Here is my version: (let me know what you think of it)

I have seen plenty of companies, doing this..manipulating images and doing weird photoshoping of the images to be used on their websites..however it is not expected from Microsoft.. below is the example of how clumsy could their web team be when they launched these two websites, one is the regular english version of their website, while other one is polish version! notice the middle person in the image.

Thanks for the tip : Richard Bidermanis on NYTech Mailing list.

Microsoft  launch of OneApp is creating some buzz in the world of cellphones. OneApp consists of a small application and a set of Microsoft “cloud services” that allows a simple feature cellphone to access web services like Twitter, Facebook, and Windows Live Messenger without smartphone.

Microsoft’s servers handle the heavy lifting and send only the required bits of data to the user’s phone which will reduce data use and will speed up all functions.

OneApp application for features phones requires only 150KB of storage on the phone, which makes it suitable for most handsets. The individual OneApp modules for each supported service is going to be just 30KB in size and can be based on user choice only.

OneApp support will make it easier for upcoming mobile developers, and inspire them to also build applications for feature phones, since an app need only be developed once for OneApp and it will then run on a very wide variety of phones as a result.

Microsoft’s best ever attack at Apple’s iPod Touch by the name of Zune HD will be available from September 15th. The users who find this gadget utterly tempting can also pre-order at Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon and the Micrsoft Store today.

The Zune HD will be available in 16GB as well as 32GB memory storage capacities. As far as the customization and personal preference goes you can get the device in five different colors with option to get one of the ten available engravings on the backside. Zune HD will have Microsoft’s proprietary Zune software which I happen to like a lot. Its desktop version is just awesome in terms of user-interface if you can only bear the eons of time it takes to install.

Microsoft Zune was never a formidable name in the portable media player segment and we will know if it manages to cause any ripples in this space in the coming weeks. The 16GB and the 32 GB have been priced at $219.99 and $289.99 which is less that the iPod Touch. iPod touch for the similar memory capacities is available at $299 and $399.

As for the other features besides listening to music it will have touch screen and WiFi. As you might have guessed by the HD in name, it will have High Definition capabilities.

The pre-order is available from today while the in-store sales will start from September 15.

Microsoft has inked an agreement with Nokia which will now bring Microsoft Office suite of applications to the Nokia mobile phones. This is a significant move as both are leaders in their own right and it will considerably expand the reach of Office applications. According the the press release by Microsoft the two companies will also collaborate on the design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional.

This move is certainly going to help both the companies as Microsoft will be expanding the reach of its Office while it will give consumers another reason to buy a Nokia phone. I am sure this is going to make E-Series business phones more tempting for the business professionals on the go. Nokia plans to start shipping the Office-ready Nokia mobile phones from next year.

It’d be interesting to see how this alliance shapes up in the future.

Twitter is undoubtedly the most popular social network these days. So If you are a Microsoft Outlook user and love to tweet then you may use a twitter plugin which lets you update your twitter status while managing mails on Microsoft Outlook.

Now you can have a fully-featured, powerful Twitter client right inside your Outlook without having to open any other applications. TwInbox seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook. It is a perfect Twitter client for any Outlook user, from a Twitter newbie to a business professional.

TwInbox is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 running on Windows XP or Windows Vista with the likelihood that it will also work in Windows 7. Its just a nifty plugin and the installation is quick. All that needs to be done is to run the setup (while Outlook is closed). The TwInbox add-on will automatically be displayed in the Microsoft Outlook toolbar on the next start of the email client.

Twinbox allows user to perform common Twitter tasks like updating the Twitter status, receiving new messages or replying to messages. There are also quite a few options that could be very interesting for some Twitter users including the ability to handle Twitter messages like emails with the option to archive, manage, group and search them. There are also options to track keywords, upload and post pictures and files that have been send to Outlook, automatically sort messages in sender folders or to assign custom folders and categories to new messages.

If you are a new user  needs to do is to get into the options and enter the Twitter username and password to link these to the Outlook account. A new Outlook folder for Twitter messages has to be created in the same interface as well. There are other options like displaying notifications whenever a new Twitter message arrives.

Microsoft’s new search engine has created quite buzz since its introduction a few days ago. Finally, the search engine is now live for everyone to test. But Microsoft seems to have it optimized for English speaking users from the United States and the UK who get more functionality than someone from non-english speaking countries.

Bing also categorizes search results appropriately. A search for let’s say a city like New York will start with all results on the top and display categories like maps, weather, travel or attractions below each with a handful of search results. This is actually an interesting concept as it might aid inexperienced users in their search. Experienced users on the other hand will perform targeted searches to find the information they are looking for.

Bing will display the categories, related searches and the search history on the left. The image search of Bing displays image results on an infinite scrolling page with some nice features like an option to filter images by size, layout, color, style or people, and a virtual map that can be displayed for location based searches. It will for instance link pictures to locations on the map.

Bing’s Video search makes it possible to play videos directly on the results page. This can be done by hovering the mouse over a video or by clicking on the play button that appears when hovering over the video. Videos can also be filtered by length, resolution, screen size or source. Bing seems to have improved over Windows Live, especially for popular search terms. The interface is clean, search options are easily accessible and the search results appear on point. Video search gets a nice improvement as well — place your mouse cursor over a video search result and Bing will play back the video in thumbnail mode within the search results page. Just a word of caution about those videos. Don’t turn the safe search option off at work as you may get an unintended eyeful that is very much nsfw.

Microsoft’s latest new attempt to compete with google and target for total Web dominance is called as Bing. This search engine was termed as Kumo while it was in development phase, Bing is now replacing the Microsoft’s Live Search brand and takes on Google and Yahoo.

Rediscovering Web Search
Besides the unique new look to the search interface, Bing has amazing navigation for search results, including a new left-hand navigation bar, a hover feature that lets users preview Web pages before visiting them, and a categorized search feature that groups search results by topic category.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated Bing for the first time Tuesday at the D: All Things Digital technology conference. Bing goes live to the public beginning on June 3; it will be phased in over the course of several days.

Biggest Challenge
People who are web savvy and have knowledge won’t just stick after Google or Yahoo. People are likely to  focus on better and advanced search engines that really solves their problems. This is the only silver lining in the dark cloud, one hope that Bing can make people switch search engines

Microsoft Recite is an application for Windows Mobile that uses voice search technology to let users record notes for themselves and then later find those notes by speaking back to the application.

Microsoft Recite uses voice pattern matching which is different from speech recognition because it doesn’t convert the spoken words to text. It analyzes the patterns in your speech and finds matches between two recordings the notes you stored on your phone and the search you do using your voice.

With Microsoft Recite, you can use your voice to easily store, search and retrieve the things you want to remember, where and when you need them. Recite even lets you remember and search in multiple languages. You can record your shopping list, friends’ birthdays, addresses, school happenings, gift ideas, get-togethers, favorite wines anything you might need or want to remember later. Later, you just need to search with your voice and it retrieves all recorded notes.

If you’ve got one of the following phones, you can go download the preview for free (via text, mobile browser, or your computer) and try it out: AT&T BlackJack II, AT&T Pantech Duo, HTC Diamond, Motorola Q9C, Moto Q9m, Palm Treo 800w, Palm Treo Pro, SMT 5800, T-Mobile Dash, T-Mobile Shadow, and T-Mobile Wing. If you don’t have one of these phones, the video is above gives a few examples of how the application works.

It’s still a rumor but we believe it could be more than that this time around. The Inquirer has said that Microsoft is indeed making a Zune phone and it could be announced as early as this February at 3GSM. Further it is stated in The Inquirer that the Zune phone will run on Nvidia Tegra chip and it will obviously have Zune music player.

All of that sounds great, and we had started to agree to their “well-placed sources” until they linked the story to a Youtube Video titled Microsoft oPhone. I am embedding the video along with here so that you too can see what the guys at Inquirer believe would be the Zune phone.

I know that Microsoft has acted dumb at times but they are definitely less stupid than the author of the post at Inquirer. Microsoft might like to ape Apple or Google but seriously, the idea of Zune Phone is just a rumor for now and it seems that the stupid guys at Inquirer are the ones behind these gossips.

Grow up kids, we believe you must be dead drunk while writing the post. It wouldn’t have happened if only we had something like Mail Goggles for Posts.

 

Microsoft has launched an online news aggregator called microsoft/web that aggregates the most popular stuff from various web sources. It is basically an internet news channel that aggregates news & popular articles from internet on various topics like IT, finance & inspirational. Much like the RSS feeds that we use on a daily basis, but this news aggregator comes along with the power of Microsoft.

The war between Software giant Microsoft & Internet giant Google is not an unseen stuff from the past couple of months. Microsoft is running in news since several months for its continuous efforts to spread its presence in the online marketing & information industry. It has been nearly a few days when Google posed a threat to various technology sites by upgrading its Google Blog Search Engine.

Now Microsoft is shedding millions of dollars to get some chunk of the Google’s user base. One of the examples of their strategy is the news about microsoft planning to launch an Online Ad network like its rival Google’s adsense.

Well lets leave their battle up to them & utilize this new content aggregation service at its best.