Bing Has 90 Million Users, 48% Growth Since Launch

Microsoft is saying that its Bing search engine now has more than 90 million users and has grown by nearly 50% since its launch a year and a half ago.

At its Bing Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft Senior Vice President of Research and Development Satya Nadella provided an audience of journalists with an overview of the search engine’s current state. He started by pointing to a recent comScore report concluding that Bing now commands 11.8% explicit market share, up 48% since its launch in June 2009. Specifically, Bing claims it has seen 72% growth in “heavy and medium users.”

One area Nadella made sure to highlight was “vertical” growth. He said that the growth of specialized searches in areas like music, travel and shopping have been phenomenal. He cited music specifically as experiencing “8x growth.”

Read More: Mashable

 

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Windows Phone vs. PC gaming now a reality

The first turn-based multi-player Xbox LIVE enabled game recently showed up in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Search for “Game Chest: Logic Games” and you’ll find it. It’s not just one game either. The $2.99 pack includes Chess, Sudoku, and Minesweeper. Chess is the only multi-player game, however. It’s a turn-based game, so what you need to do is send an invitation to a friend. This will send them an email where they’ll be able to start a game with you. The graphics look great and the music is cool. If you want to try out some mobile multiplayer chess gaming with Xbox LIVE acheivements and leaderboards, head on over to the Marketplace right now.

Source: PocketNow

 

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Windows Live launches new plug-ins website

We’ve talked a few times about how important it is for you to be able to connect your Windows Live experiences to the other great services you use.  You can connect connect Messenger to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, Hotmail lets you bring in your email from Gmail and Yahoo! Plus, and  WordPress.com powers a great blogging experience for Windows Live customers.

This week we are introducing a new Windows Live plug-ins website, which allows you to download and submit plug-ins for Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Writer.

Read  More: Windows Team Blog

 

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Microsoft quietly launches new casual, online multiplayer game

Microsoft has kicked off an open beta of a new multiplayer game called Neosaurs, which it is attempting to propogate virally via Twitter and Facebook.

The open beta commenced on December 9, according to the Web site for the game.

“Neosaurs is a new massively multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) adventure that you can play, right here in your browser for free! No downloads, no wait times. Click ‘Play Now’ to jump in the game and start playing right away with your existing Facebook or Windows Live account,” according to the Web page.

Read More: ZDNet

 

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Microsoft Kinect meets the Minority Report thanks to MIT

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Microsoft Introduces Montage, a Magazine-Like, Topic-Based Web App

At LeWeb yesterday, Microsoft demonstrated a pretty, new way to curate the web’s information: Montage.

Montage looks and feels a lot like a glossy magazine web or tablet app. It works by allowing the user to pick a keyword or two; the application then pulls data and content from a variety of media-rich and real-time sources, including YouTube, RSS feeds, Twitter and Bing News. The content is then arranged on the page in a grid format — you get to choose the exact layout — for your own consumption and for sharing with others.

For example, we used the term “Christmas trees” to create a Montage of our own. We picked a fairly standard web-magazine format, then we were able to customize each “widget” or compartment of the layout with a WYSIWYG editor. We added images, a Twitter term trend chart, news articles and more.

Read More: Mashable

 

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Angry Birds to land on the PC soon

Rovio Mobile, creator of Angry Birds, confirmed it is close to releasing a PC version of its popular mobile game. During a Helsinki press event, Rovio briefly showcased the PC game in action. The desktop version duplicates the game play of the mobile game, but incudes high resolution graphics for the big screen. The official launch date was not announced but Rovio hints that it will be coming soon.

The press event included a few salient details about this success story. Rovio released its first version of Angry Birds on December 11, 2009 and the game has exploded on to the scene. Since its launch, Angry Birds has moved from iOS, to Android, and a variety of other platforms including webOS, Symbian, and even the Nintendo DS.

Read More: Neowin

 

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Microsoft: IE 9 is the most important IE launch in company history

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer platform is hurting; it is facing stiff competition from Google, Mozilla, and a host of other vendors who want their piece of the consumer pie. While Microsoft has been publicly pushing IE 9, internally, Microsoft knows that if this version of IE doesn’t make waves with the consumers, it will give up the title as the most used platform for browsing the web.

Microsoft has been busy posting new job openings all around the world while it gears up for the IE 9 launch and one recent job opening states:

Beyond setting the agenda for our IE plan for consumers, you will help drive the most important launch of Internet Explorer in the history of Microsoft. You will work closely with your counterparts across the Windows Businessgroup, field and engineering teams to prepare the team for a rapidly approaching worldwide launch.

Read More: Neowin

 

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New Windows 8 user interface codenamed ‘Wind’?

Windows 8 will have two separate interfaces according to recent rumors.

Italian based windows8italia reports that Microsoft’s next-generation Windows operating system will be 32-bit and 64-bit with two separate interfaces. Windows8italia says that the main interface will be codenamed “Wind” and will initially only be supported by high-end notebook and desktop PCs with dedicated video cards. The site claims the interface will require around 170MB of video memory. “Wind” will only activate on 64-bit copies of Windows 8 and will be fully 3D.

The site goes on to explain that Wind will be “fully dynamic” and able to adapt to user habits. Icons and shortcuts will adapt to different usage scenarios to speed up daily tasks. Windows 8 is also rumored to include a new fast hibernation system. The system will hibernate in around three to six seconds and save all open documents and running tasks.

Read More: WinRumors

 

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Patch Tuesday: 17 bulletins, 40 vulnerabilities – last of the year

Microsoft has issued an advanced notification for their last Patch Tuesday of the year, with a whopping 17 bulletins and 40 vulnerabilities. Out of the 17 bulletins, two are marked as “critical”, Microsoft’s highest security warning, 14 are labeled as “important” while the last one is marked as “moderate.”

The update is scheduled for December 14, 2010, and will address a number of issues within Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Exchange. The massive update comes just after Microsoft issued no patches for either Windows or Internet Explorer last month.

The bulletins will address a number of remote code execution, elevation of privilege, and denial of service.

Read More: Neowin

 

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