Friday, February 16, 2007

Nüb of the Week: Microsoft

How do I nüb thee? Let me count the ways!

Microsoft. Can they do anything right?

Engadget's article a few nights ago, entitled Latest Xbox 360 update causing problems for some describes symptoms from the latest firmware update ranging from random crashes to bricked consoles! Uh, Microsoft? Beta test? It's not a new concept. Even you were paying attention when Google Labs changed some projects over from "beta" to "labs" status. Although traveling to labs.microsoft.com only shows a page with a paragraph of lame-ass text. Way to go, M$.

A few months back, reading some del.icio.us feeds, I came upon a link for a video at Microsoft discussing a project of theirs, called Photosynth. I was excited about the project because I recognized the concept, and had a fleeting idea of the same idea. "The Making of Photosynth" is now different from what I watched months ago. Bits of them still there, but not so many of the parts that annoyed me. Here's some comments of mine reacting to the original video.

The opening was good, I was excited about the project because I've had fleeting ideas of the same thing. BUT, half of this friggen video is Microsoft saying, "Hey! We did a LABS just like Google!! But it's Live Labs, so it's speeecial!!"
Two very special complaints about Microsoft's latest venture into an already well-saturated market. First, Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun-Times had the following opinion to share.

"The Zune is a square wheel, a product that's so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity."

Ouch. Pwned.
Way to go Microsoft. Got it wrong, again.

One more way to screw it up, Microsoft. Their release of the Zune includes 100 players with a surprise, the color, not indicated on the outside of the box, is Pink. Yes, Pink. Pepto-Bismol Pink.

I learned of this holiday surprise from a wonderfully-written article, titled "How to Crap All Over a Product Launch, by Microsoft Corp." which even was so generous as to provide us with a photo.

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