Categories
Microsoft Mobile

Windows Mobile 7 Actually Releasing Only In 2011?

Earlier this week, we had rubbished reports of Windows Mobile 7 not launching this year. The line of thinking had been that Microsoft had already confirmed the launch of the next edition of Windows Mobile next month at the Mobile World Congress.

Now, it appears that Win Mobile 7 might not actually release next month. But Microsoft is indeed launching the next edition of its mobile operating system – Windows Mobile 6.6.

The DigiTimes reports

“Microsoft reportedly plans to launch Windows Mobile 6.6 (codenamed Maldives) in February 2010 to strengthen its competitiveness against iPhone- and Android-based platforms, according to industry sources.

Sales of Windows Mobile 6.5 have been flat since the platform was launched in the fourth quarter of 2009, pushing Microsoft to bring forward Windows Mobile 6.6, which supports capacitive touchscreens, the sources noted.”

Support to capacitive touch screens could boost the  saleability of Windows Mobile to a great extent. What do you think?

[via DigiTimes]

Categories
Microsoft Mobile

Windows Mobile 7 Delayed Till 2011?

There are rumors and baseless rumors. Put this in the latter category. Folks at UberGizmo are pointing to a report on another website that claims that Windows Mobile 7 is all set to be delayed yet again and it wouldn’t launch until Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2011.

Why is this baseless? Because we have already had reports from Microsoft that Win Mobile 7 will debut next month at the Mobile World Congress. Earlier this month, ZDNet wrote

“After the no-show (and no mention) of Windows Mobile 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, Microsoft officials have begun touting theMobile World Congress (MWC) event in mid-February in Barcelona as the place that Windows Mobile 7 will finally be on public display in some way for the first time.”

[UberGizmo via BrightSideOfNews]

Categories
Microsoft Web

Bing Uses Collaborative Search Behavior To Rank Results

If you think the results that you click on Bing search engine is not actually watched by anyone, you  might be wrong. Big Bing actually makes use of your click behavior while delivering search results for other users.

In a patent published recently by Microsoft, the company has sought rights for a technology which will study click patterns of search engine visitors to understand which links are relevant in order to give these results a higher weighing factor for future search queries (of a similar nature).

The inventors of the patent write

“[T]he method may include receiving a search criteria from a user, identifying one or more agents who have performed a search using the search criteria, the agents and the user belonging to the computing network, identifying one or more search results that the agents have previously selected as being relevant to the search criteria, ranking the search results, and displaying the search results according to the ranking.”

While this does sound interesting, there are two questions here:

1. Will privacy advocates cry foul at Microsoft’s attempt to track user behavior?

2. How detrimental can this be to real time search considering a lot of clicks at one point in time might not be relevant later on?

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.