Microsoft Releases Project Emporia

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Marc Liron

Microsoft’s Future Social Experiences Labs (FUSE) has launched another new project

Project Emporia sifts through the ever-evolving web content streams to identify hot stories, categorizes them into topic areas and ranks them, and then presents them to you in a friendly browser based UI. Just by opening the Project Emporia page you get popular stories on topics of your choice without ever having signed up for anything.

This is just the starting point however; as mentioned, there is no login required to browse by topic and read the stories that other users have shared and voted on. That said, by logging in with your Facebook credentials, you can also influence how future stories are chosen for you, one vote at a time. Your votes will improve the relevance of Project Emporia’s story choices not just for you, but for every other user as well.

Project Emporia is currently in Alpha release from FUSE Labs and Microsoft Research.

Discover more here: http://www.projectemporia.com/

Kind Regards

Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP

Second Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Marc Liron

When Microsoft started planning IE9, they recognized the need for a close relationship with the Web developer community.

So, on the 15th March 2010, Microsoft released the first IE9 Platform Preview for developers to review the changes/new technologies etc coming in the new browser.

At that initial announcement Microsoft stated they were committed to updating the IE9 Preview approximately every eight weeks. So today they are releasing the second Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9.

Please Note:

The Internet Explorer Platform Preview is NOT a full web browser. It’s intended to give Web developers an early look at the Web platform technology coming in the next release of Internet Explorer. To distinguish it from a full browser, it is called a platform preview.

Here are the links:

Demo: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

FAQs: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/Default.html

IE9 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/

Simply download and install the Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9 and when it runs it will take you back to the download page where you can test out the various elements on the page.

Enjoy!

Kind Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

Microsoft Retires Aging Newsgroups for Good

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Marc Liron

For over 10 years newsgroups (NNTP) have been Microsoft’s primary public support forums for its products and technologies.

Currently there are more than 2,000 public newsgroups and 2,200 private newsgroups devoted to its various products and services.

But from June 2010 these will be moved to revamped forums on Microsoft TechNet, MSDN and Microsoft Answers.

Here is a statement from a Microsoft spokesperson:

“On June 1, Microsoft will be progressively closing newsgroups and helping active newsgroups users migrate their discussions to the refreshed Microsoft forums that include Microsoft Answers, TechNet and MSDN. This decision was made in an effort to provide the best community and support resources and experience to our customers with social features and functionalities that address their feedback and needs.”

You can read more about this transition on the Microsoft Newsgroup page: Click Here.

I personally think this is a good move as it will allow less technical users to access these communities, rather than rely on newgroup readers. In 2010, a web based (and even social) approach to support is the way to go.

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP