We are pleased to announce the beta release of Windows Live Academic Search (http://academic.live.com).  Academic search helps users to locate information in academic journal content, and allowing them to complete their research and information gathering work more efficiently. At beta, the index focuses on journal content from the subjects of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Physics – we will be expanding the index to...
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Betsy Aoki’s note: I am using this opportunity to horn in on a blog post with an intriguing subject line and announce my presence on the MSN Search blog. While it seems hard to fill  Brady Forrest’s shoes (because I think he’s at least a men’s size 11 and I’m a women’s size 8) , the search powers that be over here have asked me to take on the running of this  blog. This team blog stuff is different...
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First of all, we’d like to apologize for the lateness of this blog post. We know folks have been concerned about the recent outage of MSN Search, what that means for them and us, and what we are doing to address it. A lot of the team was engaged in technical matters yesterday and today is really the first chance we’ve had to catch our breath and talk more about it. Next time we will be more ready to blog and let you know what the word...
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Ever wanted to create your own search engine?  Or use a search engine that’s tailored to the specific topic you’re interested in?  Last Friday we released a new Live Search feature called Search Macros that enables you to do this! What are Search Macros?Search Macros are a feature of Live Search that make results more relevant for a given search topic.  This is done by easily using, creating and sharing customized sets...
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We have released the Windows Live Toolbar beta which adds some really cool technology from Onfolio, a company we just acquired. Onfolio grabs scraps of web pages to be shared or viewed later, which is my favorite part. Also, it allows you to collect and read feed collections via a great reader that is integrated into IE so you can read all your feeds in one place. This is a great tool to help organize information that you find on the web. In...
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We’ve  launched new features designed to put the user in control, while making search tasks easier and more natural Live Search. There are a host of subtle changes that we hope just make the experience a bit more pleasant, like better description text and improved typography to make quickly scanning results easier. We’ve also tidied up the look of the page from the last version because, well, we look at this page every day, too...
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    This week the MSN Search, Live.com, MSN Spaces, IE and many other Microsoft teams will be attending ETech in San Diego. We’re proud to be a sponsor of this geek mecca. If you are attending be sure to stop by the booth to see our latest software, meet us, or just to say “Hi”. You can also see us talk at the following times: Simple Bridge-building Ray Ozzie Time: Tuesday 8:40AM – 9:10AM Location: Elizabeth...
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Customer Focused … Humble … Under Promise/Over Deliver … These are some of the key cultural traits the Web Search team here at Microsoft tries to live by.  Boy, were we surprised to wake up yesterday to a bunch of press saying things like “Microsoft:  Give us Six Months to Beat Google” and “Microsoft: We’ll Beat Google at Its Own Game”.  What’s up with those headlines? ...
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The Virtual Earth team is pleased to launch a preview of a new feature we have been working on – interactive Street-side browsing. You can try it out at http://preview.local.live.com Street-side imagery allows you to drive around a city looking at the world around you as if you were in a car. But unlike the real world, you can stop your car anywhere you like and rotate your view around 360degrees. Currently we have street-side imagery for...
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We noticed that a lot of you are looking for movies currently in theaters.  To help get you the info you want faster, we recently launched an instant answer for movie showtimes! We worked with our buddies in MSN Movies to bring you current showtimes for movies near you.  You can search for movie names or the theater down the way: Movies: eight below, curious george Theaters: landmark metro cinemas seattle, amc fenway 13 boston You can...
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