Posted on June 19th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
This morning, BallmerCorp published an application with the awkward title of “Providing Modified Notifications When Inferring a User Might Not Want to be Notified”. The implication is that the user doesn’t really know what he/she wants, so Microsoft will decide.
From the first claim:
when it is inferred that the user [...]
Popularity: 9%
Filed under: Mobility, Patents, Usability, User Experience | No Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
Using its Terms and Conditions as an excuse, Microsoft is deleting any XBox gametags (aka userids) containing the word “gay”. As reported by WebGuild, Microsoft explains that its platform is meant to be an inclusive and safe environment. This means Richard Gaywood (his real legal name) has to create a new [...]
Popularity: 10%
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Posted on May 4th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
i guess Microsoft has given up on the youth demographic who prefer Mac and Ubuntu… Young twerps!
Taking its cue from Readers Digest’s Big Print Edition, the Ballmer Corp decided that an “old person’s OS” was its future. this was announced last week at the Digital Inclusion conference in London.
The PC will come [...]
Popularity: 19%
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Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
Granted today by the USPTO, patent #7,349,830 describes a patent granted to Microsoft for Weather Profiling. And you thought global warming was going to be bad:
Sleet driver not found.
A problem has caused The Sun to stop Shining correctly. Windows will close the sun and notify you if a solution is available. Ok?
You may be a [...]
Popularity: 25%
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Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
In today’s paper was an insert ad for Future Shop (aka Best Buy)… lots of Compaq, HP, and Acer computers on sale… not a bad thing. But the WEIRD thing was… no mention of operating systems… no mention of Vista… Home Vista… Deluxe Vista… in fact the entire 16 page insert didn’t [...]
Popularity: 19%
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Posted on February 21st, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
MS published an application today with the US Patent and Trademark Office today for “Failure Recognition”. I know what you’re thinking… they’re finally claiming something they’re good at. Insert your own wisecrack in the comments section!
What I’m wondering now… will Microsoft launch an infringement lawsuit because Toshiba recognized [...]
Popularity: 20%
Filed under: Patents | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
Every now and then I find this list. I think it says a lot about the companies that betted a few bucks on the future. The first… Symbolics.com still up today. Not much of anything, I think this is even their original 1985 logo. The second is also hanging in… [...]
Popularity: 20%
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Posted on February 3rd, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
There’s a lot of blogs written by anonymous insiders. These folks have direct or indirect access to secret product info… Apple had ThinkSecret… Research In Motion has Boy Genius… What about Microsoft? Doesn’t anyone even care what they’re cooking? Well here ShippingSeven - supposedly written by a coder who’s [...]
Popularity: 27%
Filed under: Business, Movies, Software | No Comments »
Posted on February 2nd, 2008 by Baxter
Warning dialogs - we love them. But then, what’s the use of warning about invisible cows??? I mean - They’re INVISIBLE!! Not much we can do about it, don’t ya think?
On the other hand, Vista gives us lots of choices when warning about an over-write… Ok… you’ve convinced me Microsoft, “Do [...]
Popularity: 28%
Filed under: Bones, Usability | No Comments »
Posted on January 26th, 2008 by Mitch Brisebois
This week, the US patent office published an application by Microsoft for “Lingtweight”.
What’s a lingtweight?? The new Zune? Vista - the Norwegian Edition?? Code name for IE9??? No.
Lingtweight: What happens when Microsoft patent lawyers think they’re too smart to be using spell checkers. Of course Google [...]
Popularity: 33%
Filed under: Innovation, Patents, Pirates, Software, Web 3.0 | No Comments »
