| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec » | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | ||||
By Ina Fried
The second beta of Windows Vista will not come until next year, Microsoft said Tuesday.
The software maker did not give a time frame for the release of Beta 2 of the operating system, and said only that it would have more to say next year. Microsoft had not said when Beta 2 will come, but some had expected it might come in December or January.
Microsoft did say it still plans to release the final version of Vista in the second half of next year
Posted by Michael Arrington
Yahoo gathered a small group of bloggers, press and others at Sauce in San Francisco tonight to announce the launch of two new RSS products. They have integrated an RSS reader directly into Yahoo Mail Beta, and are expanding Alerts to include RSS feeds.
By Ariston Collander
I have read all over the place about the importance of finding that niche, that small piece of the blogosphere where you plan to plant your blogging seed and hope it grows. What comes along with that desire though, is a sense of fear. Sitting down and trying to identify where you want to go with your blog is an incredibly daunting task for the first time blogger. You open your browser and begin searching on topics that interest you and you realize how large the blogging universe really is. You have certain questions that arise in your mind:
By Ben Charny
Microsoft Corp. said it is readying an online marketplace, code-named Fremont, which is apparently in response to a similar feature that rival Google Inc. introduced a few weeks ago.
Fremont is a free service in which people contribute listings, whether it’s about a couch for sale or someone looking for a commuting partner.
Microsoft plans to index each item, thereby adding it to the results from using Microsoft’s Internet search engine.
The software giant will enhance the Fremont listings with localized maps, and make them available through Microsoft’s newly revamped Internet portal, now known as Live.com, according to the company.
While created to serve primarily as an online marketplace, Fremont, and similar initiatives pre-dating it, serve a much broader purpose.
By Kim Zetter
Two new search engines offer to do for podcasting what Technorati does for blogs by letting users search podcasts by keyword to single out audio that suits their interests.
Podzinger and blinkx scour audio content for keywords by translating the audio into text and creating an index for quick searching. It’s a significant step above traditional search engines that identify only keywords in a podcast’s metadata, such as the headline and introductory notes describing the audio file’s general content.
Podzinger, in beta until mid-December, lets users jump to the spot in a podcast where their search term appears, rather than forcing them to scan an entire program for pertinent parts as blinkx does. Its minimalist design has an uncluttered search page, à la Google. And Podcasters can link to a searchable index of their content in order to sell sponsored links to text in the index provided by Podzinger.
Both Podzinger and blinkx include information about the source of the podcast and excerpts of text translated from the podcast with the relevant search terms highlighted. But Podzinger’s information is more extensive and the results include a counter indicating where in the podcast the snippet is located. And Podzinger allows users to click on the Play button to hear the excerpt and determine its relevancy before clicking on a link to download the entire podcast.
A third search engine, launched last spring by TVEyes and called Podscope, searches podcasts but scans only for the sounds of syllables rather than full words. AOL recently announced plans to integrate Podscope into the portal’s search page.
“The (podcast) world is exploding,” said Alex Laats, president of the business division of BBN Technologies that created Podzinger. “The problem, though, is that … it’s very difficult to find what you want to find in podcasts…. Google proved that relevance of results means almost everything. But our view is that without the words you can’t get the relevant results.”