.
* Mike Tyson (Malik Abdul Aziz) – former heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Converted while in prison after being convicted of rape.[262][263]
* Abdul Waheed (Don Stewart-Whyte) – accused of participating in the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot.
* Jason Walters – of the Netherlands, member of the Hofstad Network, convicted on charges of terrorism.
* John Ward – (changed name to Yusuf Reis) British corsair and pirate.
* Rakan Ben Williams – suspected member of Al-Qaeda terrorist.
* Michael Wolfe – American poet, author, and the President and Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation.
* Michael X – civil rights activist in the United Kingdom and convicted murderer.
Forced conversions
Francis Bok a Sudanese ex-slave forced to convert to Islam
Francis Bok a Sudanese ex-slave forced to convert to Islam

* Anusim of Meshhad, Jewish community forced on pain of death to convert in 1839. Most continued Jewish practices in secret and many of their descendents returned to Judaism in the early 20th century.
* Francis Bok – Sudanese-American activist, from Christianity; later returned to his Christian faith.
* Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig – forced to convert at gunpoint by terrorists of the Holy Jihad Brigades.
* The Janissaries, originally children removed forcibly from their dhimmi parents under the devshirme system in the Ottoman Empire.
* Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin – 12th century Jewish philosopher, forcibly converted by Almohads, lived as crypto-Jew.
* The Nuba population of the town of Lobonok, Sudan, forced to convert by a goverment-backed Muslim militia in 1995. A number of locals were murdered by the militia for refusing to convert.
* Sabbatai Zevi – convert from Judaism, 17th century mystic, pseudo-Messiah and the self-proclaimed “King of Jews”. Converted ostensibly of his own free will as “Aziz Mehmed Effendi”, in September 15, 1666 while in prison. Although, some speculate that he may have been executed for treason had he not converted,[145] Muslim authorities were opposed to his death.[278] He lived his remaining ten years as a public Muslim favoured by the Sultan. Some of his Sabbatean followers became the Donmeh, who behave externally as Muslims.
* The Christians of Tunis, forced to convert en masse in 1159.

In Microsoft gets their way, we could be looking at a Windows Mobile-powered version of a Nokia N-Series smartphone some time soon. The software giant already has huge contracts with companies like HTC and Motorola, but they’d love to snatch up a huge partner like Nokia, which so happens to be the world’s largest phonemaker. Microsoft has already manage to coax Samsung — which mostly sticks with Symbian — to come over to the WinMo side. This is demonstrated in the T-Mobile Shadow. A similar argument can be made about Palm Treo devices, which are available in both Palm OS and Windows Mobile flavors. Motorola’s talks with Nokia are in their preliminary stages, and I imagine that if they were to come to an agreement, Nokia would still support Symbian. They’d just to do WinMo too. The team in Redmond, Washington is fully aware of Nokia’s ties with Symbian, but they “would love to see the day where those synergies would extend completely with Windows Mobile.” In all likelihood, a Windows-powered Nokia won’t hit the market until the release of WinMo 7 or 8.

Now that the Mobile World Congress is underway in Barcelona, the cell phone announcements are coming fast and furious. Nokia already unleashed a couple of N-series smartphones, but they’ve hit up the 6000 series as well, offering a candybar and a slider for the mid-range consumers. On the left is the Nokia 6220 Classic. As you can tell, it adopts that glossy piano black finish that seems to be all the rage with the Finnish phonemaker these days. In terms of features, the Nokia 6220 comes with quad-band GSM, dual-band HSDPA (900/2100), 2.2-inch QVGA display, 120MB internal memory, microSDHC expansion, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (including A2DP), 5 megapixel camera, and aGPS. Look for it in Q3 for about $475. On the right is the Nokia 6210 Navigator, a device that has been designed to replace the 6110 Navigator released last year. As its name implies, the flagship feature is the integrated AGPS with Maps 2.0 and built-in geotagging. Other features include quad-band GSM, dual-band HSDPA, Bluetooth, 3.2 megapixel cam, secondardy VGA cam, 120MB internal memory, and microSDHC expansion. This slider will go for $440.