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Leaving Live Mesh and the mess Microsoft is in

Posted on 20th Nov 2009 at 11:24 by Alex Watson with 16 comments

It’s not often PC Pro gets the drop on us in terms of new technology (unless you’re into laser printers), but they were well ahead when it came to Microsoft’s Live Mesh, and prompted by their enthusiastic praise, I gave it a try.

Live Mesh really is pretty nifty; sign up for an account, add your computer to 'the Mesh' (your own of group of machines) and any folders you select are uploaded to the servers. You can then access these folders and files via a web browser, or – and this is the brilliant bit – set them to by synced across multiple computers. Make a change to a file on one PC, and it’ll be uploaded to the servers, then downloaded when the other machines turn on so they all mirror each other.

For a while, in fact, it was so good, I wondered if it was the start of a turnaround for Microsoft.

Is Google Maps on your phone a TomTom killer?

Posted on 9th Nov 2009 at 11:50 by Antony Leather with 13 comments

I've written a couple of previous blog posts about using my phone as a sat nav, and while CoPilot's updates have turned it into a decent app, it's still not a serious rival for a dedicated GPS.

Google's recent announcement that phones running its Android 2.0 OS will all feature free turn-by-turn GPS navigation, however, is something that threatens to change the sat nav market completely.

How are you getting on with Bing?

Posted on 22nd Oct 2009 at 13:10 by Mark Mackay with 39 comments

Since the release of Microsoft’s new search engine named Bing, it’s been something of a hot topic. The company’s previous attempt at a search engine, Live Search, was a woefully lacklustre addition to Internet Explorer and something of a non-event for the world of internet search.

Clive blogged his thoughts about Microsoft being on to a winner with Bing while Alex thought otherwise. But has Google gone unchallenged for such a long time that it’s possible the search giant could be caught unawares by a decent newcomer?

Series 3, Episode 3 - P55, Chrome OS, Monkey Island

Posted on 24th Jul 2009 at 18:52 by Podcast with 10 comments

The mixer is back and so now Episode 3 of Series 3 of the combined Custom PC and bit-tech podcast is here. CPC’s Alex and Mark are joined by Richard and Joe from bit-tech. On the hardware side of things, the panel discusses the upcoming P55 chipset and Lynnfield CPUs from Intel. Software wise, Chrome OS from Google is cause for much discussion, and there is a lot of games news, including Battlefield 1943, Left 4 Dead 2 and of course, the return of Monkey Island.

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Bing will beat Google

Posted on 1st Jul 2009 at 11:47 by Clive Webster with 29 comments

Alex wrote an interesting blog post about Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, last week. The gist of it was that Google is so successful that competing against it with a similar product isn't going to work - and as a result, his idea was that searching social sites such as Facebook and Twitter is probably the biggest threat to Google.

I feel that’s slightly missing the point. Bing, after all, is the default search engine for Internet Explorer, which is the default browser of the interweb, therefore as long as Bing just works and is good enough (in the same way that Google is now) no-one will see a need to switch. Far from Microsoft needing to up its game to beat the services of Google, it’s Google that needs to provide a compelling reason to switch the search engine of IE’s search bar from Bing to Google.

If it isn’t Google, it isn’t search

Posted on 24th Jun 2009 at 12:19 by Alex Watson with 24 comments

So there’s a new search engine called Bing. It’s made by Microsoft, and before it was Bing, it was Live Search, and before that Windows Live Search and MSN Search and... basically it’s been going since the Magna Carta, and since it’s not Google, 90% of people don’t care. But Microsoft does, and it wants you to. It’s really serious this time about taking on Google so it’s spending billions of dollars to make sure people stop Googling and start Binging. Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “willing to spend five to ten percent of operating income for up to five years”. That’s serious cash.

A small slice of this moolah has fallen to us at bit-tech (we already spent it on Taiwanese beef jerky), but unlike a lot of ad campaigns, this one is interesting as Microsoft has been quite keen to know what we think, and what you, the readers think about search – specifically, the problems with it. If you do want to give your thoughts on search, we’re running a survey and you can win an Xbox 360 Elite.

It’s a difficult question, because, to be honest, my first answer was that I didn’t really have any problems with search. Google just works. There’s a reason that this is the answer given in many a forum thread.

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Archive for the ‘google’ tag

Leaving Live Mesh and the mess Microsoft is in

Is Google Maps on your phone a TomTom killer?

How are you getting on with Bing?

Series 3, Episode 3 - P55, Chrome OS, Monkey Island

Bing will beat Google

If it isn’t Google, it isn’t search

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