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Microsoft's Search Engine Way Behind Google? Must be the Name!

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 8, 2009 at 9:41 am

Kumo LogoThe Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield has a story up in which Microsoft’s Yusef Mehdi says that blind taste tests the company conducts show that consumers find the results from its Live Search search engine to be indistinguishable from Google results. But when Microsoft slaps the Google logo on Live Search results–in a sort of reversal of its Mojave Project prank–consumers like them better than when they know they’re from Microsoft.

Could be–although I use Live Search enough to know that I don’t find its results indistinguishable from Google’s, or as good. It’s unfair to judge a search engine based on one result, but here’s one that matters to me: If you google search Live Search for “technologizer”, its first result is our terms of service, and the Technologizer home page isn’t even on the first page of links. Every other major search engine manages to figure out that the single best result for “technologizer” is unquestionably www.technologizer.com.

That’s kind of emblematic of my experiences with Live Search, and it’s part of why I don’t go out of my way to use it. And that’s the challenge for Microsoft or any other company that wants to take on Google in search: They have to figure out how to convince consumers to go out of their way to use them.

Microsoft has a long history of changing the names of underperforming products (and sometimes of products that are doing just fine). I can’t remember an instance of the change being a clear improvement, and changing the names of things never makes them better. But in this case, a switch might be in order: Microsoft’s whole “Live” branding initiative has little traction, and it’s just confusing. The Journal’s story says that Microsoft plans to spend a lot of money promoting its search engine in the future, but has no revelations about a name switch to Kumo or Bing or anything else.

But even though either name might be an improvement on Live Search, I already have visions of consumers liking Kumo or Bing search results better when Microsoft tells them that the results are from Google…

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So Much for Cheaper Music on Amazon

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 8, 2009 at 9:19 am

Well, it didn’t take very long for the other music stores to follow suit after iTunes’ price hike Tuesday. By late evening, both Amazon and Wal-Mart had simarily raised prices on some of their top tracks by 30 cents. Both had priced their tracks at 99 and 94 cents respectively.

Like iTunes, both stores have cheaper tracks too: Amazon will have tracks for 79 and 89 cents, and Wal-Mart will have selected tracks at a price of 64 cents. In either case, though, the number of more expensive tracks in the top 100 are much less than iTunes.

For Amazon, that number is only eight, and Wal-Mart has 17.

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Is Apple's 17-Inch MacBook Pro Expensive? Round 2: The Competition Goes Consumer

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 7, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Is the MacBook Pro Expensive? Round 2Last week, I tried to conduct an objective price comparison of 17-inch Apple’s MacBook Pro and similarly-equipped Windows laptops. After I did, my friend Steve Wildstrom of BusinessWeek pointed out one basic problem with such comparisons: They’re impossible. By which he meant that there’s no way to do one that’ll strike everybody as sensible and fair. No matter how hard you try, you can’t configure a Windows PC to precisely match a Mac’s hardware. No two people will ever agree on the relative worth of the multitude of features you examine. Hardware comparisons like the ones I do intentionally ignore the enormously important question of the relative quality of Windows and OS X. Some folks will even contend that any analysis of PCs-vs.-Macs is incomplete without discussion of resale value.

In last week’s story, I came to the conclusion that the MacBook Pro’s pricing wasn’t out of whack with its Windows-based rivals–if there was a “Mac Tax,” it was matched by some of the other machines I looked at. Judging from the almost 200 comments on my story to date, a lot of Windows users thought I was unfair to Windows, and a lot of Mac types thought I gave the Mac short shrift. I choose to take discontent from both camps as a sign that I did a decent job overall. But I wanted to come back and address one gripe that came up repeatedly–that I compared the MacBook Pro against high-end, workstation-class laptops.

I don’t think I made a mistake by doing that. The MacBook Pro is Apple’s highest-end notebook, with specs that were similar in most respects to the Windows systems I compared it to. (And when the Windows machines outclassed it–as some did with graphics, for instance–I noted so.) Several commenters contend that the MacBook Pro is a consumer notebook, but that’s not really right: It’s Apple’s only 17-inch notebook. If you’re a business customer and want a 17-inch Mac notebook, it’s the one you’ll buy.

But the fact remains that most other computer companies divide their product lines into business and consumer lines in a way that Apple doesn’t, and that the consumer systems tend to be cheaper than the top-of-the-line corporate models. So here I am comparing the 17-inch MacBook Pro again–this time against consumer-class models. This isn’t a replacement for my earlier comparison, but a complementary piece. I’m guessing I’ll fail to make everyone happy this time, too, but Lord knows I’m trying…

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Kindle Voice Function Adds Accessiblity

Posted by David Worthington on April 7, 2009 at 9:18 pm

Kindle 2The fracas between the Authors’s Guild and Amazon over the Kindle 2 e-book reader’s text-to-speech feature has prompted advocates for the blind and reading-disabled to remind the guild that blind people use technology too.

In a protest outside of the guild’s Manhattan office today, demonstrators urged the guild to cease its campaign to remove text-to-speech from the Kindle. The guild maintains that it goes beyond the publishing rights that Amazon has acquired, and could impact audio book sales.

Amazon has yielded to the guild’s demands, and is permitting the feature to be turned off on a per-title basis. To its credit, the guild has worked out an agreement for the voice feature to always be an option for people with disabilities.

“Authors want everyone to read their books. We’ve been strongly supportive of the rights of the blind and disabled to obtain books…We know how to balance the interests, to make sure there is special access to books for people who need it but still protect markets that authors depend on. Audio-books is one of those markets,” Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, told News.com.

My feeling is that text-to-speech should be broadly available as part of an accessibility pack. While I take Mr. Aiken at his word, today’s protest served to remind the guild that it has an obligation to the blind that transcends its sales and the exercise of its intellectual property rights.

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Twitter Will Be Down a Lot More, Count On It.

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 7, 2009 at 8:27 pm

failwhale_smUs twitterers are used to seeing Mr. Failwhale. We’ll be getting accustomed to seeing him a lot more if the traffic statistics released by comScore late Tuesday are any indication. Traffic to the microblogging site has nearly doubled in just the past 60 days.

Worldwide, nearly 10 million unique visitors came to Twitter during the month of February, up from around 5 million in December 2008. Year over year, the service has registered a 700 percent increase in traffic, says comScore.

Some may think our youth are driving this growth as they seem to be the most apt to employ social networking tools. That is not true, says the firm. The majority of the growth in Twitter is being driven by the 25-54 age group, with the 45-54 segment the most likely to be visiting the site.

That may seem odd to many, but consider the rapid growth in twittering by professionals. It’s a pretty safe bet that most of these folks are above the age of 25, and many will likely be quite a bit beyond that.

comScore doesn’t have data ready for March yet, but it says it appears to be another “huge” month for Twitter.

Either way, the increased strain of more tweets is likely going to bring the failwhale around much more often. While the site has made some effort to improve capacity and its code, its no escaping the system was not built for the way users employ it (the company itself has admitted that fact).

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Iraq War Video Game: Appropriate?

Posted by Jared Newman on April 7, 2009 at 12:33 pm

fallujahQuick, think of a knee-jerk reaction: A game based on the war in Iraq, insightful culture or crass cash-in?

Okay, now let’s think about it a little bit.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Konami is preparing a video game based on the Iraq conflict, called Six Days in Fallujah, but it wasn’t the publisher’s idea. The concept comes from a group of U.S. Marines who survived the Second Battle of Fallujah, which occurred in 2004 and left 38 troopers and an estimated 1,200 insurgents dead. Raleigh, N.C.-based Atomic Games, a company with experience designing combat software for the military, will design the game.

The marines want their story to be told through video games, and that goes a long way towards legitimizing the game in my book. One marine named Mike Ergo tells the Times that video games “communicate the intensity and gravity of war” to people — young ones, likely — who aren’t learning about it on TV or in the classroom, and aren’t as tuned in to books. (Ergo says we live in an age where the imagination isn’t what it was.) Video games it is, then.

But does that mean games are the best medium for Six Days in Fallujah? Put aside the idea that video games are more of an entertainment platform than film and books, because that’s debatable; even watching Saving Private Ryan is entertainment on some level, an escape into another world. I’d also like to ignore the knee-jerk detractors, such as the veterans calling for a ban on the game because that’s just ridiculous.

The real issue that Atomic Games will face deals with the very nature of what games are. Like binary code, video games do not play well with gray area, and that’s where so much of real drama lies. Bioshock, hailed as a pillar of artistic game design, places its moral stock in a simple decision with clear-cut ramifications — kill the Little Sisters and steal their powers, or save them for a delayed reward. Mass Effect transforms your character into a Paragon or Renegade based on your actions, but there are no facets to the character’s personality. For game designers, moving beyond “good and bad” hasn’t been easy.

So Atomic Games has the unenviable challenge of portraying the gray areas of war. I hope they pull it off, but I won’t rush to judgment.

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Segway, GM Team on "PUMA"

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 7, 2009 at 12:11 pm

Most of us will remember the incredible buzz surrounding the launch of the original Segway. Well the company is at it again, this time teaming with struggling automaker GM on a two-person seated device being dubbed “Project PUMA.”

puma-sketch

While its not the way out of bankruptcy for GM, it certainly shows that the company is continuing to look for innovative ways to advance its business. Teaming with Segway is obviously one way that can be done.

The device is much faster than the Segway HT’s, allowing for a top speed of 25 to 35 mph over a range of up to 35 miles. It is maneuverable in much the same way the HT was, through dynamic stabilization, and produces zero emissions as it runs completely off of an on-board lithium-ion battery.

On-board controls would provide information on speed, battery charge, traffic and other information, which would be detachable in the form of a PDA for off-vehicle use.

In a Jetsons-like move, GM and Segway will also test vehicle-to-vehicle communications and sensors to detect objects and obstacles, allowing for automated driving while the driver can perform other tasks. This would also make it impossible to crash.

While some may ask what GM is doing risking itself on an unproven market, executives told USA Today that the partnership predated the bailouts by about a year and a half.

Still, you can’t fault the company for at least attempting to innovate. No pricing was immediately announced. GM said it hopes to start production on the PUMA in 2012. Tests of the device would first take place in New York City, the two companies said.

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Gmail for iPhone and Android Gets Slicker, Adds Offline Capabilities

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 7, 2009 at 11:59 am

Gmail for iPhoneGoogle’s browser-based version of Gmail for the iPhone is pretty darn impressive–good enough, in fact, that I’ve been using it as my primary iPhone email program instead of Apple’s Mail app. But Google is rolling out a new Gmail for iPhones, iPods Touch, and Android phones today that looks like a significant leap forward. It’s got some basic offline features (you can read recent messages and compose new ones even when you’re disconnected) and it’s got some new interface niceties (you don’t need to scroll around as much to get to tools such as the search bar). And Google says it’s a lot faster.

Back when the iPhone was young(er), Steve Jobs briefly tried to convince the world that it didn’t need native apps, because sophisticated Web apps would do everything you needed. He turned out to be wrong, which okay, since Apple announced the iPhone SDK within months. But I still think that Web-based iPhone apps have tons of potential, and I’m glad to see companies like Google explore it.

The Gmail and Android versions of Google Calendar–which are nowhere near as sophisticated as Gmail–also got some new features today.

More thoughts once I’ve had a chance to spend time with the new Gmail; for now, here’s a video walkthrough from Google:

[UPDATE: I’ve been playing with the new verson, and it’s terrific–really polished and well done. I just wish that there was a way to cache larger quantities of old e-mail for offline use, as you can with desktop Gmail.]

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Coming This Summer: iPhone Video Capture?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 7, 2009 at 11:23 am

Apple may have said that its iPhone 3.0 software includes more than a hundred news features at its press event last month, but it didn’t say anything about letting its phones capture video. But MacRumors has published an image of what it says is an iPhone 3.0 beta camera application that can capture both still images and video. The alleged spy shot comes on the heels of a bunch of rumors relating to new iPhones with better, higher-megapixel cameras being in the works.

I’m not going to accept anything about next-generation iPhones as gospel until an Apple exec strides on stage and announces it, but video certainly falls into the “that sounds logical” rumor bucket. My big question, however, is this: Will Apple unlock video capability in existing iPhones, or just in ones with snazzier cameras? Companies such as Qik have proved that there are no technical limitations that prevent iPhones from capturing video (albeit choppy, fuzzy video)…

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