Looks like Search Engines are the in thing these days. Earlier this week, Wolfram Alpha launched its computational search engine and today Microsoft is set to release its very own search engine codenamed Kumo. I don’t know how effective this is going to be, but the coming of these entrants in the search market have given something else to talk about other than Google. Google has continued its expansion in every direction and it appears it has everything in grasp from features to using its algorithm to assist its HR and the only wall it has to climb is real time search. We aren’t aware of what exactly is Kumo about as it remains clouded but lets hope against all hope that Microsoft’s Kumo might have any significant impact on the search market.
Topics: microsoft
Netflix has got itself a pretty nice deal with Microsoft and with that the streaming video service will now be available at Windows Media Centre. This would bring over 12,000 of it Netflix’s TV episodes and movies to the Media Centre. However, the bad part of the deal is that it would only be available to the users of Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate, meaning XP users will have no access to the service. It’s pretty obvious that Microsoft is definitely bent upon adding more content to its Media Centre to engage more users. Not bad, I guess this is something Microsoft should have begun doing a long time back plus there is one more thing it needs to do, try and offer its XP users more, instead of making many of its service a no-enter zone for anything less than Vista.
Microsoft is trying its best to make the Office 2010 a big one, given all the hype they have created. They have got the Office 2010: The Movie and recently announced releasing its product to thousands of beta testers in July. The technical preview will be rolled out to invited testers across the globe and will include the Office 2010 Client and Web Applications. There isn’t much mentioned about the features of the release but it does state the basic requirements. These requirements include:
After all the wait, Windows Mobile has finally released the official app for Facebook. Although there had been an app for the same purpose released in March but that was for test purposes alone (FriendMobilizer). The app would let users send messages to people on their list, share pictures and videos directly from your phone and letting you use Facebook on the move. Well that at least makes me feel my HTC Touch has something modern to offer, officially.
I was true when I said Windows Mobile wasn’t dead yet after the coming of Windows Mobile 6.5 but the mobile OS is bound to suffer a death blow with restrictions. Presently the Windows Marketplace has put out restrictions on developers and any app failing to meet those will not get an approval. A few of those restrictions include (you can read more here):
After Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter appeared to be more of a Google promoter, Microsoft has announced that it will be making the release candidate for Windows 7 OS this week. The RC will be made available on a much wider scale by 5 May, before that it will available for subscribers to the TechNet and MSDN networks. So far the Windows 7 has been receiving pretty positive reviews compared to the much badly reputed Vista. Well we will be seeing that as the RC comes out for a wider test.
Now why would Microsoft want to make Windows 7 appear worthless with limitations to run fewer apps at a time? I think it’s a pretty poor move, a windows based machine that won’t run too many of it’s own apps, why? The only point is to make it cheaper, sounds like making an iPhone copy that dos nothing but make phone calls. Perhaps the idea behind is that Microsoft wants the next generation of machines to be based on the cloud, yes the browser becomes your OS. But wait, isn’t Microsoft playing a second fiddle in that market, where Google is by far the best provider of browser based applications?
At last, after almost every other web based email service had integrated IM integrated to their email service, Microsoft does the same. Today Microsoft announced the integration of Windows Live Messenger with Windows Live Hotmail. While many of its competitors including Yahoo and Google had done so a very long time, the move is definitely worth welcoming (sounds pretty much like traditional Microsoft). This comes after a few upgrades and hiccups that Windows Live Hotmail had been going through over the recent past.
