Microsoft Archive

In an effort to overtake Google Maps and clinch the title of "King of Maps", Microsoft's Bing Maps has rolled out an visually impressive and mind blowing feature that could leave Google Maps behind. The new application, known as Streetside Photos, mines geo-tagged photos from Flickr, associates them with Bing Maps Streetside photos and then overlays them by stretching the photo to form fit where in the world it belongs. For example, when you look at a Public Market (as seen below) on Bing Maps, you're able to view the default imagery together with geo-tagged photos from Flickr. This is particularly useful when you would like to take a peek of how it looks like at night or sunset. Another possible usage of Streetside Photos is to check the crowds at a particular time of the day. If the original photo on Bing Maps shows many people shopping for goods during the day, but Flickr photos of the same location during the night state otherwise, then of course you should do your shopping during the day if you prefer fewer crowds.

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We usually associate pirated products/software with the world's most populous country -- China. However, a recent survey might change our focus to somewhere else instead. The survey, named "The Mysterious Customer" was conducted by Microsoft, which inspected 2,500 retailers in 53 Russian cities over the last few months. It found out that 25 per cent of Russian software outlets sell illegally copied Microsoft software, and some 11 per cent of them even offered to install the software onto customers' computers. This has made Russia claim the title of "biggest pirates of Windows 7". "A few years ago most computer stores in some form or other offered pirate software," said Denis Guz, head of the company's department that promotes the sale of licensed software, in emailed comments. "Now, as we see, there are significantly fewer sales points of that kind ... and now the majority of retailers offer only licensed programs."

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Computer games are a great tool to train soldiers. In fact, there are games labeled as "realistic battlefield simulators" which are almost sold exclusively to armed forces. It seems the US amy is ready to train their troops on the Xbox instead of the PC. Sadly, Microsoft did not seem to like the idea. Microsoft has its reasons to decline the offer, and according to Roger Smith, chief technology officer for PEO STRI, the Army command responsible for purchasing training equipment, Microsoft declined because of 3 reasons. I doubt his reasons; the US Air Force bought 2200 PS3s to form a supercomputer and federal investigators use it to crack encryption codes on child pornographers. And all that time, the no one associated the PS3 with military networks. However, why did they choose to buy consoles? For one, they are cheap- costing only $200 compared to the $1000 on an average PC. Also, younger soldiers are more familiar with consoles. It seems like a great idea to train troops on on this, but they would need to hire someone to make their game.

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As a teenager, I'm an avid user of MSN, which I use to chat and play UNO with my friends. Of course, I'm eager to try out the new messenger. Earlier this week, we posted a couple of exclusive screenshots about the upcoming Microsoft Windows Live Messenger (also known as Wave 4), which will be launched in mid-March this year. And now there's more purported Wave 4 screenshots surface. The new messenger will include several awesome features such as Windows 7 taskbar integration by adding the four default status markers, tabbed chats windows similar to those in IE8, combining both the “Winks” and “Emotions” into one button, and a major improvement to its Photo Sharing (allowing users to share photos from their online albums or search the web for photos).

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