Facebook and Bing just announced a new search partnership during a joint event at Microsoft's San Francisco offices. With this new partnership, Bing wants to take personalized search to the next level by tapping into the knowledge of your friends on Facebook. Microsoft looks at this as "the beginning of how search gets better because of your friends." According to Microsoft, "search is not just about the connections between data but also about the connection between people."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed an amicus brief in support of Microsoft today, asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a ruling that would have a major impact on patent litigation.
The EFF brief, filed alongside 10 others - including ones from Facebook, Intel, and Apple - stems from the $290 million patent infringement judgement against Microsoft. In 2009, a district court found Microsoft guilty of infringing on the patents of the Canadian software company i4i. i4i holds a patent for building a method of processing custom XML, a method i4i claimed - and the courts agreed - that Microsoft violated with its 2003 and subsequent versions of Word.
Microsoft and WordPress just announced that WordPress.com will become the default blogging platform for Windows Live. Live Spaces' 30 million users will have six months to migrate their blogs over to WordPress.com and the two companies will offer a number of tools that should make this migration very easy. This announcement, which was made at TechCrunch Disrupt, comes as a bit of a surprise and will surely upset some of Windows Live Spaces' most active users. It does, however, fit into Microsoft's vision for its Live.com brand.
The open web industry leader exodus to Google continues. Chris Wilson, former IE developer turned Principal Program Manager of the Open Web Platform in Microsoft's Developer Division, has announced that he's leaving Microsoft to join Google as a Developer Advocate.
Wilson joins a long line of key developers building cutting edge technologies to join either Google or Facebook. Wilson admitted last year when he took this latest position at Microsoft that it wasn't entirely clear what the Open Web is, "But to me, it's CSS, HTML 5, JavaScript and other APIs developed by the W3C," he told Microsoft watchdog Mary-Jo Foley in July 2009. Those are technologies that foster open, accessible innovation, as opposed to vendor lock-in.
Depending on where you are in the world and what profession you are in, Windows Live Messenger is either a professional tool you use every day to keep up with your colleagues or something only teenagers would use. Starting today, Messenger - which Microsoft is already positioning as a social networking client - will become more appealing to professionals, as Microsoft is introducing a deep integration with LinkedIn in the U.S. Thanks to this integration, Messenger users will not just be able to send status updates to LinkedIn and view your colleagues updates, but your Messenger and Hotmail contacts will also be kept in sync across the Windows Live and LinkedIn platforms.
Microsoft just announced that Bing Social - the company's Twitter and Facebook search engine - will now also recommend influential users that are connected to a given search term. If you search for "MTV," for example, Bing Social will recommend that you follow Justin Bieber and the band 30 Seconds to Mars on Twitter. According to Mike Ching and Shubha Nabar from the Bing Social team, the "People Recommendations" should make it easier for Bing users to find "interesting and relevant Twitter users based on your searches."
Microsoft announced today that Bing Maps - its counter offering to Google Maps - will be getting transit directions for those of you riding the rails or taking the bus.
The addition of transit directions is just an initial release and will contain transit information for 11 U.S. cities, with "more to come" in the near future.
We were in San Francisco yesterday as Microsoft unveiled the latest beta of Internet Explorer 9 and, like many present, we were impressed. From everything we saw, it was all it was hyped up to be - visually stunning, fast and full-featured. Then came the one, big catch - it's only available for Windows 7.
The Register says that it got the official word from Microsoft and if Internet Explorer 9 is something you want, then Windows XP just isn't going to do.
Amid all the live music, lights and general regalia that is Microsoft releasing its beta (yes, beta) version of Internet Explorer 9, one demo has really stood out - Bing.
While there are more than 40 different partners here today - from Myspace to IMDB - the number two search engine showed off an IE9 integration that included features like background video and on-screen transitions that you just have to see.
Microsoft just launched the first beta of Internet Explorer 9. After a series of developer previews, this is the first release of Internet Explorer 9 that features the browser's new interface. The new design is very clean and only features a single bar for entering URLs and managing your tabs. In addition, the browser is also integrated more tightly with Windows 7 and allows users to pin websites to the task bar, for example.
You can download the beta here.
