Microsoft Introduces Competition For Google News

Romeo E. Cabrera writes "In advance of an imminent launch of its own search engine, Microsoft has launched its own version of the popular Google News service. Based initially on feeds from the Moreover news aggregation service, the new beta service (known as MSN Newsbot) aims to provide news on a range of subjects including World, Sports, Entertainment, Science and Technology."

Comments

Paranoid? Maybe not..

[grub]

TinFoilHat time:
I imagine any news that is negative to MS' bottom line will be relegated to the back of the bus, much like Linux search results in MSN's search. Thanks, but I'll use a news engine from a company with in interest in cool tech, not spinning the news to appease stockholders.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[ironfrost]

It looks like you might have a point - at the moment, the second and third highest ranked articles are about Microsoft themselves.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[TopShelf]

Well, give them a bit of credit. The most prominent story in the Tech department is Sun's plan to partner with AMD and offer Wintel alternatives...

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Popadopolis]

If the only thing they did do was shell out Microsoft propeganda, the project would crash and burn.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[romcabrera]

Well, remember it's the BETA version. Seems like Bill should point this bug to his guys in Redmond =) !!

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as totally impartial news.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine any news that is negative to MS' bottom line will be ...

You mean, news about ... *snort* Linux? Becasue we all know that Linux is such *chuckle* a threat to Microsoft! They'd better bury any stories *giglle* about open source, because it's going to drag their profit margin down by, oh say, .0000000000001%! *lol nilk up my nose!* Because hippie bullshit has such a place in the business world, Microsoft ... sorry, Micro$oft *lol rotfl*has to worry about it sooo much they're going to hide it from thier customers!

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[mcpkaaos]

much like Linux search results in MSN's search

Didn't we just dispel that myth about a week ago, when showing that beyond MSN's initial page(s) of sponsored links, Linux search results thrived in massive numbers? A search for "linux" on MSN returns 440 sponsored links, most of which are legitimate linux sites. Going beyond that list yields over 15 million additional results. I know that doesn't compare to Google, but that's like apples to oranges. Google is a far superior search engine/service by its own merit. Linux.org is #4 on the first page of results, by the way (even though it is beneath that site about migrating away from linux over to Microsoft, lol).

I know that we can't expect Microsoft to roll out the red carpet for negative news about themselves too often, or even positive news for alternative products, but can we please stop with the paranoia? I think they've demonstrated that while they are in fact petty, they aren't quite that petty.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[u-235-sentinel]

Aside from Windows and MS Office, this is simply another hole for Microsoft to pour money into. No other products/services are making money for the company. Everything else is running in the red.

Like you said. Why use a search engine that is spinned to Microsoft affiliates? People want the best solution for the job especially these days. Not whatever comes out of Redmond.

Slowly it's happening... we're becoming liberated from the collective.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you look at the bigger picture, you'd see it for what it is: self promotion. It gives the visitor the impression that the opening of the site is bigger news if you can link to external sources that are also reporting it. I doubt very highly that those articles will last for long at the top of the list.

It's similar to just about any grand opening for brick and mortar businesses. Throw a party, invite a ton of flashy people along with some media, milk the self promotion to get a good kickstart in the marketplace.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Horny Smurf]

MSNBC isn't biased (at least not biased for Microsoft). What's slashdot's excuse?

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[fafaforza]

It is interesting that the newsbot looks so much like Google's news page that it even sports the "(beta)" disclaimer.

Has miscrosoft ever released public products or services that were labeled beta? From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[kiwimate]

Gosh...you don't think that might be because they've only just opened it up and so the vast majority of the site's users up until now would have been internal Microsoft people?

As I look now, a few minutes after the /. story appeared, that's already changing. Number 1 is about Microsoft, and number 2 is about a murder suspect in the UK.

How's this for a test? Everyone on /., go and visit the Tech News Site and click on the Red Hat subscriptions surge article and see how quickly it moves up.

Or, even better, come back to the site after a couple of days and see how it's changed. Then, reevaluate on the basis of some actually vaguely accurate data! Going against the whole rationale of /., I know, but you never know, it might work.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[LineNoiz]

No other products/services are making money for the company. Everything else is running in the red.

I call bullshit. Post a link to sombody credible saying this, smart guy. And I don't mean "Oh, MSN is in the red." I want to see something that says ALL MS products/services are in the red. Otherwise stop spreading FUD.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is my turn to reply to the retards.

Maybe it was a reference to security flaws, monopoly abuses, etc.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[HiThere]

Didn't we just dispel that myth about a week ago, when showing that beyond MSN's initial page(s) of sponsored links,...

No. We showed that it *DID* push Linux links back. Not to the end, but only a page, still, they were, indeed, pushed back. And that makes the entire system more clumsy to use, less useful, and a waste of time.

If I'm searching for Peanut Creme Torte receipes, then I don't want the first results to be ads for the Peanut Research Council and Tort lawyers. That I can step back a page and find the results that I want.... I'd do it if there was no choice, but not because I wanted to. So I'll take Google, or Alta-Vista, or any of several choices before I choose THAT one.

Still, it's nice to know that *currently* if you just step back one page you can actually force good data out of them. But do note the *currently*. Once they get their search engine built into their web browser, and distributed automatically with their OS, then expect them to abuse it the way they abuse their advantage in other areas. So I'll just say no thanks.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[theCoder]

So, what, the front page of MSN news is going to be sponsored stories that don't identify themselves as such (like the sponsored links on the MSN search page)? Is that really any better?

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a time not to long ago where a news reporter would lose her job for giving her opinions, and polictical bias was heavily discouraged. Now trash talk is now common and I can't find anybody who appreciates it.

Ranting: We pay little over a grand a year for cable service (tv type only) for 15 minutes of simpsons and 15 minutes of commercials. The cable is being snipped next month and we'll wait for a better service.

--7054th against the wall when the revolution comes--

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Theatetus]

Slate and MSNBC haven't been particularly pro-Microsoft (other than the generic pro-corporate bias all mainstream media have). I don't see this is a huge worry, personally.

Compare MSNBC's reporting on Microsoft with ABC's (explicit and candidly admitted) refusal to report anything bad about Disney, or indeed to do much of anything except hype Disney-owned "artists" like Britney Spears. That's a much bigger worry to me.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[u-235-sentinel]

Normally I don't respond back to trolls but...

Apparently you haven't spent much time reading this sort of stuff before my post. I'm not particularly inclined to help you find the reports due to lack of interest. Read the SEC filings if you care to look them up.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[marauder404]

Did you even try running a search? Their site tends to return Sponsored Sites, Featured Sites, and then whole sites dedicated to your query. Only then are individual pages listed. The difference is sites vs. pages. The second page of results are not second-tier, but just individual pages. The intent is obvious: ads to pay for the site, then whole websites dedicated to your query, and then individual pages. For very generic queries like Linux, it's probably better to find a whole site that's a Linux authority rather than an individual page that talks about Linux a lot. You might not like the system, and that's fine, but to say that it's skewing results to favor a competitive business agenda is completely different.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[TykeClone]

Has miscrosoft ever released public products or services that were labeled beta? From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around.

Other than most x.0 releases?

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[1010011010]

Click on this (Redhat article):
http://g.msn.com/0PNENGB/1?http://c.moreover.com/c lick/here.pl?z103279857&z=237487

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Dorothy 86]

At the risk of being troll or falimbait; Microsoft is pissing me off. Every day I come to /. and I see some new story about how Microsoft is ripping ideas off of everyone else. Their MSN music service coming out, this news thing, their "matrix" shot at linux, its just rediculous. Perhaps if MS would come up with some actual innovation, other than new marketing techniques, they could actually have a good product. They have a good start, and given a little time with some good programmers, it could be a "secure" (as secure as anything really can be anyways) solution to many people's computer problems. As it is, more often than not it only compounds those problems. I lost faith in the "American System" long ago, and MS is only making cynics of more and more people. Why is it, that a company with as much power as they have (reguardless of whether or not you want to admit it) does all it can to belch out mediocre software? It takes money to make money, they say; and appearantly that money only spawns the want of more money. Call me prude, old-fasioned, whaever, but a company such as microsoft, with such a huge impact on the lives of many people, should at least try to put out something that is useful, and not allready available.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Spl0it]

Too the contrary they've demonstrated countless times they can and will 'stoop to a lower level'. One words comes to mind, Security Releases, Admission of holes and their nice times about when patches are fixed.

Example:
Some guy publishes problem with IE in say January, in September 10th it makes it in the news, and Microsoft aknowledges a problem. On the 11th in late afternoon Microsoft release a patch, then a press releasing showing it took them just over 24hours to release a working patch for a problem discovered on the 10th of September. (this is relative to their new FUD campaing against Linux) This is not a troll, just a valid account of things that have happened and continue to happen with Microsoft.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Microsoft news...

The news source you anti-trust.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

If that time ever existed it was a very short time. Newspapers throughout history have always been very biased. They used to be the only way to communicate to the public before radio, tv, and the internet and every party had their rag that they would put their propoganda in.

I would also note that adding opinions is not the only way to show bias. Leaving details out can be just as easy a way to manipulate the news.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one huge difference between the MSNBC TV channel and the /. website.

The content on MSNBC is not generated by the viewers, but by the producers, journalists, and 'anchorpersons' on the payroll of MSNBC. Being a mass media outlet, they are presumed to at least try to appear objective (yes I'm being naive here).

The content on /. is generated by the viewers that visit the website who have no work contracts, get no paychecks, who do not have journalistic or other reporting background, who did not commit to anything, and who are not implicitly or explicitly trying to pose as a deliverer of news.

Actually, the /. visiters are explicitly voicing their personal opinions about news.

So, the /. 'excuse' is that most of its viewers are personally biased against Microsoft, and as people, they have the full right to be have such a bias.

Now, that is for the postings. About the /. editors, that decide which stories get accepted for the front page, and that judge if those stories are worded fairly on the 'news for nerds, stuff that matters' website... that is a whole different story, about which I'm sure the of /. visitors have very varying opinions. Which they are free to post on /....

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

After spending 10 seconds on the web to confirm/deny the assertion.. here is what was found.

Read one such article on the web

Here is another

And another
Form 10Q filing for Microsoft

And another
How about an old slashdot story

Not bad for 10 seconds work. Now let's see how well you fair. Find four more links and post them here :-)

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Hypocritical Guy]

MSN Newsbot? More like MSN Suckbot.

They copied Google (right down to calling it "beta"), but they didn't even copy the one thing that makes Google News so great -- a simple, clean, light interface that loads instantly.

How long before they start throwing banner ads and other garbage all over it?

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Xformer]

In the eyes of their PR department, at least.

To everyone with a clue, it was more like "let's release this as a beta, but not tell anyone".

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a troll, just an incoherent rant about something that has nothing to do with search engines. Good going.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[eaolson]

Now, this analysis may not be fair, because this is a new service and so may not have as much historical information as Google, but:

• "microsoft monopoly"
• • Google: 572 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 142 hits
• "microsoft anti-trust"
• • Google: 1600 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 50 hits
• "matrix" (for something not Microsoft related)
• • Google: 3910 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 999 hits [*]
• "putnam scandal" (again, for something not Microsoft or tech related)
• • Google: 2000 hits
  • MSN Newsbot: 678 hits [*]

[*] The Newsbot hit-counter seems to pin at 999, so this may just reflect "some number greater than 1000."

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[BlowChunx]

IBM once held a monopoly. Then Microsoft got 'em.

Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them. My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne? That my friend is the American way.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Zeinfeld]

At the risk of being troll or falimbait; Microsoft is pissing me off. Every day I come to /. and I see some new story about how Microsoft is ripping ideas off of everyone else.

Yes I agree, people should use Linux because it is the only operating syste that is entirely novel in every aspect of its design.

The vile accusations that Linux is somehow a 'copy' of the UNIX operating system or that it in some way borrows from the design of 'Minix' by Tannenbaum are completely unfounded.

Linux was in fact developed minus a decade before these earlier systems.

Linux has been highly innovative introducing the world to log based file systems minus a decade after their introduction in VMS.

Google's concept of a Web search engine is also highly innovative, appearing minus seven years after WebCrawler.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure.. +1 flamebait. Go ahead and burn me. I have Karma to burn baby.

Looks like a few links have been submitted. Guess the +1 was not deserved after all. But I don't give a shit. Microsoft is a lost cause. They just don't know it yet.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RALE007]

IBM once held a monopoly. Then Microsoft got 'em.

Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them. My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne? That my friend is the American way.

What's interesting is IBM lost its PC monopoly because of the openness of the hardware. I think it would be rather ironic if MS loses their monopoly because the, albeit different, open architecture of OSS.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Dorothy 86]

That, however, isn't what I'm saying. Basically, its this: Microsoft has a product which, albeit "good enough" it could be much better. And seeing the amount of the market share, I would like to see augmentations to their existing software, instead of making new software to get more money. I know its wishful thinking, and a bit naive, but that should be the way it works.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

There is no such thing as an American system. You either have capitalism or you don't. Capitalists, needless to say, don't hold allegiance to countries (in fact, they are the first ones to sell out their countries and move to tax sheltered countries like Bahamas or Monaco :| ). Yes, people have the habit of blaming a country. Under capitalism, the corporations are free to move around and do whatever they want. Microsoft, or for that matter any other company, can move to China tomorrow. Besides, the ownership of the company may be foreigners. Many large corporations are inter-listed on other stock exchanges and many foreigners own them.

Anyway, MS DOES innovate. They DO take ideas from others but they make a better product out of it. Why is MS Office so popular? Wordperfect and Lotus had a headstart but couldn't keep up. How come SQL Server is eating up marketshare? It came out of nowhere. Watch X-Box capture market share (I think Nintendo won't release a next version and Sony may have problems). If MS sucks at innovation, why is Visual Studio offer more features and capabilities than any of its competition?

Look at the Linux world. Most of the open-source software(OSS) are clones of existing stuff. The vast majority of OSS software copy Unix or Windows. Why is KDE/X (or Gnome for the rest of you ;) ) lagging Windows? For example, Longhorn (next version is windows) is supposed to use 3D card capabilities (at least that's the "rumour"). I don'tsee KDE doing anything like that in its future version. Why is OpenOffice.org (OOo) lagging everything? Right now,OOo is just copying MS Office and isn't really doing anything innovative or new.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Can you be so sure? How many people lap up government and corporate propaganda? How many people worship politicians and their government? How many people worship CEOs? How come everyone uses Internet Explorer even though Mozilla or other 3rd party ones are arguably better?

If a company knows what it is doing (ie. it is an expert when it comes to propaganda and disinformation), most people will fall for it. The only ones that won't are conspiracy theorists, sceptics, and experts within that field. For instance, most people following econopolitics knows that the US invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, or even freedom. Yet the vast majority of the population (at least in USA) doesn't know it. Similarly, the vast majority of people on Slashdot know that certain computer products suck, yet the mainstream population purchases these products.

Never underestimate the power of propaganda (and disinformation). Remember, no one (that knows what they are doing) ever passes off a lie as the truth. Instead, they are likely to pass off HALF-TRUTHS (aka half-lies) as the truth. Most people will believe the half-truths unless they are experts in that field. For example, governments always say they created x number of jobs, which is true. However, they rarely mention the number layed off or the number entering the workforce. Only those that follow the government or have knowledge about labour will notice the different...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[DotNetGuru]

It seems like that was a good part of your message:

At the risk of being troll or falimbait; Microsoft is pissing me off. Every day I come to /. and I see some new story about how Microsoft is ripping ideas off of everyone else. Their MSN music service coming out, this news thing, their "matrix" shot at linux, its just rediculous. Perhaps if MS would come up with some actual innovation, other than new marketing techniques, they could actually have a good product.

That being said, I'll get responding to the point you say you were trying to make, and this post. As you said yourself, they "have a good start". But you seem to be under the impression that Microsoft's software is stagnant and that it's not improving.

The only issue you call out specifically is security. Microsoft HAS improved on that (compare Server2k3 w/ Server2k exploit rates, for example) and is still doing more. Security asise if you just look at what Microsoft has done over time (95->98->XP) there have been significant improvements in both UI (The original 95's UI sucks ass out of the box) and stability (the former traditional Microsoft sucks rallying point; these days it's security). I also find it extremely interesting that typically there is "one big thing" Microsoft gets slammed for at a time. And I say if your detractors can only find one major (where major=encompassing design flaws) bad thing about your products you're doing pretty good.

You also say you "would like to see augmentations to their existing software, instead of making new software to get more money." I just don't understand what the difference is. Microsoft adds new stuff to their software to sell more copies. If they don't then people won't upgrade. There's still a large amount of people using Win 98 (~30% I belive last time I looked at Google's stats, and it was about equal to XP). Apparently XP wasn't compelling enough for them to upgrade. So they're continuing to add new stuff. But it's not like during this time period Microsoft doesn't refine their existing products. Win98 is still supported today and gets patches. What other desktop operating systems still support the version released in 98? I don't think it's Apple, and I don't think it's any of the Linux vendors, and I know it's not Be.

So can MS's software improve? Sure, and I think they wouldn't disagree. But is it really just "good enough"? There are markets (IBM seems to think information worker is one of them) where Microsoft rules. Really no one can touch them: not Linux, not MacOS w/ a non-MS office suite. And while some of that may be interoperability, a lot of it is the staggering amount of functionality that Office brings to the table. Even slashdoters will quote areas where there's no compelling alternative. So I'm not so sure it's mediocre. But like everything it can certainly improve, after all, nothing is perfect.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[kindofblue]

I don't think it was openness alone, but that they gave Microsoft exclusive rights to DOS for the clones. Then all the clones ran with the same MS-DOS, which was nearly identical to IBM's PC-DOS variant. So Microsoft got the software profits on the clones. It was a very, very smart move. I don't think that many big companies would have anticipated the consequences, given that Microsoft was a tiny company selling Basic.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[HiThere]

True. They probably aren't *currently* skewing results to favor a competitive business agenda . But their standard approach is to start out with something decent, build it into something good. And then use it to abuse or mislead the users, preferably without their noticing it. I'd rather just skip that whole operation.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sanga]

How about this http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?b103013988

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sanga]

Sorry ... how about this

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RogerWilco]

I'll bite.
The key to Microsoft's succes has been in my view their leveraging of their OS monopoly, and their unfair business practices.
I'll give you a few examples.

Stacker:
MS worked with them for a while to include the tech into DOS.
Then this cooperation stopped and DOS was equipped with doublespace.
Eventually Stacker won this case and was awarded 165 Million IIRC.

Wordperfect:
Microsoft used the introduction of Windows 3 to push Word. When Windows 3 came out WP had no version for it. I don't know if this was part WP's own stupidity or they were kept in the dark by MS.

Netscape:
Bundling the browser with the Os, just because it's unseparately. I beleive they have been found guilty on misusing their monopoly in this case.

Borland C++ Builder/Delphi.
Visual Studio.Net looks more like these products as it looks like VS 6. The only problem Borland always had is that is was lagging behind, because it could never have a new version out together with the introduction of a new Windows version. Again just like WP probably kept in the dark for as long as possible giving the competing MS product a head start of about a year.

Playstation/GameCube
MS is now at a point where they can just keep throwing money at until the opposition goes broke. They could give Xbox away for free, they just don't do that because then a lot of buyers would be outside the intended audience.

These are just a few I get excited about, mainly because I still think WordPerfect and Borland C++Builder superior producs, I have legal copies of those. For developing VS.Net 2003 is finally gettting interesting too. Of OO I only use Calc because Quatro Pro is worse, but because it's an MS-Office clone it's to clumsy and simple for my wordprocessing taste. I might some day buy MS-Office for Excel.
Oh and I'm typing this in Firebird.

Just my 2 euro-cents,

Adriaan

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you need 3D card capatibilities in KDE? Its suppose to be a Desktop enviorment. It isn't a game, and I see how it would do any good. Also, what specific claims do you have against Open Office?

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[pondering llama]

"Right now,OOo is just copying MS Office and isn't really doing anything innovative or new."

whaaaaat? Have you actually bothered to take a little look at Open Office? Your comment would definately suggest not! Yes, there are similarities, and the most prominent reason would simply be that there will be no user acceptance of an office suite that totally breaks the mold: Joesephine Secretary has been using M$ Word & Excel for ages, and she's not going to even bother if she can't use the interface like she's used to. And, let's face it, the M$ Office interfaces are rather well laid out, which almost makes up for the price tag (more than a month's salary for an average person here (south africa) to buy the full version of Office from a regular retailer), the annoying assistant (which, strangely enough, i have heard of some people getting quite upset about *missing* after techies disabled on install out of kindness!) and morphing document standards. Well, maybe not ;p

The point is also that OOo is *younger* than M$ office and is trying to break into the userspace occupied by junkies addicted to expensive software. Also, i don't see useful integrations like pdf output support in M$ Office (yes, i know you can get printer drivers that do this for you, but this is Joesphine User: she's not going to be able to get that without some hand-holding).

OOo is set to take the office arena by even more storm than it generates now. I take my virtual hat off to OOo developers. You are doing an excellent job, and the jump from 1.0.3 to 1.1 was a phenominal leap in performance and functionality that i have not seen in version jumps from M$ Office: i see only a bright future.

Why is M$ Office "so popular" you ask? Simple: People were using it long ago, and became locked into document standards. For the same reasons that the company i work at is now locked into Corel products, except that people do innovate readers for M$ documents, and then M$ just changes the format completely, and even their old products can't cope with the new formats (there's not even a plugin or anything! how rude!), so people shell out again and buy the next version with all it's new bugs and security holes, and the stats report a happy M$ Office mass.

Yes, MSSQL is good. But far too expensive, and the only thing stopping PostgreSQL from taking the world by complete storm is, imho, win32 support, which is coming. Excel provides a lot of functionality yet to be supported in other spreadsheet programs (Especially with macro scripting: in particular, i now have to install M$ Office on a spare box so i can rip the IP out of a spreadsheet's internal code for a client who wants something a bit more solid to sell), but i can see that's not far off: Gnumeric and OOo are doing fairly good jobs now, and the road only l eads upward.

I've heard this "no one innovates like M$" bull for far too long. For a company that has billions of dollars, thousands of developers and many many years in the industry, i would hope that they manage to steal^H^H^H^H^Hinnovate ideas properly by now. And for every success, there are a lot of dropouts (need i mention Bob?) -- Microsoft has the resources to fund, launch, and quickly sweep under the carpet their many failures. They take more shots: of course they get a few. But if you have a close look at a lot of M$ stuff, it's not all that "innovative" -- it's just the first time that it's aggressively marketed to Joe Public, who runs Win32 because that's how his machine was sold to him.

Hardware accelleration in a wm/gui? wait for e17, my friend: it will most likely only be ready at about the same time as longhorn tho ):

The entire point i think is that i see a lot of innovation and worthwhile, hard work taking place in the *nix arena, and remove (once again) my virtual hat to the coders in the arena. Never give up just because some spawn of the Dark Lord (uncle Bill) tells you that "there's nothing new under the sun" that hasn't come from M$

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree about what you say about Capitalism, I find that the rest of your argument falls flat on its face.

Microsoft *doesn't* make a better product. They never could produce a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3 in the DOS world, so they leveraged their unique knowledge of the Windows ennvironment to make Excel. Ditto for Word, they couldn't produce a better word processor than Word Perfect in the DOS world and again used their special knowledge of the Windows environment to make Word.

This was clearly evident in early versions of Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3. However, these companies did catch up and specially in the case of Lotus 1-2-3 (heck, the whole of SmartSuite), the user experience is unparalleled, even comparing it with Office XP. The interface in Smartsuite is cleaner and more intuitive and I consistently get more done with it.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to send a properly formatted Word Document of Excel spreadsheet created from Lotus WordPro or Lotus 1-2-3, so I've had to use Microsoft's "flagship" (and supposedly "innovative") software.

Well, I'll tell you what. Despite writing hundreds of pages of documentation (yeah, for some reason, I think it's a good idea -- my customers, and they are many, seem to also like documentation) and a lot of spreadsheets for cost calculations and the likes, I still find Excel and Word's interface inane and needlessly frustrating. Hardly the hallmark of top of the line, innovative software.

And don't get me started on clippy or all those Baesian (sp?) characters that are supposed to help me. The best command concerning them is the "Hide" command.

So, Microsoft doesn't innovate, they just put some more spit and polish over what exists already.

Finally, please read up before sharing your ill-informed opinion:

. Nintendo and Sony will have next-generation boxes, having signed chip deals with IBM.

. The reason WordPerfect and Smartsuite couldn't keep up is because Microsoft changed the file formats regularly. If Microsoft ever truly publishes a real set of specs for their file formats, it'll be the end of their substandard office suite.

Finally, what takes the cake (and what lets me know that this is genuine trolling on your part) is that you bring up Longhorn. Anyone who would bring up something that isn't even Beta must be the same kind of person in an IT environment that keep buying the same old crap from Microsoft at the cost and frustration of the users they're supposed to serve.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'm going to type up long messages for the other replies (hopefully :) ). So read them for my view on OOo.

With respect to desktops using 3D, it's because that's the next logical step. ALL video cards now are 3D. You won't find a system without one. So why not use the capabilities of the card for the desktop? The (3D) video cards are designed for 3D performance. Not using the 3D capabilities is a WASTE. The current desktops don't even use (I would say) 10% of the card's capabilities. I haven't done any testing but I'll guess that modern desktops don't even use 1MB of the memory (even the worst cards usually have 8MB+), don't use any of the GPU functions, don't use the speed of the cards, etc. The card is just sitting there not doing anything.

As a matter of fact, you MIGHT even see performance INCREASE if you start using 3D features. The cards are designed for them and I'm guessing that 2D pixel operations are slower than 3D ones. Do note that I'm talking about simple stuff for the desktop (nothing like games). You know... stuff like drawing the icons, menus, toolbars, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if the card is faster at drawing a 3D taskbar with 3D (vector) icons than drawing 2D bars with 2D bitmaps (now).

I'm guessing on a lot of these things but I think I'm right. Video cards, even the worst of them, DO have 3D capabilities and are good at it. I'm not talking about some super-duper 3D desktop with bumpmapping, trilinear filtering, etc. I'm just talking about basic desktop stuff. Why have 2D bitmap icons anymore? Aren't 3D scalable vector icons better? Why have toolbars/taskbars/etc use 2D graphics and all its limitations? For example, changing colours will be easier and faster under a 3D desktop than a 2D one.

Does that convince you that 3D desktops are better? :)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The key to Microsoft's succes has been in my view their leveraging of their OS monopoly, and their unfair business practices.

I'm am an anti-capitalist and I'm not going to go around defending a threat to humanity: corporations. Nevertheless, I disagree with your assertion that, somehow, MS is the only one carrying out unfair business practices. EVERY company is unethical; every corporation erects and enforces unfair business practices; every business is out there to monopolize their industry (just look around). What MS is doing is no different than Intel (I consider Intel even worse--it's amazing that AMD showed up), IBM, Apple, etc.

Stacker: MS worked with them for a while to include the tech into DOS. Then this cooperation stopped and DOS was equipped with doublespace. Eventually Stacker won this case and was awarded 165 Million IIRC.

If MS broke the law, they broke the law and should be penalized. But I think you are getting at something more than that. You are implying it was unfair practice. Well, you know what, everyone does this. I worked at a large corporation and management there would hire an outside company (a small one) for some technical expertise. One the company gained some knowledge, it would almost abruptly cut off the relationship. The little firm that was hired is often shocked and loses its technical strength (because now the big company doesn't need them anymore and often erects barriers). What MS does is no different than other companies. Either you are against ALL companies or you are against NONE.

So the issue is not whether MS was doing anything "bad". Instead, it is whether they were doing anything different from other businesses.

Wordperfect: Microsoft used the introduction of Windows 3 to push Word. When Windows 3 came out WP had no version for it. I don't know if this was part WP's own stupidity or they were kept in the dark by MS.

That's not true. Windows 3 was a surprise. No one expected it to be as popular as it was. Word processors only came after the popularity of the OS. In any case, what the hell was Wordperfect doing? If I remember correctly, it didn't have a Windows version for a long time (I think well after the Microsoft one (which wasn't called Word I don't think), and AmiPro (remember this?)). There is no excuse for having the dominant market share and then not doing anything (I'm talking about WordPerfect here). The fault lies with Wordperfect executives and other strategists. Of course, CEOs never get blamed after all...

Netscape: Bundling the browser with the Os, just because it's unseparately. I beleive they have been found guilty on misusing their monopoly in this case.

This is probably the only one I agree with. MS totally destroyed Netscape by bundling it with the OS.

Borland C++ Builder/Delphi. Visual Studio.Net looks more like these products as it looks like VS 6. The only problem Borland always had is that is was lagging behind, because it could never have a new version out together with the introduction of a new Windows version. Again just like WP probably kept in the dark for as long as possible giving the competing MS product a head start of about a year.

MS probably DOES give its programmers advantages over the external competition. However, your product sells because of FEATURES (and other "little" things like price, marketing, etc). You cannot solely blame the introduction of a new OS for the failure. Admit it: Visual Studio just killed Borland in terms of features and capabilities. If Borland had introduced new, better, features it could have kept the customers. But it didn't. Visual Studio started having more features. Programmers are probably the ones that least care about graphics, pictures, ads, marketing, etc. YET Visual Studio killed Borland.

Playstation/GameCube MS is now at a point where they can just keep throwing money at until the opposition goes broke. They could give Xbox away for fr

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

(NOT QUOTED IN ORDER)

Finally, what takes the cake (and what lets me know that this is genuine trolling on your part) is that you bring up Longhorn. Anyone who would bring up something that isn't even Beta must be the same kind of person in an IT environment that keep buying the same old crap from Microsoft at the cost and frustration of the users they're supposed to serve.

I'm not trolling, although my opinions are "extremist" in some sense. People on slashdot throw around the world troll too much. Trolls are people who post inflammatory stuff just for fun. Trolls just post something and then leave. They do it to get some reaction. The opinion is not what matters; instead, it's the reasoning behind the opinion. Two people can say the same thing, yet one can be a troll while another is not. For example, if I say 'white people are stupid' and leave, I'm a troll (I do this to get a reaction and start a flame war). If I say 'white people are stupid because space is mostly black and hence anything related to white is inferior; and snow is worse than rain and white people look more like snow, therfore they are worse' then I'm probably not a troll. I am just a fascist and a racist. So trolling and having dissenting views is different. (NOTE: I am just using that example. I am not a fascist and do no share any of the views used in the example)

Anyway, as far as Longhorn, I'm unemployed have no influence over computer purchases of any sort. Longhorn might be far off and prone to change but so is everything else. I mean, 90% of what is posted on slashdot is bleeding-edge technology. We are all talking about stuff long before it makes it to market. Just read the front page. I would say at least 3 stories (per day) have nothing to do with the present.

Microsoft *doesn't* make a better product. They never could produce a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3 in the DOS world, so they leveraged their unique knowledge of the Windows ennvironment to make Excel. Ditto for Word, they couldn't produce a better word processor than Word Perfect in the DOS world and again used their special knowledge of the Windows environment to make Word.

That is completely false. What makes the product is not the OS; what makes it are the FEATURES. MS dominates, not because it is the only product for Windows, but because it has the most features. Yes, at one time, MS products were worse than WordPerfect, Lotus, etc. But that isn't the case now.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to send a properly formatted Word Document of Excel spreadsheet created from Lotus WordPro or Lotus 1-2-3, so I've had to use Microsoft's "flagship" (and supposedly "innovative") software.

Who's fault is that? My theory is that that free markets and capitalism will result in monopolies and oligopolies. Every business out there is trying to monopolize their industry. They even teach this in business schools. Of course,they don't mention the 'monopoly' word (that's too evil for capitalism) but everything they do is anything but. Schools teach you about 'capturing market share', 'erecting barriers to entry', 'eliminating the competition', 'locking in customers', etc. It is disingenious to claim that MS somehow is the only one that does it. IBM does it. Apple does it (it's even worse). Intel does it. And so on.

In any case, WordPerfect and Lotus were the MARKET LEADERS. THEY were the standard. How did they lose it? Did WordPerfect use an open format? Nope. So what's the deal here? I'm not saying this is right but that's how the world works. Am I in favour of open standards? Absolutely! Am I in favour of open source software? Yes. But most businesses don't do that. How much do you want to bet that IBM, Novell, Red Hat, et al will turn linux into a quasi-proprietary OS?

So, Microsoft doesn't innovate, they just put some more spit and polish over what exists already.

If the underlying product is idential to the competition, then a little polish will w

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying OOo is total failure. It's very good and is important. My point is that it isn't innovating. Perhaps this is because they have to catch-up first. But if you spend time catching-up, you'll always be catching up. When I say, innovation, I'm not really talking about breaking the UI or making the trasition from MS Office worse. What I'm mainly talking about are "killer" features that are truly different. Things that are extra. Mozilla is better than IE, not because it renders webpages or because can bookmark the links (all browsers do that), but because it has pop-up blocking and tabbrowsing. Those are killer features. What are the killer features in OOo?

In the end, it all comes down to features--especially killer features. People will switch or try something new if it has some cool new feature. If all you are doing is copying others, you'll end up doing that forever (the only advantage in this case for someone would be cost. Cheap replicas cost less--same thing in software). Where are the killer features in KDE? How come the roadmap for KDE looks like it is just catching up ALL the time?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[pondering llama]

point taken

Personally, i think that there isn't really anything more that would be "killer" that isn't implemented in M$ office -- well nothing that is required for useful functionality. So the "killer feature" of OOo has to be the simple one: price. If OOo can do all that M$ Office can do, then i don't know of a single company, student, or household with a shred of intelligence who will choose the platform-locked, proprietry M$ Office. And the pdf export utility is, according to regular users of OOo, a nifty feature in itself. I fully expect M$ to clone this in Office at some point. And let's not forget the open document standards that mean that anyone can, in theory, write viewers, editors and importers for your OOo documents, no matter what version they were created with.

Nifty features in KDE above Explorer are far too many to mention. Suffice to say that i showed Knoppix to a few windows-bound work colleagues, and had them all in awe of the prettiness (yes, that is actually a sought-after feature) as well as the functionality provided.

I think that some of the problem you may be experiencing is that there really isn't all that much left to do on a desktop for Joe User. Just because there has already been so much innovation in solving the needs of a user.

At the end of the day, anyone can argue any way for any product. One of the biggest arguments i have is ethical, and that's enough reason to carry on testing betas and working in young environments . Also, you have to realise that there are a lot of people for whom price is a big issue: students, for instance, should not be shelling out hard-earned wages to pay for a non-evolving, locked office suite. I'm glad i can offer people like that a very good, free alternative.

Out of pure interest, what does it look like KDE is "catching up" to? A machine installed with the default GNU/Linux/KDE setup has a lot more than one installed with the straight Windows/Explorer setup, both in functionality and in looks. I think that M$ are the ones who should be playing catch-up...

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I think that some of the problem you may be experiencing is that there really isn't all that much left to do on a desktop for Joe User. Just because there has already been so much innovation in solving the needs of a user.

I think that's a cop-out. You CAN innovate. A feature I mentioned is the use of 3D graphics. Practically every single machine now uses a 3D card. Why not use a desktop that uses the 3D card capabilities? (Read one of my other responses to an AC for my idea about this).

Out of pure interest, what does it look like KDE is "catching up" to? A machine installed with the default GNU/Linux/KDE setup has a lot more than one installed with the straight Windows/Explorer setup, both in functionality and in looks. I think that M$ are the ones who should be playing catch-up...

KDE is still behind Windows in some things. Cutting & Pasting, for example, isn't that great. The menus aren't as consistent across applications (I"m talking about KDE-only applications of course). The help file or help system REALLY sucks. Windows sucks too but at least you can search and find stuff more easily. Changing things like video resolutions are way behind MS Windows. And so on...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RogerWilco]

My point is that everytime MS brings out a new OS, it put's out new versions of their other applications using the new features of the OS.

Meanwhile their competitors need to scramble to start making a new version supporting the new OS, probably being kept in the dark as long as possible about the new features.
When the cometition release a new version after 1-2 years people only buy it if it's not equal but MUCH better as MS competing offering. This means getting whiped out if you do not offer anything superior, beging equal will not be good enough, so the market place is tilted in MS favour because of their OS monopoly.
Maybe some execs also made bad decision, but it think ALL exec's (and other humans) do that from time to time. MS just has the money and the OS monopoly to try again and they every now and then they hit the jackpot.

The pattern as I see it:
MS-DOS 6-doublespace -> Stacker killed, 386Max killed
Windows 3-Word6,Excel6 -> Wordperfect killed, Lotus 123 killed
Windows 95-IE -> Netscape killed, almost killed Norton
Windows XP-VS.Net -> Borland, Nero, Symantec, RealNetworks maybe killed
Several versions do not qualify (98, ME) as they did not have enough new features that people upgraded. I'm not sure if DOS3, 4, NT3, 3.5, 4, or 2000 killed anything significant.

Which versions: WordPerfect 9 and C++Builder 5 FYI
While not the most recent versions 10 and 6 offer not much improvement. C#Builder and CBuilderX are only just out, I'm still thinking about buying.

OFF TOPIC I

I do noet agree with your anti capitalism stance. It's a flawed system, but we have not come up with anything better yet and a lot of saveguards ar in place to protect us from it's excesses.
It has currently at least 3 problems:
1) The speed of software/hardware is to high compared to the legislative system.
2) In the USA and some other places the saveguards are not working properly because of faltering democratic principles, giving rise to mingling of interests between politics, legislative arm, executive arm, business and people.
3) Internationalisation, while also having some benefist (if you don't like te DMCA, host somewhere else) it has the drawback of allowing businesses with bad habits to gravitate towards legislative systems that have no/less saveguards.

OFF-TOPIC II

--obviously you survived AGAIN -- That's why I use the name ;-)
You at least get the reference, most people today seemt to think it's some only team communication tool or something.
SQ0 is nice btw. - http://www.wiw.org/%7Ejess/roger.html

Off-TOPIC III
I do have a dual boot system, but find myself a lot on windows as my employer is shop mainly targetting ms-windows. Did some small linux projects, but those were embedded systems, so C++Kylix was not usefull (and maybe to immature?)

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Maybe some execs also made bad decision, but it think ALL exec's (and other humans) do that from time to time. MS just has the money and the OS monopoly to try again and they every now and then they hit the jackpot.

I kind of agree with your point but you are putting too much emphasis on the OS. Yes it does help, but not as much as you think. I can see it playing a big role in cases where the softwaer is heavily dependent on the OS but many of the cases aren't like that. Some of the smaller companies (like Stacker, etc) were probably hurt disproportionately. BUT what about the market leaders? The fact that WordPerfect, for example, lost is simply pure management. WP totally dominated the market and had proprietary document formats, etc. But they failed... I don't really know how much an OS plays into that.

2) In the USA and some other places the saveguards are not working properly because of faltering democratic principles, giving rise to mingling of interests between politics, legislative arm, executive arm, business and people.

My theory is that capitalism leads to that. Democracy and (pure) capitalism are contradictory. In a pure democracy, the lower classes (who are a majority) will overthrow the rich (who are a minority).

3) Internationalisation, while also having some benefist (if you don't like te DMCA, host somewhere else) it has the drawback of allowing businesses with bad habits to gravitate towards legislative systems that have no/less saveguards.

That's a key element of capitalism. Under (pure) capitalism, you are supposed to have very little government intervention. You don't like the workers having too many rights here? Just move to South America. You don't like the stricter environmental regulations? Just move to China. That's capitalism!

You at least get the reference, most people today seemt to think it's some only team communication tool or something.

heh... man, we are getting old :(:(:( my life is all fucked up too :( Anyway, I think people may recognize King's Quest more than Space Quest. SQ wasn't as popular but everyone who was into computer gaming in the 90's would have heard of KQ... I didn't play all the SQ but I think the best one was the SQ4 (I think that was it)...

I do have a dual boot system, but find myself a lot on windows as my employer is shop mainly targetting ms-windows. Did some small linux projects, but those were embedded systems, so C++Kylix was not usefull (and maybe to immature?)

I think it'll be tough to work in Linux if your work uses Windows (and pretty much 99% of the employers do). If I had a software development job, I'm sure it'll be for Windows and I'll probably be using Windows or something. The only benefit of using Linux is cost right now. In terms of features, Linux isn't there yet. I probably can't live without Visual Studio if I'm doing anything major--and nothing comes close to Visual Studio.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RogerWilco]

I realy liked the way Borland were going with C++Builder, Delphi and Kylix, until Windows XP and .Net and VS.Net came along. It has taken Borland 2 years to produce C#Builder.Net and other .Net stuff, essentially to catch up.

About WordPerfect: I don't know what exacly happened, but I do know that NOT having a Windows 3 version killed it.
Technically it's a real solid product. They did a mayor overhaul from 5.1 to 6.0 and haven't changed it much since. I can open a WP 10 file in WP6 for DOS. They only have been tweaking the interface and been delivering it for new versions of windows. They didn't need to add any essential features as it can do everything. Like when multipage printing and folding schematics were all the rage in the new Word XP, WP 6 for DOS already had those in 1993. Better stop here, or this will become a very long and boring post.

OFF-TOPIC:

About capitalism: I think the average citizen can only be sufficently protected in a properly functioning democracy. Here the legislative force only has to answer to the representation of the people, and those in turn to the people themselves. I think goverment should have absolutely NO TIES to anything but the voters. No campain sponsoring, no investment in/owner of any business, not a shareholder.
I know there is this gray area where a private person with an agenda and a lot of money can do a "personal gift" to a politician, that would still further that personal agenda. I haven't thought that thru yet.
There will always be richer and poorer people, but the rules of the democracy should be constructed in such a way as to make it as hard as possible for a rich person to buy influence.
democracy can be done in a lot of different ways,
I realy like the political system in my country, The Netherlands, but I fear the talking of changing it, "to have the politics closer to the people".
I like nation wide tallying of votes, not on a per state basis.
I like the fact that politicians can not have an active stake in a company, even though there are some loopholes, they sometimes result in a national scandal if discovered.
I like the equal representation, not the 'winner takes all' aproach.
I like election campains being sponsored largely by government/tax payers money. Every party, independant of it's financial situation, get's money, if it can find enough voters who will become members.

Nobody is perfect, and I can also find a lot of improvement in our current system, both the dutch democratic system and capitalism. I think capitalism can only work between countries with sufficiently matching legal and gouvernemental systems. capitalism *assumes* a level playing field. If that is absent it will first need to be created with regulation. Only within those bounderies can capitalism function.

If your theory is correct that democracy and capitalism do not go toghether and capitalism will destroy the democracy, then after it has degraded into another political system there will be eventualy a revolt of some sort. Maybe we'll find some better system in the future, but until now it's the best we've come up with, or do you suggest an alternative?

Hmmmm, it has become a very long and boring post afterall, Sorry, I seem to be good at that.

Adriaan.

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Politics, Capitalism, and Other Thoughts

This is going to be VERY LONG. I don't know if you have time to read it...

I'm on the far-left (I'm something like 60% socialist and 30% anarchist) and most of what I'm about to say is going to sound crazy if you are anywhere on the right. Take it for what it is worth :)

I think the fact that you are located in a small country (Netherlands...BTW, what's the difference between Netherlands and Holland? Same thing?) will have influenced your view. I'll mention why some of the things you are saying are very hard to implement for large countries. BTW, I live in Canada which is also small but is close to USA.

About capitalism: I think the average citizen can only be sufficently protected in a properly functioning democracy.

I support democracy but even that is severely flawed. We are nowhere close to democracy so there is little point wasting time on a critique of democracy. However, from an idealist point of view (yes I am one :) ), democracy has some major flaws. In particular, majorities can oppress minorities under a democracy. When you are living in a small country, with possibly few ethnic groups, the problems aren't that serious. But it is problematic for large countries with tens of millions lined up on opposite sides.

It is my opinion that that democracy is the cause of many civil wars. You have probably never heard anyone say that--yes I admit that it is a crazy position. Look at the world though. There are many countries where the problem is rooted in the fact that the majority harms the minorities. A lot of the civil wars start when some minority group is oppressed and has no other choice since the political system does not cater to their views.

I think the far-future solution is anarchism. I'm not going to go into that since it is not relevant now.

Here the legislative force only has to answer to the representation of the people, and those in turn to the people themselves.

The problem is that people (at least most of them) can be manipulated. What needs to happen (on top of changes to the political system, or to prevent corruption of the politicians) is for people to be more aware. Right now, the vast majority of people in my country (or for that matter any other country) don't really know what is going on. This is why people actually REWARD politicians who LIE! Why do people elect LIARS?

I think goverment should have absolutely NO TIES to anything but the voters. No campain sponsoring, no investment in/owner of any business, not a shareholder. I know there is this gray area where a private person with an agenda and a lot of money can do a "personal gift" to a politician, that would still further that personal agenda. I haven't thought that thru yet.

I don't think this is as big of a problem as it seems. All you need to do is to ban donations and put limits on "personal gifts". And you make everything transparent (eg. anyone who runs for office needs to disclose their receipts, expenses, etc).

There will always be richer and poorer people, but the rules of the democracy should be constructed in such a way as to make it as hard as possible for a rich person to buy influence.

This can never happen under capitalism. Capitalism is an ELITIST system (although capitalists will deny this). The reason wealth is the most valuable thing under capitalism is precisely because you can translate money into power. If all you could do with money is to buy stuff, it's value will plummet.

A rich person under capitalism will necessarily be more powerful and consequently, influential. For example, a rich person can buy more advertising (to influence others); a rich person can hire more lawyers/better lawyers to increase the probability of winning a court case; etc.

I like nation wide tallying of votes, not on a per state basis.

I don't r

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not..

[RogerWilco]

> I don't know if you have time to read it...
I did, maybe you'll read my response.
I realy like our discussion as it also helps me define my own opinion.

>(Netherlands...BTW, what's the difference between Netherlands and
> Holland? Same thing?) Holland is the largest of the original 7 provinces that constituted the Republic of the Netherlands when it was formed in 1579. Three of the four most important cities are located there as is about 25% of the population. Finally it has the longest maritime history together with Zeeland, making it almost synonymous in the rest of the world. It's like England and Great Brittain.

>>About capitalism: I think the average citizen can only be
>>sufficently protected in a properly functioning democracy.

> In particular, majorities can oppress minorities under a democracy.
I agree with you on this one, best demonstrated in Germany in 1933.
But in surpressing minorities overall democracy does not have a very bad track-record, compared to the other systems.

>When you are living in a small country, with possibly few ethnic
>groups, the problems aren't that serious. But it is problematic for
>large countries with tens of millions lined up on opposite sides.
An ethnic conflict can be volatile on any scale, see the basques in Spain. Still I think that in a true democracy political divisions would not be along ethnical/cultural lines. I see political parties as groups of people who have similar ideas on ways to rule a country. This should lead to a spectrum of parties from left-wing socialism, to ultra-convervative.

>It is my opinion that that democracy is the cause of many civil wars.
I do not agree with you here.
>A lot of the civil wars start when some minority group is oppressed >and has no other choice since the political system does not cater to
>their views.
I do agree with you here, but fail to see the link with democracy.
I a system divided along socialist-convervative lines, for the conservatives to gain a mayority, they will need the support of the conservatives of all significant ethnic groups, giving the smaller groups a very important role as they are necesary for mayority rule.
A system divided along ethnical lines will not work in the long term, as there is no agreement within the ethnical groups on policies to run a country.

>I think the far-future solution is anarchism. I'm not going to go
>into that since it is not relevant now.
A lot of people situate anarchism at the leftish point of the political spectrum, but I think it would actually be more like ultra-capitalism, and therefore more a rightish thing.
Communism-socialism-conservatism-liberalis m-capita lism-anarchism
Is what my spectrum looks like, but maybe it wraps around at the ends?
I think the true value of democracy is that you get a little of all the above, depending on what coalitions are formed between elections to create a mayority.

>The problem is that people (at least most of them) can be
>manipulated. What needs to happen is for people to be more aware.
I agree. I think it's one of the great challenges of democracy.

>I don't think this is as big of a problem as it seems. All you need
>to do is to ban donations and put limits on "personal gifts". And you
>make everything transparent (eg. anyone who runs for office needs to >disclose their receipts, expenses, etc).
That is how it works around here.

>If all you could do with money is to buy stuff, it's value will
>plummet.
That's exactly how I want it to be. In a democracy power = votes. Given a system where voting is anonymous, and therefore votes can not be bought, the rich will not be the rulers.
The only power a company has is though it's employees, as they are voters, and they have a stake in the company surviving.

>I don't really know how feasible this is in large countries.
>The reason people ha

Oddly Enough...

[Jaysyn]

.. I doubt many here care. Just annother "innovation" from MicroSoft.

Jaysyn

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're called "Microsoft", moron. Not "MicroSoft" - that was over a decade ago.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Frymaster]

Just annother "innovation" from MicroSoft.

too true. microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation. and yet, their two most recent releases:

1. a news service "like google's"
2. an online music store "like apple's"

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Mr_Silver]

microsoft has talked a lot recently about how their committed to innovation.

Personally I don't care whether or not a company has innovated in the "here's something totally new that you've never seen before" - if they can take something and make it better, then I (as a punter) will chose it.

To innovate doesn't have to have the pre-requsit of "start from scratch". It's perfectly possible to take something that isn't particulary new and then add new features and claim that to be innovative.

Other companies in all markets have been doing that for years. It's not something limited to Microsoft.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Frymaster]

don't care whether or not a company has innovated in the "here's something totally new that you've never seen before"

you may not care, but microsoft does. remember that recent interview where balmer said that linux was "not innovative" because it was just "a clone of unix"?

ms has set their own definition of innovation. and they aren't living up to it.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[advocate_one]

so we're all waiting for "innovation" number 3...

3. A secure Operating System "like Linux"...

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've nothing intelligent to contribute to the conversation, I kindly ask you to shut the fuck up.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[kabocox]

You have to give MS credit. IF they spend the PR money and repeat it long enough, the average Joe will start to think MS did it first and was innovated by it. They just have to repeat the message until it sticks or they run out of money...

Re:Oddly Enough...

[marauder404]

Don't confuse innovation with invention. Let's see what they bring to the table when these services are in full swing to see how they've innovated on an existing concept to make it better for the consumer, industry, or their own bottom line. Any one of these, among others, would make it an innovation.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[worm eater]

I have to say... Microsoft has introduced some pretty advanced features into this service. For instance, when I search for a news item it not only pulls up related stories, but throws in a few unrelated stories, so I don't have to go search for those too! It also seems to organize stories within subcategories by threes for no apparent reason, so I get a false sense of organization. Nice touch.

Yes, this is still firmly in 'beta.'

Re:Oddly Enough...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

And who can forget 4:

4. A ham-fisted monopoly "like AT&T"

Re:Oddly Enough...

[geoffspear]

Except in Microsoft's case, "innovation" means to make an inferior clone of an existing product and then make it popular by building it in to Windows as the default. Of course, they'd argue that anything built into Windows is inherently better regardless of its other features.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[n-baxley]

Please don't think that just because MS didn't get there first, they won't be able to overtake the other guys. There is far, far too much history to make that mistake. Google should see MS as a serious competitor and take any actions to make sure they stay ahead of MS in technology as well as marketing.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[aardvarkjoe]

for instance, when I search for a news item it not only pulls up related stories, but throws in a few unrelated stories, so I don't have to go search for those too! It also seems to organize stories within subcategories by threes for no apparent reason, so I get a false sense of organization.
...You are aware, aren't you, that Google News is exactly the same way, right? It's an impressive piece of work, but even google doesn't get its news 100% correct.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[babbage]

While I basically agree with you -- Microsoft couldn't innovate their way out of the proverbial paper bag -- I'm not so sure that innovation is such a big deal anyway. I just read a Newsweek article on Dunkin Donuts that had this interesting observation:

LESSON TWO: Innovation Is Overrated

By the mid-'90s, after years of airing those "Time to Make the Donuts" commercials, Dunkin' had become too focused on the high-calorie pastries. But as managers searched for products to broaden the menu and appeal to health-conscious families, they didn't look only at ideas cooked up in their own R&D labs. Instead of trying to reinvent breakfast, they began pushing basic products--like bagels, low-fat muffins and breakfast sandwiches--that customers already ate elsewhere. Taking a cue from Starbucks, which had morphed coffee into a cold, creamy drink called the Frappuccino, Dunkin' fired back with the Coolatta, and added flavored coffees to its lineup. These days, beverages account for more than half of revenues in some markets.

So maybe Dunkin's managers didn't score points for originality. But today, bagels, breakfast sandwiches and Coolattas each sell more than $200 million annually, and some observers see Dunkin's better-developed menu as an advantage over rivals. "There's no confusion in customers' minds when they walk into Dunkin' Donuts what food products will be available," says Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. "I don't think Starbucks has that same clarity."

Dunkin's successful appropriation of competitors' products shows how exaggerated the concept of being the pioneer--or in Internet parlance, the first mover--can be. From Atari's videogames (which created a market now dominated by others) to Apple's failed Newton (which paved the way for Palm), business is filled with examples in which profits accrue to companies that copy, rather than invent, products. Indeed, Dunkin' loyalists are quick to point out that despite the perception that Starbucks invented the concept of selling high-quality coffee for a premium, the idea was pioneered by Dunkin' Donuts' founder, Bill Rosenberg, when he started the chain in --1950. "He charged more for coffee than anybody in his day, and people thought he was crazy," says Jessica Brilliant Keener, co-author of Rosenberg's memoir, "Time to Make the Donuts." That illustrates the point nicely: after a few decades of many players profiting, nobody much remembers who invented a good idea anyway.

(The emphasis in the last paragraph is mine.)

This is an interesting point. Starbucks has a bad rap for charging three bucks for a simple cup of coffee, but according to this article, Dunkin Donuts did the same thing decades earlier -- all Starbucks has done is rachet it up a notch.

And the examples given are well taken -- the history of the desktop "WIMP" GUI would be an even stronger point here: Xerox invented it, Apple copied what Xerox did, Microsoft copied what Apple did. More recently, Microsoft put fast user switching into XP, and Apple put it into Panther the next year, while Apple put a slick vector graphics mechanism as Aqua in OSX a couple of years ago, and Microsoft is allegedly trying to get something like it into the mythical next version of Windows a few years from now. And on it goes.

More broadly, originality is seen as a big deal in art & entertainment, but in reality it's a very rare thing. The Beatles were great, but they were just brushing up black American music that they loved when they were young, and that pre-Beatles rock & roll was in turn just an evolution from earlier blues & hymnals. Jazz can be really wonderful & unique, but it too derives largely from the blues, and from Jewish folk music like klezmer. Pixar's movies feature ground-breaking animation, but it's just building on techniques that have been evolving for decades, and the

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't DOS a very poor imitation of VMS, which is in turn an imitation of UNIX? At least Linux can be called a clone. UNIX is an excellent paradigm that Linux embraces and extends.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto.

Re:Oddly Enough...

[costas]

Shameless plug ahead: my home-brew newsbot predates both MSN Newsbot and Google News and has way more features (incl. collaborative filtering, news alerts, customized XML and Palm feeds and more).

Re:Oddly Enough...

[cygnusx]

A secure Operating System "like Linux"...

Linux is a secure Operating System? (now if you had said VMS...)

MSN Newsbot?

[Anonymous Coward]

what a friendly name. They shoulda called in MSN NewsBorg instead heh.

good laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be very amusing, I wonder if the news stories will include paid inclusions from advertisers as well?

As long as it is not the same stuff

[Popadopolis]

As long as it is not exacltly the same news on other sites (like Google), I would be willing to give it a try. I find too much recycled news on the internet these days, and it would be nice to have something new. Of course, if it is the same news over and over again (or blatently Microsoft propeganda), then it isnt worth the bother.

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[h4rm0ny]

This is a little off-topic I admit, but I'll risk the Karma because it might be of interest to a few people here seeing as a lot of /.'s have such strong political views.

I subscribe to Stratfor. It's a paid for service geared towards investors and company strategists and it provides some of the best international and political news you'll ever find. It's cheap enough that I subscribe privately and you can guarentee that it isn't full of propaganda. Why? Because it's used by people with money and whatever news corps tell the masses, the stock market has the right connections to know what's really going down.

Now please don't hammer my karma for trying to be helpful.

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I find too much recycled news on the internet these days

Isn't that sort of the point of Google News?

"... and 1289 related >>"

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[momerath2003]

new. Of course, if it is the same news over and over again (or blatently Microsoft propeganda), then it isnt worth the bother.

So why do you read sladshdot again? :D

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[EvilTwinSkippy]

One of these days I'm going to get around to writing my own diff system for news articles to keep me from getting 2 paragraphs into an AP column only to find it was lifted from Reuters.

And of course everyone seems to be using the same source. I recall reading one article about how a bomp the struck an American caravan in Palesting was triggered from a building about 330 feet away. Sound's pretty precise doesn't it? They just took someone elses guestimate of 100 meters and converted the units.

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[rsborg]

I subscribe to Stratfor. It's a paid for service geared towards investors and company strategists and it provides some of the best international and political news you'll ever find. It's cheap enough that I subscribe privately and you can guarentee that it isn't full of propaganda. Why? Because it's used by people with money and whatever news corps tell the masses, the stock market has the right connections to know what's really going down.

It appears they also have free services (limited scope), I'm yet to find out how valuable/insightful they are, but it definitely sounds interesting.

Re:As long as it is not the same stuff

[h4rm0ny]

If you have a look under the sample pages you get a good idea - this is a nice piece, I thought - it has an extra layer of insight into the situation.

They do take a purely self-interested^H^H^H^H objective aproach though. It can sometimes make you go "Hang on..." But it's definitely factual.

It makes a nice Christmas present for someone who's already got all the tin-foil hats they need. :)

We will see.

[skajake]

As usual, Microsoft is getting it proverbial hand in the honeypot to cash in with its own version of whatever is hot. Time will tell whether its content, or Microsoft's monopoly will affect its success.

Headlines on MS' News:

[pheared]

"Does Linux cause cancer? Find out at MSnewsbot.com. ... Bill Gates: Terrific Dancer. ... Dow down 5000 points. ... Study: 92 percent of Linux users are gay.. ... Oil slicks found to keep penguins young, supple. ... Steve Ballmer: Awesome."

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[Anonymous Coward]

What you may not know is that this episode of the Simpsons nearly got them in trouble.

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[WhiteDragon]

This reminds me of the fake news headlines in Sim City (maybe 2000, I don't remember)

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[Anonymous Coward]

92 percent of Linux users are gay

Is this the niche Linux has been looking for? This could be the one. After all, gay couples are considered to have more disposable income than any other type of couples. And gayism is quite popular and becoming more trendy every day.

Maybe someone should talk to the producers of Will & Grace for some product placement. Pridux here we come.

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[EvilTwinSkippy]

92 percent of Linux users are gay

I'm a lesbian for sure. Ever since I was 12 I've found myself attracted to women.

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[filmsmith]

I'm a lesbian for sure. Ever since I was 12 I've found myself attracted to women.

I'm sure that joke is a lot funnier (or comment more insightful) when your sex is readily evident.

Re:Headlines on MS' News:

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'd Much rather go for the stealth chuckle. Especially for the folks who hop over to the link to my site and see, plain a day, a guy with a beard.

And I declare all lines Goatse humor hereby unfunny in this thread.

and perhaps conversely...

[Snar Bloot]

any article positive to MS might be at the top of the list?

When I checked the Newsbot the top two most popular articles were "Microsoft tests Web news service".

Re:and perhaps conversely...

[hpavc]

And a damning article against EU spending

No way...

[Mysticalfruit]

I don't even use google for my news... If I did, I'd never get my daily dose of anti microsoft, pro linux, anti sco news!

Mixed in with a bunch of banter about quantum entanglment!

Re:No way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Die of cancer.

Re:No way...

[Orien]

I know that was intended as a joke, but you would be surprised how often I find news stories on Google News before I find them on Slashdot. That includes, Anti-MS, Anti-SCO, Pro-Linux, and quantum enlightenment. You should give it a try if you haven't already.

Re:No way...

[proj_2501]

even FARK.com has news before /. nowadays

hmm

[oZZoZZ]

It's a total rip off of google, so i see no reason to use it... but when I first went to check it out, i noticed 1 story at the top of technology, with the headline:
"Tapping into the growing interest to Wintel computers"
At least they're not censoring the news.... yet =)

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm, google news is a total ripoff of yahoo news, i don't see any reason to use google's version.

there have been news aggregate sites around way before google got into the act, but microsoft joins in and all the "innovation" cracks come out of the woodwork.

In no way biased

[Jeedo]

uk.newsbot.msn.com -> Popular Articles -> 1. Microsoft tests Web news service

This is select-a-generated not autogenerated;)

Impartiality

[harks]

I wonder if they will be as impartial as the Google news generator. The first two "most popular" articles on their service are the same one: Microsoft Tests Web News Service

Re:Impartiality

[terraformer]

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.
The more important thing here is this may push google to drop the "our news site is an experimental beta test which can be dropped at any time" attitude and start to really pour some resources in. One thing about competition is that it will help hone the product and google's news site has not really changed since it's inception a while back. I was hoping for some interface tweaks and other enhancements that could make it the killer web app.

Re:Impartiality

[merlin_jim]

The first two "most popular" articles on their service are the same one: Microsoft Tests Web News Service

That couldn't have anything to do with millions of slashdot users clicking through to read an article on the new web news service, could it?

Re:Impartiality

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.

Clarification: Automation does not enforce impartiality. It enforces the automation process and that may not be impartial at all.

That said, I'm very happy with Google News. It does a damn good job.

Re:Impartiality

[SnowWolf2003]

As opposed to google news who have no mention of a story that even made it to the front page of slashdot. It's not even mentioned if you drill down to all the articles under sci-tech. Mind you, I don't really expect google news to feature an article about a rival service, but that just goes to show that even google are not truly impartial.

Re:Impartiality

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.

Citations supporting this assertion with respect to their news coverage, please.

I look at Google's (tm, etc) news most days. It's a US-centric-Lite view of the world. To those of us who live there, it's a useful window. I imagine that MS's view will also be useful.

Not flamebait or knee-reflex anti-US prejudice.

HTH, HAND

Re:Impartiality

[novakreo]

Hopefully they will be as impartial through the use of automation, which is where google gets it's impartiality from.

Considering that Google removed Indymedia from its news sources a few months ago, but retains such worthwhile sources as the RIAA, I say that automation does not necessarily lead to impartiality.

Re:Impartiality

[shione]

I wouldnt count on it so long as they have msnbc and ninemsn in australia.

MSN Newsbot Technology Headlines

[Noryungi]

As seen recently:

• New Linux security vulnerabilities.
• SCO receives a large new infusion of cash from partner Microsoft.
• Exclusive Ballmer/Gates Matrix spoof, now in THX and Dolby Digital Surround!
• Foobar Software is named "Innovative Windows Software of the Year" by Bill Gates.

Etc... Etc... Etc...

(All this is said firmly tongue-in-cheek, of course...) ;-)

Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Predathar]

Anyone else notice this? Almost same layout, the time generated at the top right, the menu on the left. step 1. Find good site/idea step 2. COPY AND PASTE step 3. ???? step 4. profit

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I am supposed to hate microsoft and to some degree I do but...

Copying what works goes on in EVERY industry. Innovation is actually the exception not the rule in a vast majority the world.

Copying what works leads to competition. Competition leads to cost reductions and/or increased services to consumers.

So yes, microsoft is not innovating here but why the pointless bashing? It makes sound business sense.

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Predathar]

I was not bashing, just VERY surprised at the look and feel of the site. I personally would have put some effort to make it look different.

If I had not known I was looking at a Microsoft news site, I would have said "oh look, Google changed the look a bit", THAT'S how similar they look, and I don't like that.

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Orien]

step 1. Find good site/idea step 2. COPY AND PASTE step 3. ???? step 4. profit

Step 5.
Figure out how to
do an html page
break.

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Predathar]

ya, was my first ever post to slashdot, the preview button is my new best friend now.

Re:Wow, looks A LOT like Google news

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if that was your first post, that's no excuse for being a dick-sniffing fucktard with AIDs and a nigger boyfriend. Also, please wipe the shit off your dick and the cum off your lips, piss breath.

the best part

[hammarlund]

The best part of that page was the poll: "Have you tried online dating?" That was the previous poll on Slashdot wasn't it?

And so it begins...

[maxdamage]

Microsoft has begun its invasion into things I use...

Re:And so it begins...

[cpghost]

The Borg just entered the solar system...

At least they link to /.

[wo1verin3]

Go to: http://uk.newsbot.msn.com/search/?nq=Minnesota+Sen ator+:
Minnesota Senator Says Email Tax Might Reduce Spam
Slashdot - 19 Nov.
We are not responsible for them in any way. Read this story

Perhaps they need a bit more work on picking out relevant parts of the article to post as a blurb. :)

Microsoft News, yet right!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Microsoft will do to news what it does to software. RUN!

anyone remember something called anti-trust laws?

Very Impartial

[ramk13]

Most Popular Articles
1. Microsoft tests Web news service

Define "based on"

[FelixCat]

Wow, just imagine what MS will do with a news feed.

The whole power of the google news is that it is machine generated, and not directly controlled by a human. Remember that MS search engine is "based on" information found on the internet, but if you search for many well known things like say "linux windows" you get far different results than from other search engines (e.g. Google).

Just imagine once they start putting the same filter on the news feeds! I can't wait to see what sort of bias is introduced.

What about MSNBC???

[RobertAG]

Wasn't a REAL news website good enough? Now they have to be in competition with THEMSELVES?

At first glance I thought it was a new place to search usenet news. This new "news site" is just plain worthless. It reminds me of the USAToday site.

Re:What about MSNBC???

[nsebban]

All of MSNBC's content is produces by NBC's journalists...MS only provides technical part.

Re:What about MSNBC???

[yelvington]

Newsbot is part of MSN's UK, French, Spanish and Italian services, but not part of its US service. It may be that Microsoft's contract with NBC prohibits its launching Newsbot in the United States. I don't know details of that contract, but I have been told in the past that the relationship between MS and NBC is very complex and includes contractual restrictions on each entity.

Biased? Microsoft?

[captainclever]

Most Popular Articles:

1. Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
2. Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...

'Course not ;)

Re:Biased? Microsoft?

[worm eater]

Hey, it made it to the front page of /. That must count for something... speaking of which, I wonder if MSN Newsbot also crawls /.

Re:Biased? Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,
We'll all here talking about it, aren't we
Or are we faking ?

Comparing font pages

[edalytical]

MSN Newsbot: Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'

Google News: Radio Netherlands British Newspaper Claims Security Breach at Buckingham Palace

One of these is not news can you guess which one?

Re:Comparing font pages

[UberLord]

So every UK news site and tabloid papers talking about "Bush Statevisit to England" wasn't news because it was talking about future events?

Pfffft

I question your definition of "news" But can you guess which one of your statements is an anti-MS statement just because it's MS?

Re:Comparing font pages

[Senjutsu]

So every UK news site and tabloid papers talking about "Bush Statevisit to England" wasn't news because it was talking about future events?

No, I think his point was that a statement of intent to arrest some pasty-faced freak is a lot less important and news worthy than a possible security breach in an area where two of the more important people in the world right now are meeting.

The implication being that MSnewsbot is just more celebrity obsessed, sensationalist garbage masquerading as actual news, whereas google's service manages to present stories of actual importance and relevance.

Not Invented Here.

[Atzanteol]

They just can't *stand* somebody else doing something that they're not, can they...

Still using google

[BondGamer]

I am still going to use google. It is a nice quick way to see the day's major events for technology and business. It works and is very orgnaized. Better to encourage the orginal creator to create more then to encourage the copier to copy more.

Re:Still using google

[BondGamer]

You are the ignorant, self-centered, and greedy person if you think every person is American.

Trustworthy News Reporting?

[Ridgelift]

Quote: According to MSN, by tracking the interests of users of the site it can determine which stories are most popular and suggest stories that users want to follow based on the patterns of other users.

Great, now Microsoft can collect information on me without having to sneak around. "Your honor, Mr. Public asked us to track his every move when he was forced...UH...opted-in to MSN Newsbot". Of course, they'd _never_ use the information they gather for marketing purposes (ouch! my tongue is wedged into my cheek!)

Quote: Users of MSN Passport can get personalised news depending on their interest during past visits. When logging in to Passport, MSN Newsbot displays news from sources you've chosen in the past.

Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do.

So now I can read all the favourable press on Microsoft, have all my activity tracked and the rest of my privacy compromised so I can have super-specific product advisement beamed right into brain. Gotta hand it to you, Bill, your vast fortunes are eclipsed only by your ability to me, John Q. Public, exactly what I want (ouch! My cheek!)

Re:Trustworthy News Reporting?

[secolactico]

Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do.


WTF? It stopped pestering me after a couple of boots. Same with MS Money. Just say no and it'll stop asking.

Re:Trustworthy News Reporting?

[NanoGator]

"Great, now Microsoft can collect information on me without having to sneak around."

Knee jerk. Nothing new happening here that isn't happening on other sites.

"Passport users? Oh, you mean everyone who uses XP because of that annoying bubble that keeps pestering you to sign-up until you do."

The bubble you're referring to doesn't pester you if you tell it no.

This isn't +4 Interesing, it's +4 MicrosoftIsBad.

Why google is better

[Docrates]

The reason I use google news very frequently is simple: they dig out news that I wouldn't find through casual news surfing on the traditional sites. Mostly international news which I DO care about, local news of a lot of cities and stuff that's just interesting and not tired and exploited (I wouldn't sit through a news story of the Peterson case even if they paid me!)

I don't see Microsoft matching that for the simple reason that MS is in it for the ads, the traffic and the money, while Google (when it comes to news at least) is doing it because they can and makes them look good (it's more a technological showroom than a add based news service. In fact, they don't sell advertising in that page)

Re:Why google is better

[savaget]

"Google News Alerts" are great to keep up to speed on a news story or a subject.

I compared

[savaget]

I did a comparison of both by searching my hometown(in Canada).
The MS got 8 hits while Google got 21. The main difference here seems that Google hits were sourced from newspaper web pages and MS hits came mostly from newswire services.

Re:I compared

[misterpies]

That's because MS News is sourced from Moreover, which is a news aggregator that collects a lot of its content from newswire services and the like (often via RSS).

I did a study of Moreover a few weeks back. Unlike Google, Moreover news is not totally automated -- they have editors who manually rank how good they think a news site is. They also markup things like the subject and geographical scope of the site.
Searches on the content itself are powered by an Autonomy search engine (I think).

Because of the human intervention, you might expect Moreover to have few boo-boos than Google News -- top ranked stories will almost always to come from reputable sources and be relevant to the content areas claim. On the other hand, the rankings assigned to each site are fairly static, so you'll probably see the same few news sites dominating every day. One of the things I like about Google News is the occasional wacky story from some nowhere local paper (or even /.) surfacing on he front page -- that's unlikely to happen with Moreover.

Re:I compared

[donutello]

Sheesh. It's still in Beta and is currently targeted at the UK.

Litmus test

[cyranoVR]

"Linux Windows" on newsbot.msn.com = 717 stories
First headlines:
Sun Micro Signs China Desktop Linux Software Deal (Reuters)
Leader: Comdex reflects harsh IT realities (Silicon.com)
Brown defends Blair relationship (?? Guardian Unlimited)

"Linux Windows" on news.google.com = ~1,800 stories
First headlines:
Intel intros hyperthreading compilers for Linux, Windows (The Inquirer, UK)
Linux-Windows file access (Linuxworld)
An editor to ease Windows to Linux migration (Newsforge)

Interesting comparison...

[Theaetetus]

MSN's tech page here has no mention of the #2 story on the Tech section of Google: Apple unveils new products for the holidays.

As we saw with MSN's competing search engine, there seems to be some bias in the results...

-T

They blame the computer!

[missing000]

From their FAQ:

"As we all know, computers aren't smart enough to really understand all our human idiosyncrasies"

Re:They blame the computer!

[jargoone]

I like your .sig. That's really neat how you used tinyurl to make the URL shorter and easier to manage. And to hide your referral information. That's great, really.

change name to "MonkeySoft"

[peter303]

They can only seem to copy, not innovate.

Linux ads?

[sdmartin101]

Interestingly, I just pulled up the "Technology" page. All four of the ads are for linux services!

Of course you realize...

[MyDixieWrecked]

that M$ has just made back their investment solely from advertising income from the slashdotting.

Must we help the borg?!

Re:Of course you realize...

[SkArcher]

don't be daft, you don't think anyone on /. actually reads the goddamn articles do you? Sheesh @_@

(laugh. its funny)

'buzz' not missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wed 10:00am MSFT [external] The Missing Buzz Of Comdex - at Forbes.com

despite the ?pr? ?firm? scriptdead hypenosys, the 'buzz' is now all about the gnu stuff. lookout bullow.

200+ billyonerrors' softwar gangster 'business'?

meanwhile, 90+% of the fraudulent phonIE payper liesesnse stock markup ?monIE?, goes to just a few guise? tell 'em robbIE?

the big flash is underway.

And it'll be integrated with next IE...

[Urkki]

...so when average user uses the net, he will automatically use MS services, unless he goes to the Special-dialog in the Advanced-tab in some obscure settings windows...

It's really a bit like TV makers would have their own TV channels where they would show content made by themselves, and TV sets of their make would only display those channels... Oh, and using a microwave oven that could heat your standard TV dinner would require having their TV set as well or the result would look all funky.

Re:And it'll be integrated with next IE...

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's really a bit like TV makers would have their own TV channels where they would show content made by themselves, and TV sets of their make would only display those channels...

umm...exactly like your cable company. Ever scroll through the cable channels?
[click]"Coming soon! Time Warner's DVR!"
[click]"If you had Digital Cable, you could be enjoying.."
[click]"Starting soon, on pay-per-view..."
wash rinse repeat

They obviously don't restrict you to only their channels, but they do push their own marketing, over their own system, whenever possible.

Re:And it'll be integrated with next IE...

[Urkki]

I guess that's the way it's in the US, and in the international satellite channels etc. But at least around here (not US) the only cable "channel" that has *any* content provided by "my cable company" is one that shows an oscilloscope display (presumably showing cable signal for troubleshooting purposes)...

Anyway, you do have a point, but it's a matter of scale that makes the crucial difference. MS Windows and IE have only marginal competition globally, unlike any cable company (or newspaper, or TV channel, or whatever else). So your cable company doing something questionable has little impact worldwide. But MS giving out biased news and search results semi-automatically to majority of PC users does have a lot of potential for global impact.

X-No-Archive

[lgeezer]

Two simple questions.
1. Is X-No-Archive observed?
2. Can we believe the answer?

Re:X-No-Archive

[lgeezer]

Three questions.
3. When will I remember news != usenet?

Most popular Stories

[loconet]

So 2 out of the 5 most popular stories are Microsoft related.


# Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...

# Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...


Seems like it's running the same "AI algorithm" engine msn search engine is using. I know I won't be using nor recommeding this news portal to anyone.

Top news searches on their page...

[techstar25]

Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
Huntley 'said he was last person to see girls alive' Guardian Unlimited Full coverage...
Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
Busted crash to the top BBC Full coverage...
Attack helicopters worth GBP1.2bn will lie idle for years Independent Full coverage...

Now that's fair and balanced!

How long until they file.....

[HutchGeek]

Well - lets go "innovate" something someone else has already done. Messengers, a WINDOWED operating system, Multitasking - hey look a company we cant bully into selling out to us! Lets duplicate what they do, grease our little friend at the USPO, put a patent on it - and then sue 'em for violating OUR patent!!! (sounds of applause, yeeehas, and fists hammering the table in the Microsoft boardroom as Bill Gates stalks the podium in his "Emperor Gates" outfit)

Typical

[Chiron Taltos]

"In advance of an imminent launch of its own search engine, Microsoft has launched its own version of the popular Google News service."

Typical Microsoft operating procedure ... if you can't buy 'em, buy another and bury the one who wouldn't sell.

Moreover.com?

[Andy_R]

All the "read this story" links (even the msnbc ones) go via redirect adresses in the moreover.com domain rather than directly to the source.

Who are Moreover, and why is Microsoft using them for redirection?

Re:Moreover.com?

[1u3hr]

Noting happens when I click on the links. On investigation. "c.moreover.com" is in my hosts file defined as 127.0.0.0, from a standard list of banner and popup spewing domains. So I feel disinclined to unalais it.

Also is it tacky to have a headline: "Michael Jackson 'to be arrested'" and below that an ad "Find Michael Jackson Items on eBay.co.uk", and more stupidly, if less offensively: "Airline Network: Cheap Travel to Jackson".

Re:Moreover.com?

[theMerovingian]

It appears to be the consultant shop m$ outsourced their news page to:

http://w.moreover.com/main_site/solutions/index. ht ml

Re:Moreover.com?

[LostCluster]

Moreover.com is a company that's been around for a few years, in the business of crawling news websites and sorting the headlines into newsfeeds. They used to have a very open API so that programmers and website designers could use their database for free, but they've since pulled down that information. (However, I notice tht a screen saver I wrote for myself back 4 years ago using their headlines for my area still works very well to this day...)

Moreover can hardly be called biased... Fucked Company also uses them for newsfeeds as well. If you can please both Pud and Bill at the same time, you must be doing something right.

Re:Moreover.com?

[LostCluster]

1. It's called a beta... odd selections are known as "bugs" and you can't say they didn't warn us.

2. Moreover's gotta pay its bills somehow. Of course, I use Google's Toolbar for a popup blocker and that gets through the links just fine.

Suprise Suprise

[KJE]

Some of the jokes aren't far off.

Check out what 2 out of the top 5 "Most Popular Articles" are:

• Microsoft tests Web news service ZDNet Full coverage...
• Huntley 'said he was last person to see girls alive' Guardian Unlimited Full coverage...
• Microsoft tests Web news service DoubleClick Full coverage...
• Busted crash to the top BBC Full coverage...
• Attack helicopters worth GBP1.2bn will lie idle for years Independent Full coverage...

google/newsbot search results

[dcordeiro]

newsbot news search for linux:

1- More Linux lawsuits on the cards from SCO
2- Sun Micro Signs China Desktop Linux Software Deal
3- SCO steps up copyright battle with threat to sue Linux user
4- General Public Licence threatens software market, claims SCO chief
5- Sun cracks China with Linux
6- SCO plans more Linux lawsuits
7- Novell-SuSE alliance will break SCO contract, SCO's McBride claims
8- Novell steals the Linux limelight with SuSE buy

Google news on Linux:
1- SCO To Expand Its Lawsuit Beyond Linux
2- Sun signs China desktop Linux software deal
3- Gateway to Sell Servers With Linux Software
4- Linux Networx and MSC.Software Partner to Deliver Validated ...
5- Oracle focuses on 'Linux' development
6- An editor to ease Windows to Linux migration
7- The Linux Enterprise
8- Linux company hires industry veteran

is google biased toward linux, or newsbot against it ? (hard question, no?)

Can anyone verify...

[HungWeiLo]

Can anyone verify if alt.binaries.warez.microsoft is available?

Re:Can anyone verify...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't

Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[GillBates0]

I've noticed that GoogleNews routinely carries headlines from /.

For example the latest SCO story links to the /. headline as one of the sources.

On the other hand, the same story on MSN NEWSbot does not provide a link to the /. headline.

But then, Google News lists 66 sources for the same story, while MSNNewsBot links to about 10, so it's hard to say if they're intentionally boycotting our popular Anti-MS site.

I would really love to see their news site regularly updated with /.'s Microsoft headlines :) That'll be fun to watch

Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[sielwolf]

You know I never got this. Why? Because /. isn't a source of news but, like news.google.com, is a hyperlink roundup. It is just a waystation to somewhere else.

I guess you could count the posted discussion as original content... but what person in their right mind would consider a dozen 'In Soviet Russia 2. ??? 3. Profit!!! overlords welcome you!' useful in understanding a news story?

Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[Mr_Silver]

I've noticed that GoogleNews routinely carries headlines from /.

To be honest that was a surprise to me. It's well known that /. isn't particulary impartial and it's reporting is never particulary accurate.

Therefore I would have considered it odd for a news source, even if it is news in the strictest sense of the word.

If I was in charge of a news aggrigation site I probably would leave out /. for that, plus any other heavily biased sites in order to maintain a balanced amount of reporting.

Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[Feztaa]

I guess you could count the posted discussion as original content... but what person in their right mind would consider a dozen 'In Soviet Russia 2. ??? 3. Profit!!! overlords welcome you!' useful in understanding a news story?

If you set your preferences to sort by score, and hide everything below score 3, you actually wind up with a list of comments that are worth reading. All the trolls are gone, and the posts are genuinely Insightful, Funny, etc.

I often don't even read the linked article because I can get a decent summary from the Insightful/Informative/Interesting posts.

Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[LostCluster]

I know from experience that Slashdot is montiored by Moreover, however it doesn't come up very often.

Unless the story is exclusive to Slashdot, Moreover usually picks another source with a better "news credibilty" reputation and sends Slashdot towards the back of the pile. (Let's face it... Slashdot has a publish first, check facts later policy.) MSN seems to be filtering further by only taking the most relavant stories, so unless Slashdot manages to break into the top 10 you'll never see it.

I guess we'll have to see what happens the next time a SCO story breaks. Most of the world has started ignoring their pump-and-dump scheme in hopes it'll go away.

Re:Slashdot on MSN Newsbot?

[pirhana]

> It's well known that /. isn't particulary impartial and it's reporting is never particulary accurate.
If accuracy and journalistic integrity are criteria , then how many newspapers/sources would be left to pick up? In fact slashdot is far less biased than the mainstream media in US and other countries. Atleast there are lots of posts against the "mainstream" slashdot view in any discussion. Also,what google news is looking for is not neutrality or impartiality, but popularity and relevance.

MSN Newsbot

[Ridgelift]

"News flash: Linux Usage Causes Impotence ... Windows 2003 brings hope and prosperity to third-world contries ... Linus Torvalds: Subversive Fascist, or Raging Red Communist? ... Study shows Childen who use MICROSOFT products are smarter than their stupid peers ... MSN Newsbot Causes Correction in Polar Ice-Caps ...

Warning: SQL error: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]
Line 1: Massive Internal Server Hemmorage ','., SQL state 37000 in SQLExecDirect in
E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\nip-sundown\include\php\dat abas e.php on line 26

second to the punch

[jest3r]

M$ launches news service
M$ launches new search engine
M$ launches music download servive

it seems like M$ is scrambling a little bit, not quite sure what to do anymore. coming to the market second or third works when you can leverage your existing user-base in a controlled environment (think IE or Office).

the trouble is the internet is not really a controlled environment like their os. even with a browser monopoly M$ hasn't really figured out what to do online .. the only success they have achieved thus far is by buying existing leaders (think HotMail).

so as far as I am concerned as long as M$ is mired up trying to develop their own online services in-house the world is safe.

Re:second to the punch

[16K Ram Pack]

I imagine Microsoft will put something into IE on Longhorn to link into this, like a "show me my news" .

There will also be options to pick from a list with "keep me informed about".

Microsoft know that if you give someone something pre-installed like a browser, media player, zip utility, photo processing, or messenger, that they are likely to keep other players out because most folks can't be bothered or that the service they get is "good enough".

Personally, anyone let's me near their PC (to fix) and the home page is moved to Google or Yahoo (I ask first). The annoying popup from messenger is removed and I try and talk people into loading up Mozilla.

Re:second to the punch

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'm just curious about the timing. All of these bold moves come after the announcement of delays in Longhorn. My thought is that they are trying to develop something to smooth out the revenue stream until they can start overcharging people for the new OS.

Companies only make bold moves like that in despiration or after a radical change in leadership.

Who cares about MS...

[Yaa 101]

copy copy copy copy is all they can do and when others copy they are the first to throw around with lawsuits...

Anyone question why...

[Cytlid]

... it's only in the uk? Maybe I missed something? I am a huge fan of google news. I am not a fan of MS and their divisions. But I will give it a try. It still bothers me... why only in the uk? Would others tend to trust this more? Isn't most of Europe really critical of MS and their monopolistic behavior?

I think I'll try it for a week and see what happens. Reading a few of the other posts here, we can't tell if it's truely biased or not, but also, we probably shoulnd't judge until we've seen repeating patterns. Most folks here *know* what to expect from google, and slashdot, and other news sources. And we can, for the most part we can trust google to be non-biased.

Let's see how this goes...

Re:Anyone question why...

[romcabrera]

Almost every beta page released my M$, is introduced first in Microsoft UK.

And In A Related News Story...

[LifesABeach]

some kind of useless registration required...

PayPal infected by virus
EBay's Internet-payment service finds a new strain of the Mimail worm.

Who cares?

[neiffer]

So, I looked at the NewsBot site and I suppose it's swell, but I still like GoogleNews better. Why? Maybe because deep inside I like Google and their business model better. I think Microsoft, who is not really loved among the masses (and I am a Windows user; I like XP although I use OpenOffice instead of Office XP/'03) doesn't really do much for itself when it slaps its brand on a product. Also, I have to wonder if MSN will make the classic mistake of making it overbloated like the rest of its sites. I see that now there is no advertising on it but when will that change? Also, I see the cheesie MSN banner on it. When will MSN start forcing you to sign into passport or worse Hotmail (gag) to get the news. Google is simple. Low bandwith (with an option for lower bandwidth yet if you want). There is no advertising on the news page. There is no need to sign into the collective.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, now!

I can't get to the news now without being prompted for my passport...

Anybody else seeing this?

Re:Who cares?

[Jugalator]

For me it's a simple choice. I'll stick with Google News since they didn't imitate anyone when creating their fully automated news service, and also because MSN News don't offer me anything I can't get via Google News. I'm also feeling more comfortable with Google getting revenues from their services since they've shown they aren't using those to combat other markets and haven't their search engine strongly coupled with their own products. Knowing how Microsoft work, they'll probably be biased in this new news service. The day I see a large anti-MS article on MSN News, I'll eat my hat. :-)

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that now there is no advertising on it no advertising on msn ? yuck it's only advertising. one big and ugly commercial. Nothing in it is there for anything else than make you buy & conform. msn makes me wanna vomit.

Bias

[dr. electron]

No joking or trolling, but:

Does anyone think that MS is capable of providing unbiased headlines regarding other OS ?

Headlines like, " --- government decides to move away from microsoft products" ?

Re:Bias

[wizkid]

722 articles on the famous "windows linux" search on MSN, vs 1700++ on google. Better then msn search, but...

I don't trust MSN They will edit content.

Bugs to iron out

[WebMasterJoe]

Well, at first glance it appears that its top stories #1 and #3 are the same story from two different sources (Microsoft tests Web news service) and they both have the same headline. Doesn't Google News list similar articles like that together, so it only appears once?

My prediction is that it will make headway among MSN subscribers who don't know any better, and AOL users who are lucky if they don't fall off their chair during the login process. These people will see MSN's News, think that this is how crappy a news aggregator will have to be, and they'll just accept mediocrity, while the rest of us are still able to rely on Google. Good for us.

Re:Bugs to iron out

[Chiron Taltos]

"... while the rest of us are still able to rely on Google. Good for us."

Good for us only if Microsoft doesn't run Google into the ground.

What do you figure the chances of that NOT happening are?

or the result would look all funky.

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's why those "bachelor-chew" dinners don't tast so good!

moreover.com?

[Allen Varney]

I went to one of the "More News Stories" pages and then clicked a few links from there. I couldn't get through; all the links are apparently routed through "c.moreover.com," which my ad-blocking Hosts file currently has blocked.

A Google search says Moreover.com is a blog search for businesses. "Moreover launches world first real-time weblog search to offer enterprises access to high value information." Anyone know why a Hosts file would block them?

I can always unblock that line in my Hosts file, of course, but this is a silly nuisance that I don't encounter on Google News pages.

Specialized News Aggregate Sites

[syr]

Google News and the UK version of MSN News (forthcoming in the US I'm sure) are very useful sites, no doubt. However, because they are generic news outlets they lack the ability to truly specialize in any given area of news.

If Google or Microsoft wished to truly compete in one segment (sports, politics, videogames, etc.) they would have to hire editors to manage those sections and provide a personal touch as well as specialized features for those sections.

I am an Editor at GameTab which is in essence an aggregate site for videogame news and reviews. We are a portal site (much like the Google/MSN news sites) which means that we're trying to be a jumping point for gamers to venture out into other sites. We don't create news ourselves, we merely report what news other sites are presenting and do useful manipulation on the data. In addition we present relevant information such as price deals, developer and fan created box art, torrent files, etc.

For generic news these sites run by corporations are great. They are a strong challenge to outlets such as CNN or MSN.com itself. However, for the many areas of news people will always want that custom feel that they only receive when information is tailored specifically to their tastes.

Re:Specialized News Aggregate Sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this straight: a guy uses a vague hook to spam /. with PR for his sight, and it gets modded INSIGHTFUL?

As momma always said

[sielwolf]

Imitation is the sincerest form of Hostile Takover.

Re:As momma always said

[LostCluster]

Yet it's questionable why MS needs to duplicate Google News... Google doesn't make any money off of its news page as I can tell. It's the AdWords service that pays for most of what Google does... why doesn't MS go after that?

Re:As momma always said

[Flabby Boohoo]

Didn't your momma teach you how to spell, Forrest?

Re:As momma always said

[sielwolf]

Nope! Or should that be noep?

Better with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's Poo

[Poisonous Drool]

Click here to have Triumph poop on MSN:

uk.newsbot.msn.com

Gee, I think maybe -

[Anonymous Coward]

- I'll stick to the BBC... they have more stories about Kylie Minogue. ;-)

Enough already

[Yenhsrav_Keviv]

Will they just quit trying to be the assholes they are and realize that they aren't the best and won't be able to dominate in everything?

Is /, creating the bias?

[LostCluster]

This bias claim seems to be self-fulfilling.

See, it looks like they're judging headlines with a "popularity index" counting how many time users click stories. Since ./ is the only place this site seems to be loudly announced right now, we the Slashdot readers are biasing sampling, and clicking on the pro-MS and pro-SCO stories more than anything else and moving them to the top, then coming back here, yelling "Bias!", which drives more /.'s to the site... rinse. wash. repeat.

If this is right... think we could try to create some odd results as a group?

Re:Is /, creating the bias?

[Threni]

> If this is right... think we could try to create some odd results as a group?

I don't think we're doing too bad as a species (in terms of odd results, that is).

Ob. S. Q.

[WebMasterJoe]

"This just in, Powersauce - is amazing!"

s/Powersauce/Microsoft/g;

Results limited at 999?

[Mnemia]

Anyone else notice that if you put in a very general search term it claims to only produce 999 hits? Searches for both "Linux" and "Windows" produce this number.

Why the artificial limit? Or is this just another case of wildly inaccurate statistics on the first page of results like the regular MSN search?

On a side note, while the site looks a lot like Google News, it doesn't seem too bad to me. Maybe MS is getting the hint that impartiality of search results is the only way they will compete successfully with Google.

Why?

[sixdotoh]

You know, why are these sites claimed to be so great and useful when they are nothing more than portals. There are literally hundreds of other such fantastic portals such as cool.com and yeah.com which provide plenty of content PLUS great search engines!!!

Re:Paranoid? Maybe not.. - Interesting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do moderators find such a generic post so interesting? This post has nothing but
poop in it.

In other news..

[sleepophile]

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon". In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads. 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. 7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying. 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 10.You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

So will this be a threat to Google?

[g0at]

Not really, unless you feel inclined to trust Microsoft for un-biased news.

-ben

Re:So will this be a threat to Google?

[myz24]

Yes it will be. Hmm, lets see, I (unknowning computer user) buy new computer, I open IE, I see msn.com, links to newsbot.msn.com, mmm, I like the first thing I see, it looks like msn.com so it's familiar looking, it must be the best.

Recent Microsoft news reminds of a movie, name of which slips my mind, but it's "in the future" and all restaurants are owned by and called Taco Bell. I just know that some day I'm going to drive my Microsoft Jetta on Microsoft Elm Street to workout at my local Microsoft Health Club on a Microsoft treadmill. Of course each item listed above would have a more meaningless name like, Microsoft Runner for the treadmill.

Anyway, time to get back to Microsoft Outlook...

Tinfoilhats sare required.

[Anonymous Coward]

The MS money machine revealed.

This is good.

[chadjg]

I'm glad to see that Microsoft is diversifying. They are very slightly losing their grip on the crash prone operating system market, so it is a good idea to come up with innovative and novel services.

longhorn developers get a sneak peek...

[avi33]

...at some of the code that will drive this application.

if (section == technology) {
if strFound("linux", "J2EE") {
mod_down()
} elseif strFound(".NET") {
mod_up()
}
}

Re:longhorn developers get a sneak peek...

[RighteousFunby]

Handily fucked up by this: .NET is a steaming pile of horseshit. .NET makes me want to vomit .NET chunks. I hate .NET.

MS, 0. Me, 1.

Good; Shop and Compare

[4of12]

I think it's good that Google has a competitor to keep them on their toes, honest, etc.

I'd be really curious to know if there is any implicit shading of news happening by use of different technology or explicit policy.

One way would be to do this comparison:

1. Use Google's search engine to look up URLs that are critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc. and compare to using MS search engine to lookup URLs that critical of Google, favorable to Google, etc.
2. Use MSN's search engine to lookup URLs that are critical of MSN, favorable to MSN, etc. and compare to Google using Google's search engine to look for, again, exactly the same topics.

This might also be done with regard to favorite wavelengths on the political spectrum, too, to see if there's any differences in returned results that indicate a different political weight (intentional or incidental, as the case may be.)

Re:Good; Shop and Compare

[floydman]

you call this comeptition??

Re:Good; Shop and Compare

[Shippy]

No, I think he's calling it "implicit shading of news happening by use of different technology or explicit policy"... just like he said.

I think his point is that with competition, this type of news shading could potentially lessen because you've got the other guy than can demonstrate that there is a bias.

Re:Good; Shop and Compare

[cpeterso]

The meta-news site Memigo.com was doing this story relationship analysis two years ago. Too bad the creator didn't patent the idea. :-)

Re:Good; Shop and Compare

[itsari]

The only problem is Google is loved by all and you rarely find a story that is critical of them. And Microsoft is... (used by all?) and you often find stories that are critical of them.

Maybe a better approach would be to do a search for non-mainstream topics and see which engine returns the most relevant articles. You could also compare the interfaces of each and the amount of ads and their annoyance. And finally, compare each site's privacy policy to find which is more interested in delivering news and not collecting revenue or statistics.

MOD PARENT DOWN, THESE SITES ARE CRAP

[Anonymous Coward]

crap

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN, THESE SITES ARE CRAP

[sixdotoh]

R O F L ... that was the point, einstein...

why why why, must i always get involved with AC's...

Errors with no waiting

[dswensen]

Funny, I didn't even get as far as making fun of the MSN Newsbot news, because on one side of the page I get:

Don't have a .NET Passport? To continue, you need to sign in with a Microsoft(R) .NET Passport.

And then on the other side of the page is:

.NET Passport Unavailable at This Site

The .NET Passport service is currently unavailable at this Web site for one of these reasons: blah blah further useless error messages.

This is truly awesome.

"Hi, welcome to MSN Newsbot. Before actually reading any news, you'll have to register a passport, and create a username, and log in, and give us a valid email address... oh, and by the way, you can't actually do any of these things. Thanks for visiting MSN Newsbot!!"

I think I'll stick with Google News, thanks all the same. It uses the revolutionary "click the link that says 'News' and you get news" technology.

MS doesn't innovate anymore.

[bs_02_06_02]

Yahoo news has been pretty good for quite awhile. MS is doing nothing but trying to "keep up with the Joneses." Most newspaper sites do the same thing. They just don't pay for as many newsfeeds.

MS has some really brainy product people: "We need to do something."
"I can't think of anything."
"How about we copy google?"
"Too hard."
"Ok, how about we just copy parts of google?"
"Ok... news. We'll just aggregate."
"Cool... we'll just chip away at Google."
"We've got more money than god... they'll cave sooner or later."

MS buys a hundred Dell servers, hires a contractor to come in and set up the scripting. They hire 2 people to keep the 100 Dells running linux... I meant 50 people to keep the 100 Dell machines running Windows 2003.
MS starts issuing press releases before the contractor is ready. The advertising people have all of the Intel/MS cronies lined up for advertising spots. They start beating on the contractor when the site sucks.
MS starts reporting estimated revenue streams to Wall Street. Everyone is happy. The general public buys Windows XP, they aren't even asked if they'd like their default news page set to MS. It's just done.

Re:MS doesn't innovate anymore.

[anonymous loser]

MS buys a hundred Dell servers, hires a contractor to come in and set up the scripting

You are aware that MS has a services group, right? They do *exactly* this kind of stuff for large companies.

Re:MS doesn't innovate anymore.

[Prof.Phreak]

And yet magically, manage to hire a lot of outside consultants themselves...

Re:MS doesn't innovate anymore.

[bs_02_06_02]

Sure. MS has been doing this stuff for years, and the employees have been telling management about their abilities....
But, like most companies, the upper brass doesn't listen to the employees. They're too arrogant. They want to look good, and listening to the peons doesn't fit into their egos.
Result? They pay a consultant several million to take them to exotic retreats, golf outings, expensive dinners, to tell them the same thing.

Missing characters

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked the spanish site... I was amazed to see it displays wrong the words containing the n tilde character (it doesn't appear the letter). Strange 'cause the accented letters are shown correctly (as in the french site). Anyone found any missing character in their native language? The french version seems correct.

Gooogle has News Alerts

[descil]

I don't know if google is ready to show this to the world yet, but it's in their labs, and most of you should already know about it anyway.

When MS comes out with a full version of this, I'll consider going to their site. Until then, I'll just read my email for news...

Google is teh r0x0r.

Coincidence does not imply Causality

[Don'tTreadOnMe]

Ummm...

Usually, I notice that /. has the headlines quite awhile after Google News.

Which makes sense, considering that /. is just linking to other news sources. I've only been reading for about a year, but I don't recall ever seeing 'breaking' news on /.

Dispelled a myth by ascertaining a fact?

[Anonymous Coward]

Groklaw comes through again.

Take that, you Microserf shills!

Copy Cats

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it so hard for Microsoft to innovate? With the success of IE they must think that the "me too" approach actually works. Then again, when they do try to do something innovative (tablet pc) it ends up being a flop. In the computer industry this type of stagnation will only lead to downfall. I don't care how big MS is, or how much of a monopoly they are now, they'll be taking a back seat with this kind of thinking.

I agree, and checkout this search

[unassimilatible]

Do a search under "linus."

MSN

Google.

Re:I agree, and checkout this search

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's a bad example. If anything, it shows a lean on Google's part. Best keep that one under your hat lest ye tempt the conspiracy theorists with even more troll food.

More derivative products

[cowbird]

Has anyone at MS ever had an original thought? Ever? The newsbot reinforces the fact that they have not. Everything they have ever sold or offered is pilfered from someone else. I used to think they had some smart folks over in Redmond, but it appears they are just greedy and lazy. Say what you will about the likes of Apple and Sun, but at least theytry to innnovate.

Two problems:

[lowmagnet]

1. news.msn.com (the closest analogue to news.google.com) points at MSNBC.
2. 'newsbot.', while 'techie' sounding, is not as easy to remember than 'news.'

And one nit: the layout of that site is rather XP looking, and as a result, naff.

Initial Pages are all that count

[nurb432]

For 90% of the population/market, the first couple of pages are all they look at.

Thus they get impressions, and form opinions and beliefs based on that small sample.

When you control and manipulate those firsts few pages, you control public opinion.

The fact (?) that there are many many more real links buried below is totally irrelevant, and the 10% of people that look 'below the surface' dont matter to their marketing machine anyway.

Re:Initial Pages are all that count

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god, not you again. Aren't you the same troll that went on and on about how *we* know better than average people, ad naseum? Apparently, you still have no point beyond demonstrating your own delerium.

Here's some food for your thought: Linux.org was buried a whopping 3 links below the very first result on the very first page. How does your conspiracy theory stand up to that? Unless, OH MY GOD, LINUX.ORG IS IN ON IT!

Repeat after me: "Reading Chomsky does not make me an expert..."

Re:Initial Pages are all that count

[mcpkaaos]

Heh, I remember you from a few days ago. I see you are still trying to make the same point. I guess we can go back into it, if you'd like. Buckle up!

For 90% of the population/market, the first couple of pages are all they look at.

If the first couple of pages are even close to 100% relevant to your search, then I bet you wouldn't look beyond them, either. Why would you? You found what you were looking for. If that's the case, then Microsoft would be accurate in their results, global domination conspiracy notwithstanding. However, if the initial results are insufficient, yet the seeker is, ahem, "manipulated" into viewing and accepting them... I'm sorry, I can't finish that thought, it's just too absurd. By your own words do you essentially call those people idiots. How could you possibly suggest that 90% of the population lack the wit or wisdom to look beyond search results that are not sufficient for their needs, while implying that a mere 10% are armed with the intelligence to say to themselves, "Hey, I was looking for Linux, not a migration path from MySQL to SQL Server!" and move on to the next result set? Unless you are going back to that whole *we* (your emphasis) are smarter than the average consumer nonsense?

When you control and manipulate those firsts few pages, you control public opinion.

I think you might want to ask the originator of this thread if you can borrow his tin-foil hat... if it fits.

Another Me, too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand what MS has done.

Why doesn't MS open its own business?
Well, sometimes benchmarking or borrowing others' ideas
can be good, but MS usually seems to borrow others' ideas.

I understand thie movement as MS's initial trial to catchup Google's search engine. MS will open Windows Media Music Store. What is MS's main interest? Doing business or just competing with others and stealing their markets?

Interesting comparison

[wcbrown]

Google News search for "MSN Newsbot"

vs.

MSN Newsbot search for "Google News"

It's a very telling search that compares the two services rather nicely.

Re:Interesting comparison

[UrgleHoth]

Yes, it is telling. here is

Yahoo News search for Google News

Compare that to MSN newsbot

once again MSFT can't design UI worth beans

[Anonymous Coward]

one of the best things about the UI for Google news is how everything is lined up nicely in tables. Although this is a trivial HTML task, the predictable layout and symmetry of the page allows the human brain to parse the information more easily.

MSN's Newsbot has abandoned symmetry in favor of tables with gradient headers and ads scattered throughout the page. This is results in users having to spend more mental energy scanning the page to parse the information there.

Just look at Google news and then look at MSN newsbot. Which service allows you to identify the "top" story in sports, technology, and international affairs most quickly?

Google news has nothing to worry about.

oh great

[Anonymous Coward]

yet another website spewing the stupid junk AP and other news agencies crank out. how about doing your own reporting in an objective way. Oh wait, we're talking microsoft. Stupid me.

moreover sucks!

[LordAlpha]

Moreover.com hosts are in my /etc/hosts file for being a pop-ups, pop-unders and banner server.

/etc/hosts: c.moreover.com, d.moreover.com,e.moreover.com, h.moreover.com, i.moreover.com, p.moreover.com, r.moreover.com, s.moreover.com, w.moreover.com, wap.moreover.com, webmaster.moreover.com, www.moreover.com, x.moreover.com.

Ad loopback as needed.

Why use MSN / Google news?

[Henk Poley]

Don't we have Memigo for this?

For the unknowing, Memigo is an intelligent news agent. It allows registered users to rate articles. High rated news items will come up on the regular frontpage. When you create a login yourself Memigo will 'learn' what news you like, and via collaborative filtering, others with similar tastes will recommend news items to you.

where are all the anti-redhat whiners now?

[Anonymous Coward]

boy, this article makes all the anti-redhat trolls who have been getting all doom'n'gloom in recent weeks look just a little bit hysterical.

Re:where are all the anti-redhat whiners now?

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck are you babbling about?

Ever take any Bussiness classes?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Who the heck cares if a company is the first with an idea or the second or the third , or fifty thousandth? Do you think the stockholders care? We need companies that can bring us completely new products. We also need companies that can bring us higher quality lower cost versions of existing products or services. I'm not saying thats what microsoft is doing in this case, but seriously who cares? Or should I say Why do you or anyone else care? Quality and performace should be the benchmarks, not who first released.

Definition...

[TWX]

"From my memory, everything they produced was the most complete, functional, secure and final solution around."

I guess that depends on your definition of "final solution"...

Re:Definition...

[Luigi30]

Microsoft's software doesn't work for Jews?

Re:Definition...

[sharkey]

One World, One Reich, One OS

ummm new search engine?

[shaitand]

How is this new? go to msn.com, there you'll find *gasp* that microsoft already has one!

Another diff between MS and Google news

[chaosandmadness]

Google provides public RSS feeds of google news, while I couldn't find any such thing on the MS news page. That's probably not going to make a big difference to most, but I think that may affect potential readership as RSS aggregators become more prevalent.

Re:Another diff between MS and Google news

[Hank Reardon]

Where are the public Google News newsfeeds provided by Google? I found several feeds provided by other people using various methods to parse the generated HTML pages, but I couldn't find anything on the Google News site itself.

The 74d.com site seems to be pretty cool; a link to the perl source for the generation tool is located at the bottom of the page.

Re:Another diff between MS and Google news

[chaosandmadness]

Ahh, I double checked and you are correct, the Googlenews RSS feed I was thinking about is from 74d. The link you provided didn't seem to work, but the real one is google news RSS at 74d

cheers!

Re:Another diff between MS and Google news

[Hank Reardon]

Ah, well... I was hoping Google finally added the RSS feed support and I just missed it.

I really don't like the idea of screen scraping because it breaks so easily. But, when there's no other choice...

mozilla sidebar?

[ArgumentBoy]

So, what do you suppose the odds are that Microsoft will write an mini-app to let us have a sidebar for mozilla, like osnews does?

How much...

[Snaller]

... did they pay you to write that? :)

Re:How much...

[mcpkaaos]

Well, it was in trade. 50 XP Pro lic- I mean, uh, well.. shit!

It's all based on OPEN SOURCE! PERL and APACHE!

[furry_wookie]

Hahaha... Notice all the links on the site are to CGI scripts that end in .pl which acutually load the pages.

They are using PERL (opensource) as their whole backend.

The backend website runs on APACHE TOO!
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=c.m oreove r.com

The msn server is Windows 2003, but its just a very thin front end to the Apache/Perl servers.

Who's using OpenSource now... huh Microsoft?!!

Newsbot tracks IP Addresses.

[Azureflare]

OK, I searched for MSN news on google news. The first thing that came up was an article in the uk. So, I dutifully clicked the link to MSN newsbot from there (I had never visited the MSN newsbot site). I went to their site, and realized it was specific to the UK. I tried deleting uk from uk.newsbot.msn.com, and pressed enter. Whoops! It sent me right back to uk.newsbot.msn.com. So, I thought there was some kind of cookie or something. I went through my cookies, looking for msn, or microsoft related stuff, and deleted a lot (Closed my browser before doing this). Well, guess what. When I typed in newsbot.msn.com, it still sent me to uk.newsbot.msn.com. There's some way they are tracking me besides cookies. I'm thinking it's IP or something.

Yes, it definitely is IP, because I just opened up mozilla and it sent me to the uk site when I typed in newsbot.msn.com. I refuse to use any site that tracks me by my ip address, or any means that I cannot control.

Also, I tried it on other machines on my network, and it did the same thing. You try it too!

Re:Newsbot tracks IP Addresses.

[aftk2]

You know...there have been several people who have mentioned this in the comments to this article. But you know what I haven't encountered? Someone who hasn't been forwarded to uk.newsbot.msn.com.

And you know why that is? Probably because all requests are going to be uk.newsbot.msn.com. It's just a plain, old redirect. Time will tell whether this service will forward you to a region-specific news site, based on your IP. But for now, I think we're getting a little too ridiculous.

Method of tracking users?

[Azureflare]

Not only that, but how does newsbot.msn.com track users? I did a little test, where I went to uk.newsbot.msn.com on my machine, and then tried to go to newsbot.msn.com on another machine on my network. No machine on my network had never been to newsbot.msn.com before.

The machine where I tried to go to newsbot.msn.com was forwarded to uk.newsbot.msn.com. Why was this? Do they track by IP address? I refuse to use any site run by Microsoft in the first place out of principle, but I'd be really interested to know how they are tracking users other than MSN Passport. (One was a linux machine, and the other was windows).

Re:Method of tracking users?

[Anonymous Coward]

That last sentence of the first para should be: No machine on my network had ever been to newsbot.msn.com before. Sorry about that.

Re:Method of tracking users?

[Azureflare]

Ack, looks like I was wrong, it seems other people have mentioned that uk.newsbot.msn.com is the ONLY site people get directed to. My bad! Sorry about that.

Wow, no censoring yet

[lintux]

Anyone else noticed the item about "Red Hat offers security course"?

Hey, a conspiracy is a conspiracy.

[unassimilatible]

Google or Microsoft, doesn't really matter. Same evil warlords control the whole world either way.

"The closest distance between two points is a tunnel."
-Lyndon Johnson.

Could be brushed up a little

[guttersn]

To me this doesn't look as user-friendly as Google news, the main image is too large, if the visitor is not interested in the top headline, chances are they would click away pretty quick.
On Google economy of space is used to fit in a variety of headlines above the "fold" of the page.

I'm sure these sort of things will be worked out, but at the moment it reminds me of Altavista's news feature, useful but slightly inferior to Googles.

More news is good news

[russotto]

And the best part about it is this is a new source of registration-not-required New York Times links.

another news service..

[butane_bob2003]

..is exactly what we all need. Especially one that is biased towards it's company's products and services offerings. Google's business model looks really, really good. The two companies I own and the one I work for feed money into Google's model, and extract significant benefit from their services. Microsoft is trying to jump on this bandwagon and in the process it hopes to knock the competition off. Anything to avoid innovation.

Fine for me.

[satanami69]

As long as Paris Hilton Sex tapes get front page billing, I'll use it.

PS. Anyone have the lesbo tape yet?

Innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I bet microsoft will claim this as their next great innovation ;)

French Newsbot -- Playboy's Women of WalMart

[teaman2000]

Over at the french version of newsbot, the lead story all day has been "Playboy : le site internet deshabille les employees de Wal-Mart" (You don't need to understand French to follow that one). And it's accompanied by a big photo of... Donald Rumsfeld. Google's algorithm is clearly much, much better.

Biased News?

[infonick]

"... the new beta service (known as MSN Newsbot) aims to provide news on a range of subjects including World, Sports, Entertainment, Science and Technology."

You can bet that Linux will not be included, unless it is negative news (think SCO).

I know how they can beat Google!

[Xtravar]

...carry the binary groups.

Validity?

[mattwarden]

Either the search isn't very valid, or no one has written the obvious news story yet:

http://uk.newsbot.msn.com/search/?nq=this+service+ sucks+compared+to+google+news&newsSub.x=0&newsSub. y=0

Haven't you people ever seen MSNBC?

[CalCudahy]

Why is everyone here going nuts on the possibility of MS skewing the results? They've shown for years that they can co-run a news site that has plenty of room for anti-Microsoft and pro-linux stories. Has anyone made a serious claim about MSNBC not being impartial?

Pro-linux

Anti-microsoft

Paranoia

[nurb432]

Being paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you.

Look around.. they are. Its called expansion of market. Its what a business does..

And yes, I am calling 90% of the population manipulateable idiots.. not 100%, but 90%.. If you need evidence, just stand on a street corner for 20 mins and look closely... its pretty obvious..

Compete

[ab_iron]

I thought they were just going to buy Google. ab_iron

Selectively edited...

[Kazoo the Clown]

Bet you won't see positive Linux articles or negative MS articles...

Wow

[Tuross]

I'm really thrilled by this.

Earlier this week, we saw Microsoft announce they were offering a online music service next year, kinda like what Apple are already offering now with iTunes and what the rest of the community have been doing with Napster et al for years.

They also did a spoof of the Matrix (the original), just like Borland did a while ago, and of course every man and his dog has since the original was released years ago.

And now they are introducing a news service just like Google's already perfectly good one.

What further "innovation" will we see from Redmond? I can hardly wait.

How little do you want to know today?

[Zhe Mappel]

So Microsoft is going to give us the "news," eh? And for free! How generous!

From an early age Americans are taught to consume news from corporations. Too few pause to ask, "What might these giant concerns wish me to learn today? What might they not?" As we see in just the past few years alone, our news industry is as content to serve as a conduit for profitable lies as was the Hearst empire back in its yellowest days. Did you know the sky's the limit for Enron stock, and that the minarets of Baghdad conceal nukes pointing at us?

For the descendents of the people who gave us luminous skeptics of power such as Twain, Bierce and Nast to suck at these monied teats is one thing. For them to suck their fill and think themselves "informed" is risibly quite another.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Entropy248]

Of course a search for "Google News" turns up articles about MSNBot right now! There are hundreds of news articles about MSBot because of its more recent release! All of the recent articles about Google News compare it to MSNBot because it's obvious that since MS couldn't buy Google that Bill is going to try to compete with Google. Personally I think that rumor was a really distorted version of MS trying to either buy Google's news algorythm or buy Google NEWS outright since the price to gert instant access to all that information is probably pretty high. Pound for pound, nothing is more expensive than information.

A much better comparison is "Google News" on Google to "Google News" on MSNBot. MSNB actually returns more results, but the second page is completely useless. Accuracy counts too; I'll stick with Google News. [The link is for Cowboy Neil]

sponsored results first?

[goon]

could this (...MSN search returns only sponsored results first. ...) be the reason for the skewed litmus test.... as outlined by DeadSea, Why Microsoft wants to buy Google, 16NOV2003 ?

You =! 'we'

[nurb432]

Subject says it all. You don't belong with us. Go away.

Oh, and i wouldn't consider myself a troll.. Just stating reality when it comes to business practice.. the only goal is to decimate your opponents... nothign less.

Re:You =! 'we'

[Anonymous Coward]

i wouldn't consider myself a troll

That makes one of you!

By the way, you might want to look up the background of the term "decimate" before you try to use it in a sentence. Unless you meant to reduce your enemy's ranks by 1 out of 10? Pretty stupid business practice, if you ask me. Better to try to get them all, wouldn't you think?

Their feeds

[AchmedHabib]

It funny than altough their feeds are no longer free, all my old perl scripts still works and until recently, still fetched news for a couple of defunct/offline website. I had forgotten about the cronjobs and saw to my amazement that they were no longer free and my scripts still worked.

Don't laugh.

[Malcontent]

Don't laugh they are already working on developing full featured CLI and will most likely decouple the GUI from the underlying OS.

I bet in a few years windows will be a hell of a lot like Linux (or MacOSX).

Re:Don't laugh.

[qtp]

Don't laugh they are already working on developing full featured CLI and will most likely decouple the GUI from the underlying OS.

Wow! What an innovative idea!

It's just too bad that for them to sell this "new OS", they're gonna have to get someone to invalidate the BSD vs AT&T decision and invalidate the GPL!

Oh yeah, they're already working on that.

Troll Label

[nurb432]

Like i really care ...

Definition

[nurb432]

Just an FYI:

decimate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ds-mt)
tr.v. decimated, decimating, decimates
To destroy or kill a large part of (a group).
Usage Problem.
To inflict great destruction or damage on: The fawns decimated my rose bushes.
To reduce markedly in amount: a profligate heir who decimated his trust fund.

Censored?

[lesterhv]

On a day where there were absolutely huge anti-Bush demonstrations in London, I don't see a mention of this .co.uk website.

Nah... no bias here!

carbon copy

[RealityThreek]

Did you guys go look at it? I swear, they attempted to copy news.google.com. "Clone and extend" or something like that, right?

dotted

[drakos7]

Of all the articles to come out this week, too bad the site incur the slashdot effect.

The Next Microsoft

[TPFH]

Now Microsoft has a monopoly and the inertia will eventually kill them.

I think that it would be more of Trying to fight a war on too many fronts. They are trying to conquer everything, and my hope is they will become so fragmented they will break apart. (Rather than that they succeed on all fronts and take over the entire world.)

My only question is, can I pick the stock of the next contender to the throne?

That's tricky. I'm not sure how you could predict who that would be other than maybe, what is the up and comming company that everybody hates. Except that might point to SCO and I can't see them pulling it off. But you never know.

That my friend is the American way.

I'm not sure if it is the American way or what. I suppose it how America operates. I would call it speculation and a reason why our economy is so unstable now. People invest not because of what a company is actually doing, but in the hope that other people also invest and drive up the price. It is illusion over substance.

When I was in school a proffessor talked about how years ago Digital was starting to work on some cool new technology (something to do with parallel processing I think). He had immediately invested a lot of money in Digital, which did nothing for years, and now that the technology was a reality the stock had not gone up all that much. He mused that if he had invested in MS he would have been rich. The moral is that marketing beats cool technology most of the time.

dont worry your pretty little head

[Anonymous Coward]

i know how tough it is to read *and* understand all those words in the article, but give it just one more shot and you might get it! i believe in you!!