Economist on Microsoft search

The Economist takes a look at Ask MSR, Dr. Eric Brill‘s attempt to deliver a direct answer to a search question. “Ask MSR is still a prototype, although Microsoft is trying to improve it and it may be launched commercially under the name AnswerBot.” Eric Brill and Radu Soricut recently authored a paper on factoid questions.

We build our QA system around a noisy-channel architecture which exploits both a language model for answers and a transformation model for answer/question terms, trained on a corpus of 1 million question/answer pairs collected from the Web. Our evaluations show that our system achieves reasonable performance in terms of answer accuracy for a large variety of complex, non-factoid questions.

What would you like to see in the next version of Movable Type?

Movable Type 3.1 is four days from release. The Six Apart Professional Network will launch concurrently. After the Labor Day weekend work will inevitably start on the next version of Movable Type. What would you like to see in the next version of Movable Type? If Six Apart does not build your wish list item, a member of the professional network just might build it for the community and/or profit. If your feature is already present in other software, please provide a pointer for background information.

Gene Simmons on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

In an August 24, 2004 entry Gene Simmons says “Talked today about a possible (..gulp) QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY appearance. They called and asked me if I would do it. I’m a fan of the show. We may shoot on the 28th of Sept.” How will Gene be involved in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? My guess is he will surprise a KISS fan after their makeover. It would be hilarious to see Gene Simmons get some grooming or culture tips, but the show’s mission is “to transform a style-deficient and culture-deprived straight man.”

Segway GT golf transporter

Segway GT

This fall Segway will introduce a customized version of their i Series: the GT, or golf transporter. According to Nick Kaye of The New York Times the new Segway “will come customized with a golf bag, cooler, ball and scorecard holders, seat and G.P.S.” The Segway’s batteries may not last an entire 18-hole round.

Wall Street Journal on Republican convention webloggers

The Wall Street Journal profiles the 15 official webloggers attending next week’s Republican national convention.

“Asked what they learned from Boston, some of the New York bloggers characterized the Boston coverage as self-absorbed and overly preoccupied with celebrity sightings. The Republican bloggers said they’d stay more focused on the issues and the convention itself — a chance they’ll get next week.”

Chicago Sun Times on TypePad

Andy Innatko of the Chicago Sun Times reviewed Six Apart’s TypePad offering yesterday. The article seems to be a bit too slanted in Six Apart’s favor. The article makes many mentions of TypePad as a place for real publishing, away from the noise of LiveJournal or Blogger.

A Blogger or LiveJournal blog limits you to basic, straightforward blogging and, worse, every Blogger or LiveJournal blog looks more or less alike.

Blogger and TypePad both allow template selection. Both services allow you to select from a template library. Both allow for custom styles.

Disseminating news and fostering discussion about the potential impact of casino gambling on your community is hard enough. When the blog you’ve created as a one-stop clearinghouse is indistinguishable from the one that a 12-year-old girl uses to complain about how her Mom totally won’t let her get her belly button pierced, you’re just making more work for yourself.

The assumption is that 12-year-old cannot afford to pay for TypePad. The admission price helps keep the area free of casual weblogs, but a 12-year-old can use a weblog account setup by a parent in the same way American Online allows multiple users for their service.

MovableType is steadily becoming the Microsoft Office of blogging software: a standard synonymous with power and features that everyone’s eager to support.

Microsoft repositioned Office as a platform instead of a pure software package. Six Apart is moving in the same direction with the Professional Network and should fire up the community once again.