Posts Tagged ‘microsoft’

Microsoft loses ads on Facebook, expands Bing search deal

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Microsoft and Facebook have ended their advertising deal in which the software giant sold display ads on the social network, while at the same time expanding their search relationship. The announcement comes as a major Facebook redesign is being rolled out gradually to users. Microsoft will continue to sell search advertising for Facebook, but the social network will take over the selling of its own display advertisements in the US (it began taking over international sales in the last few months). Microsoft said this was a “mutual decision” since “it just made more sense” for Facebook to lead its own advertising strategy. Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe the company is happy about losing the advertising section of its partnership, although banner ads weren’t doing so well on the site anyway. In fact, Facebook stopped running traditional banner ads altogether when it launched the new design and instead is focusing on selling social campaign display ads. Meanwhile, Bing will continue to be the social network’s exclusive Web-search partner, and that exclusivity will soon go beyond US borders. Facebook users will also get access to more Bing search engine features, Microsoft said, describing it as “a more complete search experience” with “full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links.” Microsoft says users will see Bing updates to Facebook roll out over the coming weeks and months. Four months ago , Microsoft announced a global partnership with Facebook that would bring the social site’s status updates to Bing search results, and while the company touched upon that again, it did not give a specific date for when to expect those improvements.

feature: Daddy’s Home: Ars reviews Bioshock 2

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

The world of Rapture has a lot in common with Jurassic Park . Both fictional places tried to create a sort of closed paradise, playing with nature to fulfill the needs of their respective creators. Both experiments went horribly wrong, making a point about the will of man. In popular culture, when reach exceeds grasp, people die terrible, action-packed deaths. Bioshock 2 takes place ten years after the events of the first game. I’ll keep this review spoiler-free for both games for those who are still playing through Bioshock due to various Steam sales, but allow me to say that things haven’t settled down since we last saw the underwater world of Rapture. Everyone is still breathing, you see lumbering riveters repairing damage to windows and other structures, and the Splicers are still hunting for ADAM and coming into contact with the Little Sisters and their hulking Big Daddy escorts. It’s a constant fight for survival, and as the frequent scenes of death prove, most are not successful. There is something of a power vacuum, however, and a few personalities have risen to try to fill it. Bioshock 2 is the story of a Big Daddy. You might call him the Big Daddy. The game begins with a violent act, and you wake up to a world even more violent now than how it was left at the end of the previous game. You have a single name on your lips: Eleanor.

Google’s China problem leaves opening for Bing

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Earlier this month , Google unleashed one of the year’s biggest technology stories by announcing it was no longer interested in working with the Chinese government to censor search results, and by threatening to cease operations in the communist country. Microsoft, for its part, remained quiet for as long as it could, and then eventually announced it would continue operations in China, business as usual. This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer emphasized this again in a post on The Microsoft Blog . “We have done business in China for more than 20 years and we intend to stay engaged, which means our business must respect the laws of China. That’s true for every company doing business in countries around the world: we are all subject to local laws.” We’re not surprised; after all, if one of your biggest competitors has decided to leave a market because it believes it was victimized and you were not (Microsoft maintains its systems were not compromised in the Chinese attacks on the 30 or so US companies), then you would also do your best to take advantage of the surprise that has just landed in your lap.

Photosynthesis uses quantum interactions to harvest light

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

By some measures, the photosynthetic process is one of the more efficient energy transactions in nature. Scientists have taken an interest in figuring out how it works at the atomic level, as some research had suggested that quantum mechanics might be at work when the system was examined at low temperatures. A new experimental setup using photosynthetic proteins shows that, when they are stimulated with light, they interact on a quantum level: their states are dependent on one another, which allows them to transmit energy efficiently. Photosynthesis relies on proteins that absorb light, which excites their electrons, giving them enough energy to move within or even exit the molecule. This excitation energy is transmitted between molecules to a reaction center, where it is harvested for use by the organism. Until recently, scientists thought that the energy was transferred according to classical laws because of the size and complexity of the proteins, but this new research shows that quantum interactions are at work.

Microsoft investigating disappearing music from Zune Pass

// February 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

According to a post on the Zune Forums , owners of the Zune Pass are having a bit of trouble accessing the music they’re paying for with their subscription, as first reported by Engadget . In less than two weeks, the thread in question has passed 50 replies as users complain and list what they can no longer access: specific songs, entire albums, or even everything produced by an artist. The sixth reply in the thread is thankfully one from a Microsoft representative. “Hey all—we’re hearing you! We are investigating your reported missing albums indicated in this post—and will come back to you as soon as we understand why they’re missing,” Michelle A. of the Zune Product Team writes. “It is extremely helpful that you advise the album title and artist names to us, so that we can include them into our investigation.” As a result, the rest of the thread is filled with lists of missing tracks. Apart from the initial response, Microsoft has not posted an explanation of what has gone wrong or how it plans to fix the issue. Customers affected are confused and annoyed as they are constantly seeing errors when trying to play parts of their music collection. The only way users can still access missing songs is if they previously saved them (Zune Pass subscribers get to choose 10 songs each month to keep ). Microsoft’s customer service is pointing to record labels pulling music, but the reports from users suggests there’s no pattern in the content that is being pulled. We will let you know when Microsoft has an explanation and/or a solution to this issue.

Aliens vs. Predator demo shows promise, fails to sell game

// February 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Aliens vs Predator may very well be a good game, but the demo doesn’t do much to sell it. The demo is multiplayer-only and only showcases one map and one game mode: deathmatch. The servers are public and trying to find a game is an exercise in frustration. In over two hours spent with the PlayStation 3 version of the demo (it’s also available on the 360 and PC) I managed to play a scant three games. And one of those got disconnected. Ben had similar issues when trying to connect to the PC version.

Week in Microsoft: Google tries to speed demise of IE6

// February 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Let’s look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Google to send Internet Explorer 6 users packing come March : Google is phasing out support on Google Docs and Google Sites for all browser versions older than IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0. It’s another reason for IE6 users to upgrade. IE6 users to be evicted from Gmail, Google Calendar : Google has confirmed that it plans on phasing out older browser support for both Gmail and Google Calendar sometime later this year.

Week in Apple: Flash on iPad, Apple TV stays a hobby, SDK gems

// February 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

As developers dug into the iPad SDK and unearthed previously unknown gems, there was more discussion about 27″ iMac issues, Flash support in iPhone OS, and why the Apple TV remains a hobby in Apple’s eyes. Oh, and did you know that the 2010 Macworld Expo is next week? Tablet makers rethinking things in wake of iPad’s $499 price : Rumor has it that MSI, ASUS, and other companies that will put out competing tablets this year have been knocked back on their heels by the iPad’s low launch price. The $499 model’s apparently thin profit margin is also a massive change for Apple, so it’s worth thinking about how and why the company did it. Three years later, Apple TV remains a hobby : Apple largely focused on the iPad in its most recent employee Town Hall, but one employee ventured a question about the Apple TV. Yep, it’s still a hobby, and we believe it will be stuck that way until the content offerings are more interesting.

Week in tech: big-screen Super Bowl party edition

// February 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Tomorrow is Super Sunday, but could some Super Bowl viewing parties could fall on the wrong side of the law? Ars looks at whether the combination of Super Bowl parities and big screen TVs runs afoul of US copyright law. The state of South Australia has a new election law that went into effect January 6, and its effect was shocking: anonymous political speech on the Internet was simply destroyed. After an enormous outcry, the premier of the state has decided to repeal the law.

Windows 7 stability fix breaks stability, puzzles Microsoft

// February 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Last week , Microsoft posted a slew of non-security updates for Windows 7, one of which was titled as follows: “An update is available to improve the stability and the reliability of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.” Unfortunately, according to a thread on Microsoft TechNet , the update ( KB977074 ) is actually breaking the stability and reliability of the operating system. “I [j]ust installed this update and my system hangs/freeze[s] at the windows bootup screen,” the thread starter wrote. Another user went a little more in-depth: “At shutdown the PC often hangs with a message that a program is still running. Forcing program end does not work. The PC hangs for minutes until I press the PC’s power button. During one startup, a message came up indicating I needed to validate Windows 7. Therefore the PC lost the validation information. The revalidate succeeded. Shutdown problems consistently occur after running media center. Also have problems with recorded TV programs. Intermittently can’t burn a recorded TV program to disc. After this failure occurs, a subsequent shutdown produces a hang 100% of the time.”

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