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Tellme's Mike McCue leaving Microsoft

Mike McCue, the former Netscape executive who led TellMe, plans to leave Microsoft in June, two years after his company was acquired by the software maker.

The Tellme unit will become part of a "speech center of excellence" to be led by Zig Serafin, a 10-year Microsoft veteran. That unit will also include Microsoft's separate Speech Components Group.

The new unit has about 400 employees, with three-quarters coming from Tellme and 100 from the speech components unit.

"Mike has been instrumental in making Tellme a core part of (Microsoft's) long-term speech strategy," the company … Read more

Can NBC's iCue teach you anything new?

Last week NBC quietly released a learning tool called iCue in conjunction with MIT. (See coverage on CNET TV's Loaded.) It's been designed as a "learning environment" using a large collection of news clips taken from NBC's video archives to enable anyone to catch up on news coverage and current events. This archived footage is put into context, as long as viewers are willing to acknowledge that the content is coming only from one source (NBC), and for now only with the focus on the U.S. presidential elections.

To get going, users can simply … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 650: Calculus is bogus

EPISODE 650

Ion bridges analog and digital

Ion's digital turntables, which let you convert LP records directly to digital files, aren't new--I first saw them at the 2006 CES--but the company is showing more sophisticated equipment each time I stop by their booth. This year, they're showing off their LP Dock turntables, which not only feature a USB connection out but also a dock for selected iPods (5th gen and Classic and 2nd and 3rd gen Nano). This lets you record directly to the device via Voice Memo mode.

But I hadn't seen their URecord before--it's like their digital turntables but more … Read more