Archive | May, 2009

Meet Bing

Meet Bing


It’s got $80 million dollars of marketing behind and even Steve Wozniak is impressed!

But don’t expect this to be the great ‘Google killer’ that everyone expected after Ballmer allegedly said he’d fu** Google!

Microsoft is attempting to “break down the way we view generic search” which probably means they’d like us to start searching rather than ‘Googling’ information!

Bing works by organising your search results into categories. For example, when you search for “MP’s expenses” and you get…a proxy error! Ok, there seem to be a few problems - not sure if they’re are from my ISP or Bing! What you should see if the information listed in categories on the left hand side of the returned results i.e Images (an MP eating a huge steak lunch, fully expensed of course), Facts (allegedly, most MP’s are in some or another dodgey), Videos (MP’s paying off ladies of the night and claiming on expenses)…you get the idea!

The technology behind Bing isn’t new; the so called vertical search tools have been around for a while now with one of the most notable implementations being Newssift.

So is this really going to “fu** Google”? Not likely. The layout is nice but the whole search engine jousting arena is about relevancy and right now it’s pretty hard to beat Google.

Before I go, even Steve Wozniak is impressed: “I don’t normally come to these business presentations and all that, but I thought it was one of the most astounding software demos I’ve ever seen,” Wozniak said. “It was so well thought out, the algorithms, the intelligence of it, really impressed me.” Wozniak assumes the role of Microsofts Director of Marketing position next Monday….(I am joking, so put your C&D’s away).

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Will Android make netbooks even cheaper?

Will Android make netbooks even cheaper?


How low can they go?

It wasn’t that many years ago that many industry ‘oracles’ were predicting that netbooks would never make the leap from nerdy gadget to mainstream mobile computing. Right now, I’m guessing some of those so called thought leaders are kicking themselves for not buying shares in Asus!! I must admit that, looking back, the idea of users lining up to buy an underpowered laptop with a tiny screen and barely any memory seems a bit ridiculous but what did Comrade Bill say about OSes and memory? But times have changed; aided by the likes of Intel’s Atom processor the whole netbook thing has successfully jumped the evolutionary barrier from single celled techie curiosity to offerings that compare to some of their more advanced cousins - take the inclusion of Nvidia’s Ion chip in a recent nettop demo. Read the full story

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