
Apple co-founder says Microsoft's Bing is 'astounding' - nreece
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/169769.asp?source=rss
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antirez
It's not a bad idea to look at new products without any kind of bias. For
example some month ago I started looking for the first times to Microsoft Live
image search features, and I found many things about this service that are
better than Google images search.

~~~
streety
Agree. I've only recently taken a look at live maps but I'm very impressed by
the bird's eye feature.

I still use google maps as my default but I sometimes find myself switching.

That being said it's one thing liking a feature when you've had a chance to
play with it yourself and quite another when all you've seen is a demo.

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carbon8
This is a really strange interview. Granted, Woz is a sucker for shiny
objects, but praising "the algorithms" after seeing just a presentation? Also,
the interviewer's favorite features were website preview popups and customer
service numbers.

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macmac
Yeah, and ends by saying "I'm a fan until I find out it is no good."

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aurora72
Was Wozniak so talkative? I'm surprised. Looks as if he was trying to have a
good time. He has interested me more than the Bingooo!

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ilkhd2
Every time I hear Bing I for some reason recall Carmella Bing.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmella_Bing>

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
I'm afraid I think of Chandler from Friends.

And now you will too. It's a virus ...

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
As an additional point, these sorts of comments go to show how much "baggage"
names carry, and just how hard it can be to find a good name for a company,
product or service.

It has been suggested that the Vauxhall/GM "Nova" didn't sell well in Latin
America because "Nova" can be interpreted as "won't/doesn't go" in Spanish,
and when Rolls Royce brought out the "Silver Mist" to go with the "Silver
Ghost" and other models, they didn't take into account that "Mist" in German
means something entirely different (look it up).

Possibly it's somewhere between hard and impossible to find a name that
nowhere has inappropriate connotations, but that shouldn't stop you from
trying. Even so, someone will catch you by surprise.

When John H Conway found a new sporadic finite simple group he wanted to name
it after himself, but wanted to get _others_ to name it after him. He called
it "Point Zero", reasoning that others would get tired of calling it "Point
Zero" and simply refer to it as "Conway's Group".

Then someone called it "Dotto".

~~~
ahoyhere
Please stop repeating the Nova thing. It's an urban legend.

Just like us English-speaking peoples, people from Latin America understand
the difference between separate and compound words.

Do you confuse a carpet and a car pet?

And according to Just As Reliable Sources As Yours, Rolls Royce changed the
name _before_ introducing to Germany. If you try to find any records of a
Rolls Royce Silver Mist, you will find that there are almost no results -
because the name didn't ship. The only results are erroneous, or retellings of
this stupid tale, or people debunking said stupid tale.

<http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp>
<http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html>
<http://www.rrocwa.com/Resources/FAQ.htm>

This is HN. For the love of god, check your facts. Especially if it's
something that's so bad it's on Snopes.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
My apologies for mis-speaking myself over the "Mist" aspect - I did know that
the name was originally used, but changed before production.

Concerning the "Nova", I did say that it was suggested - I didn't say it was
true. I know it's not true. No doubt I should've made that clearer. As a non-
native speaker of English that happens on occasion.

I appreciate the corrections - thank you. I resent your tone, and suggest that
this being HN does not exempt anyone from being at least marginally polite.

The point about the difficulty of name choice still stands, and there are
numerous other examples of ill-advised names being chosen through ignorance of
other languages. Perhaps you would care to find the positive and suggest other
examples, rather than being purely negative.

