Now that the fuss over Bing’s launch is already over (that didn’t last long, did it?), what is the future for it? According to this article’s source, Bing had a 11.1% share of the US Search market. Microsoft apparently haven’t hit above 10% since 2007, so that could be seen as quite a positive thing. But Google seems pretty confident this is just a blip on the radar and they are unconcerned, and that could potentially be true.
I’m no expert by any means, but it will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Whats more, if Microsoft really love the Bing name, will they start replacing all the Windows Live products after replacing Live Search? Will we start using Bing Messenger, Bing Hotmail and so on? Will they do a last minute re-brand of Windows 7 to be Windows Bing? That would be quite funny…
I think this table (source) pretty much explains itself…
Basically to get the iPhone 3G S 16GB for free, you must be tied into a £73.41 a month contract for 18 months. Pay-as-you-go prices for the iPhones 3G S 16GB and 32GB are £440.40 and £538.30 respectively, which is just disgusting.
The HTC Magic (released back in May) already has most of the features the new iPhone is now touting – so why bother spending all the money when you could get just as good a smartphone, but for much less. I’m on a £35 a month 18 month contract, and my phone was free. The only feature the HTC Magic doesn’t currently have is internet tethering, but I’ve only had a use for that once in my life… so… I’m not really that bothered. And from what I’ve led to believe the HTC Magic hardware does support it, but it requires a little hacking to get working. And despite what you might read in the press, it’s actually a bloody good smartphone, and I got along with it much better than the iPod Touch I tried. Admittedly I’ve only played with an iPhone for about 10/15 minutes, but I found it pretty janky, just like the iPod Touch I tried.
And if you don’t like the virtual keyboard on the HTC Magic, word on the street is that there will be a new Android-based phone released in the summer that returns the physical qwerty… along with a whole host of other Android-based phones from various manufacturers.
Today is a good day for Android, and a bad day for your pocket if you’re an iPhone fan…
Many people across the world have made this pledge:
I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.
Here is mine, and although I didn’t have to think very hard about who to post about, I still admire her more than anyone in the world.
Hannah is 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant today, and she’s still working hard at Netbasic. She’s not exactly a pro programmer, but she’s learning so quickly. From knowing nothing at all about HTML or CSS or Photoshop, she’s come forwards in leaps and bounds with the help of everyone here. It’s certainly not easy for her, she gets aches and pains all day, Braxton Hicks contractions, extremely painful kicks, and all sorts. She’s under the weather, tired and very drained, yet somehow she is carrying on, she’s still working hard and creating pages that are helping keep the company going!
I suppose this is just my way of saying how proud I am of her, and how awesome she is.
Reading this article from The Register got me thinking about my recent laptop purchasing failure. Hannah and I tried to buy a very nice Sony Vaio laptop with bells and whistles, but both of us got refused the credit to buy the laptop. The current financial “credit crunch” is such that your everyday bloke can’t afford to simply spend £1,500 upwards on a nice shiny new laptop. There’s the other end of the rope where the retailers (or rather, the lenders who lend to the consumer so the retailer can sell their products) aren’t willing to give credit to consumers. It’s not a new situation, and anyone even remotely keeping up to date with news will know this.
It fustrates me though when people (even an established name like Intel) are trying to lower the cost of laptops (or in this case Ultra Low Voltage technology) such as the Macbook Air when, even at reduced prices, most consumers still can’t afford them, and lenders still can’t afford to give out credit. All they’re doing is reducing the value of these laptops and (although ULV tech is a bit expensive even for the current climate) making them almost a “cheap” alternative to a decent laptop. Essentially, the market won’t be stimulated until people have money again. How that happens isn’t really my area of expertise.
In my personal situation, I can afford repayments on a laptop but no-one will give me credit in these “exciting” 0.5% base rate times. That means I won’t be getting a new laptop any time soon.
Now is the time I really wish I was one of those fat cat execs with $1.2 million bonuses after 5 months of work. I want a new laptop, damnit!
This bears slight resemblance to the already widely publicised anti-trust/monopolising cases against Microsoft for bundling their own software with their OS, without offering the alternatives (read here (Windows Media Player) and here (Internet Explorer)). Admittedly, the competition for browsers and media player software is much higher than instant messaging software, but it’s slightly related.
Many Windows users will have already seen this install software, which is now downloaded every time you want to update a program, such as Windows Live Messenger. The program itself isn’t my concern, rather the automatic ticking of nearly every other Windows Live software on the list. I only wanted to update Windows Live Messenger, yet the program had automatically selected Mail, Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Writer, Family Safety, Office Outlook Add-on and Office Live Add-on for additional installation. That is an extra 128mb – a paltry amount, by most accounts, yet still an amount I have no need for.
To rub salt into the wound, post installation the default option is to change your search engine as well as fix your homepage. Rumours on the Internet are that if you do not remove the “Set my homepage” link, then the program installs an additional program that forces your homepage to stay the same; apparently (although I have not had first hand evidence) to the extent of not letting the user change their homepage for themselves. The idea behind it is to stop spy ware changing the homepage, yet this seems counter-intuitive to not allow users to change their homepage at all… As I said though, I cannot confirm the legitimacy of this rumour, so it may be speculative.
To summarise, Microsoft shouldn’t have these additional pieces of software automatically selected for installation – a less savvy user (family members come to mind…) might not look at this list and add these unnecessary pieces of software to their system.
