14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, the Redmond company decided to make one more step in the competition with Google and debuted an exciting feature of its Live Search Maps, an online service that provides satellite imagery for free. As you might know, the search giant Google owns Google Maps, the service that is often regarded as the most powerful product in its category, with millions of users every day. Microsoft introduced detailed 3D imagery for New York, providing a different perspective for all the users of the Maps service. Although there is only one service available at this moment, the company plans to make the feature available for several other cities such as Austin (Texas), Cincinnati (Ohio), Northampton (England) and Ottawa. According to Microsoft, the new maps will be introduced on May 29, so expect some new images for the software giant's service.
"Microsoft Live Search Maps will today begin offering three-dimensional, photo-realistic views of New York City buildings and landscapes, with perspectives that few people - apart from Superman - have ever seen. The free online service will provide a unique look at many of New York's iconic locations, along with local listings, ratings and reviews and driving directions to help people easily find, discover, plan and share relevant location information that is important to them on the Web," Microsoft described the feature.
As you can see, the battle for this type of products is more and more attractive as a lot of companies are getting involved into the competition. Beside Google, the owner of Google Earth and Google Maps, Microsoft is now targeting the same category of users with similar products able to provide competitive features.
On Tuesday, Microsoft debuted what is seems to be the most revolutionary technology revealed this year: Surface. This device is a 30-inch display that allows people to interact with their products, being meant to be included in all kinds of businesses such as hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues. Because the device doesn't provide a mouse or a keyboard, it can be accessible with a simple digital finger that offers 100 percent functionality. According to Microsoft's officials, Surface will become available for all these businesses by the end of the year.
"With Surface, we are creating more intuitive ways for people to interact with technology. We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror. Surface is the first step in realizing that vision," Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer said. "There are hundreds of thousands of restaurants, hotels and retail locations that are looking to give their customers the unique and memorable experiences that Surface will provide. In turn, companies have a new opportunity for generating additional revenue streams and increasing retail traffic," Pete Thompson, general manager of Microsoft Surface Computing, added.
On Wednesday, the Redmond-based company joined forces with Dell and Intel to distribute a new type of PCs equipped with NAND-based flash memories. These new devices are useful especially for the users of the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista, because it contains two functions able to boost the computer's performance: ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive.
"Several NAND solutions are coming on the scene to take advantage of the ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive features of the Windows Vista operating system. Standardizing on a common controller interface will enable more integrated operating system support of these solutions moving forward," said Bob Rinne, general manager of Windows Hardware Ecosystem at Microsoft. "We've got a performance-enhancing NAND-based product in the market with our new Centrino mobile technology platform called Intel Turbo memory, and this newly formed working group will help make that and a number of other NAND-based solutions more prolific, faster," added Rick Coulson, senior fellow and director of I/O Architecture at Intel.
The battle between Google and Microsoft is now pushed to another level as the Redmond company announced on Thursday that its own Book Search will become more powerful soon. Although Google updates the book search technology very often, Microsoft tries a similar move and will add several features to the service that will take the Redmond-firm closer to the Mountain View rival.
"Microsoft said Live Search Books would now include a counter telling how many pages are left within the number of pages they are allowed to view, and tools to allow people to more easily search within books using specific keywords," News.com reported.
In the recent period, Google tried to digitize the content provided by a lot of universities or libraries and include it into its Book Search technology. Microsoft wants to do something similar and is now planning to sign deals with Cambridge University Press and McGraw-Hill and Simon & Schuster.
In our times, the blogs are probably the best way to bring the revolutionary Web 2.0 closer to the users because they provide a simple method to get in touch with your visitors and organize your website's content with ease. That's why most of the Internet companies are trying to focus on blog-related products, Microsoft being one of the main contenders for this IT market. On Friday, the Redmond company debuted a new version of Windows Live Writer Beta, a downloadable application that allows you to organize your blog posts quick and easy. Beside the compatibility with the most popular blog services such as Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type and Community Server, Windows Live Writer Beta lets you prepare your messages in offline mode and post them when you go online.
"Powerful editing features - Creating compelling blog posts is much easier with the ability to insert and edit tables, check spelling as you type, and format and hyperlink content at your fingertips. Offline editing - Now you can blog anytime, from anywhere. Writer synchronizes drafts on your blog with changes you make when you're offline, so you don't have to worry about reconciling different versions," Microsoft described two of the main features.
