Webware

Microsoft engineers should get a pat on the back from the suits at Microsoft HQ (shown here): Bing Maps Beta is cool.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft's Bing took a major step forward Wednesday in adding rich mapping and image data to its search engine, but until it assembles more data, pretty pictures aren't enough to beat the Google Maps juggernaut.

Bing Maps Beta was released during a presentation at Microsoft's offices here. It's a Silverlight-based application that runs inside Bing Maps and adds Microsoft's version of Google Street View--called Streetside--to Bing Maps, as well as enhanced "bird's eye" images that let you swoop over cities.

I spent some quality time Wednesday afternoon with the new Bing Maps Beta, zooming through the streets of San Francisco and New York and testing out various searches. The best part about Bing Maps Beta--by far--are the rich transitions between high-resolution street-level or bird's-eye view photos as you move around a city, making it feel like you're actually driving down the road.

Microsoft's Streetside cameras have yet to make it down Amphitheater Parkway to Google's headquarters, and still haven't mapped an awfully large portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, not to mention the heartland.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Unfortunately, that's also the worst part; you'll have to download Microsoft Silverlight to make the rich imagery come alive (although you can still use Bing Maps without it), and 10 minutes of poking around with the application put a noticeable drain on system resources. If I left the window open, but didn't do anything in Bing Maps, my activity monitor dropped back to a moderate pace, only to max out again once I started playing with the Streetside feature or scrolling around a map.

But what Microsoft has assembled is impressive. The images are high-quality, and the location fixes are quite precise. The bird's-eye views have been improved with more perspective on roads hidden by buildings and name prominent buildings right on the map.

Scrolling around a city in bird's-eye view also allows you to view geotagged picture galleries created with Microsoft Photosynth. Click the little blue Streetside man (Google's little Street View man is orange) to choose between Streetside or Photosynth views, and if you click on a green icon in a given location, you are presented with photo galleries shot of the location. You can check out exhibits in museums such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, zooming into the building from the bird's-eye view.

Clicking on one of the green icons surrounding the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will bring up Microsoft Photosynth galleries of exhibits and the terrain around the building.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Microsoft is launching Bing Maps Beta with Streetside coverage of about 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S., but it's really only useful for traveling or searching medium-size cities or larger; suburban data is quite light. And even within cities such as San Francisco, Streetside is limited to essentially the downtown areas. Microsoft representatives said Wednesday they plan to add more data as soon as possible, but it could take quite a while.

A more generic search for a city or town such as San Francisco within Bing Maps Beta brings up a Wikipedia article on the city, weather information, and links to Photosynth galleries on the left hand side of the page alongside a map of the area. Clicking on "more details" brings up links to more photos, local news and "popular landmarks," although Microsoft should probably rethink the listing of the Port of Oakland as a popular San Francisco landmark.

Search for a specific address, such as CNET's downtown San Francisco office on 2nd Street, and Bing Maps Beta provides helpful icons to bars, restaurants, gas stations, and other locations within a given radius when you click on the "What's Nearby" icon.

It's pretty easy to get directions between two given locations, such as Microsoft Research's Mountain View, Calif., labs and CNET's downtown San Francisco headquarters. Bing lacks Google Maps' nice addition of Street View photos of each turn--since it doesn't have nearly that much data--but makes up a little bit of the gap with a helpful "if you reach X street, you've gone too far" reminder at the end of the journey and also listing prominent landmarks at certain turns.

Bing Maps Beta had plenty of suggestions for things to do around CNET's downtown San Francisco offices, but I had to zoom in very far to find my favorite bar. Maybe that's a good thing.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Microsoft has an awfully long way to go before it can duplicate the reams of Street View data that Google has assembled, as seen with its directions feature. Its rival certainly noticed Microsoft's announcement Wednesday, putting out a blog post of its own highlighting the fact that it has added Street View images of Sea World and second-rate New England learning institution Boston University. (Go Eagles)

At the moment, Google Maps has Bing beat when it comes to speed and comprehensive data. In addition, Google also surfaces some of the same helpful data, such as photo galleries and even videos.

Bing, however, offers a much richer look at the world. It does this at the expense of performance, but it presents a credible alternative to Google Maps for travelers and residents of major cities.

Microsoft has begun a campaign to actively urge users of its 8-year-old Internet Explorer 6 browser to upgrade.

After launching IE 8 in March, Micosoft has concurred with critics that IE 6 is outdated. Many people have dropped the older browser, but the remaining users are often the tough cases--those who don't have a choice because of corporate computing policy or who aren't tech-savvy enough to realize there's a reason to move on.

This eBay 'Web slice'--basically a live bookmark in Internet Explorer 8--is part of Microsoft's effort to get people to upgrade from IE 6.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

It's this latter population Microsoft is targeting with a campaign that runs through June 2010 that touts its own IE 8 as a better alternative. The campaign's first visible elements are a video aimed at online holiday shoppers and a Web slice to promote daily deals at eBay. Web slices are basically live bookmarks that can show miniature Web pages in the browser.

"What we're doing with the outreach is help users understand how to protect themselves against social engineering threats that exist and to help people understand how Internet Explorer 8 puts people in control of their own privacy online," said Ryan Servatius, senior product manager for Internet Explorer. Security was one of the big problems with IE 6, and Microsoft now boasts that security features in IE 8 block 2 million malware sites a day.

According to Net Applications' statistics, Internet Explorer 6 is still the most widely used browser, with 23.3 percent share of usage in October, followed by IE 7 at 18.2 percent and IE 8 at 18.1 percent. The newer browsers are gaining on IE 6, but so are rivals including Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google's Chrome.

Web developers often gripe about having to support IE 6, which doesn't support many modern features for more sophisticated Web sites and even applications. Microsoft acknowledges that it's holding back development of the Internet, too.

"The best thing a user can do to advance the Web is to help move people off IE 6," Servatius said.

Of course, many will upgrade to IE 8 by buying Windows 7. IE 6 was the browser that shipped with Windows XP, which remains entrenched, but there are signs Windows 7 is a more compelling successor than Windows Vista. That could help the corporate customers move away from IE 6, Servatius said.

"As enterprises migrate from whatever operating system they're using today to Windows 7, that's going to help deprecate IE 6," he said. "What we're doing is working both with consumers worldwide and IT professionals to help them understand what the benefits of a modern browser are."

It was inevitable that someone would seriously consider taking Google's dare.

Rupert Murdoch is reportedly thinking about removing all of News Corp.'s content from Google and striking an exclusive deal with Microsoft's Bing.

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET)

For years, Google has all but dared traditional media companies trying to develop online businesses to live without the traffic it sends their way. The folks at the Googleplex make it clear that content owners who believe Google is unfairly indexing (or stealing, depending on your point of view) their content can easily remove that content from Google's massive corner of the Internet.

There's a tradeoff for that independence, of course: Don't expect the advertisers that have signed deals based on site traffic to pay the same amount next year.

News Corp. might be getting ready to do what many think is unthinkable. Reports have surfaced over the last several months, most recently in the Financial Times, that News Corp. is in talks with Microsoft to enact a plan that would see News Corp. properties hiding their content from Google's search engine in return for exclusive listing with Bing.

Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s famously cantankerous leader, isn't stupid: Microsoft would also have to pay News Corp. for the privilege of exclusive access to that content. But as Microsoft continues to lose billions of dollars a year on its online business, can it afford to be successful with this strategy?

Even if Microsoft is willing to cough up a huge sum (which Kara Swisher at Boomtown thinks is unlikely) for News Corp. content, this plan would only have a chance of turning the tables on Google if News Corp. and Microsoft can convince other large media companies to follow their lead.

First off, the practice of actually removing News Corp. content from Google would be relatively simple. News stories from The Wall Street Journal, commentary from The New York Post, and videos from News Corp.'s myriad cable and satellite television organizations can be tagged with a "noindex" tag, and Google won't index those pages as they are published. This also applies to pages that have been previously indexed, since they will be crawled again, this time with the new tag attached.

However, News Corp. would then need a backup plan to compensate for the revenue it would lose from the precipitous drop in traffic. With 65 percent of the search market, Google is the largest Web site in the world as measured by traffic. And its stated goal is to be the best information kiosk ever created by fielding queries and sending searchers on their way as fast as possible.

Murdoch has proposed removing his Web sites from Google only after constructing pay walls like the one used at the Wall Street Journal to limit free access to content, which is a somewhat controversial notion in this media era.

What News Corp. and Microsoft are reportedly discussing, however, is slightly different. Under the scenario outlined by the Financial Times, it does not appear that News Corp. would erect pay walls for all its content upon removal from Google. Instead, it would continue to make that ad-supported content available for free exclusively through Bing, helping offset the decline in traffic with a cash payment.

The two companies would then presumably market the hell out of the arrangement, because it would require a sizable shift in consumer expectations for Internet search. Right now, people are used to the idea that DirecTV is the only television provider that can offer a full package of NFL games every week, or that Comcast's Versus channel isn't available on DirecTV because of a licensing spat.

But that's not what they expect when they search online for news or information about a certain topic, and it would take some effort to educate them that The Wall Street Journal or Fox News' content can only be found if you're searching on Bing. Microsoft has already invested $100 million into Bing advertising, and would need to increase that amount to drive home the point that Bing is the only place you can find Fox News stories.

So will enough people be interested in that content as to change their search behavior and dramatically increase Microsoft's search market share? It's hard to see News Corp. moving the needle by itself, but modest results could embolden Microsoft to cut similar deals with other news companies and start the ball rolling toward the idea of Bing 2.0 as "the world's news search engine." That would be an interesting product.

As with just about everything, however, such a deal will likely come down to the amount Microsoft is willing to invest in such a project. Microsoft's Online Services Division, which runs Bing, is currently hemorrhaging money to the tune of $480 million in losses during its first quarter alone. Setting up content deals with the media industry would increase short-term costs with an iffy notion of when that investment would pay off in terms of increased search market share. And while Microsoft continues to milk Windows and Office profits, it can't throw money down a rabbit hole forever.

That means there's a sizable chance that this whole operation is geared around News Corp. negotiating a search and technology services deal with Microsoft to replace its current one with Google, which expires next June. Installing Bing as the search provider on News Corp. sites would generate increased searches for Microsoft while denying a common enemy Google some revenue, without kick-starting a huge battle that would have wide-ranging effects.

Murdoch has been able to tap into a well of frustration among those in the traditional media business over the way they are unable to duplicate the profits they enjoyed in the offline world on the Internet. But does he really want to call Google's bluff?

If so, he's banking on the notion that while basic news is a commodity, opinion and analysis is not. And whatever you might think of the various News Corp. properties, it's hard to argue they haven't earned a reputation for themselves as a unique source of opinion and analysis.

Netbooks running Google's Chrome OS might be a little different from the standard Netbook, based on Google's specification requirements.

(Credit: Google)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--There's still an awful lot about Google's Chrome OS project that remains up in the air, but Thursday's demonstration did reveal a bit about how Google thinks the Netbook should evolve.

At an event here Thursday, Google showed off the browser-based operating system for the first time since announcing it in July. Chrome OS won't be available for consumers to purchase for about a year, although developers can get started playing around with the source code as of today, thanks to the open-source release of the code.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, took about 50 members of the press through a basic tour of Chrome OS that didn't reveal a whole lot more about what was already known about Google's plans for the operating system. The basic look-and-feel of the software greatly resembles the Chrome browser, as expected, and it's designed to provide a fast lightweight computing experience for Netbook users.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google, explains Google's vision for Chrome OS Netbooks Thursday.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

But Google did provide some glimpses of what it thinks a Netbook should resemble. For one thing, it plans to develop a detailed specification of hardware components that Chrome OS Netbook makers must adhere to in order to use the operating system.

"We really want software to understand the underlying hardware," Pichai said. Whether he intended to or not, with that statement he revealed that for Google, reinventing the personal computing experience is about more than the software.

How so? Google seems to agree with a fair amount of Netbook users--not to mention Apple COO Tim Cook--that current Netbooks with cramped keyboards and small touch pads aren't going to cut it in the long run. Pichai did not provide specific details, but hinted that users could expect Chrome OS Netbooks to have slightly larger keyboards and screens than some of the current models for sale.

Chrome OS will run on either x86 or ARM processors, giving hardware manufacturers some choices as to how they want to build their systems. But they will have to use solid-state drives based off of flash memory, presumably for performance and reliability reasons, although they won't have to use a lot of memory because Chrome OS is designed to start most data in the cloud with very little local storage.

These Netbooks will be designed with 802.11n Wi-Fi chips in mind, Pichai said. However, a device such as this--designed almost exclusively for online use--may not be as compelling if users are stuck bouncing from Wi-Fi hotspot to Wi-Fi hotspot.

(Credit: Comscore)

Yahoo continues to lose share in the search market, as Google and Microsoft pick up the difference.

Comscore's measurement of the U.S. search market in October shows that Google--as usual--still dominates the search landscape. It now watches 65.4 percent of all searches pass through its servers, up 0.5 market share points from September of this year.

Yahoo, on the other hand, is going in the other direction as new friend Microsoft reaps the benefits. Yahoo lost 0.8 market share points in October compared to September, now down to 18 percent of the market. It has been in a steady decline this year, as Microsoft has gained share with the relaunch of Bing: Microsoft almost cracked the 10 percent barrier in October with 9.9 percent of all searches, gaining 0.5 percentage points compared to September.

Total searches grew 3 percent from September to October. Searches done through Google increased 5 percent and those done through Microsoft increased 8 percent. Yahoo searches decreased by 1 percent over the same period.

LOS ANGELES--Although Microsoft intends to talk a bit about its plans for the future of Internet Explorer this week, the company won't offer preview code of its next browser, CNET has learned.

The software maker is also not planning to announce a move to the WebKit engine, as some had speculated.

Ray Ozzie, speaking Tuesday at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)

In his opening keynote at the Professional Developers Conference on Tuesday, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie pledged that Microsoft will make Internet Explorer the absolute best Windows browser, but did not offer further details.

Microsoft is expected to talk more about its browser plans as part of Wednesday's keynote speech. During that talk, he is expected to talk about some--but not all--of its "focus areas" for the next browser version, a Microsoft representative told CNET.

The latest version of IE 8 was released in March and is also built into Windows 7. Despite the new release, though, Microsoft faces intense competition from Firefox as well as from Google and Apple.

In addition, Microsoft has struggled to get Internet Explorer users to move past IE 6.

Here's a topic I never thought I'd write about: Dolly Parton, the famed country singer, has endorsed Internet Explorer 8 and its Web Slices feature on YouTube.

During a minute-long video, Parton says she "wouldn't know a gigabyte from a snake bite. But the folks over at Microsoft sure know their computers." She goes on to say Microsoft checked out her "new" Web site and "turned us on to a little thing they call Web Slices."

According to a Microsoft representative, the software giant showed Parton's Web team "the new features in IE 8 and Silverlight, and they liked it so much, they wanted to implement it on their site."

Parton's site now features a three-tab Web Slice that includes her video diary, news on her career, and the option to buy some of her music. The Microsoft representative said in an e-mail that the software company "wasn't involved in the production or scripting" of Parton's Internet Explorer 8 endorsement.

Web Slices, which is available only in IE 8, enables users to keep up with sites they check often, such as ones for Web mail or weather reports. According to Microsoft, "if a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the Command Bar." Users can simply click on that icon to subscribe to that page's Web Slice. Once complete, that Web Slice will be displayed in the user's Favorites Bar to make it easier to keep track of those sites the user often visits.

But the very fact that Parton (a portion of whose site is now available as a Web Slice, by the way), would endorse Internet Explorer 8 is a bit surprising. As she points out in the video, she "didn't even know there [were IE versions] 1 through 7."

Regardless, Parton seems to have found her stride. After all, like the singer says, maybe Internet Explorer 8 really is "just like your own little slice of heaven."

The hype surrounding Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 keeps heating up.

After Gamestop announced last week a $40 trade credit for those who preorder the game and bring it back to a Gamestop store by December 13, Amazon.com has launched a competition, dubbed "The Call of Duty-est Town in America." The contest is seeking the town or city with the most preorders of Modern Warfare 2.

According to Amazon, any town or city with a population of 5,000 or more can compete. It determined population size using the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

Whenever a person preorders Modern Warfare 2 from Amazon, the location is tallied. The goal for each location is to have the highest percentage of preorders. Realizing that population plays a role in those figures, the number of orders doesn't factor into the competition.

Amazon said on its contest page that it will give a $5,000 gift certificate to a charity that serves the winning town. If the competition had ended at the time of this writing, the winner would be Grand Forks, N.D.

The page also features some interesting information about those preorders. As of this writing, the Xbox 360 version of the game accounted for 61 percent of Amazon preorders. The PlayStation 3 and the PC versions captured 31 percent and 8 percent of the preorders, respectively.

"The Call of Duty-est Town in America" competition ends on the game's release day, November 10. The winning town will be announced that day.

Bing's touch-friendly mobile interface lets you browse movies with your finger.

(Credit: CNET)

Microsoft on Friday released a refreshed version of its mobile search site (m.bing.com) that's optimized for touch-screen devices. The new page includes finger-friendly buttons that are easier to both identify and to press, as well as a movie finder that lets users browse by what's near them by time and theater.

So far, the only devices that work with it are the iPhone/iPod Touch, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Omnia, Verizon Imagio, and the Zune HD. Microsoft says support for other phones and portables is coming. In the meantime, phones that can't access the touch-friendly interface get defaulted to a simpler version.

Also worth noting is that the touch interface is only available to users in the U.S. for the time being.

Along with touch, Microsoft also added two new search query types that pull from near real-time data sources. This includes a way for users to check on NFL football scores and flight status. Users looking to get an updated score or player stats just need type in the team or player name. As for flights, you'll need the airline and flight number and it will cull the most recent information about arrivals, departures, or delays.

Now how about fitting some of that neato visual search action on the mobile site too?