The Live Search team, in partnership with the awesome Gnomedex conference, is sponsoring a developer contest called Code for Green that we hope will make a difference to the economy (Green = Money) and the Earth’s ecology (Green = Environment) long after the contest is over.   To reinforce the green theme, the five winning developers will be rewarded with cash:   · $10,000 and a $100 Bizspark membership for each winner in...
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OFFICIAL RULES COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:   These are the official rules that govern how the Microsoft “Will Code for Green” contest will operate (“Contest”).   In these rules, “we” “our” and “us” refer to Microsoft Corporation and Lockergnome Inc., the Sponsors of the Contest. “You” “yourself,” “I,” “me,” and “my...
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Welcome back, dear viewers. This week we get down and dirty with one of the guys who helps understand what all you crazy searchers are really doing on the tubes. Turns out there are differences between what we say we want in search and what we actually do when searching. Martin “Dang, He Has a Cool Voice” Stoddart is here to explain the fundamentals of how we do user research and how that work affects the products you actually see. I...
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Looking for a reason to visit Silicon Valley and enjoy the sunshine? The Powerset division of Live Search is helping to coordinate the following event:   PAWS Meetup: The Semantic Demo Session Sponsored by Microsoft   April 14th 6:30 p.m.- 9 p.m. in Microsoft’s Mountain View offices RSVP today and bring a friend.   Visit the Powerset blog for more details.   Melissa Powell, Senior Product Manager, Live Search
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It’s a proud day for us here at Live Search. We are finally unveiling our long-awaited, updated and ready-for-today’s-internet new brand: MSN Windows Live Search on kumo@microsoft.com. We’ve done lots of customer research on each component of the new brand name, so we’re sure you will like it. Danny, it’s Microsoft.com, just like you asked for. Sort of. (We wanted you to know we were listening). For those of you who...
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Another huge addition to the digitization of our planet just hit the web last night 21TB – all ortho imagery launched into Microsoft Virtual Earth, powering Live Search Maps (and other Live Search properties). This image highlights Savute Reserve, Botswana
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The City of Seattle uses  Bing Maps for Enterprise for The Traveler’s Information Map. Check it out for yourself and enjoy travelling Seattle!
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It’s that time of the year again: The office pools are going, the sports bars are full, and you’re digging out the colors of your alma mater. Yes, March Madness is already in full swing. While not all of our engineers are huge basketball fans, we are huge fans of our Instant Answers. This is a feature that gives … well, an Instant Answer to a query that is intended to discover a specific piece of information. With so many game...
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Air travel is always a hassle.  Picking someone up — is the flight on time? Going on a flight — have the terminal and gate changed? You can now check all of this quickly and easily on Live Search. Live Search is becoming more than just a place to get information — it is also a place you can do things.  We are simplifying key tasks with Active Answers, a new method of retrieving up-to-the-minute data from the Web. To...
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Stefan here – sorry for the hiatus. We’ve been out on the road talking to people across the search ecosystem to get their feedback on what we think are some unsolved problems in the search space. More on that later because now we’ve got a treat for you all. I mentioned early on that we want to bring some people who actually know what they are talking about into the blog discussion (in contrast to me who, while able to talk about...
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