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How 8 Pixels Cost Microsoft Millions

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the debug-twice-distribute-once dept.

NubKnacker writes "Economic Times, one of India's biggest business daily's is carrying a story about how a small colouring mistake forced Microsoft to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95. This wouldn't be the first time that has happened to Microsoft. From the article, "Microsoft has also managed to upset women and entire countries. A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation." Ouch!"

17 of 734 comments (clear)

  1. Not the first time... by Lostie · · Score: 5, Funny

    This isn't the first time a huge company has made an embarassing translation error. There is that old classic when Ford introduced the Pinto in Brazil. After watching sales go nowhere, the company learned that "Pinto" is Brazilian slang for "small penis." Ford pried the nameplates off all of the cars and substituted them with "Corcel" which means horse.

    1. Re:Not the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      [Insert obligatory Snopes link here]

    2. Re:Not the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Journalists don't read snopes when they're writing a story. That smells of research. You take your story from stories that you've read elsewhere. Hence the popularity of reality shows and the Iraq war.

    3. Re:Not the first time... by Tenebrious1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Was the "Yugo" a translation error? ;)

      Kinda... it's called the "Wego" in most other countries, but once it got to the US, they discovered that they could only fit one average sized American into the car. They wanted to call it the "Igo" but immediately got threatened by Apple, so ended up calling it the "Yugo".

      Ok, so "i{blank}" didn't exist back then... sue me!

      --
      -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
    4. Re:Not the first time... by JAD+lifter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Clearly not everyone believes Snopes,

      Snopes has been wrong about things in the past. Chances are there are things on their site that are wrong right now. Snopes will get things wrong in the future. People act like Snopes is the infallible word of god or something but it is not.

  2. Dupe... by dmayle · · Score: 5, Informative

    Come one, come all, for the greatest dupe on earth... It's not the exact same article, but it's the exact same source materiel...

    If I was low on Karma, I'm sure I could Karma Whore and just copy high scoring posts from the previous article...

    1. Re:Dupe... by sleepnmojo · · Score: 5, Funny
      Going from "female" to "bitch" would be pretty hard to do. I find it hard to believe it could be done unintentionally, if at all, of course.
      I've seen it happen in the blink of an eye. So it can't be that hard.
  3. coincidence by warrped · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Some of our employees, however bright they may be, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world," he said." ... and this is different from the rest of America how exactly?

    --
    - Bachelorhood is the father of necessity.
  4. Anyone speak Latin? by bugnuts · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation."

    I only speak english... could someone explain the problem with that translation?

    1. Re:Anyone speak Latin? by YankeeInExile · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My friend Zaulo was here this weekend helping me re-arrange my office, and we were discussing this exact story (thankfully this is a dupe, so I've had a chance to get some Local Color betweent the first and second postings!)

      File this under "the Spanish-speaking world is big. Really Big.". In Locale esMX macho and hembra are commonly used for animals, meaning male and female respectively.

      When applied to humans, they take on the connotation of "super manly" (a usage that is common in US English) and "extremely feminine and beautiful" ... (a usage that seems not to have found its way to the US).

      In some Latin American coutnries, the usage ranges from decidedly negative to merely curious.

      There was a similar story that made the headlines for a while, that some beer company had a series of commercials where all of the characters were referring to each other as "güey" (pronounced "way", like "do you know the way to san jose?") , which in esMX is the closest translation possible to "dude." In some other locales it is much more rude.

      The word is, in fact, a variant on the word buey (Ox) which is a very crude insult, likely leading to physical assault.

      --
      How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
  5. How 8 duped posts cost Slashdot its integrity by ormoru · · Score: 5, Funny

    After duplicating a post 8 times, Slashdot found that the majority of readers flamed the story before setting fire to their servers in protest.

    And now for a naked dwarf chasing a chihuahua...

  6. Not all small coloring mistakes were recalled by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    how a small colouring mistake forced Microsoft to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95.

    I seem to recall getting a lot of blue from Win95, and yet nobody at Microsoft returned by calls when I told them I wanted a refund for their faulty OS...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  7. No game by StevenHenderson · · Score: 5, Funny

    A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch"

    Pretty bad when even the Slashdot crew knows thats not too smooth... :)

  8. irony by bis · · Score: 5, Funny

    I especially love the subtitle of this story: "from the debug-twice-distribute-once dept."

    Perhaps it should have been from Slashdot's "post-twice-spellcheck-zero-times dept."

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  9. Re:I don't see the problem with Bitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why have a male/female option? When they're running Windows everyone is Microsoft's bitch.

  10. Beware of the source by Gzip+Christ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Beware of the source. I came across another article from their site earlier this morning and I'm perplexed as to how they can be considered a credible news source. Check out their article on programmers outsourcing their own jobs if you need a good laugh. They took a comment that was posted on Slashdot awhile back from some guy who was joking about how he had outsourced his own job to India and not only did they treat this guy's post as a reliable news source, but they also extrapolated it into claims of this practice being the hot new trend. It's quite bizarre. I wish I could find the original comment because I remember reading it and laughing at the time, but Google isn't turning it up for some reason.

  11. Not quite by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nope, "bitch" in Portuguese is "cadela" (brazilians tend to use "cachorra", but in both cases it means bitch, never girl or woman). The issue is a slightly different one. In Portugal, we use several words for "girl": "menina", "moça", "rapariga", "miúda", etc.

    One of the most common ones is "rapariga" (feminin of "rapaz", which means "lad"). In Brazil, "rapariga" is usually used to describe a prostitute (although technically it means the same - a young woman).

    A more interesting word is "puto". In standard Portuguese, it means "kid" (boy). In brazilian Portuguese it means "male prostitute". So, as you can imagine, when a portuguese writer (Altino Tojal) published a book called "Os putos" ("The kids"), in the 1970s, the brazilians thought Portugal (then a religious dictatorship!) was a really open society... ;-)

    The feminin ("puta") does mean the same in both dialects. ;-)

    Another interesting word is "Durex". In Brazil, it means sticky tape. In Portugal everyone knows it as a condom brand (although Control is more popular, and if you've used both, you know why). A couple of years ago, a (female) brazilian friend of mine came to Portugal, and needed some tape. She went to an office supply store and asked for "some Durex". The woman behind the counter looked at her as if she was some sort of nut and told her "well, if you want Durex, go to the chemist's!". She found this rather odd, but did as she was told. She walked into a pharmacy and asked for Durex. The chemist said "what type?", and she said "well, any type will do, I really need it quickly". The chamist said "well, what amount do you want?". Se held her hands about 70 cm apart and said "well, a piece about this big".

    True story.

    RMN
    ~~~