Microsoft Thumbstack

Microsoft’s Live Labs has just released Thumbtack, a web clipping service that allows users to compile links, media, and text snippets into online storage bins for future reference. Users can also share their Thumbtack collections with their peers, allowing them to collaborate by adding new clips and notations.

According to Microsoft, Thumbtack was developed based on user feedback the company received after releasing Listas in 2007. Unlike Listas, however, Thumbtack does not focus on social bookmarking but rather on creating online research collections. Thumbtack supports both IE7 and Firefox, though Firefox users miss out an a few interesting features.

Thumbtack is an “easy way to gather and share links, photos, and text, from different Web sites and save all of the data in the form of a collection to a single place,” a Microsoft spokesperson stated. “Thumbtack allows users to share and collaborate with others on collections, by providing the ability to directly email the content or by allowing them to publish their collection to the Web with a number of options including RSS, Atom, HTML, and Internet Explorer 8 Web Slices. Thumbtack collections can also be embedded in personal websites and blogs.”

At this point in time Microsoft is not ready to reveal the direction in which it will take Thumbtack, as the Live Labs incubation projects are essentially designed to test ideas and technologies, more than actual solutions. In this regard, users familiar with Live Labs will notice similarities between the new tool and concepts tested with the Listas Technology Preview.

You can find more information on Listas and Thumbstack on Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.deployment
microsoft.public.design
microsoft.public.developer
microsoft.public.development
microsoft.public.applicationcenter
microsoft.public.access

Microsoft is taking another step into the world of Web-based computing with a new system it’s calling Windows Azure.

Microsoft says it’s joining Amazon.com and other rivals in selling information storage space and computing power “in the cloud,” distributed across massive data centers worldwide. That will let companies build Web-based programs without having to manage their own data centers.

Microsoft’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, described Azure to software developers at a conference in Los Angeles. Ozzie said that managing Microsoft’s own Web sites and Web-based programs has made the company adept at anticipating Web traffic spikes and knowing when to ramp up some computers and dial down others.

Want to know more about Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft news? Did you know that Microsoft has over 100 Newsgroups relating to every product they’ve released?  Check out just some of these Newsgroups as an example:

microsoft.public.test
microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
microsoft.public.greatplains
microsoft.public.outlook
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
microsoft.public.excel.misc
microsoft.public.access
microsoft.public.windowsupdate

To name a few.

Microsoft said that they have no plans to create a mobile device of their own, but they might have bigger plans to enter the business. According to a TelecomTV report, the monumental software company is planning to make a bid to acquire Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the Blackberry mobile devices.

According to the report, analysts are suggesting that Microsoft is waiting for RIM’s share prices to drop before they make a proposal. The Blackberry maker’s share numbers are currently at $60 USD, and as soon as the price drops to below $40, Microsoft will make their offer.

In related Microsoft mobile news, the company’s Windows Mobile OS is still widely used by other devices, such as the Samsung BlackJack and T-Mobile’s Dash.

A consortium of leading studios, including Warner Bros, Sony, NBC Universal, Fox Entertainment, Paramount and Lionsgate, has teamed up with Microsoft to develop an industry-standard digital media framework – excluding Disney because of its association with Apple.

Initially, more than 20 companies will be involved in the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) – a digital rights management initiative to standardise the acquisition and playback of content across a range of services and devices. This could lead to the development of a rival to Apple’s digital entertainment retail store iTunes.

In addition to the above studios, other DECE launch partners will include Alcatel-Lucent, Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Philips, Toshiba and VeriSign.

The consortium will aim to “address growing consumer confusion around buying, downloading and playing digital content offered by multiple services by working towards a simple, uniform digital media experience.”

Over time, DECE will issue a licensable specification, along with a recognisable brand and logo for compliant products and services, which it says will “assure consumers that content they download will play on their devices.” The specification, based on mutually agreed industry standards, will outline the hardware and software requirements for companies to follow.

A significant software upgrade for Microsoft’s Zune music player will be available next week. It will not garner the attention of Apple’s recent iPod news, but the changes are notable and worth consideration if you want a new portable music option.

Zune and other music competitors remain well behind the iPod in market share, yet Microsoft is doing some interesting things and have a more robust view of music that Apple has so far overlooked. Zune’s software upgrade will be available to download and shipped on new devices starting Sept. 16.

Here’s what’s new:

Buy from FM. The Zune has a built-in FM radio. So if you hear a song you like while listening to the Zune’s radio, you can tag it and the song will download to the Zune the next time you dock the device. This is similar to the HD Radio feature called iTunes tagging. I’ve tested that and it works great.

Zune Pass improved. Microsoft has always embraced the music subscription approach (Apple does not), and if you pay $15 a month for the Zune Pass, you’ll find that the feature for discovering new music has been significantly enhanced. You can download songs that stay on your device, as always; but with a subscription, you also can choose among 3.5 million songs to listen to at anytime.

Channels. These are programmed playlists that will change regularly. Channels will include songs suggested by top music programmers at radio stations, a selection from the Billboard Top 100, genre categories like folk, rock, hip-hop, etc., and even music for workouts. If you have Zune Pass, these channels will be refreshed with new music weekly.

Picks. These are songs recommended for you, based on what you like. In one respect, this is similar to the Genius program Apple offers on iTunes 8, but the difference is that when Apple suggests a song you like, you need to buy it. If you have Zune Pass (yes, you pay $15 a month), you can download and listen to full versions of as many songs as you want.

Social. You can listen to what your friends like. If one of your buddies always is the first to listen to some cool music, Zune can deliver those songs to your device.

There are more capabilities, but the real news is that Microsoft continues to distinguish Zune as an alternative approach to music. It’s a fine player if you take the traditional approach — load your CD collection onto the player or buy digital music online — but if you really like music discovery, Microsoft’s subscription plan is a great bonus.

Recently, Microsoft launched a new tool to detect online commercial intention. The intention with the tool is to generate a statistical calculation on how likely an average user would be inclined to purchase from a website or the likelyhood they would be searching for keywords to purchase something.

For instance, using this with our own website, Newsdemon.com, we generated these results:

Probabilities for Each OCI Type:
Commercial-Informational    Prob.: 0.5848
NonCommercial                    Prob.: 0.37661
Commercial-Transactional    Prob.: 3.8585e-002

According to this tool, you are 58% likely to buy something from our website.

Running this for the keyword Usenet, generated these results:

Probability for Commercial Query:
0.13459

We have a measly 13% probability that someone will be likely to buy using this keyword. No one likes Usenet anymore? This prompted suspicion.

So we decided to look further into this and to see what else is more popular than Usenet according to this Microsoft tool. The following is our results.

Toe Nails
Probability for Commercial Query:
0.43807
Beats Usent by 30%

Lint
Probability for Commercial Query:
0.30344
Beats Usenet by 26%

Grandmas Dentures
Probability for Commercial Query:
0.32371
Beats Usenet by 19%

Used Tissues
Probability for Commercial Query:
0.54734
Beats Usenet by 41%!!!!
If Microsoft is using their own tool for there marketing and estimating the intelligence of their audience by the results of this system would explain the reasons for most of their current lines of products.

It begs the question at the end of the day, can poor Microsoft get anything right anymore?

Here is today’s usenet trivia question:  When was the first mention of Microsoft made on Usenet?

The FIRST person to reply to the following email address with the correct answer PLUS their Name, City, State, and Country will be declared the winner.  The winner will receive a free month of Newsdemon.com Usenet Access!  Only the FIRST CORRECT email we receive at trivia@newsdemon.com with the user’s real information will be considered.  We will announce the winner within 24 hours of posting the Trivia Question.  If you submit an answer and do not hear back from us, then you are not the winner.  We will post the winners first name, last initial, city, and country on the blog after we have emailed the winner.  If you are not the winner, check back tomorrow, we may post another Usenet Trivia question tomorrow!